Art. XII. LIST OF WORKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We are compelled, by want of room, to defer the conclusion of the article on Wilson's Dissenting Churches; also the articles on SAVING BANKS, Spence's Entomology, Clarke's Travels, and several minor publications, which we reserve for the next Number,

THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR JUNE, 1816.

Art. 1. Travels of Ali Bey, in Morocco, Tripoli, Cyprus, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, and Turkey, between the Years 1803 and 1807. Written by Himself, and illustrated by Maps and numerous Plates.-4to. 2 Vols. pp. about 740.-Price 67. 6s. Longman and Co. 1816.

THE

HE greater proportion of the readers of literary notices, in observing the announcements which have preceded, at intervals, the appearance of this work, will probably have been led to expect a performance by a real native Mahomedan, of a dignified race; a personage as genuine as the Persian Prince whose book of travels was brought out a few years since; and a personage of much higher pretensions; for the Turkish Prince is quite running over with science, and he has his port-folio filled with his own drawings. They will have had some thoughts partaking much of wonder, at such a phenomenon as the accession of an important auxiliary from the book-hating race of the Khalifs to the book-making tribes of Paris and London. What may not such an appearance portend, as to the breaking up of the barbarism in the dominions of the Prophet; or a change from the canonical policy of proselyting by the sword, to a trial of the efficacy of the pen; or an approaching combination of all nations for the promotion of knowledge, or perhaps an ultimate retreat of literature from these western regions of its sojourn, back to its primeval seats in the East?

If these readers should not have been able to avoid some small degree of scepticism as to the existence of accomplishments so very extraordinary in a Mussulman, they will have placed in account against the degree of repression so made in their expectations, the idea of at any rate the grand privilege enjoyed by a True Believer, in traversing Mahomedan countries; his free and amicable converse with the people, his access to their mosques, his intimate inspection of all their rites and VOL. V. N. S.

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manners. For the sake of this high advantage they will have made up their minds to be content, though he should prove to be somewhat more of a Turk, in point of intellectual qualifications, than was represented in the notices by which the booksellers were introducing him among us.

We do not exactly know how those expecting readers who were not in the secret, will have now received the plain matter of fact, acknowledged by the publishers, and proclaimed by other deponents, that the Traveller and Author is no Turk at all, and that his real name, though withheld, is any vocable on earth rather than Ali Bey el Abassi. It is understood that he is a Spaniard, and that he travelled in the service of Bonaparte, upon a sort of general commission of inspection, the duties of which were no less than to take account of every thing physical, geographical, political, commercial, or military, on the whole southern and eastern confines of the Mediterranean. Pecuniary means were largely supplied to him; and as to his personal qualifications, the very appointment would suffice for evidence. He was also admitted and acknowledged by the suspicious Moors, Arabs, and Turks, as a genuine follower of the Prophet; it being beyond their shrewdness to surmise, what is asserted without contradiction to be the fact, that the indispensable sign of that profession had been marked upon him in London, as one of the items of his preparatory equipments.

It has not been thought necessary by the publishers to tell the whole of this. Their advertisement, acknowledging the fiction of the name and Moslem descent, is mainly and successfully directed to the object of assuring the public that they are producing the genuine work of a real traveller, a person well known to themselves, and to a number of the literati in this country, and whose high qualifications, and the value of whose work, are fully acknowledged by the men of science at Paris. We should transcribe a paragraph or

two.

The name and pretensions of Ali Bey, may induce some to be inquisitive as to his personal reality. The London publishers are therefore anxious there should be no doubt or misconception on this subject; and they beg to assure the readers of the work, that they have become personally acquainted with this traveller; that he was well known to several individuals in this country before he began his journey; that he came to London in the summer of 1814, to make arrangements for the publication of this translation; [from the French] and that he is now living on the Continent much respected by the foreign literati.

The publishers do not feel themselves at liberty either to oppose or to state the personal reasons which have induced the

author to write and print his travels under the name of Ali Bey. As these reasons are personal to the author and his family, it is not necessary to lay them before the Public; and indeed as he was always known abroad by the name of Ali Bey, and by no other, there is no incongruity, and very little impropriety, in continuing it. But as the Publishers feel that the name may create impressions unfavourable to the belief of the genuineness both of the author and his work, they think it right, out of respect to that Public which it is their wish to please, and their duty to satisfy, to state a few circumstances.

It was in 1802 that Ali Bey visited this country with a friend who was to have accompanied him to Africa. He was at that time introduced to Sir Joseph Banks, the late Dr. Maskelyne, Major Rennel, Mr. Mendoza, Sir W. Blizard, Mr. Sharon Turner, and to the present Publishers, and others. He stated his object to be to visit Africa; to enter it in Morocco, and to penetrate into the interior as far as he should find it practicable. He was indebted to Sir Wm. Blizard for important surgical attentions. He was master of the Arabic language, and had carefully studied the mathematical and natural branches of science and knowledge.'

The publishers proceed to give, in evidence of the reality of the travels, and of the high estimation enjoyed by the traveller among the men of science in France, several letters, one of which is from the distinguished traveller Humboldt, written to Miss H. M. Williams, on the subject of Ali Bey's work, in which he speaks of the pseudo Mahomedan in strong terms. Of the man's qualifications for bold and extended enterprise, therefore, of his having actually accomplished it, and of his having honestly related it, a number of the most competent judges are satisfied. The stages and dates of it are briefly noted in this advertisement.

He continued in Morocco from June 1803 to October 1805, when he embarked at Larisch for Tripoly. In January 1806, he sailed for Cyprus, where he staid two months. He arrived at Alexandria in May in that year. In October he went to Cairo. In December to Suez, and from that place sailed to Jeddo. He proceeded on the Mahomedan pilgrimage to Mecca, where he arrived in January 1807. He returned to Cairo in June of that year, went with the caravan to Jerusalem in July, and from thence to Acre, Mount Carmel, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, the River Jordan, Damascus, and Aleppo. At the end of October, 1807, he visited Constantinople. In the autumn of 1813 he was at Paris, and at the sittings of the National Institute, on the 15th and 20th of November 1813, he read to its scientific and historical classes, a memorial on his travels, which excited great interest.'

It is in vain to conjecture why this adventurer or his friends, should account it worth while to keep up the fiction of the name; but the man and his pretensions being in some tolerable mea

sure verified, the name seems of no great consequence; especially as he does not, in his capacity of author, affect to maintain his mock prince-ship and mock-Islamism. We do not mean that he frankly tells his readers this was all a sham; but, simply that, though withholding any such avowal, he does not labour to keep up the deception as towards them; he merely relates how he introduced himself in Africa in the character of a Mahomedan prince, deported himself as such, and was admitted as such. But throughout the story he speaks of the ignorance and superstition of his fellow-disciples of the Prophet, in terms which he perfectly well knows that no genuine adherent of that lofty Church could permit himself to use.

Perhaps after the first slight emotions are past of that disappointment and displeasure which it is fit should arise at any kind and degree of deception, few readers will be sorry that the traveller was not what he pretended; since the book may now be of a value of which it could not have been then. For it may fairly be assumed there is no such animal in existence as a genuine Bey who could make and relate a scientific tour of Barbary, or any other place. The thing is just as likely to be found as the Unicorn, the Griffin, or a living Mammoth. And provided the information be as honestly given as could reasonably have been expected from a genuine adorer of the black stone of Mecca, we may as well endeavour to be content to accept the greater quantity of the information, as a set-off against the circumstance that the person who brings it assumed a deceptive guise in order to enable himself to acquire it.

The principal point of disadvantage is in the doubt, naturally excited, whether a man whose conscience interposes no obstructing scruple to his assuming a false appearance, and especially when that appearance was to be maintained at the expense of a long and systematic series of observances which he despised, in homage to a religion which he disbelieved, whether such a man ought to be, or can be, relied upon for veracity in any thing he may report, in any matter in which he may deem himself beyond the probable reach of detection.

We can only say that the manner of our adventurer's narration has very much the appearance of an honest general regard to fact. There is a sufficient sobriety of style. There are no monstrosities, and very few wonderments. He very often acknowledges his not having had the means of inspecting objects and places in the line of his route, or the vicinity of his residences, when a little daring and fancy would easily have furnished his readers with a picture. Many of the observations he records, are so simply of a scientific nature, and so belonging to the ordinary habits of a scientific traveller, as to involve no