025 



TAVERNIER, BARON D'AUBONNE. 



TAYLKR, FREDERICK. 



626 



1G59, but we are at a loss for other dates in this journey. The sixth 

 and last expedition that Tavernier made to the east was begun in 

 November 1663 and was terminated in 1669. The most important 

 novelty of this journey was his tour through the province of Bengal 

 as far as Dacca, which occupied him from November 1665 till July or 

 August 1666. He was at Ispahan in July 1667, and on his return to 

 Europe visited Constantinople for the second time. 



The very unsatisfactory arrangement adopted iu the narrative of 

 Tavcrnier's journeys has rendered it advisable to extract from it the 

 preceding incomplete chronology of them. His first publication was 

 an account of the interior of the seraglio at Constantinople, ' Nouvelle 

 Relation de I'lntdrieur du Serail,' published at Paris, in a thin 4to 

 volume, in 1675. This was followed by an account of his travels, 

 ' Six Voyages en Turquie, en Perse, et aux Indes,' also at Paris, in two 

 quarto volumes, in 1676. A third volume was added in 1679, containing 

 an account of Japan and the origin of the persecution of the Christians 

 in these islands ; an account of the proceedings of the deputies from 

 the king and the French company of the Indies both in Persia and 

 India ; observations on the commerce of the East Indies ; account of 

 the kingdom of Tunquin ; account of the conduct of the Dutch in 

 Asia. 



In preparing the account of the seraglio and the two first volumes 

 of his Travels, Tavernier employed Chappuzeau, a dull and unintel- 

 ligent writer : the memoirs contained in the third volume were pre- 

 pared by Lachapelle, secretary to the president Lamaignon. The 

 account of the seraglio, and the contents of the third volume of the 

 travels, are partly memoirs compiled from the information of others, 

 and partly more full expositions of topics touched upon in his narra- 

 tive. It is to the first two volumes of Tavemier's travels that we 

 must look for such information of the countries he visited, the time 

 he spent in them, and the adventures he encountered, as is necessary 

 to enable us to determine what he witnessed himself, what he learned 

 from the report of others, how far his informants were worthy of 

 belief, and how far he was qualified to understand their communica- 

 tions. But the arrangement of these two volumes is the very worst 

 that could be conceived for supplying satisfactory information upon 

 these heads. The first volume professes to give an account of the 

 various routes by which the Parisian traveller can reach Constanti- 

 nople, Ispahan, and the Persian Gulf. It is arranged as a routier; the 

 result of all Tavemier's observations upon each line of road is given 

 at once, and it is only from incidental remarks that we learn when 

 and in what direction he travelled it. His remarks upon the custom?, 

 government, and commerce of the different countries are thrown into 

 intercalary chapters. A similar arrangement is adopted in his second 

 volume, which contains the fruits of his observations in the south of 

 India, in the region between Surat and Delhi, in Bengal, and in the 

 Dutch possessions in the Eastern Archipelago. The work is neither 

 a systematic account of the geography and statistics of the countries 

 in which Tavernier travelled, nor is it a personal narrative of the 

 traveller. It is an ill-digested and unsatisfactory attempt to combine 

 both. 



Yet are the four volumes we have mentioned full of available 

 matter, both for the historian and the geographer. The former will 

 find in it the fruits of the forty years' experience and observation of a 

 European merchant in Turkey, Persia, India, and the Indian Archi- 

 pelago, in the 17th century. Tavernier did not possess either the 

 intellect or the education of Thevenot and Bernier, but his opportu- 

 nities of observation were more varied and protracted. He was a 

 part of that commercial enterprise and rivalry of which they were 

 only spectators. He is himself a specimen of the kind of adventurers 

 who at that time managed the commerce of Europe with the East. 

 His unconscious revelations of his own character may be relied upon, 

 and the naivete* with which they are made encourages us to believe 

 what he tells us of others. His statements have not passed unchal- 

 lenged : they wounded the national pride of the Dutch too sorely to 

 be left without a reply, and the partisan feelings of the Protestant 

 literati of Europe induced them to embrace the cause of Holland, in 

 opposition to the protege" of Louis XIV. Even the Roman Catholic 

 literati took little interest in a writer who frankly confessed that he 

 saw nothing interesting or valuable in the plain of Troy or the ruins 

 of Persepolis. And yet notwithstanding the violeat attacks of the 

 Dutch and Calvinist writers, the silence of others, and even of him- 

 self (for Tavernier did not engage in a controversy), not one material 

 assertion he made has been disproved. Unfriendly criticism has been 

 confined to the remark that many of his statements regarding the 

 Dutch are trivial, and betray a littleness of mind : this may be, but 

 they are not the less characteristic for that reason. Tavemier's 

 accounts of the principal objects of Oriental commerce in his day, of 

 the leading markets and routes of trade, of the money of the different 

 countries, and the state of the exchanges, are more full and intelli- 

 gible than those we Snd in any other cotemporary writer. His 

 success in trade affords a guarantee of the correctness of the opinions 

 he states. We have collated his routes, whenever this was possible, 

 with those of recent travellers, and have found them in general so 

 accurate, that they may be relied upon for the purposes of comparative 

 geography, and in one or two instances as affording information regard- 

 ing ^tracts which have not been visited since his time. Tavemier's 

 notices of the route from Casvin to India by Candahar, and of the 



provinces to the north of Erivan, leave a favourable impression of his 

 talent for extracting information from the native authorities. He boa 

 been accused of plagiarism, principally because of the striking coin- 

 cidence between his account of the Guebrea of Kermao, published in 

 1676, and that which Louis Moreri published in 1671 from the papers 

 of Father Gabriel de Chinon. It deserves to be noticed that Moreri's 

 publication is lucidly arranged and neatly expressed, while the account 

 contained in Tavernier's travels ia confused and miserable in point of 

 diction. Had it been taken from Moreri, it ia scarcely possible that 

 the latter could have been so wretchedly composed. Add to this that 

 the information found in the papers of Father Gabriel is not said to 

 have been the fruit of personal observation : that Taverni* r resided 

 three months among the Guebres at Kirman, and had frequent dealings 

 with them in India and elsewhere; that he and Father Gabriel 

 repeatedly met in Persia; and it must be allowed that the priest is 

 quite as likely to have derived his information from the merchant as 

 otherwise. In judging of the statements made by Tavernier, the 

 school in which he was trained, and his personal character as it appears 

 from his own story, must always be kept in view. He had no know- 

 ledge of or taste for science and literature, for art, or antiquarian 

 research. He acted upon impulse, and his instincts were love of 

 travelling, and desire to acquire money for the sake of spending it in 

 feasting and personal display. A diamond was a more interesting 

 object to him than the mysterious remains of Tchelminar. He had 

 no very nice or refined sense of honour, but he was frank and 

 veracious, and little inclined to deck himself with stolen feathers of 

 literature ; possibly because he could not appreciate their value. 



In this review we have been obliged to anticipate that part of the 

 history of the third period of Tavemier's life, which relates to what 

 may be called his literary labours. We are thus enabled to abridge 

 the sequel of our narrative. On Tavernier's return from his sixth 

 journey he was presented with lettres de noblesse, by Louis XIV., and 

 purchased about the same time the barony of Aubonne in the Pais de 

 Vaud. When his travels were published, they were, as has been inti- 

 mated above, fiercely attacked; in particular, most virulently by 

 Jurieu, in his 'Esprit de M. Arnauld' (December 1684); more tem- 

 perately and with a greater parade of evidence by Henrick van Quel- 

 lenburgh, in ' Vindiciec Batavicse* (Amsterdam 1684). Tavernier made 

 no reply. Bayle has given a characteristic account of his conduct 

 relative to the publication of Jurieu, which was rather a libel than a 

 criticism. " He made a noise in the taverns and streets, he threatened 

 and even named the day and hour when he would apply to the Wal- 

 loon consistory of Rotterdam to demand execution of the canonical 

 laws against the minister who had dishonoured him : but his threaten- 

 ings came to nothing, he retired very peaceably, and never commenced 

 any prosecution at all." The misconduct of a nephew, to whom he 

 had intrusted the management of his affairs in the Levant, obliged 

 him to Bell, some time previous to 1688, his hotel in Paris and his 

 estate of Aubonne. He retired first into Switzerland, and sub- 

 sequently to Berlin, where he was nominated by the elector of Bran- 

 denburg director of a projected East India Company. From the time 

 of his first journey he had regretted being prevented from carrying 

 into execution a design which he then entertained of returning from 

 Persia through the Russian dominions. His new appointment afforded 

 him an excuse and opportunity for making that journey, and he set 

 out to travel to the East Indies across Russia in 1688. He was taken 

 ill at Moscow, and died there in the month of July 1689. 



(Les six Voyages de Jean Baptiste Tavernier, Ecuyer Baron d' Aubonne, 

 en Turquie, en Perse, et aux Indes, a, Paris, 4to, 1676-79; I! Esprit de 

 M. Arnauld, tire des ecrits de lui et de ses disciples, Deventer, 12mo, 

 ] 684 ; Henrick van Quellenburgh, Vindicice JBatavicce, ofte Jiefutatie 

 van het Tractaet van J. B. Tavernier, Chevalier, Baron d' Aubonne, 

 Amsterdam, 4to, 1684; Bayle, v. 'Tavernier;' Biographic Universellc, 

 v. 'Tavernier, Jean Baptiste,' par Weiss.) 



* TAYLER, FREDERICK, was born near Elstree, Hertfordshire, in 

 1804. Having early acquired notice in the art-circles of the metropolis 

 by his sketches and drawings, especially of animals, he was elected first 

 an associate and in 1835 a member of the old Society of Painters in 

 Water-Colours. In the gallery of that society his pictures soon secured 

 him a considerable measure of popularity ; and amid all the fluctua- 

 tions of taste and fashion in art during the past quarter of a century 

 he has maintained his place in the general estimation as one of the 

 most original and brilliant of English water-colour painters. At first, 

 Mr. Tayler painted a good deal in conjunction with George Barrett, he 

 furnishing the figures to that painter's landscapes, as Sidney Cooper 

 has occasionally furnished the figures to the landscapes of Lee, and 

 Andsell to those of Creswick ; but giuce Mr. Barrett's death Mr. Tayler 

 has painted alone. His pictures have been very largely drawn from 

 the Scotch Highlands, embracing Highland peasants and sportsmen, 

 ponies, dogs, and deer, in various scenes, occupations, and circum- 

 stances ; and few painters have shown themselves more familiar with 

 the Scotch mountains, moors, and lakes, or more at home in the 

 ' bothies.' Another favourite class of subjects consists of hunting and 

 hawking parties in the costume of the latter half of the 17th and the 

 first half of the 18th century, which his knowledge of horses and dogs, 

 and his tact in costume enabled him to paint with great spirit and 

 facility : a series of lithographic copies of his sketches has made his 

 skill in these classes of subjects widely known. One of Mr. Taylor's 



