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

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.