Then follows a plot, on the part of Pandurang, of remorseless villany. He discovers that Trimbuckje was the instigator of the crime, and that his rival Habeshee Kotwall, the minister of police, is endeavouring to fasten the guilt of it upon him. A large reward is offered by the enraged Peeshwa for the discovery of the murderer; and our virtuous hero debates which of the rival ministers, the innocent or the guilty, he shall sacrifice, that he may make his fortune with the other. He is determined at length to take the life of Habeshee, in revenge for an unjust punishment which he had received by his order from the police; and his Mahratta morality is satisfied by the reflection, that though Habeshee was innocent in this matter, he was sufficiently a monster of guilt in others. He, therefore, becomes the agent of Trimbuckje; assumes the disguise of a magician; pretends to have discovered by magic that Habeshee was the murderer; and, by his acquaintance with the circumstances of the deed, perverts them into apparently damning evidence against him. The minister of police is condemned by the Peeshwa to have his tongue torn from his mouth, and to be trampled to death by an elephant; this horrible sentence is executed; and Pandurang receives reward and employment under the villain Trimbuckje.

That worthy master of a worthy myrmidon shortly discovers, however, that Sagoonah still lives, and is secretly protected by his servant; he endeavours to inveigle her into his power; and his persecution of Sagoonah and Pandurang Hari occupies the rest of the tale, with more than one complicated underplot. Pursued by his machinations and those of other enemies of Sagoonah, the lovers undergo a series of adventures and vicissitudes rivalling in number, intricacy, and quick succession, those of the longest and most perplexing romance that ever Arab story-teller concocted for the wonderloving patience of oriental ears. In hitherto following the fortunes of the hero regularly, we have scarcely reached the conclusion of the first volume; and it would be a work of absolute despair to attempt the continuation of the outline through the remaining twothirds of the work, within the limits of any reasonable notice which the tale can deserve. In the sequel, the hero proves to be the lawful heir to the musnud, or throne of Satarah, in the Deccan; and. Sagoonah, whose simplicity of character is really invested with the interest that belongs to innocence and beauty in unmerited persecution, is discovered to have been betrothed to him in earliest infancy. This betrothment, so sacred and indissoluble a ceremony in Hindoo life, is long the obstacle to their union, while the identity of the young Rajah is unknown. The denouement solves the difficulty; all the enemies of Pandurang and Sagoonah are destroyed; and the tale of course concludes with their happy union, and his recognition as legitimate successor to the musnud.

From this rapid and necessarily imperfect sketch of the tale, it will easily be collected that it abounds in great variety of incident and consequent interest. There are, however, several wearisome

and languid parts in the narrative. We are twice, for example, in the third volume, (pp. 60-70. 154-164.) detained by dissertations- very much out of place, and very unnatural in the assumed character and situation of the Hindoo,-upon the comparative merits of the systems of jurisprudence exercised towards the natives by the British courts of justice in Guzerat and at Poona.

Farther, it is almost impossible for the English reader to follow with any interest the intricate chain and rapid transitions of political intrigue, which are made to lead to the recovery of the rights of Pandurang and his father to the musnud of Satarah. All this, as we gather from the introduction, is intended to elucidate- and does so correctly- the character of the endless and bloody revolutions, and the strange vicissitudes of fortune, which have constantly prevailed among the native dynasties of India. But the nature of these revolutions is sufficiently familiar to us from authentic history; and there is little pleasing or romantic interest to be elicited from their repetition.

But by far the weightiest objection to the work, as a tale of human life, is its unnatural and unrelieved picture of enormous and incredible villany, both in the hero and in every male actor of the story. The author, from whatever cause, evidently writes under violent prejudice against the natives of Hindostan. No one will doubt this after the sweeping denunciation of his preface, that 'from the rajah to the ryot, with the intermediate grades, they are ungrateful, insidious, cowardly, unfaithful, and revengeful.' There is, if we mistake not greatly, internal evidence in his work that he has not mingled with the better part of the native population; and we suspect that he has resided only in the western side of India, and the provinces adjacent to Bombay, in which all his scenes are laid.

That quarter of India certainly affords not the least unfavourable specimens of the native character. The Mahratta people are proverbially faithless; the Parsees of Bombay deserve our author's condemnation of their falsehood and fraud; and western, much more than eastern India, abounds with, notoriously, the most sensual and profligate race of the whole native population: - not Hindoos but Muselmans, or Musselmen as, by an unpardonable vulgarism, he styles the disciples of the Koran. But he appears to be little, if at all acquainted, with the mass of the population of the north-eastern provinces, the inhabitants of the banks of the Ganges, for instance, the genuine seat of Hindoo worship and society.

The people of India, like the people of all other countries, are such as the virtues or vices of their governors have made them. That the mass of the Hindoo population under good government, judicious treatment, and gallant example, deserve at least the reproach neither of being cowardly nor unfaithful, may, we think, and from no light acquaintance with their character, be safely averred. And if a proof of the injustice of those charges were required, we

should at once point to the British experience of more than a century, and to the often-tried valour, the patience under hardship, and the fidelity to their leaders, by which the conduct of our numerous bodies of seapoys has almost invariably been distinguished.

ART. XI. Memoirs and Poetical Remains of the late Jane Taylor: with Extracts from her Correspondence. By Isaac Taylor. 2 Vols. London. B. J. Holdsworth. 1825.

MISS TAYLOR has found in her brother a very tender, though not a very practical biographer, whose devotional affection has adorned her character with all the traits that can make a sister be admired or a Christian exemplary. Biography, however, strained to the mere uses of the pulpit, its candour, its fidelity suppressed, instead of being the fearless representative of the faulty as well as the amiable side of character, fashioned into a dull organ of didactic instruction, biography so perverted, so curtailed of " its fair proportions," may raise, indeed, that momentary admiration which sweeps its course over the mind, without leaving the surface in a more fruitful state for the nourishment of any good purpose, but it ceases to be that operative lesson, in which the warnings of unsuccessful error speak more impressively than the encouragements of prosperous virtue.

Mr. Taylor's task appears to have been to construct out of the select qualities of his deceased sister, and the chosen events of her life, the pattern of a moral and religious lady, to the great destruction of all the interest, we will add, of most of the utility, that belong to memoirs. The narrative appears to be shaped, the correspondence to be mutilated, to square with the model of this fond creation. Still, from this partial offering to literature, we may glean a little, towards illustrating that important subject which all biography should aim at, the history of the human mind. Jane Taylor, the second daughter of an artist of that name, was born in London, on the 23d September, 1783. After she had attained her third year, her family removed to Lavenham, in Suffolk, where her constitution, to which the air of the metropolis appeared to be uncongenial, quickly began a new and more vigorous growth. The reviving principle of health soon reached her mind, and her little lively ways became the talk of the town. Her early literary habits were perfectly spontaneous: the extent of them was even unknown to her parents; her education was carried on conjointly with that of her brothers, entirely under the domestic roof; and the principle on which it was conducted appears to have been simple, rational, and successful. Their mother-preceptress seems, in administering instruction, to have givena very proper preponderance to that practical training, which so much abridges the labours of the youthful novice in acquiring a knowledge of the world, and which, in some cases,

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as in that of the subject of this memoir, adds another most important blessing, in inspiring the mind with a timely appreciation of that moderate lot in life, which the necessity of circumstances appoints for it. The profitable studies and gentle amusements of the family, of which the lively Jane formed so interesting a member, were suspended by the illness of Mr. Taylor, with which he was attacked in the year 1792. A few years, however, completely re-established his health, and his restoration was followed by a change of duties and circumstances as singular as it was new. In short, Mr. Taylor, submitting to what the biographer chooses to imply, under the vague expression, the plain indications of Providence,' and complying with the wishes of a dissenting congregation at Colchester to become their minister, early in the year 1796, removed to that town with his family, and assumed the pastoral care of the society assembling in the meeting-house in Bucklesbury-Lane. At Colchester, Miss Taylor and her sister were happy in the intimacy of the four lovely daughters of Dr. S., a physician of amiable character and professional ability, between the youngest of whom, Letitia, and Jane Taylor, then in her fifteenth year, a friendship sprung up, which was not abated until the premature death of one of the parties. Between these six ladies and two or three others of congenial minds a society was formed, for the purpose of reading original essays and for the promotion of general improvement: this innocent association was but of short continuance: the four charming sisters were marked out for that doom which

"Heaven gives its favourites early death."

The eldest sister, Mira, is described as uniting great intelligence and sweetness of disposition with loveliness of manners and person: her charm was that of blended dignity and gentleness. Bythia, the second, though of less striking beauty and not so charming in her disposition, had yet endeared herself to all by her affectionate warmth and candour. They sunk to an untimely grave, whither they were soon after followed by their sisters, Eliza and Letitia; but the shades of these innocent beauties are not suffered to lie quiet in the tomb. They are arraigned by sectarian jealousy of the crying iniquity of having thought for themselves in matters of religion, and of having thrown off the impressions of a peculiar creed which early teaching had fixed in their docile minds. We quote the following passage, not, as will be seen, for any immediate connection that it holds with the purpose of these memoirs, but in order to exhibit the narrow policy which pervades their plan and

execution.

In addition to these unfavourable circumstances on the one side, these young ladies were exposed, on the other, to the most seductive influence from the connections they had lately formed at a distance from home. Many of their new friends were persons at once intelligent, re

fined in their manners, amiable in their tempers, and perfectly versed in all the specious glozings of Socinianism. And Socinianism, only twenty years ago, was much more specious than it is at present. For within this period the course of controversy has deprived its professors of an advantage. so important to the success of infidel insinuations of having itself no defined or avowed principles to defend.

that

In the society of persons of this class these intelligent young women quickly imbibed the spirit, and learned the language of universal disbelief; and whatever might have been their early devotional feelings, they became confessedly irreligious in their tastes and habits. This change was but little obvious in the placid temper of Mira. She was, indeed, fascinated with the showy simplicity of this masked deism, and perplexed by its sophistries; but she thought and felt too much to be ever perfectly satisfied with the opinions she had adopted:— her mind had rather been entangled than captivated. During her illness she seemed anxious, in some degree, to retrace her steps; and in the last days of her life she earnestly recommended her sisters to addict themselves, with greater seriousness and humility, to the reading of the Scriptures; and died imploring, with mournful indecision, to be "saved in God's own way."

• Letitia was not at all less forward than her sisters, to renounce what she termed - "the errors of her education:" - she was even more determined and dogmatical than some of them in her new professions. This difference of opinion, along with other circumstances, had lessened the intimacy between Letitia and Jane: they maintained, however, to the last, a friendly correspondence; though the subject of religion was, by the desire of the former, banished from their letters.

:

After many changes of place, she once more left Colchester, accompanied by her mother, on her way to Devonshire; but was soon compelled to make her last home at an inn on the road; where she lingered more than three months. The disappointment of her strong wish to reach Exeter awakened her to the knowledge of her immediate danger; and this apprehension was soon succeeded by all the terrors of an affrighted conscience. The conviction of being an offender against the Divine Law, and exposed, without shelter, to its sanctions, took such full possession of her spirit that, for a length of time, she rejected all consolation and endured an agony of fear, in expectation of dying without the hope of the Gospel. At length, however, her mind admitted freely and joyfully that "only hope set before us;" and she fully and explicitly renounced the illusions by which she had been betrayed; declaring them to be utterly insufficient to satisfy an awakened conscience, in the prospect of standing before the bar of the Supreme Judge. She lived long enough to display many of the effects of this happy change: the whole temper of her mind seemed renovated; she became patient, thankful, affectionate, and humble; and triumphed in the profession of her hope: "My hope," she said, "is in Christ - in Christ crucified: and I would not give up that hope, for all the world."- Vol. i. pp. 31-34.

The habits of thinking and acting of the minister naturally transferred themselves (in diminished virtue, no doubt,) to the members of his family and Miss Taylor soon manifested the results of that