the great level of the fens.** And it may be remarked, that this provision was evidently intended as a boon and encouragement to the adventurers by whom the drowned' land was conveyed. The registration of deeds in the West (2 & 3 Anne, c. 4), East (6 Anne, c. 35), and North Ridings (8 Geo. II. c. 6) of Yorkshire -in the Town and County of Kingston-upon-Hull—and in the County of Middlesex (7 Anne, c. 20)—is founded upon the statutes which agree in substance, in directing that memorials of all deeds and conveyances shall be registered, in default of which they are void, as against subsequent registered purchases. Copyholds and leaseholds, at rack rents, or not exceeding twenty-one years, are excepted. The Registrar is to keep an alphabetical calendar of all parishes, extra-parochial places and townships in his riding or county; with reference to the number of every memorial that concerns the hereditaments in every such parish, &c., and of the names of the parties mentioned in such memorial.. The policy establishing a general registration in England has been the subject of much discussion; it is not, however, our intention to moot this point, which will be duly considered by the Commissioners, who are now so diligently and ably enquiring into the laws of real property; but it is evident that the present system is so ingeniously contrived, that it must be admitted to be wrong in whatever manner the question be decided. If the English statutes are advantageous, they ought to be forthwith extended to every county—if disadvantageous, they should be forthwith repealed; for it is not easily reconciled to any sound principles of legislation that the law of real property should change on passing under Temple Bar-that there should be two different codes for Fulham and for Putney-for Holborn and High Holborn, or that a protection against fraud should be afforded to Yorkshire which is denied to the men of Lancaster, on the opposite bank of the Ribble.

The mode of registration adopted in the English register offices, supposing that the principle be considered as advantageous, is liable to many serious objections. The Middlesex Registrars have long since discontinued the alphabetical calendars of places directed by the statute; and the only indexes in the office are such imperfect lists as we have before described, in which the names of the conveying parties are entered according to their initial letters, without any further attempt at arrangement. The books are ruled in parallel columns, and to each name is added the number of the memorial, but not the date of the deed, and an extremely brief and irregular notice of the situation of the property conveyed; sometimes the parish is given, sometimes the street, and sometimes both

* 15 Car. ii, c. 17.

are

are omitted; and it is, therefore, impossible to ascertain what the parcels are, without consulting the register-book to which the index refers. This book is in elephant folio, of the very largest size, such as to require much exertion to carry it from the shelf to the table. Now the persons, against whom the register ought to be searched with most jealousy, are speculating builders and land-jobbers: and as individuals of this description usually own many houses in a street or parish, and are involved in every variety of incumbrance, the references to the register-books become extremely numerous, and render the search so laborious as to be almost impracticable. It is hardly necessary to observe, that the charge made by the solicitor is in proportion to the time consumed; and the purchaser of a leasehold house, of 10l. per annum, in any one of the innumerable Prospect Places' and 'Trafalgar Terraces,' which environ our metropolis, may incur a much greater proportionable expense than if he were in treaty for a manor. The expense of the search increases in an inverse ratio to the value of the property.

The present Registrars are not to be blamed for following in the footsteps of their predecessors. Yet the interest of the public imperatively requires the very simple amendments which would render the searches in the registry easy and effective. Continuing the present columnar arrangement, the names of the granting parties should follow in dictionary order. The date of the deed should be set out, and, in a third column, such an abstract of the parcels, i. e. of the property conveyed, as might enable the person making the search to identify the property without further trouble, and to ascertain, from what appears on the face of the index, whether it is not necessary to consult the book to which the index refers. The first requisite of every index or calendar of titledeeds is to convey such full and exact information as to enable the reader to judge from that index or calendar alone, whether it is or is not necessary for him to resort to the original document for more ample details. The calendars of places, directed by the statute, and discontinued by the Middlesex Registrars, should be resumed, as, in many cases, they would greatly simplify the search, nor ought any trouble or expense to be spared in their completion. Any imperfections in the indexes of a public register make it a snare instead of a safeguard. And these imperfections are so much felt in the Middlesex Registry, that many professional men consider the institution a nuisance, in consequence of the responsibility which attaches to the person whose duty it is to make the search, and who, under the present arrangements, cannot discharge that duty without extreme loss of time and labour.

It will be observed, that we have laid great stress upon particulars

of

of mere mechanical arrangement. Those who are accustomed to research of any kind will be sufficiently sensible of the extreme importance of diminishing trouble and inconvenience, of sparing' the arm and the eye. How often is the best authority left unconsulted by the author, because it happens to stand on a high shelf, or in the next room; because a key must be found, or a door opened; or because the size of the volume is too large, or the type too small! It is seldom difficult to muster up strength for one great exertion; but the best of us may be jaded and wearied out by petty sources of trouble-always recurring and never subdued.

ART. III.-The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan in England. 2 vols. London. 1828.

2. The Kuzzilbash: a Tale of Khorasan. 3 vols. Lond. 1828.

AN old acquaintance of ours, as remarkable for the grotesque queerness of his physiognomy, as for the kindness and gentleness of his disposition, was asked by a friend, where he had been? He replied, he had been seeing the lion, which was at that time an object of curiosity-(we are not sure whether it was Nero or Cato): And what,' rejoined the querist, did the lion think of you?' The jest passed as a good one; and yet under it lies something that is serious and true.

When a civilized people have gazed, at their leisure, upon one of those uninstructed productions of rude nature whom they term barbarians, the next object of natural curiosity is, to learn what opinion the barbarian has formed of the new state of society into which he is introduced-what the lion thinks of his visiters. Will the simple, unsophisticated being, we ask ourselves, be more inclined to reverence us, who direct the thunder and lightning by our command of electricity-controul the course of the winds by our steam-engines turn night into day by our gas-erect the most stupendous edifices by our machinery-soar into mid-air like eagles -at pleasure dive into the earth like moles?—or, to take us as individuals, and despise the effeminate child of social policy, whom the community have deprived of half his rights—who dares not avenge a blow without having recourse to a constable-who, like a pampered jade, cannot go but thirty miles a day without a halt-or endure hunger, were it only for twenty-four hours, without suffering and complaint-whose life is undignified by trophies acquired in the chase or the battle-and whose death is not graced by a few preliminary tortures, applied to the most sensitive parts, in order to ascertain his decided superiority to ordinary mortals? We are

equally

equally desirous to know what the swarthy stranger may think of our social institutions, of our complicated system of justice in comparison with the dictum of the chief, sitting in the gate of the village, or the award of the elders of the tribe, assembled around the council fire; and even, in a lower and lighter point of view, what he thinks of our habits and forms of ordinary life,—that artificial and conventional ceremonial, which so broadly distinguishes different ranks from each other, and binds together so closely those who belong to the same grade.

In general, when we have an opportunity of enquiring, we find the rude stranger has arrived at some conclusion totally unexpected by his European host. For instance, when Lee Boo, that most interesting and amiable specimen of the child of nature, was carried to see a man rise in a balloon, his only remark was, he wondered any one should take so much trouble in a country where it was so easy to call a hackney-coach. Lee Boo had supped full with wonders; a coach was to him as great a marvel as a balloon; he had lost all usual marks for comparing difficult and easy, and if Prince Hussein's flying tapestry, or Astolpho's hippogryph, had been shewn, he would have judged of them by the ordinary rules of convenience, and preferred a snug corner in a well-hung chariot.

From the amusing results arising out of such contrasts it has occurred to many authors, at different periods, that an agreeable and striking mode of inquiry into the intrinsic value and rationality of social institutions might be conducted, by writing critical remarks upon them, in the assumed character of the native of a primitive country. Lucian has placed some such observations in the mouth of his Scythian philosopher, Toxaris. In modern times, the Turkish Spy, though the subject of his letters did not embrace manners or morals, had considerable celebrity. The interest of the famous political romance of Gulliver turns on the same sort of contrivance. But, perhaps, the earliest example of the precise species of composition which we mean, exists in the Memoranda imputed to the Indian Kings, and published in the Spectator. At a later period, Montesquieu's Persian Letters, with Lord Littleton's imitation of that remarkable work, and Goldsmith's Citizen of the World, were designed to represent the view which might be taken of Parisian or London manners and policy, by a Persian sage in the one case, and a Chinese philosopher in the other. Still, however, the notable imperfection occurred in these representations, that neither Montesquieu, nor Littleton, nor Goldsmith was at all qualified to sustain the character he assumed. Usbeck and Lien Chi Altangi are scarcely different, after all, from Europeans in their language, views, and ideas. The Persian caftan and Chinese gown are indeed put on, but the Persian and Chinese

habitual

habitual modes of thinking are not exhibited, any more than the language of either of these countries: the Frenchman's Persian might be a Chinese, or the Englishman's Chinese a Persian, without the reader being able to appeal to any satisfactory test for readjusting the machinery.

It is in this most essential particular that the Travels of Hajji Baba may claim a complete superiority over the works of those distinguished authors. The author of Hajji Baba's Travels writes, thinks, and speaks much more like an oriental than an Englishman; and makes good what he himself affirms, that the single idea of illustrating Eastern manners by contrast with those of England, has been his Kebleh, the direction of his Mecca.' Hajji Baba, moreover, is not an orientalist merely, but one of a peculiar class and character-a Persian, and differing as much from a Turk as a Frenchman from a German.

The English reader, however, as he is politely called, who is ignorant of all save what his own language can convey to him, might have been at some loss to trace the merits of such a work, without some previous acquaintance with the Persian manners, particularly as differing from those of other oriental nations; since, however well acquainted he might be with the habits and manners of his own country, it is necessary, for the enjoyment of this work, that he should know something of the peculiar scale on which they are to be measured. This necessary information has been amply supplied by the Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan'-in which we have a lively and entertaining history of the hero of the present work, his early adventures, mishaps, rogueries, with their consequences; all tending to prepare us for his experiences in England. There are few of our readers, probably, who have not perused this lively novel, which may be termed the Oriental Gil Blas, and enjoyed the easy and humorous introduction which it affords to the oriental manners and customs, but especially to those which are peculiar to the Persians.

By what peculiar circumstances, in climate, constitution, education, or government, the national character is chiefly formed, has been long disputed; its existence we are all aware of; and proposing to travel, consider it as certain, nearly, that we have peculiar advantages to hope, and dangers to guard against, from the manners of a particular region, as that we shall enjoy peculiar pleasures, or have to face peculiar inconveniences in its climate. The genius of the Persians is lively and volatile, to a degree much exceeding other nations of the east. They are powerfully affected by that which is presented before them at the moment-forgetful of the past, careless of the future-quick in observation, and correct as well as quick, when they give themselves leisure to examine

the