part of his army, he could not possibly effect it better than by sending them from Orenburg to Bokhara. 6 We need not waste many words on the route from Balkan to Khiva, another intermediary station' of Colonel Evans. Captain Mouraviev found this Turcoman desert, if possible, more sterile and destitute of water than Meyendorf had that of the Kirghis 'the image of death,' as he calls it, or rather of desolation, caused by some great convulsion of nature.' This, therefore, must, we think, be one that infers sterility.' It took him sixteen days to cross. The Oasis of Khiva is another of the three earthly paradises' of the Arabian writers; but it is a small one, and might, perhaps, furnish a breakfast for a Russian army, but heaven only knows where they would get a dinner. On the Captain's return, the surface of the desert was hard frozen; and numerous dead horses and camels were lying on the ground, and in the midst of them many human carcasses; they were Persian slaves, who had been captured at Astrabad, and abandoned on the march. It is of no importance,' said the Turcomans who escorted the Captain, 'we always leave a full half of these Kizilbash (red-heads) on the road, where they die either of hunger or cold.' No great encouragement this for a Russian army. But Colonel Evans appears to think lightly, from the authorities which he has consulted, on these matters. What he imagines the Russians able to do, he recommends that we should take the initiative in doing, that is to say, that we should send an army from India to act by land in Daghestan and Shirvan, on the line of the Araxes, supported by a flotilla on the Caspian, to be built by our shipwrights sent from Bombay, in order to wrest from the Russians the provinces which they have conquered from the Persians to the southward of the Caucasus. Really, if Colonel Evans had not the reputation of being a most respectable and intelligent man, we are not sure that we should have taken the trouble to disperse the delusion under which he evidently labours, by a misconception of the intermediate country, which is not one that armies can pass and repass with the facility he appears to suppose. His antagonist of Few Words,' without entering into any detail, has decided this point of an invasion of India' we think successfully against him. 'Indeed, more than half of what we should have to combat under this head would probably, to many of our readers, be so excessively chimerical, that they would not think it worth the pains of refuting. That, because the Russians are of other European nations the least far from India, therefore they are near to it; that the possession of posts on the great routes, and the nominal subjection of a few wandering tribes, makes the southern part of Asiatic Russia as productive in resources resources for offensive war, as Russia between the Don and the Neva; -that, because the vast countries between the Caspian sea and our Indian frontier are sprinkled here and there with cultivation, and occasionally present some leagues of road not impassable for carriages, therefore the supply of provisions will be constant and sufficient, and the expense of transporting artillery, ammunition, &c. not incalculably beyond what would be requisite for the same distance in Europe;that, because a considerable part of the population in those countries is addicted to plundering, they will submit themselves to Russian orders for a march of several hundred miles, with a view to plunder the English, not yet conquered, rather than plunder the Russians themselves, whose baggage and convoys would be already within the reach of their forays,—are among the absurdities which the supposition of a Russian invasion takes for granted. It is unnecessary to add that, even if the Russians were to make their way to India, thirty thousand strong, exclusive of the great numbers which they must have left in their rear, to preserve their communications, which Colonel Evans thinks possible, the army of one of our Presidencies alone would be sufficient to hold them in check. While our troops would be bearing on their own resources, and would be receiving constant reinforcements, the Russians, already nearly twelve hundred miles from the base of their operations, would be weakened as they advanced by the detachments necessary to collect supplies. Under such circumstances, it would not be necessary to suppose more than very ordinary military skill on the part of our commanders to ensure, not the retreat merely, but the absolute surrender, of the Russians, as soon as they came to cross fire with our troops. Even success to them would be fruitless victories would consume the only means of gaining more. A mere check would entail all the consequences of the most ruinous defeat.'-A Few Words, p. 56-58. The second project which the colonel discusses is the overland trade with India and China which is to supersede ours. The Czar Peter thought of this, and whatever he thought, be the reigning sovereign who he or she may, is religiously treasured up. He had Hanway and Elton to assist his views on the Caspian, but they failed; and Doctor Granville tells us that a correspondence has recently been discovered, by which it appears that he made grand offers to that notorious projector Law, to form an establishment on the coast of the Caspian, to be called the Asiatic Company, to have the complete monopoly of the Asiatic commerce. The Czar offered to make him a prince, to bestow on him a large pension, with two thousand fires, otherwise serfs; but Law declined, on the plea of his engagements to France. On this point we have nothing to add to our investigation of the project of Gamba, the French consul-general of Teflis,* which was transmitted to the Emperor Alexander, and procured for him some * Quarterly Review, No. 71. thing more substantial than a diamond ring or a gold snuff-box, a large grant of land on the river Phasis. This person is quoted by the colonel in support of his views, which we have deemed to be altogether chimerical, and see no reason to alter one iota of our former opinion, or in any shape to modify the conclusion we then came to, that a ship of twelve hundred tons burthen will bring from China to the Thames, in less time, and at less expense, a greater quantity of merchandise than twelve thousand mules, donkies, and dromedaries would carry, in many parts of the land journey, even for a single week; and that looking to the five or six months' journey over rugged and barren mountains, and such naked places as we have been describing—what with sore backs, and deaths, and reliefs, and beasts for the drivers, it may be doubted whether three times twelve thousand might not be required before the caravan reached its journey's end. This of course applies to an overland journey from the Caspian or Black Sea to China. The colonel, it is true, has another route for conveying the commerce of India and China to the shores of the Bosphorus. From Constantinople to Bombay or Surat is, as he states, about three thousand miles, all sea, except about four hundred miles from Trebisond to Moussol, on the Tigris. Small vessels are to proceed from the latter place down this river and the Persian gulph, and so on to Bombay, and we suppose to other parts of India and China. We have but two little objections to offer to this plan. The first is, that an army must accompany this Muscovite mosquito fleet the whole length of the Tigris, to preserve it from the plunder of the Arabs. If, as Colonel Johnson states, 'the mail from Mosdock to Teflis, and from Teflis to Mosdock, is carried on horseback, and well guarded and escorted by infantry and Cossacks, and the latter part of the way by a field-piece,' it will require many field-pieces and Cossacks, and infantry too, to protect the rich booty floating on the Tigris. And then as to the Persian gulph, if our able fortresses' shall not already be eaten up with filth, rust, rot, and corrosion,' but if, on the contrary, those magnificent machines' shall still be able to ruffle, as it were, their swelling plumage, to put forth all their beauty and their bravery, collect their scattered elements of strength, and awaken their dormant thunder,' then may Colonel Evans make himself perfectly easy that we shall have as little difficulty in hermetically sealing the Persian Gulf against the Russians, as we shall find in shutting them up in the Baltic and the Dardanelles. move This distinguished officer may probably agree with us, on reflection, that rapid movements of the pen are not always so adviseable as we understand him to have found, in his own practice, those of the the sabre and bayonet. His style, though hasty and dashing, bears the marks of a strong and vigorous mind; and his imagina→ tion, we hope, will hereafter be less apt to run away with his judgment. We are just in time to state the disastrous finale, which we have received from an authentic source, of the rash and precipitous invasion of the Turkish territory by Russia-that alarming invasion which, in the opinion of Lieut.-Col. Evans, demanded an immediate armed intervention of all the powers of Europe, to stay the overwhelming career of the autocrat, who aimed at little less than universal dominion. The Turks, however, have done it effectually of themselves, single-handed, without the assistance of any one power, European or Asiatic; and the Sublime Sultan may now boast, with the Roman warrior, 'like an eagle in a dove-cote, I Flutter'd your Russians in Bulgaria; Alone I did it.' Fluttered, indeed, with a vengeance! The rout was complete; resembling, on a smaller scale, that of the French from Moscow. We are told that not a living creature escaped out of this horrible Bulgaria, save man-and he, bare and destitute of everything that constitutes a soldier-without arms, without accoutrements, without baggage, and, as the French would say, completely demoralized;-all the draft horses, and cattle of every kind; all those of the cavalry and artillery, dead;-all the guns, carriages, waggons, ammunition, and provisions, left behind as spoil for the Turks. The extent of these, disasters is endeavoured to be concealed at Petersburg, where the war, from the first, was unpopular; but now men shake their heads, by which, like the shake of Burleigh's in the play, they mean a great deal, though they say nothing; and they are afraid to write, as all letters are inspected at the post-office. It is to be hoped that this disastrous campaign will have taught the young emperor a lesson of moderation, which will counsel him to seek for peace rather than conquest. ART. II.-The Chronological Index to the Statutes of the Realm, from Magna Carta to the End of the Reign of Queen Anne. Published by the Record Commission. London. 1828. OME faint idea of the bulk of our English records may be obtained, by adverting to the fact, that a single statute, the Land Tax Commissioners' Act, passed in the first year of the reign of his present Majesty, measures, when unrolled, upwards of nine hun SOM dred dred feet, or nearly twice the length of St. Paul's cathedral within the walls; and if it ever should become necessary to consult the fearful volume, an able-bodied man must be employed during three hours in coiling and uncoiling its monstrous folds. Should our law manufactory go on at this rate, and we do not anticipate any interruption in its progress, we may soon be able to belt the round globe with parchment. When, to the solemn acts of legislature, we add the showers of petitions, which lie (and in more senses than one) upon the table, every night of the session; the bills, which, at the end of every term, are piled in stacks, under the parental custody of our good friends, the Six Clerks in Chancery; and the innumerable membranes, which, at every hour of the day, are transmitted to the gloomy dens and recesses of the different Courts of common-law and of criminal jurisdiction throughout the kingdom, we are afraid that there are many who may think that the time is fast approaching for performing the operation which Hugh Peters recommended as A good work for a good Magistrate.' This learned person, it will be recollected, exhorted the commonwealth men to destroy all the muniments in the Tower a proposal which Prynne considers as an act inferior only in atrocity to his participation in the murder of Charles I., and we should not be surprised if some zealous reformer were to maintain, that a general conflagration of these documents would be the most essential benefit that could be conferred upon the realm. That there are inconveniences in the present system, under which our legal records are managed, must be admitted; but, allowing for some defaults, which may be easily remedied, they are included in the price which we pay for a limited monarchy. In Turkey, the Cadi writes his fetfa on the margin of the petition, and delivers it to the Plaintiff, whose well-timed and discreet administration of the purse of sequins has obtained a decree in his own favour, and ensured the application of the bastinado upon the luckless Defendant: but no memorials of the suit or vestiges of the decision are preserved; nor is it necessary, for when the law depends upon the will and pleasure of the judge, it is a work of supererogation to accumulate the history of proceedings, which do not furnish any materials for jurisprudence, or afford any security for life or property. Amongst the causes which have produced the government which we now enjoy, none, perhaps, have been more efficacious than the forms and technicalities of our jurisprudence. England owes more to the grey goose-quill than to the spear; more to the sheepskin than to the banner; more to the Judge than to the Baron; and, had it not been for the barriers arising from the rigid technicalities of the bench and the bar, |