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'aids."" Leyden himself, in a letter, describes some of the difficulties that he met with in the way of these mechanical aids.' He well compares the orientalists of his day in India to the scholars at the Revival of letters in Europe. He was exposed to the same tricks on the part of the natives as Wilford, but was too "canny" to be taken in as he was. "I have had a 'Brahmin engaged to teach me Sanscrit, who scarcely knew a syllable of the language. I have had another attempt to palm Hindustani on me for Mahratta. I have had a Brahmin likewise attempt to impose a few slogas, which are in the mouths of every one, on me, for the translation of an ancient inscription in the ancient Canara character. Indeed the moral character of the Hindus-the blameless, mild, patient, innocent ⚫ children of nature, as they are ridiculously termed by gossipping ignorances, who never set their eyes on them-is as utterly ' worthless and devoid of probity, as their religion is wicked, shameless, impudent, and obscene." Lord Minto, on the occasion of his visitation of the College of Fort William, when he returned from his Java expedition, pronounced what may well be termed an Eloge on John Leyden, in words which he terms a just and authorised tribute to his merits. The eulogium is noble, when we remember that it was pronounced by a triumphant proconsul and an elegant and accomplished scholar, on the son of a plebeian, who farmed a small holding on his own rich paternal estates. Well might he speak of that honest peasant's son as

"Ornamentum regionis meae."

Lord Minto speaks of "the zeal he had long nourished for exploring the philosophy of the more eastern regions of Asia; of the first steps he had already made in the prosecution of that purpose, by the construction and diffusion of vocabularies, but above all, by methodising and reducing into system the classi'fication of the various languages spoken on the continent intermediate between India and China, the various kingdoms anddistricts of which, as they recede from each of these extreme points, appear with some relation to their local approximation, or to historical affinities, gradually to have blended and assimilated their respective languages into compound dialects, partaking of both the distinct and primitive tongues. In like manner, Dr. Leyden proposed to establish some principles already, perhaps, conceived in his mind, for governing his investigation of the • numerous tongues and dialects of the eastern Archipelago."

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The opinion that Sir S. Raffles had of Leyden will be found in the fact of his editing his translation of the Malay Annals, and in the introduction prefixed to the work. The great

Henry Colebrooke, who was so accomplished in the Sanscrit class of languages, on more than one occasion expressed his high opinion of the Papers and Grammars compiled by Leyden.

While, then, Leyden's chief claim to that renown for which he so panted, and to that admiration which his contemporaries so showered upon him, is that he was a great linguist, we see in him not a little of the philologer. The above testimonies, and his paper on the Indo-Chinese languages, abundantly shew that, considering the position of the science of comparative philology in his days, and the plans that he formed for his future researches, he might have done much to advance it. He would at least have been supreme as an authority on the Malay family of the Turanian languages. Marsden, who was Chief Secretary of Government in Sumatra, and returned to England in 1779, had broken ground on the subject in his essay on the Polynesian or East Insular languages, and Leyden was worthily carrying out the work thus begun, when his genius and his virtues, as Minto says, were buried in the very theatre of their intended energies. At the end of the last century, comparative philology had not passed out of the region of data, and materials in the shape of comparative lists of words, into the higher rank of laws and reasons and scientific classification. The researches of Leyden's predecessors had been largely lexical and glossarial, and the German school, which was headed by Frederick Schlegel and took its stand on the Sanscrit, had not yet given that prominent position to 'grammatical affinity,' which it now justly holds. Leyden almost anticipated some of those principles which are now regarded as the fixed laws of the science.

Like many men of scholarly and erudite tastes, Leyden published but little. We have three striking instances of this.-Magliabecchi who left nothing behind him, Mezzofanti of whom we have only a reprint of one or two addresses before a literary society, and Sir William Hamilton, almost all whose remains are fugitive, being originally contributed to periodicals, or editorial, as in the case of the works of Reid and Stewart. The few original dissertations, appended to his edition of the former, end in an unfinished sentence. In many cases the habit of mind necessary for the acquisition and retention of extensive. stores of knowledge, when disjoined from great power of will, or a certain state of the emotional part of our nature, is quite opposed to that disposition and those powers of creation and expression, which render authorship either pleasant or successful.

In passing from Leyden, his career and character, we would only add that, while his powers in the one department of languages were as solidly wonderful as they appeared to be bril

liant, there is much in his whole temperament and bearing in India, as well as in his premature fate, to excite our sympathy and call forth our imitation. While we would never hold, with some, that great genius and unusual powers are a sufficient apology for manners that are eccentric, we cannot see in Leyden much that we would willingly have done without. Eccentric he was but never ungentlemanly or rude, never immoral or unkind; his was the eccentricity of enthusiastic zeal, deep sympathy with certain persons and pursuits, unthinking simplicity of character, and open frankness of soul. We would point the young, as they land on the shores of India, to those features of character which gained for Leyden the reputation that he enjoys-to his grand energy, to his indomitable will, to his obstinacy in the path of right, to his unswerving independence and invincible consistency, to his perseverance which conquered sickness and discomfort and apathy and disgust, and would urge them to pursue the same path and cultivate the same virtues. Nay, we would ask them to set before themselves a higher ideal than even he, and to judge rather of what he might have been, had such a disposition and such powers as his been devoted to still higher ends, and inspired by a still higher spirit. But in his sphere he did God's work; he took his place in the front rank of civilisation, and manfully fought, immortal till his work was done. Let us believe that the day is not far distant, when those glorious islands, which, with his buried body, he seems still to claim as the heritage of a higher civilisation than they now enjoy, shall be the entrepôt of the commerce of three continents, and when, united under the sway of a people who fear God and respect the rights of humanity, they shall become a 'garden of the Lord.'

ART. II.-1. Papers submitted to Parliament on the Mutinies in the East Indies.

2. Acts of the Legislative Council of India.

NUMBBB the Rebellion (for Mutiny it is no longer,) which

UMBERLESS have been the accounts of the general fea

has devastated the North-West Provinces of India for the last twelve months. The despatches tell us of the military disasters and successes. Private letters have told us of the hairbreadth escapes, the perils by land and by water through which some escaped, and the noble manner in which some died. Our object is to draw a more confined picture-to place before our readers the eventful details of one particular district, over which the storm burst heavily, but which was never abandoned by those to whose charge it had been confided; but still in the history of that small tract the amazing features of the revolutionary crisis came out with a marked effect. Much there is to thank Providence for; much to regret; much, that we rejoice to think that they were our countrymen who did it; much that we wish, for the sake of human nature, had not been done.

The district, to which we allude, is one of the largest and finest in the North-West Provinces. It is situated at that point where two of the greatest rivers of India unite their vast floods, and thus form the grandest stream in the old world. It contains more than one thousand villages and towns, divided by the rivers into three great natural divisions-that to the left and the right of the united floods, and that included between the two before their junction. It contains a population of nearly a million souls, and pays an annual revenue to Government from the land alone of two hundred thousand pounds sterling.

Conspicuous among its towns and villages is an ancient and venerable city, bearing, as is the custom of India, a separate Hindu and Mohammedan name; for from the earliest period of traditionary legend, this place has been associated with the history of the greatest of the Hindu demi-gods, whom they still delight to honour; and in the time of the Mogul emperors, at the point of junction rose a noble fortress, which, since the time of British occupation, European skill has made one of the strongest in India; yet notwithstanding that it contained. vast muniments of war, at the time of the outbreak there was in that fortress not one single European soldier.

To add to its importance, the development of inland steam navigation had made this city the emporium of river-borne

commerce, and at this place goods were transferred from the steamer to the bullock train. Nothing could reach the cities. of the north, but through this outlet, for at this point river navigation ceased-at this point the great trunk road was conducted over one vast river by a bridge-of-boats, and a tramway more than a mile in length, and at this point had actually commenced the railway, and engineers were preparing to span the current of the second stream with a bridge of permanent construction. This city had once been the seat of Government, and is destined to be so again;-it was the emporium of our inland commerce, the basis of our military operations, which, failing this, must have fallen back on Fort William. It was a place of pilgrimage to millions of Hindus, it was looked upon with fond regret by that neighbouring Mohammedan power, from whose ancestors it had been wrung by one of our peaceful Governors General, by a diplomatic juggle. Yet, in spite of this, within a circle of one hundred miles from it as a centre, there was only one European regiment, destined itself to be beleaguered in a still greater and more powerful Mohammedan capital. And yet there are those who still say that the Government of India has not failed in its duty!

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The native force consisted of one regiment of that army which we had recruited from the provinces of Oude and Behar, which had helped us to win all our battles, which had hitherto maintained a character for soldier-like bearing in the field, and for tractability and general usefulness in the cantonment. No suspicion of their fidelity had ever entered human breast; they were encamped three miles from the fort, leaving one company as garrison; under their charge was the civil treasury, containing one hundred and eighty thousand pounds sterling in cash, opium, and stamps. They were officered by members of that Indian army, which has been justly described by no mean authority as a most accomplished service," and which never has been wanting in its supply of men suitable to the duties of the state. They were commanded by one of those Anglo-Indian anomalies, an officer who had spent the best years of his life in the peaceful duties of paying pensions, till he was forced by his rank to resume his forgotten duties as a soldier. This regiment has obtained a disgraceful superiority even among the mutinous regiments of Bengal, for it put on a semblance of fidelity with a view of drawing its employers into a heavier disaster; they mutinied at the worst time, and with the worst effect; their mutiny caused the abandonment of many stations, it hurried on the greatest of our catastrophes. They slew their

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