went to that strange medley of pathos and humour-the Irish character.' Her father, Robert Owenson (originally MacOwen), was an actor and manager, a favourite in the society of Dublin, and author of some popular Irish songs. She was born in Dublin on the Christmas Day of 1780 or thereby 'cold, false, erroneous, chronological dates' she protests against-and in 1798 turned governess, to support the failing fortunes of her family. In 1801 she published a small volume of poetical verse, and afterwards The Lay of the Irish Harp and a selection of twelve Irish lyrics, with music-one of them 'Kate Kearney,' which bids fair to outlive all her other achievements. Two rubbishy novels had preceded The Wild Irish Girl (1806), which became exceptionally popular. This success introduced the authoress into some of the higher circles of Irish and English society, and she became attached to the household of the Marquis of Abercorn. She had had 'somewhat mysterious relations' with at least one admirer, Sir Charles Ormsby, when in 1812 she was married off-hand to Thomas Charles Morgan, M.D. (1783-1843), whom the Lord - Lieutenant knighted for the occasion. For the next quarter of a century, excepting two long visits to the Continent, the pair made Dublin their home; but in 1837 Lord Melbourne gave her a pension of £300, and in 1839 they removed to London. Ere this she had published The Missionary, an Indian Tale (1811); O'Donnel (1814); Florence Macarthy (1818; 4th ed. 1819); and The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys (1827), in which, departing from the beaten track of sentimental novels, she ventured, like Miss Edgeworth, to portray national manners. In Sir Walter Scott's opinion, O'Donnel, though deficient as a story, has 'some striking and beautiful passages of situation and description, and in the comic part is very rich and entertaining.' But Lady Morgan's high-toned society is disfigured with grossness and profligacy, and her subordinate characters are often caricatures. The vivacity and variety of these presentations is unquestionable—if not always true, they are lively; 'whether it is a review of volunteers in the Phoenix Park, or a party at the Castle, or a masquerade, a meeting of United Irishmen, a riot in Dublin, or a jug-day at Bog-moy-in every change of scene and situation our authoress wields the pen of a ready writer.' Complaint was made against these Irish sketches that they were so personal romans a clef, it being plainly indicated that some of the portraits of personages at the viceregal court and in the 'best society' of Dublin represented actual and well-known ladies and gentlemen of the day. Their conversation is often a sad jargon of prurient allusion, comments on dress, and superfluous scraps of French and Italian. The humbler characters - even the rapparees-are infinitely more entertaining

than Lady Morgan's representatives of the aristocracy. Her strength lay in describing the broad characteristics of her nation, their boundless mirth, their old customs, their love of frolic, and their wild grief under calamity or in bewailing the death of friends and neighbours. In this department she may fairly be compared with Lever and Banim and Carleton. Other works were France (1817) and Italy (1821), with dissertations on the state of society, manners, literature, and government. Lord Byron bore testimony to the fidelity and excellence of Italy; but unluckily here also she was too 'ambitious of being always fine and striking,' and too anxious to display her curious reading and high company. Lady Morgan wrote also The Princess (a tale founded on the revolution in Belgium); Luxima the Prophetess, an Indian tale; Dramatic Scenes from Real Life (very poor in matter and affected in style); The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa; The Book of the Boudoir (autobiographical sketches and reminiscences); Woman and her Master (a philosophical history of woman down to the fall of the Roman empire); and in 1841, in conjunction with her husband (author of Sketches of the Philosophy of Life and Morals, &c.), two volumes entitled The Book without a Name, pieces collected from the writers' portfolios and from stray sketches which had appeared in periodicals. Lady Morgan's silly but not unamusing Memoirs were edited by Hepworth Dixon (2 vols. 1862); and W. J. Fitzpatrick had already written a Life of her in 1860.

The Irish Hedge Schoolmaster.

A bevy of rough-headed students, with books as ragged as their habiliments, rushed forth at the sound of the horse's feet, and with hands shading their uncovered faces from the sun, stood gazing in earnest surprise. Last of this singular group, followed O'Leary himself in learned dishabille, his customary suit-an old great-coat, fastened with a wooden skewer at his breast, the sleeves hanging unoccupied, Spanishwise, as he termed it; his wig laid aside, the shaven crown of his head resembling the clerical tonsure; a tattered Homer in one hand, and a slip of sallow in the other, with which he had been distributing some well-earned pandies to his pupils; thus exhibiting, in appearance and in the important expression of his countenance, an epitome of that order of persons once so numerous, and still far from extinct in Ireland, the hedge schoolmaster. O'Leary was learned in the antiquities and genealogies of the great Irish families as an ancient Senachy, an order of which he believed himself to be the sole representative; credulous of her fables, and jealous of her ancient glory; ardent in his feelings, fixed in his prejudices; hating the Bodei Sassoni, or English churls, in proportion as he distrusted them; living only in the past, contemptuous of the present, and hopeless of the future, all his national learning and national vanity were employed in his history of the Macarthies More, to whom he deemed himself hereditary Senachy; while all his early associations and affections were occupied with

the Fitzadelm family; to an heir of which he had not only been foster-father, but, by a singular chain of occurrences, tutor and host. Thus there existed an incongruity between his prejudices and his affections that added to the natural incoherence of his wild, unregulated, ideal character. He had as much Greek and Latin as generally falls to the lot of the inferior Irish priesthood, an order to which he had been originally destined; he spoke Irish as his native tongue with great fluency, and English, with little variation, as it might have been spoken in the days of James or Elizabeth; for English was with him acquired by study at no early period of life, and principally obtained from such books as came within the black-letter plan of his antiquarian pursuits.

'Words that wise Bacon and grave Raleigh spoke' were familiarly uttered by O'Leary, conned out of old English tracts, chronicles, presidential instructions, copies of patents, memorials, discourses, and translated remonstrances from the Irish chiefs, of every date since the arrival of the English in the island; and a few French words, not unusually heard among the old Irish Catholics, the descendants of the faithful followers of the Stuarts, completed the stock of his philological riches.

O'Leary now advanced to meet his visitant, with a countenance radiant with the expression of complacency and satisfaction, not unmingled with pride and importance, as he threw his eyes round on his numerous disciples. To one of these the Commodore gave his horse; and drawing his hat over his eyes, as if to shade them from the sun, he placed himself under the shadow of the Saxon arch, observing:

'You see, Mr O'Leary, I very eagerly avail myself of your invitation; but I fear I have interrupted your learned avocation.'

'Not a taste, your honour, and am going to give my classes a holiday, in respect of the turf, sir.-What does 'yez all crowd the gentleman for? Did never yez see a raal gentleman afore? I'd trouble yez to consider yourselves as temporary.-There's great scholars among them ragged runagates, your honour, poor as they look ; for though in these degendered times you won't get the childre, as formerly, to talk the dead languages afore they can spake, when, says Campion, they had Latin like a vulgar tongue, conning in their schools of leachcraft the aphorisms of Hippocrates, and the civil institutes of the faculties, yet there are as fine scholars and as good philosophers still, sir, to be found in my seminary as in Trinity College, Dublin.-Now, step forward here, you Homers. "Keklute moi, Troes, kai Dardanoi, ed' epikouroi."

Half-a-dozen overgrown boys, with bare heads and naked feet, hustled forward.

'There's my first class, plaze your honour; sorrow one of them gassoons but would throw you off a page of Homer into Irish while he'd be clamping a turf stack.— Come forward here, Padreen Mahony, you little mitcher, ye. Have you no better courtesy than that, Padreen? Fie upon your manners !-Then for all that, sir, he's my head philosopher, and am getting him up for Maynooth. Och then, I wouldn't ax better than to pit him against the provost of Trinity College this day, for all his ould small-cloathes, sir, the cratur! Troth, he'd puzzle him, grate as he is, ay, and bate him too; that's at the

humanities, sir.-Padreen, my man, if the pig's sould at Dunore market to-morrow, tell your daddy, dear, I'll expect the pintion. Is that your bow, Padreen, with your head under your arm, like a roosting hen? Upon my word, I take shame for your manners.-There, your honour, them's my cordaries, the little leprehauns, with their cathah heads and their burned skins; I think your honour would be divarted to hear them parsing a chapter.—Well, now dismiss, lads, jewel-off with yez, extemplo, like a piper out of a tent; away with yez to the turf and mind me well, ye Homers, ye, I'll expect Hector and Andromache to-morrow without fail; obsarve me well; I'll take no excuse for the classics barring the bog, in respect of the weather being dry; dismiss, I say.' The learned disciples of this Irish sage, pulling down the front lock of their hair to designate the bow they would have made if they had possessed hats to move, now scampered off, leaping over tombstones and clearing rocks; while O'Leary observed, shaking his head and looking after them: 'Not one of them but is sharp-witted and has a janius for poethry, if there was any encouragement for larning in these degendered times. (From Florence Macarthy.)

Henry Gally Knight (1786-1846), who wrote Eastern tales in the manner and measure of Byron, was an accomplished man of fortune, born at his father's Yorkshire seat, educated at Eton and Cambridge, familiarised with foreign manners by travels in southern Europe, Egypt, and Palestine. The first of these metrical stories, Ilderim, a Syrian Tale (1816), was followed by Phrosyne, a Grecian Tale, and Alashtar, an Arabian Tale (1817). Knight also wrote a notable dramatic poem, Hannibal in Bithynia. Though showing much taste and truth to Oriental ways, these poems failed to attract much notice; and their author obtained more distinction as an authority on architecture, writing (with expert assistance) A# Architectural Tour in Normandy, The Normans in Sicily, Saracenic and Norman Remains in Sicily, The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Italy. He inherited the family property in 1808, and sat in Parliament from 1824 till his death.

William Knox (1789–1825), born at Lilliesleaf in Roxburghshire, was author of The Lonely Hearth, Songs of Israel, The Harp of Zion, and other poems. Sir Walter Scott in his diary gives this brief note of his life-work: 'His father was a respectable yeoman, and he himself succeeding to good farms under the Duke of Buccleuch, became too soon his own master, and plunged into dissipation and ruin. His talent then shewed itself in a fine strain of pensive poetry.' Knox, who from 1820 earned a precarious livelihood as journalist in Edinburgh, thus ended his Songs of Israel:

My song hath closed, the holy dream
That raised my thoughts o'er all below
Hath faded like the lunar beam,

And left me 'mid a night of woe-
To look and long, and sigh in vain
For friends I ne'er shall meet again.

And yet the earth is green and gay;

And yet the skies are pure and bright;
But, 'mid each gleam of pleasure gay,

Some cloud of sorrow dims my sight:
For weak is now the tenderest tongue
That might my simple songs have sung.
And like to Gilead's drops of balm,

They for a moment soothed my breast;
But earth hath not a power to calm
My spirit in forgetful rest,
Until I lay me side by side

With those that loved me, and have died.

They died-and this a world of woe,

Of anxious doubt and chilling fear;

I wander onward to the tomb,

With scarce a hope to linger here:
But with a prospect to rejoin

The friends beloved, that once were mine.

Edward Fitzball (1792-1873), author of a prodigious number of dramas and melodramas— which met with much success though they have no permanent value-and of many popular songs (My pretty Jane' the best known), was the son of a farmer at Burwell near Mildenhall in Cambridge. The farmer was called Ball, his wife's maiden name was Fitz; hence the nom de guerre, ultimately adopted as a regular surname, under which their son, bred a printer in Norwich, began about 1813 to publish poems. His first melodrama dates from 1819; his Innkeeper of Abbeville was successfully played at Norwich in 1820 and in London in 1821. He dramatised novels like The Fortunes of Nigel, Peveril of the Peak, and Fenimore Cooper's Pilot; found plots in the stories of Joan of Arc and Andreas Hofer, 'the Tell of the Tyrol;' and worked up legends and ballads such as The Flying Dutchman and the Inchcape Rock. He wrote five librettos for Balfe ; produced the English versions of La Favorita, Adelaide, and Maritana; and manufactured songs innumerable-patriotic, sentimental, and comic, good, bad, and indifferent. 'My pretty Jane' had the good fortune to be set to music by Bishop; 'Let me like a soldier fall' is inseparable from Vincent Wallace's melody. Fitzball had been doing dramatic and miscellaneous literary work for forty years when in 1859 he published an autobiography, and ceased his indefatigable industry.

The Marquis of Normanby (1797-1863), first of the name, wrote anonymously Matilda (1829); Yes and No, a Tale of the Day (1827); and several other novels, which were well received, as being vastly superior to the ordinary run of fashionable novels. Lord Normanby was the English ambassador at Paris in 1848, and in 1857 he published A Year of Revolution, from the journal he had kept at that stormy period. The work was poorly written, and by its indiscreet allusions to Louis Philippe and others raised unpleasant controversies.

James Justinian Morier (1780-1849), author of Hajji Baba, was the son of Isaac Morier, a member of a refugee Huguenot house settled at Smyrna, who became a British subject and British consul-general at Constantinople. James, born like his father at Smyrna, was educated at Harrow, but by 1800 was back in the Levant. In 1809-16 he served in Persia as secretary of legation and envoy, and wrote a first and a second Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor (1812-18). Subsequently, save for a diplomatic mission to Mexico, he lived a literary life in London. His marvellously minute, varied, and accurate knowledge of the East, and especially of Persia, he embodied in a series of novels-The Adventures of Hajji Baba, of Ispahan (1824; with its continuation, Hajji Baba in England, 1828); Zohrab, the Hostage (1832); Ayesha, the Maid of Kars (1834); and The Mirza (1841). The hero of Morier's great picaresque novel-his first and by far his most famous work-is an adventurer like Gil Blas, and is at least as much buffeted about in the world. The son of a barber of Ispahan, he is successively one of a band of raiding Turkomans, a menial servant, a pupil of the physician-royal of Persia, an attendant on the chief executioner, a religious devotee, and a seller of tobacco-pipes in Constantinople. Having by stratagem espoused a rich Turkish widow, he becomes an official to the Shah; and on his further distinguishing himself for his knowledge of the Europeans, he is appointed secretary to the mission of Mirza Firouz, and accompanies the Persian ambassador to the court of England. In the course of his multiplied adventures, misfortunes, and escapes, the lighthearted, unprincipled Hajji mixes with all ranks and conditions of mankind, in regions as various as Teheran, Kurdistan, Georgia, Bagdad, and Constantinople. The work at once secured a hearing. 'The novelty of the style,' said Sir Walter Scott, which was at once perceived to be

genuinely Oriental by such internal evidence as establishes the value of real old china-the gay and glowing descriptions of Eastern state and pageantry—the character of the poetry occasionally introduced-secured a merited welcome for the Persian picaroon;' and in the Talisman he linked the authors of Anastasius and of Hajji Baba as having depicted Eastern manners with 'the fidelity and humour of Le Sage and the ludicrous power of Fielding himself.' The most accomplished and experienced residents in Persia give as high commendation, and continue to repeat the traditional counsel to intending travellers in Persia: 'Take an English saddle and a copy of Hajji Baba! Mr E. G. Browne in his edition says that 'considered as a faithful picture of the living East (as opposed to the purely imaginary and unreal East of Moore and Southey) it has no rival. Indeed, I may venture to assert that never has any writer of any nation succeeded in portraying, not merely the manners and forms of speech, but the character

and modes of thought of an alien race, as Morier has portrayed the Persians in his immortal pages. To appreciate his incomparable book as it deserves, one must be fairly intimate with both the Persians and their language; the greater the intimacy the greater the appreciation.' Dr Wills, who has also edited the Hajji, repeats after nearly twenty years' residence in Persia the assurance actually given him when he went thither: 'When you read this you will know more of Persia and the Persians than if you had lived there with your eyes open for twenty years.' Lord Curzon, in his edition, adds his testimony; so does Sir Frederic Goldsmid. And the Persian experts admit themselves their difficulty in discovering more than three or four cases in which Morier seems to have made even a minor slip of any kind in his presentment of Persian life and character. As Persia was in Morier's time, so is it now there is next to no change; as it was in Morier's time, so was it in the days of the ancient Persian heroes. Nöldeke, the great Orientalist, finds much to learn from Hajji Baba for the better understanding of the Persian princes of the Sassanian dynasty.

As delightful, if not so marvellous as its startling truth to fact and its vividness, is the ever-present rich humour and delicately pointed satire, the racy phrasing and dramatic brightness of a narrative which combines the charm and the power of the Arabian Nights and Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes, of Le Sage, of Sterne, and of Dickens; the book is a genus apart. Mr Browne with much probability regards as a mystification of Morier's the story-treated as a fact in the first edition of this work (1843), and still accepted in the Dictionary of National Biography-of a letter received by the author from a Persian minister of state expressing the displeasure the king felt at the 'very foolish business of the book,' and so showing that the satirical descriptions and allusions had been felt at the court of Persia. Mr Browne also points out that though the characters are created by Morier and not caricatures of actual persons, very many of the incidents (none of which are improbable to those who know Persia) are drawn from Morier's own experiences, and not a few of them are actually described in his two volumes of travels. The Oriental scenes are doubtless the most novel and fascinating portions of the Hajji's experiences; yet his account in the sequel of the constant embarrassment and surprise of the Persians at English manners and customs is only a degree less vraisemblable and entertaining. The ceremonial of the English dinner-table, that seemed to them 'absolutely bristling with instruments of offence,' blades of all sizes and descriptions, sufficient to have ornamented the girdles of the Shah's household, could not but puzzle those who had been accustomed simply to take everything up in their fingers; the mail-coach, the variety of our furniture and accommodation, and other domestic |

observances, were equally astonishing; but it was the want of ceremonial among our statesmen and public officers that chiefly surprised the embassy.

Zohrab is a historical novel, of the time of Aga Mohammed Shah, the Persian prince described by Sir John Malcolm as having taught the Russians to beat the French by making a desert before the line of the invader's march. In Ayeshah Morier was also on familiar ground, as in the slighter isselmah, a Persian Tale (1847). His other work is of less account-Abel Allnutt, a Novel (1837); The Banished, from the German of Hauff (1839); Tom Spicer, a poem (1840); St Roche, also a romance from the German (1847); and Martin Toutrond (1849), which, professedly translated from the French, is really a satire on English ways and prejudices, conveyed in the farcical adventures of a Frenchman whom he, with an obvious pun, calls Tout-rond-a name which in English books, even the most authoritative, is usually misspelt Tourtond, Tourtrond, Troutrond, and even Troutroud.

In the following extracts from Hajji Baba, the hero is presented at the crisis of his fortunes. Having undergone some all but overwhelming changes of fortune in Constantinople, and being reduced to extremities, he resolves to appeal to the Persian ambassador, then just arrived on a mission to the Sublime Porte, against the Turk who was the cause of his misfortunes. When introduced to the presence of Mirza Firouz, the Hajji had been wearing the Turkish costume, which, like everything Turkish, true Persians detest:

The Hajji makes a Friend.

When we had interchanged our greetings as true believers, he said to me, 'Are you an Irani?' 'Yes,' said I, 'so please you.'

'Praise

Then why in looks an Osmanli?' said he. be to Allah that we have a king and a country of whom no one need be ashamed.'

'Yes,' answered I, 'your ordonnances are truth, and I am become less than a dog, since I have put on the airs of a Turk. My days have been passed in bitterness, and my liver has melted into water, since I have entangled myself by a connexion with this hated people; and my only refuge is in God and you.'

'How is this?' said he 'speak.-Has a child of Ispahan (for such you are by your accent) been taken in by a Turk? This is wonderful indeed! We travel all this way to make them feed upon our abomination, not to learn to eat theirs.'

I then related the whole of my adventures from the beginning to the end. As I proceeded he seemed wonderfully interested. When I got to my marriage he became much amused, and roared with laughter at the settlements I had made on my wife. The account I gave of the entertainment, the respect with which I was treated, my magnificence and grandeur, afforded him great delight; and the more I descanted upon the deception which I had practised upon the cows of Turks, as he called them, the more interest he took in my narrative, which he constantly interrupted by his exclamations, 'Ay, well done, oh Ispahani !-Oh! thou bankrupt !— By Allah! you did well!-If I had been there, I could

not have done better.' But when I informed him of the manner I had been served by my envious countrymen, of the finishing scene in my own house, of the screams of my women, of the speeches of my wife's relations,—and when I represented the very words, look, and attitude with which I made my exit, far from having produced the sympathy I expected, his mirth was excited to such a degree that I thought the veins in his forehead would have burst; and he actually rolled himself on his sofa in the convulsions of laughter. . .

'But those Turks, those heavy buffaloes of Turks,' roared he, still screaming with laughter; 'praise be to Allah! I can see them now with their long beards, their great caps, and their empty heads, believing all that the sharp-witted madman of Persia chose to tell them, and they would have gone on believing, had they not been undeceived by a similar species of madman. But what have I to do in the business?' said he to me. 'I am neither your father nor your uncle, to interfere and make it up with your wife's relations; nor am I a cadi, or a mufti, who can judge the case between you.'

'No,' answered I; 'but you are my refuge here, and the representative of God's vicegerent upon earth; and you can see justice done me, and not let a poor unfriended stranger be oppressed.'

The Hajji receives a Commission.

Now that I was thrown into the ambassador's society, my ideas took a new turn, and hearing matters discussed which had never even reached my understanding, I became more inquisitive. He seemed pleased to have found in me one who took interest in his views, and at length let me entirely into his confidence. One morning, having received letters from his court, he called me to him, said that he wished for some private conversation, and accordingly ordered every one to depart from before him except myself. He made me sit, and then in a low voice said, 'Hajji, I have long wished to speak to you. Those who compose my suite, between you and I, do not possess the understanding I require. 'Tis true, they are Persians, and are endowed with more wit than all the world beside; but in affairs of the dowlet (the state) they are nothing, and rather impede than forward the business upon which I have been sent. Now, praise be to Allah! I see that you are not one of them. You are much of a man, one who has seen the world and its business, and something may come from out of your hands. You are a man who can make play under another's beard, and suck the marrow out of an affair without touching its outside. Such I am in want of, and if you will devote yourself to me, and to our Shah, the King of Kings, both my face as well as your own will be duly whitewashed; and, by the blessings of our good destinies, both our heads will touch the skies.'

'Whatever is of my strength,' replied I, 'is at your service. I am your slave and your servant, and I myself will place my own ear into your hand. Order and command me by my head and eyes, I am ready.' . . .

'But a few months ago an ambassador from Europe arrived at the Gate of Empire, Tehran, and said he was sent by a certain Boonapoort, calling himself Emperor of the French nation, to bring a letter and presents to the Shah. He exhibited full powers, by which his words were to be looked upon as his master's, and his actions as his actions; and he also affirmed that he had full instructions to make a treaty. He held himself very

high indeed, and talked of all other nations of Franks as dirt under his feet, and not worth even a name. He promised to make the Russians restore their conquests in Georgia to us, to put the Shah in possession of Teflis, Baadkoo, Derbent, and of all which belonged to Persia in former times. He said that he would conquer India for us, and drive the English from it; and, in short, whatever we asked he promised to be ready to grant. Now, 'tis true, we had heard of the French before, and knew that they made good cloth and rich brocades; but we never heard that they could do all this ambassador proclaimed. . . . However, we were not very long in doubt; for when the English infidels who trade between India and Persia, some of whom reside at Abusheher, heard of the arrival of this ambassador, they immediately sent off messengers, letters, and an agent, to endeavour to impede the reception of this Frenchman, and made such extraordinary efforts to prevent his success that we soon discovered much was to be got between the rival dogs. "By my crown," exclaimed the Shah, "all this cometh from the ascendant of my good stars. Here sit I upon my throne, whilst the curs of uncleanness come from the north and the south, from the east and west, bringing me vast presents for the liberty of fighting and quarrelling at the foot of it. In the name of the Prophet, let them approach!" When I left the imperial gate, an ambassador from the English was expected, and the letters which I have just received are full of the circumstances of his proposed reception, and the negotiations on foot concerning it, but the Shah cannot well enter upon them before he hears from me; because, having been informed that specimens of all the different European nations were to be seen at Constantinople, each of whom had an ambassador there, he, in his wisdom, has judged it expedient to despatch me hither, to obtain all the information of which we are so much in want, to clear up every doubt that exists in Persia about the French and English, and if possible to find out whether all they say of themselves be true or false. Now, Hajji,' said the ambassador, 'I am only one man, and this is a business, as I have found out, sufficient for fifty. As The Franks are composed of many, many nations. fast as I hear of one hog, another begins to grunt, and then another and another, until I find that there is a whole herd of them. As I told you before, those who compose my suite are not men to help me in research, and I have cast my eyes upon you. From your exertions I expect much. You must become acquainted with some infidels; you understand the Turkish language, and they will be able to inform you of much that we want to know.'

The Hajji becomes an Authority on European Politics.

As soon as the ambassador had furnished me with an extract of his vakayeh nameh, or his instructions, I walked out to an adjacent cemetery to read it over undisturbed. I kept the paper carefully folded in the lining of my cap, and as it was my first initiation into public business, the principal contents of it have remained in my memory through life. The ambassador was, in the first place, enjoined to discover, in truth, what was the extent of that country called Frangistan; and if the Shah, known in Persia by the name of the Shahi Frank, or King of the Franks, actually existed, and which was his capital. In the second place, he was ordered to discover how