Who is it?

Pedrillo? by Jove it's the same!
How on earth did he get there? What influence came
To set him at liberty? see him at work,

Sitting just as before on his board à la Turk !

And he 's stitching with vigour, he's making a boot-
Not a cloven hoof'd thing, but one fit for a foot.

And how happy he looks! and how plump and how red!
How punchy his body, how shiny his head!

And he sticks to his trade like an honest Castilian-
Making highlows and mending the soles of the million.

Now touching his freedom :-it chanced one fine day
That some two dozen Jews were all sentenced to pay
A very large sum for some very bad deed,
Regarding some matter of conscience and creed;
And finding the prison was rather too small
(In addition to those it contain'd) for them all,

A "weeding" took place-and 'mongst others, Pedrillo
To a Hebrew in trouble relinquish'd his pillow.

And such-without varnish, invention, or mystery-
Is the true, undeniable, record and history

Of the "little old cobbler who liv'd in a stall
Which served him for kitchen and parlour and all."

Moral.

There's a saying so stale that it's grown to an epigram-
Of course you all know it well-“ Ne sutor crepidam
Ultra:" And some sleepy folks may opine

That such is the moral of this tale of mine.

They're mistaken: such "morals" belong to the past-
They wont do for these days-we 're a great deal too fast

For such slow-coach old maxims. What! "stick to our last?"
Nail the doctor to physic, the lawyer to law,

The parson to preaching !—a pretty fine saw

For this age of progression!-when ev'ry man's head
Is so full of the things he has heard, seen, and read-
It's not easy to say where our knowledge can stop
When our brain is as full as a pawnbroker's shop.

No, no-I've got something much better-much truer—
Much more to the purpose-and certainly newer
To tell you. It's this:- -if you ever give way
To an evil-born thought-if you let your mind stray

In a naughty direction, don't think me uncivil

If I say that you're making a boot for the devil.

And that very same boot-when your virtue 's clean goneYou'll see him some day when he's "trying it on."

RECENT TRAVELLERS.

WE must request the reader to pack up his portmanteau without delay, and prepare for a grand tour we are about to take him upon; as little luggage as possible, clothing light, a mind at ease, and plenty of bankers' circulars in his pocket. No lingering to take leave, for, although it is not improbable that we shall pass through every description of climate under the sun before we return, we promise to drop him safely back again at home in three quarters of an hour.

These are wonderful times for travelling! The arm-chair now-adays is as marvellous an agent of locomotion as steam. You have only to sit in your arm-chair, heap up a few books on the little round table on your right hand, adjust your lamp, and settle yourself in an easy position, and you may cross the Line, broil in the Tropics, get locked up in the Arctic ice, sail over Tahitian lakes on a raft of stems tied together with long grass, ascend the Yungfrau, climb up the beard of the "Giant of the Western Star," or lose yourself on the odorous shores of "Araby the Blest," in the course of a single evening. No steamer or express train can do this. will take you at least some ten or eleven hours to get to Paris in the ordinary way. This is slow work; in half the time the arm-chair will carry you over half the globe.

It

There, step on board! we mean, sit down. You feel a motion in the chair? We are not surprised at that. A moment ago you were in London; you are now landing on the quay of Palma, in the island of Majorca, the chief of that group in the Mediterranean, called the Balearic Archipelago, which not a great many people on this side of St. George's Channel are familiar with even in books, and still fewer have ever visited.

On this occasion we are indebted to the Rev. Henry Christmas * for the opportunity of peeping into these far-off sunny places, and for being able to prolong our trip into Italy, and Greece, and the sites of the Seven Churches in Asia Minor.

The character of these Balearic Islands, people, and scenery may be described as half African, half European. The old blood still leaves its tinge behind, and the old costume helps out the complexion of the peasantry. A woman in her long dress of blue cotton, and a man with the loose blue cotton drawers tied under the knee, bare legs, and head covered with a twisted handkerchief, might at first sight be readily mistaken for Africans. On holidays there is a touch of Spain in them that carries out the mixture on the other side; such as a hat of greater sweep and circumference than an umbrella, which the wearer is obliged to insinuate sideways even into the widest church-door; the corset, the short petticoat, and the rebozille — a head-dress which sets the features of the native beauty in a charming frame of white plaits. It is pleasant to

The Shores and Islands of the Mediterranean, including a Visit to the Seven Churches of Asia. By the Rev. H. Christmas, M.A., &c. 3 vols. R. Bentley.

be able to add, that upon the Spanish side of the picture there are few or none of the Spanish vices. The people are as lazy as the hidalgos themselves; but that seems to be their principal failing, unless the spirit of litigation, which is common to all these halfblooded, half-civilized races, be considered worse. They are as hospitable as Arabs, the higher classes carrying their liberality to an excess which frequently brings them into familiar acquaintance with the Jews. Murders, quarrels, and duels are unknown; and the best evidence of the honesty of the people is, that locks are unknown, or at least useless amongst them. Their solitary sin against probity is smuggling; but, as this practice of cheating the custom-house embraces more than a third of the whole trade of the Peninsula, it can hardly be regarded as a sufficient ground for arraigning their integrity. According to the accepted social principles of Spain and her dependencies, you may be the most notorious contrabandist in the universe, and at the same time one of the honestest men alive. So far as the Majorcans and their neighbours are concerned, it seems that the usage does not in the least interfere with the purity of their conduct in other respects. The reason Mr. Christmas assigns for this is exceedingly curious. Smuggling," he says, "is carried on to a considerable extent in the Balearic Islands, but as the population is comparatively small, it does not sufficiently prevail to affect seriously the morals of the people." It would be nearer the fact to say, that they are not dependent on foreign luxuries, and make very little use of them. But then, to what end is smuggling carried on to such extent amongst them? and in what way does the smallness of the population operate to prevent their morals from being contaminated?

66

The quantity of information collected by Mr. Christmas about these people is surprising considering the shortness of his stay amongst them. He investigated their social life thoroughly, and gives us the most complete account we possess of their institutions, habits, and resources. The volume devoted to them is replete with novelty, which is the highest panegyric we can pronounce upon a book of travels in these times. The other volumes invite us into scenes better known to the general reader, if we except the excellent account our traveller gives us of the Seven Churches of the Apocalypse. Here we have a special subject, which, examined by a fresh mind with direct reference to sacred history, is always sure to awaken new trains of interest. Mr. Christmas's researches in this district will richly reward the attentive perusal of the Biblical student. Nor amidst graver matter are those incidents of travel overlooked which constitute to the majority of readers the main attractions of books of this class. Inns and their resources are duly attended to; road-side observations and adventures are furnished in a pleasant and most companionable vein; and the descriptions of the towns and villages en route derive a living interest from the sketches of habits and customs with which they are mixed up. We know of no want that was more felt by the traveller in those regions, especially by idle gentlemen in their yachts, than a book which should guide them to the coasts of the Mediterranean isles; and these volumes will be found to supply the desideratum in a manner at once practical and agreeable.

As we are in this neighbourhood we will run the arm-chair into

Albania, or rather Mr. Edward Lear, who is a painter with pen and pencil, shall do it for us. Albania is a place with which all the world believes itself to be intimately acquainted, upon the strength of its familiarity with certain names which passed long ago into common property. But of all sorts of acquaintanceships this sort is the most delusive. To know a country through the poets, or at second-hand through the vague popular impressions left on the public mind by poetry, is very much like knowing the plot of a play from the inscription over the entrance to the theatre. Everybody knows Vallambrosa, and has a strong opinion as to the vast quantity of leaves that are to be found there; but they who are best acquainted with its leaves through the pages of Milton would be much perplexed, we suspect, to tell us where and what sort of a place it is. Albania has a kind of stage reputation, independently of its classical glories; and not satisfied with the phantoms which the imagination conjures up out of a thousand traditions amongst its valleys and rivers, we naturally expect also to be set upon by groups of the most picturesque and substantial robbers that ever plunged a terrified heroine down a trap-door in a recess of savage rocks on the boards of the Victoria Theatre. We say to all fanciful and sentimental people who have their own notions, whatever they may be, about Albania, read this book written by an artist, an observer and a man of sense, and adopt his.

Mr. Lear's book is a book of impressions, and the form he has employed for conveying them is the very best he could have hit upon for his purpose. He went into Albania to sketch, and in the notes which he took upon the spot day by day he unfolds the mind of the artist looking round upon Nature, hallowed by a thousand inspiring memories, and pouring out in the first words that came its immediate and actual inspirations. We have a cloud of writers upon these Thessalian vales-antiquaries, historians, politicians, poets. Mr. Lear pretends to be none of these unless, indeed, the last, which he seems to be without knowing it; he even avails himself of their help whenever he wants it (which is not often), and acknowledges it in a spirit that throws the weight of obligation on the other side. Yet, although his book is by no means erudite, and is neither enlivened by the statistics of beggary and crime, nor enriched by ingenious corrections of the errors of his predecessors, it is the best book upon Albania, as a picture book, it has been our good fortune to have read. The secret of its success lies obviously in the truthfulness of its details. The painter notes down what he sees and feels, exactly as he sees and feels it; and possesses so remarkable a talent for catching the points of a landscape, with their colours and forms alive as if it were an easel, and not a sheet of paper he was working upon, that the sources of the charm which we find in the volume is not very difficult of discovery.

Looking at all objects with the eye of an artist, the same tendency to throw his notes into the shape of pictures is everywhere perceptible; and scenes more favourable for his purpose could not have been selected than those embraced in the two routes described in this volume—the first in a north-westerly direction through ancient

Journal of a Landscape Painter in Albania, &c. By Edward Lear. Richard Bentley.

Macedonia to Illyrian Albania, and so by the west through Epirus to the Gulf of Arta; the second a sweep through Epirus and Thessaly. The illustrations with which he has enriched his volume considerably enhance its value and attraction, and are wonderfully calculated to help out the enjoyment of your literary Sybarites who love to have their imaginations pampered by the union of art and letters. But we must add that the book is valuable in other points of view, of still greater importance to practical travellers. It is a perfect handbook and road-guide through those classical regions. The author is minute upon all matters concerning the art of travelling as well as the art of sketching; he describes accurately the khans at which he rested, the peculiar kind of dinners he occasionally feasted or fasted upon, the oriental impedimenta to European comfort, such as crossleggism, which he had to get over as well as he could, and, upon the whole, mixes up with the more spiritual elements of touring, so complete an account of actual personal experiences that the book may be recommended to all future travellers in Thessaly and Albania as an indispensable item in their outfit.

Returning by way of Constantinople, which is not at all out of our way, we will launch our arm-chair on the waters of the Bosphorus, and, sailing right into the Danube, stop to take a little rest and refreshment under the shadow of the Blocksberg, with an intelligent travelling-companion we have picked up en route, Mr. Paton, who announces himself as the author of no less than five works on the Austrian and Ottoman empires. A learned man is Mr. Paton on the domestic mysteries, political institutions, hopes, prospects, and present condition of all the countries and races lying up in that grisly neighbourhood, where Haynau earned his worldwide fame. "If my account," observes Mr. Paton, " is not impartial, it is not from want of having seen the empire of the Danube from a great variety of points of observation." He made his first acquaintance with Austria in 1836, when, as a mere youngster, he tells us, he entered Vienna, staff in hand and knapsack on back, having walked thither from Naples; and since that date he has visited Hungary four times, and gathered so much information on the spot, with a view to his books, that he could not fail to acquire an ample knowledge of the people and their lands. But impartiality does not always grow up out of knowledge; and when Mr. Paton puts forward his familiarity with these scenes as a guarantee of the impartiality of his opinions, he assumes a merit which his book by no means bears out.

We were already sufficiently acquainted with Mr. Paton's opinions on the great questions that agitate the Magyar community, to be quite aware on which side his sympathies and convictions lay; but we confess we were scarcely prepared for the extreme views which he takes in the volume now before us of the characters of the chief

persons engaged in the late war. All the virtues, in Mr. Paton's eyes, were at one side-all the vices, crimes, and hypocrisies at the other. A certain jargon about constitutionalism is employed to give elevation and dignity to the demands and the acts of Austria, while the struggles of an insulted and defrauded race are every

• The Goth and the Hun; or, Transylvania, Debreczin, Pesth, and Vienna, in 1850. By A. A. Paton, author of "The Mamelukes." R. Bentley.