the capitation tax, was suppressed by the promise of the king to redress their grievances.  The subject of English taxation, indeed, both from the amount levied, and the acquiescence of the people in such unheard-of burdens, seems to have utterly bewildered the khan’s comprehension.[4] “All classes, from the noble to the peasant, are alike oppressed; yet it is amusing to hear them expatiate on the institutions of their country, fancying it the freest and themselves the least oppressed of any people on earth!  They are constantly talking of the tyranny and despotism of Oriental governments, without having set foot in any of those regions, or knowing any thing about the matter, except what they have gleaned from the imperfect accounts of superficial travellers—­deploring the state of Turkey, Persia, and other Mahommedan countries, and calling their inhabitants slaves, when, if the truth were known, there is not a single kingdom of Islam, the people of which would submit to what the English suffer, or pay one-tenth of the taxes exacted from them.”

[4] The views of Mirza Abu-Talib on this important subject, are far more enlightened and correct than those of Kerim Khan.  “The public revenue of England,” he observes, “is not, as in India, raised merely from the land, or by duties levied on a few kinds of merchandise, but almost every article of consumption pays its portion.  The taxes are levied by the authority and decree of parliament; and are in general so framed as to bear lightly on the poor, and that every person should pay in proportion to his income.  Thus bread, meat, and coals, being articles of indispensable use, are exempt; but spirits, wines, &c., are taxed very high; and the rich are obliged to pay for every horse, dog, and man-servant they keep; also for the privilege of throwing flour on their heads, and having their arms (insignia of the antiquity and rank of their family) painted on their carriages, &c.  Since the commencement of the present war, a new law has been passed, compelling every person to pay annually a tenth of his whole income.  Most of the taxes are permanent, but some of them are changed at the pleasure of parliament.  Abu-Talib visited the country in the first years of the present century, when the capability of taxation was strained to the utmost, but the words which we have given in italics, contain the secret which Kerim failed to detect.”

Relieved, it is to be hoped, by this tirade against the ignominious submission of the Franks to taxation, the Khan resumes the enumeration of the endless catalogue of wonders which the sights of London presented to him.  On visiting the Polytechnic Institution—­“which means, I understand, a place in which specimens of every science and art are to be seen in some mode or other, there being no science or art of any other country unknown here”—­he briefly enumerates the oxyhydrogen microscope, “by which water was shown so full of little animals, nay, even