and resemble the latter in manners and customs, but they speak a different language, and are considered more courageous, as well as more intelligent. The sultan of Bournou is very powerful, and has a numerous cavalry.

From Bournou he proceeded to Wadaé (Waday), where he no longer observed on his right the river Joliba. He often inquired where that river terminated, and he was invariably informed that it communicated with the Nile. Its course according to some was southerly, and extending to the interior of Hubesheh or Abyssinia.

Wadaé is watered by many rivers which join the Joliba. Boubeker crossed the country in the direction of south-east to northeast, and entered the territory of Begarmé. He soon after reached the great lake of Kouk, which receives a mighty stream from the south. The sultan of Kouk is often at war with the sovereigns of Begarmé and of Wadaé.

Nearly two months after his departure from Kassinah, he reached the mountains of Four; but he remarked no great town between these mountains and Bournou.

From the Four country he passed on eastward to the country of Kordofan,' inhabited exclusively by Arabs. After proceeding along the banks of the river two or three days, he crossed it opposite to Tjondi, a considerable town, from whence he entered the Barbara country, where he found the inhabitants occupied in agricultural pursuits, who resembled in physiognomy and complexion the Foulahs. From Tjondi he arrived in fifteen days at Suakim on the Arabian Gulf, and from thence he embarked for Jidda, the port of Mekka; having thus journeyed during fourteen months or thereabout, since his departure from Seno-Palel in Senegal.

Our pilgrim, after performing his devotions at Mekka, went to Medina, aud from thence to Jerusalem, St. Jean d'Acre, Cairo and Alexandria. In this last town he remained a long time, and then embarked for Algiers, where he remained several years, after which he again returned to Fouta-Tora by the Marocco caravan, passing through Telemsen, Fas, Mequines, Marocco, Wadinoon, and the Sahara. From his long residence in Egypt, and on the coast of Barbary, at Alexandria and at Algiers, he had forgotten many particulars, which, although uninteresting to himself, would have been important to Europe.

This interesting Itinerary is followed by some apt observations of M. Rouzée, who thinks Cagnana, a kingdom so named by Boubeker, the same with the Gayaga of Labat, and the Kaiaaka of Mungo Park. Djarri is the town called by Delislo, Jara, and

This is confirmed in the Classical Journal, No. XLIX. p. 150.

by Mungo Park, Farra. These little differences will necessarily continue in the progress of our discovery of Africa, until the Arabic language shall become more generally known. The Moors, M. Rouzée observes, scarcely know the name of Farra, but call it Bagnall, which is the name of the country of which it is the capital. Some Arab sheiks spoke to the translator of this paper from the Arabic, of a town named Tedjagja, which is near to Waden, or Haden according to the maps, where a great commerce is carried on in salt. The translator thinks this place is identified with Tagazza.'

The position of the kingdom of Bournou, as Boubeker has described it, agrees exactly with Hermeunus account. The great river which runs from the south into the lake Kouk, appears to M. Rouzée to be the Misseled of Brown. The mountainous country of Four is unquestionably Dar Foor. Tjondi is the Shandi of the maps. The Arabian writers mention a country called Barbara, inhabited by a race of a reddish-black color.3

Our Senegal translator heard the traveller mention the name of Wancarah, which is unquestionably Wangara. Boubeker places the country south of Bournou, and describes it as being overflowed by the Joliba, as Egypt is by the Nile, and that gold abounds there. He had heard of Kano and Guebur (Cano and Guber), but he did not recollect their position. He says Takzour in several of the negro languages, siguifies the same with the Arabic word Sudan, i. e. Nigritia.

Translated from the French by

JAMES GREY JACKSON.

This is likely enough, because the latter word is spelt with the Arabic guttural letter grain, (¿) which partakes of the English & and ¤, but can hardly be pronounced by an European throat.

2 For a dissertation on the Arabic word Dar, vide Classical Journal, No XLIX. p. 149.

3 We suspect these to be the Berebers, originally of the Atlas. Their dark color does not weaken this opinion: the same race of men living in mountains, and afterwards coming down to inhabit the plains, soon become several shades darker, as I have myself perceived in the mountains of south Atlas. Also by exposure to the sun and air of the plains. I recollect having an interview with Muley Soliman, the present emperor of Marocco, at Mogador, before he became emperor, when he was as white as a native of southern Europe. He is now almost black, or rather was so, when I had my last audience of the sultan; that is to say, about 16 or 18 years ago. They may also be the Brabeesh, who are Arabs occupying the country north of Timbuctoo, as also east of Cairo in the Nubian desert, between the Oasis and that city; for which see the map alluded to in the following note.

4 See the situation of this place in the map of the caravans in

Jackson's account of Marocco.

NOTICE OF

IDYLLIA HEROICA DECEM, Librum Phaleuciorum Unum, partim jam primo partim iterum atque tertio edit SAVAGIUS LANDOR. Accedit Quastiuncula cur poëtæ Latini recentiores minus legantur. Pisis, apud S. Nistrium MDCCcxx.

̓Αλλ' ἐφομαρτεῖτον καὶ σπεύδετον ὅττι τάχιστα Ταῦτα δ ̓ ἐγὼν αὐτὸς τεχνήσομαι ἠδὲ νοήσω Στεινωπῇ ἐν ὁδῷ παραδεύμεναι, οὐδέ με λήσει. THIS is in all respects an extraordinary publication. A volume of Latin compositions, by an Englishman of the nineteenth century, is of itself a phenomenon. The character of the pieces themselves, too, is heterogeneous; exhibiting, amidst numberless inaccuracies of phraseology and violations of costume, a classical spirit, and an acquaintance with the true genius of Latin poetry, such as has rarely been equalled, especially in these modern times. To complete the anomaly, the work is published, not in the author's native country, but in a foreign land, from motives which will hereafter be explained in a quotation from his Latin essay.

Of Mr. Landor himself our knowledge is principally derived from his writings; from these we gather that he is a man of an original and somewhat eccentric turn of mind, independent in his opinions on all subjects, and free in his declaration of them. As a writer, his characteristics are vigor of fancy, acuteness, and nicety of taste; with which he joins a share of classical scholarship greater than has fallen to the lot of English poets in general, since the time of Gray. Like Gray, he has cultivated Latin poetry and that of his own language with equal zeal, and almost equal success. We call him an English poet, although of those now existing he is the least known: were we, however, from our partial acquaintance with his works, to assign him a place among the highest, we have reason to believe that we should

II. v. 414. Mr. Landor has not given the passage accurately. Read στεινωπῷ and παραδύμεναι.

not be alone in our opinion. His first publication, of which we have any knowledge, was an epic poem, intitled Gebir,' founded on a modern romantic story; published first in Latin, and afterwards in English. With the English poem only are we acquainted; it is uninteresting as a whole, from causes into which this is not the place to enquire; its merits consist in the classical stateliness of its manner, and in the power of imagination and vividness of description which characterise detached passages. We were particularly struck with the episode of the shepherd Tamar, and the descent of Gebir to the infernal regions: it is no mean praise to have treated a hackneyed topic, like the latter, at once well and originally. It is evident that the writer had Milton before his view in this work; it exhibits throughout, on a small scale, the same chastised dignity of style, the same elaborate harmony, and the same rich and studied condensation of thought: his excessive desire of brevity, however, frequently betrayed him into harshness and obscurity-the latter a besetting fault of our author's, as we shall hereafter have occasion to notice. Of "Chrysaor," a poem founded on the mythology of the Titans, we know nothing. Mr. Landor is likewise the reputed author of Count Julian, a tragedy, on a subject of which other portions have been treated by Southey and Walter Scott, and in which, if we may form a judgment from an imperfect perusal, coupled with the opinions of better critics than ourselves, he showed himself fully adequate to compete with those masters. In this, as in all his works, his predilection for antiquity is visible: the diction and versification of Count Julian is rather that of a Virgilian and Miltonian epic, than of an English tragedy.

It is as a Latin poet, however, that we are now to consider him. Of his productions in this language, some, we believe, exist only in private circulation; others (among the rest several of those before us) have been, as the title-page informs us, already published; the present collection, however, is the first which has offered itself to our critical notice, and of this we shall proceed to give an account. Should our extracts be more numerous than usual, the singularity of the work itself, as well as its intrinsic excellence, must plead our vindication.

To Mr. Landor, as the author of Gebir, the Curse of Kehama was dedicated by Dr. Southey; to whom a community of opinions and pursuits in early life seems to have attached our author, and whom he never mentions without expressions of affectionate admiration.

The Latin preface to the "Idyllia Heroica" exhibits a specimen of the negligences so frequent in this volume. Idyllium, ut quibusdam videtur, heroica esse non potest. Veteres alia fuisse sententia versus quo unico scribitur declarat. Talia sunt Theocriti quædam, ejusdemque esset generis Catullianum illud de nuptiis Pelei et Thetidis, nisi pepli descriptio intercedisset; ea non tantum episodia est sed pars major ut et melior poëmatis. Ex Ovidio excerperemus plurima. Si rationem hanc operis normamque conservare, si suis actionem quamque finibus concludere, nec perpetuam prodigiorum seriem deducere malluisset, locum profecto minus opportunum habuisset suavissimus poeta verborum abundantiæ.

Et olim nostra forsitan ob id saltem legi possint, quod, cum omnes omnium sæculorum qui poemata latina scripserunt, aliena scripserint, neminem nisi semel, idque versibus tantum quaternis, imitemur.

We shall not stop to examine the correctness of this opinion, but shall proceed, without further delay, to the poems in which the author has exemplified his theory..

The most striking feature in Mr. Landor's Latin poetry is its originality. He has more of the air of a genuine ancient than any writer we are acquainted with. His style is that of Latin poetry in the abstract, and not that of any individual Latin poet. He has not copied the manner of Lucretius, or Catullus, or Ovid, or Virgil, or Horace; but he has transfused into his own compositions the character and spirit common to all, and by which they were distinguished from the poets of other countries. This is the true method of imitating the ancients; not to borrow the words of a classical writer as vehicles for our own thoughts, but to write as much as possible, in the same manner as we ourselves should have done, had we been ancients. This is indeed high praise; and its value may be estimated by its rarity. It is, however, subject, in the present case, to considerable deductions. In the first place, Mr. Landor's phraseology is far from being sufficiently accurate, especially in his heroics. He exhibits, indeed, as we have before intimated, a singular compound of classical taste and feeling with careless, or at least incorrect, diction. In this respect, as in all others, he is the very reverse of Casimir. Casimir's style is, if we may so express ourselves, elegantly inelegant. His thoughts are unclassical, but they are classically expressed; his materials are rich, but ill arranged; all the parts are good, but the effect of the whole is rather showy than pleasing; there is abundance of good things, but they are scattered about with a slovenly and tasteless profusion, like that of the barbarian feasts described by Aristophanes. Mr. Landor, on the contrary, is elegant in the aggregate, but inelegant in many of the particulars.