a few months in Scotland, and who did not understand the language when it was spoken in his hearing. This is no small offence against those laws of probability which in a work of this kind should never be out of view.

Considered as a work of genius, we are inclined to rank Rob Roy as high as any of the same author's former productions. It possesses not, perhaps, the same interest in its story which Waverley has, nor the same variety of character which distinguishes Guy Mannering; but it is as true to nature as either. The portraits are not as highly coloured, but their likeness to humanity is as exact; and the sympathy created by their expression is as deep and touching. The formality and counting-house slang of Owen may, indeed, be somewhat caricatured; and yet such habits are sometimes seen to engraft themselves upon inferior minds. The author has had constantly before his eyes the maxim of Horace; or rather he is guided by that genius upon which all rules are founded, "Notandi sunt tibi mores." Baillie Jarvie, for example, is a bustling, vain, officious, yet good-tempered dealer, narrow-minded and superstitious withal, like the people of his age and nation. The picture seems to have been taken from one who sat for it. Rob Roy himself, too, is a noble, magnanimous semi-barbarian, cool, courageous, and self-possessed; faithful, indefatigable, and full of resources; a sincere and constant friend, and a vigilant and most formidable enemy. In short, the chief merit of all the anonymous things which have lately passed through the hands of Walter Scott, consists in their elucidation of national manners. The invention of incidents, in which others excel, seems not to be greatly studied here; and the narrative, in many instances, is strung together merely for the sake of hanging upon it a few of his rich medallions. We observe he does not rank the "Tales of my Landlord," among the other works by the author of " Waverley." He evidently wishes to wear two masks; we shall therefore have more tales by Jededian Cleishbottom.

ART. X.-Narrative of my Captivity in Japan, during the Years 1811, 12 and 13; with Observations on the Country and the People. By Captain Golownin, R. N. To which is added, an Account of Voyages to Japan, to procure the Release of the Author and his Companions. By Captain Rikord. 2 vols. 8vo. Colburn. London, 1817.

We are now, we think, in a fair way of being made better acquainted with the Japanese, that singular and jealous people, who have for nearly the last two centuries guarded their coasts against the approach of foreigners, as if the whole world, except

Japan, were infected with a pestilence, which the least freedom of commercial intercourse, or the most distant advance to political connexion, would infallibly communicate. Of their existence as a great independent state, of the extent of their coasts, and of some of the productions of their soil and industry, Europe has been informed for nearly three centuries; but the sum of our knowledge concerning their recent history, condition, and manners, was nearly as limited as if they had inhabited another planet. We were permitted to view them only at a distance, and through the medium of Dutch misrepresentation. When asked about them, we could tell from our older geographical books, or from the accounts of the Portuguese or Dutch traders, that they painted their teeth black as a mark of beauty, and uncovered their feet in token of respect; that they wore shoes made of rice straw, and hats made of grass; that they used neither beds, nor chairs, nor tables, nor knives, nor forks; but lay cross-legged on mats, and eat their meals with their fingers; that they were idolaters; that they had a religious and political emperor; that their laws were extremely severe, and their dispositions cruel and treacherous; that they hated all strangers, and especially Christians; finally, that they made the Dutch trample on the cross as a mark of their indifference to the proscribed religion; and that for this and other humiliations, they allowed them to trade in gold, silver, copper, and camphor, at a rate, and on conditions, that were latterly ruinous to that selfish and undeviating people, who have continued a monopoly, when unprofitable, because it had once been a source of wealth. These, and a few other circumstances of trifling moment, constituted the account of our knowledge of the Japanese, and much even of that little was incorrect. The Dutch, who with the Chinese have the exclusive privilege of trading in one of their ports, and who thus possess the only means of making us acquainted with their character and recent transactions, have involved the subject in greater mystery than belonged to it. They even have kept back charts of the coasts, and descriptions of the harbour which they were permitted to visit, together with such information as their residents could obtain from intercourse with the natives; lest by the communication of such knowledge, they might encourage competition, and endanger their monopoly. By the humiliations, too, to which they have always, without remonstrance, submitted, they have continually invited insult, and after allowing themselves, like the Jews in the middle ages, to be contemned and trampled upon for the sake of lucre, they have represented the people as cruel and tyrannical, entertaining the same contempt for all foreigners as for themselves.

It is curious to observe the strange contrast in the sentiments and conduct of the Japanese at different periods of their history, with regard to their treatment of foreigners; and perhaps a very

brief summary of facts may explain the change. When a Portuguese vessel was wrecked on the shores of Japan in 1542, and first made that empire known to Europe, the unfortunate crew were treated with great kindness, and supplied with every thing they wanted for their refit and departure. When the ships of the same nation subsequently returned for the purposes of trade, they were received with every demonstration of joy, and found every port of the empire open to their visits. The captains and supercargoes were treated with the greatest civilities, and distinguished by important privileges. They were invited into the interior of the country by the petty princes, and were allowed to ally themselves with noble Japanese families. A prodigious trade was immediately established, by which, in exchange for the commodities of Europe and Western India, the Portuguese obtained such quantities of the precious metals, as nearly placed them on a level with the possessors of the American mines. The new comers were permitted to erect factories, and to pursue every plan for promoting their political security, or extending their commercial relations. The church expected a rich harvest of converts, and sent out a proportionate number of labourers. The civil war which arose afterwards between the emperor and the princes of the country, who aimed at independence, did not immediately interrupt this trade, or overthrow the new ecclesiastical fabric, the foundations of which had just been laid by the missionaries. A great number of converts had been made, who, as the old superstition allied itself with power, joined the standard of revolt to oppose both power and superstition. So zealous were the people in support of the new religion, and so bitter against their tyrant, that they flocked to the baptismal fount with the sufferings of martyrdom before their eyes. During forty years the scaffold was stained with the blood of the new Christians, and upwards of 40,000 of them who took up arms in the name of their master, to rid themselves of their persecutors, are said to have perished in consequence of a single defeat. As Christianity had been embraced from an aversion to the religion, and in contempt of the authority, of the Emperor, it became the badge of rebellion, and was therefore proscribed, when the imperial authority was firmly re-established, not so much because it was a system of faith, as because it was a code of sedition and treason. The Portuguese, who had made themselves obnoxious by their ambition and intrigues, having disgusted the people as much by their frauds and treachery, as the court by their religion, were driven from Japan, in 1638, with the hearty approbation of all parties. The Dutch too who, having shown no scruples on the score of religion, had carried on for some time a thriving trade, were subjected to great restrictions about three years afterwards, in consequence of the cautious and timorous policy of a government which, having once experienced

the horrors of civil dissension and bloodshed connected with an influx of foreigners, ever afterwards associated foreign intercourse with such disasters, and resolved to prevent the latter, by the exclusion of the former.

Since that time to the present, the strictest system of exclusion has been established round the coasts of Japan (only one port, Nangasaky, being open as a lazaretto for Dutchmen and Chinese infected with the plague of money-making), and no European has been able, from personal observation and experience, to communicate a tenth part of the intelligence furnished by the individual whose work now lies before us.

Captain Golownin, our author, is an officer in the Russian service, who was sent to survey the coast of the Kurile islands in 1811, and who, landing on one of the neighbouring Japanese islands to give explanations respecting the conduct of some of his countrymen who had disgraced the Russian name, was treacherously seized and kept in captivity more or less strict for two years and some months, from July 11, 1811, to October 7, 1813. During this long period he had an opportunity of seeing some parts of that great empire, of observing the manners and customs of the people, of studying the maxims and the forms of their government, and of appreciating their advancement in arts, knowledge, and civilization. His present work, however, merely contains the narrative of his own adventures, sufferings, and treatment, and those of his companions, whilst among this singular rece; and he reserves for a future publication a more systematic view of the actual state of the Japanese nation, their manners, government, institutions, literature, and resources. We wait with impatience for the promised treatise, which will furnish us with the means of comparing the Japanese of the present day with the Japanese of the Portuguese missionaries, and show us what progress this people have made in the interval of 180 years: but in the mean time we cannot help censuring in the strongest terms, the strange, not to say disingenuous, manner in which the present narrative has been introduced to the English public. It was, as might well have been supposed, originally written in Russian; from the Russian it was translated into German (Captain Golownin's part of it by Dr. Schultz, and Captain Rikord's by the celebrated Kotzebue); and from the German into English. In the present copy no mention is made of the Russian original, or of the German version; and the reader is left to suppose that a Russian captain sent his manuscript from Kamschatka or l'etersburgh composed in good intelligible English, to be published in London. An attempt is even made in the title-page to deceive the reader into a belief that the said "Capt. Golownin," who writes "my Captivity in Japan," is actually a British officer in the royal navy, having the initials R. N. after

his name, by which such as know the fact may believe, if they can, that Russian Navy was intended. One cannot but observe, too, that those parts of Captain Golownin's work, in which he alludes to his future and more systematic publication, are suppressed; and the reader is left to imagine that this meagre though interesting relation of personal adventures is all that the gallant author means to give us of the fruits of his sufferings and inquiries in Japan.

The "narrative" is drily told, and interests us more from the nature of the facts and events, than by the mode of describing or recounting them: he every where appears a man of sense, capacity, and honour, but evidently unacquainted with the art of making truth attractive in its details; he is often tediously minute in his descriptions, and languid in his narration. If he succeeds in carrying our sympathies along with him, his success is principally owing to the singular character of the subject he handles.

As far as the few pages which we can spare for this article will permit, we shall lay before our readers a narrative of the chief adventures and transactions of the Russian captives in Japan, and then draw up, in a few general observations, the principal facts and statements which the present work contains, respecting the character of the natives of that country.

Though the Russians by their possession of Kamschatka, and still more by their sway in the sea of Okotsk, and their dominion over a part of the Kurile isles, have been long ago brought to the very gates of the Japanese empire, yet it is only a very short period since any communication was opened between these two powers. The first time that any intercourse was seriously thought of, or at least attempted, was in 1792, when the presence of some Japanese sailors who had been shipwrecked on the Aleutian isles ten years before, and had afterwards been kindly treated and supported in Russia, suggested to the Empress Catherine the hope that commercial relations might be entered into with the government of Japan, under the favourable impression of a hospitable mission to restore its lost subjects. Being aware, however, of the repulsive policy pursued invariably by the Japanese, and afraid that an abrupt refusal of the overtures made to them might hazard the honour of the Russian government, she prudently resolved that the experiment should be made in the name of the governor of Siberia, whose act might be disavowed if it failed, or acknowledged if it succeeded, and thus secure all the advantages of a national embassy without incurring any of its risks. Captain Laxman, of the Russian navy, was appointed to conduct this friendly expedition, and repaired accordingly with the shipwrecked mariners under cover of the olive branch to Chakodade, a port in the isle of Yesso or Matsmai (second to Niphon in