Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission 

 to China and Japan. 



BY LAURENCE OLIPHANT, 



Private Secretary to Lord Elgin. 

 In Two Volumes Octavo, price 2, 2s. 



Illustrated -with numerous Engravings in Chromo- Lithography, Maps, and Engravings 

 on Wood, from Original Drawings and Photographs. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



Blackwood's Magazine. 



" The charm of this book is its perpetual life." 



' We are delighted, however, to leave these official details, and dwell on the liveliest 

 features of the book. When the author is left to his own discretion, we scarcely can 

 banish the idea that we are reading a novel of life and manners. And such life, and 

 such manners ! so perfectly different from our own, and so unmistakably true." 



Edinburgh Review. 



" It is long since any spectacle has been disclosed to the observer of politics and of 

 manners so novel and so interesting as that which Mr Oliphant affords us of the internal 

 condition of Japan ; and we cannot lay down his Second Volume without in some degree 

 sharing in the enthusiasm and astonishment the aspect of the Japanese empire appears 



to have excited in his own. mind The volumes in which Mr Oliphant has 



related these transactions will be read with the strongest interest now, and deserve to 

 retain a permanent place in the literary and historical annals of our time." 



Athenaeum. 



" The account of the mission to Japan is absorbingly interesting. Indeed, the entire 

 work, apart from mere commonplaces which were unavoidable, is one that must attract 

 every reader who cares to note, under the guidance of an accomplished traveller, the 

 manners and customs of two Eastern Empires, not more unlike the rest of the world 

 than they are contrasts one to another." 



Economist. 



" Lord Elgin's Mission has been given to the public by Lord Elgin's private secretary, 

 and a better historiographer for such an occasion could scarcely have been found. Mr 

 Oliphant is an experienced traveller and a practised writer ; he knows what to report, 

 and how to report it ; he enters on expeditions with the true spirit of a hardy and ad- 

 venturous explorer, and he handles his pen with spirit, taste, and reticence. " 



Morning Post. 



" If Mr Oliphant's diplomatic talents are on a par with his gifts as historiographer, 

 Lord Elgin may well be proud of his private secretary. His narrative is an exquisite 

 and most valuable addition to English literature. It is illustrated, and even printed, 

 in a style of rare excellence. It is written with a masterly ease and command of the 

 subject, with a perfect sense of what it is superfluous or inexpedient to say, and in a style 

 which is rather vivid than picturesque. " 



The Press. 



" That he has done his work well, is no more than the world had a right to expect 

 from his previous publications ; but the highest anticipations of his success are likely to 

 fall short of the reality. In his former writings Mr Oliphant gave abundant evidence of 

 manly enterprise, a genial temperament, and keen perceptions ; but in the present work 

 we are chiefly struck with the broad statesmanlike views he enunciates, the severe dis- 

 crimination he evinces in preferring the useful to the entertaining, and his graphic 

 power of description." 



WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON. 



