Montaigne is in the front rank among essayists, or Boswell among biographers, or Gibbon among historians, or Adam Smith among economists, or Darwin among naturalists."

Certainly no one will take up this splendid and original book to read and lightly lay it down. From the first page to the last it is a fascinating narrative, in a style untrammeled, versatile, and singularly effective. The journey was made in 1834 and 1835, when Kinglake was a young man, but recently out of Cambridge, where he had been the contemporary and friend of Thackeray, Tennyson, and Monckton Milnes. The Turkish boundary had not then been pushed behind the Balkans, but included Bosnia, Servia, and Bulgaria, and the unspeakable Turk was yet a power in eastern Europe. Belgrade on the Danube was an Ottoman fortress, and could still defy "an Austrian army awfully arrayed."

The narrative begins at Semlin, the last frontier town of Hungary, and opens with this striking passage:

At Semlin I still was encompassed by the scenes and the sounds of familiar life; the din of the busy world still vexed and cheered me; the unveiled faces of women still shone in the light of day. Yet whenever I chose to look southward I saw the Ottoman's fortress-austere, and darkly impending high

over the vale of the Danube-historic Belgrade. I had come, as it were, to the end of this wheel-going Europe, and now my eyes would see the splendor and havoc of the east.

"The splendor and havoc of the east!" This is the object of the journey, and we see it all through Mr. Kinglake's eyes, as the panorama is gradually unrolled before us. Kinglake's college friend, Lord Pollington, the Methley of the book, was his companion, and with their servants they crossed the Save "and there was an end to Christendom

for many a day to come." In the streets of Belgrade nothing was familiar-everything was strange.

Again and again you meet turbans and faces of men, but they have nothing for you-no welcome, no wonder, no wrath, no scorn; they look upon you as we do upon a December's fall of snow-as a seasonable unaccountable, uncomfortable work of God, that may have been sent for some good purpose, to be revealed hereafter.

From Belgrade the travelers pushed southward to Constantinople, a journey of fifteen days, not without mild adventures, the worst mishap being that Methley was taken ill. In that plague-ridden country every illness was taken for the plague, and this made it very difficult to obtain assistance -but at last Constantinople was reached, and it

soon turned out that the party were not plague

stricken.

There is a humorous description of an Ottoman lady in the chapter on Constantinople, and a still more graphic account of the manner of buying and selling in the Turkish bazaars, which is the best of comedy. From Constantinople the travelers pass through the Troad and visit the scenes made immortal in the Iliad, and enjoy their Homer together on the site of the ancient Grecian camp. Thence to Smyrna, "Infidel Smyrna," which furnishes a fine chapter. Kinglake calls it "the chief town and capital of that Grecian race against which you will be cautioned so carefully as soon as you touch the Levant." They are a race of superstitious rascals, but the women are beautiful. They have innumerable saints' days, and " as you move through the narrow streets of the city, at these times of festival, the transomshaped windows suspended over your head on either side are filled with the beautiful descendants of the old Ionian race; all (even yonder empress throned at the window of the humblest mud cottage) are attired with seeming magnificence. Their classic heads are crowned with scarlet and laden with jewels or coins of gold-the whole wealth of their wearers; their features are touched

with a savage pencil, hardening the outlines of eyes and eyebrows, and lending an unnatural fire to the stern, grave looks with which they pierce your brain. Endure their fiery eyes as best you may, and ride on slowly and reverently, for, facing you from the side of the transom that looks longwise through the street, you see one glorious shape, transcendent in its beauty; you see the massive braid of hair as it catches a touch of light on its jetty surface, and the broad, calm, angry brow; the large eyes deeply set and self-relying, as the eyes of a conqueror, with all the rich shadows of thought lying darkly around them; you see the thin, fiery nostril, and the bold line of the chin and throat, disclosing all the fierceness and all the pride, passion, and power that can live along with the rare womanly beauty of those sweetly turned lips. But then, there is a terrible stillness in this breathing image; it seems like the stillness of a savage that sits intent and brooding day by day upon some fearful scheme of vengeance; and yet more like it seems the stillness of an immortal, whose will must be known and obeyed without sign or speech. Bow down! bow down, and adore the young Persephone, transcendent Queen of Shades.

On his way to Jerusalem and the Holy Land Kinglake visited "on the grassy slopes of Leb

anon," the eccentric Lady Hester Stanhope, sister of William Pitt, who after the death of the great statesman made her home there until her death, a period of thirty years. The chapter describing her manner of life and her conversation is remarkably interesting. He crossed the plains of Esdraelon and entered among the hills of Galilee, and there in the great Catholic church is the sanctuary-the dwelling of the Blessed Virgin. Whether it be the true sanctuary or not the scene is necessarily impressive, and in its description we have one of the most poetic chapters in the book.

From Nazareth, under the guidance of a young Nazarene, he took the road to the Sea of Galilee.

I passed by Cana and the house of the marriage feast prolonged by miraculous wine. I came to the field in which our Saviour had rebuked the Scotch Sabbath-keepers of that period by suffering his disciples to pluck corn on the Lord's day. I rode over the ground where the fainting multitude had been fed, and they showed me some massive fragments-the relics, they said, of that wondrous banquet now turned into The petrification was most complete.

stone.

He describes the Sea of Galilee, the river Jordan, and bathes in the Dead Sea. The country around is inhabited by the Arabs, not always the most comfortable of neighbors, but the most courteous of hosts.