Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

the time spent in acquiring a very imperfect knowlege might, with far more benefit both to the student and to the public, be employed in some other pursuit."

A Nabob of the Carnatic carried on a correspondence with the late Tippoo, which was hostile to the Company; and his son, who had occupied the Musnud when the discovery was made, had been a party to it: but it does not appear that any hostile act was ever committed. The son died, and the grandson succeeded; on him the intentional sin of his grandfather must be visited; and it was determined to persevere in the resolution before taken, to assume the administration of the Carnatic in the name of the East India Company. It had also been resolved to make an annual allowance to the Nabob, so ample as to leave him no reason for complaining of pecuniary loss; and though this was the way in which the offending son was to be treated, no better conditions were to be allowed to the unoffending grandson:

He was offered the Musnud on the most liberal terms that could be granted, consistently with the security of the state. A fifth part of the net revenues of the Carnatic was to be assigned for the maintenance of his dignity, exempted from reduction or charge of any sort, whilst the administration of the country, and the cost of its military defence were to be provided for and defrayed exclusively by the Company. The ill-advised young man, acting under the influ ence of persons who were known to be implicated in the conspiracy of his father, and probably encouraged by designing and dissatisfied subjects of another country, pertinaciously rejected the offer that was made, doubtless under the persuasion that our Government would recede from its proposal, or that his inadmissible demands would be supported by a faction in England; but his error was soon made manifest. Government, without hesitation, transferred the Musnud to Azeem-ul Dowlah, the eldest son of the late Ameer-ul Omrah, second son of the Nabob Mahommed Ally, and the lineal descendant

he reached that country, was as unintelligible to the natives, in the Persian and Hindostanee languages, as if he had never opened a book upon the subject. This incapacity of colloquial communication continued for a considerable time; and when Sir William visited Benares, the sacred city of the Hindoos, several months after his arrival in India, he was indebted for the information he so eagerly sought by conversing with the learned natives, to the assistance of Mr. Fowke, the British Minister at Benares, who politely acted as interpreter to him. This is a convincing proof, if any proof were wanting, to how much more effect a language may be studied in a country where it is generally used in writing and in speaking.

• This arrangement was highly approved by the Government at home; and the Court of Directors addressed a letter of congratulation to Azumul Dowlah, on his accession to the Soubadary.'

of Anwarul Dein, the founder of the family both by the male and female line. This selection gave general satisfaction. The new Prince gladly subscribed to the munificent terms that were offered.-He was ceremoniously invested with the insignia of the Soubadary, and his subsequent conduct, it is said, proves that he was not undeserving the elevation he attained.'

Thus we see that a prince is to be reduced to the condition of a nominal sovereign, and to be stripped of four-fifths of his revenue, because of some meditated hostilities of his grandfather, which circumstances had rendered it impossible ever to take place! This may be justice in India, but it has hitherto been designated by a very different name in this country; -a country which once prided itself on its character for honour and honesty.

In the next passage, we have another specimen of Indian justice:

The administration of Oude was approaching fast to the last stage of ruin; the interference, therefore, of the British Government could no longer be withheld, consistently with a just sense of duty, of humanity, or a due regard to our own safety. The adjustment of the terms was made with the utmost delicacy to the Nabob's feelings, and on a scale of perfect liberality; the lands were taken at his own appreciation. Those districts were selected which were most distant from the Nabob's capital, namely, the country of Rohilcund and the Doaab; or the tract comprehended between the rivers Jumaa and Ganges.'

If the administration was thus ruinous, why were we not more merciful, why did we not seize the whole? When, in the midst of peace, we thus rob an ally of part of his territories, we have the assurance to talk of the delicacy observed in the selection of the spoils !

On those who have perused Mr. Francis's speech, which deserves equal praise for excellence as a composition and for the information which it contains, it is impossible that the pamphlet before us should make any impression. If the vindicators of Lord Wellesley feel conscious that they have a cause which admits of defence, let them fairly meet the accusations preferred in that masterly production.

MONTHLY

CATALOGUE,

For AUGUST, 1808.

POETRY.

Art. 16. Passages selected by distinguished Personages, on the great lite rary Trial of Vortigern and Rowena; a Comi-Tragedy:

[ocr errors]

ther

ther it be or be not from the Pen of the immortal Shakspeare." Vol. IV. 12mo. sewed. Ridgway.

38. 6d

The court of chancery has long been celebrated for its protracted suits but the self-created tribunal in which this pretended literary trial is carried on seems emulous of imitating our famed court of equity. We grant, however, that more wit is sported in the one than usually eulivens the other: but perhaps this Poetico-Prosaico Reporter may persevere till he finds the pockets of his purchasers as empty as those of the clients of the attornies at Westminster or Lincoln's-Inn Hall. However, to shew that the said Reporter's stock of quaint humour and pun is not yet exhausted, we shall call one or two witnesses:

86

• CCCLXXXVI. LORD VIS-T M-LV-LE.

"Since the lawe of the realme hath provided me a coate of mail, you may presse me to the torture, without wringing from me such responses as I am not disposed to bestowe. When I did lend my hande to enacte a statute to restrain certain lordes and courtlie men "from picking and stealing from the granarie of the publique, I "looked not to be found at the Barne-door winnowing of its corne "myself! Yet do I with contrite shame remember me of one Sir "Oliver Spintext, who, il-placing his ladder against the arm of a fructifying tree, did saw it off, and thus brought himself to the "ground by his own handicrafte operations!".

PAGE 379-Not GENUINE.'

CCCXCV.-MRS. P-NT-N (ci-devant Miss G BB Ns).

"Come, Sir! mount, and away! Since it hath pleased Heaven "to lay your old roan Barbarie under the turfe, we'll freelie enjoy "the sportes that are above it! I'll try your bottom over the Beacon, «neck and neck, and, notwithstanding you are aged, you shall be "beaten dead hollow by sheer bloode, although I carry weight for PAGE 486.- Not GENUINE.'

" inches!"

[ocr errors]

• CCCCXIII.-THE REV. EARL N—LS-N.

"When of necessitie they transformed me into a Lorde "Temporalle of this Isle, for no well doing of mine owne, they did conspire to unfrocke me of my canonicalles prebendal! Not so, my "Lordes, quoth I! you may drive an Oxe from rich pasturage, and even goade an Asse from his bunch of thistles, but you cannot prick a true Churchman from the stalle in which he hath been well "fed. So unlesse you do force upon me a bishopricke to boote, I "shall continue to chaunt a requiem for the soul of the relative that "made me, as an humble Abbotte of Canterburie !"

[ocr errors]

PAGE 507-GENUINE.'

We believe that the lady celebrated in No. CCCXCV. has lately run out of the course, and been distanced in the race of life by her hus band, albeit that she is thus made to boast of her bottom.

Art. 17. Poems, by Matilda Betham. Cr. 8vo. PP. 116. 43.

Boards. Hatchard. 1808.

If we cannot compliment this lady on possessing a lofty imagina

tion, or any of the higher excellencies of poetry, we can truly say that we find little cause for censure in the unassuming volume before us; and it is no common nor trifling merit. that she is entirely free from affectation, whether of sensibility, simplicity, or Della Crusca glitter, by which so many of our modern bards endeavour to conceal or to excuse their scantiness of ideas. Generally speaking, she is also intitled to the praise of care and correctness; qualities which are entirely overlooked in the favourite order of the day. The following song is not an unfavourable specimen of the usual tenor of her pe formances:

What do I love? A polished mind,
A temper cheerful, meek, and kind;
A graceful air, unsway'd by art,
A voice that sinks into the heart,
A playful and benignant smile-
Alas! my heart responds the while,
All this, my Emily is true,
But I love more in loving you!

I love those roses when they rise,
From joy, from anger, or surprise;
I love the kind, attentive zeal,
So prompt to know what others feel,
The mildness which can ne'er reprove,
But in the sweetest tones of love-
All this, my Emily is true,

But I love more in loving you!

The self-command which can sustain,
In silence, weariness and pain;
The transport at a friend's success,
Which has not words or power to bless,
But, by a sudden, starting tear,
Appears more precious, more sincere-
All this, my Emily, is true,

And this I love in loving you!"

When we said that we could discover no traces of the fashionable simplicity in Miss B.'s compositions, we had forgotten her verses Toa Young Gentleman.' We beg that they may be expunged from all future collections of her works, and that she will re t fully persuaded that such stanzas as these have no pretensions whatever to the name of poetry: Dear boy, when you meet with a rose, Admire you the thorns very much ?,Or like you to play with a ball,

When the handling it blisters your touch!
Yet should it be firm and compact,

It is easy to polish it nice;
If the rose is both pretty and sweet,
The thorns will come off in a trice.'

Art.

Art. 18. Ancient Historic Ballads. 8vo. pp. 236.

Longman and Co. 1807.

5s. Boards. We cannot pay the editor of this volume many compliments on his poetical powers, if (as we suppose) the first and second poems in the collection are intended as specimens of them. Richard Plantagenet, a legendary tale,' is the flattest and most prosaic performance of the kind that we have for many years witnessed. It is an interesting historical fact, that King Richard III. left a son, who died in the reign of Edward VI., having lived in a state of such obscurity that none of his contemporaries were aware of his existence: but we had rather be made acquainted with this fact by a few words of plain prose, than by half a hundred stanzas of deplorably languid rhyme. As for The Cave of Morar, the man of sorrows,' we apprehend that the title itself will, with most men, operate as a sufficient warning against entering on the premises. We, however, whom no warning can terrify from the discharge of our duty, have passed fairly and safely through; and we can assure our readers that the greatest danger, which they have to encounter, is that of being overpowered by sleep in the midst of their progress, and forgetting when they wake both where they are and how they came there.

"

Of the three pieces which are not original, one is Dr. Percy's "Hermit of Warkworth," and another is Mrs. Wardlaw's “ Hardyknute:" but for what purpose these well-known poems have been reprinted in this collection, it is out of our power even to guess.

The most considerable piece in the volume, (and, if it had been the only one, we should have given the editor our unqualified thanks for his present,) is The exact and circumstantial History of the Battle of Flodden, in verse, written about the the time of queen Elizabeth, published from a curious MS. in the possession of John Askew, of Palinsburn, in Northumberland, Esq." As this very curious poem was probably the original source of Mr. Scott's late publication, and has certainly afforded him many of the best materials for his work, we should, if on no other account, have been gratified by the acquisition of it: but it is really a very important historical document. The extreme minuteness of detail leaves us no reason to doubt that, in all the principal events, it is correctly true; and we have no prose history of the transaction that brings us nearly so well acquainted both with the chief actors, and with the scene of action. The lists of barons and followers on both sides are in many parts as picturesque as Homer's Catalogue of Ships; they have been to Mr. Scott a treasure of which he has by no means spared the use; and we will venture to say that not only poets, but historians, whose subjects lead them to refer to it, may still derive great assistance from the exact details of this simple ballad. We will give only a single extract, which is sufficient to shew the general style of the performance, and is one of the most dramatic passages in it.

King Harry is encamped before Terwin (Terovenne) with his army; and James IV., anxious to take advantage of his absence, summons his council, to ask advice,

"If he had better live in peace,

Or fight against his brother-in-law."

« ПредишнаНапред »