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of Dort, 1618. "Allegant," says Calvin, speaking of Catholics, veterem catalogum qui canon vocatur, quem dicunt ex Ecclesiæ dijudicatione manasse. Sed rogo iterum quo in concilio canon ille editus fuerit, quanquam scire præterea cupio qualem esse illum canonem arbitrantur. Video enim inter veteres id parum constitisse." Inst. lib. iv. cap. 9, no. 14.

The heresiarch described vividly the presumption of his own followers. They often appeal to synods; but when challenged to name one from the first to the seventeenth century that mutilated the canonical Scriptures like themselves, they refer again and again to Laodicea. How far they can ground their belief on the authority of the early Fathers, and the proof of the Catholic canon, will form the subject of another paper.

THE KING OF OUDE'S PRIVATE LIFE.

The Private Life of an Eastern King. By a Member of the Household of his late Majesty, Nussir-u-Deen, King of Oude. Hope and Co.

NOTWITHSTANDING Warren Hastings, Burke, Sheridan, Lord Wellesley, and Colonel Outram, we fear that most Englishmen know little more of the "King of Oude" than that somebody has given his name to a piquant sauce, and largely advertised the same in the newspapers. Whether there is, or ever was, a real, live" King of Oude," and whether he has been known actually to consume the said sauce and to approve thereof, or whether he is to take rank with "Old Parr" of the pills and other similar mythical notorieties, the majority of our fellowcountrymen have contentedly remained ignorant. We shall be pardoned, therefore, if we inform those of our readers who are not "up" in the affairs of Oude-(pronounced, by the way, so as to rhyme with "proud," not as if spelt Oode)-that the kingdom and kingship bearing this name are still realities of a certain kind-and that some of the most questionable proceedings of our Anglo-Indian magnates have been perpetrated in connection with this same kingdom and kingship.

To save trouble for those who have forgotten their geography, alas, how many are they!-we may premise, that the territory of Oude is even now larger than Holland and Belgium put together; and that in the latter part of the last century, when Lord Wellesley went to India as governorgeneral, it was larger than England. It had been formerly a province of the Great Mogul Empire, and it was governed

by an independent sovereign, called, not "king," but " nawab." This, we suppose, about answered to the title of grand-duke, rejoiced in by sundry of the petty and nominally independent rulers of Germany. Having escaped from its fealty to the Great Mogul, Oude came under the manipulation of the English; and Warren Hastings exercised his ingenuity upon the women and dependents of the ruling family in such a manner as to supply some very telling items in the attacks of Burke and Sheridan.

By and by came Lord Wellesley, following in the steps of Sir John Shore, who, by talking, had prepared the way for his lordship to act; and quietly annexed one-half of the territory of Oude to the British presidency of Bengal. We don't pretend to know all the ins and outs of this characteristic proceeding. It certainly looks very like most of our other doings in India, and probably had about as much to be said for and against it as the rest of them. Then came another governor-general, Lord Hastings. He took the nawab's money instead of any more land, and paid him with a strip of worthless territory and the title of "king." This certainly was amusing; but how on earth we had a right to make the man a "king" instead of a "nawab," nobody but those versed in the morals of our Eastern government can presume to decide. The end of it has been and is, that there is still a king in Oude, called the King of Oude; but that the kings of Oude hold their council in the City of London, and themselves profess allegiance to Queen Victoria. In short, Oude is a decaying specimen of Oriental semi-barbarism, where still linger the elements of that state of society which once made the rulers of India the mighty potentates they were; but which is going to the dogs as fast as it can, and where it is lucky for the miserable people that there exists close at hand so very respectable a body of robbers as ourselves to take them under our protection, and gradually make them entirely

our own.

The Private Life of an Eastern King is the record of what was seen at Lucknow, the capital of Oude, by an Englishman who held a post in the household of the late king, Nussir-u-Deen. What that post was, he does not exactly tell us, though he hints at it in the following paragraph, which enumerates the European members of the household:

"His tutor, then was one of the king's friends; his librarian was another; his portrait-painter was a third; the captain of his body-guard was a fourth; and last, but by no means least, his barber his European barber-was a fifth. Of these five I was one."

Now, as he elsewhere gives us to understand that he was not the tutor and not the barber, he must either have been the librarian, the portrait-painter, or the captain of the bodyguard. He says in his preface that the principal European members of the king's household are still alive, and in England; and that if the truth of his statements is denied, he will give the names considered necessary to substantiate his narrative. We suppose, therefore, that we may accept the book as authentic; indeed, there is nothing in it which appears inconsistent with what is known from other sources of the strange, picturesque, magnificent, and detestable interior of Oriental despotic life.

Our author went first to Lucknow on his own personal affairs; not, he tells us, as an "adventurer," but in the routine of ordinary mercantile life. He found it a singular and unique city, especially in the universal practice of wearing arms at all times, even by the beggars, and in the general military tastes of the whole population. The ordinary beasts of burden were elephants; and altogether it was like the realisation of a dream after reading the Arabian Nights. His first sight of the king was quite in keeping with the true Oriental idea. The sovereign was sitting-not indeed crosslegged but on a gilt or golden chair, splendidly dressed, and with his crown on his head. The next interview, a private one, showed the advance of Europeanism at Oude. The king was walking in his garden, talking English, and wearing a coat, waistcoat, and trowsers, and a London-made hat. The new-comer was graciously received, and afterwards proceeded to inspect the palace, which, amongst the usual splendours of Eastern mansions, contained a private dining-room, hardly differing from an English dining-room.

Of the European members of the household, the tutor's business was to teach the king English, for which he got 1500l. a-year. The lessons were theoretically once a day, and lasting half-an-hour. Practically they lasted ten minutes, and wound up by the monarch's protesting it was dry work, stretching himself, calling for wine, and pushing the books

away.

The history of the barber was truly Oriental. Originally he was a London hair-dresser's assistant; knowing, doubtless, about as much of Oude and its sovereign as of the biography of the wonderful long-haired savage whose form attests the virtues of the marvellous "Balm of Columbia." Having a soul above pomatum-pots, he went out to Calcutta as cabinboy; there he set up in his old line of business; got on, and took to trading up the river, to dispose of his goods. At

Lucknow his good genius presented itself to him in the form of the "Resident," a lank-haired Briton, envious of the flowing locks of the governor-general of the day, and emulous of their hirsute beauty. The river-trader was not above the use of his curling-tongs, and forthwith twisted and curled the resident's hair with such an effect, that his fame reached the ears of Oude royalty itself. This same resident is now in

England, and is a member of Parliament.

To return, however, to our barber. The royal hair itself was lanky, and its possessor summoned the new-comer to operate upon it. The king was charmed. The barber was enriched, and made a noble by the title of Sofraz Khan ("the illustrious chief"), and forthwith became a prime favourite. He got the privilege of supplying the beer and wine for the king's table; became a regular guest thereat himself, and dined with the monarch incessantly; inspecting every bottle of wine that the king drank, for fear of poison; tasting it himself then and there. He was mightily abused by the scribes of the Anglo-Indian press; but he laughed at their wrath, pocketed his rupees, and employed an agent, at 107. a month, to write for him in one of the Calcutta journals.

.

Our author was soon admitted to dine with the king, and saw what majesty was, deprived of its externals, in the East as well as in the West. The hour was European-absolutely English-nine o'clock. Across one end of the room a gauze screen was drawn, behind which sundry of the king's wives and favourites were ensconced, like "ladies in the gallery" at a public dinner, to see the fun without being seen themselves. The king was dressed à l'Anglaise,-the dinner the same; soup, fish, joints, curry and rice, pastry and desserts, succeeded each other in the usual course. The king, though a Mussulman, drank wine, and to excess. The only Oriental part of the business was as follows:

"We had no sooner taken our seats, than half-a-dozen female attendants, richly dressed and of great beauty, came from behind a gauze curtain or screen that occupied one end of the room. I was warned not to gaze upon these ladies too curiously, as they were supposed to be kept from the eyes of man, like other ladies of the harem; supposed so only, however. During the evening I found many opportunities of regarding them without subjecting myself to observation, or without appearing to take any notice of them.

"They took their stations noiselessly behind the king's chair. He made no remark. No one seemed to regard them at all. It was the ordinary routine of the dinner-table; nothing more. Their arms were bare nearly to the shoulder; and as they waved their feathery fans gently about, two at a time, gracefully drawing them

in succession above and about the king's chair, it was a sight worth seeing.

6

"The dessert came; the richest and most luscious fruits that tropical luxuriance produces were placed upon the table; and with the dessert the evening's amusements began. These amusements, I afterwards found, were very varied. Sometimes tumblers would exhibit their calisthenic feats,' as they would be called in a London play-bill,-men who appeared to have no bones in their bodies, but could tie themselves up in knots, walk any way but that in which nature intended, outdo the monkey in monkey-like tricks, and go away well pleased if people laughed at them. Sometimes the court-jesters had a keen encounter of wits, accompanied with arrant buffoonery, not unlike the performances of harlequin and pantaloon and clown in our pantomimes. Sometimes conjurors exhibited their feats of diablerie and snake-charming. Sometimes we had cock-fighting,-fights between quails or partridges on the table before his majesty. Sometimes a puppet-show was introduced, and the marionettes acted and danced spasmodically, like human beings in modern tragedies. With these there was generally a group of dancing-girls and attendant musicians performing somewhere in the room.'

The first evening that our author dined at the royal table the dancing-girls and a puppet-show formed the entertainment; and the latter served for an occasion to show him the delicacies of Oude flattery. The king whispered something to the barber, who went out and returned with something in his hand, which he gave to the king. The monarch advanced close to the puppet-show, and suddenly cut one of the strings that moved the figures. Down went one of the dolls, loud laughed the barber at the wonderful achievement; the courtiers echoed the mirth, and the royal countenance beamed with delight. Again and again the monarch applied his scissors, and again and again the dolls tumbled, and the courtiers applauded. The wine went round, songs were sung, the king got royally drunk, and was carried off to his harem. Such was a private dinner-party in the sovereign's palace at Oude. Disgusting and absurd, no doubt; but not one whit worse than the dinner-parties that went on in Carlton House, where the Prince Regent entertained Fox and Sheridan, and the very men who astounded the British nation with the grandeur of their virtuous eloquence, when they arraigned Warren Hastings for his misdemeanours in the East.

The amusements of the day-time were in keeping with this hodge-podge of Orientalism and Europeanism, and on a par, intellectually, with the wit displayed in the matter of the dolls and scissors. Here, on one occasion, we have the Asiatic despot playing at leap-frog with his European favourites.

VOL. IV.-NEW SERIES.

R