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mantled, and their materials sold into the hands of the agriculturist for the construction of his granaries and wells: verily, and indeed, the sword has been turned into the ploughshare, and the spear into the pruning-hook. The plundering Búrcha has quietly returned to his patrimonial acres, and the common report has gone forth trumpet-toned into every village, into every corner of the country, that the doors of Justice are open to all,-that, as none are so high, but that they must bend their head to it, so none are so low, but they may crawl to its threshold. Crime against the person or property scarcely exists, and when the Editor of the Friend of India in a late issue remarked that the district of Jessore, from the prevalence of the lattyal system was more insecure than that of Jhelundur, he perhaps was not fully aware, that the state of the internal peace of this newly-called country might vie with that of any in India. The thunders of our artillery at Hurriki Patun still ring too loudly in the ears of the population, and personal fear of their rulers, who have destroyed the Khalsa, is still sufficient to deter from plunder and robbery, while the European system of Criminal Justice has not been sufficiently long established to allow of the introduction of the social art of petty larceny, which flourishes so plentifully under its auspices. Suttee and female infanticide, if not entirely suppressed, are at least known and admitted to be offences against God and man, which will assuredly be punished; and no supposed custom of family or precept of religion will be admitted in defence of an action, which is in itself a breach of the first great principles of our nature. Nor have the minor arts of peace been forgotten. Schools for the instruction of the mind, and public hospitals for the cure of bodily ailments, have been established by the liberality of Government in both of the great towns in the Doab, as nuclei from which in due time we trust that the healing principle of both may spread over the whole country, and be at the command of the poorest inhabitants. In matters of religion, the policy of Government has been marked with liberality and straight-forwardness: and freedom to all to profess their own faith, to worship their Deity in the way in which it seemeth best to them, has been proclaimed. After a violent suspension of fifty years, the outward ceremonies of the Mahommedan religion are openly professed, and any interdiction upon the slaughter of kine, which might have previously existed, has been removed; at the same time the taxes upon the Hindu shrines have been remitted, and all connection of Government with either faith dissevered; a Protestant mission has been established; and the principles of toleration, which are extended to all, are demanded and enforced from all.

The treatment of the numerous claimants of the bounty of the Supreme Government, the Jaghírdars, and the other religious and secular dependants of the former Rulers has been just, and yet tempered with mercy. That a moiety of the Revenue of the country could be permitted to remain alienated in favour of the Priests and servants of a foreign power, was out of the question; but that the right of each should be examined on its own merits, and that speedily, and without delay, and that a number of individuals should not heedlessly be deprived of the means of existence, was a subject worthy of the consideration of a great Government. And although the lavish profligacy of the corrupt Lahore Durbar for the last four years, rendered large resumptions necessary, and the fond hopes of some idle sycophants and crafty Faquirs have thereby been blasted, yet still the principle upon which the decisions of Government were grounded, will be admitted by all capable of giving an opinion on the subject, to be as liberal as they are unquestionably equitable. Upon the same principle an unpalatable but necessary lesson has been read to the descendants of the original Khalsa, the sons of the robber chiefs, who rolled down the pillars of the Mahommedan Empire, that they must remain as peaceful subjects liable to the same rules as their neighbours, or not remain at all: that the possession of Forts, Cannon and Troops of armed men are the privileges of Government alone and quite incompatible with the position of good lieges. The equally unpalatable lesson has been read to them, and practically inculcated, that the producer of the rich gift of the soil has rights as well as the consumer-that the world was not made for an upstart and ignorant Aristocracyand that, under a centralizing and paternal Government, strong to put down internal commotion, strong to meet foreign incursions, while all will be maintained in their just rights, none will be allowed to trench upon the rights of others.

Such are the leading provisions, which have been made for the welfare of the people who have been transferred to our rule; meaning by the people the agricultural and commercial population, the sinews of the strength of a nation, and who ought to be the first care of an enlightened Government. In their eyes, in their unbought exclamations let the question of the popularity of the Government of the Foreigner be read, and those that read truly will find that the rule of the Company has been hailed as a blessing, and that in spite of all its failings and shortcomings it is still so esteemed. We care not for, we seek not the approbation of the aristocratical spawn, the sons of the free-booters, who have been sent back to their hereditary duties of the plough by the operation of the new system. As we seek not an opinion on the

purity of the British Parliament from the sinecurist, and borough-monger, so we ask not the good opinion of the provincial Governor, who has been relieved of the charge of provinces, which he was utterly unable to manage to the advantage of the people, or the seditious Priest, who has been compelled to disgorge the revenues of the state, which he had misappropriated. The memory of former exactions is still fresh in the recollection of all; the blessing of peace within the borders, and of protection from personal violence is one that is fully estimated by the generation, which has felt the misery of their absence, though little thought of, if not entirely forgotten by those who never saw their fields harried-who never wept over their plundered homestead. But the rule of the European conveys higher and more positive blessings, and we may feel confident that the impartial administration of justice, and the extension of the means of civilization, bringing plenty and enlightenment in their train, will be appreciated as benefits by the children's children of those, who trembled at the distant echo of our artillery, long after the memory of the time of the Búrchas, and the eighty years of confusion subsequent to the up-breaking of the Mahommedan empire have passed away, or are only handed down by grey beards as the annals of the past. And the names of the Lawrences and their honoured associates in the noble but arduous and mighty work of bringing order and harmony out of the chaos of anarchy, which has resulted from the despotism and misrule of unnumbered ages, will be enshrined in the memories of a grateful posterity, long after the tongue of calumny has been silenced, and the whole sable progeny of cotemporaneous envy and malice shall have been consigned to their own congenial rottenness in the tomb of oblivion.

ART. II.-1. Literary Leaves, or Prose and Verse, chiefly written in India, by David Lester Richardson. Calcutta, Thacker and Co.

2. Literary Chit-Chat, with Miscellaneous Poems, &c., &c., by David Lester Richardson. Calcutta, D'Rozario and Co. 3. Notices of the British Poets, Biographical and Critical, from Chaucer to Thomas Moore, by D.L. Richardson, Principal of Hoogly College, &c. &c. Ostell and Lepage, 1848.

LITERATURE is a word of most comprehensive meaning. It comprises all the regions of recorded thought into which letters as signs, and exponents of ideas, in every way enter. What a vast, what an illimitable range then has literature! It either skims the universal surface of things, or dives into the recondite,' deeper than did ever plummet sound.' Whatever is imagined, whatever is thought, whatever is said or done, it takes cognizance of. It may be said metaphorically to resemble the ocean itself'wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.' This, however, is taking the word in its grandest sense, for instead of widening with the stream of events, literature has somehow narrowed its channels, and lessened its volume. Scarcely any thing is now considered as coming under the proper head of literature, save what may have reference to the lighter dialectics, works of fancy and imagination, or critical disquisitions on such. To be a literary man according to modern fashion requires but little knowledge of history, science or politics.

It was a notion of our forefathers, that every calling required an apprenticeship. Rough indeed was the probation required to be an author. The preparation for, and the moral fortitude expected in candidates for initiation into the ancient Egyptian mysteries, so far as we can form an idea of them, were but slight compared to the ordeal which the aspirant to authorship had to pass through in days that were. The working tools then were far fewer, but many of the labourers were giants. The means and appliances were scanty, or difficult to be procured, but they were wielded by staunch, trusting and determined hearts. They not only thought, but taught others to think. They were not afraid of wind or tide, cramp or storm, but struck out vigorously into the stream in the strong buoyance of self-reliance, and a robust power that was not easily baulked. It is not so with their descendants, who wisely distrustful of their own wind and sinews

venture

Like little wanton boys on bladders,
For many summers in a sea of glory,

and in many instances it may be said, 'far beyond their depth.' How many aids to knowledge have we, that they could not by any possibility, command. They were in that respect like some of our Indian goldsmiths, who by means of a small hammer and anvil, and a little fire, produce specimens of exquisite workmanship that astonish their colleagues in Europe.

The favorite literature now, is that which deals most in sportive sarcasm, or exhibits elaborate efforts to be continually jocose and sparkling. A writer now is considered as nothing, unless he is pointed and trenchant. He must be a compound of sentiment and epigram, of paradox and repartee. The springs of poetry appear to be drying. We have no new poets, or only old thoughts dressed up anew. The poets of the last generation have almost become thread-bare by constant use. Their best things have, it is found, begun to pall upon the taste; for critics sometimes are to literature what hurdy-gurdy grinders of the street are to the Maestros of opera, they jingle the best bits of composition in the public ear, till we almost wish with Dr. Johnson, that they had been impossible.

But somehow there is the sense of a pervading want in a great portion of our current literature. There is an uncertainty as to the quality of the tone. There is, as it were a perceptible deficiency of sustaining latent warmth, a want of sun-tinting in the clouds moving in the firmament of fancy. We miss a central principle in the world of modern poetry. It is a sea without salt, an atmosphere abounding more in vapour than free air. The life spirit of irrepressible faith, is either languid or in a state of abeyance. Poetical justice is a mere superstition, of which we have traditions. Excitement is the great aim of literature. To that every thing else becomes supplementary. Faith of every kind appears in a state of mesmeric deliquium. Faith in honor, faith in pure benevolence, faith in love, and faith in the progressing perfectibility of art, are only known as it were to echo, the daughter of the rocks, who answers' where are they?'

Everywhere indeed, it is not too much to say that faith is either low, or is not at all. All faith is either sneered at, or openly scouted, save faith in the potentiality of money. That indeed is the popular religion of our times. We do not literally melt gold into the form of a calf, and kneel down to it, but the abstract golden idea is enshrined in the heart-and it fills the pix of the affections. The exception to this idolatry with many, is worldly ambition, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life,' and these become the pole star of human destiny. Money makes the mare to go,' is the philactery label of our intellectual Pharisees, the go-a-head fast men of our times. Look to the

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