when he said that "the highest merit such a work
can claim, if ever so well executed, is but slight."
They have a certain value, however, which time
will add to, more than it will subtract from. They
are written in faultless English and faultless taste;
they show what, in the lands he visited, specially
attracted his attention; and they paint many pic-
tures and disclose many social and political condi-
tions which, in progress of time, would hardly be
credited upon less unimpeachable authority. His
letters from the East are by far the most interest-
ing, for there he encountered none of the restric-
tions which impoverished his letters from Europe.
He was at liberty to speak freely of everything he
saw and of everything he felt among the Mussul-
men, and he made of it an exceedingly entertaining
book. It possesses a consecutiveness of narrative,
too, which is wanting in the previous collection,
and was written after he had become more familiar
with the world and with the manners of many
men, and when his judgment was fully ripe. But
all of them have delighted his many personal
friends and admirers, in deference to whose wishes
rather than to his own judgment he put them into
volumes. It is very possible that they will add
little, if anything, to his fame as a man of letters,
but it is certain that they lend proportion and
dignity to his character as a member of human
society.

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