The Press. — London, England, 1854-09-02 00:00:00

MI Nittraturt. The Life and Correspondence of Charles Lord Metcalfe. By John William Kaye. Lon don : Bentley. AMONGST the important class of our colonial administrators the late Lord Metcalfe held a well-won rank by services which attracted notice during his life, and ensure to his memory the honour of posthumous fame. Surpassed by some of his predecessors in originality, and rivalled by one or two of his colonial contemporaries in the noble art of winning personal masterdom over the passions of those committed to his charge, in pure zeal towards the State and in chivalrous devotion to the Sovereign's service Lord Metcalfe was second to none. He was thoroughly suited to that sphere of exertion where reference to the precedents must be alternated with reliance on the sterling common sense of the statesman. Liberally endowed with all the leading moral qualities, and possessed of more than the average of intellectual faculties, it was only a question of time with a man of his high character and connections when he should attain official eminence. Less romantic than the career of many of his contemporaries, the life of such a man who gloriously died in the public service well deserves attentive study. But we are sorry to be obliged to record that Mr. Kaye's volumes are less interesting than we anticipated. There is no concealing the fact that general readers will find much of these volumes heavy in perusal, and only those acquainted with Indian affairs will appreciate their value and importance. The narrative is not close enough, and there is only occasionally that clearness of exposition and vivid felicity of description which our reading public require as their right, when asked to peruse the personal history of those who have vastly served the State. The Metcalfes were of a good old Yorkshire stock. The father of the hero of these volumes was Thomas Metcalfe, who went as a cadet to India, with a letter of introduction to Lord Clive. It appears, however, that he had to depend on his own resources in rising in the world. He married a Miss Debonuaire, a name that smacks of Huguenotic ancestry, whose blood generally supplies vivacity and intellect. Of this union Lord Metcalfe was the second son. He was first sent to school • at Bromley, and afterwards to Eton, where he spent the time between his eleventh and fifteenth years. He was remarkable for dili gence ; and several pages of his diary are copied by Mr. Kaye, in which the number of books read by him are enumerated. He had studied the English essayists carefully, and, like other juvenile writers, reproduced his favourites in his own phraseology. His father had a high opinion of the talents of young Metcalfe, and sent him out to India to seek his fortune, having first armed him with a letter of introduction to Lord Wellesley, who was at that time the Governor-General. We have read no portion of these volumes with so much pleasure as those parts in which we get transient glimpses of the great man who was the first founder of the glories of the house of Wellesley, and to whose vast conceptions and mighty energies we do not think that adequate literary justice has ever been rendered. The view which we obtain of him in these memoirs corroborates all that we knew of Lord Welles ley. He had some weaknesses of character, and amongst them was his extraordinary love of pomp, as thus described by young Metcalfe. The writer is recording the Governor-General's visit to Lucknow in 1802: I do not think a finer spectacle could have ever before been seen. Every display of Asiatic and European magnifi cence was to be seen in our procession. We had a large TIN: 1 ) i look of Etropean soldiery (the finest sight we know of in knglatid), at the sametime everything of Asiatic splendour (A & ,/ . if; .'" h elnind can fancy. The innumerable concourse of ti:'..' \the grandeur of which animal seems to have , '':t . ~ ,, ,,i • -0 7 t 4 particularly for . a procession of this nature), 1 - „ i d, •:: • h costly trappings, was no small part of my i - 4 ts. I % • • Wm.'. The very dresses formed a spectacle of • - •-,, ; . . . , and the two nations seemed to vie with each 4 , A l i o P' . . .eir splendour. The Calcutta cavalry, I can 1 -- •••.7ofti. was not the least elegant. His lordship, in I!i ' i tIVi I FiM VN:' le s'i. "astern pomp, distributed his rupees with *lt'"' THE PRESS. a liberal hand. The streets had been fresh painted, and those of the merchants were lined with the most beautiful silks of various patterns. The tops of the houses (with which we were brought to a level by our elephants) were covered with musicians and dancing-girls ; the streets under our feet crowded with millions anxious to see so grand a procession. Everything recalled to my memory the Arabian Nights," for every description of any such procession which I ever met with in history, even the celebrated Triumph of Aurelian (I think it was the Emperor), when he led Zenobia and Tiridates captives, of which Gibbon gives an account, was completely beggared by it. I am aware that any attempt of mine to give an idea of what I saw will be very vain. We were received at the Nabob's at breakfast under a salute. There were some inconveniences, as there always will be in a thing of this kind,—such as the noise of the music, the cries of the scramblers, the crush of elephants, which was sometimes truly alarming. But Wellesley could rise with the exigency of great occasions, and amongst his greatest gifts was his power of animating other men to the exertion of their abilities. Rapid in the perception of talent, he was always generous in rewarding it, and opening up a career for men marked by ability. Mr. Kaye thus sketches a night in Government-house during the Mahratta war:— - So it happened that when intelligence reached Calcutta that the anticipated rupture had actually taken place, and that Colonel Collins had quitted Scindiah's Court, Met calfe and his associates were thrown into a state of excite ment in which there was no great intermixture of pain. It was, indeed, a memorable day. There are men still living who, after the lapse of half a century, remember all the circumstances of that evening as vividly as though they had occurred in the present reign. For some days the " glorious little man," as his disciples affectionately called Lord Wellesley, had been pacing one of the halls of Government-house, girding himself up for the approaching crisis ; and now he was prepared to meet it. Aided by Edmonstone, the political secretary, whose knowledge was as ready as it was extensive, he now dictated instructions to Colonel Collins, now to General Lake, now to Arthur Wellesley, now to John Malcolm, and now to Close and Kirkpatrick, the residents at the courts of the Peishwah and the Nizam. All day long these weighty despatches grew beneath the hands of the young scribes. The brief twilight of the Indian evening passed and left the work only half done. But still by the bright lamplight the young writers resolutely plied their pens as hour after hour the Governor-General continued to dictate the despatches upon which the fate of principalities depended. 'Words of encouragement little needed came freely from him as he directed this great work. And still, as Adam, Bayley, Jenkins, Metcalfe, Cole, Monckton, and others wrote and wrote these weighty despatches, upon which the events of the great war were to turn, he told them ever and anon that their work would soon be done, and that there was a table spread for them in the banquet-room at which they might presently drink success to the campaign. Though it was now the exhausting month of August, and rest and food were deniedto them throughout many long hours,there was not one of them who flagged at his desk. Sustained by their youthful enthusiasm, they continued at their work till past midnight; then, we try, hungry, and athirst, they were conducted to the table which had been spread sumptuously for their entertainment. It was a festival not soon to be forgotten. A special message from Lord Wellesley instructed them to give full vent to their hilarity—to use his cellar as though it were their own, and not to think that they were bound to be quiet because they were in Government house. So they drank success to the campaign in good earnest ; toasted the glorious Wellealey and his glorious brother; toasted General Lake and Colonel Stevenson ; toasted the British soldier and Jack Sepoy ; and finally toasted one another. And the Governor-General did not complain that next day his " office " was not very efficient. Incidents of this nature were surely calculated to bind such warm-hearted earnest youths as Charles Met calfe by the strongest feelings of personal attachment and fidelity to Lord Wellesley. They not only worked for him, they worked with him. And the endearment thus engen dered was reciprocal. That is the best passage in the volume, and we could wish for many more of the same merit. The obligations of young Metcalfe to the " glorious little man " are thus emphati cally recorded in 1805 : Yet, if ever I perform any services which may deserve to be approved, I shall regret that Lord Wellesley is not here to approve them, for his approbation would be more precious Ito me than that of any other Governor-General ever can be. His lordship's favour first distinguished me, brought me out of the beaten track of the service, and placed me in situations from which prospects of future eminence and success opened upon me. If ever these prospects are realised I shall owe their fulfilment to Lord Wellesley, and 1 shall carry with me through life the firm conviction of an endless obligation. Unlike other Indian officials, it will thus be seen that Metcalfe had the vast advantage of being immediately brought under the notice of the influential ruling powers. The lowest rung of the ladder is often the hardest to place the foot upon for him who would ascend to the dizzy height of power; but Metcalfe went out to India with a ready-made ladder that would have secured elevation to a less able and less worthy character. His progress was ,!,!!•. SATURDAY, just what might have been expected from one of his accomplishments and character. He won to himself the respect and regards of all the eminent officials with whom he was brought into contact. In the twenty sixth year of his age he was appointed to the onerous post of Delhi Resident. That was one of the prizes of ambition ; yet let us see what the successful young statesman felt at the time. He thus wrote to his aunt, the Hon. Mrs. Monson So far am I from condemning you for resigning William's intended appointment to this country that I decidedly think you have done that which is best calculated to pro mote his happiness and your own, by keeping him at home. My father, I conclude, will blame you; fur he thinks nothing equal to an appointment to this country. I confess that my ideas are different. Why should you make yourself and William miserable by parting never perhaps to meet again? Why doom him to transportation from everything dear to him? What is there in India to recompense for such sufferings? Fortunes, as you justly observe, are not made rapidly. Take my situation. I have been more than eleven years from England; and it will be certainly more than eleven years before I can return. In these twenty-two or twenty-four years the best part of my life will have passed away—that part in which all my feelings will have been most alive to the different sensations of happiness and misery arising out of different circumstances. 1 left my father and mother just as I be came acquainted with them as a man. I have not once bad their cheering smile to encourage my labours in my profession. When I return, should they both be alive— which I pray to God that they may be-1 shall, indeed, have the happiness of attending on their declining years ; but, alas ! how much cause shall I have to lament that I was doomed by my fate not to see them from the days of boyhood to those of their extreme old age? But suppose that they should not be alive, and, when one considers that my father must live to be eighty to allow me to see him again, it is enough to make one tremble, though I still hope. Suppose, I say, that they should not be alive, what will then be my situation? The thought is too horrible to dwell upon. See my sisters? I left them children. I shall find them old women—married, perhaps, into families which will not care one farthing about me, and whose habits it will not suit me to associate with. Take the worst, and what a melancholy situation I may Le in when I return to England ! Where will be my connec tions, my friendships, and even my acquaintance? Un known in society, and even shunned as being an Indian, I certainly will never push my way into the society of fine lords and ladies, who may turn up their noses and think me highly honoured by being in their presence. And subsequently, in 1813, he wrote a g ain, in a depressed tone, about the drawback s on an Indian career I cannot say that I approve of the plan of sending children out to India for all their lives. There is no other service in which a man does not see his friends sometimes. Here it is perpetual banishment. There was a good reason for sending sons to India when fortunes were made rapidiy, and they returned home. But if a man is to slave all his life, he had better do so, in my opinion, in his own country,where he may enjoy the society of his friends, which I call enjoying life Do not suppose that I am discontented, and make myself unhappy. It is my fate, and lam reconciled to it. The time may come, if ever I am able to set myself down at home with a comfortable fortune, when I shall confess that my,d es tiny was a favourable one, and shall be able to look back to past annoyances with composure. But can anything be a recom pense to me in this world for not seeing my dear and honoured father, from the days of my boyhood to the day of his death—and, perhaps, the same with regard to my mother? I think not—decidedly not. At present, not withstanding my uncommon good fortune, I am not con vinced that it is conducive to a man's happiness to send him to seek his fortune in India. And there is much more of the same tone of thought in other letters He does not, how ever, appear to have ever sunk into the slough of despond, and, like other intellectual beings, he found in the occupation of his higher faculties a constant resource against that unsatisfied yearning which haunts most Indian officials. Trained in the great school of Lord Wellesley, he studied the character of the country in which his lot was cast, and applied his sagacity and knowledge to the organisation of measures calculated to support the authority of the British power with the least burden to the natives. His plan for the government of Central India, though open to political criticism, displayed grasp of thought and a happy mixture of large and liberal designs with the practical knowledge often wanted in projectors of bold measures. It attracted to him the special notice of Lord Hastings, who adopted the plans of Metcalfe, though the home authorities offered opposition. Met calfe became political secretary to Lord Hastings—a situation in which there was a balance of happiness and discomfort. Mr. Kaye thus sketches his position fiti.that time : I have spoken of the airy castles of Metcalfe's earAtiya• Be was always a castle - builder. And n ow the political