602 Hujji Baba in England. JuNE, 



certain that the whole world ha,d been surprised by Anastasius; and 

 looked, with a degree of anxiety, far beyond what could have been 

 excited by an announcement from Scott or Byron, for the reappearance 

 of the author. The edition of Hajji Baba went off like wildfire ! In 

 forty-eight hours after its publication, we doubt if there was a literary 

 man in the kingdom who had not seen it. But " as comes the reckoning 

 when the banquet's o'er/' the commencement of the jest was sweet as 

 honey, but, in the result, it was as bitter as gall ! Mr. Morier was never 

 opened with any thought of his own merits, but with reference always to 

 the powers of the writer whose name (and, with it, his responsibility 

 unluckily) had been thrust upon him. He had to stand the test of a 

 comparison to which scarcely any man (whom we know) would have 

 been equal. Every tiling too conspired to favour the deception. His scene 

 lay in the same world with that of Anastasius. He worked with almost 

 the same characters : many of his incidents and descriptions lay in the 

 same course, and took, almost of necessity, the same ground. The 

 question everywhere was not what is this ? but what is this, as com- 

 pared with the former? And the result was, that Mr % Morier fell. That 

 the author of (only) the Essays on Costume should have written Anas- 

 tasius was rather incomprehensible : but it was clear that the author must 

 have found Anastasius who had written Hajji Baba. 



The book however, when looked at independently of the name of 

 Mr. Hope, had a merit of its own ; and a merit not at all inconsiderable. 

 The sketches of eastern habits and tastes in it were graphic and lively; 

 one or two of the little episodes introduced, far from dull; the plot sufficient, 

 though unable to bear the criticism which compared it with the loftier 

 work ; and some of the passages, if not many of the entire scenes, 

 eloquently written. The whole of the earlier and lighter part of the 

 story of Zeenab, for instance, was excellent. One writer, who declared 

 without ceremony that the staple of the book was three hundred per 

 cent, below Anastasius, admitted that the gossiping dialogues in the 

 chief physician's harem were equal to the former work, and effective 

 in a different way. A great deal of commendation too, is due to the 

 story of the sojourn with the Dervises, the capture by the Turcomans, 

 the marriage with the widow Shekerleb, and the adventure with the 

 Diviner, in seeking the inheritance, on the return to Ispahan. Some of 

 the camp and pageant scenes were tedious, they had been done already 

 in Anastasius ; and all the attempts at passion, and even pathos, were 

 pretty nearly failures. But, upon the whole (through all the abuse that 

 circumstances obtained for it), the book was generally read from 

 beginning to end. And the author obtained, and deserved to obtain, 

 some hold upon the recollection of the public. 



The work before us the second series of Hajji Baba's adventures 

 has some faults (and some merits) which the first production had not : 

 but, on the whole, it is very amusingly written, and far better than (from 

 some specimens of the proposed style of its contents given in the former 

 publication) we expected it 'to be. There is less of plot about it even 

 than in the first work ; indeed of plot, in the sense in which that term 

 is used by novelists, there can scarcely be said to be any ; but a constant 

 source of excitement is kept up by the shifting of the characters even 

 if they be such as take no great hold upon us into new and singular 

 situations : and, without becoming subject to that sort of novelistic lien 

 which arises out of a care for the individuals before us, we have 



