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expression, and, if models she wants, elevate and idealise her conception, by going to Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Massinger and Milton, than by dwelling in the enchanted region of the poetry of this century. Keats and Coleridge, Tennyson and Mrs. Browning will lead astray, will tempt into the insane and false-prophet school of the intense and unnatural spasmodists. The worthies we have mentioned, and we would add to them the courtly elegant Surrey, will only benefit, and lead her to nature and self, to simplicity and truth. Nor should prose be neglected. The nerve and power that it possesses, as well as its strictness and accuracy, will prevent the young lyric poet from mistaking unconsciousness for license. In De Quincey more than in any English writer of any age, will be found a style that combines the most perfect rhythm with the coldest classicality, the sweetest cadences with the most select words, the most exquisite music of sound with the strictest adherence to the laws of æsthetics, all expressing, thoughts, erudition, and emotional and fantastic experiences that are unrivalled in any literature. In the company of such mighty men, with an ever-increasing knowledge of humanity, as seen in all ages in the page of history and now around her, and with a growing knowledge of self that she may at all times be able to leave self behind her, and enter the magic cell of unconsciousness, and with the whole sanctified by that Spirit which elevates the æsthetic as well as the religious in man, Mary Leslie may yet make Anglo-Indian poetry and Anglo-Indians more appreciated than they are, and be the means of soothing some sorrower, enlightening some doubter, helping on some weary sister or brother, and adding her pearl, small and dimmed though it may be, to the string that poesy has hung around our English literature.

"The Moslem and the Hindu" is partly a narrative, partly a descriptive Poem, somewhat ambitious in its execution, though simple and unpretending in its structure and plot. The action is divided between India and England. Alternately the scene is shifted from the one to the other. We pass from the latter with its calm domestic joy, its fond hopes, and its subsequent bitter trial and sorrow, to the former, with its deeds of hellish cruelty, its acts of deadly hate and treacherous rebellion, and anon its scenes of glorious triumph and victory.

The scene opens with England. Agatha, a mother whose son is fighting God's and his country's battles in India, and whose daughter is also there, is asleep, and by her side her other daughter Amy watches,-one who has not only given her bro

ther and sister, but also her lover, to the good cause in India. In a dream Agatha fancies she sees her Indian daughter

"Pallid and wan

Her hair dishevelled, flying from the grasp
Of rapine and foul murder, but alas !
In vain-the fatal stroke fell heavily.
Oh! that dire shriek, the mingling of despair,
And agony, and woe intense, which struck
The heart's remotest cord, and sent a thrill
Of anguish to its very inmost shrine,
Making it sick with sickness nigh to death :
Thank God it was but a distorted dream !"

This suffices to introduce the story, simple as it is. The action does not yet however begin, for with an ambitious aiming after the epos, the author sketches the position and history of India from the earliest ages, through Rama, the Curu-Pandu war, the Rajput line, the Mussulman invasions, and finally the English conquest. This he puts in such a way as to shew that the primary cause of the rebellion was the hate of the Moslem to their conquerors, and the lust of rule which had been checked and baffled by them—

"Though captive and subdued, the silent thought
Brooded as upon wrong; that old desire

Of universal rule his spirit stirred,

And fanned the smouldering embers into flame,
A flame which burst in dreadful fury forth
Consuming in its madness; breaking through
All known restraint and rule, forgetting both
Duty and faith, uniting into one,

To stimulate it in the mad career,

Ambition, passion, anger, and revenge :
Then leaving desolation in its track,

And horrors over which the heart grows sick."

The third part of the poem introduces us to a Brahmin who, as he walks in meditation through a forest, and remembers how glorious his nation once was, and his own priestly order how powerful, is accosted by a Mussulman, and together they talk over the plans that had been formed to rouse the land against the hated English. The following is a favourable specimen of the poetry of the work before us. It is almost an imitation of that glorious passage in the "Lady of the Lake" that so stirs the heart of its boy-reader, when Scott describes, as none but he or Macaulay could, the despatch of the cross of fire by Roderick to rouse his clan

"Benledi saw the cross of fire

It glanced like lightning up Strath-ire
O'er hill and dale the summons flew," &c.

Canto III.

In this too, the union of the Mussulman and the Brahmin, and the agreement to lay aside ill-feelings engendered by race

and hostile creeds-we see the reason of the title of the poem, the Moslem and the Hindoo

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"Ere now

The secret has been told-the country through,
Has heard the sacred message, it is known
From Indus unto Brahmapootra's wave
Since last we met, the mystic cake has sped.
And cursed be he of Hindoo race who sees,
But answers not, the summons. May the Gods
Reject him as unworthy of his name,

His country, and his race! may he become

A wanderer upon earth! From Delhi's home,
North, east, west, south, with rapid foot, 'twas borne
By many a way, and many an ancient stream
To town and village; and the sacred fanes,

Of temples and the citadels of kings,

Revealing the command-the daring deed,

And then the place of meeting. Soon our swords,
Shall drink the life-blood of our enemies."

The beginning of the rebellion is described, the rising at Meerut, the entry of the mutineers into Delhi, the sympathy of the populace, the slaughter of the English, the weakness, vacillation and cruelty of the old king, before whom the Mussulman and the Brahmin of the forest once more appear. But Britain is roused. Anson is on the march, Barnard is before the walls, and while he invests the city, the scene changes to Old England. The Indian mail is in, and Agatha learns that her son and daughter are among the slain. As yet Amy's lover, Henry, is safe, and her heart is filled with joy that "valiantly he treads the steep path of fame," and she prays, as only English women then could pray, that he might still be protected. Agatha dies. Meanwhile bloody work goes on at Delhi, but at last it is ours, and in the account of its capture, the writer recounts the names and deeds of the heroes of the Cashmere gate, and of Nicholson. But amid the triumph and joy of England, when the news were borne to her shores, there was many an aching heart, many a pallid cheek, many a crushed spirit. Henry had perished" courageous, noble, foremost in the fight." Mother, sister, brother gone, this filled the cup of sorrow to the full, but Amy learned to take it froma Father's hand, and the poem concludes with the view that faith gave to her eyes; as it

Applied the key; it opened and she saw

The loved and lost from earth rejoicing there,
Safe in the presence of the King of kings.
The distance seemed to lessen, and her heart
Was drawn towards them, it was but a step
Across the valley of the shade of death.
The resurrection morn broke vividly,
And the regretted and the lost came back,
Wearing their robes eternal, and the crowns
Of victory; and on each forehead stamped

The new name written by the living God.

Which none knew but themselves, and in their hands,
The sceptres of the just. Redeemed from death

And risen from corruption, the vile dust,

Changed to a glorious body like the Lord's,
Stood in imperishable life; the glow

Of conscious immortality was there,

And on the cheek health's everlasting bloom.”

Frankly, we cannot criticise this work as a poem ; to apply to it the hard and inexorable canons of criticism is impossible. Were we thus to weigh it in the balances, we would certainly find it wanting in conception, unity, and rhythm, we would call it a third-rate poem. But we are content to feel that the author's heart is right, and that he has striven to embody in simple language those emotions that swelled England's heart when she heard of treachery, rebellion, and inhuman butchery and dishonour, and that triumph and calm satisfaction with which she learned that the Lord's saints had been avenged, and the Lord's cause upheld. He has a few episodes of a more ambitious character on Night and Time, and the other stock subjects of the intense' school, but where he confines himself to narrative and description he is always pleasing if not beautiful, truthful if not highly poetical. The two great poetical sides of the rebellion-the stern justice that the law of God and man demands on the one side, and the bursting sorrow and woe that our nation has felt, on the other, will never be worthily embodied and rendered for ever immortal, till one arises with the pen of him who, while he with exquisite gentleness and grace paints our first parents in the Garden, yet wrote that ode which, of all human compositions, the most nearly approaches the "Arise O God, let Thine enemies be scattered" of David

"Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold,

Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,

When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,
Forget not in thy book record their groans."

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ART. IV.—1. The Chinese and their Rebellions viewed in connection with their National Philosophy, Ethics, Legislation, and Administration; to which is added an Essay on Civilization and its present state in the East and West. By THOMAS TAYLOR MEADOWs, Chinese Interpreter in H. M.'s Civil Service. London, Smith, Elder and Co. 1856.

2. The New Calcutta Directory for the Town of Calcutta, Bengal, the North-West Provinces, Punjab, Arracan, Assam, Pegu, Tenasserim, &c., &c., &c., for 1858. Compiled by A. G. ROUSSAC. Calcutta, Military Orphan Press. 1858.

CONF

YONFUCIUS was sparing of his words, neither did Mencius say much. "What I have seen," said the sage, "I speak of, what I have not, how can I relate." "Writing you write for the instruction of your friends, to your friends," says the Classic; "it is well to tell the truth :" and now may our pencil flow harmoniously.

Among the communities which constitute the patchwork called Calcutta, there is a little one colored whity-brown, which, utterly distinct from all the others, different in speech, in language, color, dress, character, and institutions, has almost escaped observation, dependent as the most important of them are upon it; for, thinking that its opinions are as good if not better than those offered in exchange, it has refused to sacrifice its prejudices to those of others, and, being too weak to excite antagonism, it has met with indifference, the natural and appropriate punishment, or as it considers it, reward, of its non-assimilating disposition.

Tzülu said, "I desire not to oppose others, only if they get in my way," so with our dear colonists; they oppose not, only those who get in their way. But these somehow or other they crush or expel quietly. Silently advancing they have driven all competitors out of the field; and now as shoe-makers, shipcarpenters and hogslard-manufacturers, they reign unrivalled. Although but 500 strong they have the greatest European powers at their feet; England through its lady representatives in Calcutta; France through its grease-loving colonists in Bourbon, for "those Felench men they eaty too muchy grease; and sposy English lady no got shoe, how can go to carriage maky ride." But though they wield this tremendous power, and are not altogether ignorant of it, we may repose quietly and fear nothing, unless indeed some energetic magistrate

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