nication with their original country; I mean that the grandparents should be Europeans, and the children and grandchildren should have been born and reared in India without ever going to Europe. If instances of this are to be found, they certainly must be very rare. I have never known one.

These considerations fully demonstrate the fallacy of the idea, that colonization by Europeans could ever be carried to any extent in our eastern dominions, even were it permitted in the most unlimited manner. Nature herself has placed insurmountable obstacles in its way, and has evidently intended that the blood of Europe should never people the plains of India. Were a colony now established under the most favourable circumstances, and with every requisite for the foundation of a new community, it would, without the slightest external accident or misfortune, wither and perish in two generations. The truth is, that the aphorism, that man is an inhabitant of all climates, must be received with great limitation. If it be true with respect to man in general, it is certainly erroneous with respect to the various races into which mankind are divided. They appear to be almost as strictly confined to particular districts as the different species of animals, and we might as easily expect to people the jungles of Bengal with a race of white bears, as its fields with a race of Esquimaux, or even perhaps of the race, whatever be its name, which inhabits the White Islands of the north-west. We can change our Longitude but not our Latitude. It was from the east and not from the north or south, that the children of men travelled to the land of Shinaar.

ESTATE OF ALEXANDER AND CO.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir:-We learn from your journal of this month, that affidavits have been submitted to the Insolvent Court of Calcutta, stating that the deponents believed the firm of Alexander and Co. was solvent at the several periods when four of the partners carried away capital to an immense amount,-say to the amount of millions,-from their house; that these partners now claim dividends on Rs. 38,08,960, as appearing at their credit on the books of the firm ! and that an order of the court was to be made absolute for the payment of these dividends, unless cause should be shown against it.

It is to be apprehended that there are no real creditors of this estate in Calcutta to oppose these affidavits, and it is for the creditors here to consider whether they will not require better evidence than the belief of these deponents, that the house was solvent at those periods. It is also to be remarked, that one of these deponents is a claimant on his own account, and on that of the other three partners, for these dividends, which, if allowed, will materially reduce the dividends on the claims of the other creditors, amongst whom are invalids, widows, and orphans. Report says, that the house here also claims nearly a million, but they did not prove their claim here. In addition to the enormous sums those partners carried away, they have been drawing largely from the house in Calcutta since they left India, and, for some years before the stoppage, the house here was getting all it could in specie and otherwise from the house in Calcutta, at the same time restraining the constituents from drawing large sums, and allowing them to draw only for their current expenses, though they held credits for large sums. We see by the balance-sheets, that Alexander and Co. exhibited an account of assets to the amount of about five

crores of rupees, or five millions sterling, consisting of debts and mortgaged property; and Mr. Holroyd, the official assignee in Calcutta, stated, some time ago, that they would pay only about 10 per cent. dividends, or less probably, of which, after three years have elapsed, only a first dividend of 3 per cent. is said to have been paid this year. Three millions of these assets were admitted by the firm and assignees to be worth nothing, and the other two millions, or two crores of rupees, it is reckoned, will produce only about twenty lacs, or one-tenth of the two crores. These observations shew pretty clearly, that the profits, which the partners carried to their credit, arising from such assets, were fictitious, and that they ought to be compelled to refund to the general creditors the capital they carried away, and not be allowed to claim the balance of Rs. 38,08,960 above mentioned, nearly half a million sterling! This they ought to do of their own accord, if they have the proper feelings of men, when they know that invalids, widows, and orphans, are starving in consequence of this occurrence, and the accounts of the house here ought to be looked into by the general creditors at home.

Most of the creditors at home were simple enough, on the recommendation of the house here, to give powers of attorney, in the dismay of the moment, to one of the four partners above alluded to, and to a house in Calcutta, which has, through the influence of the house here, succeeded Alexander and Co. in their business and in the good graces of the house here; -the creditors may, therefore, reckon that these parties will all attend to their own interests in the matter. But perhaps it is not too late for them, the creditors, to come forward and exert themselves in defence of their property.

These hints are respectfully submitted to Lord Combermere and the other creditors at home; and it is requested that you will be pleased to insert this letter in your first journal.

15th December.

A CONSTANT READER OF YOUR JOURNAL, AND A

CREDITOR OF ALEXANDER AND Co.

A detailed abstract of Mr. Fullarton's affidavit, showing the time and manner of the secession of the several partners from the firm, will be seen in our Asiatic Intelligence of this month, p. 4. —ED.

PRIOR'S LIFE OF GOLDSMITH.*

WE do not recollect an instance in which the industry of a biographer has added so much to the labours of his predecessors as Mr. Prior has in his Life of Goldsmith, just published. No one laying any pretensions to an acquaintance with English poetry, can be ignorant of the general outline of the history of the author of the Traveller and the Deserted Village; but Mr. Prior has filled up the naked outline; he has inserted the features and lineaments; and his picture of the poet bears almost the same relation to that of antecedent biographers, as the real face of an individual does to indifferent portraits of him. The extraordinary diligence and perseverance

The Life of Oliver Goldsmith, M.B., from a variety of Original Sources. By JAMEs Prior, F.S.A., &c. London, 1837. Murray.

which Mr. Prior seems to have exerted, in his efforts to elucidate the history of Goldsmith, have been wonderfully successful; amongst the minutia which his researches embraced, are tailors' and other bills;* he has thus not only added many new incidents, but cleared up many obscure ones, in his chequered career. Hence we find how much the poet has been misrepresented; at the same time that we are constrained to wonder still more at the odd compound which his character exhibits, where so many intellectual and moral qualities unite with so many weaknesses and eccentricities. So prominent and inveterate were the latter, that age, experience, and ample opportunities of knowing the world, appear not in the slightest degree to have corrected them he was as much a child after passing the equatorial line of forty, as when he was a school-boy at Edgeworths-town.

Although we venture to notice a work like this, which lies out of the circle of our topics, we cannot devote the space requisite to an analysis of it. There is, however, one incident in the life of Goldsmith recorded in Mr. Prior's work, to which we cannot help adverting, because it had a singular influence upon the fortunes, or rather fame, of the poet, by diverting him from a voyage to India, or in a man-of-war, and because it is mentioned by none of his biographers.

About the year 1758, it appears that Goldsmith obtained, through the interest of Mr. Jones, an East-India Director, a medical appointment to India. In a letter to a relative in Ireland he describes it as that of physician and surgeon to one of the factories on the coast of Coromandel, the salary of which was £100 per annum only, but the practice of the place £1,000. The expenses of his outfit were, however, too large for his limited means, and he determined to enter in the medical department of the navy. He, accordingly, presented himself at Surgeons' Hall for examination as an hospital mate, and, to his astonishment and mortification, was rejected. The entry on the books of the College of Surgeons, 21st December 1758, testifies that "Oliver Goldsmith" was the only person examined who was "found not qualified." This disappointment not only cut off his hopes of employment, but disabled him from repaying sundry loans, one of which was of rather equivocal character.

We may add, that in the narrative of Goldsmith's history, are interwoven various biographies of individuals connected with it, with occasional glimpses of Johnson and the Club, which might well entitle Mr. Prior to describe his work as a "History of the Life and Times of Goldsmith;" and that the anecdotes, incidents, and circumstances connected with the history of his works and the illustrations of his poems, are full of interest.

• Goldsmith appears to have been expensive in his garb; his bill from 1769 to 1773 (five years) amounted to £181, including “a blue velvet suit, £21. 10s. 9d." He was very fond of acting the beau.

Miscellanies, Original and Select.

PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES.

Royal Asiatic Society.-The ordinary meetings of this Society re-commenced for the season on the 3d December; Colonel James Law Lushington, C. B., in the chair. A considerable number of members and their friends were present. Among the more important donations to the Society's library and museum, received during the recess, and now laid on the table, were the following:

From W. H. Wathen, Esq., of the Bengal C. S., a Hindu drama, in the Sanscrit language, entitled Jánaka Parinaya, written by Rambhadra Dicshita, a learned Brahmin, who flourished about the sixth century, MS. beautifully written, on English paper, with finely executed illustrative drawings, coloured; also, a grammar of the Pracrita language, in Sanscrit, MS., apparently copied by the same hand as the preceding both works accompanied by analytical notices by Mr. Wathen. From Capt. R. Cogan, of the Indian Navy, a chart of the Red Sea, compiled from a stasimetric survey, on two large sheets. From the Rev. C. Gutzlaff, a native map of the imperial city of Peking. From J. G. Wilkinson, Esq. his topographical Survey of Thebes. From Manockjee Cursetjee, Esq., of Bombay, a lithographed copy of Véndidád, one of the books attributed to Zoroaster. From Sir Graves C. Haughton, a MS. Re. port, &c. to the Court of Directors on the importance of the study of Sanscrit, dated in 1812; also, a MS. translation of a treaty between Tipu Saib and the Company, &c. From Mrs. Davids, her French translation of her late son's Turkish Grammar. The Transactions of various learned societies, both English and continental. From Lieut. P. Rainer, an original inscription on stone, brought by his late father from Nubia, being a Latin acrostic; also, a stuffed specimen of the puff-adder, of the saw-fish, and of the Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus; and a Nepál sword. From Capt. James Mackenzie, of the Bengal Cavalry, images of Durga, Vishnu, Garoora, and Saraswati; brahminical beads; an Indian clepsydra; and specimens of various utensils used by the Hindus in their religious observances. From Col. Strover, the skin of a boa-constrictor, more than thirteen feet in length; also, two Malay kreeses, and a mandarin's dirk. From Lieut. Newbold, of the Madras army, the Sampitan, or blow-pipe used by the aborigines of the Malay peninsula; with a quiver of arrows, and two packets of the Upas poison. (Lieut. Newbold, we understand, is engaged in preparing an account of these people.)

The secretary read a letter from Major-general Sir Henry Worsley, in which the general, after adverting to the incidental observations which had of late occasionally appeared in regard to the funds of the Society being inadequate to the useful purposes contemplated by it, begged to tender a bank post-bill for one hundred ponnds, to be appropriated in the way that might be deemed the best calculated to promote the utility and enhance the reputation of the Society; also, suggesting that, as an expedient for improving the resources of the Society, an appeal to members to double their subscriptions, for one year, might be successfully made.

The special thanks of the Society were unanimously voted to Sir Henry for his very liberal donation.

Dr. Campbell, of the Nipál residency, and M. Bojer, of the Mauritius, were elected corresponding members; and Colonel E. L. Smythe was elected a resident member.

The paper read at this meeting was an account of the Thugs, written by Lieut. Reynolds of the Madras army, and communicated to the Society by Colonel

Smythe. In a memorandum attached to the paper by the latter gentleman, it appears that Lieut.Reynolds had been employed, for a considerable time, by the resident at Hyderabad, expressly for the purpose of gaining information as to the extent and scenes of the depredations of these organized gangs of murderers, by admitting and taking down the testimony of such of them as were willing to become approvers, so that ultimate steps might be taken to put an end to their systematic atrocities. In this Lieut. Reynolds succeeded so well, that, in 1833, a body of nearly 300 of them were brought as prisoners to Hyderabad. These were tried under a special commission and sentenced to death, but which punishment was commuted to hard labour on the roads.

Lieut. Reynolds states that the Thugs are also known by the name of Phansigars; and in the eastern part of the Nizam's dominions they are called Badhiks. The Thugs never attempt to rob a traveller until they have deprived him of life; and this is done by strangulation, it being a rule with them never to shed blood. The instrument is a convenient strip of cloth, which is thrown round the victim's neck in an unguarded moment. They use every stratagem to decoy travellers into their clutches; and they dispose of the dead bodies with the greatest secrecy. These murderers disdain the practice of petty thefts; and are even ambitious to appear as respectable persons, expending much of their gains in personal decoration. They connect religion with their practice; and pretend that, in immolating the numberless victims that yearly fall by their hands, they are but obeying the injunctions of their goddess Kali. They have even temples and priests entirely of their own community. According to a legend current amongst them, Kali is said to have once formed the determination of extirpating the human race, and she accordingly sacrificed all but her own disciples; but she discovered, to her astonishment, that, through the intervention of the creating power, whenever human blood was shed, a fresh being immediately started into existence to supply the vacancy; she, therefore, formed an image, into which she instilled the principle of life; and calling together her disciples, instructed them how to deprive that being of vitality, by strangling it with a handkerchief. This method being found effectual, the goddess directed her worshippers to adopt it, and to murder without distinction all who should fall into their hands; promising herself to dispose of the bodies of their victims, whose property she bestowed on her followers. She promised also to be present at and to preside over them, on all occasions, so that none should prevail against them. Their order being thus established, the Thugs originally took no care of the bodies of those whom they sacrificed, until one of their number, being curious to know how the goddess disposed of them, watched a corpse one day, for that purpose. The goddess descended, as usual, to take off the body, but, observing the man, she relinquished her purpose, rebuked him for his temerity, and said she could no longer perform her promise with regard to the murdered bodies. Since that time, the Thugs have been obliged to dispose of them in their own way. Believing in the sacred origin of their system, the Thugs seem to be visited by no feelings of compunction for their deeds; but, on the contrary, dwell with satisfaction, and even exultation, on their exploits, especially those in which they have been personally engaged. Lieut. Reynolds describes in detail the whole practice of this horrid system, which is carried on with the most consummate art, and states that no adequate idea can be formed of the expenditure of human life to which it has given occasion, nor of the wealth that has been acquired by its adoption. Happily, how

* A paper by J. A. R. Stevenson, Esq., giving an account of the Thugs under this name, was read before the Society on the 1st of February 1834.