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·SAUNDERS' MONTHLY MAGAZIN E. No. IX.] JULY, 18 5 3. (Vol. II. CONTENTS. TALES OF INDIAN ROMANCE. BY ALIF, PAGE 725 ..................... Love WORLDLY. BY K., 718 ...... 750 INDIA AND HER PRESENT RULERS. BY L. T., THE Box OF LETTERS. BY PAULO-INDUS, HISTORY OF TIIL LEAGUE. By J. II., ........ 709 775 ..... 792 ...... 800 ........ LETTERS ON INDIA. -No. I., A SONNET, THE NUDDEA RIVERS, SENT OUT TO INDIA-A TALE. BY THE AUTHOR OF UNCLE Ben's CourtsIPS," 801 ...... MY 805 ......4 ......

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·NPC IJBRARY 1859 SAUNDERS' MONTHLY MAGAZINE. No. IX.] JULY, 18 5 3. (VOL. II. w TALES OF INDIAN ROMANCE-BY ALIF. Nur Jehan. CIIAPTER III. 66 WHEN Mirza Ghaias dismount- done, he desired Muhammed ed from his horse at his own Husain to be summoned. The door, he found it, as usual, beset Police officer presented himself with a crowd of applicants for jus- in obedience to the command. tice. His heart however was ill “Well, Muhammed," said Mirat tase. He was wearied with the za Ghaias, addressing the officer, long durbar and the subsequent "didst thou discover any thing last interview with the Emperor, and night ?" most disinclined to enter upon business at that hour of the day. the other. " I was well concealed, Nothing, my lord," replied He therefore dismissed the attenand am confident the Fakir had dants in his court, and desired inno suspicion of his actions being formation to be given outsiile that watched." it would be open for the administration of justice at the usual hour " Didst thou remain there all the next day. This done, he renight ?" paired to his private office, and “All night, my lord.” summoned his Secretary to read “And nothing whatever occurthe reports of the day. red ?" He seemed to take no parti Nothing worthy of note, my cular interest in the matters that lord: onca a traveller stopped to were read to him one after the get a littie water ; the Fakir gave other, but issued the necessary it him, and he went on." orders in each case as briefly as “ How did the Fakir pass the possible. As soon as this was + night ?" VOL. 11.-NO. IX. B ·726 Tales of Indian Romance. we 63 “ It is strange, ) a “He remained inside his hut, ing. Can I not cheer your my lord, the whole night, except spirits as I was wont to do in once, when he came out to give byegone days. We have gone the traveller water." through many vicissitudes of life “ Didst thou see him eat or together, and our hair has grown drink?" gray under thein, but now “No, my lord." have náught to sorrow for." "Was there a light in the but Yes, my love; indeed you at any time during the night, or could cheer mc did I need cheera fire ?" ing. I am always delighted to “No, neither." get away from my office, and for- ," muttered Mirza get the cares of state while I lis- Ghaias to himself, "strange indecd. ten to your voice ; but to-night I must try again." Then he conti I have work on hand, and must nued speaking aloud to the offi not he idle. I have ordered my cer before him. “Listen, Muham horse, and came here to sup with med. To-night I will watch my you before I go out." self; let the same number of men “What, must you go out again, be ready as thou hadst last night, my lord-an adventure ?" and take them with thee to the “Yes, perhaps an adventure. spot I pointed out. Yet go not No, there is no need of making from hence till the night has well mysteries with you, the partner of set in, and when ye go, go quiall my sorrows and my joys. You etly. I shall go alone. Take 110 know I have long been anxious thought of me, unless ye hear my to find out clue to this voice or the sound of my horn Land of robbers that 1 anı satisblowing-now go." fied exists in and about Delhi, and After the officer was gone, Mir further, too, and I have an un. za Ghaias remained writing in his accountable feeling in my mind, office till it was nearly dark, a persuasion I may say, that that when he suddenly aross and bent old Fakir, who is so famous for his steps towards the ladies' apart- his sanctity and wisdomn, is not ments. what he scems. I am sure there “Ila, all alone, my love," he is sonic mystory about him : insaid, addressing an elderly lady, deed cvery one ackn)wledges who was reclining listlessly upon that, and I am determined, if I her cushion; " is Nur Jehan still can, to unravel it. I do not know at the palace there?" that he is anything else than a “Yes, my lord, the maiden has recluse, but I suspect, I fancy, not returned yet." I almost think he is" It is late; it is time she were "But why, my lord, should you home is it not ?" take such a task in your own "Oh, I feel no anxiety about hands : are not your officers exher-sometimes indeed she re pert and numerous too ?" mains all night there--when the “Yes, yes; but they do not ladies have a dance of a grand satisfy me. Yet do not question show, it is so late before it is over me further, my love. Do you rethat it is better for her to remain collect that day, that eventful there than come home--but, my day, when Nur Jehan was born, lord, you look troubled this even when I said I must take the ·Tales of Indian Romance. 727 child and place it where I did. I in what quarter of the heavens it could not tell you why I did so. was raging was not so certain. I felt I must do it: an unseen Mirza Ghaias, as soon as he power bade me do it. I obeyed cleared the streets of Delhi, and the impulse, and what was the heard the city gate shut behind consequence, we are living in a hin), set spurs to his horse and palace instead of a beggar's hovel, went off at a sharp gallop. He and our lovely daughter is the knew, every inch of the road, and companion of princesses, instead the unusual darkness of the night of being .... ...... bah! I know not seemed to cause him little anxiewhat. It is the same thing now. ty. lle now and then cast his I must go and watch this old eyes up to the sky as the gusts Fakir to-night. Come let us sup." of wind passed by him, to see “Shall you go alone, my lord ?" if the storm were really begun, asked the lady anxiously, as they but he drew not his rein, nor began the evening meal. slackened his horse's speed, till Yes, but I shall have a guard he was four miles from Delhi. within call. I have well marked He had taken the same road the place. I rode by there as if which the Prince Sclim had puraccidentally yesterday, and stop sucd the day before, and halled ped at the place to get some water, almost at the same spot where and took the opportunity to look thc Prince had alighted to put on about me well. There is a trec his disguise. llere he found one close by, which I intend to climb of his attendants waiting. He up, and so conceal myself." disinounted in silence, gave the Their conversation was horse to the servant who, without tinued short time longer, speaking a wurd, led it back in when Mirza Ghaias arose, and the direction of the city, and taking leave of his wife for the Mirza Ghias pursued his way night, descended to his own apart- alone, and on foot. He soon ments, where he prepared for however turned out of the high the expedition by changing his road, and bent his steps towards clothes and arming himself. This the open country on the left hand, done, be hurried to the door, and After advancing cautiously for was soon riding at full speed about half a mile, he came to a through the now deserted streets. corn-field surrounded by a low The night was one well calculate hedge. This he skirted, keeping ed to favor his enterprize, for it on his left hand. About a hunit was pitch dark. There was an dred yards further on he came upappearance too of an approach on Muhammed Husain, who lay ing storm, for the air was still, with a few men concealed in the except at times, when sudden corner of the field. Mirza Ghai. gusts of wind swept through the as whispered a few words in the air, carrying with it a light cloud ear of his lieutenant and then of sand : the reflected, or as it passed on. passed on. He continued to adis called in England, summer vance in this stealthy manner till lightning too was plainly visible he had fairly passed the grove of at intervals, but no thundar was trees under which the Fakir Pir yet audible ; there was a storm Ibrahim dwelt, to his right hand; somewhere, it was evident, but he then turned and directed him cona ·728 Tales of Indian Romance. concourse 80 as to enter the grove himself to the lowest of the large on the side furthest from the city. branches, and taking up his posi- Here his movements were tion there in silence, but he had ducted with the utmost caution. not settled himself many minutes Hc trod slowly and carefully, and before a noise was heard in the waited a second after each step direction of the shrine, and the to listen whether his approach figure of the Fakir appeared imhad been discovered by any onc, inediately afterwards at the door. cr whether his footstep on the Mirza Ghaias strained his eyes turf lad awakened any sound by to watch as narrowly as the darkcrushing the fow dried leaves and ness of the night would allow him, twiys that liad fallen on the grass. the movenients of the suspected All was as silent as the grave. inan, but what was his surprize A light however was burning when he saw him come straight at the shrinc, and another in towards the tree where he had the Fakir's hut, and the flicker concealed himself, and looking up ing and faint glare from the oil said, - lamps that fell upon the ground “ Noble Mirza Ghaias, wilt and lighted up the spot for a thou not descend and partake of short distance round, made the some refreshment after thy jourdarkness beyond sccip more in ney. I expected thy arrival, and tense. He passed the shrine at have done what my small means the distance ofa few yards from allowed, to give thee hearty wel. the outer wall, and paused to look come." in through the open door. The Mirza Ghaias had no chicken gaunt figure of the Fakir was heart ; he liad confronted danger plainly observable in the light of and death too often to know what the little lamp. He was knceliny, fear was; but the shock of surprize and seemed engaged in prayer. at finding his movements, though Mirza Ghaias passed cautiously they had been guarded with the on, and paused again at the door utinost secrecy and cautioil, thus of the little hut, It was enipty, known and calculated on by the but on the ground before the en mysterious character the trance a small carpet was spread, ground before him, was so great, and close by it a tray had been that he felt his heart beat audibly, placed, in which some fruits and and indeed was ncar losing his sweetineats and an earthen cup hold and falling precipitately to the were standing. Mirza Ghaias ground. His mind, however, was macle a hasty survey of the small well accustomed to act speedily apartment, and then turned to put and calınly in the midst of danger, bis first project into execution, of and lle first shock of surprize was climbing a tree and watching the no sooner over, than the feeling Fakir's niovements from thence, of astonishment was dispelled by The tree he had marked out was the suspicion of treachery, His ong which grew immediately be- plans had been revealed by his hind thu hut, and whose knotted own subordinales-what further stump and wide o«cr-spreading mystery, or what cause of surprise branches afforded every facility was there. The next feeling that for the objcct the Mirza had in touk possession of his mind was view: He succeeded in raising annoyance at having his plans an ·Tales of Indian Romance. 729 come,g 93 thwarted, mingled with considera midst of revel and debauchery? able vexation at being placed in Didst thou see me counting out such an undignified and ridicu. heaps of gold or surveying with tho lous position by the untimely dis cye of avarice hidden treasures? covery of the Fakir. There was Or didst thou find me engaged in no help for it however. It was devotion and in commune with the useless making any further at beings of another world ? Yet tempt at concealment, and out of it is none of my faith to the question endeavouring to pro repay evil with evil, suspicion secute further his original inten with suspicion. Thou art doubttion. So the Mirza did as many less wearied with thy journcy, a man had done before him, and fruitless as it has becn, and I have inany a one has done since, and had a repast prepared for theeyielding to the force of circum wilt thou partake of it?" stances, descended from the tree "Keep thy aceursed rictuals with the best grace he could. to thyself. I want them not." “ A thousand gold pieces for “ Thou speakest hastily; but thec, old man, if thou wilt tell ne didst thou know, proud man, what who has played the traitor ; who I could tell thee of thy fate and old thee of my coming, for it is fortune, thou wouldst kiss the useless making a mystery of the dust in gratitude." matter ? I am Mirza Ghaias." " I have offered thec a thou- " Offer not thy perishing and sand pieces of gold for thy secret, worthless gold, proud son of Adam, and thou wilt not sell it." to one whose heart is set on hea “I sell nothing for such worth- No mortal man betrayed less lucre-nor could I if I would, thee." for no mortal man forewarned me “ Pshaw! a truce to thy ser. of thy approach ; it was revealed mons !" replied Mirza Ghaias to me from heaven." warınly. "I have been betrayed, The mind of Mirza Ghaias was and I will have the life of him a strange compound of superstithat did it. tion and common sense. He had Speak not thus impiously, far inore of the latter than most vain man, in the presence of men of his age and station. Nature Alla, and 80 near the resting had blessed him with an unusual place of his favoured saint-may amount of sagacity and prudence, he rest in peace---and spill not which had been fostered and im. human blood thus mercilessly. proved by a life spent amid the vi. Mark, how the thunderbolt of Al. cissitudes of fortune, intrigue, and la's vengeance speeds througlı the danger; he had a thorough knowmurky air ; and beware, impious ledge, of human nature, and was man, lest he bid the avenging rarely wrong in his opinion and Angel strike thy rebellious head, estimation of men's characters. Thou hast wronged me, proud Yet with all this he was superstiminister of a nighty Emperor- tious to an extraordinary degree; thou hast wronged me in thy a firm believer, as most if not all mind, by entertaining thy fvul men at that time were, in the influ. suspicions of my character. How ence of the heavenly bodies upon didst thou find me employed ? the affairs of this lower world, he Didst thou come upon me in the bad studied the science of Astroloven.

·730 Tales of Indian Romance. za. gy with the greatest perseverance thee to partake of my simple fare, ever since he had arrived at years but I have a mission to thee, Mirof maturity. He had none of I have a secret to tell thee; the scepticism that characterized it concerns thy daughter." the Emperor his master, and “ Ha!" said Mirza Ghaias hurthough a far more bigoted Mus- riedly, " beware how thou speaksulnian, was perhaps a less ho est ofo her; what wouldst thou Dest man than Akber, and to his say of Nur Jehan ?" bigotry and religious enthusiasm “ I could say that that would was added a firm belief in the make thy ears tingle, but thou science of alchemy, sorcery, and believest me not. I must give magic, and a complete subservi thee proof, and Alla pardon me ence to all the current supersti if I do wrong. What thought tions of his day. Yet inclined as crossed thy mind this night when he would naturally have been to thou didst enter thy wife's apartlook upon Pir Ibrahim's chament, and thy daughter had not racter with awe and reverence, returned from the palace ?" he could never divest his mind of Mirza Ghaias was silent; had the idea that he was not only an there been light there, the Fakir impostor, but something worse ; would have seen how the colour he had a presentiment that there rose to his face, and his lips quiwas some concealment and dis. vered with ill-concealed emotion. guise about the man, a presenti. “Have I seen thy daughter, the ment that had been considerably famous beauty, Nur Jehan ? Who strengthened by one or two sus gave her that ring that sparkles on picious facts that had been brought her finger? Is the light of those to light during the investigations two diamonds as bright as the he had recently been making up glance of her eye? Or are those the secret system of crime that two rubies as red as her rosy lips ? he was conscious existed in the How came the second ruby to be country, and which probably, cracked ?" (though he himself was unaware Mirza Ghaias recollected the of it,) had been given birth to by cracked ruby well. The ring the peculiar talent he possessed had accidentally fallen from his of forming a judgment of men's daughter's hand when she was at characters from the expression of the palace, into the court-yard their features, of connecting in below the ladies' apartments. his active mind ideas and associ. Prince Selim had picked it up ; ations however distant, with sus. the ruby was cracked, but she had picions or facts of a suspicious na- refused to have it replaced by ture. another. “ Was the colour of the horse I 6 Doubtless thou knowest serode on revealed to thee ?" asked crets, old man, and much I marvel Mirza, willing to test the other's that thy knowledge is so great; if claim to revelation. thou hast aught to tell me that “It was not revealed to me, but concerns my fate, speak out; thou I know it. Why should I seek shalt be rewarded," said the Mirto shew the favours of heaven to za, new convinced that whatever mortal men. I ask thee not to Pir Ibrahim might be, he knew a put faith in me or mine. I asked great deal more than he had given ·Tales of Indian Romance. 731 man ?" him credit for. Still the idea that Still the idea that ing from it immediately after he was any thing but a saint only wards with a Koran in his hands. became impressed more strongly Mirza Ghaias took the book from than ever on his mind. him and repeated the oath require “ Time speeds," replied the Fa ed, as the other dictated. kir, speaking after a short pause. The Fakir then took the book “ Wilt thou swear to me on the from his hands and swore that he holy book that thou wilt cease would, never use what he was to persecute me? That thou about to reveal to the injury of wilt not molest me, until it is the minister. proved to thee by plain evidence "Now speak," said Mirza that I have been guilty of trans Ghaias, unable to repress his cugressing either the laws of God or riosity, yet anxious to make it appear that he was indifferent to Why should I swear? Do the Fakir's promises or threats. we punish the innocent ?" " It is this, Mirza,” replied the "By the Prophet, thou canst Fakir, speaking slowly. “ The molest the innocent, though it is arrow of love has pierced the heart not called punishment. Take that of the future Emperor of the oath ; on no other condition will Moguls, and he sighs to be the I reveal to thee what I know." slave of Nur Jehan." “ I will swear to that," replied Mirza Ghaias pressed his hand Mirza Ghaias. “I injure not the against his heart as if to stay its innocent." violent palpitation ; for an instant “ But thou canst suspect-I he lost the power of speech as the shall be watched by thee or thy golden visions of ambition crowdmyrmidons night and day; my ed on his mental sight. At length devotions will be interrupted ; my he asked the Fakir to reveal the meditations disturbed; and, hark! whence be derived his proud Mirza, my secret is such, knowledge. that I could at any moment de- 66 The Prince came to me in stroy thec by it. Yes, destroy disguise and disclosed it all. Нө thee-thy life, at any rate thy asked advice, and purchased a fortunes are in my hands. if charm from me. He does not thou wilt swear never to molest love, he worships, he adores, his me, never to injure me, never to passion can brook no obstacle. watch me, unless I am proved to Now farewell ! and recollect thine thee a criminal, I will swear ne oath." With these words the ver to use my secret to thy inju- Fakir turned and entered his hut. ry, but will give it thee to make Mirza Ghaias soon joined his thy fortune by: and thou shalt men, but he uttered not a word to see men bow down to thee thy any of them. He heeded not the slaves, thy friends shall triumph, torrents of rain that had begun to and thy enemies tremble : wilt fall, nor the deafening peals of thou swear ?" thunder that rolled in quick suc- “Ay, I will swear, and as long cession from the dense mass of as thou keepest thine oath, I will clouds that filled the air, nor noticed the forked lightning that " It is well," replied the Fakir, darted like a stream of liquid fire retiring into his hut, and emerg from the heaven to the earth h; source 99 keep mine."

·732 Tales of Indian Romance. he paid no attention to his lieutenant's advice to get under shelter till the fury of the storm was abated, but walked on through the pattering rain, and over the miry ground, till he rcached the place where his aitendant stood with his horse, some hundred yards from the spot where he had dismounted. He took the reins from his servant in silence, sprang into the saddle, and set off, as fast as his drenched and terrified steed tould carry him, to Debli. CIIAPTER IV. The dwelling or palace of Mir may have been greater beauties za Ghaias was surrounded by a to be found among the ladics spacious garden, a great part that attended on the Empress of which was allotted to the la Sultana, but there were none dies of the family, and preserved who could compete with Nur from intrusion or even the glance Jchan in elegance, and the winof a stranger's eye, by a high ning grace of her countless brick wall that ran round the charms. whole enclosure. The greatest In the centre of the garden alcare was taken to render this se. lotted to the use of the ladies in cluded spot worthy of its fair vi. Mirza Ghaias's household stood a sitors, and Mirza Ghaias spared marble reservoir, filled with the peither trouble or expense in clearest water : a number of arproviding for the happiness, and tificial fountains, so common in gratifying even the slightest wish Eastern gardens, threw up conof his wife and favourite daugh stant streams of water, that fell ter. The character of the latter again in ten thousand times ten had nothing in common with that thousand little sparkling drops of her companions and associates, into the reservoir, with a sound and the seclusion which the im as melodious to the ear as the perative law of custom imposed strains of music. The gold and upon Indian ladies was in the last silver fish darted to and fro the degree in ksome and distasteful to livelong day in the crystal-like a mind like Nur Jehan's, which transparent stream ; their scales seems to have been filled almost and fins glistening in the sunny from her earliest infancy, with light, and seeming, with their eleambition, hopes, and a certain de gant forms and graceful movegree of romantic love of excite ments, like the children of the ment and adventure. Indeed the fountains. A narrow pathway, great charms of her beauty cen paved with marble, led from sisted in the expression rather the edge to the centre of the than the form of her features ; reservoir, where instead of the half shut eye and house had been built also of marlanguishing look so much admired ble, and it was here, under its cool in the East, her eyes sparkled recess, that the ladies used to with intelligence, and the activity pass most of their time in the of her mental powers was long hot summer days, reclining plainly reflected in the constantly on soft carpets, surrounded by the changing expression of her face, as fountains that played incessantly, her features in a mirror. There and amused the ear, or lulled the a summeras ·Tales of Indian Romance. 738 senses with their never-ceasing but growing gradually stronger splash, while they cooled the and more bright, as it precedes the sultry air. The noisy hum froin rising moon. Nur Jehan watchthe crowded streets of the city es the approach of the queen has at length subsided; the trades of night with the greatest appamen's shops are closed for the night, rent interest, but her eyes no and except in one or two louscs, longer wander through the fawhere a stream of light makes thomlass expanse of heaven, but its way through the chinks in the turn earthwards, and seem as if doors, showing that the inmates they would pierce through the are still up, poring over their furthest recesses of the garden, account books, or playing at the wrapt though they be in gloom. forbidden game of dice, all is But ncither her searching eye gloom and darkness. Silence too nor her attentive ear can perceive reigns throughout the dwelling of the approach of a stranger into Mirza Ghaias ; the master of the that secluded spot : a door in the house is absent, but that is known wall at the furthest corner of the only to his wife. Nur Jchan has garden gently opens, and the been all day at the Emperor's figure of a man appears ; he closes palace, and only returned when the door behind him again, as the shades of evening were gi cautiously as he opened it, and thering over the sky, disappcars among the trees. And She alone of the whole house. still Nur Jehan sits, patiently hold sleeps not. She has long part watching the rising moon. ed from her mother for the night, Agaill, after the interval of and disinissed her own attendants about half an hour, the door reto their slumbers, and now she opens. Again it is opened froin sits, or rather rcclines by the open the outside, and again a human window, (for it is safe to open the figure appears on the threshhold. window at night, when the rude The sanie caution is observed in gaze of the stranger cannot perl shutting it, but this stranger does trate the sanctum, ah, safe indecu!) not disappcar nor hide himself inhaling the coul fresh air that among the shrubs as the last did. wafted over the orange groves be Nur Jehan's patience is getneath her lattice comes laden with ting nearly exhausted. She is the sweetest odours. And what tired of looking into the garden dreams of happiness or visions of and gazing at the moon, and ambition float through her mind, movus restlessly in her seat. But as she siis with her beautiful ga what is that upon the path bezelle-like eyes fixed on the starry neath her window? It is a shaheavens. dow,the shadow of a man cas! All around is silent as the tomb there by the light of the halfitself, and the stillness of the risen mooil. Nur Jehan darts night is only broken in upon by one look of love, which would the uninterrupting splash of the have been dangerous indeed had fountains, whose waters sparkle in not the night robbed il of its the starry light as they rise and power, and rising hastily, throws fall with ceaseless energy. At a cloak over her shoulders, and length a glow of light shone it cautiously, though speedily, deself on the horizon, faint al first, scends the stair case that leads VOL. II.-NO. IX.

·734 Tales of Indian Romance. from her apartments to the gar and planned till my brain is den. The figure on the pathway, nigh bewildered with the schemes as soon as she appears at the door, I make. But I must tell thee moves silently along the marble all, my Nur Jehan. Tell me, path towards the summer-housc. love, hast thou heard aught of late She llows it, and then, in the about the nobleman is desmidst of that lovely scene lit up tined to be thy lord ?" by the moon's soft ray, under the "No, I have heard nothing. marble dome, where the foun- Our only hope is that the marritains play incrrily, and their waage inay be delayed some years, ters dance and sparkle like liuntil the crown of the empirc is quid silver in the moonbeain's seated on thy brow, my Sclim, light, Prince Selim and the loveand then threats and promises ly Nur Jehan renew their oftwill easily make him annul that plighted vows. accurscd betrothal." These interviews, sweet though they are, are yet danger- Ah, it is but a deceitful hope, ous, my beloved one," said Sclim my fair one ; our only chance is after their feelings of love at first in fiight, instant fight." meeting had somewhat exhausted “ Hast thou then lost all conthemselves in words and tokens fidence in that charm ?" of affection. " It is delightful " Alas ! the charm is gone. I thus to meet thee and press thec put it, as the holy man bade me, to my heart amid this enchanting under my father's pillow, and this scene, but it is misery--inisery morning it was gone." to think how soon we must par " Gone ?” again, and how soon we may be “Yos, gone, I know not how or parted, and for ever." “ Nay, my beloved prince, at work, and the spell is not strong whither, but some cvil genius is sweet Selim, say not for ever ; fate cnough to overcome its power. I may yet have happiness in store went the second time to visit the for us. Oh that those enchantholy man, and he was gone too ; ing drcams that visit inc at fatc is against us, dcarest one, we night, and gladden my sickened heart with their bright, bright vi- must fly or be separated for ever.” sions of happiness, too great for Ah, say not so, dear Seliin, words to describe, could in truth flight now would ruin us ; be a foreshadowing of the future ! should be discovered ; tlıy father's They may be, but the reality is anger would brook nodelay, and his distant, far distant—so distant power is far too great for us to trifle indeed, that it seems almost vain to with. Ile would disinherit thee, and hope. Ah, Selim, how it inakes court-faction would leayue itself me shudder to think how soon I with thy father's anger, and thou may be consigned to the cnibraces wouldst lose thy crown and thy of a man I cannot love, because Nur Jehan too; think not of it nomy heart is thine." ble prince, my love, my life. Wil- "I am glad, ny love, thou lingly would I fly with thee, and light of my heart, to hear thee with thce a desert would be far speak in this strain. I have dearer than a paradise without thought and thought and thought, thce, but let me not be thy ruin." 66 we ·Tales of Indian Romance. 735 my Selim. * Thy words are but too true, With these words, and with his sweet lovc, yet I cannot, I cannot arm clasped round the slender bear to think of thy being the bride waist of the beautiful Nur Jehan, ofanother; nothing will inducemy Prince Selim led her forth into the father to have thy betrothal annul open air. They passed on side by ed; I know that well, yet there side, and leaving the fountains that would be a chance of our escaping still played as merrily as ever beif we ficd; my father might then hind them, bent their steps torelent, and the Persian nobleman wards the further part of the be too proud to receive thee from garden, where a row of orange the arms of another, and a rival." trees on each side of the path “ Think not, my Selim, that I formed a shaded walk, lighted fear to fly with thee, because I dare now only by the rays of the moon not trust thy love or thee; it is that penetrated through the overnot that, but the chance of escape arching foliage of the fragrant would be so small; ny flight bouglis. would be discovered in a few Engaged in sweet converse, the hours, and where could we take lovers had paced twice up and refuge or conceal ourselves from down the path, and were nearly the power of thy father? Yet reaching the bottom of it for the this much will I promise thee, third time, when a rustling among If this nobleman the shrubs on the right hand returns and claims me for his side caused them suddenly to bride, and I fail in my endeavours start. In an instant Selim's right to procrastinate the hated mar hand clasped the hilt of his sword, riage, I will let thee know, and we while his left still encircled the will then try our only chance. waist of the trembling Nur Jehan. Sher Affghan may take me as his The next moment a figure appearbride, but he will see that iny ed emerging from the shrubbery, heart is another's, and it is possi and the bright moon beams flashble he may relent; it is but a poor cd from the shining blade that the chance, but it is our only one." Prince drew from its scabbard. А poor chance indeed! but His motions however were arin the mean time we must avoid rested by the voice of the intrudetection as much as possible, and der. forego, I fear, the pleasure of such “ Hold, Prince," he said in a delightful interviews as these. half whisper ; no violence is Yet I shall see thee at the palace, nceded. Thy secret is safe with and thou must be content, sweet me, but fly lady, fly, and you too, Nur Jehan, with looks, instead of Prince ; do you not hear the words of love. Come let us pro voices ? In another minute the long our interview to-night, as it Mirza will be here ; he has been is to be the last. The danger is out, and returns this way." in my getting here; when once Even while he was speaking here I can remain in safety ; let us Selim heard distinctly the voices walk awhile underneath yon of men approaching the garden grove of orange trees, while I wall. They seemed to be rapidhold thee to my heart and forget ly nearing it. He thought Mirthe future, in telling thee of my za Ghaias had been at home, love." otherwise he would have taken 66 ·786 Tales of Indian Romance. was no greater precautions, for he often timely warning, but he was 110- returned at night, when absent where to be found. He wanderfrom home till a late hour, through ed over the whole garden, and the garden, which led directly to penetrated into the furthcst rehis sleeping apartments. There cesses of the dense slırubberies ; to be lost. lle press he paced over the marble pave.. ed Nur Jehan to his heart, and inent by the resurvoir, and eximprinted a hasty kiss upon her amined the summer house, and brow; the next moment she was every alcove or place of conhurrying up the pathway towards cealinent he could find, but withthe house. With his drawn sword out success. At length, fearful still in his hand, though all inten of being surprized in the fortion of using it had now vanished, bidden ground by the approach Selim rushed into the shrubbery of daylight, he was forced, unwhere the stranger had been con- willingly, to leave the place withcealed. He was most anxious to out making the discovery he was discover who it was that had thus 80 anxious for. The passing possessed himself of a dangerous glimpse he had got of the stransecret, but there was no time for ger, as he siood half concealed playing a game of hide-and-seek by the foliage of the trees, scrvod with him now, for he had no soon inore to perplex his mind than to er reached a place of safety, than assist him in forming any idea the noise of a key turning in the of the real character of the man garden door, and the voice of who had thus so mysteriously Mirza Ghaias dismissing his at- appeared and disappeared. lle tendants for the night, told him seemed to be dressec, as far as it would be wise for him to re Sulim could tell, from the hasty main where he was. glance he had of his form and fi. Mirza Ghaias entered the gar gure, in the garb of the Christian den alone, and locked the door priest, or Jesuit, several of whom behind him. All unconscious were allowed by the emperor lo of the presence of strangers in reside in Delhi, and were patrosuch a place as that, he walked nized, to a certain extent, by his leisurely up the avenue, and soon royal favour ; but the voice, the disappeared froin Selim's vicw. voice he recognized, it was fami- The Prince waited till all chance liar to him.--" The dress was a of detection was over, and then disguise no doubt," he muttered commenced his search after the to himself,“ but the voice was stranger who had given him such that of Pir Ibrahim, the Fakir." CHAPTER V. MIRZA Ghaias had returned his position to resist; but his defrom his visit to Pir Ibrahim with signs or wishes to forward such a his mind distracted between am union were thwarted by the fact bitious projects and superstitious of Nur Jehan's betrothal to Sher fears. The advantages of an al- Affyhan Khan, a Persian advenliance between the future Em turer like himself, wlio had risen to peror and his daughter were too some little distinction in Akbar's great à temptation for any man in service. At the time the be- ·Tales of Indian Romance. 737 sooner trothal was settled, Mirza Ghaias's The thought of procuring the position in life was far inferior death of the Persian nobleman who to that he now hell, and a union stood so much in his way passed between that nobienian and his across his mind, but he dismissed it, daughter was as high a match as indignant with himself for having he had any right to look to. But felt for a moment the templation. the times were changed. Nur He was an ambitions man, but Johan was a constant attendant not yet sufficiently hardened to upon the Emperor's Sultana, and crime as to wish to arrive at his obin great favour with the ladies of ject by shedding blood; besides, the court; the Mirza's influence setting aside the wickedness of too with his royal master was in such a proceeding, it would be a creasing, and he was well awarc dangerous one, for as he well froin his daughter's character that knew, murder or later if she were fortunate enough to comes to light, and it was a far secure an Emperor for her hus more prudcnt course for him to band, her influence over him pursue to keep the whole matter would be so great that lic scarcc secret, and allay all suspicion, knew wlicre to draw the limit of while he found some means of his future grentness. But there keeping Sher Affgban Khan at a were great, if not insurmountable distance, and delaying the marobstacles in the path of his ambi.. riage. The thing that caused Lion; the first and greatest was the him the greatest anxiety was, betrouhal of his daughter to Sher was the Fakir to be trusted ? He Affyhan Khan, and the next cqual felt morc persuaded than ever alınost, iſ not greater, than the that Pir Ibrahim was not what former, was the objection he he professed to be, and his susknew the Emperor Akbar would picions were strong that he was havo to his son and heir allying in some way concerned with the himself in marriage with a family secret system of robbery and so ignoble in comparison as that crime which he had mentioned at of the minister's. IIo had many his last interview with the Emcnemies too at court, as every peror. If he could only get, he minister in the scrvice of an Asia thought, the Fakir in his power, tic despol always has, and were it would be all well, but that his ambitious projects once to be could not now be donc, without come known, or even guessed at, conniving in some measure at their efforts to compass his des his crimes, and breaking the oath truction would be almost invin with which he had purchased the cible. valuable secret, and which he felt The first thing to be done was all the reluctance of a superstito get rid of Sher Affghan Khan, tious mind to break. at all events for the present; if the The next interview he had marriage could be delayed till the with the Emperor, he succeeded death of the Emperor took place, in his plans so far as to persuade and Selim was seated on the the monarch to entrust Sher Affthrone, he doubted not the young ghan Khan with a more impormonarch would find some means tant command than that he now of annuling the betrothal and ob held at Lahore, a command which taining the object of his passion. he knew would require the Persian ·738 Tales of Indian Romance. This proone nobleman's presence on the fron was made on the supposition of tier near Peshawur. Pir Ibrahim's guilt, but almost motion for his future son-in-law every day brought fresh facts he begged and procured from the to light, which, though they did Emperor as a favour to himself. not absolutely criminate bin, The post of honour was strengthened the suspicions that which a brave officer could not had long filled Mirza Ghaias's but desire ; and shall woo wrong mind. And so things went on. human nature if we say that both One day the whole of Delhi the Prince and the minister re was alive with the report of the flected on the possibility of the approach of a famous conjuror, Persian's falling by the hand of who was to amuse and enliven some of the robber tribes on the the idle people of the metropolis frontier, while in the execution of with his wondrous feats. The bis duty, with a glow of satisfac. fame of Birbár had spread far and tion. wide throughout Hindustan, and Mirza Ghaias's next subject there was, as rumour said, no limit of consideration was whether he to the power of his art. The should sound the Prince himself, strangest stories were circulated and induce him, as it were, to about him, and some said that he make him his confidant. After rode on the back of a tamo tiger, much doubt and hesitation how and could make cven the wild ever, he determined to abstain bcasts of the forest subservient to from such a course at present, and his will. Ile was supposed to have by preserving the utmost secrecy, learnt his art somewhere in the not even confiding his hopes and centre of the Deccan, and to have fears to Nur Jehan's mother, prepared himself for the acquisito leave matters to take their tion of his almost supernatural course, and the Prince's love to power, by long course of fasting grow stronger day by day, while and penance in the lonely jungles. he kept Sher Affghan Khan away As it was, the childish minds of from Delhi. With regard to the the populace were filled with de- Fakir, it was necessary to get him light at the prospect of witnessing into his power, and to do this, he his feats, and were, as is often determined to proeeed to the ut the case, ready to believe anymost limits consistent with his thing any body said about the oath; he could not molest Pir conjuror and his powers. Ibrahim, nor even have him No one seemed to trouble themwatched, without committing the selves much about the progress of crime of perjury, but the prohi. the conjuror, and no one asked bition did not extend to the Fa. whence he came, or whither he kir's accomplices, if he had any, was going. The first notice that and he determined to proceed had been received of his arrival cautiously, yet surely, to collect was given by one well worthy of evidence, and prosecute his se being the forerunner of so great a cret investigations'in every quar- The good people of Delhi ter, till he had drawn the meshes had been much astonished one of his, net so tightly round his afternoon by the appearance of a prey, that there should be no man, painted from head to foot chance of bis escape. This plan with all the colours of the rainman.

·Tales of Indian Romance. 739 enwere bow, and riding, or rather pro tour, and had been visiting some gressing, in a brazen chariot car of the principal cities of the Emved in the shape of a fiery dra pire; that he was, as report made gon--and mounted on wheels, him out, a wonderful Magician, which seemed to be propelled by and that the sums of money he some unseen power-unless in collected by the exhibitions of his deed thc brazen image has the art were not inadequate to the principle of vitality in it. This extent, of his fame. In the extraordinary creature or machine course of these necessary passed deliberately and slowly all quiries into the character of the through the principal thorough expected stranger, the Mirza was fares of the city, and only stop- accidentally apprized of the fact ped when it reached the neigh that for many days Pir Ibrahim bourhood of the Emperor's palace. had been absent from his shrine. Here the rider of the brazen He made no observations, and dragon preferred a petition to the appeared to take no notice of the monarch, praying for permission fact-but his secret measures of for his master, the wonder-work caution and watchfulness ing Birbár, to establish himself redoubled. for a while within the royal city, The reader would perusc with and make some money by exhi incredulity an account of the mibiting his feats to the people. raculous feats performed by the Permission was readily granted, famous conjuror; his entrance and the fame of the wonderful into the city, the wonderful apdragon reached the ears of the pearance of his strange retinue, Einperor himself. His desire to wcre enough to delight the popuinspect the wonderful machine lace for a month, and raised their was no sooner expressed than curiosity and expectations to the gratified, and the dragon had a highest pitch. Clad in a long private audience with the mon white robc, with his magic girdle arch, who was amused and grati round his waist, and wand of fied by the inspection of so won office in his hand, the Magician derful a specimen of mechanical appeared inouuted in a chariot of genius and art. ivory drawn by two tigers ; he Preparations for the conju followed and attended by a motror's establishment were specdi- ley crowd of creatures, human ly set on foot, and progressed bcings no doubt they were, but rapidly--and in a a few days in the disguise of all kinds of anitime the man of the dragon was mals ; cranes, huge fish, antelopes, able to assure the passing multi monkies, and all sorts of nondctude that the next day's sun script monsters followed in the would behold the advent of the wake of their sovereign lord, jab- King of Magicians into the centre bering, and croaking, and making of the universe Delhi. all kinds of noises, much to the Mirza Ghaias, whose duty it amuscment of the inhabitants, as was to make himself master of they passed through the crowded the circumstances and proceedings strocis : and, that religion might of all visitors and strangers at not be wanting to consecrate the Delhi, soon discovered that the strange pageant, a large car drawn great conjuror was making a by two fine elephants brought up was ·746 Tales of Indian Romance. lle prethe rear of the procession, on great conjuror was not the only which were depicted a number man that officiated on the occasion, of scenes or representations sc his subordinates seemed almost lected from the tissue of fables as well tutored in the mayic art that form so much of the religi as he himsell, and towards the ous system of the Hindoos. close of the cntertainment, he in- As may readily be supposed, it forines the spectators that the last was not long before the famous feat of the evening would be per- Birbár was honoured with a sum formed by a brother Magician, mons to exhibit his performances whom he should have the honor of in the court of the wonder-scck- presenting to his Majesty. ing Emperor : and the dignitaries The individual alluded to then in the service of modern poten came forward into the arena, and tates may smile at the idea of the practical eye of Mirza Ghaias, ministers of state being called who had been watching closely upon to attend their sovereign on Every thing that went on, immethe occasion of his witnessing a diately detected, under the disguise juggler's show. The large or of a Magician's imposing dress, the public hall of audience was given figure of Pir Ibrahiin. up to the conjuror, and for two tended not to take much notice days previous to the exhibition of his proceedings, and showed, no public durbar was held there, neither by glance or gesture, that in order that Birbár might have he recognized the impostor. The no unfair advantage taken of him preparation for the last foat of the as it were, but have tiine to put tree of destiny were few ; a shalhis apparatus ready, and make all low earthen pot filled with mould his preparations. Many and variwas bronght by the Magician and vus were the tricks of jugglery and placed on the ground in the cenſeats of strength that were exhi tre of the arcna ; various incantabited to the delighted court, and tions were muttered over it and the Einperor himself was no less the imposing nummeries of the pleascd than his courtiers. The juggling craft performed with the part of the entertainment however, A tall basket, that delighted the Emperor most, about four or five feet in height, was the introduction of tigers and was then placed over the carthen other wild beasts over which the pot, and the incantations again Magician had acquired complete repeated. After a short time had ascendancy, so that he could iroat been allowed to clapse, the Magithem as he pleased, without the cian prepared to withdraw the basslightest fear of their doing him ket, and informed the audience any injury. The detail or descrip- that the true of destiny had grown tion of conjurors' feats is always and burno ito fruit. A inurmur tedious and uninteresting, because of applause ran through the asthcir only charm consisls in the sembly, when the basket was lifted suddenness with which unexpect up, and disclosed to view a trce ed results are produced from sud of four or five feet in height, its den causes and extraordinary phe- branches covered with leaves, and nomena presented to the eye, drooping with the weight of goldwhich can scarce believe what it en fruit, in shape and appearis yet certain it beholds. The ance like apples. At the stein of usual ceremony.

·Tales of Indian Romance. 741 was each wag a little slip of paper, in his private apartments ; " bring which the name of one of the courme a knife.” tiers was written, so that there A knife was brought, and with was one for every noble present. his own hand he cut the magic The Emperor too had not been apple in two. The knife came in forgotten, and an apple, with a contact with some hard substance label affixed to it like the rest, in the middle, and the Emperor inscribed with the royal name, perceived a small scroll of parchhung from the topmost branch. ment concealed there ; he drew The nobles then stepped forward, it forth, and read the Persian and examined the fruit, when verses that were inscribed upon each plucked that inscribed with it,-a translation of which is as his own name. The Emperor follows: too condescended to take his; he “The fire of love may burn in the heart of a the last to approach the Prince, And the sword of the univerge may be con tree, and all drew back to make sumed by the light of the world." way for him as he came forward. The hidden meaning of the A smile played upon his noble scroll was apparent from the countenance as he stretched forth play upon the words in the last his hand to pluck the fruit, but line, which cannot be done justice the instant the stem was disse to in the translation. The word vered from the branch on which used for sword in Persian was it hung, the whole tree suddenly Selim," and the light of the crumbled into ashes and disapworld was “ Nur Jehan." peared. With a parting injunc The Emperor crushed the scroll tion to the Emperor and his no in his hands, and dismissed his bles to eat their fruit the last thing attendants by a sign. Their at night before they laid down to wonder was excited, but their sleep, and an assurance that the curiosity not gratified, and they visions of the night would reveal listened while the sound of the to each his futuro destiny, the Emperor's feet, as he paced up Magicians closed their entertain and down his apartment half the ment. night, convinced them that the “ Who can tell but that this magic apple had made some reconjuring knave may be tryvelation or other, that was anying to poison us," said Akbar thing but pleasing or soothing to to his attendants, as he reached the mind of their royal master. CHAPTER VI. The following morning Mirza salutation, the Emperor addressed Ghaias was surprised by a sumhim with a smile. mons to wait upon the Emperor. He repaired at once to the palace, “Well, noble Mirza, didst thou and found his royal master awaithave many wonderful revelations ing his arrival in the private hall last night -aidst thou eat the of audience. Magician's truit ?" " Lord of the Universe," re- After receiving the minister's plied the minister," thy slave YOL. II.NO. IX.

·742 Tales of Indian Romance. < 66 feared poison, and cut open the very and courage. What, Mirza, apple before eating it." thou turnest pale !" “Ha! and didst thou discover "Ah, most noble sovereignaught inside ?" the heart of thy slave is too full “ Yes, noble sovereign-thy to speak : your Majesty's kindslave found a scroll of parchment, ness and royal favour enough to drown the senses of the humble on which were written a few words in Persian." creatures of dust that worship at the foot of thy throne," replied “ Didst thou read them? What the minister, kneeling and touchwere they ?" ing the ground with his forehead. They ran thus : "It is well, Mirza-now de- " Oaths sworn on thc Koran are registered part. Thy attendance at durbar before Ala," to-day can be excused. Sher Aff. “ Is that all ? Mcthinks the ghan shall be recalled immediately Magician might have found an to court by our royal express, and easier way of letting thee know that-but I have sent for thee, thou mayest begin to make the Mirza, to speak to thee of thy necessary preparations for the marriage." private concerns, before the dur- It was Mirza Ghaias's turn now bar begins, when we must betake to be perplexed, and to pace in ourselves tu public business. doubt and hesitation up and down Tliou hast served me well and faithfully for many years, and I his apartment, when he reached home. would fain reward thee if I could The news spread quickly in such a way as not to increase through the court that the beauthe envy of thy enemies about tiful Nur Jehan was to be marthe court: therefore I will not ried iminediately, and her huspromote thee now, for thy sud. band presented with a magnifiden rise might but lead to thy fall. But thy daughter Nur Jccent marriage present from the Emperor, consisting of a valuable han" estate, and swiftly travelled the The Mirza's heart beat quick. royal express, hastened by the ur- "She is betrothed, I know, to gent commands of the Emperor, Sher Affghan Khan, a noble youth to proceed with the utmost exand a good and faithful officer pedition towards Lahore, and if and one that can be trusted. I Sher Affghan had lef the city, to will thus reward thee, noble Mirza, hasten after him with the Emperthe nuptials between thy dau; ". or's command to repair to Delhi ter and her betrothed husband with all possible speed. shall be cel. Srated without delay; As soon as Mirza Ghaias could the ceremony shall take pla. recall his scattored senses, and dehere in our royal court, and we termine on any course of action, will ourselves honor it with ur he sought out Selim. The news presence ; bu my favor to thee had reached him already, and he shall not stop hert. I will bestow was giving way to his first feela handsome estate-on thy son-in ing of rage and vexation at it, law in my province of Bengal - when the minister was admitted and he shall take his bride home, to his apartment; they remained and enjoy the reward of his bra. some time in conference together; 1 ·Tales of Indian Romance. 743 99 W He was at length the minister left the that, if we would escape detecpalace, but he was disguised, and tion. Is your daughter here ?" Selim calling the attendants who “Yes, my lord," replied the had announced his arrival, warn minister, “I have been waiting ed them on pain of instant dismis here some time. I will go and sal from his service not to disclose hasten her." to any one the fact of Mirza "Be quick then,” said Selim, Ghaias having been there. impatiently, "I will wait here." It wanted about an hour to the Mirza Ghaias then entered the time of midnight when figures house, but did not re-appear as might have been seen approaching quickly as Selim could have wishthe wall of the garden in which ed. He paced rapidly up and down Prince Selim had held his last the garden walk, with an impainterview with Nur Jehan. The tient step, pausing every now and moon had not risen, and the night then to listen if there was any dark, the stars alone afford sound stirring to awaken suspiing light scarcely sufficient to cion. But all was silence. At enable the Prince to pick his way length, and not before his patience over the broken ground that lay had been well tried, Mirza Ghaias immediately outside the wall. appeared at the door, followed by He was on foot, but led behind him a slight figure, veiled. They dehis favourite steed, saddled and scended the palace steps in silence, ready for him to mount. when the Mirza, taking his daughaccompanied by one attendant, who ter's hand, placed it in Selim's, also led a horse behind him, but saying the saddle on the latter steed was “ Take her, noble Prince, from of different form and structure the only one who has a right to from that which sat upon the bestow her ; take her, and "may Prince's. They reached the door Alla bless thy union.” There was of the garden in silence, and the no time to waste in words: more Prince, giving the rein of his than half an hour had elapsed horse to the attendant, put the since Selim entered the garden; key gently in the lock, unfasten he clasped the trembling form of ed it, and entered. He then walk his beloved one to his heart, imed hastily along the path under printed one burning kiss upon neath the orange trecs, until he her lips, and then led her hastily reached the open space by the and in silence down the avenue edge of the reservoir. Here he to the garden door. stopped, but had not waited more Here he left her for an inthan a few seconds before another stant to see if the horses were figure appeared emerging from ready, and then returned, and the marble summer-house, and made a sign for her to come. making its way along the path She embraced her father, as if that led through the centre of the for the last time, and then givreservoir. " Is all ready, Mirza?" ing her hand to the Prince, said the Prince, speaking in a mounted the horse with his ag. whisper to Mirza Ghaias, for it sistance. The saddle on which was he, as he advanced to ngeet she sat was a kind of pillion, pad. him. “ The moon will be up soon, ded with rich velvet, and formed and we must be far away before in such a way that any one, how.

·744 Tales of Indian Romance. an ever unused to riding, could sit himself lifted from the ground, securely and comfortably in it. and borne, he knew not whither. The Prince gave the rein into After being carried for some her trembling hands, waved a distance in this manner, he perparting adieu to Mirza Ghaias, ceived that his captors were conand then sprang into his saddle. veying him into a house of some kind and he plainly distinguish- Suddenly, as if they had drop- ed the sound of the bearers' feet ped from the stars, four men rush- treading over a paved floor--they ed at the Prince, while a fifth then descended a flight of steps held his horse, two more seized -a door was opened, and the Nur Jehan. Selim's hand was palanquin deposited upon the at the same instant on the hilt of ground. Selim waited, expecting his sword, but a strong grasp immediate release but it kept his arm as if in an iron vice, seemed that his captors were deand he could not draw the wea termined not to afford him even pon. Overpowered by numbers he this grace, for he heard them was dragged off his horse in less leave the apartment, and the door time than it takes to relate, and closed and bolted from the outthrown upon the ground. His side. voice, almost choked with indig There was no course left now nation and rage, could only find for him but to free himself as vent in broken curses, and he best he could and this was no scarcc had time to call out “ Treaeasy matter, for his hands had been chery, fly lady, fly!" before a hand securely bound. With his heart was pressed upon his mouth, and almost bursting with feelings of he was prevented from uttering suppressed rage, he struggled, another word. His voice however turned, and writhed his body from fell all unheeded upon side to side, in the attempt to disof Nur Jehan, for she was being engage his hands—"Let me but carried senseless into the gar once get my hands free," he den of her father's palace. Selim, thought to himself," and I will whose struggles to escape were soon see how long this cage shall ineffectual, tried in vain to disco hold me.” Despair and rage gave ver who the perpetrators of this him renewed strength, and after violence were ; ,their faces were struggling for nearly an hour in masked, and their persons were this way, he managed to squeeze not familiar to him-their voices one hand half through the knot could not betray them, for not a another struggle, and his arms word was spoken, as they seized are free. In an instant he tore the fallen Prince, bound his hands the scarf from his face, burst gently, yet securely, behind his open the doors of the palanquin, back, tied a scarf over his mouth, and leapt upon his feet. It was 80 as to prevent him from mak- pitch dark, and he could not see ing his voice heard, and carried an inch before him, so he comhim a little distahce from the spot, menced making an examination where there was & closely cover of his prison, by walking about ed litter or palanquin standing. and feeling before him with out- He was thrust inside, and the stretched arms. It was no dundoors were closed—he then felt geon that he was confined in, for the cars ·Tales of Indian Romance. 745 an the floor was covered with soft dant, and as the horses that were carpeting and ever and anon kept at etery stage along the he stumbled against a piece of roads throughout the Emperor's furniture or a cushion on the dominions for the purpose of conground. After completing in veying the royal messengers from this way the examination of one place to another with the utthe apartment, he came to the most speed, were placed at his conclusion that he had been disposal, no unnecessary delay confined in underground awaited him. room in the palace, which was Words cannot describe the feel.: often used by his father in the ings of wretchedness and woe that hot summer months, when the Nur Jehan was a prey to, when air of a room formed in this man returning consciousness brought ner beneath the surface of the with it the recollection of her misground was much cooler than the fortunes. upper apartments that were There was no longer hope of esposed to the heat of the atmos cape from the fate she so much phere. Feeling convinced that drcaded, nor of realizing the what had taken place was by dreams of happiness she had perthe orders of his father, and mitted herself to indulge in. The that he had therefore discovered violence of her grief brought with and was determined to thwart it its own temporary cure, and his plans, in spite of every her feelings found some relief in thing, he resigned himself to des a passionate flood of tears. For pair, and a mind like his but little two whole days and nights she reaccustomed to self-command mained in this way, utterly given found temporary refuge in schemes up to sorrow, refusing all symof future vengeance against the pathy, deaf to all words of condoinnocent, because involuntary mi lence, and yielding at times to the nisters of his father's will, and most furious bursts of passion. amused itself by anticipating the At length her physical strength time, when his father's crown gave way under her mental sufshould sit upon his own brow, ferings, and thoroughly exhaustand Nur Jehan should be his, ed by the excitement her feelings in spite of every thing. Full had undergone, she sunk into a of such thoughts as these, he state of apathy, and indifference throw himself upon the ground, to all about her, while her paand awaited the approach of day rents trembled lest reason itself light. should be shaken from her seat, The Emperor's express over and her unnatural calmness be took Sher Affghan Khan, when succeeded by a state of mental that nobleman was a few marches derangement. In the mean time north of Lahore, on the way to the preparations for the marriage wards Peshawur. As may readi went on, and Sher Affghan Khan, ly be supposed, he lost no time in the bridegroom elect, rapidly nearobeying the welcome orders, and ed the capital. Mirza Ghaias within an hour after the messen trembled like & criminal when led ger had reached his camp, he was out for execution, the next time on his way to Delhi. He set out, that he was summoned to the accompanied only by one atten. Emperor's presence. He well on ·746 Tales of Indian Romance. knew that Selim's plans had magician. For he had only joined been frustrated by the Emperor's him a few days before he arrived order, for none but he would at Delhi, and had subsequently have dared to authorize such vio vanished as suddenly as he had lence on the person of the heir appeared. Deprived of all aid or apparent, and he naturally assistance from sublunary things, thought that the Emperor must Mirza Ghaias had recourse to the be aware of his share in the pro stars, and night after night, though ceeding. His mind however vas wearied out both in mind and considerably relieved when Akbar body by the exertions and trials addressed him with his usual of the day, he sat up in his study courtesy and condescension, and or observatory, watching the mo. as there was nothing now to be tions of the heavenly bodies, and gained by attempting to procras studying horoscopes, in the hope tinate the marriage, even if he of thus obtaining some insight could, he superintended the pre into the destiny of his daughter parations for the ceremony with and himself. as much care as if he were really Sher Affghan Khan at length most desirous of seeing it solem- arrived, and Nur Jehan heard with nized, and with as much interest apparent apathy and indifferas his anxiety for his daughter's ence that her nuptials were to health would allow him to fcel. take place on the following day. As for the Prince Selim, although The wretched state of her health the Emperor had given out that was reported to the Emperor, and he had gone on a hunting ex he was petitioned to allow of the cursion, and would not be back marriage being delayed, till she for some days, most of the cour should be strong enough to untiers suspected there was more in dergo the fatigues of a journey his absence than they were aware to Bengal--but the Emperor was of. Mirza Ghaias of course knew deaf to all entreaties on that that he was somewhere under res. point, “Not an hour," was his only traint, and expected that he would In spite of all that had remain so until the marriage had beon said about it, and in spite been performed, and Nur Jehan of the favour the bride elect was safely disposed of, but his was held in at the court, the place of confinement was unknown. marriage ceremonies greatly Who it was that had played the disappointed those who looked traitor was equally uncertain, and forward to enjoying the amusethe Mirza came to the only de ments and feasts on the occatermication he could come to on sion : there was a gloom over the point, and that was to leave cvery body and every thing that time to unravel the inexplicable could not be dispelled. Viands mystery. Suspicion pointed at the were untasted, musicians Magician or Fakir, but the suspi- not listened to, the dancing girls cion was of little use, for the ob had somehow lost or forgotten ject of it had disappeared, nor their art, and an untimely shower could any trace of him be found. of rain completely spoiled the The conjuror Birbár, when in- fire-works; and more than one terrogated on the point, replied of the courtiers present were overthat he knew nothing of the last heard to swear by the Prophet, answer. were ·Tales of Indian Romance. 747 rily." that " had it been the lady's fu- Delhi, but it was late before they neral instead of her wedding, it started, and the sun was down would have gone off more mer long before the tents were in sight. His friends had all left As for Nur Jehan, she of course him to return to the city, and took no part in the proceedings; he was riding alone in front of the her bridal dress, her jewels and now small procession that conornaments were put on as she lay sisted only of his bride's and her helpless on her cushions, and when attendants' palanquins, and an, the hour of departure arrived, she escort of horsemen that follow. bade farewell to her parents and ed in the rear. The road led friends, and was carried into her for some distance through a thick palanquin with as much indiffer- jungle, which was the favourite ence as if she had been going out hunting ground of the Emperor ; to pay a visit to a neighbour. and as it was a lonely place, and Mirza Ghaias however was un not altogether safe for a lonely usually gay and in high spirits all traveller at night, Sher Affghan the day: he did his best to cheer reined up his horse, and halted to his daughter, but he well knew await the arrival of the escort. there was but one way to do that, Whilst waiting in this way, his and he dared not speak of a dan attention was suddenly arrested gerous subject amid so large a by a rustling noise among the concourse as that assembled at his trees on the road side : he turned house. He accompanied the bridal his head in the direction the procession however for some dis sound came from, and at the same tance from Delhi. And when he instant a man appeared, mounted stopped to take leave of his daugh on a fine horse, and galloping at ter, before he returned he manag- full speed. The appearance of ed to whisper some words into the stranger was such as to attract her ear, which for the first for attention anywhere, for he was many, many days, brought back a large and powerful man ; the her old expression to her worn horse had no saddle on its back, and sunken features. At the same and the rider wore no clothes, moment he placed a scroll of except a cloth wrapped round parchment in her hand, and telling bis waist ; nor was he armed; his her to examine it when alone, and long black hair hung from his bidding her be of good cheer, he head over his back and shoulders, took a formal leave of his new and his horse was covered from son-in-law, and turned his horse's head to foot with foam. Sher head towards Delhi. Affghan had but little time how- As soon as the cover of her pa ever to examine his appearance, lanquin was closed again, Nur Je for almost the instant after he han opened the scroll. It was emerged from the bushes he was her horoscope, and underneath at his side, and reined in his was written in her father's hand foaming steed. the magic words : “ Nur Jehan “Sher Affghan," he said, "nay, is destined for an Emperor's do not draw thy sword, I am unbride." armed. I come to warn thee; be- Sher Affghan Khan's camp ware, thou hast à serpent in thy was pitched about six miles from bosom, a tiger in thy path, and a ·748 Love Worldly. naked sword over thy head." departure from Delhi, the Empe- Before the astonished nobleman ror casually observed to his courcould utter a reply, the stranger tiers in durbar, that on the folhad dashed into the bushes on the lowing day the Prince Selim side of the road again, and was hid would return from his hunting from sight. expedition. They glanced at one Three days after Nur Jehan's another, and remained silent. LOVE WORLDLY. On a mountain, near the summit, Was a cold and silent lake, Of whose waters dark, no plummet Could the unfathomed soundings take. By the herbless granite bounded, Upon every side surrounded, Not a breath of Heaven could play, Where its waveless surface lay. Though the Hurricane were raving, Though the oaks its fury braving, Shattered all around were lying- Though the echoing giens replying To the storm that frantic sweeps, Howling round the shivering steeps, Utter forth that hollow cry, Nature's voice in agony- Though with ear confounding thunder, Cliff and glacier burst asunder- Still amid its guardian rocks, The sullen tarn the tempest mocks, Untouched, untroubled it reposes, And not one feathery ripple bright, Its sombre påll-like flat discloses, Black as a starless night! Let that rock-cradled pool express, The heart whose sunless feelings lie, Bosomed in sheltering selfishness, In chilly apathy, Whose love is only kind through fear; Only from interest sincete; "Constant, from only indolence; ' Trusting, from mere indifference ;

·Love Worldly. 749 That but from coldness shuns to harm; That, without energy to warm, Hopes but exemption from distress, Dreams not of Love's true happiness, That sympathy of two fond hearts That only in cach other live, That purc affection that imparts, The dearest joy that heaven can give, To fill with bliss the loved one's breast, And in her gladness, to be blest ; Which even in sharing bittcrest woc, More real happiness can know. T'han those dull earthly oncs can deern, Who think true love an idle dreain. And naine they love! thal nerveless sense, Of unimpassioned preference, Of world-searcd hearts that cannot swerve, I'rom their impassible reserve ; That with unsympathizing eye, Can look on grief or misery, Or (worst of all) that ache of heart, When disenchanted woman secs, Iler fairy drcams and hopes depart, Like flitting smoke before the breeze ; ller tenderness and kindness slighted, Her love's sweet blossoms chilled and blighted ? Call not such, Love ; let not the name, So sacred still, be su debused ; Nor falscly paint for very shame, As Paradise, that barren waste ! Not such that soother of our woes, That source of all our joys can be ; Oh ! not like such, the love that glows, Decp in my ininost heart for Thec. K. VOL. II.NO. IX.

·[750] INDIA AND HER PRESENT RULERS. "Tu regere imperio populos, Romanc, momento." VIRGIL. UNDER all the circumstances hardly less extensive. That of of its growth during the last hun Russia is spread over a continent dred years, our Indian Empire at larger than the whole of Europe. this moment furnishes a specta- Independently of her Indian procle without parallel in any age vinces Great Britain herself has or crisis of the world's history. rivalled ancient Rome in the ex- Turn to whatever leaf you please tent and number of her terriof that history, recal whatever torial offshoots. But the growth passages of it may seem at first of her Indian power is a thing thought similar to this one, you quite unique for all that. In the shall nowhere find anything like whole course of our historical cxa fitting counterpart to the tale perience there is really nothing to of Anglo-Indian conquest from be compared, in points of radical the days of Clive to the era of importance, with the strange Lord Dalhousie. A tale of won spirit-stirring results of British der and deep significance in ma enterprise on the broad plains and ny ways; rich in retrospects not among the swarming populations always pleasing yet seldom cn of Hindostan. The conquests of tirely painful; and very far from Alexander and Napoleon were barren in lessons which we and great creations, which sprang up the generations after us should in a night like Jonal's gourd to do well to con more carefully, wither in the very hour of their than Englishmen since the days maturity. Love of conquest and of Burke have generally bcen self-aggrandisement were the mowont to do. tives which chiefly lured them on Instances enow there have been to enterprises more brilliant than of empires formed under grander wise or gainful, and such as their auspices, attaining to an earlier own weakness or that of their maturity, and extending over successors sure to render wider tracts of peopled territory. abortive in the long run. With Less than an average lifetime all its adaptability to the wants sufficed for the world-wide con and circumstances of the peoples quests of Alexander. Those of beneatb its shadow, the sway of I'imour included this very penin the house of Timour had virtusula which it has taken more than ally been broken to pieces, long a century of constant warfare to before Clive had exchanged his make our own. The Romans writer's pen for the sword which under their first Cæsars enjoyed laid the foundation of our politithe mastery of nearly all Europe cal ascendancy in the East. In and some of the finest provinces the circumstances which ensured in Asia. Napoleon's empire empire the progress of Roman rule, there threatened at one time to be lay also the seeds of its dissolution, was ·India and her present Rulers. 751 at such time as the conquered what workings of human destiny peoples began to emerge from the had tended to produce a change barbarism which had mainly con so marvellous, it would tax his tributed to their subjugation by imaginative and reflective powa power more highly civilised, ers for many a long day to guess tough perhaps essentially weaker aright. A stranger or wilder and less capable of true aivili- story than that he would have to sation than themselves. Rome's listen to, has seldom if ever waitascendancy was founded on her ed to be told to ears not rashly arms alone. As the young na credulous of improbable tales. tionalities of modern Europe grew He would learn how a company up into man's estate, they learnod of timid and peace-loving merto measure their own strength with chants had succeeded in their hers, and snapped in due time own despite, against all human their childish fetters as easily as likelihood, in founding an empire Sampson did the bonds of Dalilah, as large as half Europe, and more Very different have been the than thrice as populous as Great circumstances which mark the Britain ; overthrowing in their growth of our Indian empire. fated course one after another of Could one of those peaceful quill- those ancient sovereigntics whose drivers with whom young Robert power to crush them had seem- Clive first cast his lot, in the East ed but now so irresistible, and India Company's modest factory against which they took up their at Madras, be suddenly roused arms so often in sheer necessity, from his long death-sleep to look amidst the dismalest fears and upon the India of 1853, without forebodings, and with a thousand any previous knowledge of what motives, expressed or understood, had happened during those hun for avoiding the greatness 80 dred years of unconsciousness, he strangely thrust upon them. He would certainly be rather puzzled would learn how each new conto fill up in any authentic quest had led to new perplexities, evident way the eventful gap new engagements, new quarrels, between epochs so dissimilarmoto with neighbours destined in their make out by his own experience turn to merge into new tributaof past events the due connexion ries or subjects of the power they between the scanty range of ware had erewhile laughed at from a houses then rented on sufferance distance, or made so little acto his humble and oppressed count of meeting face to face. employers, and the vast tracts He would learn how each nation of populous territory ruled by so conquered, swelling in its turn their world-famous successors of the armies of its new masters, enthe present day. In the huge sured them the maintenance of but well-knit and not unlovely their former conquests, and supproportions of the giant figure plied them with the safest means which met his gaze, he would of preparing for the conquests yet hardly be able to discover a touch to come. He would learn how a of likeness to the ricketty bant hundred millions of people, of ling whose childish lineaments races, crceds, manners as unlike he had erewhile known so well. each other as each was unlike our What series of strange events, own, had come to acknowledge or self- ·752 India and her present Rulers. and peacefully to acquiesce in warlike minority is small in the conditions of a yoke enforc nuinbers and weak in prestige. ed by the agency of a few Young Bengal has learned to afthousand foreigners, whose lives fect the social customs without would hardly be worth a day's emulating the moral energy of purchase against odds so tremen his Saxon model. Ile cannot dous, if only they could ever be doff the inertness of his Hindoo arrayed with sufficient concert for temperament as quickly as he the assertion of what should dofls the absurdities of his Hinnaturally be their common cause. doo mythology. llis patriotism And, having so learned, he would never vents itself in aught more still be free to wonder at the alarıning than a letter to the newschance which left a work so event. paper or a speech at some public ful to be wrought out by British meeting. Ilis dreams of political hands ; still be free to admire the freedom rarely soar beyond the noble diffident unhasty way in indulgence in a taste for wine, which that work on the whole and an insane desire to drive his has been carried on ; still be free own buggy. To conceive a Hinto speculate on the coining des doo Kossuth calling seriously on tinies of that remarkable nation his countrymen to arm in concert whose political greatness is still for the expulsion of their Fethe wonder, as its commercial ringhee oppressors, would be progress has long been the envy tantamount to conceiving a change of the world. in national idiosyncrasy, such as Speculation not altogether nature in her wildest monients cloudless, as far as India is con has never yet been known to concerned. Not that we have any template, much less to carry great cause for fear as to our poli into practice. As far as present tical ascendency in that quarter. appearances are concerned, the We have no fair grounds just now permanence of British rule in for thinking that the prize so hardly the East is a question not to be won will be lightly lost. We are discussed for many years to come. bold to say that the glory of our Do what circumstances may to Indian Empire is not likely to de encourage such an issue, we firmpart for many a long year to come. ly believe that the emancipation The contrary notion seems to us, of India from her present yoke is at this present, rather chimerical a contingency just possible a hunthan otherwise. Britain's legions dred years hence, but not sooner. are still inviacible as ever. Our Still the very likelihood of such Sepoy Army is not fatally demo an issuc should keep us the more ralised yet. New blood for filling steadily alive to the privileges and its ranks and strengthening its responsibilities of our present poweakened discipline is still avail sition, as guardians of a people able froin more than one likely not yet sufficiently ripe for taking The old antagonism of care of themselves. Let the rucreeds and raccs has got some new lers of India govern as well or as elements of late to keep it from badly as they pleasc, there is small running stagnant. The bulk of fearof their course being presentour dusky fellow subjects are as ly stayed, either by a gencral ris.' fond as ever of a quiet life. The ing of their subjects at home, or source.

·India and her present Rulers. 753 of their prethe interference of national ene at every vicw of it the wildest mies abroad. The Governments anomalies and unsightliest details of Europe are much too busy just without any of the pervading now with their own affairs to beauties of an old English manthink of rifling the colonial trea sion in the Tudor style. During sures of their British rival. Na the troubled infancy and busy tive indolence and disunion are youthhood of our Anglo-Indian our surest safe-guards against in power, such a Government was ternal dangers. But these are perhaps as tolerable as any, while paltry considerations at the best. the event has proved it to have English rulers should have been suflicient for the need. higher grounds to work. upon While Hyder was wasting the than the fact Carnatic, it mattered comparasent strength, or the absence of tively little how far Warren Hastimmediate danger from the pos- ings misused his power to the desible abuse of their esent triment of one or two unoffending strength. They have higher du victims, provided his signal talents ties to think of than the mere go availed to rescue British India vernment of a great colony on froin the gripe of its fiercest and terms the most remunerative to then most dangerous foe. Amidst themselves. The question now the turmoil and excitement of a before them is, whether India Mahratta campaign or a quarrel shall henceforth be governed for with Burmah, it was natural that its own sake rather than theirs, our Indian statesmen should have for the moral and political be been readier to aid in extending nefit of its own people rather the limits of their masters' sway than the material benefit of by warlike means, than to waste their present masters. Taking their midnight oil in concerting for granted the approach of a peaceful schemes of internal rctime when India shall be fit to form for the peoples already subgovern herself, they have now to jected to their masters' sway. To consider how England can best the mass of our native subjects the discharge the trust meanwhile Government which taxed them consigned to her, how best fulfil heavily for the protection of their the sacrcd duty of preparing her lives and property, seemed infifeeble protegće, by a course of nitely preferable to Governments sound and careful training, for the which had used them worse withnecessary though dangerous free out ensuring them the like prodom to which that protegée shall tection in return. eventually attain. They felt that the strong hand For in truth our Indian goof their new masters was as powvernment has hitherto been little erful at all times to put dowp opbetter than a continued make pression from other quarters, as shift ; a thing of chance odds and it was liable sometimes to be laid ends, of temporary shreds and oppressively on themselves. It patches; a mérc accidental chaos was something gained at least to of materials, good, bad and indif suffer from the occasional misrule fcrent, put together from time of one instead of the systematic to time without order, forethought violence of many. or visible meaning, and recalling ment of social peace and personal The enjoy- ·754 India and her present Rulers. were on come. freedom, the right to sow and garment into anything like the reap without fear of hostile in smart well-fitting article, which a roads, the reduction of rich and youth of ordinary standing would poor, stfong and weak, to one long since have been allowed to common level of obedience to es don. No amount of special pleading tablished law; were blessings not and one-sided logic, of clever to be despised by men who had garbling and eloquent sophism on hardly dared at any former peri. the part of our Anglo-Indian conod to look on their very lives as servatives, can blink our eyes any placed at their own disposal. To longer to the fact that India has the men of trade and learning, outgrown & system of political who lived by satisfying the wants training, invented to meet the or repairing the deficiencies of exigencies and accord with the their peaceful neighbours, to all political ignorance of former days in short whose wealth or hopes of alone, and that justice, policy, advancement staked and late experience alike suggest peaceful pursuits, the Govern to her present masters the adopment which succecded best in tion of some worthier and more preserving peace within its own efficient substitute for the time to doininions and crushing the hos- The old edifice has more tile designs of neighbouring than served its time already. Beprinces, seemed to put forth as ing at the best a temporary strucstrong a claim to their allegiance ture, built on principles no longer as the most exacting among them tenable in these wiser days, it could well desire. It was not a has clearly no business here perfect nor even a popular Go among people whose eyes are fast vernment which they had gotten opening to its numerous defects. now. But they felt that under In a state of things which argues the circumstances it was the best radical upsoundness, a reform they were like to get for many a which stops short of virtual long day. rečdification will only hasten the But things have altered greatly crisis which a truer policy might of late years. What was succeed in putting off for an comparative blessing inay now be unlimited period, if not for ever. threatening to become erelong a The house we live in shows daily positive curse. The infant has worse and more startling sympbeen growing out of his clothes, toms of approaching decay and preand we have forgotten to get new sent unfitness for any household ones ready for him. Smike's purpose. To talk of replacing a trowsers are mounting fast above beam here, or propping a weak his boots. Mend and patch them section of wall there, is simply as you will, you cannot get them waste of time, if nothing further to sit becomingly now. Not all is to follow at an early date. The the ingenuity of your Hogges and whole thing cries out for swift Hobhouses ; not all the state removal. To be worth anything craft of your Thomasons and Dale hereafter, our Indian polity must housies; not all the shifts and be built up anew, and that right subterfages of your Campbells speedily. and. Melvilles, can ever avail to turn that old shrunken ill-looking There is no time like the preonce a ·India and her present Rulers. 755 sent for laying hand to a work so fear of danger, or thought of inneedful, so big with ulterior pro terruption; free to calculate in fit to the parties most concerned peace and perfect leisure the full in sceing it fairly begun and wise cxtent and richness of his various ly followed. The past with its conquests ; free to make up by continual dangers and swift-re increased watchfulness, zeal, and curring perplexities, its long wars industry, thereafter, the losses neand broken peace-slumbers, its cessarily entailed and the omispolitical doubts, ignorances, and sions generally to be accounted inconsistencies on the one hand, for by the events and exigencies and its social ferments, miseries, of his past career. During the and barbarisms on the other, has struggle which had ended so well fairly betaken itself to its proper for him, the tenor of his domestic limbo, and become for us in these affairs had depended more or less days a thing as strictly historical thoroughly on the vicissitudes of as the wars of the Roses. A fair his foreign relations. Want of day of peace and hopefulness has time, want of money, want of begun to smile at length upon statesmanlike experience, were the scene so lately darkened by a sufficient excuses for nearly all night of warfare, and disturbance the misdeeds, omissions, blunders, fated, as it then scemed, never inconsistencies, which could then to have a morrow. The last shot have been brought bome to the fired in anger on the field of doors of the East India Coinpa- Goojrat heralded the day-spring ny. It was certainly hard for a of a new era in the destinies of Government possessing scanty British India. From that mo means and harassed by a crowd ment the question of British su of conflicting views and interests, premacy, a question hitherto askto combine the maintenance of a ed in fear, misgiving, or depre- sound political systenu at home cation, as often as in hope and with the due development of its honest confidence, became fairly moral strength and warlike activity settled into a plain, irrevocable, abroad. But all that is past and and not very disgraceful fact. forgotten now. Such excuses are Lord Gough had finished what quite inadmissible henceforward. Clive began. The field so often The conquerors of India have fought over was ours at last for won chiefly by their own exergood. Our worst foes had yield- tions, though hardly of their own ed themselves one after another desire, a prize of which they need in utter weakness and despair to not be ashamed. It remains for conquerors ignorant of their real them to shew by their future strength, and ashamed of the vic. licy how far they are fit to enjoy tories which helped to make them the fruits of their past successes. wiser. The rich inheritance of It remains for them soon or late, the Moguls was become the ina- and the sooner the better, to delienable appanage of the Saxon. cide how much longer India is to Henceforth the latter would be sit uneasily between her two free to make what he best could stools ; how much longer to enof a sovereignty so extensive and dure the needless torture inflicted so strangely acquired. He would by her India House doctors'on be free to look about him without the one hand, and the ruthless po- ·750 India and her present Rulers. remedies prescribed by Cannon cry is great, or seems so; but Row quacks on the other. how about the wool ? Rather a Flemish reckoning of Now or never, should English it on the whole, one is apt to fear. men bestir themselves, in Parlia An outcome miserably vaguc and ment or elsewhere, learn someinfinitesimal. Hitherto the pewhat touching their India affairs. riodical solemnity has proved no Periodically indeed they have hi. better than a periodical farce. No therto made a pretence of so do matter how gravely the thing being. Once in about twenty years gan, its end has invariably been does England delight to sit in marked by a change as laughable judgment upon the state and as thật which generally astonishes prospects of her reinote depen the reader of Bon Gaultier. For dency and the conduct of its de some months, it may be sometimes legated rulers. At such epochs for a year or more, the excitement the British public falls, as if runs its course. Parliamentacharged with galvanism, into a ry Committees take down their most cdifying state of passing evidence, the raw material of an excitement. Every body is Ticard impending Blue Book. Orators to talk about the Indian Charter. and writers talk or scribble away Many are constantly to be found on either side of a question which discussing the inodes and count few of them have studied save in ing the chances of its rencwal. the most cursory fashion. Pub- Statesmen in Parliament begin to lic feeling sets rather ominously get up their speeches and look up against the India House, and their Mills, The Humes and blurts out the strongest expres- Ansteys begin to muster their sions of regard and pity for the motley facts and figments for a tre poor, ill-fed, ill-treated natives of mendous onslaught against the ty. Hindostan. Vague mournings Tants of Icadenhall. The Hoggs over our past neglect and misand Hardinges get ready to management mingle with the beat back thcir old assailants with wildest proposals for effecting all weapons chosen from the same sorts of impossible reforms. Anpromiscuous store. Ministers be gry demands for the suppression gin to ponder on the best way of of actual grievances are followed finishing a tiresome business at the by stern denunciations of grievsmallest possible sacrifice either ances which have never existed, of public decencies or private or for which a remedy has long understandings. Patriots out of since been found. Controversics Parliament get up their public on every possible feature of our meetings, their noisy pamphlets, Indian policy, are waged with a their monster petitions. The zeal betraying small discretion press of England begins to lay and less knowledge. There is down the law on Indian topics of talk enough about doing somewhatever sort, with a precision thing. There is no agreement which would have confounded a as to what shall be done. The Crichton, and a gravity which most palpable result of all this Liston biinself would have des. excitement has ever been to depaired of imitating under like feat its ostensible aims, and to circumstances. Everywhere the shew how thoroughly the people ·India and her present Rulers. 757 ces of England have ever failed to another set of declaimers are permaster the simplest details and petually given to condemn by most prominent specialtics of the wholesale. The entire course of case at issue. While all are dis British state-craft in India is reputing about they know not what, garded by the one with feelings the time for settling the question of unmixed complacency, by the slips away. But it has to be set other with feelings of nearly as untled somehow, even at the eleventh mixed disgust. By the one our hour. Amidst the strife of tongues dealings with the people of this, and the jarring of adverse opini- country are apt invariably to be ons, it is easy for the party await characterised as master-picccs of ing its sentence to patch up a 'sort human virtue and administrative of mutual compromise with its os wisdom. By the other they are tensible judges. Downing Street just as apt to be set down for has its own sufficient reasons for monuments of human folly, of pressing lightly on its India House consummate ignorance, of unally. The old system is allowed bridled profligacy. In so arto run on with certain modifica guing both parties are pretty tions for another term of years. equally at fault. Both start from A few concessions have been made premises equally unsound. Both to this or that influential party, shut their eyes to circumstanbut the change on the whole has equally patent, equally fallen wofully short of the general suggestive, equally at variance expectation. Meanwhile the pub with the conclusions of either. lic feeling has burned itself out. Each arrives at a positive false. Tired of disputing to no purpose, hood by overleaping or straying people are glad of an cxcuse for wide of half the truth. getting quietly back to their old are pleased to ignore the pecu- The hubbub but now liar circumstances under which so mighty subsides as galvanical our countrymen pursued the work ly as it began, and John Bull of Indian conquest and pacificahas erelong ceased to look on tion. The other are pleased to India and her concerns as things forget the peculiar circumstances more nearly related to him than of the people among and for the islands in the Pacific Ocean. whom that work has been carried It is amusing indeed to mark It is mere falsehood to say the obstinacy with which most that our Indian policy has been Englishmen at home cling to their either wholly good or wholly obsolete or untenable views on the evil. And it is hardly more foolsubject of our Indian policy past ish to maintain that the people and present. It is hardly too much of India are still unfit for any to say, that their acquaintance government short of a virtual with the leading features and de- despotism, than it is foolish to fects of that policy has made maintain their actual fitness no practical advance upon that straightway to encounter the pewhich satisfied their forefathers in rils of a governmental system the days of Fox and Burke. One modelled in the likeness of that set of, declaimers are perpetually which works so admirably in other praising by wholesale that very portions of the British Empire. mixture of good and evil, which India has indeed outgrown her VOL. II.-NO. IX. The one corners. on.

·758 India and her present Rulers. childish garments. But she has tion, of grave remonstrance and yet to outgrow and fairly get her. Keen rebuke, impassioned protest self disburdened of her childish and clear, cool-headed recital, roll ways. onwards to the common centre, A hope however begins to drowning all other Babels in their dawn upon us, that this state of own, and striking on the public things must erelong pass away ; ear with a meaning which the is already making some half-con most thoughtless may partly pescious effort to pass away. The netrate even now. A great and 'pending inquest on Indian affairs earnest cry, to which England has let loose a world of new and must give heed quickly at her powerful influences for stirring perile; to which indeed she dare the dry bones of British indiffer not refusc to hearken if she entism, and pouring light on the would. darkness of Anglo-Indian politics. To admit of her hearkening to The truth of the matter is begin it as she ought, some other means ning to force itself in various ways must be adopted than those which on the notice of all thinking she has hitherto been satisfied to minds. Englishmen are beginemploy. Legislation by fits and ning to see that stolid apathy and starts, by India House bleedings ignorant zeal can no longer make and Cannon Row restoratives, by head, as of old, against the forces obsolete prescriptions at one monow mustering for their discomfiment and empirical appliances at ture. India House conservatism is the next, cannot possibly effect any already quaking in its shoes. Ralarge or salutary purpose hencefordicalism of the old Anstey school ward. Partial remedies will never sings smaller and smaller day by counteract an evil aggravated by day. The wilful reticences of the continued neglect. The patient's one, the egregious blunders of the casc needs treating far more raother, grow daily more visible to dically than that. Its diagnosis the public eye as the agents of their must be taken over again. Careexposure grow daily louder and ful inquiry into its earlier phases more numerous. India herself has should go hand in hand with close found a voice to which men must unflagging scrutiny of its present listen with however forced a will. symptoms ; and both be followed Her own children, the best, the at short distance by calm but earhighest, the wealthiest, the most nest consideration of the modes of influential of her many-tongued treatment open for future adopcitizens, cry out in very significant tion. A Parliamentary comtones for the establishment of a mittee like that which has just sounder, happier, more credita dissolved itself is altogether beble state of things ; for the redress hind the wants of this active age. of grievances which scem It cannot possibly perform the longer tolerable, and the fair work required of it, as such work enjoyment of rights which cannot should be performed. Compared in justice be any longer withheld. with its nominal functions, its From every quarter, piercing actual proceedings are the height more and more sharply through of Tarce. Assembled merely for that dense inner atmosphere, do a few months, it has somehow or sounds of warning and supplica another to get through in that no ·India and her present Rulers. 759 be period what should rather be the House has out-spoken the loudwork of years. Selected for this est pleadings of disinterested or that impertinent reason, its committees, and led the Ministers members are as likely as not to and Parliaments of the day to give the farce a yet more farcical mock the hopes of even the most turn by displaying a hopeless ig moderate champions of political norance of the matter in hand, or progress, with a final scheme of an equally hopeless subservience Anglo-Indian reform so altered to the interests of this or that and cut down from the shape ori. particular party. Any one of ginally proposed for it, as hardly the subjects on which it has to to differ in any essential feature gather its evidence and draw out from the system it was intended its reports, would need for its to supersede. fair hearing more than the time Such laissez-faire modes of permitted for examining all. governing cannot decently be to- And even that little time inay lerated any longer. They mcre. thrown away on subjects compa ly evade the difficulty, not meet ratively trivial, or frittered in it. They cannot possibly satisfy bootless efforts to grapple with the wants or win the affections some point of peculiar intricacy. of a people already alive to the Amidst the heap of motley and vices and defects of our adminisconflicting details, the accumu trative system, already clamoring lated rubbish of some twenty for a larger and more perfect years, through which such a com measure of political power than mittee has to pick its way, the we have hitherto deemed them chances of lighting on a clue to worthy, at least in practice, to their right adjustment become enjoy. Persistence in them, how gradually smaller, as the hour for safe soever for a time, must rcclosing its labors in that Augean dound eventually to our stable draws gradually nigher. harm and annoyance, no less Even of those labors the immedi than it is already redounding to ate result may exceed the final our own visible discredit and re. issue. The best of British states proach. Acts of wilful injustice men are still human. Press of must tend to lower the character other business may defeat the of nations no less than that of best intentions of ministers as wise Our pride as Englishmen as Peel and as honest as Lord should quicken in this matter John Russell. Want of sufficient that sense of justice and love of influence or popularity may nul fair dealing for which England lify the worthiest efforts of refor has hitherto been remarkable in mers as bold as Fox and as elono ordinary degree. The future quent as Burke. The Court of government of India is a ques. Directors has never been poor in tion which concerns our worldly friends or in the means of pur fame even more than it concerns chasing them at need. Wealth our worldly interests. To settle and patronage are great magicians that question at once or even Party spirit has not presently may be difficult, impodicd out yet. And so it has hap- litic. perhaps impossible. To pened more than once or twice, prepare the way for its settlement, that a whisper from the India to begin discussing it in sober own men. even now.

·760 India and her present Rulers. earnest, with the intent to have it from the hands of opposing cliques fairly argued out anon, is a duty and ignorant tutors, and made which every Englishman possess over henceforward to the virtual ing the power, should think it guardianship and general super. foul shame any longer to show a vision of her truest and best proreluctance, to aid in discharging. tector-the British nation. We confess to being neither Whatever needs to be done for Guelphs nor Ghibelins in this the attainment of such an end, matter. It is not as champions one thing at least must be undone of either Crown or Company that with the smallest possible delay. we lay such stress on a point so The present system of double gocarelessly regarded heretofore. It vernment, by means of the India matters little to our thinking un House on one hand and the Board der what name the external go of Control on the other, is a standvernment of this country shall ing evidence of either the moral henceforth be carried on. Wc turpitude or the political blindhave no wish to see the powers ness of all who set it moving or of the East India Company cur voted for its subsequent renewal. tailed by fresh additions to the Absurd in principle and mischievpowers of the Board of Control. ous in practice, it has only served We are not for placing India un to aggravate the evils which it was der the control of any minister or decmed so powerful to counterministerial body representing the act and do away. What of good power or policy of the Crown such a system has hitherto effectalone. The political history of ed by its own peculiar virtues, it Canada and the Cape colony af would be very difficult to say. fords no very pleasing contrast Its power for evil and wrongto that of British India. What doing was sufficiently displayed in we really want is, to sec adopt- the self-offored confessions of ed for British India such Lord Broughton. Its effect has scheme of simple and uniform virtually been to transfer the inigovernment, guarded by such tiative of Indian Government powerful checks and kept in work from hands comparatively expert ing order by such active agencies and trustworthy into hands altoand jealous yet "hcalthful over gether rude, unpractised, and unlookings, as Englishmen in the safe. safe. It has turned the Court like circumstanchis, if that were of Directors into little better than possible, would desire to see adopt a channel for executing the will ed for themselves. Hitherto Eng- of Cannon Row. As often as land has behaved to her eaftern the two have come in contact, has dependency much as the purse the Secret Committee been forced proud father of little Florence to take up the policy decreed by Dombey behaved to his innocent the Board of Control. In all and neglected child. She has left questions of the last resort the others to perfom a duty which voice of the India House has been none could be expected to perform raised in vain to combat the as well as herself.: We want to views and sentiments of its see her atone for her past negli- doughty rival. It was idle for gence. We want to see her for the French philosopher to argue gotten protegée rescued at once with the absolute monarch of & ·India and her present Rulers. 761 ever. a powerful nation. It has prov-' blessing as the present crude, ed just as idle for the sages of clumsy, two-edged system has Leadenhall Street to measure lo hitherto proved a curse. gic or eloquence with a body so That control, those auspices absolute and irresponsible as that would have to be supplied by of which Sir John Hobhouse was tho British nation and its en erewhile the fitting representa- delegates. It is with her own tive, and whose power for mis proper voice that England should chief is still attested in the low spcak henceforward to her Ing ness of an Exchequer impoverish- dian children. She must allow no ed by the needless drain of a interested go-betweens, no falselong Affghan war. hearted advisers to usurp her Such a system needs prompt rightful functions any more. and thorough reform. One of Cannon Row prescriptions once the two elements which have fairly cast to the winds, spasmoworked so fatally together, must dic parliamentary committees be eliminated at once and for must prepare to follow anon. The other must be placed Henceforth the nation's servants on a firmer and more intelligible must be made responsible to the footing for the time to come. If nation alone, England has a the East India Company is still right to demand that the supreme to retain its nominal prerogatives, control and fina! direction of her the Board of Control should be Indian affairs shall be assumed clean swept away. One deliber and exercised with all needful ative body of experienced and diligence by the Imperial Legisable men will always work bet lative, as the one efficient mouthter and cost less for India, than piece of the national mind. She two made up in the present fa has a right to demand that the shion. Half a dozen approved members of that Legislative shall councillors, chosen for their henceforth keep a watchful and knowledge of Indian affairs and jealous eye upon the measures of aptness for official work, would their subordinate agents ; shall probably suffice for the direction look to have rendered, not here of all those home details which and there, nor at long intervals, are now supposed to engross the but day by day and hour by time and attention of the Court hour, a full and satisfactory acof Directors. A gross anomaly count of what those agents are would thus be effectually got doing or designing for the haprid of. A mischievous and ab- piness and well-being of the peosurd antagonism would no longer pleo committed to their charge. waste the resources and cramp Interests far less momentous than the growth of this fair empire. those of India have hitherto en- With such a body working at joyed a far larger share of parhome, it would matter little un liamentary consideration. It is der what name the government useless to begin reforming our might be carried on abroad. Indian policy without being suf- Such a body, subject to the due ficiently fore-armed against all control and moving undet fit chance of failure at the outset. auspices, would erelong prove The evil to be dealt with, should to India as great and certain a be dealt with effectually or not ·762 India and her present Rulers. ces at all. The least atonement we help on the part of her imperial can render for past neglect and mistress. More than ever is the misrule in the case of India is, latter bounden now to accord to provide her with the best pos that help and impart that counsible security against similar mis sel with the freest grace and the haps hereafter. Such a provi best ability. For such ends no sion would not be far to seek, or better road seems open to her difficult to apply when found. A than the road we have just been standing Parliamentary Commisdimly pointing out. Instead of sion, made up of able, active, the vicious system which now disinterested men such as Eng- prevails, we should thereby get land has never yet failed to supto a system of checks and balanply for public purposes, might be so simple as to admit of got ready at a moment's warning working with fewer hands for to assume, with better capacity longer periods, yet so nicely and higher aims, the functions arranged that each would best hitherto discharged with such fulfil its particular functions by little credit by the Board of Con advancing the common interest trol on the one hand and the pe which should inspire them all. riodical committees on the other. Instead of half a dozen bodies It would take up but a small possessed of indiscriminate powfraction of our statesmen's time ers, working each on different to select from their ranks a principles, pulling cach a differcertain number of fit commisent way, we should have one able sioners entrusted, on certain fit deliberative body at home repreand wholesome conditions, with senting the hopes and interests the power to watch, examine, of the Indian people, but controland report upon all that passes in led in its turn and continually the world of Indian politics; to overlooked by an able initiative inspire, control, and modify the body, chosen by and out of the movements of its upper and out British parliament to express the er circles; to counteract whatfeelings and maintain the credit ever of wrong or mischievous of the whole British nation. Two may issue from the depths of its such bodies, working in due conofficial mechanism'; and to ini cert as they would surely do for tiate whatever of just or expcdi a common end, would soon make ent may be wanting to complete their influence felt in many notathe ends for which that mecha. ble ways through every public nism was first designed. road and hidden byeway of their The advantages of such a mea common empire. Their joint sure, properly planned and care exertions would erelong pave the fully carried out, would be great way to all those ulterior mea. and manifold enough. Indian sures of internal reform which affairs have got into a sad state are now lying in such very dim of entanglement and unrepair perspective on the political horiduring these late years. The zon of British India. present is a very critical moment The effect of such an arrangein the life of British India. More ment would not be confined to than ever does she now stand in India alone. It would extend in need of wise counsel and active no little measure to England also.

·India and her present Rulers. 763 While pushing their inquiries instead of being quietly smotherinto the various departments of cd by reference to a garbled Indian politics, our new commis Blue Book, or coolly set aside by sioners would be laying up fresh one of those barefaced subterincentives to increased exertion fuges or bold assumptions, with and heightened watchfulness in which some of our political jugthe mass of new and varied ma glers have contrived so often to terials, which their researches mystify and mislead the minds of would continually be opening out honester men. As the railway for the use and enlightenment of in some mcasure creates its own their countrymen at large, and traffic, so will the formation of their fellow legislators in particu a standing Indian Commission lar. The longer they pursued create in due time the needful their labors, the greater conver supply of candidates for the honor sance would thesc latter acquire of filling its future vacancies. with the ground over which those Conversance with Indian affairs labors had been or would still have must erelong become the general to be pursued. Englishmen would rule of a Parliament whose memsoon cease to look on India as a bers would of course be all elicountry with which they had no im gible alike to take their turn at mediate concern. British apathy a service peculiarly adapted for would soon be rousing itself per- Parliamentary hands alone. And force to survey the scope and public opinion, as it became more apply the lessons of a new rege- enlightened, would become more nerative power, whose constant capable of discharging its lawful pressure and increasing growth mission as an embodied reality, a would cause British ignorance to wise and active will, cver aiming look more and more foolish, ugly, to express and enforce the dicand disreputable day by day. A tates of human justice, mercy, debate in Parliament on this or self-respect; ever ready to esthat Indian question would be pouse the interests and somewhat livelier and more pro sert the rights of all whom its fitable than such spectacle has aid may benefit or its voice hitherto been. British statesmen encourage ; ever forward to rewould have to grow ashamed of buke, browbeat, chastise in raknowing as little about Eastern ther a tremendous way the wrongpolitics as an Indian ryot is likely doers, fools, and evil-minded who to know about those of Tim have dared to pursue their hatebuctoo, or a Russian serf about ful practices under its immediate those of Kentucky. The Hoggs ken. Surely such a prospect and Hobhouses would cease to would be worth the realising, smile with conscious triumph at even at tenfold the risk and trouthe narcotic effects of a philippic ble needed for its realisation now. by Anstey, or the futile effects These preliminary steps once of an eloquent partisan address to taken, the road beyond them empty benches by Lord Ellen would prove comparatively passborough. Most points of Indian able and easy to follow out. A policy, such as the Afghan War better system of external governor the Conquest of Scinde, would ment at homo would lead as a get decided on their truc merits, matter of course to the adoption as- ·764 India and her present Rulers. names. of a better system of internal go them be fairly adjusted. Without vernment in India. In due time some large measure of internal the one result would necessarily reform India must look in vain induce the other. The march of to thrive better than she is do. knowledge cannot be arrested at ing now. Such conclusions may will. It were as easy to stay the be laughed or sneered at in hand of Time itself. Once fairly many, quarters. They may be roused to the need for action and called by all manner of hard enlightened as to the proper chan- Their upholders may be nel for its display, the national continually set down as fools or mind of England will not be satis knaves, as bold enthusiasts or fied with any partial solution of bold impostors. Blind conservathe difficulty with which it began tism and blinder factiousness may to grapple in so hopeful a way. It do much to distort for others the will insist on getting to the bot truths they cannot see themselves. m of a mystery which seems to The voice of Mammon may join grow more and more intelligible loudly enough in the laugh or at every step. Once set upon a diatribe against men whose watchtrail so broad and promising, the word is in itself a standing propublic attention would refuse to test against the Mammonism of turn from it half-way. For such former days. The thoughtless obstacles as would chiefly beset and uninformed may be slow to its path, it would have little care admit the justness of a movement and less sympathy to plead in ex whose antecedents they are uncuse of any long delay. What of willing to believe. But the conobsolete charters, vested interests, clusions themselves are not to be prescriptive rights, unjust mono wholly rejected or explicitly depolies, private trespasses of any nied by any one. The boldest sort on public ground, appeared advocates of present abuses dare to dispute its passage, would cer not insist on keeping all things tainly have to remove themselves precisely as they are. The fondor get rudely trampled upon in est worshippers of India House due time. Sooner or later the patronage will yet allow the need quarry would be hunted down, for administrative repairs in Benno matter what cunning fences gal, or confess that there is someand elaborate pleas were devised thing rotten in the financial cirto quench the zeal and baffle the cumstances of Madras. The most watchfulness of the pursuers. bigoted defenders of the Civil To all who regard our Indian Service will yet have the candour government with careful and un to bewail the demoralized state prejudiced eyes, the general re and indisciplined tendencies of our sults of its domestic policy must Indian Army. Peculiarly sharp seem more or less incompatible in their own limited sphere are with the present state, character, the eyes of such as Daniel of and capabilities of our Anglo-In Calcutta. According to this redian community at large. The verend reasoner the crying wants two conditions have somehow lost of India at this moment would their due parallelism. Only by a be remedied by the institution of swift and sweeping change in the another Anglican Bishopric at former can the difference between Agra. Others hardly less inge- 1 ·India and her present Rulers. 705 nious would rest India's hopes them with clear eyes and honest and happiness for the future on hearts will the true results of our the despatch of an additional car past policy become fairly distingo of civilians from Haileybury, guishable through the heap of or Missionaries from Exeter llall. falsehoods, fallacies, prejudices, So much seriousness over com misconceptions, with which they parative triftes will not be with have continually been overlaid. out its deeper meaning for those On those results we cannot exwho can duly appreciate the con patiate now. Want of space preditions of its display. Such zeal cludes more than a passing allufor cleansing the outside of the sion to them. That they are recup and platter reads, to our sults to grieve at rather than to thinking, like the expression of rejoice over, no one who has used a resolute if not very becoming his eyes to any purpose can vendesire to slur over the rottenness ture to deny. A system essenwhich reigns within. tially unsound and full of anoma- Crying wants indeed there lies must work with damaging are ; grave abuses and grave de effect under any circumstances. fects which call for remedy, but This has been remarkably the not for remedies so weak and case with India. Faulty theory questionable as thesc. The main has led to worse practice. The features of our local polity are whole tendency of our civil legisnot to be studied by the farthing lation is to protect the few at the lights of professional arrogance expense of the many. A few and religious bigotry. The great hundred friends and relatives of questions of local reform must be the East India Directors possess argued on higher grounds than to all intents supreme and unlithose of antiquated usage and mited control over the lives and party privilege. Wilful blindness fortunes of the whole Angloand ignorant presumption are ra. Indian community. Under the ther treacherous guides in the grossest of all monopolies, under search for grievances of their own the most galling form of foreign producing. The powers of dark dominion, have the natives of Inness will lend no willing hand to dia been doomed to suffor unnothe disinterment of a forgotten ticed for these many generations truth or the suppression of a past. Year after year have they long rampant falsehood. Only seen youths from Haileybury to those who study it in a spirit scated in all their high places, of calm candid unflinching injury usurping functions which many and large right-minded purpose, of their own party would have will the present phase of Anglo- filled with better grace, dispens- Indian affairs, reveal itself in its ing justice, administering the true characters and full signifi- laws, finances, politics of large cance, disrobed of all its theoret. districts with the easy confidence ical pretences, and pleading to of practised veterans, and draw. be judged no longer by crooked ing salaries more accordant with and exceptional rules, but by the their youthful tastes than suited everlasting laws of justice, hones to the extent of their professional ty, fine feeling, and common sense. acquirements. While these men Only to those who search for have been so highly favored, VOL. II. NO, IX.

·766 India and her present Rulers. their ill-paid and hard-working ncedless delays, unjust and arbrethren of the uncovenanted bitrary practices of every sort. service are still fain to toil and Our civil law is a mystery which struggle in a subordinate sphere, its wisest interpreters cannot alwithout a hope of rising beyond together expound; a luxury in a certain point in the path which which the mass of natives would professedly lies open to all class rathe: not indulge at any cost. es and colors alike. In theory Bengal is blessed with a police we have placed the native on a more powerful foren couraging level with his white comrade in than for cheoxing crime. A large respect of political as well as so part of India is blessed with a cial rights. In practice we are fiscal «system which seems fast still doing our worst to keep him reducing the landed classes to one down by disabilities and enact common level of poverty, thrifto ments affecting both the one and lessness, and mental stagnation. the other. In giving him place All India rejoices under a salt-tax and pay we have forgotten to framed in the very worst school square the latter with the new of political economy, and carryconditions involved in the former. ing out to its fatalest and ugliest Raising him to a position of pe issue the atrocious principle of culiar trial we expect him to fill sacrificing the many for the virit worthily and without offence, tual benefit of the few by a heaupon a salary which no respect- vy tax upon the commonest neable native would deem anything cessaries of human life. It is like adequate to the accompany- only since yesterday that a paring duties, still less to the ac tial remedy has at length been companying dangers. By way ordained for the defects of a posof raising the native character, tal system as disgraceful to our we hold out a premium for vice national character, as it is burand dishonesty which tends to thensome to the public and unsink it lower and lower every just to the press of India. day. The low-caste corrupt va Our whole scheme of fiscal keel continues his career of mis policy needs revising at an early chief as a corrupt magistrate ; date. It is impossible that a and the abuse we have thus en revenue in itself so small, and gendered, becomes convertible more than two-thirds of which into a fresk excuse (for excluding are drawn from land alone, can the native from places of yet fairly represent the existing higher trust and wider influence. wealth and known resources of a By way of enforcing the social country so large, populous, and equality of all classes, we exenpt civilised as India. According to our English countrymen in the the present scheme the wealth of mofussil, by special clauses and our mercantile and monied classtechnical evasions from the due es remains untouched, while the jurisdiction of our established landed gentry contribute to the courts. Our criminal proceed- public purse a proportion of ings are too ofteh a notorious their own yearly incomes, large farce. Our civil judicature has enough in due time to break the become a bye-word for feebleness, backs of the finest agricultural inconsistency, rash judgments, body in the world. Numbers of ·India and her present Rulers. 767 soon. these and their dependents have to verify in literal prose the old already sunk into utter ruin be poetic allusions to "the wealth of neath a burden which there are Ind." In the broad wastes and plenty of fat 'mahajans' and neglected marshes of Central and greasy "bunncahs' able, if not Southern India, as in the boundvery willing, to share. Austria less forests which gird the Himais not remarkable for the extent layas, British capital and British of her resources, agricultural or energy will find an ample and yet commercial. Yet even with her Yet even with her unoccupied field for the develophuge armies to be maintained, ment of untold resources and the her land-tax amounts only to a production of material wealth, by third of ler yearly revenues In methods hitherto unknown, un- England the proportion has fall. tried, or tried unskilfully. The cn as low as two per cent. Why forests of Rohilcund offer rich sixty-five per cent. should still stores of appropriate fuel for workbe the rule for India, with hering the crude produce of those wealthy merchants, impoverished iron mines which have lain so long land-owners, and accumulating unnoticed below. The cotton debt, we must leave the Court of fields of India may yet divert a Directors to explain. portion of the profits hitherto These are serious evils, need- monopolised by America. The ing most of them to be remedied opening of new channels for trade But the process under and labor must tend to create for any circumstances will needs be her children new incentives to somewhat slow. It is good for mental industry and moral pro. us to hope the best. Meanwhile gress, as ely as it will tend to there are some sins of omission, multiply the sources and safesome mistakes of a minor sort, guards of their material well-being. which our rulers would do well Let the Government of India but to begin repairing at once. The ordain the preliminary process, wealth of India and her people and they will find it all the less has yet to be fairly explored. difficult to help out the ulterior The resources of cither have results. India is still but a child only just begun to put out in several respects. For a time their first blossoms. It is for at least her present rulers must us to sec that they shall bring continue to do for her, what naforth fruit abundantly in due sea tions intellectually older can be son. Hitherto we have but play trusted to get done for themselves. ed at building bridges, making There are powerful agents roads, and founding schools. For ready to join them in forwarding very shame must we now go to the common cause. Missionaries work in rather a more earnest and and additional bishops were ne. wholesale fashion. A large field ver yet found competent to arof enterprise and well-doing lies rest a social Juggernauth, or before us entreating our attention force on a moral Avatar, with to it in many significant ways. their own unaided hands. Not The raw material for our future by formal preachings or metalabors discloses itself on etery physical babblements, not by parhand. It nceds but a little cffort rot like rehearsals of Shakespere of well-timed and munificent zeal or childish commentaries on Ba- ·768 India and her present Rulers. con, nor yet by heaven-born from the centre of present disstatesmanship direct from Haiturbance. But there is much leybury, can the work of educat cheerful significance in the tidings ing the people of India get itself which continually reach this counadvanced in any visible degree. try anent the increasing stir and The native mind is not to be thus widened sympathy which this enlightened. It needs training question of Indian Government of a far more practical kind; pres has begun evoking, even at the sure far more active, universal, eleventh hour among our councontinuous, by means of argu trymen at home. With all its ments appealing to the senses ra talents and popularity, the prether than arguments speaking di sent ministry has already damagrcctly to the soul. A wise and ed its personal credit by its rash paternal Government will make and unwarrantable comments on the most of the tools most readi the results of an enquiry which ly available for effecting its pur has scarcely got beyond its prelipose in the shortest time. Just minary stage. To those comlaws, free institutions, good roads, ments the answer given was plain an efficient police, a comprchen- enough. It showed Her Majessive and libcral scheme of popu ty's advisers the necessity of lar instruction, whatever tends in thinking again, before they ven. short to encourage the growth of tured to insult the people of Engcivilized tendencies and enlight- land with a more rencwal of the ened views, will gather far more legislative tricks and falschoods proselytes to the cause of spiri. heretofore in vogue, whenever tual and intellectual freedom than the affairs of British India were all the wisest precepts of the brought upon the public boards. greatest religious teachers. In We trust they have taken the the Press, the Railway, the Elec hint to some good purpose. For tric Telegraph, are we to recog their own sakes, if for no higher nise the accredited agents, the in consideration, are they bound to act spired apostles and trusted mis honestly by the nation at large, sionaries, the veritable priests and in a matter which the nation at preachers, rites, ordinances, and large will insist on probing furdaily lessons, of that time-old ther, no matter what powers creed which alone may tend to of indolence, talent, or privilege dispel the darkness of national may attempt to bar its way. barbarism. It is only by these Justice to India is the cry no and such-like influences that the longer of a mere party, but of all great heart of Indian humapity parties alike. If Her Majesty's will ever be moved effectually, if advisors should still think otlicrit is ever to be moved at all. wise, they will venture to act ac. Speculation on the future would cordingly at their peril. be an idle task at this distance L. T.

·[ 709 ] THE BOX OF LETTERS. a Many years ago I was deputed I was deputed of the greatest importance to his by the Government to take charge heirs, if produced at once. It of the office of a member of the appears that thcsc heirs were Civil Service, who had died sud grcat nephews who had never denly. He was a man of the seen, and only faintly heard, of old school, who had vegetated in their Indian Uncle. They had India uninterruptedly for more become aware of his death from than a quarter of a century, who the papers, and had become entihad broken through all English tled to a landed estate, supposing ties, and set at defiance many of a document could be produced, the better English habits. He and they earnestly solicited me, had risen high in rank, and had though a stranger, to make obtained some estimation for offi scarch for it, and should it not cial ability, but the heart that be found, they authorized, nay, could disregard the natural ties of entreated me to read every letter relationship, was not likely to draw reccived in days bygone from his to itself new and sincere friend family, on the chance of some ships. He had lived very much trace being found of it. to himself, and by himself, and I complied unwillingly to what when he died, no one regretted appeared to me to be a very dull it. There was rather a feeling of task,-one very repugnant to my satisfaction among his juniors, feelings, and for which I had that death had at length removed little leisure or eyesight. Howthis permanent obstacle to their ever, onc evening I opened the promotion. box in which I had previously I received charge of his pri. sealed up all the private papers, vate effects as well as his office, and beyan with much ennui and and a strange meleć of things ill-will what seemed a very heavy they consisted of, for the deceas- task; but strange to say, as I read, ed had left England during the an unexpected interest began to last century, and had never re- I found in these letters turned to refreshen his ideas, and a history of the deceased's dohad never broken up his estab mestic relatives for the last fifty lishment: a great mass of rub years, all the joys and sorrows of bish therefore had accumulated, his home told artlessly, and ris. which for years past he had been ing up unadvisedly more fascinata too indolent either to look at or ing than many a studied romance, think of. The work occupiced me many A few months after I received nights, but I forgot the fatigue, from a solicitar in London an ap and oftentimes I was so deeply plication, urging and imploring interested that I read on insenme to mlike search for a particu sibly past the midnight hour. lar document which was sup The letters were tied up in posed to be among the letters of packets, and the first that came the deccascd, and which was under my eyes, contained the seize me.

·770 The Box of Letters. 19 to letters of his father, written in a early period brought before me round, old-fashioned hand, with the imaginary writer in all the all the indications of being the pride and fervency of the young work of a gentleman of the old mother! Her kind and thoughtschool, such as we hear of in ful watchings over her darling the reign of the Third George. boy, her gentle admonitions, her From the first to the last they steady support in his difficulties, commenced “My dear Boy," ever ready to befriend, to counand so faithfully had they been sel, to caution for his health, treasured and arranged, that the warn for his future. I traced the first on the file were written boy from the small school to the to the deceased, when he was at great public institution : the leta public school. Full were they ters, though written by the same of “old saws and modern instanperson, indicated by the change ces" of warnings, kindly admo of time and style, the improvenitions, announcing some project- ment and development of the ed pleasure, or forwarding some mind of the receiver, constant, parental present. By degrees unbroken, often alluding gently the plans for the future life of the to neglect of answers, but never boy began to be discussed--the reproaching, supplying to the abdreadful word India was first sent school-boy the little inci. placed before his eyes: the ex dents of his home, telling him of pressions were brief but affection the health of his poney, and the ate : the old man clearly did not care taken of his garden. All like to condemn his son to ban the boy in his many phases ishment, but could not conceal stood before me: I saw his joyful from him the offer. The series face, as he opened and read the with English post-marks then short note, telling him on what ceased, and a year after com day the carriage would meet him menced with Indian directions. to bring him home for the holi- In some of the last the bold hand days : and I pictured the tearful began to tremble, the letters were eye with which the first letter shaky. At length, at one period was received after his returning many years ago, the scries abrupt to school, telling him, and oh how ly closed, and labelled on the truly ! how much he was missed. last, which stood on the top of I began to know his brothers and the packet, were the significant sisters by name. Soon the fact words "My poor dear Father." began to grow upon me, that his Hard by was a large bundle, second sister was sickening, and or rather succession of bundles, would not long live. I read that written in a female hand : it was in the mother's cautious phrases, not difficult to divine who had but the boy, amidst his lessons written them, for they commcnc and his cricket, little heeded ed at a much earlier date than them, till one letter came to those of his father, and some of convey him his first sorrow, and them were written, in large unci tell him that his earliest playal characters, to catch the eye of fellow was dead: all the details a child. How deeply and clear were given such as a mother's Jy 'did maternal love speak out pen only can give them all in all this! How the notes of this the little symptoms, the strug.

·The Box of Letters. 771 gle of hope and fear, the opinion But the stream of Life could of the Doctor, the trust in God's not be stayed ; it flowed unceasmercy: then came the last moingly on; the boy became a man; ment, the last words of the dying Love began to take the place of angel, the thoughtful message of Authority; the Teacher gave way love to the dear and absent bro to the Friend, and the tone of the ther, the “God's will be done" letters was altered : then came the of the heart-broken parent. first mention of abhorred India, the mournful anticipations top All this I read, till I could truly realized : the trusting in read no more : it was a page of Providence, and then a great domestic history that must have blank in the correspondence. been known to all of us. I had The boy had indeed become become so identified with the a man, the man had been doomed family, so interested in the poor to exile,--in his case eternal. sufferer, .I had so connected her There were no Overland Mails with some lost loved one of my then, ship letters came few and own circle, that I, a hardened far between; yet, when they did man, when I reached this crisis, come, what an out-pouring of rose up from my seat overpowermotherly love was contained in ed, and wept aloud at the acthose closely written and crossed count of the last moments of a pages ! Not a hasty scrawl written young girl of some sixteen sumon the day previous to the departmers, who had died years ago being vessel, with empty apologies fore I was even born, of whom I had known, and till that evening for premeditated carelessness, but a minute chronicle of Ilome, a reheard nothing. So strange and cord of events renewed day by day, deep-seated is the chord of huand as year followed year, and letter man sympathy. followed at long intervals letter, an For many years afterwards the expression of hopes and wishes, a letters of the mother were tinged participation of doubts and anxiewith gloom and melancholy re ties. I soon gathered that the signation : the blow liad gone old man's health was failing, that home to the heart, and all the he yearned to see his son after a mother was poured out in every ten years' absence, for the dates letter. Whatever was the subject, told me that that time had now constant allusions to the lost passed, that be grew weaker day child would force themselves in : by day; the letters told me how hopes, that the darling boy very near that return was to the might never forget his sister; mother's heart. How could the prayers, that he might be like her, son coldly listen to such appeals ? and in the days of his youth re What newly-formed ties, what promember his Creator. Even the fessional ambition, what foolish, joyful tidings of the happy mar short-sighted love of lucre temptriage of the elder daughter could ed him to delay his return? I not tear away her thoughts from knew that he never had re-visited the Church-yard corner, where his home, and I believe that he green turf and bright flowers never had intended; but for two bloomed over the grave of the long years the letters of his mother Early Dead. were written with new hope, ·772 The Box of Letters. were dwelling on some promises ex sat at his mother's feet, listening pressed or implied, for in the au to the cawing of the rooks, was tunin she was expecting him with vacant; the churchyard grave the spring, and when spring came was no longer visited; all past she was building palaces of delight associations gonc. The for the future autumn. But he twentieth year of exile had now never returned ! Oh! ask not the elapstd, and the mother had left cause, blaine him not, let cach off sighing for, or alluding to her look at home, and remember that son's return ; she was content the duties that they owe to their that he prospered. A new race of parents are paramount, and must people had sprung up unknown to not be delayed. How hcavy must him, und his sister's children had have fallen the news on the son, arrived at maturity. They were when he saw the black seal, known to him only by report, and when he road that the old man though their hands filled up the was dead ? Did not tears, bitter, vacancies of their grandmother's scalding tears, of anguish and re letters, they wrote as strangers. proach, blister the paper, when Flis own third sister, whom he had his mother's trembling characters left in the cradle a baby, was now told him that his father had described as in blooning womansickened, how he had died peacehood ; many a gentle allusion fully, bequeathing his benediction fell from the mother's pen, to to his absent boy, how he had attract the brother's affection to gratefully, with expiring accents, this unknown sister, by describthanked heaven for many bless ing her beauty, and her resemings, and would not allow himself blance to that lost sister of his to murmur, if one only, ihat of childhood, who had now been seeing his son again, had been mouldering a quarter of a centudenied. Of what value at that ry in the deserted Church-yard, moment to that were his and by all but the mother, had ephemeral honours, what booted long been forgotten. his hoarded treasure, that had I had begun to love and venerprevented his return ? Did not ate this good old lady; my hand that lock of grey hair, now all that trembled as I took up each letter, remained to him of his first and fearing not to see the same handdearest friend, reproach him, that writing beneath : I saw too that he had allowed that honored I was approaching the last of the head to descend to the grave with bundle, and I knew that must one wish unfulfilled, which a son mean death, for such love ceases might have gratified ? not this side of the grave. I The powers of the widowed seemed to have known her for mother now seemed shaken: her years ; I remembered her as the letters never failed, but became young mother writing her first shorter, were as full of thoughtful letters to her schoolboy; I rethey had been thirty membered her pale countenance years before : : new names over the grave of her child ; I alluded to as taking place in the contrasted that blooiring matron, family circle, the old house had as when she bade him farewell, been vacated, the seat under the with the stiff, upright figure in stately elms, where he had often the old arm-chair, with the picson love, as were ·The Box of Letters. 773 career. ture of her son hanging before dence. True to herself, true to her--her son, as he had left her, her principles, in a long series of in sanguine youth, full of bright several hundred letters, there was hopes, good resolutions, and warm nothing that on reperusal he could affections, in the morning of his have wished to have expunged : And did he not return had the whole been published, home even then to throw him. each reader would have recorre self at the feet of this injured nized the type of a Christian parent, (for what greater injury English mother. than love unreturned ?) Did I had almost forgotten the obhe not tear himself away from ject of my scarch, and the urgent his oriental ties to repay solany reasons which had privileged me to years of unchanging affection? violate thesc sacred pages. Ilav- Will a few shawis and Indian ing finished these interesting packnicknacks, the cold display of ets, I had to wade through a vast heedless affluence, gratify a momiscellaneous mass of corresponther's yearning ? Can the heart dence : letters from his sisters, become so cold? Can the first letters from his nicces and his duties of Nature be so easily for. 'nephews, from his lawyers in Enggotten? I had never loved this land, from his friends and acman, but until I read these let quaintances in India : there was ters, I had somewhat respected the acknowledgment of the sporthim, but I felt now burning with ing Major, who had plundered indignation, as if personally bim at the card-table, or done him wronged, nor would I, fearing an on the race course : there was the avenging Providence, have trust note of apology from the younged myself in the same vessel with ster who had broken the knees one so regardless of the ties of of the horsc, which had been lent humanity. to him by his good-natured and I said that but a few letters careless host: there were the duns, remained. They were short, and the applications, the whinings cheerful, and resigned, thanking of Misery, and the fawnings of him for some present, inquiling Sycophantism : what a strange tenderly after his health, but ne picture of the world is offered by ver alluding to his return, or his a box of miscellaneous corresfuture, The mother had divin pon: ncc extending over many ed the secret : some kind friend years : I found letters written in had told to her the Indian tale. the freshness and confidence of boy- That silence, when contrasted hood by men, whom I knew now with the warm anticipations and in the surliness and misanthropism eager hopes of the past, cut me of decaying years :--the extravadeepest. Her last letter was gant of those days had become dated forty years after the first : misers--the Saints of the last cen. the hand-writing had changed tury had furnished the present with but little, the signature almost sinners. Names of old fogies the same, and the same true tone who had long since been trans. of unchanging womanly love, ferred from the staff of the Army the same unselfish outpouring to the list of the Pension Payof maternal care showed itself master and thc Sexton, were here throughout the whole correspon- alluded to, as smart officers with VOL. II.NO. 1X.

·774 The Box of Letters. ; more arreference to the purchase of divinc for the last letter was as Companies : old Sudder Judges, fervent as the first. This was not who had years ago gone to that a case of love perishing by slow place where all Sudder Judges decay, but a sudden wrench of go, and the sooner the better, in liearts, and I sat some time wonthese pages appeared as men of dering how it had come to pass, sense and intelligence, for which whetker death, or kind friends had I had never given them credit. interfered, whether she still lived, I.read on with varied interest, whether the sight of his name sometimes a smile, and sometimes among the dead had secured onc a sigh, and at the bottom of all only tear for the grave of her old my attention was once Indian lover. rested by a small packet in a de But why were his days doomed licate femalc hand, and the con to terminate in this way? Why tents told the old tale of an early did he not return to his home to engagement ending, as usual, in reap the rewards of his youth moonshine. The correspondence and manhood spent in intellechad commenced at a very distant tual and honourable labour ? Lax period before even the departure of in morals, unsettled in religion, India, and for two or three years effeminate in habits, imperious the series was regular, abounding in manner, antiquated in notions, with the usual trite, school girl and narrow in views, why did he remarks of undying affection, and tarry here at length to crcep to anticipated happiness; there was an obscure grave unlovcable, unno clue to the name, as initials on loving, and, since that one fond ly were used, and one day thirty maternal heart had ceased to years ago this correspondence had beat, unloved ? ceased, why, it was impossible to PIILO-INDUS.

·[775] HISTORY OF THE LEAGUE. CHAPTER V. Treaty of Joinville.--Manifesto of the Leaguers.- Proclamation of Henry III. --Manifesto of the King of Navarre.--Treaty of Nemours.--Death of Grer gory XIII.-Election of Sixte-Quint.-His Bull of Excommunication.- Castle of Angers surprised.-—Bout of the Prince of Condé.--General Oparalions. 1584.-FINDING every, thing 1585.-- Father Claude Matthieu thus ripe for the full development -- from his frequent journies surof his schemes, the Duke of Guisc named the Courier of the League withdrew towards the close of the -immediately set out for Rome year to wis government of Cham with a copy of this most treasonapagne, and shortly afterwards ble document, in order to obtain procceded to Joinville, where a the Pope's sanction, which in a treaty was signed by the Envoy of war undertaken ostensibly for rethe Spanish monarch on the one ligious motives, was almost indishand, and on the other by the re pensable. Gregory XIII., howpresentatives of the Holy League. ever, being unable to comprehend The ayowed object was to secure the precise object of the League by arms the succession to the --for the bigotry of Henry III. Cardinal of Bourbon, and for was too unquestionable to admit ever to exclude all the princes the supposition that he in any way who were heretics, or abcttors of favoured the heretics-determined heresy, much more those who to temporize, and therefore rehad apostatized from the true ferred the matter to & congregafaith. The Cardinal pledged him. tion of Cardinals, who left it in self, on ascending the throne, to as great obscurity as before, addratify the treaty of Câteau-Cam- ing to their resolution on each bresis, which abandoned to pain separate article, the ambiguous the sole government of Flanders, but saying clause, “if the facts to surrender the town of Cam stated be true.". A little before his bray, to renounce all alliances with death he is reported to have said the Grand Seignior, to forbid all to Cardinal D'Este: "The League enterprizes against the Spanish shall have from me neither Bull Indies, to assist in subduing the nor Brief, until I see more clearrevolted provinces of the Nether- ly into its entangled web.” lands, and to proclaim the Coun It had been originally agreed that cil of Trent. On these condi. the Treaty of Joinville should be tions Philip II. promised to kept secret for a time, but Philip furnish 50,000 crowns a month now became alarmed lest Henry for the expences of the war, and IlI. should accede to the proposito settle on the Duke an annual tion of the States, and consent to pension of 200,000 crowns. The take the Netherlands under his contracting parties further agfeed protection. The Earl of Warwick, not to conclude peace without accompanied by a magnificent their mutual consent. suite, had lately been commission- ·776 History of the League. ed by Elizabeth to convoy the In and had also despatched Chrissignia of the Order of the Garter topher de Bassompierre into Gerto the King of France, but it many to raise an auxiliary corps of was well known that he had been Reiters, but some time must nesecretly instructed to urge Henry cessarily elapse before he could to aid the Flemings, and to unexpect the arrival of troops from dertake on the part of his royal either of these quarters. Nevermistress to defray one-third of theless, to retain the favor and the charges. The Spanish Am- support of the King of Spain, it Lassador therefore protested in was deemed expedient to incur all strong terms against the King's hazards. interference in favor of rebels, and The Cardinal of Bourbon aceven added some threats. On cordingly left Paris for Rouen which IIenry replied with the under pretext of passing the seadignity he could sonetimes as son of Lent in his own diocese, sume, that neither he nor any and thence hastened into Picardy, other monarch of France would on the frontiers of which he was cver be dctcrred by mucos met by the Dukes of Guise, Mafrom aiding the oppresscd, and · yenne, Aumale, and Elboeuf, and that as he had always kept up a conducted with much ceremony friendly intercourse with the to Peronne. Here he signed a Belgians, he should continue to Manifesto-dated the 13th of afford a hospitable asylum to all March—-which had been already thcir fugitives. Unhappily his ac drawn up and prepared by abler lions did not correspond with his hands. It stated that for fourwords, and he dcclived for the teen years France had been a present to entertain the petition prey to a dangerous war, that of the supplicants. His interpo threatened the very existence of sition would at this moment have true religion. Many remedies turned the scale, and civil and had been applied, but so inefficireligious liborty would probably ently, that they rather added fuel have been secured to thc Low to the Hame. Of the numerous Countries. The Prince of Parma son of Ilenry II. the present was then engaged with the siege King alone survived, and as he of Antwerp, on the fate of which had no apparent hope of any ismainly depended the fortune sue, great disorders might be exof the war. Philip II. was pected to ensue at his death. sensible of the emergency of the For ever during his life time these crisis, that he called upon the rebels against the Church had Duke of Guise immediately to made preparations for war, and fulfil his promises, threatening in had concluded treaties with foreign casc of refusal to acquaint the and heretical Princes. Some Ca- King with their infamous pact, tholics even had afforded them and to abandon the cause of the protection, and abused the royal Lcague for ever. The Duke, confidence in order to forward however, was but ill prepared to their own selfish views. These commence hostilitles. By means traitors to God and their country of Spanish gold he had indeed had removed from the King's perqajnod, over Louis Phiffer, the son all the Princes and great President of the Five Cantons, lords, and had deprived them of 80 ·History of the League. 777 all real power, and left them only tained. Rather than consent to a vain title. They had besides a fruitless peace they were prebestowed every office and honour pared generously to sacrifice their on their own creatures, and had lives and all their worldly goods, oppressed the people by exces and to be heaped together under sive taxation, while they appro one tomb, erected to the memory priated to their own use, the of the “ Last of the French, who funds of the public treasury. died in fighting for their God For these reasons, the Cardinal, and their native land." This as first Prince of the blood, con declaration concluded with the jointly with the other Princes of royal form : Given at Peronne, the blood-royal, Cardinals, Peers, &c. &c., and was signed, Charles, Prelates, Lords, &c. &c., "the Cardinal de Bourbon. The Duke best and soundest portion of of Guise immediately afterwards this realm," after due delibera took the field, and surprised tion have mutually promised and Toul and Verdun, but stained sworn to take up arms, in order a repulse under the walls of that the Holy Church of God Metz, into which the Duke of may be restored to its pristine Epernon had thrown considerlustre, and the one true Catho able succours. He then proceedlic religion alone be professed ed to Chalons where he proposed throughout the kingdom. They to fix the head-quarters of the have further engaged that the League, and resolved to await Nobles shall recover all their pri- there the arrival of his foreign vileges, that the people shall be auxiliaries. freed from all taxes imposed since the reign of Charles IX., In the meantime the King lost that the States shall be convoked the favorable moment for action every three years, and the Par- by his indecision, and at first conliaments be reintegrated in their tented himself with making pious former power. They further dis- processions in the hope of obtainclaimed all interested motives, ing children. But when the and professed their readiness to Manifesto of the Cardinal aplay down their arms as soon as peared, he recognized the necesthe King had acceded to their sity of adopting measures of more just demands, for their only ob- speedy operation. speedy operation. Some of his jcct was the preservation of him. counsellors urged him to attach self and his kingdom. All towns, the King of Navarre to his cause, corporations and individuals who but others-with-whom was the hall not yet signed the articles of Queen-mother-represented that the League, were urged to lose this would at once confirm the no time to repair thcir negli- insinuations of his enemies, and gence, lest they too should be would tend to alienate the fow numbered among the evil-doers. good Catholics who still remained Finally, they declared their inten loyal to their sovereign. Martion not wilfully to injure either shal D'Aumont implored Henry the persons or property of true to allow him to march at the Catholics, but to preserve the head of the guards and such atrictest discipline, and to per other troops &s he could hastily severe until every object was at collect, and to crush the Leaguers ·778 History of the League. .. case before any re-inforcements could The League had already made reach them. This indeed would considerable progress. Mandelot have proved no very difficult task, had seized and razed to the ground for Beauvais-Nangis, on his ar the Citadel of Lyons : La Chatre rival at Châlons, found the Duke delivered up Bourges : Brissac inwith only 400 foot and 1500 duced Angers to declare for Henhorse. To his inquiry how he ry of Guise: and D'Entragues proposed to act if the royalists was equally successful at Ormarched against him, Guise cool leans. But the royalists retained iy replied, that he must in that their influence in Bordeaux, flee into Germany, and through the energy and soldierly await a better opportunity. But conduct of Marshal Matignon, it was not Catherine's policy to who repressed the disturbance at permit the humiliation of the its outbreak, and having strength- House of Lorraine, and she ened the fort of Château-Tromtherefore persuaded the King to pette, was cnabled to deep the endeavour to gain time by nego town under proper control until tiating with both parties, Hu the termination of the war. Some guenots and Leaguers. In ac lamentable excesses occurred at cordance with this treacherous ad Marseilles, which certain seditious vice, Henry issued an edict to persons endeavoured to deliver forbid the levying of troops un up to the Duke of Nevers, at that less by his express command, moment in the immediate neighand enjoining all governors, lieu bourhood. But the firmness and tenant-governors, bailiffs, and good sense of a respectable citizen seneschals to oppose all such named Bouqiner, and the prompt illegal measures by arrival of the Grand Prior of bling the inhabitants of their France, checked the progress of respective districts by sound of the tumult, and the ringleaders tocsin, and cutting in pieces all having suffered the mecd of their who resist their authority. He misdeeds, peace was speedily resalso gave orders to raise a body tored. The Duke of Nevers of Swiss auxiliaries, and despatch- about the same time abandoned ed Count Schomberg into Germa the League, and assigned as his ny to obtain a corps of Reiters; reason, that he had been misled but on his passage through Lor as to its motives : for he had been raine the Count was arrested by assured that it had received the the sovereign prince of that pro sanction of the Pope, and was vince, who, finding that his son solely aimed at the extirpation of was likely to benefit by the com heresy, whereas it now appeared motions that agitated France, had that the Pontiff withheld his at last pronounced himself in fa approval, and the arms of the vor of the League. He trusted, Leaguers had been directed only besides, to get possession of the against their sovereign. In Britthree Bishoprics of Toul, Verdun, tany the Duke of Montpensier, and Metz, originally free imperial acting in conformity to the King's cities under the protection of the orders, easily dispersed Mercour's Duchy of Lorraine, but annexed raw and ill-disciplined levies, as to the French Crown by Henry did Joyeuse those of the Duke of 11. in 1552. Elboeuf. A serious illness had hiassem- ·History of the League. 779 therto confined the Duke of Eper to settle the succession, when he non to his couch, but as soon as might yet be blessed with offhe was able to rise, he fell upon spring. To take up arms under the League troops with impetuo such circumstances argued a dissity and cut them to pieces. Many trust of Providence, of his own sinccre Catholics now imitated the manly vigour, and of the fecunexample of the Duke of Nevers, dity of his royal consort. As but Henry Ill. was inaccessible for the charge of removing the to encouragement, and towards great lords from his person, he the end of April published a long, certainly had not neglected the verbose, and apologetic declara House of Lorrainc, but on the tion, in which he rather sought contrary had lavished on them to justify his own conduct than to the highest honours. And even mark that of the rebels with duc were it otherwise, it is the sovereprobation. After expressing his reign's prerogative to dispense his displeasure that some of his sub favours to whom he will. But jects should have entered into a private interest alone was the confederacy professing indeed to real motive of the confederates, have plausible objects in view, and the people would do well to but resorting to very illegal mcans open their eyes, and vicw the to carry them out, he asks why it matter without passion. In spite should be necessary thus to isolate of all their fair promises the himself, when his sympathy with march of the League troops was their avowed cause was so well marked by ravages that would known. He was convinced by ex have been disgraceful even in an perience that the heretics could ne enemy's country. In conclusion, ver be put down by force of arms, he summoned the chiefs to disa and yet he would have undertak band their forces, to rely upon en hostilities against them to grati his fatherly love for all his subfy his people, had the States af- jects, especially for those of the forded him sufficient funds. Great true religion, and to live in amiadvantages, however, had accru ty with each other; and he posied to the nation in conscquence tively prohibited the formation of of peace, and the Clergy had been any Leagues or Associations for permitted to hold Provincial Syany purpose whatsoever. nods to confer about the best Very different was the. Manimeans of reforming the discipline festo published, at Bergerac by of the Church. He himself had the King of Navarre, and adnot only sent commissions into dressed to all the Princes, Prevarious parts of the country lates, and Potentates of Christo administer justice on the spot, tendom. He declared his belief but had suppressed numerous in the doctrines of Christianity, sinecures, and prohibited all ve his submission to the decisions nality at Court, besides setting of the early Councils, and his in his own person a bright ex readiness to be guided by those ample of piety and godliness. of a new Council that should Malignity and corrupt manners freely and fully represent the alone could have misrepresented Church of Christ. His pretendhim as an abettor of heresy. Be ed conversion to the Roman Casides, it was somewhat premature tholic religion was notoriously ·780 History of the League. # utle the result of violence, and as a citation from the 120th Psalm, soon as he once more became a 2nd and 6th verses. " Deliver free agent, he had openly avowed my soul, O Lord, from lying the faith of his childhood. Ne lips and from a deceitful tongue. vertheless, he bore no ill.will to- 1 labour for peace, but wards the Catholics individually, when I speak unto them thereof, and was quite willing to be in they make them ready to battle." structed in the peculiar articles Some of the Catholic Lords also of their creed, though not with a put forth an address to their felponiard at his breast. In his low-countrymen, asserting their own dominions he had never per zcalous attachment to the relisecuted those of a different reli gion of their forefathers, and their gion. On the contrary, he had loyalty to their sovercign ; but always treated the Clergy with expressing their suspicions of the respect, and allowed them unre real nature of the Association stricted liberty of conscience. proposed with so much parade It was false to assert that he had for the defence of Church and ever concluded any treaties with State, when neither was menaced foreign Princes, nor had he ever by foreign or do.nestic foe. They speculated on the probability of further protested against the inbeing successor to a Monarch, sidious proclamations and only two years older than him lawful conduct of that body, and self. It was true that he had warned the people of the disasapplied to His Majesty for per trous consequences that must enmission to retain the places of sue, from driving a large proporsecurity, after the expiration of tion of their fellow-subjects to the six years stipulated in the despair. Finally, they tendered Edict of Poitiers, because many their devoted services to llis of the articles of that same Edict, Majesty, and besought him not in favor of the Protestants, had to identify himself too hastily with never been executed. But he a party that acted on such perwould not refuse to surrender nicious principles. them, if Guise and the Leaguers would at the same time give up Navarre's Manifesto gained him the places they possessed. He much good will and sympathy. concluded by praying His Ma The middle classes were pleased jesty to spare the further effusion with his desire to stop the effuof innocent blood, and to permit sion of blood, while his challenge himself and the Duke of Guise to the Duke of Guise accorded to decide their quarrel in single with the chivalrous notions of combat, or attended each, by one, honour not yet quite exploded five, or ten gentlemen. If Guise among the nobles. Guise, howobjected to fight within the King ever, replied with much dignity dom, he was ready to meet him and prudence, that he bore no elsewhere, on whatever ground personal enmity towards the King he might prefer. of Navarre, and were it other- This spirited and characteristic wise, he could not consent to jeodeclaration, which proceeded pardize his great and holy cause from the practised pen of Du for the adjustment of a private plessis-Mornay, terminated with quarrel.

·History of the League. 781 all men. Both parties now commenced In his own principality the war of pamphlets and learned Catholics and Protestants were invective that continued through treated alike without any invidiout the struggle, but the only ous distinction, and many of the paper at this time worthy of no former might be found even in tice was published by Duplessis his body guard. Besides, he was Mornay. After sarcastically al a true Frenchman and the morluding to the boasted ancestry of tal enemy of Spain. Let then the Lorraine Princes, he inquires the words Papist and Huguenot how it came to pass that while it be buried in overlasting oblivion," was deemed consistent with Chris and let there be henceforth only tianity and sound religion on the two classes of men in the kingpart of Charles Quint and Philip dom-the lovers of their country, II. to permit the existence of and the servants of the Spaniards. Protestants in Germany and Hol The League will then speedily fall land, it should become so great a to pieces, and on the graves of subject of offence on the part of its partisans shall be inscribed Henry III. in France. To sethis epitaph : 'Here lie the first cure the succession of a Roman Spanish Frenchmen.'* Catholic Prince on the death of But it was not by pamphlets, a King aged only thirty-four, the however ably written, that the for- Leaguers consistently nominated tune of the contending factions a Prelate nearly double that age. was to be decided. Henry III. Guise himself, who professed therefore issued orders for the such ardent patriotism, was but establishment of magazines of the instrument of the Court of corn and wine at Poitiers, St. Spain, whose gold it was that Maixent, Châtellerault, Niort, he so magnificently distributed Touars, Angoulême, and some throughout the kingdom. If fears other places. Fleury, the browerc entertained of a sovereign ther-in-law of Villeroy, one of the imbued with heretical opinions, Secretaries of State, had succeedwhy did they not attempt to ed in raising a formidable body of convert him ? The King of Na Swiss, but the different roads varre was no bigot, but quite into France were occupied by the open to conviction, and ready to Leaguers. The King lost no submit to the decisions of a ge time therefore in seducing from neral Council. But surely Hen their cause Mandelot, the Goverry III. had a more reasonable nor of Lyons, whose only daugh. hope of raising up offspring than ter was in consequence married the Cardinal, an infirm and uu to Charles D'Alincourt, Villeroy's married Churchman. In any case, son, to whom was promised the reno disquietude need be entertain version of the charge on the death ed with regard to the King of or resignation of his father-in-law. Navarre. His religion taught Of all the cities that had espoused him universal tolerance, and res the cause of the League, Paris pect for the sincere opinions of was by far the most violent, and This clever memoir bogins with quoting Proverbs X4: -26, and xvi.-14: " A wise Kins scattereth the wicked, and bringeth tho wheel over them * * * “ The wrath of a King is as messengers of death ; but a wise man will pacify it ;"_and I. Puter xi.-17: "Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the King." VOL. II. NO. IX. I ·782 History of the League. the citizens even remitted 300,000 King, for he perceived that the crowns to the Duke of Guise to Swiss in the royalist pay were assist hiin in his enterprise. Their likely to prove too much for the secret machinations, however, Duke of Mayenne, who had been were from time to time commu despatched to oppose their ennicated to the King by one Ni trance into the Kingdom, while cholas Poulain, a contemptible fel- Philip the Second's habitual dilalow, but whose evidence might on toriness in furnishing the promismany occasions have proved very ed treasure, prevented him from 'serviceable, had the King possess- levying any troops in Germany. ed sufficient energy and decision The King now undertook to place to profit by it. With character 200,000 crowns at the disposal of istic duplicity Henry had sent the Duke to defray the expences Marshal Matignon to negociate of constructing a citadel at Verwith the King of Navarre and pre dun, besides a similar amount for vent him from assuming a hostile the pay of his foreign ellies, who attitude, while at the same time were however to be immediately he commissioned the Queen-mo disbanded. The Leaguers were alther to effect a reconciliation with soindemnified for any proceedings Guise and the Leaguers. He that might be instituted against also by the advice of his favorite them for the illegal appropriation Epernon forned a body guard of of 110,000 crowns seized by them forty-five Gascon gentlemen-the from the collectors of taxes. Dotorious Quarante-Cinq--who in Their conduct was approved, and consideration of salary of one several important places were hundred crowns a month devoted given to them as hostages, such themselves without scruple or as Reims, Châlons, Soissons, Diinquiry to the execution of his nan, Dijon and Beaume. Το most atrocious behests. each of the great Chiefs of the Catherine proceeded without League was further assigned a delay to Epernay in Champagne, guard of one hundred dragoons, but, as the Guises insisted as a and Henry JII. engaged to repreliminary step that all previous voke all edicts in favor of the Edicts of Pacification should be Huguenots. As soon revoked, that a war of extermina treaty was known Navarre wrote tion should be proclaimed, and the to the King, dwelling upon his Huguenots forcibly expelled from own patience and forbearance, their cautionary towns, some time and reminding his Majesty of his was expended in negociation, and repeated promises not to permit it was not until the 7th of July any infringement of the last act of that the terms were finally agreed Pacification. He likewise ad. upon at Nemours. * dressed separate memorials to the Nobility, the Third Estate, and Guise, however, had become the Parliaments, in justification really desirous of peace with the of his own conduct, which had as this The Court Physician Miron was continually en-ployed as the agent of communication between the King and his mother. t allusion to his repeated journies appeared the following dstich Imploravit opem Mcdici pax ægra, Deique, Deserult, morbos mox habitura graves ·History of the League. 783 merited very different treatment, six months, during which period at least from his sovereign." they were allowed to alienate and But the King had now gone realize their worldly goods. No too far to recede, and on the 18th heretics of any denomination were of July he went in great state to henceforth admissible to any office the Parliament to enregister the or dignity, and the Huguenots Edict of Revocation. The coun were summoned at once to give sellors were attired in their scar up the towns they held in trust. let robes to do honour to the But under no pretext whatsoever ceremony, and the cry of Vive le except by the King's authority, Roi! once more rose from the were any troops to bc levied or lips of the populace, as he passed arms collected, though all past through the crowded streets. He acts of this kind on tbe part of is reported, however, to have the League Princes and Lords thus addressed the Cardinal of were declared pardonable, and Bourbona “My uncle, contra even praiseworthy, because they ry to my conscience, but right had been solely instigated by gladly, did I publish the Edicts of pure and religious motives. Pacification, because they were The trcaty of Nemours convincalculated to relieve the distress ced the Protestant leaders that of my subjects: to-day I am go their only hope of safety was in ing to promulgate their revoca their unanimity, promptitude, tion agreeably to my conscience, and perseverance. During tho but most reluctantly, because peace their numbers and influfrom it will ensue the ruin of my ence had greatly diminished, for state and of my people." In his those who feared not the sword address to the Parliament the of an enemy were keenly sensi. King dwelt at some length on ble of neglect and ridicule. Forthe various means he had essayed tunately, however, many Cathoin the hope of uniting all his sublic nobles were averse to the arrojects in the bond of peace and gance of the Guise faction, and fellowship, but finding that gentle. Damville-now Duke of Montness and forbearance were of no morency-with Marshals Biron avail, he was compelled to have and Matignon, openly or indirecourse to more stringent mea rectly, espoused the cause of sures, and henceforth irrevocably the persecuted Huguenots. In prohibited the exercise of any consequence Duplessis-Mornay other than the Catholic, Aposto- drew up an address to the lic, and Roman religion within nation at large-dated from St. his dominions, on pain of impri- Paul de Cadegoùx, August the sonment and confiscation of pro Tenth-in which he recapituperty. All Calvinist ministers lated the more detailed statements were required to leave the King- contained in Navarre's recent letdom within one month, and the ters, and protested in the name of lay professors of heresy within all the French Calvinists, the ut * It is said that Navarre was deeply affected on hearing that the treaty of Nemours had been actually concluded. His head sank forward on his hund, and for a long time he remained in silent abstraction. Recovering himself with a manly self-control, he claimed with a sigh: " Unhappy France, I can then do nothing for thec," and it was ohserved that the part of his moustaches which had been covered with his hand, had turped quite grey, ·784 History of the League. most respect for the King and his the President, he commended his royal mother. A strong proof zeal, which he had particularly that they bore no hostile feeling noticed in the long speech he delitowards the members of the vered on the occasion of enregister- Catholic religion was the fact ing the Edict of Revocation, and he that they had lately been join- expressed his conviction that both ed by the Duke of Montmorency the President and his colleagues than whom the Church of Rome would cheerfully forego their sa. did not possess a more zcalous laries while the war continued. champion. But though nothing IIe then addressed the Provost, would ever tempt them to become and said he was glad to find that aggressors, they were nevertheless the war was so popular among the determined to defend themselves inhabitants of his capital, as he against the tyranny of those who should be compelled not only to troubled the tranquillity of the stop the paymentof the annuities on realm, and they earnestly invited the Ilotel de Ville, but to require all true Frenchmen to co-operato a grant of 200,000 crowns to de. with them for this purpose, on fray the initiatory charges of the apwhich they devoutly implored the proaching campaign. To the Carblessing of the Almighty. dinal he expressed a hope that he But while the Protestants justly should be able to provide for the complained of the severity with expences of the first month without which they were treated, the burdening the Clergy, but after that Clergy and the bigotted populace he should not hesitate to alienate murmured at the King's lenity in as much of the Church property granting them so long a delay as as the exigencies of the case might six months, and clamorously dc- demand, nor should he trouble manded the immediate commence himself to solicit the sanction of ment of hostilities. Ilenry III., the Pope. F'inding them stand therefore, summoned to his pre amazed and speechless at this unsence, at the Louvre, the first and expected and most unpalatable second Presidents of the Parlia. annunciation he angrily continued: ment, the Dean of the Cathedral, “ You would have done well to and the Provost of Trades. He have trusted in me, and continued also requested the attendance of to enjoy the sweets of peace, withthe Cardinal of Guise. He then inout pretending to decide upon formed them that it was with great war in your choir or your shop. reluctance he had repealed the I much fear that in seeking to put Edicts of Pacification, because down preaching we shall endanhe foresaw the calamities that ger the Mass. But it is now too would too soon alight on his sub late for words, we must have acjects, but since by the advice of tions." his counsellors, and in compliance August 25.-Willing to make with the wisheç of his people, he a last effort to avert the imhad at last declared war, he was pending hostilities, the King desresolved to prosecute it with vipatched Lenoncourt, afterwards gour, and in no way to spare him Cardinal, President Brulart, and 'self. But to be able to do so somhe Doctors of Theology, to effectually he must have ample cndeavor to persuade Navarre to funds at his disposal. Turning to abjure Protestantism, and thus ·History of the League. 785 soever. remove the only reasonable ob- Sprung from the very dregs of jection to his succession to the the people the new Pope, who throne. These envoys earnestly had also recently filled the office besought that Prince at least to of Grand Inquisitor, united to suspend the public exercise of Calgreat abilities the imperious, overvinism for six months, in the bearing, and inflexible demeanor course of which interval a general which usually characterizes men Council would probably be con of low origin suddenly elevated voked. They also called upon to high rank and eminence. The him to give up the caution- urgent solicitations of Father Matary towns, and stated that the thieu and Cardinal Pellévé, sup- Queen mother would go as far as ported by his own natural predi- Champigny to confer with him lections, easily induced him to bepersonally, if he would stop the come the patron of the League. advance of his foreign auxili Accordingly on the 9th of Separies. In reply, Navarre repeat tember he fulminated a Bull of ed his readiness to bow to the de ex-communication against Henry cisions of a general Council, but of Bourbon, heretofore King of declared his inability to suspend. Navarre, and Henry of Condé, the public exercise of the Protes heretofore Prince of Condé, by tant religion for any period what which he declared them incapable, As for surrendering the as relapsed heretics, of holding towns he held, he rather stood in any office or dignity, or of sucneed of more, nor could he think ceeding to any rights or property of counter-ordering the march of much less to the throne of the his foreign allies, though he would most Christian kingdom of France: proceed to Bergerac to arrange an and further forbade all subjects interview with Her Majesty if the and vassals to render them any sort League forces were withdrawn of obedience, or respect, on pain across the Loire. The Deputies of being included in the same sentherefore returned to Court, foil tence, ed in every attempt to shake Na This arrogant interference with varre's constancy, or to induce him the internal affairs of their coun. to forsake his friends in the hour try, inspired all true patriots of danger. with the most lively indignation, In the early part of the year and the Parliament presented a 1585, the venerable, moderate, very strong remonstrance to his and charitable Pontiff Gregory Majesty on the subject-denying XIII. had been gathered to his the Pope's right or power to infathers, after an earthly pilgrim- terfere in any manner with the age of 86 years. He was suc succession of the French Crown. ceeded by Felix Peretti, Cardinal One of the Councillors even urg- Montalto, who took the title of ed the King to throw the Bull Sixtus the Fifth, or Sixte-Quint, into the flames in presence of all as he is known in French history." the leading Prelates of the Galli- As the late Pope gradually became more and more infirm, Cardinal Montalto affected likewise to declinc in health and strength. On the death of Gregory XIII, the rival fac. tions were so equally divided, that they alike despaired of success, and to gain a little broathing time, agreed to elect the dying Cardinal. But no sooner was he chosen to all the pon. tifical chair, than he threw away his crutches, and proceeding to the Church with a firm and upright galt, performed the usual scrvice with a sonorous and unfailing voice.

·786 History of the League. can Church, and to instruct the Although Sixtus V. had shown Attorney-General to to proceed himself so favorable to the preagainst those persons who had tensions of the Leaguers, he did introduced it into the Kingdom. not consider it equally essential But Henry III. feared to offend to conciliate their sovereign, and the League, and contented himself nominal chief. Henry had rewith refusing to issue a Royal quested him not to appoint as his Edict to confirm and sanction the Legate in France, Frangipan, Bull. It was attacked, however, Archbishop of Nazareth, as he in no measured terms by a very believed him to be a warm partispirited pamphlet, ascribed to the san of the Duke of Guise, but pen of the well-known lawyer Sixtus did not deign to notice his Francis Hotman, and the “ Bru objection. On his arrival at Lytum Fulmen" of Pope Sixtus V. ons, the new Legate was joyhas almost passed into a proverb. fully welcomed and magnificently The Iluguenot Princes also pro entertained by the members of tested against a precedent so dan the League, but his satisfaction gerous and so insulting to all at this honorable reception was Kings, Princes, and people. On not a little diminished by a letter the 6th of Noveinber a declara that here reached him from the tion was posted up in several parts King, dcsiring him to remain in of Rome, and attached even to whatever city the same might the doors of the Vatican, appeal- find him until he received furing in the names of Navarre and ther instructions from the Pon- Condé to the Court of Peers tiff. On hearing of this insult against the Bull of "Monsieur to his representative, Sixtus Sixte, soi-disant Pope," who commanded the French ambaswas charged with foul and mali sador to leave the papal domicious falsehood, and challenged nions within three days, to which to appear before a free and genethe other scornfully replied that ral Council, when he should be they were not so extensive but clearly proved to be a heretic and that he could leave them in one. Anti-Christ. Mutual concessions were then To allay the murmurs of the made. The ambassador remained bigotted part of the population at his post, and Henry III. rethe King now consented to cur ceived the Legate, who exhibited tail the period of.indulgence, and the utmost impartiality and moon the 16th of October enregis. deration until his death in 1587 tered a royal declaration to the opened the way to a more turbueffect that, as the Protestants had lent and intriguing Churchman. abused his forbearance, he felt Towards the close of the year himself compelled to modify the the Clergy renewed their systema- Edict of July, and to allow them tic persecution of the King, and on only a fortnight to lay down their the 19th of November the Bishop arms and abjure heresy, or else of Brieux, in presence of the Carto quit the kingdom. But fe dinal of Bourbon aad other high males, whether married or single, dignitaries, delivered a long and were still permitted to remain labored harangue, exhorting his until the expiration of the origi- Majesty to exercise more severinal period of six months. ty towards the heretics, to accept ·History of the League. 787 were the decrees of the Council of cour, at the head of about two Trent, to prevent the alienation thousand men, horse and foot, of Church property for any cause had invaded Poitou and laid all whatsoever, and to restore the waste as he advanced. Condé Church to all the privileges and was during this time at St. Jean immunities it had enjoyed under d'Angely, and collecting a gallant the reign of Louis IX., the bless- band of gentlemen and veteran ed Saint and Martyr. But long soldiers, advanced to oppose the ere this, the eighth civil war of further progress of the enemy. religion, commonly called “The Among his companions in arms War of the Three Henries," had Rohan, D'Aubigné, St. broken out with all the horrors Gelais, Clermont d'Amboise, and sufferings that usually cha and La Rochefoucault, With racterize the animosity of fellow these he marched direct against countrymen. Merceur, who rapidly retreated The campaign commenced ra under the walls of Fontenay. He ther in favor of the Protestants, had trusted indeed to have been though its termination proved admitted into the town, but the inequally disastrous, owing to the habitants, though Catholics, were impetuosity of the Prince of Con- ill-disposed towards the League. dé, whose qualities were rather He was enabled, however, to take those of a valiant partisan than up a strong position, which he held of a judicious commander. The good against the most furious King had sent an army to the assaults of the Huguenots. Unfrontiers, under Guise in person, der favor of the night he thence to oppose the passage of the made a forced march towards German auxiliaries 80 anxiously Nantes, but being closely purexpected by Navarre. The oper sued, was compelled to abandon ations of this General, however, both his plunder and his baggage, were confined to the capture of and with difficulty effected his a few small places belonging to passage across the Loire. Fol. the duchy of Bouillon, nor would lowing up his success, Condé his force have been adequate to obtained possession of several cope with the Germans, bad they small forts and islands, and on the appeared in the field. 11th of September, to gratify The Duke of Mayenne com the citizens of La Rochelle, sat manded a second army in Guy down before Brouage, while a enne, but badly equipped and ill- squadron blockaded the port from supplied with either provisions or The town was defended money, besides that he was per by St. Luc, but his garrison was petually thwarted by the wilful so small, and the supply of provinegligence of his Lieutenants, sions so scanty, that it was expect- Biron and Matignon, who had ed he would soon be forced to no wish to crush the Huguenots surrender. Unfortunately, a sinto hasten the aggrandizement of gular incident occurred that led to the House of Guise. The Duke the dispersion of the Protestants, of Joyeuse in Gascony was equal and proved the safety of Brouage ly inert, but in Brittany and Poitou and its gallant commander. affairs of a more stirring nature A Captain named: Du Halot took place. The Duke of Mer had formerly been governor of the the sea.

·788 History of the League. Castle of Angers as the Lieute- hold, and be fell into the dry nant of Bugsy d'Amboise, on whose and rocky moat that surrounded death he had been dispossessed by the walls--where a wild stag, Count Brissac, who placed one of that was kept in it, furiously athis own officers in that responsible tacked and soon killed him. The post. Du Halot was a royalist, garrison now consisted of sixteen but he had formed an intimacy men,, of whom nine were Papists, with one Fresne, a leaguer, who but they daily expected to be had been dismissed from Brissac's reinforced by the Huguenots, to service, and with Rochesnortes, a whom alone they could look for gentleman attached to the King recompense, or even for life. of Navarre. These three agreed Troops, however, arrived from for a time to forget their political all quarters and closely invested differences, and to seize upon the the castle, while the people of castle. One day Fresne called the town constructed barricades upon the Governor, a Greek Cap- up to the very moat. To add to tain with whom he was acquaint- their discomfiture, their only sured, and was invited to stop and viving leader, Rochesnortes, was partake of his dinner. The other killed by two musket balls as he declined, as some friends were was reclining in one of the emwaiting for him outside. The brasures after dinner. Count hospitable Greek desired him to Brissac, the Duke of Joyeuse and bring them in also. He readily his brother Count Bouchage, complied, and they immediately had now come up, and, as further fell upon the guard, while Fresne resistance was useless, the garriwith his own hand slew his too son capitulated on the 18th of confiding friend. The castle was October, on condition that thcir taken, but the victors were too lives should be spared, and that few to man the battlements. Du their persons should not be Halot therefore ventured into the searched. The Huguenots were town, and assured the inhabitants moreover, to be conducted in that they had taken the place by safety to the Prince of Condé, the King's authority. He was ne while the Papists received each a vertheless arrested, and put upon horse and a thousand crowns. his trial for treachery and rebel One of the soldiers, it is said, conlion, and being disavowed by the trived to secrete a magnificent King, was broken on the wheel crucifix richly set with diamonds, under the eyes of his companions. which he afterwards sold for Fresne then went forth to parley 1,500 crowns. with the town's people, who in So far little mischief had been stead of listening to him, pro incurred by either party. But posed to storm the castle. Per the Prince of Condé, on receiving ceiving their intention, intelligence that the castle of soldiers hastily raised the draw Angers had been surprised, rebridge before their leader could solved to send reinforcements, and spring upon it. 'He caught, D'Aubigné was detached with however, one of the chains, 1100 men for that purpose. Unand was about to pull himself up, happily, however, Condé was when he received a wound in the persuaded that his dignity and hand that made him loose his interests required him to proceed ·History of the League. 789 thither in person, and in an evil der St. Laval had pushed forward, hour he recalled D'Aubigné. Af- and crossed the Loire, with a ter thus losing eleven days he set view to protect the passage of the out on this ill-fated expedition on troops. But some gun-boats imthe 8th of October, leaving Ste- mediately afterwards dropped Mesme to continue the blocka down the river from St. Maur, of Brouage, which could not pos. and intercepted all communicasibly have held out much longer. tion between the two corps. On His force consisted of 2000 ca this St. Laval advanced rapidly into valry, but his movements were Poitou, with the hope of creatimpeded by the quantity of bag. ing a diversion, and Condé found gage his followers deemedassen himself constrained to recall the tial to their comforts. The first troops that had already crossed the difficulty he encountered was at Laution. These returned ten at the passage of the Loire, but this at a time in the most frightful he at last accomplished by means confusion, each striving to be the of some wine-boats that he found first. Marching back to Beauat Roziers, between Saumur and fort, the Prince crossed the Lau- Angers. With equal trouble he • tion at Lude by means of some crossed the deep and swollen small bridges, a previous know- Laution, and arrived before An- ledge of which might have saved gers on the 21st of the month, him both anxiety and loss, and At first he refused to believe that another small stream by a dihthe castle had surrendered - cult ford. As his troops formed though he was previously aware of on the opposite bank, a little the death of Rochesnortes-but incident occurred that serves to a galling fire directed against his illustrate the very lax discipline advanced guard, under St. Gelais, that prevailed in those days. An convinced him that he had ar unlucky hare started up from rived too late. After some slight beneath the horse's feet. Some skirmishes he made himself mas two hundred dragoons immediter of the suburbs, but the barri. ately gave chase with the dogs cades at the entrance of the town that followed them in their camforbade his farther progress. Next paignings. The others hearing day Rohan persuaded the Prince the loud shouts, and perceiving to retire, as the enemy was ad. the confusion of their comrades, vancing on all sides in great force. very naturally imagined that the He therefore fell back upon Beau enemy was at hand, and prepared fort, where he lost much valu to give batlle. The hare, howable time. On arriving with the ever, by repeated doublings, esmain body on the banks of the caped, a circumstance that diffuse Laution, he found only two smalled some encouragement among boats in readiness for the passage the men as a token of God's proof his men, and one of these be vidence, and a happy augury of ing over filled, went to the bot their own deliverance." tom. The advanced guard un The League forces had now * During the civil dissensions in Fløpders, about the year 1926, Walter Ratzer, the leader of the men of Bruges and Nieuport, on the point of engaging the citizens of Ghent under Hoctor Valain, was papic-stricked by a similar incident. A hare sprang up at his horse's feet and his followers remarked the sudden pallor of his countenance and the convulsive trembing of his limbs, and as nothing is more contagious than fear, they soon took to flight. VOL. 11.NO. IX. 3 ·790 History of the League. hemmed them in on all sides, gy, and especially the Jesuits, inand the village tocsin plainly told flamed the populace with the utthe dircction of Conde's embar most fury against the heretics, rassed march. Rohan, after vain and even the King insulted their ly endeavouring to persuade him misfortunes. But their worst to disband his troops, left him enemics were the apostates from at St. Ernoul, and dispersing his their own profession, who hoped followers into groups of ten or a by pre-eminent severity to efface dozen, safely made his way to the remembrance of their own La Rochelle, where he shortly errors. Many of the most ardent afterwards died from the effect Huguenots escaped from the of his fatigues. The next day storm to Sedan, Germany, Geneva, the Prince was compelled to England, St. Jean d'Angély and adopt his advice, and making his La Rochelle. The plains around way to the sea-coast in disguise, these two latter places were cocrossed in a fishing boat to vered with huts aud tents con- Guernsey, and thence to the main taining the families and fortunes land of England, where he was of the unhappy fugitives. Durhospitably received by the Qucen. , ing the three preceding years, Few men of note perished in this the plague had desolated these disastrous and ill-conducted ex districts, and it was reasonably pedition, for the gentlemen of feared that its ravages would the country in general connived be dreadful among these hordes at their escape, though they did of starving, ill-clothed and carenot disdain to accept an equiva worn emigrants : but as if by lent in money, plunder or horscs. a special interposition of Provi- Some of the private soldiers, dence, the pest was at once stay. who had nothing to give, and ed. Many Huguenots, however, whose promises were not deemed abjured their faith in order to very good security, were not so save their property, and strove fortunate, but fell by the hands of to quiet thcir consciences by the exasperated peasantry they adding, “ since such is his Mahad so recently oppressed in their jesty's pleasure." A more bindhour of might and pride. ing and detailed form of con- Ste-Mesme had in the mean fession was therefore drawn up time used every means to reduce by the Bishop of Angers, which the garrison of Brouage, but his all proselytes were compelled to men were disheartened by ru sign and observe. After repeatmours of Condé's discomfiture, ing all the articles of the Nicene and no sooner heard that Marshal Creed, the convert was required Matignon was approaching with to affirm his belief in the seven a strong force, than they hastily Sacraments of the Church of abandoned the siege. Pushing Rome, in the doctrine of Tranforward in disorder to the Cha- substantiation, and in the deci. rente, they were overtaken by sions of the Council of Trent St. Luc, and the greater part of touching original Sin and the Justheir rear-guard cut to pieces. tification of mankind. He was This fortunate issue of the cam. further called upon to believe in paign filled the Leaguers with un Purgatory, the mediation of bounded satisfaction. The Cler- Saints, the worship of images, the ·History of the League, 791 plenary power of the Church, the ed, and perhaps it is not inconsisdivine succession of the Popes, tent with human nature to be and the supremacy of the Roman lieve, that he felt but little sorrow Catholic religion. The docu. for the total failure of his rival. ment concluded with an unreserv: Although decidedly inferior to ed renunciation and abjuration of him in abilities, Condé possessed every form of heresy, and an ex a larger share of the confidence pression of gratitude to the King and esteem of the Huguenots, for his unmerited clemency and partly owing to the high celebriforbearance. ty of his father, but more so to the dissolute and immoral habits During these operationis in of Navarre. But with the ex- Poitou, the King of Navarre had ception of the veteran La Noue, been actively engaged in raising the latter was the only General troops and in strengthening the possessed of any real knowledge defensible"positions in his govern of the military art that now rement of Guyenne. It is report- mained to their cause. # The form is explicit on these two heads : “ J'affirme Assurément qu'on doit honorer les Saints et Saintes bien heureux et regnans avec Jesus-Christ lesquels prient et offrent à Dieu leurs oraisons pour nous, et desquels on doit hovorer les saintes reliques. J'affirine assurément que l'on doit avoir et retenir les Images de Notre Seigneur ct Redempteur Jesus. Christ, de sa bien heureuse Mère perpetuellement vierge et des autres Saints et Saintes, en leur faisant l'honncur et veneration qui leur apparticnto wenn ·792 ] LETTERS ON INDIA.-NO, I. [I can tell the Times that it was precisely by conduct like this--by which scandalous and lying charges were brought against honorable men that the Press of France had lost all character with the people of France : that during the existence of the Republic the middle classes and all the people in Paris looked on with disegard, almost with pleasure, while the papers, one after another, were brought under the penaltics of the law; and that, finally, they looked on without any opposition, and apparently without any discontent, • when their newspaper writers were obliged to put their names to every article, and afterwards when three-fourths of them were suppressod.- Mr. Bright's Specch on Kossuth.] From QUENTIN DEVERIL, Esq., C. S., Agra, to MAXWELL Purres, Esq., Portland Place, London. MY DEAR PHIPPS,-Mrs. De breathe of nothing but Picnics veril having gone to the Hills and Balls. Picnics to a man in " just to take up the poor child his shirt-sleeves gasping before a ren, dear things, they were Thermantidote ! Balls to a perlooking so white," (I have seen son who can hardly keep awake, them look precious black in the while he undresses at half-past face after breakfast, bless them, eight! I have an idea, but shall I and Mrs. D. might have been confess it to you, my old Gamaback two months ago, but that's licl, at whose feet I learned all I neither here nor therc,) Mrs. D. know, not only of Regulation law, I say being in the Hills, and but of the ways of the world ? I work something slack by reason have been thinking of stopping of the sowing for the Khurreef, the supplies, but I daren't! Don't I have time for one of thosc long you think, now that Parliament rigmaroles de omnibus rebus, and the public are good enough which you are pleased to like so to recollect our existence, a Bill much. When one has heard the might be passed requiring the reports in the morning, and done Government of India to publish a little collectory after breakfast, the Ladies' leave in orders like overhauled the English correspon ours, and not to give it except on dence of the day, and drafted Medical certificate ? I don't know answers, taken the petitions in though that this would do : they cutcherry, decided the summary would wheedlc the Doctors as suits, and had a Ferry Fund well as I dare say Mrs. Phipps (to mceting, there remains literally whom though still a stranger, I denothing to do; and I must say sire as ever my kind respects) mathat if Mrs. D. would only come nages when she wants you to go back, these long dull afternoons to the Isle of Wight. are just the time when a little Bear witness with me that I music would be the most refresh- always expressed a belief that ing thing in the world. It is not, India would become a cry at my dear Phipps, as if her health Home this year ; if there were no required it ; she does not write of- religious discussion or opera danten to be sure, but her letters cer at the moment, of superior in- ·Letters on India. 798 terest. And most thankful should discarded servants, piles up a priall true friends of India be that vate indictment of his own in the the same is fulfilled. The people purest spirit of those old-faof England are a little hasty ; shioned pleadings, (so dear to the and often misled by quacks for a English lawyers) in which, for time; but their fund tal cha. fear of not getting redress for a racteristic is justice; and the real cow having strayed into his padinterests of this country will not dock, a complainant had to state Buffer in the end. To be sure that the trespass was accompanied the evidence is somewhat exparte by" force and arms, and great just at present; and so strong a violence, on the part of several, prejudice is being created against that is to say twenty men, who the existing system that its fa with sundry bulls and cows, that vourers do not seem likely to get is to say eighty-nine bulls and a hearing for some time. The four hundred cows, and being « Examiner" I see calls the Com- provided with sticks and stones, pany or the Civil Service, (it was etc. etc." not very clear which)" the gentleman in the dock." Accepting One thing dwelt upon in the this rather unsavoury metaphor, petitions is (ah Phipps ! fancy the we may perhaps be permitted to Baboos of Calcutta representing ask-" Is not the prisoner allowed native opinion; as much as the to make his statement ?" Espe- wolf does that of the sheep, eh?) cially, my excellent Phipps, when dwelt on in the petitions, and the counsel for the prosecution, re-echoed in the House and out, what with the misinformation in is that we-the Magistracy-don't their briefs, and what with their know law. A distinguished Crown own passions, are indulging in lawyer out here was once heard such ludicrous exaggerations and to say that in going from Calcutta mis-statements, even from the Lord to Mussoorie he only saw Chief Justice of England down to good law library in the house the Grub-street Humpty that sit- Civil Servant out of teth upon the wall? The very con the many with whom he stayed tradictions in their (so-called) facts on the road. I dare say he did and their requisitions, should be not; and how many libraries did a caution against hasty legisla- he see on Conchology or Thotion. Lord Ellenborough, whose rough Bass? We have no more whole career in India was devot to do with English law (thank ed to bombastic merry-Andrewing God !) than we have with French. and furnishing food for " Punch, Of course the more we study the the Civilian Governor who made Codes of other countries the more 80 many military aggressions, and acquaintance we get with the true paid so little attention to his civil (and also the false) principles of duties, this disgraced blunderer the science; but after all, what makes a masterly speech, remark have we to do with general princi. able for temper and sense ; while ples? We are put here to perform the Editor of the certain practical duties, and to who ought to know at least as supervise certain work of our much about the subject, and to be subordinates, and if we stick to free from the prejudices of the the Regulations, I don't suppose a of one “ Times," ·794 Letters on India. of arwe shall suffer much from our The last time I had a holiday, ignorance of foreign systems. It we went to Agra, and I formed is the opinion of those who know one of a party who went to visit this country best that the law and the Taj by moonlight. As I gazprocedure are even now a great ed on this matchless gem deal too artificial, and too much chitecture, the angular uniformity approached to English rules to of its putline sunk into chiaroscusuit so very anomalous a people ro by the faëry light ; and allowas the Hindoostanees. Why then ed my mind to dwell with pleashould we strive to make matters sure on the reflection, that even worse? In the non-Regulation under the roof of the Zenana the. Provinces—especially the Pun domestic affections would somejab-you would be surprised how times assert their pure influence. much better they get on than A voice near me (somewhat tobacthey did in Bengal in your time, co-laden) remarked “Where shall or in fact than they do now; the Company leave behind them fewer criminals escape, more cases a monument like that? Buggy (immeasurably more) are decid wheels and black bottle, sir..." ed by Punchayt, and the people " Pardon me," said I, “I know are delighted with our rule. what you are going to say." He Though generally more favoura was the son of an eminent butble to the peasantry, the popula- ton-maker from the Midland countion at large, than to the aristo tries, who was touring a few cracy, it has in this instance con weeks through this country preciliated the Sikhs themselves, a vious to going into Parliament dominant class, dispossessed by " on the Indian question." It is the fashion just now to “Let us ask,"I pursued, "from abuse the Company's government, this respectable old gentleman, a because it has displaced the na few questions. You perceive, he is tive gentry, and reduced the a Moslem, and even his respect country to a dead level of medio for the Sahib-log won't prevent crity. Surely it is not from any his praising the old King if he honourable friends on the ex can. Ho Shekh jee !" The Shekh treme left that I hear this ex approaching, I opened the convertremely gauche remark. What, sation with a common-place rethe friends of the people object mark upon the building, and then to an Anglo-Saxon Government said that the Padshahs were great because it fosters the people! Look men ! at Bengal where this notion was “ True word, my lord !" reacted upon, and a middle-class plied the old man, “they took attempted to be created, rather what they wanted, and built very than preserved. Where are the large houses, very fine tombs, old zemindars ifow, those landed wah! The marble and jewels proprietors with, whom Lord cost a crore of rupees, which was Cornwallis was instructed to never paid, and four lacs of coomake such arrangements as might lies and brick-layer's were emmake of them a class of landed ployed." nobles and squires, such as is the “Of course they were paid," glory of our own free and histo- said Mr. Buttonshank, when he ric country? understood the foregoing. us.

·Letters on India. 795 were « Paid ? O fosterer of the hum for if we once put up with a seble ! the King gave his order and rious affront, I believe we may his slaves obeyed. Praise be to as well take to our ships. God," and turning his rosary, off tottered the old gentleman The Times and Lord Campbell well-pleased with a trifling "gra are quite agreed upon one thing, tuity." His account of the matthat a young Civilian becomes ter is generally belicved to be a Judge immediately on leaving substantially correct, and that the Haileybury-glorious news for monument of conjugal love was the youngsters. I only know built for nothing is not paid for that I had been seventeen years in fact to this day ; but if it is in the country before I was made a not, still what, let me ask, could Magistrate even; and then thought have been the antecedents, what myself lucky. The papers out the political education of a people here cry out against the Governwho could think such a way of ment for the seniority system, going to work natural, nay some and urge them to realize the what praise-worthy ? Besides provisions of the Act, whereby what are these boasted works ? , the highest offices were declared A few canals there were, and open to a servant of twelve years serais, not comparable to ours ; standing. Here' a slight discorthe rest mausoleums and mosques. dance in ideas.' So, again, with Where the Trunk-road another parliamentary permission, with its bungalows, Gunges, viz. that the natives might be supply houses and encamping- employed in the highest offices, grounds ? Where the Colleges, some rampant individuals argue Lunatic Asylums, Hospitals, Dis as if this involved that they must; pensaries? It is the present and accuse the local Government practice of the Government that of double-dealing, because they in any town where the inhabi- have neglected to avail themtants build a Dispensary, they selves of a permission to do what are immediately provided with they never wished. At the very stores and instruments, and when same time another band of rethe institution has been carried formers cry-" Throw open your on for a year, the State takes service to the English public ; charge of it in perpetuity, send more Europeans are wanted." ing a Sub-Assistant Surgeon, a graduate of the Calcutta Medical I dare say that there is some College, to undertake the Medi- grain of truth in each of these cal duties. Even in your time, positions : and that the old via my dear Maxwell, there was no media will be the surest means of comparison between the care of drawing it out. The "parallelothe people taken by the old Mus. gram of forces" and its resultant sulman rulers and by us; now you are often as important in moral would hardly believe you were as in physical dynamics. The in the same country. It is not objection to neglecting seniority our fault that we are surrounded as a general principle is obvious, by barbarous tribes and mistre the local government unchecked ant invaders, who force us into by public opinion or by any influ. constant wars for self-defence ; ential Press, would have positive- ·796 Letters on India. ly no restraint from the grossestundoubtedly be of the greatest jobbery and favouritism in the service to their own future effibestowal of appointments. At the ciency. Whether they will found same time it cannot be denied that the fortunes of India any the to promote a man absolutely withworse for doing so in this someout reference to merit, is to intro what summary way, may fairly be duce a most fatal source of negli- questioned. Nor is it true, as a gence and inefficiency. Under writer in the l'imes, with the usuthese circumstances, why not have al determined recklessness of that some rulc under which a man journal on Indian politics, has thought unworthy of promotion beun venturing to assert, that should be retained in his present the warter was in 1833 so arinferior grade for a certain proba- ranged as to determine and lapsc tionary period, after which, if he ex vi naturali io 1853; if by that did not amend his ways, he might statement the writer meant that be forced to retire on a nsion it was the expressed iftention of proportioned to his standing in the the framers of the charter, that service and his subscriptions to the Indian administration should then Fund, subject, of course, to the devolve to the crown. It is confirmation of the home authori true the charter of '33 like its preties. And thus too in the matter decessors was passed for twenty of the Covenant, which is merely years, but the provision for lapsa Commission, I should wish the ing was expressly made to take ef- Governor General to have the fect in '73, if the reserved fund of same power of recommending for three millions should have reachpromotion a deserving and ex cd, at compound interest, a suffipericnced Uncovenanted servant, cient sum for the liquidation of as the Commander-in-Chief has the proprietors' shares at £200 of laying before the Ilorse per share of £100. Guards the name of a meritori. ous Serjeant Major. Again, the reports of the Committees of the Lords and of the This should be done cautiously, Commons agree in stating that especially with natives. You they are satisfied with the reknow what a native's view of sults of their enquiries, and repower usually. is a marketable commend the renewal of the precommodity. Yet I dare say you sent system. And after all, the will agree with me when I say I legislature have had evidence on would rather have a case before the points which chiefly concern Ahmed Beg, your old Suddur Ala, the Home branch of the questhan before Twemlow Twaddles, tion. For it is no small portion who is still, I grieve to say, Judge of the present difficulty that a of this zillah. confusion has been created in the consideration of those points on Since I wrote thus far, we have which Parliament is now, or is received news which looks as if capable of becoming, informed, matters were clearing up a little. with those points which belong If the ministry make a cabinet to the special province of the loquestion of their new charter, cal Government. The mischief their firmness in so doing will being that the first class of sub- ·Letters on India. 797 « divijects are those alone which legi- by red-tape, and unembarrassed timately demand the attention of by double authority. The attacks the Home Government, and that on Leadenhall Street are mostly the latter are points on which the gratuitous, and will probably be people. out here possess the only thrown away, if only the eyes means of acquiring information. of the public in England should Look you, Phipps ; supposing a be opened in time. To this end watch-maker had two workmen, however it is desirable that true the one a worker in steel, a capi accounts should be laid before tal hand at forging springs; the them of the state of the country. other a smart fellow, and bit of a Neither should implicit reliance practical mathematician and me be placed upon the statements of chanist, who had to arrange the the Calcutta Baboos and other delicate details-would not the absentee landlords ; nor of Eumaster deserve to lose his custom ropean trades-people who have if he allowed the smith to be never wandered twenty miles from constantly interfering with fly- their marshy metropolis ; nor of wheels, escapements, balances, Barristers of the Madras Suand the rest ? The Home or preme Court, who, having killed ganization is the spring on which (and cooked) their own golden all our prosperity must chiefly goose in the Presidency, arc andepend ; and surely its manufac. gry at not being permitted to exture and adjustment are suffi tend their devastations into the ciently important to entitle them Mofussil. But ask people who to claim the benefits of a are really informed ; examine sion of labour." each person in his own department. Ask the Baboo whether I am not an optimist of Lea the rent has been enhanced, or denhall Street," as you are well any of the conditions of the Per- I endeavour to do my manent Settlement altered ; ask work as well as circumstances the boot-maker whether there be will permit; and am not person. a heavy duty on leather, and ally afraid of any measures that whether the members of the Sumay be taken for eliminating hard preme Government pay for their bargains from the Civil Service. shoes like Britons; ask the bar- In the same spirit I may say that rister if litigation is not some- I am earnestly devoted to educa what dearer in his Crown Court tion of two kinds : vernacular than in those of the Company; for the peasantry, and Indo-Eu. and hear the military officer, the ropean for the less -occupied and civilian and the engineer upon more influential classes. I would the statistics of their departments. gladly see steps taken for the in You will then find that the local troduction of English gradually Governments and the Court of as the language of the higher Directors have shewn the most Courts, if not eventually of all. consistent good faith, intelligence But these are.points which might and zeal in the affairs of the arfairly be left to the discretion of my, the reverue, education and the Local Government, were that public works ; and that the conbody but properly organized, and stant obstacles to greater efforts its relations with Home unfettered have procecded from the dege- VOL. II.NO. IX. aware, ·798 Letters on India. norate state of the population, in this country shall be nearly from the backwardness of Cannon accomplished, and the people Row, and from incessant wars have learned self-government, it initiated by stern necessity some may be hoped that they will times, generally by the ambition themselves introduce some legisof English politicians. And when lative remedy for this state of you hear of the destitute state things; in the mcanwhile it will of the people, you, my dear partly cure itself, no doubt, by Phipps, should recollect a subject the land falling into the hands of we have often discussed, which has wealthy mercantile firms, who a good deal more to do with it can afford to keep it together in than any apathy, not otherwisc large boldings and as intelliproved, of the Company's Go gence and enterprize increase, vernment. I allude to the ab will probably see the propriety sence of any custom of primoge of laying out more capital on niture, which must certainly be stock, seed, machinery and suan evil in a crowded population, pervision. but yet which can hardly be interfered with by a Government A Criminal Code, Phipps, was pledged to support the laws of drawn up when you were in Insuccession as they found them on dia in '37. Why has nothing taking possession of the country. more been done about it? Cer- The hereditary occupier of ten tain “ Black Acts," or rather acres of land with full power Black Drafts, appeared in the of alienation, and all the rights Calcutta Gazette in '51. Why of ownership subject to 2 cor were they not passed ? The tain payment to the state more Court of Directors is understood savouring of a land-tax than a to have initiated those measures. rent, such a proprietor dying Why should that body have put with five sons, it is odd but the any obstacles in the way of their property dwindles down to two fulfilment ? acres per man. Of course matter may be thcoretically divisible ad It is not at this time of day infinitum, but it may be doubted that we are to make the first whether in practice the same can discovery how badly crown inbe predicated of land ; and own fluence operates in colonial adership would probably entirely ministration. Mr. Robertson's evaporate were it not for the taunt in his pamphlet on tho principle so familiar to the natives, first Burmah war is quite unof holding their land in partner answerable. Canada, Jamaica, ship. Still the divisions are of. the Mauritius, Ceylon, three ten as minute as possible, and quarters of the world have althen in a bad year the “cottier" ready shewn that when the in is either sold up at once by the capacity of ministerial nominees Collector, or has recourse to the has nearly ruined a colony, there intermediate step of mortgaging is no hope so certain, no nostrum his property to a 'money-lender, 80 universal, as the calling in (as who forecloses, and the estatc is a last resource) of an Indian exsent into the market through the official. The Company's services Civil Court. When our mission form the corps de reserve of the ·Letters on India. 799 Colonial office. They are drawn reference home, leaving the two from the middle classes : remem campaigns of the great Bombasber that. Crown influence in tes in Gwalior and Sind ! troduces jobbing and a flood of aristocratic fainéants, whom may The silence of Leadenhall the gods long keep from Indian Street becomes truly culpable shores. The reckless writer in the when it allows the public at home Times, whom we have previously to be misled by these terrible canoticed, is forced to admit that lumnies. Speaking on the sub- "the result [of the Company's go- ject of agricultural canals, Capvernment] is a better administra tain Baird Smith remarks, in his tion of an Eastern empirn than work on Italian irrigation, that prevails in most Crown Colonies." none of the best informed public A curiously rash statement pre men, engineers or statesmen, were sently follows that “ wars are un acquainted with the gigantic wa. dertaken without visible compul- ter-works of the Ganges and sion, and in defiance, it is under. Jumna canals, transcending as stood, of the authorities constitut- they do anything of the kind in ing the Indian Councillors of the any part of the world, and ten Crown." The fact being that times as large as the works that the Court of Directors have a were pointed out to the writer in morbid dread of war, and that Lombardy as the wonders of the the ruinous campaigns of late age. Knowing this, and bearyears have always been caused ing in mind the proverbial justice either by the sternest compul of the British people, may we sion," or by the irresistible or not say that if the Company's ders of the “ Councillors of the Government fall, it will fall from Crown." Take the Afghan dis its own invincible shyness and aster, from the shade of which our It must be obvious glory has scarcely emerged, and cnough to any who can obtain which robbed the Government of an opportunity of viewing the £40,000,000, they would gladly subject from the rarely accessible have had for economic purposes. platform of fact, that the evils of From the documentary history, the double government will not and from Lord Broughton's own be redressed by giving more powexplicit declarations, it appears er to the Crown Minister, who that the responsibility is to be en. forms the responsible portion of tirely divided between that noble the Board of Control, and who man and Lord Auckland. Of the notoriously devolves the inaugurapresent Burm.ese war, the writer, tion of most important imperial so often referred to, says himself measures to a few dilletar.te and there is no reason for supposing irresponsible clerks, whom routhat "the Directors are parties, tine-experience may have eneither by consent or cognizance ;" abled to dictate to their often- "indeed there is reason to believe changed superiors. that they disapprove of it entirely." Of the four remaining wars I have coibe to the end of of modern times, the two Bunmy paper, and I dare say jab campaigns arose from mo patience, though I have by no mentary causes not admitting of means delivered myself of all reserve. of your ·800 A Sonnet. I had to say. What you will think of the postage of this I know not-Adieu, till next Mail. Ever, my dear Maxwell, Affectionately yours, Q. D. Soorujpore, - 1853. With reference to the Criminal Code, and the reports from time to time presented on that matter by the Law Commissioner, let me request your attention to the following statement, sufficiently evidencing the obstructive character of “The Board.” " What was done in consequence of those reports ? Nothing that I know of; those reports, I presume, have been sent home, but that I do not know of my own knowledge; I have understqod that Sir Edward Ryan recommended to the Board of Control that the whole should be settled here; that the Penal Code itself, and those reports, and the criticisms upon which those are criticisms, should be referred to some competent body of men here and decided upon ; but that recommendation, I believe, was NOT adopted, and the Code has been sent back again to India as I understand."-Iouse of Lords--Mr. Cameron's Evidence. A SONNET. (In Imitation of the style of the reign of Charles 11.) Ye withered leaves, that strew this solitude, "Tis sweet to mark the playful wind that sighs, Whirl you in dances, amorously rude As though with animation 'twere endued. But sweeter far your rustling voices rise, When lightly falls the foot, of her I love Its magic touch, ye own, with glad surprise ! Now heedless of the breeze that woos above- And homage offer, in response subdued As to some honored Dryad of the wood ! Though now rejected, of your parent trees, Perchance ye thought, 'twas sweeter far to lie, At Beauty's feet, that take ignoble ease, Sporting your green, against the summer sky, Sweet suicides ! for nobler fate ye die !

·[ 801 ] THE NUDDEA RIVERS. season. IN 1781, which appears to be banks, formed over sunken boats, the earliest record we have of timbers and wood rafts. These, these rivers, the Nuddea, rivers after great expense and delay, were unnavigable during the dry were removed, and by construct- Between that and the ing bandhals to narrow the chanclose of the 18th century the nel, and clearing its course of rivers were occasionally open, but other obstacles, the river was generally unnavigable in the dry made navigable to the point where season, except for small boats. the Como or Katcheekatta river The next mention that is found of branches off from it to the eastthese rivers relates to the Mata ward, carrying away in its bed bangah, "which is said to have five-sixths of the supply of water been open every year, from 1809 from the Matabangah. An atto 1818 ; it is probable that it tempt was made to divert a part of was then in a more navigabic the current from the Como river state than either the Jellinghee and to force it down the bed of or Bhaugiruttee, for in 1813 mea the Matabangah by erecting an sures for improving its channel embankment across part of the were entrusted to the subordi. entrance, and by cutting a canal nates of the Collector of Nuddea, from above the point of separation and to the officers of Police sta to rejoin the Matabangah a contioned along its banks, and a toll siderable distance below. The was established to defray the ex embankment gave way as soon as pense of improvements. Little or put up, but Mr. Robison left beno good, however, seems to have fore the effects of the cut could resulted from whatever means be ascertained. He was succeedwere then used, for, in 1818, the ed in the duties of Superintendent obstructions had become so many by Mr. May, who continued to and so dangerous, as to cause the conduct them with great energy wreck of innumerable boats and and attention for upwards of 20 to entail heavy losses, on account years. of demurrage paid for detention In the dry season of 1820-21 of ships waiting expected cargoes. a caisson was prepared and sunk, The merchants of Calcutta, in together with a number of old that year, urgently petitioned Go- boats, across the mouth of the vernment that steps might be tak Como, at a cost of 14,000 rupees. en for remedying an evil from This produced the desired effect, which the commercial interests and throughout 1822 three feet suffered so severely. In conse of water were obtained over the quence Mr. C. K. Robison was worst shoals, and boats of 300 appointed Superintendent and maunds passed without difficulty. Collector of the Matabangah, and In 1823 so great were the obstruccommenced his duties in the cold tions in the Matabangah from the season of 1819-20. In Febfuary encroachment of the Ganges on its 1820, he reached the entrance and southern bank, by which large found it impassable from sand masses of sand, &c., were forced a ·802 The Nuddea Rivers. were into the Matabangah, that it was to do this failed, but a second was deemed necessary to open another made with an outlay of 18,480 channel for the passage of boate; rupees, which proved equally unoperations on the Jellinghee and availing. By means of bandhals, Bhaugiruttee were consequently one or other of the three rivers commenced upon, but disap was generally kept navigable pointment here met the efforts boats of 300 maunds burthen. of Mr. May, for both of these In 1832 Mr. May furnished the rivers became closed in April Military Board with a statement 1824. Works were then under of works done on the Nuddea taken to keep open the Bhoirub rivers during the previous three river ; the first outlay on these years,ap abstract of which will was Rs. 47,000, which show the nature of his labors gehowever nearly all lost by an in nerally. During that period, 359 undation in 1823, and an addi bandhals had been constructed, tional expenditure of 37,000 Rs. 118 sunken boats removed, 219 was incurred in their repair. A sunken trees and timbers, 12 pucdredging machine had been previ- ka buildings pulled down, and 1731 ously obtained at a cost of 10,400 trees cut down on the banks. Rs.; this however, in consequence In this report he explained that of its great draught of water, was the extraordinary deviations analmost useless. A second was nually occurring in the course of furnished in 1824 at a cost of the Ganges, affecting as they did 15,000 Rs. ; this was employed in all the streams that flowed from the Jellinghce, and by its opera. it, rendered it impossible to lay tions at the head of the river a down any fixed rule of guidance passage was kept clear for boats. or plan of operations, by which It would be useless to notice the navigation of the Nuddea the many shiftings of the various rivers could be permanently mainrivers, the Ganges in particular, tained. An experience of 13 and also the erection of bandhals years had convinced him that continually as they are described in the changes which took place in the “ Selections from the Records the great river during one inunof the Bengal Government," from dation afforded no data to doterwhich we have obtained our de mine what the next would bring tails; such would not interest our forth, and therefore there readers, and would unnecessarily no assurance that the measures swell out the article. It is our adopted for mitigating or repairintention now to take merely a ing the evils of one season would cursory view of the operations be of the least avail in the ensuundertaken to keep the channels ing one. Much had been done to clear year by year. facilitate the navigation by the The operations at the junction immediate removal of all incidenof the Como with the Mataban. tal obstructions, such as a rise gah having been found success from deposits of sand carried down ful, a similar experiment was tried from broken banks, snaken boats, to shut the Pungassy nullah, 8 trees, timbers, or fragments of miles higher up, which drew off masonry, all, unless immediately a great part of the waters of the cleared away, productive of seri- Matabangah The first attempt ous injury, by accelerating the was ·The Nuddea Rivers. 803 lodgment of alluvial and other permanent water communication substances, and the formation of from the Ganges to Calcutta could impassable obstructions. The ex be established by means of a lockistence of small churs separating ed canal. the water into several channels, In consequence of the discontiand the extension also of the curnuance of all operations on the rirent over a broad surface, alike vers no report of their state was produce shoals which have to be made till June 1836, when Mr. overcome by shutting up in the May was again directed to furnish former case, all but one channel, information on certain points conand in the latter, by narrowing the stream by the erection of band. 1837, he was re-appointed supernected with them, and in June hals. These, when properly plac- intendent, it having been found ed, often produce the desired effect that a channel could not be kept of giving one or two feet addiopen without the constant vigitional dnpth; but from the ex lance and supervision of an expeceeding looseness of the soil rienced European Officer. through which the Nuddea rivers flow, it is not unusual to find that health having failed, he resigned In August 1840, Mr. May's the sand carried away by the incrcascd velocity of the current withhis office, and Captain Smyth, of in the bandhals, is borne down the Engineers, was appointed in his room. The same measures stream to form a new shoal when another bandhal must be erected, were adopted by this officer in and the process repeated till some clearing and keeping open the deep pool occurs into which the channel as those adopted by his silt can subside without doing mispredecessor, and with the like chief. Dredging machinery can success, one channel being at all only be usefully employed where times available for navigation. the stream is rapid. In sluggish In 1847-48 Captain Lang officiwater, wherever a bucket-full is ated for the Superintendent, and raised, it is instantly replaced by his interesting report noticing the the falling in of the surrounding position of almost every shoal in The utility of dredging in the whole length of the rivers unthe Nuddea rivers consists in der his charge, we should transfer stirring up the sand for the cur bodily to our pages were we not rent to carry away, not in the aware that sand-banks are treaquantity lifted out of their beds. cherous things, and that perhaps In 1835 doubts seem to have not one of those mentioned in the been entertained whether the be report as having existed in 1848, nefits that accrued from the works is now in the position there ascarried on were commensurate with signed to it. A new cut was the expense incurred. The es opened in March 1847, which in tablishment was, therefore, directthe rains became the main ened to be discharged ; and Mr. trance of the Bhaugiruttee. May was appointed to examine In addition to the operations and report upon three lines of the for clearing the channel of shoals, country from the Guroy rivor at and for preventing corrosion of Koostec to the Hooghly, with a sand-banks by the construction of view to determine whether a bandhals, the following statement mass.

·804 The Nuddea Rivers. exhibits the number and description of other obstacles removed from the bed of the three rivers during 1847-48:- Sunken Boats removed. Trees and Timbers removed. Trees cut down on River Banks. Bhaugiruttee, .... Jellinghee, Matabangah, 59 37 0 84 2 3 138 40 17 .......... ....... It appears that these rivers are and 3,200 maunds burden, laden navigated by upwards of 80,000 with grain, salt, saltpetre, indigo, boats annually (exclusive of those cotton, sugar, &c. The amount that do not pay toll). 2,070 laden of toll collected in 1848, the exboats paid toll at Jungypore, be pense of collection, the pay of tween 21st December, 1847, to establishment and outlay on ac- 10th January, 1848, to the count of operations, were as folamount of Rs. 7,410. Of these, lows : 468 boats were between 1,000 ............................ Bhaugiruttee, Jellinghee, Matabangah, COLLECTIONE. 1,51,482 1 9 63,222 14 3 24,028 11 9 2,38,733 119 Expenditure for facilitating the Navigation, Collections of Tolls,... ......... 36,122 22,360 7 9 5 1 ....................... 58,482 12 10 Net surplus Rs. 1,80,250 15 7 The average annual surplus for the eight preceding years was Rs. 1,65,092 www ·[805] SINT OUT TO INDIA, A TALE. (By the Author of "My Uncle Ben's Courtships.") Chapter VI. VISITORS. scene. The sun rose high and warm that would buzz about his intel. over the plains of Dust-i-nuggur. lectual head, and try his sweet The flag that had “ braxed a temper. thousand years the battle and the It was about noon. In the Ma. breeze" hung motionless on the jor's drawing-room sat the lady Fort flagstaff, as though (with all of the mansion, with her daughits hardihood) grown feeble and ters and nicces. The drawingtired out at last. The few trces room was a handsomely-furnished which dotted the landscape here apartment; with chandeliers, picand there, and relieved its flat-tures, mirrors, carpets, damask ness without much adding to its couches, marble tables, easy beauty, were covered with a thick chairs, and indeed all that comcoating of brown dust. Occasion- fort could suggest or luxury rcally a bullock cart laden with quire. There was a profusion of grass or firewood would pass lazi- clegantly worked “anti-bacasly along the driver nearly or sars," and gorgeously embroiderquite asleep, and the oxen mov ed little cushions, upon the couching with a slow and dignified es and chairs. On the tables were tread that seemed quite in keep- flower-vases more beautiful than ing with the character of the the flowers they contained ; scent In a muddy pool near bottles splendidly gilt ; and dazsome native huts, three or four zlingly-bound volumes, full of buffaloes were enjoying the de fine engravings and aristocratic lights of bathing, and rolled about contributions in poetry and prose. luxuriously in the slimy fluid, and Over the piano there hung a ever and anon poked up their large oil-painting by Schwartzeninnocent heads with an expres- berg (a celebrated German Arsion of mute felicity. A native tist who had spent three of the youth who was apparently in best years of his existence in Incharge of them lay asleep on the dia), representing Mrs. Major bank, undisturbed by any fear of Devigne in the first year of her their taking French leave du. married life,-an unwinged Angel ring his slumber. From the huts in a blue satin dress, with a dia. came the monotonous sound of mond brooch in her bosom, and a women grinding corn and singing gold watch by her side. Near over their work. In the Palace this celestial object was a smaller the fat Rajah Jay out-stretched at picture (by Jones the younger), his ease, wooing an early siesta, being the portrait of Miss Fanny and grunting with pleasure as his when three years old, a little attendants fanned his intelligent pale thing, with light eyes, and face, or brushed away the flies very light hair, and a light frock, VOL. II.NO. 1X.

·806 Sent out to India-A Tale. and light shoes, playing with a before him, comparable in imlarge black Newfoundland dog portance to one which happened that seemed capable of eating her to arise between himself and Capup, clothes and all, without in tain Granton, as to whether a the smallest degree affecting his particular fossil which had been digestion. The room was a good sent to him from England belongdeal darkened, to keep out the ed to the Cretaceous or the Carboglare of the midday sun. niferoủs system. Mrs. Flirter was “ I told you we should have a good-natured soul, who knew višitors to-day," said Mrs. De nothing of these abstruso subjects, vigne, as a carriage drove up to but who nevertheless entertained the door. "The Flirters, I have a high opinion of her husband's no doubt." wisdom and judgment in all mat- Cards were brought in, which ters of a scientific kind. She had affirmed the correctness of the thought-worthy creature !-until lady's conjecture. It was Mr. undeceived by her lord and mas- Cæsar St. George Flirter, Collec ter, that Mica Schist was the tor and Magistrate of Dust-i-Nug naine of a Gerinan Lady,--that gur, with his wife and daughter, „gypsum was Latin for gypsey', who now entered the room. He and that her husband was incurwas not like either Cæsar or St. ring considerable danger in brav- George, though named after both ing every kind of "trap," as he those notabilities. lle was of seemed to be in the habit of dosmall, not to say diminutive, sta- ing. Miss Catherine Flirter was ture, and had a lean and hungry an only child, and was allowed to look, which was not improved by do precisely as she liked: so she the peculiarity of his mouth re became completely her mother's maining habitually open. The mistress, and gained so strong a natives, when told that Satan was hold of the affections of her faalways going about seeking whom ther, that she could even laugh at he might devour, said slyly to his researches, and make light of themselves that the Collector was his discoveries, without in the the devil. But this was a libel least disturbing his philosophical upon Flirter, who, if one of the equanimity. ugliest, was at least one of the Miriam and Louise were premost harmless, little fellows alive. sented in due form to these worthy His whole heart and soul was in people, who would perhaps have geology; and the anxious and interested them more if their concraving expression which his versation had been of a more elecountenance exhibited was owing vated kind. But it happened that in no snall measure to the nature Mrs. Flirter was going to give a of the researches in which he had Ball to the people of the Station, been engaged from his youth up and could think and talk of nowards. For he took infinitely thing else ; whilst her daughter more interest in a rocky forma was only interested in tidings of tion than in the formation of a certain persons at the Presidency, ministry; and had been heard to whom the girls had never heard say that in the whole course of of ; and as for the good Collector his official career, no question, re he contented himself with uttering venue or judicial, had ever come a few common-places, in a fashion ·Sent out to Indicom A Tale. 807 He asmanner. which seemed to indicate that his tion from books, as well as much mind was wandering with Mur experience of a practical kind chison, Mantell, and Miller, or from personal observation of men. some other kindred spirits, through and things. He could sing well, the realms of the Silurian and Old was a master-hand with his pen- Red Sandstone systems, with an cil; and being of a poetical turn, occasional excursion into the in had more than once assisted Enteresting Kingdom of the Weal- sign Prettyman in his attempts den, or a dive down into the dark to depict lyrically the death of region of metamorphic rocks. the bison, or the mortal struggles Happily the Major soon made of the discomfited boar. his appearance, and Captain sociated a great deal with the Granton and Ensign Prettyman people of the station, was a spewere announced ; so that matters cial favorite of the Major's; had began to take a more lively and many an interesting conversation intelligent turn. with Flirter about Echinoderma- Wilfred Granton was a man ta, Cephalopoda, and the like; of about two or three-and-thirty, and was even not incapable of slightly above the middle height, sustaining an argument with Staand with a particularly prepos-' ples, the Cotton Planter, on the sessing exterior and gentlemanly prospects of introducing the He had dark carnest i New Orleans variety" into geeyes, and a resolute expression neral cultivation in India, and about the mouth which no smile thereby regenerating this vast could entirely hide. He talked country, and shutting the huge admirably, was at a loss upon no mouth of Manchester for ever. topic, and in the turns which he After some well-turned comgave the conversation, always pliments to Mrs. Devigne and contrived to lead it back from her daughters, Granton entered trifling into the ways of common into conversation with Miriam and More than this, he did Louise upon the incidents of not fall into the vice of many their voyage, and their first imfluent speakers, who are so ena pressions of Indian life, and was moured of their own glibness, evidently well pleased with the that they keep all the talk to frank unembarrassed manner in themselves. He could listen as which they answered his enwell as converse, and he did so quiries. to ladies with an air of respectful " Ah!" said he, “it is the unattention, that often won him many extinguishable love of home that friends-for it may be regard- spoils us Indians, after all. Noed as a general rule, that women thing permanently reconciles us to like rather to be heard paticntly, the adopted country. Whatever intelligently, and politely, than our position or our prospects, we to be compelled to smile at the cannot avoid looking forward to platitudes, and laugh over the the good time coming' when absurdities, which iany mistaken we may bid an eternal adicu to practitioners of the 6 art of the land that has been the thea. pleasing" dispense for their gra tre of our actions perhaps for tification. Evidently, he had ga- upwards of a quarter of a century, thered a large stock of informa- Now my theory is, thatge, whose sense.

·808 Sent out to India-A Tale. 93 lot is cast here, ought to repress reduced from thirteen stone to as far as possible this intense ten and a half --he struggled longing to be gone, and endeavor over to Paris, and with the help to look upon India as a home, of a walking stick, surveyed daily and upon our return to England the glories of the Boulevards. as a remote contingency, depend- Temptation was too much for the ent upon that oddest of all the old gentleman. There was one odd chapters of life--the Chap- particular restaurant where an old ter of Accidents." Calcutta friend induced him one *** Ah, la !" cried Mrs. Flirter, day to dine,-a really noble place quite startled by this novel view of entertainment, where the furof an old question, “what a very niture, was magnificent, the civistrange man you are, Captain lities matchless, the dinners ini- Granton." mitable, and the wines perfection. Why, ma'am," continued Here Bunyan resolved to feast Granton, there are so few old daily,--and he did so far a time, Indians who really do enjoy life testing all the varied refinements when they get home, that it makes of French cookery, and leaving one's heart bleed to reflect upon not a wine untasted, from the the huge waste of opportunities, "choicest products of the Rhine and sacrifice of good resolutions, to the most delicate vintages of that must have been committed, the sunny South One afternoon to secure such a small modicum he was missed : the worthy gourof eventual happiness. You re mand had eaten just a paté too collect Bunyan of the Civil Ser much-had drunk just one more vice, Major, who went home after glass of Beaune than agreed with passing thirty-seven years in this him,--and by midnight he was in country, determined to 'cnjoy the hands of the Doctor, raving himself and no mistake,' and fan about rice and curry, the Compacying that the climate of his na ny's Regulations, mangoes, hootive land would give him a new kahs, and the Sudder Adawlut. and long lcase of life, at a pep Poor Bunyan is now trying the percorn rent, or something less. cold water cure, and wishing, Well, poor fellow, the first winter from the bottom of his soul, at laid him upon his back with in every shivering plunge he takes, fluenza, and he passed at loast and every new inountain of blansix wecks in a cļose room, with ket that is piled on him, that he his head bound up, and his low had never quitted despised Iner extremities swathed in flannel ; dia." and lived during that period upon insipid gruels and tasteless “An extreme case, Granton," said the Major. jellies ; recovering, at last, owing to the return of spring, and in “Certainly there are many per. spite of the Doctors. In the sons who live very happily at summer, imagining himself well home, after having passed half again, he went out imprudently their lives in India," observed the to play at cricket, and got unduly Major's lady, who was thinking heated, when rheumatism floored of a trip to England herself, 'some him for a good month. Then, day,' and could not therefore ena lamed hare, and dure to hear anything that seemlimping like ·Sent out to India A Tale. 809 ed to run counter to her cherished "Useless !" cried Flirter, wish. opening his mouth at the aston- Surely your picture is rather ished Ensign, as though he were darkly colored, sir," remarked preparing to swallow him. “I- Miriam. never-heard such a remark; no “Oh! I have a still more disnever." And the good Collecmal one than that," said Granton, tor gazed up at the ceiling in a laughingly. “There was Geneperfect fit of scientific astonishment. ral Howitzer, who served in the first Burmese war: he waited till “ I declare," said Mrs. Flirter he had made a clear two thousand to the incautious Ensign, " we've a year, and then declared that he the prettiest cabinet of specimens would go home and spend the in the Presidency. My husband autumn of his life happily among has arranged them all so neatly, the friends of his youth. He died and put such nice little labels at Malta, aid General Howitzer; upon them, that they look pretand the friends of his youth, intier even than than a collecstead of assisting him to spend tion of shells." the autumn of his life, lent a help-. The conversation having now ing-hand in spending his money.' reached a point where it seemed desirable to change it, Granton Really, I can't help laughturned to Miss Flirter, who had ing," exclaimed Miss Elizabeth, been sitting all the while primly putting her bandkerchief to her and silently-perhaps inwardly mouth," you tell the story in such a droll way; though of contemplating her own perfections and asked if she were still course it must have been a sad as great a horsewoman, and as thing for the poor General." passionately fond of riding, as " When I go home," said Flircver? Ilis good-natured intenter, looking vacantly at a speci. speci- tion, however, was baffled by the men of laterite which fancy painted young lady's reply. in the air, “I shall devote myself “Oh! yes,' suid she, “it is a to geology, and establish my noble exercise ; only when I go quarters in some pleasant district, out with papa, you know, he will where I can go out every morn persist in galloping off to that hill ing with my hammer, and bring where he found the fossil, and home something worth preserv when he gets there, there's no ing." persuading him to come away " And where we can have a again. So really the ride becomes nice little poney Phaeton," sugwearisome from its sameness." gested his better-half, "and in " It was a most extraordinary vite our friends every now and bone," observed the geologist, then to a picnic." " that had evidently lain in the “ How much better," Ensign earth since a period long ante. Prettyman ventured to remark to rior to the creation of man, and Flirter, “it would be to take one's belonged to gome gigantic spegun, or one's fishing rod, and cies of animal now extinct. I bring home partridges or ttout, sent it three mails ago to Prothan to go out chipping off use fessor Owen, and am anxiously less bits of stone with a hammer." expecting an account af it."

·810 Sent out to India - A Tale. 6 “I wanted him," said Mrs. show. They would all run away Flirter aside to Louise, “to cut at the first sight of the enemy." off a bit before it went away, to “ Government would never make a snuff-box of, for really it have allowed the Rajah to retain was such a wonderful thing, and even the few armed followers he when polished, it would have has," observed Major Devigne, looked quite pretty. But he said if it had not been quite certain that if it were at all mutilated, that they would be perfectly usethe Professor might be puzzled, less, except to amuse Ilis Highsoʻit went home entire. I hope ness with the shadow of bye-gone that if they do discover what power. I have often thought, animal it belonged to, they'll in when watching the ill-mounted justice name the creature after rascals exercising on the plain, how Mr. Flirter." they would all scamper off, hel- Ensign Prettyman, who had ter-skelter, in the most ludicrous never yet fleshed his * maiden terror, if only one resolute swordssword,' and who, like the war man were to make a sudden dash horse, smelt the battle from afar, in amongst them. Betsey is quite here enguired of the Major what right : they are only intended for was the latest news from the show, not for use." frontier, and whether there was Miss Fanny, who had been any prospect of a' brush' in that listening quietly to the converquarter. sation, as was her wont, here The Major replied that the very nearly ventured on the reintelligence was perhaps not much mark that Captain Canter, of the to be depended on, but a Cossid Irregulars, might probably put had come in that morning with down the disturbances if the news that the two brothers who authorities would let him try; were struggling for authority had but she checked herself in good fought a battle, which had creattime, thinking of the dear sweet ed an awful noise, and no small little dog he had given her, amount of dust, and that the and apprehensive lest somebody result being indecisive, one of in power might act upon her them had had the impudence to suggestion, and send off the cross the frontier line, and seize gallant officer to be killed in a small fort belonging to one of the wars, or so scarred and disour allies, putting its feeble gar figured by sword-cuts and gunrison to flight. Should this be shot wounds as to spoil his manly true, the Major considered that beauty for ever. Fanny was more the orders received some time than half in love with the dashsince would quite justify the Po ing Canter; and (such is somelitical Agent in making a requi times the strange association of sition for troops. ideas) the object of her regard “I wish they'd give me com was inextricably mixed up in her mand of some of the Rajah's men," mind with the image of Byron,- said the eager Ensign. " I'll be the little dog, --so that she never bound I'd soon give a good ac. thought of one without thinking count of the Lalpugree rascals." of' tke other. "La !" cried Miss Betsey, After a little more conversation "the Rajali's troops are only for on unimportant topics, Mrs. Flir.

·Sent out to India-A Tale. 811 ter expressed a desire to see Mas back from Mrs. Flirter, and an ter Tom, who was accordingly unconquerable passion for sweetsent for, and came in, under charge meats simultaneously urging him of Mrs. Comfit, pouting dread to approach the bottle which she fully, and with his head hanging held in her hand. The principle down, evidently not at all liking of attraction at last carried the to be made an exhibition of day. Master Tom moved up “Dear little fellow !" exclaim- slowly, and gut possession of the ed Mrs. Flirter. " Come here bottle; then was seized by the and speak to me. I've brought lady and kissed against bis will ; you something nice !" and then was hurried off by Mrs. The excellent lady here took a Comfit, to prevent his roaring little bottle of lozenges from her out against the unexpected inflicreticule, which Master Tom eyed the bottle having to be askance, while acon flict (almost opened and discharged of half its as severe as that which agitated contents for the pacification of the Lalpugree frontier) arose in the young gentleman, before the his infantile brcast, an obstinate carriage of the first visitor moved "shyness" impelling him to hold, away from the door. tion ; Chapter XXX. TIIE FINE LADY'S HOUSEHOLD. It need scarcely be said that lady, in the Bungalow at Dust-i. Miriam and Louise felt terribly nuggur, was “ Monarch of all the contrast between the gaieties she surveyed.” Major Devigne's and luxuries with which they theory was that any sacrifice were now surrounded, and the should be made to secure a quiet simple comforts of the quiet life, a life free from trouble, anxhome they had enjoyed in Elf iety, and agitating differences of wood. There was a continual opinion ; and in carrying this out bustle, a reckless profusion, and in practice, he found it necessary a marked want of order in Mrs. to resign, with all the cares of Devignc's establishment. The management, nearly every parti- Major did not at all interfere in cle and vestige of domestic auher household arrangements, his thority, into the hands of his sole apparent use, in connexion wife. He rose early, and took therewith, being to supply the his morning ride and cup of cofmoney requisite to defray the ex fee, but except in case of visitors, penses which they entailed. He he seldom made his appearance had a saying that a married cou between breakfast time, (when ple resembled the figure 10-a ba the sun of the house rose to chelor being a mere unit, and a pale his ineffectual fire) and spinster a cypher, and union givseven in the evening, when the ing them all their social value and family dined. , Mrs. Devigne ocstrength. In his own case how casionally made a show of conever, the cypher and unit seemed sulting.him upon household matto have changed places, for there ters, but the invariable response could be no question that his which he gave, “Do Is you like, ·812 Sent out to India-A Tale. will say. my dear,--you understand such and best in the station, Somethings much better than I do,-and times he would give audience to you know I can't bear being trou a native petitioner, who (presentbled," stopped her on the thresh- ing an incomprehensible memorial, hold, and seemed to proclaim a written, in a flourishing hand, over settled policy of non-interference, seven pages of foolscap) would Indulgent to a fault, his daugh- beseech his honor's goodness to ters always knew where to find interfere with the political agent him when suffering from any se on his behalf, and obtain for him verity or unkindness on the part a situation of twenty-five rupees of their mama ; and upon such per month, in which the last inoccasions, the girls, who would cumbent had made a rapid forgo sobbing into his room, never tune, by savings out of his pay. failed to come out with a light The Major was never at a loss for step, and smiling through their something to do, and as he was tears. Master Toni, too, a young man who looked persistently at gentleman of strong instincts, was the bright side of things, and cognizant of a certain drawer, in whom it was easy to satisfy, and which his papa kept, for his espe difficult to offend, we really think cial delectation, a varied supply he enjoyed, upon the whole, as of biscuits, ginger-bread nuts, and much happiness as falls to the sweetmeats, and whenever miss. share of most persons. He might ing in other parts of the house, have been happier, the reader Tom would be pretty sure to be But who might not? discovered in the Major's room, If we have not all of us vain exwith a besmeared face, and sticky travagant wives, we doubtless have fingers, inaking a royal feast upon some other matter or thing to such dainties. It complain of, the absence of which prising (to those privileged to would matcrially increase our feliknow it) how comfortable the city here below. It is commend- Major made himself during those able philosophy to make the best hours when he seemed to have of an indifferent lot; and Major disappeared altogether from the Devigne, if not perfectly success- Istablishment. In the hot wea. ful in this object, at least deseryther, he would take off his coat ed credit for an earnest endeavor and neck-cloth, set the punkah to attain it. going, and ensconce himself in The Lady of the Mansion, full of the easiest of all easy chairs, personal vanity as she was, unjust where he would read abook, or the in her estimates of her friends, and newspaper, with infinite enjoy- haughty and imperious towards ment, Half asleep, he would her servants, failed, perhaps most be suddenly awakened by his of all where success was most imson and heir, sidling in gently, portant, namely, in the managewith an evident intention to ab. ment of her children. The sham stract some of the contents of the sentiment, the false morality, the well known drawer, Or perhaps perverted principle, that were Flirter or Granton would call, to apparent in the precepts they gahave half an hour's agreeable chat, thered from her words, or deducand smoke one or two of the Ma ed from her acts, were things for jor's cherêts, by far the oldest angels to weep over. Her grand was sur- ·Sento out to India-A Tale. 813 aim seemed to be to get good hus Mrs. Devigne's Argus-eyes, had bands for the girls : that is, hus been paid to Fan by Captain Canbands possessing station, wealth, ter of the Irregular Horse. Canand brilliant prospects. To affect ter was not perhaps entitled, in a this master-purpose, every effort general sense, to be considered a was used, and every possible sa first-rate match : still, as his emocrifice made. An expensive house, luments were good, and as he a huge tribe of servants-frequent had interest (being a distant conparties-and an unquenchable zeal nection of the Governor Genefor the promotion of local gaities, ral) the lady-reflecting upon -were considered absolutely ne the shortcomings of her daughter cessary for the advancement of -was pleased to pronounce hima the best interests of her daugh- passably eligible, and to deterters. Jewellery they must have; mine in her own mind that she handsome dresses they must would bring about an alliance behave; riding horses they must tween him and the fair-haired have; accomplishments" they damsel. She set to work, theremust have ; otherwise, how fore, "with a will;" praised him earth could they be expected to constantly and fulsomely to poor marry well ? Poor Fanny had Fan ; invited him repeatedly to the misfortune to have shoulders dinner ; layished admiration on of unequal height, and do what his horses and his dogs ; dishe could, one of them would ob lated often and warmly upon the stinately slip out of her dress, and young lady's excellences of heart give her figure a one-sided kind (as if she could judge of them.); of look. Finding all her exertions and even went so far as to give futile to correct the error which Fanny a few lessons concerning Nature had made, Mrs. Devigne the manner in which she might was weak enough to regard the deextract from him an avowal, or at fect as a species of crime in Fan; least indication, of his sentiments. and that unfortunate young lady Canter little knew into what inwas sometimes scolded for it to tricate and dangerous toils he had such an extent, as to make her allowed himgelf to be drawn ; but fervently wish she had been born his unimpressionable nature in without any shoulders at all ! all likelihood preserved him from Elizabeth being unexceptionable capture, where a cleverer and as regards figure, and having an more susceptible person would attractive face, and a naturally for have fallen an easy prey to the acward manner, Mrs. Devigne felt complished þuntress. The most assured her younger daughter must, dexterous artifices, designed to sooner or later, obtain a good entrap him at some unguarded match, and therefore experien- moment, were entirely thrown ced comparatively little solicitude away upon him. Standing six about her. But Fanny's matriino feet two without his boots; boasta nial chances were a source of ing a moustache and beard of continual anxiety to this devoted glossy blackness and imposing mother. At the time we write of, dimensions; and entitled to wear it happened that some slight at a particularly showy and handtention,-imperceptible perhaps to some uniform,-it is possible anybody else, but unmistakeable in that he had too much to think VOL. II.NO. IX.

·814 Sent out to India-A Tale. a of in connection with his own put a little expression into those beloved person, to be able to ex eyes," she would say pettishly, hibit any great amount of devo " and utter half-a-dozen words in tion to another. In truth, he a tone that didn't freeze them be. was not a man of many ideas. fore, they left her lips, perhaps A capital Cavalry officer, he even Canter might be thawed into understood horses thoroughly, an approach to sensibility. But and could rough-ride any colt she whil be so inanimate and so that mortal mare ever foaled. taciturn-and he is so dull, and He likewise knew a thing or two stiff, and incapable of cmotion, about dogs. With respect to that really it is enough to break a sport, there was not a better mother's heart !" shot in Western India ; and En Nor Has this the sole vexation sign Prettyman looked up to him by which the spirit of the fine as a sort of modern incarnation of lady was tried. Master Tom Nimrod, and would have given often annoyed her exceedingly. all he possessed to be a tithe as She loved her little boy "not successful and as famous. But wisely but too well," and treated he had read nothing (except the him in such a manner as to deve- Sporting Magazine and a few Yop in him those very qualities works on Veterinary Surgery) which she least wished to see. since leaving school ; and having Tom would be self-willed and apparently a notion that the pro- disobey orders; when his mama per study of mankind was not would administer a little corporal man, but horses, he came in conchastisement as corrective, tact with numbers of brother whipping made him cry; and officers and follow beings without crying had such an effect upon gaining any insight into human Mrs. Devigne's nerves, that she character. In short, when you found it necessary to kiss and saw the outward form of Canter, bribe him into silence. Severity you saw all there was of him. towards him on the part of others Out of other men might be exshe would not suffer at all; and he tracted the music of poetry, the thus contrived to get the " upper flow of wit, the flash of genius, hand" of the ayahs, and to set the but no colloquial chemistry authority of his sisters at defiance. could draw any thing of “He must be sent to England, the sort from this Captain of dear little fellow," she would some- Cavalry. It is not to be wonder- " for I am the only pered at that Mrs. Devigne occason who can manage him here, sionally lost her temper in endea and really I have so much to vex vouring to reduce such an unpro and worry me, that the task is mising block to the form and proalmost beyond my powers." portions of a lover for her daugh Environed by troubles great ter. He blunted her tools and and small, it was an undoubted baffled her artistic skill, indeed, advantage to Mrs. Devigne to 80 completely, that with all her have a sort of target in her estabenergy, perseverance, and hope- lishment, at which, when she fell fulness, she sumetimes felt half out of humour, she could safely inclined to give up the work in discharge the of her despair. If Fan could only spleen. This target was at pretimes say, arrows ·Sent out to India-A Tale. 815 sent the governess, -Miss Mcek. sanguinary temperament, but to If Fanny's hair got out of curl, myself it is a matter of astonishor Betsey broke down in her sing. ment that I am alive at this mom ing lesson, or Master Tom cut his ment to enter into correspondence finger, or Byron worried Pamela with you. I never approved of (the Persian cat), or the cook fell Mr. Devigne sending his daughsick, or the dhobee spoiled a ters to the Indies, and was cermuslin dress, or any other equal. tain we should have to undergo ly important misadventure occur many trials and commotions. It red, - Miss Meek was sure to be is true, my dear Mrs. Pettitoe, the principal sufferer. Nay, so that many things which I prothoroughly vicarious 4 position phesied have not yet come to pass. did this young person" hold, Neither of the dear young ladies-- that Mrs. Devigne could not even thanks to Providence l-has been have the slightest headache, with torn away from us by cholera or out the "governess being made snakes; and for all the tales I painfully cognizant of the fact, read in the Penny Magazine, and by a scolding or a snubbing about Jenkinses Travels in Java, I have something or other that had ng not so much as seen a single tiger. earthly connection with headaches. But I must not boast too soon, or Miriam and Louise saw all cry before we are out of the wood. these things before they had been We have had sufferings to endure long bencath their uncle's roof, compared to which even tigers and and we need not say that they snakes would be welcome. When deeply lamented them, and did I was in Bombay I sent you an their best to mitigate the evils account of the horrors of our voyarising from their aunt's vain, age, and how I suffered from seacapricious, and imperious temper. sickness, and sentrypedes, and the But alas ! they were only depeninsolence of Thomas the cuddy dents themselves, and did not servant, for which that ill-condiknow how soon they might fall tioned reprobate has never been under the fine lady's displea- punished to this day! Since then, sure, with which others were of what have we not had to go ten so causelessly and unjustly through! through! We did not stay long visited. As for Mrs. Comfit, in Bombay, and I did not see the impressions made upon her much of it while we were there, experienced mind by her first but quite enough to convince me month's sojourn at Dust-i-nuggur that it was not the place for my may be better gathered from the moncy. It is swarming with following letter, which she care people, who die off at the rate fully indited to her friend Mrs. of about thirty a day, and yet Pettitoe, the housekeeper at Elf seem as thick as over,-a fact dale, than from any description of which I think is attributable to the prolificalness of the female Dusty Nugaur, gender. The Fort is like a washing-tub filled and running 18. over; and 'the native town is MY DEAR FRIEND,You will a perfect forest of dirty houses, not be surprised at hearing from and streets, and lanes, where me, for I know your hopeful and I've seen sights, my dear friend, our's.

·816 Sent out to India-A Tale. no and and smelt smells, which could and really are a very useful race scarcely be matched in Skib of men in their way, although it bereen or Cologne. It is a very is necessary to be extremely cau. dear place too, and no politeness tious in dealing with them, as they to be met with in the shops, ask amillion per cent. more than where, instead of seeing a good their things are worth, and have looking well-dressed young man, more conscience than Jews. cleanly shaved, and with his hair One can speak very plainly to oiled and nicely parted, who them, they do not at all mind makes you a bow from behind being called rascals and rogues, the counter, and overwhelms which is a sad proof of their deyou with his obsequious civilities, gradatione you meet with a black-bearded Mrs. Devigne, the Major's laheathen, who looks at you surdy, spent a mint of money while reptitiously as though he doubted the family were in Bombay, and your honesty, and sells you a bit the stock of beautiful things she of ribbon or a pair of stockings took away with her might have at three times the English price, sufficed to set up a shop at the with the air of a person confer- station here. I dare say the good ring a favour. I dare say the ok gentleman, her husband, was shop-keepers are civil enough to glad enough when she shifted her great ladies like Mrs. Devigne : quarters. What a woman she is, but to the like of me they were to be sure! For dress and for just as independent as Nabobs, talk, I never saw her equal. It never asking me to take a seat may be insidious in me to menwhen I went in, or making me tion it, but I don't think she a bow when I went out, or so is quite so great a lady as she much as saying-"Good morning, tries to make people believe. ma'am, much obliged, hope to I've seen a little of society, you have the pleasure of seeing you know, having lived once with again." And to think that these Lady Gosling, and observed the are the fellows for whiom we are manners of the Duckleys and subscribing our six-pences and Drakefords, as well as heard her shillings at home, in order to send ladyship converse with the Duke out Missionaries and schoolmas. of Dillwater, who was the most ters, to give them the benefit perfect gentleman of his time. of Christian civilization! The And without wishing to be a Borers (who are a sort of Pedlar) censer, I must say Mrs. D. somewere a good deal politer to me times uses most equivalent exthan the Indians in the shops. pressions, and throws herself into They got about with large baskets attitudes which are more mellow. containing a stock of everything, dramatic than graceful. It is (such as pickles and blacking. melancholy to see how she brings brushes, combs and soda powders, up her daughters---little chits that muslin-de-laine for dresses, es ought to be at school, but who are sence of ginger for colic prayer taught nothing from, morning to books, cork-screws, preserved night but what may assist them in sardines, buttoris, peppermint lo. gettirg husbands. Neither Fanzenges, hair-oil, bridles, Hannel ny nor Betsey can cut out & waistcoats, tand writing-paper,) shirt, or even darn a stocking, and ·Sent out to India-A Tale. 817 they are both as ignorant as kit gave us ! soup that seemed made tens of cookery in all its branches. of leather and onions ; fowls as Just fancy them emmigrating to tough as gutter percher; bacon Australia, and doing for them that appeared to have been kept selves in wigwams, instead of for a quarter of a century; curliving out here in luxury, with ries that were inade of nobodyan ayah to dress their hair, and knows-what, brought from noa servant to pick up their pocket- body-knows-where; and pudhandkerchief when it happens dings of the most singular look to fall! It may come to that and taste. Ugh! it gives me a cold yet, Mrs. Pettitoe, for unless their shudder to think of them now. father is a regular Alchemist, The young ladies stood the jourand has discovered the art of ney pretty well--but I said transmigrating the base metals to myself, "what a fool you are, into gold, he never can stand the Margaret Comfit, to have come on run upon dis purse which is causa wild-goose chase like this, and ed by his lady's extravagance. I to be exploring foreign parts should not like to eat their first against your will, eating sour pudding, I know. The squaws of bread and stale eggs, apd run- Van Demon's Land are far better ning the risk of being cut off in educated, savages as they are ! the prime of your life by a fall What a dreadful journey we had down a precipice, or an attack from Bombay to Dusty Nuggur ! from the robbers of the jun- My bones ache yet at the thoughts gle. It will make you look ten of it. Don't fancy we came by years older, and mayhap take ten railway, or stage-coach, or 'bus, years from your life-this single for the Lord help them! they've unprofitable expedition !" no such things in this barbarous However (Heaven be praised !) region, -not even a hackney I reached Dusty Nuggur without coach, or a respectable cab. We being either poisoned at the tracame partly in palankecns, and vellers' bungalows, or strangulatpartly in carriages; and part of ed by the Thugs ; and here I the way, which was over precipi consider myself bound, as a mattate mountains, I actually rode ter of duty, to stay, until Miss roads were Miriam and Miss Louise get mar. either covered with dust a foot ried, or go home again. For realthick, or else full of ruts and ly I am their sole protector. The stones ; and I was so shaken, and Major (entry noo) is afraid of his jolted, and knocked about, that I wife; and I am inclined to think frequently felt myself crack as Mrs. D. would soon show her airs though I were going to pieces. to the young ladies ; if she did Then the places we put up atm not rather stand in awe of me. I which are not regular inns, but have told her a bit of my mind houses they call travellers' bun once or twice. One day I was galows-were so dirty, and so talking to Miss Fanny in the vefull of fleas, and other dreadful randah, when Captain Canter (the insects, that one could neither person her mama wants her to eat nor drink with comfort, while marry), came in, and Mrs. D. just sleeping was altogether out of the turned round to me, and said, question. And such food they “ You had better go to your room, on a poney. The ·818 Sent out to India-A Tale. Comfit." “Of course, ma'am," Well, my dear friend, I have says I, “I'll go to my room ; but got to the end of my paper, and I'm kept a good deal too much se must say good-bye. Remember questrated in this house, and I me to my friends and acquaintdon't care if you know it. You ances in Elfdale, and say that I won't let me do anything. If I hope some day to see them again, wash Master Thomas's face, you though doubtless, what with my say I'm interfering with the ayahs. cares and troubles, they'll find me If I offer to make a custard or muchi debilitated. Don't forget a jelly, you say the Butler will the old Gardener: he would be be discontented. If I give a word surprised if he could see the of advice to Miss Fanny or Miss plantains growing and the prickly Elizabeth, you say you have al- Read my letter over to ready one Governess for your Miss Trimmer, and tell her that daughters, and that's enough. my lavender silk cape, which she Why shouldn't you let me make made mc, is completely-spoilt with myself useful! I feel quite dege- perspiration, owing to the thernerate, sometimes, when I think mometer, which has been several over my situation here." Ay, I times up to Zero already. So no said all that to her, and more : Verore at present from and I saw Captain Canter open his eyes and his mouth, and shut Your attached Friend, them again, just as though he was astounded at my audacity. MARGARET COMFIT. pear! Chapter XX. MRS, FLIRTER'S BALL. NATURE, who delights in va men of the station laughed--as riety, perhaps never made two knowing young fellows, with their persons more decidedly unlike in large and varied experience, will all essential respects than the Ma- laugh-at the simplicity of a wojor's lady and Mrs. Flirter. The man visibly passing through the former lived an artificial life world without losing aught of the amidst her finery and ostentation : bloom of her mental freshness ky the latter was one of the most un contact with mundane things; but pretending, simple-minded crea they acknowledged her at heart tures that ever breathed. It was to be a “good little creature," popularly said that she belonged and had sufficient respect for the to a fortner age, when the world very want of worldliness they riwas innocent and young, and that diculed, to disarm their playful Flirter had found her in a fossil satire of any sting. As a peacestate, and got her restored in maker she was quite famous. some mysterious way to existence, She had healed many a dissension in order that she might accompa and prevented many a quarrel : ny him through life, and prevent not perhaps because she took the him from breaking his head wisest possible view of cases in against the stones in which he was which she interfered, but because constantly Ourrowing. The young she set about the work in such a ·Sent out to India-A Tale. 819 gentlc and amiable way, that none his courage to the sticking place. but the most churlish could resent Mrs. Major Devigne, too, may her interposition, and it seemed to have said one or two spiteful things people to be quite an ungracious to her husband about the apthing to go on wrangling after proaching entertainment. But on Mrs. Flirter. had tried to make the whole people seemed mightithem friends. Neither was she ly interested in Mrs. Flirter's chary of her advice to young Ball, and vastly delighted at the people, upon whom she bestowed prospect of it. ber counsel in a smiling, mater When the happy day at length nal kind of manner, that made arrived, ladies dispensed with them love their monitor,, even their evening drive, in order to when they disregarded her re be able to take an early dinner, cominendations. which would give them ample The Flirters were very hospi- time to perform the potent mystable to the people of the Station teries of dress. Fair warriors, and its neighbourhood, -oſten, how carefully they armed themindeed, extending their civilities selves! what danger lurked in to persons whom Mrs. Major flowing satins and etherial mus. Devigne, in her lofty judgment, lins ! what deadly arrows were thought it quite beneath them to ready to dart from wreaths and patronise,--so that when the news bouquets ! what strength lay in of the coming Ball was spread dark tresses, and skategy in au. abroad, it was agreeable to wit burn ringlets ! how slaughterous ness how much pleasure it creat were the sashes which encircled ed, and how few remarks of a slender waists ! how merciless the censorious and carping character shoes of white satin which set off it gave rise to. We have often the beauty of tiny feet! Brightheard tidings of a like sort pro- eyed witches, with what magic duce such a crop of critical com did they surround a jewelled ment and ill-natured inuendo bracelet upon a delicately roundsuch a growth of cnvy and bit.. ed arm! what sorcery they practerness, and other similar weeds tised upon rings, and brooches, of the human heart that one and necklaces ! what charms and might have supposed the hostess, incantations they must have used in inviting her friends to be merry to render a glove so powerful, & and happy, was doing the great- piece of lace capable of exercising est possible violence to their violence to their such mighty influence upon the feelings and inclinations. On mind of man! At nine o'clock, the present occasion, perhaps, Mr. Flirter's residence was quite Ensign Prettyman remarked that “ blaze of light.' he hoped the Collector would proach was illuminated with fesgive a Plesiosaurian polka, or an toons of lamps suspended from Iguanodon quadrille ; and it is bamboo poles. Inside the house not improbable Dr. Leechley may were several glittering chande. have observed that here was ano liers, and an infinity Wallther chance for Miss Catharine, shades, besides argana lamps if Lovelong would only bogrow hanging here and there, and a little inspiration from "Simkin" shedding radiance like little syns. instead of Helicon, and screw The windows were thrown open a The ap- ·820 Sent out to India-A Tale. for the sake of air; the band was again; the room began to fill; genconveniently arranged in a ve tlemen selected partners, a quadrandah; the supper (which had rille was formed ; and the music cost Mrs. Flirter more than commenced, -to continue, as Flirone anxious day and sleepless ter plaintively remarked, the whole night) was laid in an apartment night through, and not cease till adjoining the ball-room, and was Heaven knew what hour in the intended to be carefully concealed mornišg! from view until the time came for Mrs. Major Devigne with her práctically testing its excellences. family arrived rather late, as it is Flirter was of course in a fidget; perhaps the wont of fine ladies to but how could it be otherwise ? do; and when she came in, glo- The necessity of party-giving was, riously arrayed in figured satin, he knew, one of those accidents of and glittering with jewels, sile his position, which, dislike them looked, with her daughters and as he might, he could not escape nieces, like some Queemin a melofrom : this he was convinced of, drama, attended by her ladies, because Mrs. F. had said it over and of course the spectacle could and over again, and she was not not fail to cxcite a general sensain the habit of leading him astray Sion. Almost the first person in any unscientific matter. Never who came up to greet her was theless it seemed to him to be a Mr. Sternhold, the Political remarkably unpleasant necessity, Agent at Kilgaum, a man whose a particularly unfortunate acci great talent and sagacity had dent. He could not dance a bit, early marked him out for diploand had not an atom of taste for matic employ, and who enjoyed music. He felt very uncomfort the reputation of being one of able in tight trousers and a biack the most able, as well as most coat. The glare of the lights hurt cautious and reserved persons in his eyes, and the noise and the the Company's service. He was heat made his head ache. Late tall, and sparely built, with hours he detested, and suppers a darkish complexion, and black were his abomination. To bow penetrating eyes ; and there was with empressement to a person he a curious expression of mingled did not care for ; to smile when composure and watchfulness in there was nothing that particular. his countenance that seemed to ly pleased him, and to talk when indicate him at once as a safe he had literally nothing to say, depository of secrets, and a skilwere arts far beyond the range ful hand at extracting secrets of his genius. He therefore felt from others. He was not a man quite out of liís element at a ball, of many words, but always spoke and played the part of Host at to the purpose, and in a mild, such an entertainment with the gentlemanly manner. Having sort of awkwardness that Keeley been introduced to Miriam and might experience, if by any sin- Louise, he asked them how they gular once he were condemned liktd India, whether this to undertake the character of the first party they had been at Romeo. since they arrived ; and a few Time sped on ; carriages drew other common-place questions. up to the floor and drove away He then complimented Betsey and was ·Sent out to India-A Tale. 821 on our Fanny on their good looks, as a was standing up with a very father might compliment his brown brunette, whom he called children, and turned round to Miss Clementina, and upon whom say a civil word to poor Miss the Major's ladyo every now and Meek, who had come to the ball then cast a scornful glance, as (rather against Mrs. Devigne's much as to say, what is she here wish) at the very particular de for? Why should Mrs. Flirter sire of Mrs. Flirter, and who invite dark persons to her parties ? kept purposely in the back Stalking about the room in his ground in order not to intercept fine uniform, and with a self-sadsany of the admiration due to the fied smile upon his usually vacant young ladies, her pupils. Hav- face, was Captain Canter of the ing done this, he bowed respect. Irregular Cavalry. Gliding hifully, and passed on. " That is ther and thither, neat, noiseless, one of the richest men and active, was the well-dressed side of dia," said Mrs. De little Assistant Judge, D'Oyley vigne to Miriam. “He has a first Dashwood. On a couch opporate appointment, and a consi site, Ensign Prettyman sat talkderable private fortune. With ing to a pale young man, the his immense interest, I dare sä" junior Ensign of the corps, about he'll be Governor, or Governor certain moving accidents by General, some day. But he al flood and field" that evidently ways treats Fanny and Betsey as interested the lad greatly. Near though they were little girls in them was a stout lady with a frocks and trowsers. Isn't it pretty daughter, surrounded by provoking ?" several gentlemen, attracted per- Having leisure to look about haps more by the beauty of the them, Miriam and Louise directed young girl than the wit of her matheir attention to the various ma, though the latter laughed impersons in the room, and made mensely at her own sayings. enquiries of their Aunt relative to “ How vulgar!" said Mrs. Desome whom they had never seen vigne. “ That person is the wiſe before. Among the dancers, of Brigadier Oldbuffer, though they discerned Lieut. Lovelong from the style of her conversation, (a fair-haired, languid youth, and the rudeness of her manner, with a light trace of moustache) you might fancy she was the landand Miss C erine Flirter, the lady of some tavern. How she Laura of bis Petrarchian dreams. gets her daughters off, I don't The little riante Mrs. Staples know, yet that sentimental look- (the Cotton Planter's wife) was ing little thing in pink is the last dancing with real spirit, with of five, all married in this cours honest Bob Dunrobin, Flirter's try, and married well too." First Assistant for a partner. The ladies, however, were soon Bob making the floor shake and compelled to take a more active creak alarmingly as he tumbled part in the festivities of the even. about, forgetting perhaps that he ing. Captain Granton çame up, weighed fourteen stone and a accompanied by an Artillery offihalf without his hat and boots. cer, and asked Mts. Devigne to Slapdash, the “ fast young man" dance, while his friend prevailed of Major Devigne's regiment, on Miss Fanny to folow the ex- VOL. II. NO. 1X.

·822 Sent out to India-A Tale, ample of " dear mama.' Then about the girls, and be asking came Dr. Leechley, who would Miss Meek a few questions contake no denial from Miriam ; and cerning one of them, with a view Captain Cantel and Ensign to an early proposal. If that Prettyman, who offered their were so, what a triumph! The arms respectively to Louise and whole Station would cnry her. Miss Betsey. As Mrs. Devigne The Judge's wife would die of sailed through the figures, with a vexation, and even good little stately grace she must have Mrs. Flirter would be jealous. tfought bewitching, she kept a But she could have wished Mr. wary eye upon her two daughters, Stennhold had taken an opportuand glanced every now and then nity of speaking to her instead of at poor Miss Meck, who had been addressing himself, in that odd left sitting by herself on a chair way, to the governess. These at the far end of the room. Be thoughts were still passing through fore the dance was half over, her mind, when the colloquy endwhat was the fine lady's surprise ed, and she saw Mr. Sternbold get to see Mr. Sternhold, the Politi up and join Major Devigne, and cal Agent,--the wealthiest and walk arm-in arm with him out of most eminent man in the room, the room, and up and down the the eligible of eligibles,-go up verandah. More singular still! and seat himself beside the gover How she wished the dance was ness, and enter into an animated over! She would willingly give conversation with her! The the costlicst jewel on her person blood rushed to her face immcdi to be able to fathom the mystery. ately. She had never seen Mr. In course of time the music Sternhold exchange more than ceased, and the gentlemen led half-a-dozen words with Miss their partners to the seats ranged Meek, and those the veriest com on either side of the room. Mrs. mon-places, yet here they were, Devigne flew to Miss Meek. talking earnestly and confidential “What has he been saying to ly together, like friends of ten years standing, or persons ap “Who, ma'am ?" proaching a still more intimate “Why Mr. Sternhold, to be relationship. What could it be sure, didn't I see him speaking to all about ? Surely Mr. Stern you for ten minutes at least dur. hold, with his fortune, his high ing the last quadrille ?" connexions, his brilliant pros Oh, he said nothing particupects, could never contemplate lar, ma'am." throwing himself at the feet of “ Now come, Miss Meek, you uch a treasure as that! True, cannot deceive me. I am accus he was an eccentric man, and tomed to things of this sort, and incomprehensible in many things, when I find a gentleman of Mr. but it was impossible to suppose Sternhold's position and standing that having passed by Fanny, and going out of his way to talk for even Betsey, with indifference, quarter of an hour too young lady he could be thinking of an alli like yourself, I am sure there ance with their governes4. Re must be something particular, very ally, utterly impossible. Perhaps particular indeed. If it's a secret he might lave altered his mind between Mr. Sternhold and your. you?"

·Sent out to India-A Tale. 823 & >) struck up self, then of course I don't want most agreeable man in the room. to hear anything about it, unless To Mrs. Devigne he spoke with a natural feeling of friendship a respectful deference which gave and gratitude should prompt that lady secret pleasure ; and you to tell me; but if it concerns and as she happened to know his me or mine in any way, then I circunstances almost as well as really consider it my bounden he did himself, he did not run duty to insist upon a full disclo. the risk, which inore fortunate insure, however unpleasant it may dividuals sometimes incurred, of be to you." losing ground in her esteem by “Mr. Sternhold, ma'am, was exhibiting indifference to the atmercly chatting with me for five tractions of her daughters. “He minutes, and making a few en has nothing to live on but his quiries about pay," she would say to herself, “ About Betsey, was it? Why Hand half that goes every month do you hesitate ?" to his creditors ; so the girls No, ma'am," he was asking must not think of him though ; chiefly about Miss Miriam; and were he frce from incumbrances, really, you must allow me to as he would make by no means sure you, most solemnly, that ha' bad husband." said nothing particular." Mrs. Devigne bit her proud movement in the room, the Band About midnight, there was a lips with vexation; but recover- " The Roast Beef of ing herself instantly, she put on a smile to conceal her annoyance. Old England," and people were seen to “pair off," and proceed Ah, you foolish girl!" cried slowly to the apartment where she, why did you not say as much at first? Of course Mr. the supper was spread. Miriam was exchanging a few words with Sternhold could only ask the most Catharine Flirter (who had dancorrect and proper questions reced herself red-hot, and was makgarding my nieces. But I fancied ing ineffectual efforts to cool her at first he might be smitten with face with a China fan) when, to Betsey--who is looking more her surprise, Mr. Sternhold walkbeautiful to-night than I have ed quietly up, offered her his ever seen her, and imagine you arm, and led her away to supper. v. ere her confidante, and that it "I hope you have spent a would be advantageous to interest pleasant evening, Miss Devigne," you in his favour." he said. “Unhappily I don't The Ball went on gaily, and dance, or should have been people seemed wonderfully to enproud to have hay you as my joy themselves. Captain Granpartner. I have had, besidel ton danced twice or thrice with business to attend to this evening, Miriam ; and, probably without which has prevented me from intending it, made quite an imhaving the pleasure of improving pression on her by his easy bearour acquaintance. Probably you ing, his winning manner, Ind did not miss rie?" amusing conversation. Nor was he wanting in attention to Loaise, "Phyes!" replied Miriam, " I who, like her sister, could not wondered, once or twice, where refrain from thinking him the you had gone to, and feared you ·824 Sent out to India-A Tale. sure. might be unwell, and have left tell me, Mr. Sternhold, I'm early on that account." “There was a despatch," said “When do you return to Kil. Sternhold, " from my Assistant gaum, ma'am ?" asked Sternon the Frontier, and I was com hold. pelled to answer it immediately, “Not for three or four days and also to write emergently to yet." the Brigadier at Kilgaum." "Is it anything of importance ? You need not alarm your- No war, I hope ?" asked Miriam, self, I assure you." anxiously. 'I do detest war," said Mrs. Say nothing to any body Oldbuffer to Mrs. Devigne ; "it here," returned Sternhold, with makcse one so nervous and mia smile, "you will know all to scrable. I'm always afraid the morrow.' Brigadier will be wounded again, He uttered these words in an or fall from his horse in a mêlée under tone, as they took their (I think that's that they call it.) seats at the supper-table. No- He can't mount now, without thing further passed on the subassistance, and if he were to tumject; and Mr. Sternhold, finding ble off on the field of battle, he Mrs. Devigne on one side of him, is so stout that he'd have no and Mrs. Oldbuffer and her daugh- chance with the enemy." ter opposite, extended his civili After supper there was more ties, so as to preclude the idea dancing; and at a certain hour that there was anything "parti in the morning-whether two or cular" in his attentions to Mi three, or four, Mr. Flirter could riam. not distinctly say, for he had Mrs. Oldbuffer, being blessed forgotten to wind up his watch, with a potent appetite, disposed which had consequently run of the wing and breast of a fowl, down,--the evening's entertaina páté or two, a heap of jelly and ment was brought to a close by blanc manger, and a large slice a country dance, which was gone of pine-apple, ---facilitating the through with great spirit and descent of these heterogeneous animation. There was then a refreshments with two glasses general move homewards,-the and a half of champagne and a only exception being in the parbottle of soda-water. son of Lieut. Slapdash, who hay. Then she paused, and said to ing taken “the merest trifle” too the Political Agent..."What is the much champagne, was found, news, sir, from the frontier ? about six a. M., by Buxoo the Are wartawake the field ? Ah hamaul, fast asleep on a couch in ja! I shall be so anxious about the Verandah, dreaming of drivthe Brigadier ; for he is not so ing a four-in-hand to Kilgaum, active as he used to be, you know containing all the people of the now. Is there any danger ? You'll station of Dust-i-nuggur. (To be Continued.) Immmm ·ADVERTISEMENTS. ST. ANDREW'S LIBRARY, CALCUTTA. FRESH STATIONERY AND DEED BOXES. Meers. THACKER, SP NK & CO. have just landed from the Duke of Wellington, a large as tortment of DOUBLÉ BLOCK TIN BOXES, of different sizes, with Patent Improved Locks, and admirably adapted før DEED, or DISPATCH BOXES, price varying from RA 8 to 20, MERCHANT'S BILL CASES, Block tin, reduced in price from Rs. 9 to Rs. 5. Also a large Invoice of WEDDING STATIONERY, comprising CARDS, ENVELOPES and WAFERS, of the newest designs OVERLAND PAPERS ; and the NEW DOUBLE THICK CREAM LAID BARONIAL NOTE PAPER, &c. &c. Mesare. Thacker, Spinat & Co. have also landed from the "Duke of Wellington," the following articles, to which they beg to draw attention : MILITARY RECONNOITRING AND OTHER TELESCOPES. Reconnoitring Telescopes, 1 foot taper large object Glass, Sling and Caps, by West, Rs. 80 Davis's small 6 draw Reconnoitring Telescopes, in leather cases, Rs. 25 Deer-Stalking, 2 feet, 4 draw Telescope, by Troughton and Simms, bronzed, with shade and leather case, Rs.75 West's 2 feet Telescope, 3 draw, covered with leather in case... Rs., 70 14 feet ditto.... Rs. 50 15 inch 3 draw Telescope, with Whalebone body, mounted in German Silver, in case, ... Rs. 65 .. . ... ... 1. .. ... ... 4. 010 DI 1 INSTRUMENTS. Theodolites by Troughton and Simms, 7 Inch, Everest's construc tion, divided upon Silver to Ten Seconds, with Tripod Stands complete, Rs. 674 Dumpy Levels, by Troughton and Simms, 14 Inch, with Compass, floating Silver Ring, &c. &c., and Tripod Stand complete, Rs. 400 Pentagraphs, by Troughton and Simms, 3 feet best breath mahogany case, Rs. 1500 Boiling Thermometers, with Apparatus complete, Rs. 25 Differential Thermometers, ... * Rs. 25 ... 00 .. 10 . 11. 14 CAMP CHAIR-BEDS. Brown's Patent Camp Chair and Bed, with foot rests, .. The Same, with Arcásyon Rs. 25 Rs. 86 ·Advertisements. CARPET AND LEATHER BAGS. Carpet Bags, with patené Lock and Key, of sizes.. Rs. 8 and Rs. 14 Black Leather Travelling Bags, with patent Lock and Key, of 3 sizes, Rs. 10, Rs. 16, and Rs. 20 ... . .. مرة ENVELOPE CASES. Amboyna Shaped Envelope Cases, of Mottled Ebony, with Lock Rs. 16 Ditto, of handsome Meple Wood,... Rs. 16 and Key, ... 446 .. .. AND . . ... STAUNTON'S CHESSMEN BOARDS, Staunton's Chessmen, in handsome Carton Pierre Boxes, with Book of Games, Rs. 50 Chess Boards, to match the above, Rs. 32 Staunton's Chessmen, Club size, loaded, in plain Mahogany Boxes, Rs. 35 Ditto smaller size ditto, ... on .. .. .. ... . .. *.. Rs. 20 AMATEURS' TOOL CHESTS. Tool Chests of Oak, containing an assortment of the most useful Carpenter's Tools, No. 1 Rs. 20, No. 2 Rs. 25, No. 3 R$ 32 GRINDSTONES. Improved Grindstones worked by Cog-wheels, .. 11 Rs. 16 .. QUEEN'S CROCHET COMPANIONS. Leather Cases containing a full assortment of Crochet and Knitting Needles, also Thread of different Nos., Rs. 10 .10 HOMCOPATHIC MEDICINES. Messrs. THACKER, SPINK & co. have just received a fresh supply of the above Medicines, in Globules :- Boxes containing 59 Medicines ................... Re. 40 36 » 26 30 12 6 5 91 ..................... < val DOUBLE-BARREL GUNS, BY T. K. BAKER, LATE MORTIMER. SUPERIOR-DOUBLE BARREL GUNS, beautifally finished, and fitted with Appalatus complete, in neat Oak and Mahogany Cases. MESSRS. THACKER, SPINX & CO. having received instructions to close the consignment of the above, beg to offer the only that remaining Guna, at the greatly reduced price of Co.'s Rs. 300 each, Cash.

·Advertisements. HEALTH FOR ALL!!! anni The time has now come when the public health in India must be more attentively considered with a view to its preservation and improvement. Notwithstanding the number of Medical Gentlemen employed in the Country, it is a well known fact that hundreds of our Countrymen are annually consigned to an earty grave, or compelled to return to England with shattered constitutions; no class of people on earth are so physicked-aye-and physicked with poison too-and yet with hundreds of Dois tors within the three Presidencies and medicines innumerable--the mortality in India is greater than in any other of our Colonies. The average age to which persons live in this country is 40 years. Another startling fact is, that one-half of all the children born of European parents in India, die before they reach their fifth year, and in many unhealthy Sto tions a large portion of these die within the first year. What can more elearly deinonstrate the fact, that while the Residenta in India have been physicked by a large standing Army of Doctors, they have not been taught the best mode of preserving their health. One truth must be clearly understood and consistently acted upon, namely, that all the diseases to which the human frame is subject, arise feom an impure state of the blood. Let this vital principal be freed from impurities, and disease cannot take place. PURE AIR AND PURE BLOOD. The relationship between pure air and pure blood is very intimate. The office of the lungs is to decarbonize the blood. Previously to its passing through thosc organs it is of a dark black colour, in consequence of its being charged with Carbon ; it is then termed venous blood. When it comes into contact with the oxygen of the atmosphere, it is purged from the Carbon and changed to a beautiful crimson ; it is then termed arterial blood. If the surrounding air be foul, charged with miasma of Carbonic acid gas, which has escaped from the lungs of individuale or from putrid matter, it is impossible that the blood should be changed from venous into arterial. The object of the blood is to convey a replenishing principle to every part of the human frame for the purpose of repairing the waste which is constantly going on. But if it has come in contact with impure air, it gallops through the system, charged-not with health and vigour---but with a disease-engendering principle : hence low, intermittent fevers, dysentery, cholera, and other fearful diseases. AN EFFICACIOUS REMEDY FOR ALL DISEASES, Now if disease arise from the cause thus describe chrom who can question the philosophy or doubt the efficacy of the " Hollowayen System. like Doctors in general, he shows how disease may be prevenador if its presence be detected, he shows them what is the cause. Of course, he say, * If you are suffering from disease, take my Pills." For while Professor Holloway's Pills are perfectly free from poison-they are at the same tine churged with a powerful disease-externinating principle. Being taken into the system--they'assimilate with the blood, and the vital fluid is thus charged with an element, which wages war with every anhealthy obstruction-a work of emancipation commences, and most pleasuring are the results, 1 Un- ·Advertisements. COMPLAINTS OF THE LIVER, THE LUNGS AND THE STOMACH REMOVED. The Liver hitnerto morbid in its action is freed from unhealthy sepretiens, acrimonious bile is carried off, and along with it distressing pain in the right side, and a burning sensation at the stomach, the sallowness of the skin vanishes and is succeeded by a healthy liver. The Lungs, which had been held in thraldom by vitia ed humours, causing a constant hacking cough, is get free by the use of these Pills, so that respimation becomes easy. The Stomach, in which impurities had been allowed to accumulate, causes nausea, violent headache, indigesti in, nervousness, burning sensation and acute pain, bowel complaints, kleepless nights, and a host of other evils, the stomach is completely cleaned of its misery-making.occupants, by a few doses of this extraordinary medicine. , MALIGNANT CHOLERA ROBBED OF ITS VICTIMS.. This disease, which is so common in India, results from a redundancy and putrid acrimony of the bile. Now Holloway's Pills, by cleansing the intestines, and imparting vigour to the whole nervous system, are of admirable use as a preventive; but when this use of them has been overlooked, the actual attacke of Choleru may be mitigated by a timely and persevering use of them. The stoinach and bowels will thus be effectually freed from all vitinted humours, and the various functions speedily restored to their proper tone. RHEUMATISM AND GOUT PREVENTED AND CURED. And what is Rheumatisn: ? It is a painful disease, affecting the joints and limbs-caused by an accumulation of impurities. How common is the exclamation, I have caught a cold, and it has brought on that tiresome excruciating pain on my shoulders or limbs!" Do you wish to know why this pain? We will tell you, and, which is still better, we will tell you how to get rid of it. By means of respiration, and perspiration the human systein is continually throwing off waste matter. LAVOISIER, the celebrated French Chemist, states that the skin alone during every four and twenty hours parts with 20 ounces of useless matter. This supposes health and favourable circumstances. But should any of this matter be thrown back into the system, proportionate disease must.. necessarily ensue. Yon spend some time in a heated place, c. drive out visiting during the hot months, and the pores of your body become open and sensitive; you go in this state under å punkah, or perhaps lie down on 4 couch right before the " tatties," and fall asleep. The pores are suddenly closed-perspiration is obstructed, and the waste mattendew,.ning in the system becomes a fruitful source of disease and pain. The next morning your eyes swim, your voice is husky, and you feel pain, and you exclaim, " What a beastly country!. I have taken cold.from just sitting near the tatties," and then how do you act ? You do not as youtught, at once seek to free the system from impure abstrictions, but you content yourself with some mere palliative, you lose some of the first, unpleasant sensations, but the impurities still lurk within you? Every now and then you feel twitching, torturing 'pains in your limbs; but those pains are sent in mercy, and their language is." ou ·Advertisements. : 1 This . 1 have broken a physical law: your want of care has caused imhealthy obstructions ; get rid of these, and you will be free from pain; allow these to remain, and pains still more fearful will be the result. alone can be effectually done by resorting to a course of Holloway's PAYS and Ointment, which will, in a few days, remove these obstructions, and restore health and vigour to the whole system. DISEASES IN GENERAL. The same may be said of the other, and almost numberless diseases rising from this fertile, this cole cause of all diseases the impurities of the blood-and none who have used these invaluable Medicirres'" bave been disappointed." The grateful aspirations of thousands in every part of the world furnish abundant demonstration that never was a Medicine employed, at once so safe and so salutary, so powerful to conquer disease, yet so harınless that an infant may take it with safety. Wherever those Pills and Ointment have been known they have been regarded as a blessing, and are held in the highest estimation as an invaluable Medicine; and every resident in India ought to have a box of the Pills and a Pot of the Ointment in his Bungalow, both for himself, his family, his servants, and his friends. Sold in Boxes and Pots, at I, 2-8, 4-8, 11, 12, and 33 Rupees eåch. Directions for their use in all diſeases accompany each Box and Pot. AGENTS FOR INDIA. Thomas Payne and Sons, 7-8, Writers' Buildings, Calcutta ; Mr. Cook, Dacca ; Mr. Fell, Cattack ; Mr. Chapman, Darjeeling; Mr. Wheeler, Hazareebaugh ; Messrs. Thomas and Co., Monghyr; F. Smith and Co., Dinapore ; Tuttle and Charles, Benares ; Mr. Tiernan, Chunar; Baboo Bhugbutty Churn Chuckerbutty, Mirzapore; Builard and Co., Allahabad Seetul persaud and Co., Lucknow; Greenway Brothers, Cawnpore ; Mr. Pyle, Futtyghur ; Mr. J. A. Gibbons, Meerut; Noor Buksh and Co., Delhi and Lahore ; MacDonald and Co., Umballah ; Mr. Coutes, Ferozepore ; Nuby Bux and Co., Loodianah and Jullundur Doub; Vivian and Co., Simlah ; Mr. Greig, Mussoorie ; Mr. Johnstone, Nainee Tal; Pestonjee and Co., Mhow ; Cursctjee and Co., Saugor, Jubbulpore, Kamptee and Secundrabad ; Hutse and Nephew, Agra; Messrs. Lewis and Co., Moulmein; Messrs. Meppart and Co., Vizagapatam. N. B.-Directions for the guidance of Patients in every disorder are affixed to each Box and Pot. BOOKS FOR SALE AT THE PRESS, DELHI GAZETTE FOR CASH ONLY. Apply, Post-Paid to Mr. F. W. Place. Erskine's Book of FORMs, 2nd Edition, Price, ... MjcGregor's Diseases in India, Rs. 16 5 .. ... 0. ..

·Advertisements. VI .. ... ... . .. ... PU ... ...Rs. ... .. ... . ... . . .. OD .. . ... A Treatise on the Blue Epidemic Cholera, by Dr. W. L. McGregor, 4 Abstract of General Orders, rold for the benefit of the Lawrence Asylun:- First Part, from 1841 to 1815, 7 Second Part, from 1845 to 1847, with Index to both parts, Third Part, from 1877 to 1849, with Index, 7 Fourth Part, for 1850-51, with Index, 7 Index only,... ... 3 Tys SIGHTS OF DELII, (sold for a Charitable purpox,) 1 Authorised Pay and Audit Regulations for the Bengal Army, neatly bound, ... TRANSLATIONS by Capt. WHollings. Premsagar, RA. Bytal Pucheesee, The order to be accompanied by a Remittance, with 8 annas for packing, if wax cloth be required. JOB AND LITHOGRAPIIIC WORKS Of every description, can be neatly and expeditiously executed at this Press, Where Civil, Military and other Lithographed Forms, und Bound Books, Cheque Books, Dawk Books, Ruled Music Books, and Ruled Music Paper, may always be had, with Lists of Prices. THE ... ... 90 ... ... ... ... . .. .. ... ... 3 DELHI SKETCH #OOK, Published in Monthly Numbers, ON THE BEGINNING OF EACII MONTII. ..... ........ TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION: In advancc, yearly,..... half-yearly, Euch number,......... Rs. 16 0 8 0 1 8 .......... .... .................... >> ................ ............. TERMS OF ADVERTISING : Per line...... 0 4 Contract Rates for a Column or half Column, may be ascertained on application to the MANAGING Prorrierol of the Dehli Gazette. THE A GRA MESSENGER, 1 TSPAPIR, PUBLISHED ONCE A WEEK AT AGRA. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION : One year certain........ Six moitths ccrtain,.... ............. Rs. 20 12 O' .............

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