From the New Monthly Magazine.

Egypt under Mehemet Ali. By Prince Puckler Muskau. 2 vols.

In spite of his princely, as well as his personal peculiarities, or, it may be, in consequence of them, there is no denying that Prince Puckler Muskau is a pleasant writer in his way, ” pleasant but wrong” , the “wrong,” however, being decidedly the pleasanter, as well as the more instructive portion of his qualities as a writing traveller. The Prince evidently travels not merely for himself, but for other people, not merely to see and hear, but to tell the world what he sees and hears. He obtains, by the prestige of his name and rank, personal communications with all the celebrities of the countries he visits, communications which the ordinary customs and courtesies of life, mark “private and confidential ;” by the bonhommie of his manner and bearing, he invites that full freedom of intercourse which nothing else can engender between comparative strangers, but which that never fails to induce in those minds which are worth the trouble of looking into; he treasures up the results for after use and study ; and in due time puts them into a book for the benefit and amusement of mankind in general.

And who shall quarrel with this system of composition ? Certainly not we who profit by it. And, if the truth were known, quite as little will those who are benevolently said by the rest of the world to be aggrieved by it. People now-a-days do not tell the secrets of their souls over their claret-jug, as they did over the port-wine decanter, “when George III. was king;” and there is no little of cant in the outcry that has been raised about certain travellers, our jovial prince among the number, violating the sacred relationship of social intercourse. In any case, what the reader has to inquire on such occasions is, are the disclosures worth the paper and print which is employed in their record ? And if the answer be in the affirmative, as in most instances it undoubtedly will be in the case of Prince Puckler, and especially so in the work before us, let those look to it who cannot keep their own counsel; let them remember that when they lionize this prince of literary gossips, if they will be so inconsiderate as to say or do any thing worth remembering, he is the man to remember it, for others’ benefit as well as his own.

It must not, however, be supposed, from what has now been said, that there is much of mere gossip in this new work of Prince Puckler. It is in fact the most grave, steady, and well-considered of all his productions, that in which he has taken the longest time, and the most pains to weigh and ponder the political, social, and personal opinions, which the course of his wanderings calls on him to put forth, and consequently that which will best stand the test of time and of critical examination.

The title of the book, “Egypt under Mehemet Ali”, will speak its general scope and object, that of giving a comprehensive picture of the pasha’s dominions, as they and their inhabitants have been moulded and modified by the efforts of his genius, and the results of his rule. But there is an individual feature of the work which we must regard not only as fraught with more of immediate interest, but with more of permanent value and importance than the result just named; we mean that personal portrait of Mehemet Ali himself, which has the air of being more true and trustworthy as a likeness than any other that has yet been given to the world. For the deeds of this extraordinary man, and their visible and tangible consequences on those immediately affected by them, and on the rest of the world, speak for themselves, and will continue to do so for ages to come. Whereas the personal character of the agent by whom these have been brought about will presently pass away from the scene, and none will be left to estimate or record it but those who can have no object in doing so, but personal ones, and no interests but those which are less likely to elicit the truth than to distort their views of it.

It appears that Prince Puckler’s work was written four years ago, when the pasha stood on a higher pinnacle of power and glory than he does at present, though one by no means so safe, or so likely to be permanently secured to his descendants. On the other hand, his position at that time was one much more calculated to draw out and illustrate the peculiar features of his personal character, and therefore to afford a better means for that historical portraiture of it which we hold to be far more worthy of present record, because more likely to escape such record from the fugitive nature of the materials, than any general or particular estimate of those results which have sprung from it.

It follows from what we have just said, that we hold in especial favor those chapters of the present work which relate personally to Mehemet Ali, and chiefly that which records the incidents and conversations occurring in a journey made together by the pasha and the prince into Upper Egypt, and during which they held together the most perfectly confidential conversations, all of which are recorded with the minuteness, and, to all appearance, the fidelity of an English Parliamentary reporter. There is no part of these conversations that might not be cited as a favorable specimen of the prince’s skill and tact in this popular and interesting class of composition; and the sterling historical value of the record as a whole can scarcely be overrated, always supposing, as we do, that faith may be placed in the fidelity of the report. Here is a specimen of the more personal portion of it.

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The following, relating to the son and successor of Mehemet Ali, is of scarcely less interest than the foregoing.

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This work may be regarded as the most complete hand-book that has yet been presented to the world by any European traveller, of all that demands notice and examination in the country to which it relates. It is unusually well translated from the German by Mr. H. Evans Lloyd.

From: The eclectic magazine of foreign literature, science, and art. May 1845.