ART. I. SKETCHES FROM ORIENTAL HISTORY: NADIR SHAH OF PERSIA, II. STANZAS BY DR. DICKSON, OF LONDON, III. EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. BY CHARLES W. BAIRD, IV. LINES TO FERDINAND FREILIGRATH. BY MARY E. HEWITT, 377 390 391 392 V. HOW TO LIVE WHERE YOU LIKE: A LEGEND OF UTICA. BY A. B. JOHNSON, 393 IX. THE SEASON OF ROSES. FROM THE PERSIAN OF HAFIZ, XII. THE SHIPWRECK: A FRAGMENT, XIII. LINES TO THE NORTH STAR. BY CHARLES R. CLARKE, XV. LINES: THE WOODLANDS, XVI. MANES: BY MEISTER CARL, 403 . 404 406 411 XVII. THE BUNKUM FLAG-STAFF AND INDEPENDENT ECHO. NUMBER FIVE,. 426 XVIII. STANZAS: THE FAREWELL, 438 XIX. WORDS of cheer for men of GENIUS. BY WILLIAM P. MULCHINOCK, 439 XX. OUR SUMMER BIRDS: THE SWALLOW. BY W. H. C. HOSMER, Esq., 440 LITERARY NOTICES : I. NORTH-AMERICAN REVIEW FOR THE OCTOBER QUARTER, 2. FRONTENAC: A POEM. BY ALFRED B. STREET, 3. TRAVELS IN THE OLD WORLD. BY WILLIAM FURNISS, ESQ., 4. THE HORSE-SHOE: A POEM. BY JOHN BROOKS FELTON, 5. MAKATAIMESHAKIAKIAK: A POEM. BY ELBERT H. SMITH, 2. THE GRAVE OF ROBIN HOOD. WITH AN ENGRAVING, 4. GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS, 1. SCATTERED LEAVES FROM THE JOURNAL OF A WASHINGTON OFFICE-SEEKER. 2. HOLMES THE POET AMONG THE YOUNG LADIES: REPORT ON PLOUGHS AND PLOUGHING: TRIBUTE TO THE PLOUGH. 3. CHOIYS' MERCANTILE ORTHOGRA PHY. 4. THE BONE OF WHITFIELD'S RIGHT ARM. 5. THE 'Piled-up' STYLE OF WESTERN ELOQUENCE. 6. THE AMERICAN ANGLER'S GUIDE.' 7. FOR YOUNG LADIES: HOW TO TELL WHO IS TO BE YOUR HUSBAND.' 8. A CORRECTED CORRECTION: THE BLACKSMITH:' LETTER FROM MONSIEUR HONEYWELL. 9. LINES TO A CLUSTER OF AUTUMN FLOWERS. 10. UNCONSCIOUS JOKES OF CHILDREN. 11. PSEUDO-DIGNITY. 12. FRANK FORRESTER'S FISH AND FISHING.' 13. INDIAN 'COMPLIMENTS OF THE DAY.' 14. AN EXILED IRISH POET: THE LORDED EARLY,' BY MR. WILLIAM P. MULCHINOCK. 15. INTERMURAL INTERMENTS: THE WAR OF THE DEAD UPON THE LIVING. 16. NULLUM TEMPUS OCCURRIT REGINE. 17. PASSAGE FROM THE SPANISH OF CALDERON. 18. PULPIT EXERCISES' IN MODEL ELOQUENCE. 19. AN UNSUCCESSFUL APPEAL to a Dutch JUROR. 20. CURIOUS BURIAL SCENE: A DONKEY-MOURNER. 21. DEATH OF CHILDREN: A TOUCHING LAMENT. 22. AMERICAN ANCESTORS AND HERALDRY: A PALPABLE HIT. 23. EARLY LOVES: A LOCK OF HAIR: SCHOOL-DAY REMINISCENCES. 24. MORE OBJECTIONS TO THE NEW VIEWS FROM DISTANT PLANETS. 25. THE LAY OF THE DYING BARD.' 26. RAIN ON THE HILLS: AN EXCURSION WITH GEOFFREY CRAYON THROUGH SLEEPY HOLLOW. 27. POLITICS IN THE JURY-Box: A SLIGHT MISTAKE. 28. METRICAL ESSAY' OF W. P.:' WAIL AND WARNING OF THE THREE KAHLENDERS.' 29. NEW PICTURES BY MR. HENRY J. BRENT, THE LANDSCAPE-PAINTER. 30. AN IRISH MOTHER'S FAREWELL TO HER CHILD. 31. NEW MUSICAL INVENTION: THE DOLCE CAMPANA. 32. THE SENTIMENT OF AUTUMN: AN AUTUMNAL DAY AND NIGHT. 33. ONE WORD MORE TO HASTY' CONTRIBUTORS: THE AUDIENCE' OF THE KNICKERBOCKER. 34. MR. HERBERT US. MR. CHARLES LANMAN. 35. PAUL CREYTON'S EPISTLE TO THOMAS. 36. MISS CONGDON'S DANCING ACADEMY. 37. A JUVENILE GRAMMARIAN. 38. LINES BY CHARLES SWAIN, ENGLAND. 39. ST. LEGER, OR THE THREADS OF LIFE.' 40. NOVEL IDEAS OF PULPITS AND PREACHING. 41. SHELLEY'S POETICAL WORKS: A CORRECTION. 43. KENNEDY'S LIFE OF WILLIAM WIRT. 44. NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS, ETC. To Subscribers in Arrears. SUBSCRIBERS who are in arrears will please take notice that the recent change in the proprietorship of this Magazine renders it of the utmost importance that all the outstanding claims should be liqui dated as early as possible. The business of dunning is equally unpleasant to all parties, and we trust this notice will make all further and more direct application for the small amounts due from each, wholly unnecessary. Please remit by mail to S. HUESTON, 139 Nassau-st. Entered, according to the act of Congress, in the year 1849, BY SAMUEL HUESTON, In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York. THE study of Oriental History has been too generally neglected. The western nations, proud of their own advances in all the arts of civilization, look with barbarian indifference on the affairs of people whom they undervalue as barbarians. The remoteness of the scene, the dissimilarity of manners, and above all, the great impediment of language, have discouraged the mass of readers, even while they excited a strong curiosity. But those who have had the patience to surmount such obstacles, have found in the subject a novelty, a variety and an interest that richly reward them. In western history we usually lose the individual in the crowd. In oriental history, on the contrary, we contemplate, not the city or the nation, but the man. We consider, not the slow growth of a community, but the personal memoirs of a hero, upon whose character and fortune hangs the prosperity of the state. History is thus converted into a series of biographical sketches, gorgeous with the coloring of that imagination which produced the splendors of the Arabian Nights. And dull indeed is he who cannot be interested by these eventful stories; full of changes as sudden and amazing as any thing mentioned in fairy tale; full of allusions that take us back to the days when Abraham entertained the angels in his tent, and the servant of Isaac met Rebecca at the fountain; abounding in tales of wild adventure, crushing disaster, splendid triumph and bloody revenge; in numerous and illustrious examples of heroic virtue, mingled with instances of depravity which transcend our worst conceptions of the devil! Cold indeed is he who is unaffected by the vicissitudes of the hero. One day taking refuge from ruin in a deserted hut, and drawing lessons of hope and perseverance from an insect; on another, spreading terror from Pekin to Moscow, at the head of a million of horsemen. Few can read unmoved, how the tyrant sat in gloomy silence while the streets of the Great City ran with the blood of its citizens, or contemplate without a shudder the remorseless eunuch, counting the pile of eyes with his dagger; his vizier waiting in agony for the order which shall add his own to the heap. With the desire, although scarcely the hope, of reproducing in others the interest which such studies have awakened in ourselves, we will occupy a few pages with a sketch of the life of one of the most remarkable Asiatics of the last age; the restorer of Persia, the conqueror of India, the celebrated Sultan, ABOU SEIF NADIR SHAH. In the year 641, eleven years after the death of Mahommed, the ancient empire of Persia sank under the assault of that formidable race whose mingled ambition and fanaticism spread their empire from the summits of the Pyrenees to the sea of Japan. Its independence was recovered by the courage and conduct of the son of a pewterer; but at his death it was again enslaved, and divided for six centuries among a number of Tartar families, the story of whose vicissitudes has an interest which is excelled by no fiction whatever. Reunited under the sway of a Mahommedan devotee, and his descendants, the celebrated dynasty of SOPHI, its magnificent court became once more the pride, the wonder and the terror of the East. It was during the reign of the ninth monarch of this famous house, that the Affghan tribes of Candahar, under Mahmûd and Ashraff, made that terrible invasion, which is still recalled with horror at the distance of one hundred and twenty years. These warlike savages, the ancestors of those who lately destroyed a powerful English army, had been among the most insignificant of the slaves of the Great King. By their Persian masters they were regarded with bitter contempt and dislike, partly because they were coarse and even savage in their manners, but chiefly because they were non-conformists in religion. The Mahommedan, like the Christian world, is divided between two great sects. The most numerous of the two are called Soonee, or Traditionaries.' They bear to the rest the same relation which the Catholics bear to the other sects of Christendom, 'holding fast the traditions of the fathers' of the Mahommedan Church, the companions and successors of the prophet. Of this faith the Affghans were the humblest yet the staunchest adherents. The other sect are a sort of Mahommedan Protestants. They glory in the name of Sheah, or 'Schismatics.' They reject with contempt the traditions of the Soonees, and take for their rule of faith the Koran alone. They are found chiefly in Persia, where their situation at the time we speak of resembled in many respects that of the English Protestants at the same period. Their religion was the religion of the nation. Their king, like the King of England, was the defender of that faith which had raised his family to power. Their doctrines, like those of the English Church, were interwoven with the very constitution of the state. To make the resemblance still more striking, they had with Turkey and India precisely such religious and political animosities as the English had with France and Spain. Thus they looked upon the Affghans as the zealous whigs of the times of George the First looked upon the Irish Catholics. They despised them as barbarians, and hated them as non-conformist rebels, who were always ready to assist the foreign enemy in their worst designs against the national government and religion. But at the same time a long peace and a succession of unwarlike sovereigns had tamed their spirit and relaxed their discipline. Accordingly, when the revolted Affghans entered Persia, they met with such resistance only as inspired them to inflict upon their old oppressors every atrocity which native barbarity, exasperated by fanatical hatred, and long cherished vengeance, could suggest. The royal city of Ispahan was blockaded. The miserable inhabitants were reduced to the last extremities of want. A small coarse loaf was sold for thirty-six dollars, and the carcass of a mule for one thousand. The camels, the horses, the flesh of cats and dogs, unclean as they are considered; the leaves and bark of trees; all that was most loathsome, all that was most noxious, were eagerly sought for and greedily devoured. When these were exhausted, they began to eat human flesh. Crowds of lean and famished wretches were seen cutting pieces from the dead carcasses that covered the streets and gardens. Men slew their neighbors, and mothers their children for a meal. At last, when human nature could hold out no longer, the city was surrendered. The aged monarch, the last of an ancient and sacred race, the head of religion as well as of the state, took the crown from his head, and prostrated himself before barbarians detested equally as foreigners, enemies and heretics. But the Affghan prince, though triumphant, was anything but secure. Tâmâsp, the son of the captive monarch, had escaped from the horrors of the blockade, and was stirring up the tribes of the North. Mahmûd himself was at an immense distance from home. His army, at no time more than twenty thousand strong, had been speedily reduced one quarter by sending detachments to subdue the provinces : and these detachments had been met by universal insurrection, and driven back with great and unexpected slaughter. This first check threw him into the deepest despondency. His fears were visible on his gloomy countenance, and infected his troops, who began to desert. From home he found that he had nothing to expect. An officer whom he had sent to Candahar with more than a million of dollars to raise reinforcements, was attacked on the road and robbed to the last penny. Moreover, a few acts of kindness to the unfortunate Persians, probably extorted from him by the necessities of his position, had been perverted by the suspicious bigotry of the tribes into tokens of his design to abandon the Affghan customs and the Soonee religion. While thus a prey to the keenest anxiety, he was terrified by the desertion of his cousin Ashraff, whose father he had murdered, whose abilities he dreaded, and whom he would have destroyed also, but that he feared the opposition of the tribe. This had the worst effect on his savage and gloomy temper. Distracted by consternation, by suspicion, by fury, and perhaps half mad, he determined to relieve his apprehensions of a revolt by a general massacre of the inhabitants of Ispahan; and he accomplished his design with a treachery and a savage cruelty that finds few parallels even in the bloody annals of Asia. |