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of partiality or difaffection; the order of time is accurately preferved, and the defcription of remarkable places frequently inferted; the author gives his judgment, openly, on the counsels of kings and generals; he relates the circumftances of every memorable act; and thews both the caufes and confequences of every important event: with regard to the perfons, he defcribes the lives and characters not only of the fultans, but of all the eminent men who bore a confiderable fhare in the great transactions of the nation: and he dreffes the whole piece in an eafy, natural, and flowing ftyle, without affecting any merit, but that of clearnefs; except where, for the fake of variety, he drops a few flowery expreffions in the Oriental manner. To which may be added, (a qualification that Cicero feems to have omitted in the paffage juft referred to,) that he has made his work extremely agreeable, and has infused into it that exquifite charm*, fo neceffary in all finifhed compofitions, which makes the

*

Φίλτρον καὶ ἴυγγα, as the Greeks called it.

reader leave it unwillingly, and return to it with eagerness. It is almoft needless to say, after this juft encomium, that CANTEMIR'S history renders the compilations of Knolles and Rycaut entirely useless; though both of those works are well written, and the former even elegantly for the age in which the author lived yet I must do them the justice to, acknowledge, that I have borrowed feveral hints from them, though I could not make any positive affertion upon their authority, as they were both ignorant of the Turkish language; and fince a very fenfible writer * obferves even of Plutarch, that though he was fuppofed to have refided in Rome near forty years at different times, yet he seems never to have acquired a fufficient skill in the Roman language to qualify himself for the compiler of a Roman history, the fame objection may certainly be made to the two hiftorians above mentioned, one of whom spent most of his time, in a college, and the other, though he refided many years in * Middleton, in the preface to his Life of Cicero.

Turkey, was forced to converse with the Turks by the help of an interpreter.

The letters of a lady, famed for her wit and fine taste, are in every body's hands; and are highly estimable, not only for the purity of the style, and the liveliness of the sentiments, but for the curious picture they give of the Turkish manners in the prefent age, and particularly of the women of rank at Conftantinople, whofe apartments could not be acceffible to acommon traveller.

fentiments

The author of Obfervations on the Government and Manners of the Turks had, from his refidence in their metropolis, and the distinguished part that he bore in it, an opportunity of inspecting their customs, and forming a juft idea of their character. It is a fingular pleasure to me to find many of my confirmed by the authority of so judicious a writer; nor do I despair, if this effay should fall into his hands, of giving him a more favourable opinion of the Turkish language, which he supposes to be formed of the very dregs of the Perfian and Arabian tongues; and

a higher notion of the Perfian poetry, which, he observes, it is almoft impoffible, as far as he can find, for the best translator to convert even into common fenfe*,

But the latest, and, perhaps, the most curious publication on the subject of the Turks, was, A Treatise on Tactics, written in Turkish, in the year 1731, and tranflated two years ago by a foreign nobleman, who added to it a very fenfible preface, and learned notes. It was the object of this little work to recommend to the Othman court the military difcipline of the Christians, and to display the advantage of that artful difpofition of their troops, by which the timorous and suspected men are put under a neceffity of fighting, even against their will; a difpofition, which Hannibal, and other great masters in the art of war, have followed with fuccefs, and which, if we believe Homer, was even as ancient as the fiege of Troy:

The horse and chariots to the front assign'd;
The foot, the strength of war, he rang'd behind;

*Second Edit. p. 38.

The middle space, suspected troops supply,
Enclos'd by both, nor left the power to fly.

POPE'S Iliad, iv. 342.

The whole treatife is entertaining and inftructive; and though it is very imperfect, and often erroneous where the Chriftians are mentioned, yet it [fupplied me with many important lights, in my enquiry concerning the causes of the greatness and decline of the Turkish empire.

These are the principal works in the languages of Europe, that have fallen into my hands, on the same subject with the following Efay; and, though I have borrowed very freely from them all, yet by making this general acknowledgment of my obligations to them, I obviate, I think, any objection that can be made on that head, and cannot justly be reputed a plagiary, if to the paffages taken from others, I add a series of remarks peculiar to myself. I very foon defifted from my fearch after the other books on the Turkish affairs, in the French and Italian languages; for, after having run over a great number of them, I found them to contain little more than the fame facts, which are related more ele

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