for a calculation of the number of female infants that annually thus perish by violence, though he has made many inquiries, and received several loose estimates on the subject, from persons considerably acquainted with the country. A number between fifteen and twenty thousand would probably be the mean of these calculations of the yearly destruction in Guzerat and Kutch.

MEASURES FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF INFANTICIDE.

It would be gratifying to abridge the narrative of Colonel Walker's indefatigable and most meritorious exertions for the suppression of this unequalled enormity, if our limits now allowed room for anything more than an animated congratulation to him and to the very cause of virtue itself, on the complete success of those exertions, throughout one wide portion of the country in which they were so judiciously and so resolutely prosecuted. In the remoter part of it, the territory of Kutch, the fear of the English had not yet grown to a sufficient strength to second effectually the force of persuasion; and the Colonel's repeated and earnest appeals to their humanity, and what they call their religion, had thus far failed, though the time is very likely not far distant, when they also will begin to feel the illuminations of that logic which has so mighty a power over Asiatic understandings-and indeed those of all other nations. But in Guzerat the great object of Colonel Walker's exertions is accomplished. He persevered in spite of all the obstructions which would have reduced a less determined spirit to despondency and inaction; and finally persuaded almost all the Jarejahs of any consequence in the country to subscribe such an engagement to renounce the abominable custom, as expressly subjects them, by their own consent, to a punishment from the British and Gaikawar governments in every subsequent instance of infanticide. At the date of the latest notices here inserted, the Colonel had remained long enough at Baroda to ascertain that the measure was proving effectual, and to receive the most gratifying demonstrations of gratitude and joy from both the mothers and fathers whose offspring he had thus reduced them to a kind of necessity of preserving. He is one of that privileged and enviable class of men whom Providence has employed, each

IMPORTANCE OF ENGLISH INFLUENCE IN INDIA. 207

to accomplish some one grand distinct operation in the great process of reforming the world.

IMPORTANCE OF ENGLISH INFLUENCE IN INDIA,

It is in a train of happy moral revolutions, corresponding to this, that we earnestly hope we see the intention of Providence in facilitating what appears so strange an irregularity in the economy of the world, as the acquisition of a vast empire in Asia by the people of this island. We do not know in what way those persons among us who do not care for such revolutions, or who deprecate and hate the projects for effecting them, maintain their complacency on the subject of India, amidst the evidence, growing every year more glaring, that in any other view our Indian successes are a great and almost unmixed calamity. We know not in what way,-unless they are expecting the state of the case to be reversed in consequence of a miracle of moral transformation, speedily to be wrought upon the managers of power in this ill-fated world. Unless this shall come to pass, we must expect that India -which used to be dreamed and ranted about as an exhaustless source of wealth to the nation-will continue to be, no one can conjecture how long, a most destructive drain on our domestic resources, absolutely a pit to throw the hard earnings of the English people into, and at the same time a pernicious vent for an influence that is poisoning our morals. But the period must sometime arrive when either wisdom or necessity will change this condition of things; and in the meanwhile, it will be a consolation, and partly even a compensation, to the benevolent and religious part of the community, that the English power in India is operating as the cause of most important innovations among the people,-in some particular instances by a direct authoritative interference, and more generally by that indirect and even involuntary sanction and weight, which the supreme power in the country necessarily gives to whatever benevolent and pious undertakings it protects. For how many wasted millions (no apology, however, for the men, and the system that have wasted them) will it be a moral compensation, that, twenty years hence, there will be very many thousands of human beings of an age to reflect with gratitude, that it has been owing to English inter

ference that they were not all murdered in their natal hour; and who will, therefore, have a most powerful motive to receive with favour, and consent to promote, the measures by which the English may at that time be solicitous to diffuse among them civilization and Christianity. And if at length a general civilization and Christianity in India shall be the result of such measures as could not have been prosecuted so effectually but under advantage of the ascendancy of the English power, what a triumphant balance of good will this be against that grievous pecuniary burden which the possession of India imposes on us, and will impose for a long time yet to come.

BISHOP WAYNFLETE.*

THE bishop was a very faithful member of the Romish church, and behaved himself with a dutiful consistency when appointed, with several other high ecclesiastics, on a commission to sit in judgment on the writings of Reginald Pecock, Bishop of Chichester, who had received holy orders at the same time, and from the same bishop, as Waynflete; but had at length adopted the tenets of Wickliffe, and preached zealously against the corruption of the higher clergy. The sentence had, however, rather less of vengeance in it than might have been expected from the spirit of the church, the ferocity of the times, the formidable tendency of the offensive novelties, and the rank and character of the class of persons most directly aggrieved. Those persons were such as, happily, we shall never see again.

"The spiritual lords were then served on the knee, and had pompous retinues; some, it is related, appearing abroad with as many as fourscore attendants, their horses all bedecked with silver trappings. So splendid was the mitre when conferred on

The Life of William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, Lord High Chancellor of England in the Reign of Henry VI., and Founder of Magdalen College, Oxford. By Richard Chandler, D. D., formerly Fellow of that College. Royal 8vo. 1811.

BISHOP WAYNFLETE.

209

Waynflete; whose approved moderation, with the worthy uses to which he destined his revenue, was well adapted to conciliate the temper of his adversaries. He persevered in his wonted and unaffected humility."

When a man dared to attack a most firmly compacted and powerfully armed body of men like these, and to "render, by his eloquence, the grandeur annexed to episcopacy a subject of public clamour and indignation," we think he really should have been too much prepared for consequences to "die of chagrin" when "he was sentenced to sit in his pontificals, as Bishop of Chichester, at the feet of the archbishop, and to see his books delivered to the flames, in St. Paul's church-yard; besides undergoing other disgrace, and retiring to an abbey on a pension."

FOUNDATION OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE.

But Waynflete is represented as having done perhaps as much mischief to the Popish cause by his zeal in the promotion of learning, as all his other labours did it good; and the society of the college (Magdalen) founded and endowed by him at Oxford, was conspicuous for producing zealous abettors of the Reformation. This college was sincerely intended as a service to learning, perhaps nearly as much as to Popery. If there was an additional object, the perpetuating of the fame of the founder, that was, of course, according to the principles of human nature, a motive of far inferior force. This institution was the grand and favourite work of his life, and it will be the main preserver of whatever reputation has become connected with his name. This institution was cherished, watched over, and provided for, with the most affectionate solicitude to almost the last day of the founder's life, which was the 11th of August, 1486. His will bequeaths his soul to Almighty God, the Virgin, Mary Magdalene, and the patron-saints of his cathedral," and among sundry other arrangements, enjoins on "his executors to cause five thousand masses in honour of the five wounds of Christ, and the five joys of the Virgin Mary, to be celebrated on the day of his burial, the trental of his obit, and other days, as soon as possible, for his soul, and the souls of his parents and friends." A magnificent chapel, for his tomb, had been prepared in Winchester Cathedral during

66

P

his life-time, with a waste of expense very strongly illustrating the prevalence of superstition, or vanity, or both, in the mind of a man so really desirous of promoting more public and liberal objects.

Our quota of dues to his character will have been fully paid, when we have added Dr. Chandler's finishing eulogium :

"Humane and benevolent in an uncommon degree, he appears to have had no enemies but from party, and to have disarmed even these of their malice. His devotion was fervent without hypocrisy; his bounty unlimited except by his income. As a bishop, he was a kind father revered by his children; as a founder, he was magnificent and munificent. He was ever intent on alleviating distress and misery. He dispensed largely by his almoner to the poor. He enfranchised several of his vassals from the legal bondage to which they were consigned by the feudal system. He abounded in works of charity and mercy. Amiable and affable in his whole deportment, he was as generally beloved as respected. The prudence, fidelity, and innocence, which preserved him when tossed about on the variable waves of inconstant fortune. during the long and mighty tempest of the civil war, was justly a subject of wonder. He conciliated the favour of successive sovereigns of opposite principles and characters; and the kings his benefactors were, by his address in conferring obligations on them, converted from being creditors into debtors."

EXQUISITE NONSENSE.*

MR. GAISFORD's diction will excite a good deal of curiosity and wonder. We are much against the practice of going on all occasions into superlatives; but we think that even after deliberation, we should be inclined to say, it is the strangest lingo we ever read or heard. In the utter want of order and logical dependence in the train of thoughts, the composition is not so very dissimilar to that of many works of which we have occasion to "tread the crude consistence." But the

An Essay on the good Effects which may be derived in the British West Indies, in Consequence of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade. By Stephen Gaisford, Esq. 8vo. 1811.