animal was therefore sadly jaded, and so was its rider. He now shut himself up in his “Turret" at Felpham, and was almost inaccessible to the surrounding families, at least till after his separation from Mrs. H. : when, we are informed, 'he was much pleased to see his neighbours, and all the best families frequently called on him.' Mrs. Opie, who was in the habit of passing a few weeks with him in the summer, has furnished the editor with a description of the manner in which he passed his time. He rose very early; usually at four or five o'clock, took a dish of coffee, and while dressing composed a few stanzas of a devotional turn; and he would walk in his garden, even in winter, and when the ground was covered with snow, with a lantern in his hand, some hours before daylight. He was a very temperate man in his diet; drank water only at his dinner, and took coffee instead of wine after it. During Mrs. Opie's visits, there was a great uniformity in his habits: she sang to him, and he read to her. "You will wish to know," says she, "what we read aloud? Chiefly manuscript poems and plays of Mr. Hayley's! and modern publications." The sad complaint which terminated his life was a stone in the bladder; and an accidental fall, which displaced the stone, brought on his last illness and death, November 12. 1820, in the 75th year of his age.

Of the personal qualities of Mr. Hayley, among the most conspicuous were cheerfulness and sympathy; no afflictions of his own, we are told, could divest him of the former; and never did the afflictions of others find him destitute of the latter. His temper was also singularly sweet and amiable; and the editor says that it was the most even that he ever witnessed!' He is represented, too, as having possessed great colloquial powers. After an avowal, on the part of the editor, of his incompetence to delineate the characteristics of Hayley's genius, an avowal springing from unaffected diffidence alone, he thus speaks of his writings:

-

It may suffice to say, that an easy flow of versification, great sweetness of numbers, and an engaging playfulness of fancy, have been generally conceded to the poetry of Hayley. As a prosewriter, also, he has been allowed to exhibit a peculiar facility of style, and at the same time, a gracefulness of expression, that has placed him high in the list of authors; while as an annotator, especially, it would not perhaps be easy to find any writer, to whom the friends of literature have confessed themselves more indebted, both for copious and varied information, and for a fund of entertainment, co-extensive with the treasures of an exquisite library.

، It must, however, be confessed, that the writings of Hayley, distinguished as they are by ease and gracefulness, are yet occasionally

sionally characterized by feebleness of diction. But this defect may be traced to an amiable source,-to that exuberance of feeling, which, at the expence of his better judgment, impelled him to invest with endearing epithets every person and every thing of which he had occasion to speak ;-an impulse very creditable to his heart, no doubt, though prejudicial to the developement of his conceptions as an author.'

Two portraits of Mr. Hayley, at different periods of life, form frontispieces to these volumes.

ART. II. A Key to the Chronology of the Hindus; in a Series of Letters, in which an Attempt is made to facilitate the Progress of Christianity in Hindostan, by proving that the protracted Numbers of all Oriental Nations, when reduced, agree with the Dates given in the Hebrew Text of the Bible. 8vo. 2 Vols. 18s. Boards. Rivingtons, &c.

IF

we

F we have delayed for some time our intended notice of this valuable work, the accumulation and pressure of more temporary matter must be our apology. We should have been guilty of a flagrant dereliction of duty, had we been capable of purposely neglecting a dispassionate and temperate inquiry, on a subject which has unfortunately excited much inconsiderate zeal, and much unedifying controversy, mean the conversion of the Hindûs. Whether that event be in the ultimate destinations of Divine Will, or not, is a question that we must leave in pious resignation to Him, whose wisdom over-rules and controls all human endeavors: but certain it is that many of the attempts, hitherto made to bring about so desirable an end, have been rash and premature, and have rather retarded than promoted its accomplishment. Those who have assumed the task, or those to whom it has been confided, have been obviously unfitted for it, not only by an extreme ignorance of all that pertains to India, but by the fiercest prejudices against the whole race of its inhabitants, and against the antient and venerable religion which they profess.

Let us not be misunderstood. We are not taking up the defence of the Brahman superstition: but some attention to the subject has taught us to make a distinction between two things which the European missionaries have ignorantly confounded;-to distinguish the primeval principles of the Hindu religion from the fables, errors, and idolatries which have deformed it. A slight acquaintance with their sacred books, the Puranas and the Vedas, will discover to us indeed an evident tendency to pantheism, but also, at the same time, the

pure

pure worship of one omnipotent, just, and beneficent Being. Even the idolatries, which Mr. Ward and other zealots object to them, are to a certain extent unjust imputations. Images indeed are admitted into their pagodas: but, according to the most learned Pundits of their faith, their adoration is not the less directed to the supreme God. That God, they observe, being spiritual, is incomprehensible; and therefore, says one of their sastras, men are permitted to worship that incomprehensible Spirit in any of his works, if they consider the supreme omnipotent Intelligence as sovereign to them all: inasmuch as that Spirit is not the object of any sense, it is only to be conceived by a mind wholly abstracted from matter; and, in order to assist human meditations, it may be adored in the heart, in the sun, in fire, in water, or earth, or in the form of an idol.

It is time, however, to let the author of these very learned dissertations speak for himself, as to the objects which they have in view, and the data on which they are reasoned. No orthodox brahman can be an idolater: there may be sectaries, who secede from the established faith, as there are among Christians. But, to give effect to the Gospel in Asia, the ministers of Christ, in lieu of combating an opinion originating in mistaken zeal and prejudices, should, by comparing the religion of the Vedas in its pristine purity, with the sublimest doctrine of true religion, incline the natives of Hindustan to reject the impurities that have clouded the religion of their ancestors; and then, by shewing them that the religion of Christ is founded on that promulgated by the Eternal Spirit they adore, draw them, by imperceptible degrees, to become enamoured of a faith, which cannot exist without morality, and which contains the sublime doctrine of their sacred records, divested of those errors by which it is at present clouded. With a view of furthering this desirable object, a Key to their Chronology is now offered; which, being extracted from their most ancient and most sacred institutes, no orthodox brahman can object to; and chronology is so far necessary to religion, that without dates it is difficult, if not impossible, to stamp authenticity on history, whether sacred or profane. For when, apparently, the same event is placed by different nations at epochs the most remote from each other, or when different persons of the same nation appear to place the birth of the same person in different periods of the world, it is a natural inference that one or all of the narrations are unfounded. If, therefore, by an analysis of Hindu chronology, the protracted numbers, which have so generally been pronounced astronomical periods, are proved to correspond with the dates given in the Hebrew text of our Bible, one great object is obtained. For the contradictions that appear in the chronology of the ancients having ever been resorted to as an argument against religion, by the sceptics of every nation, this shelter for infidelity is removed, if it can be proved, to mathematical

demon

demonstration, that the Hindus, Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Chinese, equally with the Hebrews, place the creation of the world at a period not exceeding 5820 years from the present time; and that each nation allows 1656 years from that memorable event to the awful visitation of the Almighty, when, with the exception of one family, all mankind were destroyed by a general deluge. And if such an analysis produce proof that the reigns of the gods recorded in the Old Chronicle, together with the fourteen first dynasties of Egyptian kings, as given by Manethon; the fourteen Menus of the Hindus, the Chaldean dynasties of Berosus, and the eight first reigns of the Chinese; all agree in point of date with the Hebrew text of our Bible, it establishes the superiority of that text over those of the Septuagint and Samaritan: a subject of some importance, since nothing has been more prejudicial to the furtherance of Christianity with learned men, in Asia, than the different opinions maintained by Europeans relative to the chronology of their Scriptures, and the avidity with which authors turn from the one text to the other as they respectively assist a favourite hypothesis. Another circumstance very likely to promote Christianity in Asia will arise from comparing the four great Indian prophets, figuratively termed the "Mouths of God," with the first four Hebrew prophets; and proving, from an analysis of their chronology, that Swayambhuva, the first of men, termed Buddha, the son of the Self-existing, was created in the same year with Adarn; and that Buddha the son of Máyá, Buddha the son of Jina, and Buddha the son of Devace, were respectively born in the same years with the Hebrew prophets, Enoch, Noah, and Moses; for it is consonant to reason that a race of men eminently pious, and tenacious of the divine origin of their religion, should be gratified in finding that Europeans, equally with themselves, believe the will of God to have been promulgated by those persons, whom they figuratively term the "Mouths of God." Hitherto their great luminary Buddha, the son of Máyá, whom one sect worship as an incarnation of the Deity, for his having been exempt from death, hath been represented by Europeans as an impostor, and much pains have been taken to establish his identity with Foe, a Chinese atheist, who, in his dying moments, denied the existence of pure spirit. The time is arrived when the natives of India shall learn from the orthodox ministers of our Church (by identifying their prophet with Enoch, the son of Jared,) that every Christian considers him as a type of that blessed Spirit to whose religion they are desirous of converting them. It must be obvious to every unprejudiced mind, that the propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts will be furthered in proportion to the tolerance with which it is recommended, and that we should always endeavour to convince others, that while we contend for the purity of our own religion, considering it a peculiar revelation from God, we by no means deny the divine origin of theirs. In lieu then of condemning the religion, and ridiculing the prophets of the Hindûs, if we would convert them to Christianity, we should compare their religion and their prophets with our own.'

Whether

Whether the author succeeds or fails in the reconcilement of the Hindû and Hebrew chronologies, and whether his efforts be or be not instrumental to the conversion of the Hindûs, he deserves the praise of great acuteness, learning, and ingenuity. His lucubrations will afford both amusement and information to those who are conversant in similar studies; and, though we deem him too sanguine when he adduces his reasonings as collateral proofs of the authority of the Old and the New Testament, we agree with him in thinking that they who study the sublime doctrines, contained in the sacred records of Hindûstan, will learn to be tolerant at least towards a religion founded on the worship of the living God: for, however monstrous in the eye of prejudice those records may appear, they will be found on investigation to be either religious symbols, or allegorical descriptions of past events.

The following is as fair and rational a summary of Hindû theology as any that has yet fallen under our observation :

The Hindûs believe in one great primeval Cause, the Deity; whom, under whatever name adored, they suppose to have existed from all eternity, and who (to prevent the profanation annexed to the pronouncing of his name) is usually described as the Self-existing. This great First Cause is worshipped as universal, supreme, and infinite; is considered as a divine essence, incomprehensible and immutable, which fills all space, and is the primary cause of all things. To attempt, even in thought, to personify this divine essence, is in their scripture regarded as profane. Neither are the mystic characters, which are used to denote the Deity, permitted to be pronounced aloud, or the lips to move, although the word should be pronounced mentally a thousand times a day. The following may be considered as the articles of the Hindu faith that the Eternal is ONE, the creator of all things both in heaven and on earth, and in the waters beneath; that he resembles a perfect sphere, without beginning and without end; that the Eternal rules and governs all creation by a general providence, resulting from first determined and fixed principles. "Thou shalt not make enquiry into the essence of the Eternal ONE, neither by what laws he governs; an enquiry into either is as vain as criminal. It is enough that, day by day, and night by night, thou perceivest in his works his wisdom, his power, and his mercy. Benefit thereby." Brahma is considered as the spirit who emanated from this eternal essence, for the creation of the world. But, since idolatry has been introduced among the Hindûs, the three attributes of the one living God have been worshipped separately under the titles of Siva, Vishnu, and Brahma. To the latter no temples are dedicated, but the worship of the Lingum is exclusively to him. At present, the Hindus, to whatever minor cast they may belong, are divided into two sects, the followers of Siva, and the followers of Vishnu. The first date their origin as coeval