The Press. — London, England, 1858-10-02 00:00:00

960„ fittraturt. The Parsecs ; their History, Manners, Customs, and Religion. By Dosabhoy Framjee. London : Smith and Elder. OF books like this we may confidently expect, before the century is out, to see a whole litera ture. England is now, to the southern and eastern parts of Asia, what Greece atter the con quests of Alexander was to the nations bordering on the Mediterranean. It was in the third cen tury before Christ that all those nations, con nected with Greece in the common relation of pupils to a master, began to write in Greek for Greeks accounts of their own traditional manners and creeds. Berosus told the story of Babylon, Menander of Tyre, Manetho of Egypt. The Jews translated into Greek their sacred writings, and Fabius Pictor endeavoured to prove to the countrymen of Miltiades that the Romans had done brave deeds as well as they. Precisely in this spirit is Mr. Framjee's book written, and it will, perhaps, not be long before Sikhs, Mahoni medans, Buddhists, and disciples of Confucius, make similar appeals to the British public. Appeals like these arc certainly acknowledg ments of our superiority in power, but perhaps the Brahmin and the Mussulman would be less willing to acknowledge our superiority in culti vation. In ancient times the Egyptian was willing to admire the prowess of the Greek, but regarded with some contempt his pretensions to knowledge. The Parsee, however, is not so dis posed to us. Mr. Framjee has abundance of national spirit. Ile cherishes an ineffable con tempt for the Mahommedaus, but towards the English lie appears to entertain no other feeling but affectionate admiration, and an eager desire to win their approbation for his countrymen. It is to be hoped that we may continue to deserve so much loyalty. If Mr. Framjee is a fair spe cimen of the intellect and the cultivation of the l'arsee community, we certainly ought to feel much flattered by their good opinion. Mr. Framjee writes very good English in very good taste, and with much spirit and vivacity. A livelier and fresher account of the manners and genius of a nation could hardly be given in the same compass. When we add that the manners and genius of the Parsecs arc highly curious and interesting, we have given to Mr. Framjee's book all the praise that such a book could deserve. Some passages in this book revive ancient times as strongly, though not in the same man ner, as Riga's war-song or Byron's "Isles of Greece." The author of it stands before us a representative of the old potentate who marched across the Hellespont and sailed through Mount Athos. He is on the beaten side in the great classical war; he thinks of Salamis as a French man thinks of Waterloo. He begins by observ ing that his countrymen are the remnant of that people " whose grandeur, magnificence, and " glory were unequalled by any nation of ancient " times ; whose kings were at once the most " powerful of monarchs, and the wisest and most " beneficent of rulers." A startling assertion to us children of the \Vest—to us educated in the opposite traditions, instructed in childhood to triumph in the defeat of those " beneficent kings," and to regard with satisfaction the fall of that mighty monarchy, as a blessing to the human race, as the removal of a large obstacle to civilization. Again, Mr. Framjee is the repre sentative of the declining and emasculated West in its struggle with the mighty youth of Mahom medanism. Accustomed to consider the Sara cenic invasion of Christendom as having had a renovating not less than a destructive influence; accustomed to ascribe to it the revival of a martial spirit in Christendom ; accustomed to admire the heroism of Calcd, the chivalry of Saladin, the architecture of the Alhambra, the learning of Averroes, we read with some astonishment the following sentences : The effect of Mahommedan rule, wherever it has been established, is too well known to need any lengthened description here. Within a hundred years of the time when the followers of the Arabian prophet first set foot on the Persian soil, the condition and circumstances of the country were entirely changed. Lands once fertile had become dreary wastes, and the fields whi•re the golden corn waved were deserted by the husbandmac and became the pastnre•ground of wild animals; the ploughshares were beaten into swords and the pruning•hooks into spears. The country once the home of peace and plenty gas every. THE PRESS, OCTOBER 2,1§b8 where thrown into confnsion, while hordes of robbers, driven into crime by the distresses of the times, traversed every part of the land, perpetrating the most cruel atrec ties. The following, however, is the most singular instance we have met with of the national preju dice which Mr. Framjee brings to the study of ancient history : History (he says) fully proves that the ancestors of the Parsers not only dined with their mothers, wives, and sisters, but took their ladies out with them to feasts. At dinner, ehid to have been given by Amyntas, King of Macedon, to the Persian ambassador, at his Court, the latter, in acknowledgmept of some toast, is said to have expre.se•l his grief that no ladies were present, as was the custom in his own country, for without their fair compa nions the happiness of the company could not be said to be complete. _ _ _ If we remember rightly the story in ITerodotus, these same Persians, when the ladies were intro duced, behaved themselves so indecently that the King's son Alexander had to assassinate them all. From whence perhaps it ought rather to be inferred that they were not accustomed to sit at table with women above the rank of dancing girls. Though Mr. Framjee's estimate of events which took place in ancient times is coloured by party spirit, he takes the greatest pains to be unpre judiced in discussing the questions of the day. According to his representation the politics of the I'arsecs are of the most advanced description. Whatever is illiberal and old-fashioned they dis card with contempt ; English principles, English manners, whatever may remind them of Europe, they receive with the utmost enthusiasm. Indeed, our only fear is lest their Anglomania should carry them too far and degenerate into affectation, so eager do they seem to abandon whatever is distinctive in their manners. For instance, we can hardly read the following obser vations with all the satisfaction with which they appear to have been penned : Such are the ceremonies attendant upon a Parsee mar riage at the present dnv, but it may be as well to notice that increased intercourse with Europeans has considerably modified the nature cf the festival from what it once was. It has lost in a great measure those purely Eastern fea tures which formerly characterized ; and although it may, consequently, be less showy and splendid, it is more in consonance with that enlightenment which the Parsees have displayed under Western influence. The long pro cessions, made noisy by horrible earsplitting native music, the fancifully caparisoned steeds, the boys bubited as European officers, and the little girls as English ladies, together with the silver-plated palankeens, and all the semi-barbarous ornaments, have latterly almost entirely disappeared before the effects of increased civilization, which, chile giving a more sombre tone to the marriage ceremonials, has imbued them with an infinitely more rational air. While we ourselves at home are trying hard " apprendre d'kre yifs," we can hardly see with satisfaction our well-affected dependants seeking to win our approbation by the abandonment of all the gay and sprightly ceremonial with which their fathers taught them to embellish life. Irrational it may be; why not, so long as it does not pretend to he rational ? It may not be in good taste ; to an artistic eye it may be the reverse of beautiful. This is a good reason for improving it, but a poor reason for abandoning it. But we have not space here to go through the whole justification of joy and of the untaught instinctive symbols of joy—symbols, the worth of which lies not so much in their intrinsic beauty as in their spontaneousness and appropriateness, but which do not fail, like other productions of nature, to assume a beauty of their own to the eye that can discern it. We hope this is at last understood in England, in theory at least, however much our practice may lag behind it; and we hope that those nations whose practice has hitherto been beyond ours in this respect will not suffer them selves to be corrupted by our bad example. It is upon their commercial genius that the Parsecs pride themselves ; they leave war to the brainless Mahommedan. Their merchants are found in every city of India; they followed the British army to Cabul. They have mercantile houses in t'hina ; about three years ago Coma and Co. opened one in London. They boast of their commercial morality; written agreements are unknown among them. They own the finest houses in Bombay ; they have been prime movers in the establishment of banks. They are ship owners; they are highly successful railway con tractors. They form twenty per cent. of the population of llombay ; there are in that town upwards of 60,000 Parsee merchants, bankers, and brokers. The pride of the sect: l :is Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy. Mr. Framjee has devoted nearly a whole chapter to the recital of his good works. He has released debtors, he has built causeways, he has founded sch oo l s an d colleges, he has erected hospitals, dharumsallas for the con venience of travellers, and works for the supply of water. Altogether he has expend e d i n publ i c works a quarter of a million sterling. Education enjoys his peculiar patronage. For the children of poor Parsees he has founded a school at an expense of nearly . 50,000/. His example, and that of other conspicuous Parsees, appears to have turned the enthusiastic feelings of the whole sect into this channel. Education, especially female education, appears to be their hobby. They have set on foot a Translation Fund, the object of which is to pay for the translation into their language and cheap publication of standard European and Asiatic works. Liberality, in fact, and a ready reception of the ideas of other nations, appears to be the characteristic of the community, as in the Middle Age this was the characteristic of the Normans. Every Parsee is a citizen of the world. This appears most clearly in their religious opinions. They have no patience with superstition, though their women are not yet quite cured of it. After the birth of a shad, says Mr. Framjee, the astrologer is consulted as to the inßuence the chill will exert upon the f 'mimes of the father, the mottle., brother, an 1 fatuity generally. The pretender gravely delivers Ii i iii self in some such strain as this:—" The child really is a fortunate one. To its father it has brought increased respectability and wealth; the mother will be very fortunate. By the birth of this babe there will be increased affection between the husband anti wife. With its brothers and sisters it will be on good terms when of age." The men generally laugh at the absurdity of this stuff, but the condition of the Parsee females is not yet sulficientty ad vanced to make them conscious of its folly. The spread of education now happily commenced will soon purge away such superstitious trash from among them. The state of the Parsee Church reminds us of the state of our own. About thirty years ago it split into two sects upon the question of the date of one of their festivals. " Newspapers " were started," we are told, "as the organs of " the respective parties, and a good deal of violent " writing was indulged in, but no satisfactory "result ensued froth the controversy." This purely ritual and ecclesiastical controversy merely served, like one which has taken place nearer home, to alienate the laity from both parties. Priests, in short, maintained the cause of religion so strenuously that they quite forgot the cause of God. The laymen, while the priests were quarrelling, appear to have formed their own notions of religion without priestly assistance; and Mr. Framjee speaks of the Parsee clergy with some contempt :—" They are ignorant and " unlearned ; they do not and cannot command " the respect of the laity, who are more en lightened and educated than they." The account here given of the religion of Zoroaster, which is that of Mr. Framjee and of the Parsees, must, we think, be taken with a grain of salt. The author is evidently not profound in this sort of lore, quoting, in support of his assertions, the opinions of writers, some contemporary: some belonging to the last century and to the infancy of Orientalism, without any criticism or discrimi nation. The exposition he gives must be taken, not as an exposition of the religion of Zerdusht, but of the philosophical creed which his disciples in the nineteenth century, determined to be liberal and at all hazards to eschew old-fashioned superstitions, have constructed out of it. Ahri man, we are told, is an allegory, representing the temptations which divert men from virtue. The glorious garden which the prophet beheld, where the soil is composed of diamonds and rubies ; where all things shine with a splendour more than that of the sun at noonday, and emit a radiance like the radiance of lightning ; where shrubs of every leaf and odour bloom, and brooks of crystal wander ; where the air is melodious with the trill of the nightingale, and balmy . with the fragrance of jasmine and rose,—this Oriental heaven is also an allegory, we are told, repre senting the prosperity of the virtuous. It may be well enough to translate the old oracle's utterances in this way, but it is not so clear that they were meant to be so translated. When, however, Mr. Framjee protests against the c harge of idolatry which is brought against the Parsees as worshippers of fire, we imagine he is right. Fire, he says, is not supposed to be God, but to be a symbol of God. That it is a n apt symbol Christians must allow. Wc ourselves, following I i