lect sentences like these? P. 64. Put a bridle on thy tongue; set a guard upon thy lips.'-P. 65. A talkative man is a nuisance to society; the ear is sick of his babbling.'

The tongue of the sincere is rooted in his heart; hypocrisy and deceit have no place in his words.' It is surely fair for us here to observe, that he will never excel in. oratory who puts a bridle on his tongue, who shuns the reproach of talkativeness, or who is incapable of exerting himself for a client, and making his cause sincerely his own.

Other extracts contained in the second part are equally un- . skilful; as at p. 107. the fable of the dog and the shadow, which begins thus: A dog crossing a little rivulet, with a piece of flesh in his mouth, saw his own shadow represented in the water.' This sentence is full of bad writing: 1st, How was the dog crossing? If he was wading, he could not lose the meat; if he was swimming, he could not see the reflection; it is necessary, therefore, to insert the circumstance that he was crossing on a foot-bridge. 2dly, Rivulet, being, itself a diminutive, comprehends the idea of littleness: so that the epithet is a pleonasm, and, which is worse, draws attention to an idea that ought to have been suppressed, because, the larger the stream the more probable the loss. 3dly, The dog might see his own shadow, but could not see his shadow represented: he saw himself represented in the water, or rather on the water. Here are three gross faults in one short sentence. Such vicious writing should not be given as a model, nor indeed in any way exposed to the eye of a young person. Habitually to contemplate the beautiful is the safest direction to the attainment of it.

The third part of this work, which begins at p. 226. gives some rules for English composition, a department of instruction that is too little regarded in our schools. Boys are sent home with a deep knowlege of Latin and Greek, who cannot write a plain common letter neatly, and to the purpose. As a first exercise, the author proposes definition; and he then defines wine to be the juice of the grape.' Here again is some want of critical skill; and it is necessary to insert the word fermented, since otherwise the definition is imperfect. In all exemplary exercises, and all patterns for imitation, it is important to choose a complete model.

The three concluding rules are thus expressed, and partake rather of the nature of definitions than of that of precepts:

Rule 57.-Interrogation. When men are strongly moved, whatever they would affirm or deny with great earnestness, they put in the form of a question.

Rule

Rule 58.-Exclamations are also the effect of strong emotions of the mind such as surprise, admiration, joy, grief, and the like,

Rule 59.-Amplification or climax, consists in heightening all the circumstances of an object or action which we desire to place in a strong light.'

If Mr. Rippingham should ever be induced to undertake a second edition of this book, we recommend the total dismissal of those incipient chapters which treat of grammatical reading, or of the utterance of single words. With the fifth section, which treats of emphasis, begins the department of oratorical reading; and this the rhetorician, not the mere school-master, is to teach. We farther advise a careful revision of his various examples; and a selection of them from purer and better writers, from the great masters of composition, not from the rabble of mediocrity. We should also deem it desirable that no one rule should remain unexemplified: several directions here given leave the pupil at a loss as to the inference which he is to draw from them.

Rhetoric is to eloquence what criticism is to poetry, a system of rules inferred from the practice of successful authors for, as Cicero observes, eloquence does not grow out of art, but art out of eloquence. In fact, the chief use of rules is to teach self-criticism. In practical conflict are formed the ready powers of argument and declamation: but by chastizing the extravagance, dropping the excess, abridging the detail, and smoothing the asperities of a hasty manner, oratory may gradually be rendered more and more beautiful. Vehemence is the gift of native feeling; decoration is the result of comprehensive study.

ART. VIII. Letters written in a Mahratta Camp during the Year 1809, descriptive of the Character, Manners, domestic Habits, and religious Ceremonies, of the Mahrattas. With ten coloured Engravings, from Drawings by a native Artist. By Thomas Duer Broughton, Esq., late Commander of the Resident's Escort at the Court of Scindia. 4to. pp. 358. 21. 8s. Boards. Murray. 1813.

AT

T the beginning of these letters, the reader is apprized that Mr. Broughton had for some time declined to undertake a description of the Mahrattas and their customs, on account of the dullness and deficient interest of the subject. His friends, however, insisted that those incidents and usages, which had lost their attraction to a personal observer, possessed the charm of novelty to an English public; especially as, since the late war, the Mahratta name had become currently known among

among us. He yielded accordingly to sollicitation, and committed his views to paper; premising that his readers must expect no political secrets, as the intrigues of a Mahratta Durbar are, on ne peut plus, dry and disgusting, and as the opportunities of acquiring authentic information on such topics are very limited. He adds another observation of more general importance, which we give in his own words:

When an English gentleman undertakes to give an account of Indian manners and habits of private life, he labours under many disadvantages. The obstacles which prevent our ever viewing the natives of India in their domestic circles are great and insuperable; such as the restrictions of cast on their side, rank and situation on ours, &c. We do not intermarry with them, as the Portuguese did; nor do we ever mix with them, in the common duties of social life, on terms of equality. What knowledge we have acquired of their domestic arrangements has been gained chiefly by inquiry; and hence we are often led to describe customs and institutions unfavourably, because our own prejudices render us incompetent to feel their propriety, or correctly to judge of their effects. These observations apply more particularly to the Mahrattas, with whom neither we ourselves, nor our Indian fellow-subjects, have little else [much more] than merely a political intercourse."

Mr. B. proceeds to describe very clearly and particularly the districts through which he passed, in his march from Agra to the camp of Scindiah, or, as it ought properly to be spelled, Seendhiya. This march took place at the end of the year 1808, and was performed in rainy and uncomfortable weather. No people, he says, suffer more from cold and wet, (when such weather happens to occur,) than the natives of India'; who have no idea of keeping themselves warm by exercise, but cower round the embers of a few burnt sticks, and are rendered objects of pity by a single fall of rain. After having encountered a variety of unpleasant delays, and some dangers, Mr. B. arrived in the course of eleven days at the Mahratta camp, of which he gives this remarkable description:

Camp at Soopoor, Jan. 14. 1809. Nothing, having any claim to the appellation of a regular encampment, can well be less so than that of a Mahratta army. On marching days, the Beenee Wala, or quarter-master general, moves off at an early hour; and upon reaching the ground where the army is to encamp, he plants a small white flag, to mark the spot where the tents of the Muha Raj (the title by which any Hindoo prince is commonly designated) are to be pitched; and which collectively are termed the Devoree. The shops, called Dokans, are pitched in two lines running parallel to each other; and thus form one grand street from the front to the rear of the army. This street often extends from three to four miles. The different chiefs encamp to the right and left of the principal street; generally, however, in the neigh bourhood

bourhood of some particular Bazar. Their respective encampments are made without the smallest attention to regularity, cleanliness, or convenience: men, horses, camels, and bullocks are all jumbled together in a mass; which mass is surrounded on all sides by others of a similar nature, in a continued series of comfortless confusion. This forms what is termed the Bura Lushkur, or main army; and is generally about as many hundred yards in breadth, that is from flank to flank, as it is miles in length from front to rear; thus exactly reversing the order of encampment which obtains in the disciplined armies of Europe.

The shops, which compose the Bazars, are mostly formed of blankets or coarse cloth stretched over a bamboo, or some other stick for a ridge pole, supported at either end by a forked stick fixed in the ground. These habitations are called Pals; and are of all sizes, from three to eight or nine feet high, and proportionally wide and long according to the circumstances of the owner. Under these miserable coverings not only are the goods exposed for sale, but the family of the shopkeeper resides throughout the year, and for many years together. The wealthiest merchants of the Bazars use these Pals; but the military men, and others attached to the camp, generally possess a dwelling of somewhat a more comfortable description, regularly made of two or three folds of cloth in thickness, closed at one end, and having a flap to keep out the wind and rain at the opposite one: these are dignified with the name of Ruotees, and come nearer to our ideas of a tent.

After this account of the common dwellings of the Mahrattas, it will scarcely be necessary to add, that they are total strangers to the comforts of domestic life. The cheerful fire, and the clean hearth surrounded by smiling faces, are as much unknown to them, as the brilliant drawing-room or the crowded theatre. They never feel even the solid and cheap comforts of a snug room, or the light of a candle: but, in the cold weather, huddle round a miserable fire made of horse. or cow dung, or dirty straw collected about their tents; and wrapping themselves up in a coarse blanket or cotton quilt, contrive, with the aid of a pipe of bad tobacco, to while away a few hours in listless indolence. In this manner do the more sober of them pass their evenings: but such as think that life is bestowed for superior enjoyments, and have a taste for more spirited modes of whiling it away, retire at the approach of evening to the rack shop, and revel through the night in a state of low debauchery, which could hardly be envied by the keenest votary of Comus and his beastly crew.-The liquor sold in the shops is distilled from the fruit of a tree called Mouah: it. is about as strong as common gin, and is impregnated with a smell and flavour that would turn the stomach of the stoutest porter in London.'

Seendhiya is a chief altogether worthy of such followers. He is middle aged, rather low in stature, and has decidedly the appearance of a debauchee. Though engaged in undertakings of importance, and generally unsuccessful, he troubles himself very little with the cares of government. A tiger-fight, an

elephant-:

elephant-fight, or even a new supply of paper-kites, has with him charms sufficient to remove the chagrin of disappointed efforts; and this is the more singular because his finances are generally in a very embarrassed condition. His officers and allies, being paid very irregularly, were obliged to borrow money for their daily expences at the ruinous rate of five per cent. per month. It is common among the Mahrattas to attempt to enforce payment by sitting Dburna, as it is called, on the debtor; that is, by going to his house or tent and remaining there closely, so as to prevent him from holding intercourse with any persons, except such as the creditor may approve; which strange practice is regulated among the Mahrattas by very explicit laws. The creditor may even prevent his adversary from taking sustenance, provided that he observe similar abstinence himself, so that the strongest stomach carries the day. It is a curious fact that Brahmins are sometimes trained to remain a long time without food, with the view of hiring themselves to sit Dhurna in behalf of those creditors who do not like to expose themselves to so great an inconvenience; and to preserve a Brahmin's life is so sacred a duty, that the debt is in the result generally paid, though never until after a considerable struggle. We meet in this volume with repeated examples of Seendhiya and his ministers being assailed by their creditors in this unpleasant manner: but the expedient led only to partial payments; and nothing could overcome the habitual vice and improvidence of this unworthy commander. His behaviour at the time of the siege of the fort of Doonee is thus described:

Under the pretence of attending to the operations of the siege, he directed a small suit of tents to be pitched for him in a garden in the rear of the trenches, and there surrounded by a set of parasites and buffoons, he passed his time in one constant round of the grossest debaucheries. Emancipated from his two greatest plagues, his wife and his ministers, he refused to listen to any business; and seemed to think of nothing but fresh modes of whiling away his hours, and indulging his own profligate propensities. Women and low company have been his bane; and appear to have quite corrupted a heart and mind originally meant for better things. Virgin charms have been diligently sought for, and almost daily sacrificed upon the altar of his lusts and in the conclave of his wretched minions, scenes are said to be enacted for his amusement, so gross, and at the same time so ridiculous, as would stagger belief, and call a blush into the cheeks of the most depraved European. These miscreants are systematic in their infamy; their sports are regularly classed and organized: but, as common language is inadequate to their description, fancy is called in to their aid; and to every new diversion is given a new and unheard of designation.'

The ordinary object of hostile armaments in India is to enforce the payment of taxes; apd, with a view of this kind, Seendhiya

had