times, they went forth in quest of more marketable regions. Some went to Egypt, ascended the pyramids, and dined with the Pacha. Others crossed the Atlantic to Mexico or La Plata; bolted steaks of horse-flesh in their transit of the Pampas, or returned with the most recent intelligence of Bolivar and his army; some doubled the Cape, and made for Ceylon or the Mauritius; others sought Jericho or Jerusalem, Bagdad, Mecca, and Damascus. Travellers stone-blind described the countries they had visited with as much precision as if in the full enjoyment of their optics. Pedestrian travellers went forth in forma pauperis, without shirt or breeches, and by this circumstance secured an enviable popularity. Peace to all such! Society is not injured by the transfer of any given sum from the pocket of their bookseller to their own. Let them shed their lustre from the pages of massive quarto, or compact octavo, illustrated by all the skill of the engraver; but give us the annals of the soldier-his travels-his exploits, and his adventures, for our own reading and enjoyment. We like him because he is a traveller, not from choice, but necessity, and because publication is with him not a motive, but a consequence. He goes abroad neither with the view of botanizing or bookmaking; and instead of returning with boxes full of dried herbs, and segments of broken rock, and whole reams of manuscript journal, the only tenants of his solitary portmanteau are generally a regimental coat, the colour of his father's brick mansion at Highgate or Turnham Green, a pair or two of pipe-clayed breeches, and a few shirts patched or ragged in proportion to their length of service, and the sobriety of the regimental washerwoman. But, independent of such weighty considerations, the works of military men, we think, have infused an agree able variety into our literature. Whether they deal in fact or fiction, they seldom fob us off with mere dull and tame imitations of more talented and powerful writers. Their volumes are generally distinguished by an impress of novelty, freshness, and freedom from the ordinary trammels of composition-by an air of simplicity, straight-forwardness, and good faith; and their opinions, though often wrong, are put forth with a manly sturdiness and hardihood, which almost disarms ridicule, and reduces censure to dissent. A soldier or a sailor-if he is one of the right stamp -cares nothing for rhetorical embellishment. He loses no time in rounding periods, or balancing antitheses. He deals in no preliminary Balaam about his motives of publication, nor prefixes an apologetical preface, deprecating the harshness of criticism, and entreating Mr North, Mr Jeffrey, and Mr Lockhart-(terrible triumvirate!)-to spare his humble and unpretending volumes. No. He writes as he fights; dashes at once into the middle of his subject-clears the ropes at a spring-up goes his castor, and off goes his jerkin-his mawleys are brandished in a twinkling, and then let his opponent, if he has one, beware of his knowledge-box. In illustration of these remarks, we shall quote the opening pages of "Twelve Years of Military Adventure." Had the author been a civilian, ten to one but he would have given us a prolix account of his birth and parentage. His father, a respectable gentleman in a brown bobsomewhat pursy and corpulent-kneebreeches of drab kerseymere, and long gaiters of the same-broad-brimmed hat-somnolent after dinner and at church, and moderately addicted to the exhilaration of blue ruin and tobacco-smoking. His mother, a most meritorious matron somewhat too prosy and prolific for a husband of large loquacity and narrow incomesagacious in Scotch marmalade-exemplary in domestic relations-an admirable economist and preserver of codlings-carried off suddenly by inflammation-followed to the grave by an inconsolable husband-weeping children-and a whole lugubrious cortége of friends, neighbours, and acquaintances. Then brothers and sisters-John, Tom, Molly, Peter, and Sarah ;-not one of these would be spared to the suffering reader. No register could be more accurate and particular in date and circumstance. We should learn how John was bent on the army; but broke his leg, and became a parson. How Tom, a graceless dog, went to sea, and died a midshipman at Sierra Leone. How Molly ran off with a major of militia, who was afterwards induced to marry her by a due exhibition of the blunt on a side scene. "Out of a family of six boys it was proper that one should be devoted to the infernal gods; and, as my shoulders promised to be of the requisite breadth, and my head of the suitable thickness, I was chosen as a fit offering: or, in other words, I was selected for the military profession, as being the greatest dunce in the family. But, besides the above natural qualification for this knock-my-head profession, I must say that I was early seized with the red-coat mania, first caught, I believe, by accompanying a cousin when he went to mount guard at the castle of Dublin, and afterwards evinced in a predilection for painting soldiers on cards, and putting them through their manœuvres on the table, in preference to any evolutions, however beautiful, which could be performed by the six-and-twenty letters of the alphabet. I also well recollect, that among the sons of my father's tenants, I had a corps raised and disciplined after my own manner, which they used to call my ragged regiment. Whether these early professional indications are to be depended upon I know not; but I have no doubt my parents acted upon them in some degree; for one of my brothers was expressly fixed upon as the sailor of the family, because he was observed one day, through the key-hole of a room into which he had locked himself, busily employed in yo-hoing a table, which he had turned upside down for a ship; and another was afterwards entered on the books of the Master-general of the Ordnance for the artillery, because he used to spend all his pocket-money in buying little brass cannons, and firing them off, to the annoyance of my mother's nerves. Had the opinions of the learned Doctors Gall and Spurzheim been then promul. gated to the world, my parents would have had a comparatively easy task in the choice of professions for their children : for they would, in that case, only have had to ascertain the prominent bump in the cranium of each boy. As it was, they acted up to the best of their lights; and whether they judged rightly with regard to me, that is, whether I do really possess the bump military, or murderous bump, which I conceive to be the same thing, will, perhaps, be discovered in the following memoirs. "With the view of getting me a good start in my profession, a commission was purchased for me in a newly-raised regiment, it being intended, through the means of my maternal uncle, who commanded the corps, to have me kept on the strength until I had completed the usual quantum of education to capacitate me for joining a marching regiment. I never shall forget the feelings with which, at nine years old, I learned that I had the honour of bearing his Majesty's commission. I am convinced, to this day, that I grew some inches taller in the course of the first twenty-four hours; and to this early event in my life, I have no doubt I owe a certain stiffness of carriage and military strut, for which I have always been remarkable; and to the tenor communicated by it to my ideas, may be attributed much of my present character, the predominant features of which are pride, and a too exquisite, if not a morbid, sense of honour-qualities which I have found to stand in my way in my progress through life. Indeed it was not long before I began to find the feelings resulting from them rather inconvenient; for if, in my juvenile days, I had to resent plebeian insolence, (to which my disposition rendered me peculiarly sensitive,) I used to think it beneath me to employ any other than the lowest member of my frame; so that frequently, while I was engaged in kicking the insensible breech of some base-born varlet, he was perhaps exercising his horny knuckles in a more effectual way on my patrician sconce, which, although I was no bad bruiser among my equals in rank, my military pride would hardly allow me to protect with my hands, for fear of being caught in a boxing-match with a snob. "That this early intimation of my being actually an officer did not serve to stimulate me in my studies, may also be easily conceived; for, besides that I had no occasion, like other boys, to study for a profession which I had already attained, I could in no way discover of what use either musa or musæ could be to me as a soldier." This is as it should be; there is nothing in such an opening to sour our natural benevolence. Far from it. We learn at once that the author is a jolly fellow and a gentleman, and there fore read the remainder of his book with a pre-determination to praise it. By the preceding extract, it appears that the author became an ensign in his Majesty's service at nine years old. He is subsequently placed on half-pay; goes to India as a cadet of engineers. We give the description of his fellowpassengers. It is pleasantly and eleverly done, and proves the author to have an eye for character. "The generality of our society on board was respectable, and some of its members were men of education and talent. Excepting that there was no lady of the party, it was composed of the usual materials to be found at the cuddy-table of an outward-bound Indiaman. First, there was a puisne judge, entrenched in all the dignity of a dispenser of law to his majesty's loving subjects beyond the Cape, with a Don't tell me kind of face, a magisterial air, and dictatorial manner, ever more ready to lay down the law than to lay down the lawyer. Then there was a general officer appointed to the staff in India, in consideration of his services on Wimbledon Common and at the Horse Guards, proceeding to teach the art military to the Indian army-a man of gentlemanly but rather pompous manners; who, considering his simple nod equivalent to half-a-dozen subordinates, could never swallow a glass of wine at dinner, without lumping at least that number of officers or civilians in the invitation to join him, while his aid-de-camp practised the same airs among the cadets. Then there was a proportion of civilians and Indian officers, returning from furlough or sick certificate, with patched-up livers, and lank countenances, from which two winters of their native climate had extracted only just sufficient sun-beams to leave them of a dirty lemon colour. Next, there were a few officers belonging to detachments of king's troops proceeding to join their regiments in India, looking, of course, with some degree of contempt on their brethren in arms, whose rank was bounded by the longitude of the Cape; but condescending to patronise some of the most gentlemanly of the cadets. These, with a free mariner, and no inconsiderable sprinkling of writers, cadets, and assistant-surgeons, together with the officers of the ship, who dined at the captain's table, formed a party of about twenty-five. "Of the above heterogeneous mass, the majority, as may be conjectured, were ultra-Tweeders, a people who, with souls too big for their native land, claim the privilege of levying contributions on all the world, and of securing a Benjamin's portion of the loaves and fishes, in whatever region they are to be found. To counterbalance these there was but one Irishman. Och! and that was enough! Another like him would have been the death of us (as Matthews says); for he kept the cuddy-table in a roar throughout the voyage. Then we had one or two of your rattling, noisy, good-humoured, never-look-in-a-book chaps, such as, without a spark of imagination or wit, but with the most unprovokable and provoking good-temper, joined to an inexhaustible fund of animal spirits, pass in the world for extremely pleasant fellows; but who, in my opinion, are the greatest plagues in existence. We could boast, also, of professed practical jokers, drymatter-of-facters, punsters, prosers, and ever-ready laughers; but, what was better than all, a few good listeners. "Nor was our society without its Bobadil; and many a marvellous tale of tigers, elephants, Cobra de Capellos, Mysoreans, Mahrattas, fire-eaters, and swordeaters, have we youngsters listened to with open mouths, till repetition had rendered them too stale even for a sea stomach. That there were some sensible, well-informed men among so many, may be supposed; and that there was a black sheep or two in the flock, cannot be denied. One of the latter was a most plausible, smooth-tongued hypocrite, and the other the most impudent cut-and-comeagain fellow I ever encountered. Happily for us, however, two things were wanting. There was neither a mischiefmaker, nor a professed duellist; so that we contrived to get to the end of our voyage without there being any balance on the score of honour to be settled with powder and ball, Alas! of these my first companions in the voyage of life, above three-fourths are already gone to their long homes: some have died a soldier's natural death on the field of battle; some have fallen victims to the climate; some few still toil on their way; some few, like myself, have preferred poverty with half a liver, to riches without any; and some few, and those few indeed! have gained the object of their ambition-a fortune; but not one, perhaps, with health to enjoy it, or the sense to know how to spend it. "I shall not dwell upon the manner in which we passed our time on board ship -how we panted under the Line-how we rolled round the Cape, frequently with more soup in our laps than we could keep on our stomachs-how the backgammonboard rattled from morning till nighthow we paced the quarter-deck when the judge and general did not take it all to themselves-how we fished for sharkshow we speared dolphins, porpoises, and albacores;-nor shall I attempt to paint the pictured agonies of the dying dolphins, already so beautifully described by Falconer; nor the nobler and more potent struggles of the greedy, daring shark, to do justice to which would require the pen of a Homer. Neither shall I swell my pages with an account of the visit we received from Father Neptune on crossing the Line, with the ceremonial attending it, as that subject is stale; nor detail all the jokes, practical and verbal, which we played upon each other, except one of the former; and if it amuses the reader half as much as it did me, I shall be content. There was a lazy fat fellow amongst us, who was always lolling or sleeping on the hencoops, upon whom we resolved to play a trick ; so seizing an opportunity when he was snug on his customary roost, we planted ourselves, with buckets of water, just over him. At a signal given, he was jerked off the coop, and soused from head to foot with such a full and successive torrent of the briny fluid, accompanied by a cry of Man overboard! Rope! rope! Down with the helm!' &c. that. he ac tually struck out as if swimming for his life; till a failure in the supply of water, succeeded by peals of laughter, brought him to a sense of his situation." Thank Heaven! we are not a member of the India Club, nor have any claim to become so. We never doubled the Cape in our lives, are of rosy complexion, sound liver, and despise Curry and Madeira. But judging from all we have read in tale or history, or learned from oral communication, we can scarcely imagine a state of society less to our liking than that existing at the three Presidencies. There, all feudal distinctions of rank are unknown; consequence is measured by the purse, and precedence by official station. Now, however others may like this sort of valuation, it does not agree with us, Christopher North, though, in point of station, we should, as Editor of this Magazine, be entitled to precedence of all members of council; and, in point of wealth, our estate in Peebles-shire is not to be sneezed at. But these, as Coleridge once wrote of Southey, are but the costly setting of - These gratifying distinctions we enjoy in Edinburgh, and could scarcely expect to receive at Calcutta or Bombay; therefore we shall not go there. In India, to amass wealth and acquire consequence by its display, is the professed object of all; and by this universal participation in one exclusive pursuit, the minds of men are narrowed, and their sympathies contracted. Good society, like Glasgow punch, requires the admixture of numerous heterogeneous materials, by the conflicting action of which, all asperities are softened down, and a most delicious and balmy amalgamation is the result. Now, society in India can only be compared to grog or toddy. It contains no variety of ingredients; all go out adventurers, and from the starting-post of a trunk containing a suit of regimentals and some dozens of shirts, set out to scramble up the hill of fortune as best they may. The career of each individual indeed is modified by differences of circumstance and character. Some ride in palanquins, smoke hookas, and die poor; others are content to bestride a pony, to puff a cheroot, and in process of time come home rich. Still, of those who spend, and those who save, money is the avowed object; and of all motives for human exertion, money certainly is not the most lofty and ennobling. Then your Indian lives the greater part of his life entirely cut off from books; and if not wholly excluded from the enjoyments of society, yet confined to the society of a narrow and unprofitable circle. Generally speaking, the whole literature of Europe is to him a blank. How the devil should a man, in a back station some thousand miles from the coast, think of books? Claret and Stilton cheese he gets in abundance books he never sees-and soon ceases to care for. His eye is never brightened by the radiance of Blackwood, nor darkened by the Cimmerian gloom of the long-eared contributors of Colburn. In him the honoured name of Hogg raises but the idea of a pig. To him Delta is a dead letter. The fame of Odoherty has never reached him, and North and Tickler exist not in his memory or imagination. What a fearful blank in the soul of such a man yet remains to be filled up! What a multitude of faculties and sympathies slumber in his nature of which he is unconscious! What thousands of bright, glowing, and beautiful existences does not his ignorance of this Magazine exclude from his vision! The soil of his spirit has run to rathe. The stubborn glebe of his understanding is unbroken by the share of cultivation; and what a world of ploughing, draining, and manuring would be required to reclaim this intellectual Dartmoor, and "deracinate the savagery" by which it is encumbered and debased! But on looking over the last page, we find we have not stated our arguments on this matter with our usual What we brevity and precision. meant to prove was, that society in India is necessarily vulgar, both as a whole and in reference to its component parts. We intended, in the first place, to establish, that the exclusive pursuit of wealth has a direct and invariable tendency to vulgarize the mind. Then to shew, that Indians, from living in a country where respect is paid only to splendour of appearance, are naturally led to cherish an VOL. XXV. overweening partiality for display,which display, in our European notions, is vulgar. In due course, we meant logically to exhibit, that Orientals, being in a great measure cut off, by the circumstances of their situ ation, from the avenues of mental enjoyment, are generally led to derive their chief happiness from sensual indulgence,-to think and talk too much of tiffin and sangoree, and to obtrude somewhat more openly than necessary their partiality for mangos and cotton shirts;-all these offences being decidedly vulgar, and unquestionable infringements on the canon of high breeding. It was then our intention to proceed-But we think it better, on the whole, to reserve the subject for a separate paper, "On the state of Society in India," for which our readers will readily perceive that we are furnished with abundance of interesting materials. In truth, we have been led into this train of reflection by the arrival of our author in India, which leads him to present us with a variety of sketches, vividly conceived, and graphically executed. He is invited to dine at the mess of an European regiment stationed in Fort George. We give his description of the entertainment. In some respects it reminds us of the celebrated Glasgow dinner in Cyril Thornton, and proves, that in all changes of scene and circumstance, the characteristics of vulgarity remain essentially the same. "Among other invitations to dinner, I received one from a shipmate, whose regiment, one of his Majesty's, formed part of the garrison. It was what is called a public day at the mess, when the members generally ask such of their friends as they please. My military reader will excuse me, if I give a description of it for the amusement of my civil one. "I arrived about seven o'clock, just as the drums were playing Roast Beef of Old England,' the regular signal that dinner is dishing. On my entrance, I found most of the officers and some guests assembled in the veranda, which extended along the front of the mess-room, some pacing up and down, and some lolling in chairs with their legs up against the pillars, trying to inhale the last puffs of the sea-breeze which had set in about three or four hours before. The guests were asked to take a glass of wine before dinner, and Madeira was handed round. 2 R |