The Press. — London, England, 1854-10-14 00:00:00

OCTOIMII 14, 1854. He has been charged with flattering the army; but, if he flattered it, he flattered it from a wise policy of restoring to it that self-confi dence which it had lost; and, if he showered honours upon it profusely for its victories, he did so but to prepare it for further success. The noble and spirited order issued by him on the subject of the illustrious garrison of Jellal• labad may, when read in the study, appear too florid—as what similar appeal to the soldiery will not, when read by the impassive civilian sitting by his fireside in England? But well we know the thrilling effect it had upon those to whom it was addressed. There was not one man in that vast army who did not feel his bosom burn with a noble emulation to do similar feats of daring, even if he died in their performance. Nor was the effect on native powers speculating on our supposed weakness less electric. The Seiks, purposing to attack us, shrunk from the encounter: Scinde and G wa lior were the only States which were unable to appreciate the qualities of the new Gover nor-General they had to deal with; and, under the fierce attacks of Napier at Meanee and Gough at Maharajpore, those powers fall. The reward meted out by the Company to Lord Ellenborough and to that heroic commander the Conqueror of Scinde are matters too no torious to be enlarged on. But, in each case, it should be known that the real secret of the hostility shown to these great men by the direc tors was their refusal to prostitute their patron age to the subserving of the private interests of the directors' friends, and, above all, the en trusting the government of the newly-conquered provinces to military administrators,—an in fringement of the monopoly sought to be maintained by the Company in favour of their civil servants, who are chiefly their own sons and nephews. Lord Ellenborough was succeeded by Lord Hardinge, under whose guidance and with whose personal aid the glorious battles of the first Seik war were won. Then came Lord Dalhousie, by whom the boy-King was set aside in whose name the Company ruled over the Punjaub, and whose rights they had pledged themselves by treaty to maintain ; and that province was annexed to our domi• nions in punishment for a rebellion with which the infant of whom we were the guardians could have had nothing to do, and which the mismanagement of our own officials had in fact created. Of Lord Dalhousic's general government it would be premature to give the history; but this we may say, that a more overrated and self-sufficient personage never held the reins of power in any country; while we are sure that the course of absorption and confiscation of native States and Jaghires which he is pursuing will bring its own punish ment with it, and sow the seeds of innumerable disturbances after he shall have left India. In making this résumé of Indian history under her British conquerors it may be asked how it comes that we have so little progress in the condition of the people to record? The fact is, that, excepting at the Presidencies, the condition of the people has everywhere retro graded ; aud, with those exceptions, it is not new cities, but the ruins of old ones, that everywhere meet the eye of the traveller through British India. If ever he comes across a fine old town still bearing about it the marks of prosperity, he may be sure, without inquiry, that it is the capital of some native State that has not yet been annexed. The cause of this is, that we have everywhere des troyed the ancient foundations of property and prosperity without creating new ones. The old feudal estates have been confiscated without our affording, by means of permanent settlements and the sale of land, the oppor tunities necessary to enable a new class of proprietors to spring up in place of those who have been thus extinguished. After reducing all in India to one dead level, we have with held from the natives all power of rising above it. A society so constituted rests on false foundations ; for no country can flourish in which the element of a prosperous landed proprietary is wanting. If the Company would relax its laws on the subject of settle ments and sales a substantial proprietary would soon spring up ; but capitalists will not be content with the position of serfs ; and, while that is the best position the THE PRESS. land affords to its occupants in India, capital will eschew investment in it, preferring other channels. To induce Englishmen to settle in the interior, further measures would be re quired. In the first place, the law, which shuts them out of all that part of India which was not in possession of the Company in the year 1800 would have to be repealed; for beyond those districts they can now only settle with the permission and under a pass. port of the Company. But, what is of more consequence still, perhaps, the protection of English laws and English courts of justice would have to be extended to them. With these concessions the natural advantages of India would soon enable it to outstrip nearly every other colony in the race of improvement; but England need never expect to see the im mense resources of India developed as long as she is content to look passively on, leaving it to languish, unthought of and uncared for, under the gloomy despotism of the Company. Such are the thoughts that have occurred to us on looking through Mr. Thornton's work; and if we have detailed them at some length it is because the subject is one of great importance. yet which, out of certain circles, is but little understood. With Mr. Thornton it will be seen that we are entirely at issue iu respect to the political views which his volumes contain, but in every other respect he merits, as we stated in the outset, our hearty commenda tion, and his book deserves to be generally known. It is an important addition to the topography of our Indian empire, and, as such, should find a place in the library of every one who cares to make himself acquainted with the extent and nature of our possessions in the East. 979 posed, when genius is described, because simplicity is its most prominent and inseparable attribute. The hostility of Mr. Hume to Sir James Brooke is noticed as a case, perhaps the strongest of many in the course of his long life, which shows the tendency of his mind to pursue a scent once obtained, right or wrong. In his hostile demonetra• lions against Brooke he has shown, it is true, a persistence and ingenuity of ill•will which were not generally supposed to be in him. A mystic article, apparently of German inspiration, on " The Use and Meaning of History," considers that in historic annals so little regard is paid to real truth, that they are nothing " but a collection of ana grams," and that the phenomena of life are treated by historians "like the letters in a child's game, " which will form any word that he pleases to con " nect out of them." The writer analyses the value of truth and the testimony of experience, and argues against the licence which poets allow themselves in their treatment of historical persons and actions. This, as might be expected in the Westminster Re view, leads to the introduction of the Bible history as an example of an heroic poem rather than a Divine and accurate narrative. One suggestion, however, at the close of the article, whether made in a sceptical spirit or not, is valuable : If any great man shall rise among us, who, casting away all these, and nobly and reverently laying hold of the eternal facts of human life, shall enable us to see in them a revelation of the will and nature of the Almighty maker of the world ; and on this argument, which cannot lie, shall teach mankind once more to know their God, and feel His living presence among them, then indeed religion will live again among us, and poetry, and noble life, and heroism, and all which we most honour and admire in the old ages—all will rise again, braver, fairer, more beautiful than ever, inasmuch as based upon a foundation which shall never fail. When we reflect on the munificent encouragement given to natural theology, it appears strange that none has ever been afforded to what we will venture to term historic theology. if the being and attri butes of Deity are to be proved by the aspect of the world, might we not rationally expect to dis cover them in the government of the world? The great facts of history are sufficiently known to us for the purposes of such an inquiry; and the evidences of the being of God plainly deducible from them, conceived, not in a rhetorical spirit, but in an exact philosophical manner, approaching as nearly as possible to absolute demonstration, would be a noble contribution to our literature. What Butler has done for moral, and Paley for natural, theology remains still to be done for historic theology. The name would be immortal which worthily succeeded in supplying the want. The review of Victor Cousin's " Etudes stir les Femmes illustres et la Societe du XVIIe siècle " treats the subject with much minute. ness of detail:— _ _ These delightful women (says the reviewer), who from the beginning of the seventeenth to the close of the eighteenth century formed sonic of the brightest threads in the web of political and literary history, wrote under circumstances which left the feminine character of their minds uncramped by timidity and unstrained by mistaken effort. Always refined and graceful, often witty, sometimes judicious, they wrote what they saw, thought. and felt in their habitual language, without proposing any model to them selves, without any intefition to prove that women could write as well as men, without affecting manly views or sup pressing womanly ones. This may be true, yet to a dispassionate reader these graceful and refined women appear to have lived un der a most hollow and artificial social system. The paper on the "Sphere and Duties of Government," by the late Mr. John Chapman, adopts the theory that the common consent of men establishes govern ment for the protection of person and property, and for nothing else. The views of the writer are inge nious, but purely speculative as applied to old-estab lished communities. The paper is unfinished, the writer having been struck down by the late pesti lence—ass we hope we may now call it—while in the midst of health and vigour. This fragment is printed from the sheets of manuscript found lying on his desk. A paper on " Diplomacy "is favour able to regular training for that pursuit. The last article is on the " Crystal I'alace," and properly con demns the attempt to turn the building into a gigan tic bazaar, as sure in the end to prove fatal to the prosperity of the undertaking. In the well-written summary on "Con temporary Literature" we meet with a passage significant of the extreme chagrin of the 1 PERIODICAL LITERATURE. TuE Westminster Review continues to be marked by the unity of plan and ratiocinative talent which have distinguished it under its present management. As an exponent of the sceptical philosophy of the day, it shows a great advance on the sneering, scoffing school of the last century : it has the good sense to treat serious subjects with respect, if not with reve rence ; and discusses those profound topics of spiritual inquiry, which have exercised and oaten perplexed the highest intellects, in an earnest and thoughtful spirit. The contributors are hard-working thinkers —they are intent on the expression of their ideas— and hence, quite apart from the opinions advocated, those who like the reading which grapples with their mind, and brings them into collision or companion ship with vigorous trains of thought, will estimate the Review highly. To be sure, there is not much pa bulum in it for merely practical men : it is a general fault in the writers that they conceive it to be their mission to create all things new, and to found sys tems of religion, morals, and politics on the basis of reason alone. Their theories are argued with little or no reference to the actual state of society,—this word, society, being to them a stumbling-block, as embodying the obstacles to the progress they desire. But, nevertheless, persons most opposed to the ge neral principles of the Review must admit it to be an advantage that an organ of independent inquiry exists in which questions of a purely abstract nature are stated and reasoned with so much temper, ability, discrimination, and fairness. Though amusing papers are not to be sought here, yet some of those in the present number will please a wide circle of readers. The first article is a popular sketch of the " Odin-Religion," suggested by some recent German books ; and the next, on " The Prospects of the Greek People," gives a general survey of them in their in dividual, political, and ecclesiastical capacities, and inquires what truth there may be in the theory— opposed to all hope of the regeneration of the Greeks —that no nation can culminate twice. " Once down, " down for ever," exclaims Mr. W. S. Landor ; but the reviewer thinks that "it is not easy to kill a " people so full of a high and obstinate vitality as the " Greeks;" and, as the best remedy for the disorders of the Greek kingdom, apart from such wholesom , . influence as French and English intervention may passage signincant 01 LUel 0L1.1011.0 viitatia... v. ....v effect, he would let the Government flounder on until advanced Liberal party at the position they now fill : the people gained political wisdom from dear - bought England is growing old, and wise, and staid with sage experience. A review of the career of Rajah Brooke experience :—England knows now what life is, and for does ample justice to his high qualities, and esti- what • • worth it is w hil e to li and she says to the nations: mates him as There was a time when I was young. and dreamers tided one of Nature's princes,—a man of genius to begin with, over me. I stooped to the caprices of a woman, and assisted N and of that high order of genius which can act in any dim- subjects against their lawful rulers. Under Elizabeth I tion ; that It( has the devout pertinacity of a Columbus, fought for freedom ;in Cromwell I said to a revolutionist, grounded upon a similar sagacity; the gay magnanimity of Be my king. In my awakened manhood, I repent of my a Raleigh : the adventurousness of a Cortez; the adminis• folly, and I will do so no more. I believed in God, but it trative ability of a Penn; the joyful devotedness of a Pere was madness ;in truth and justice, and it was the enthn- d'Estivan ; the moral courage and good sense of a Wel. siasm of a boy's imagination. We will make us a Golden lington ; the domestic affections of a Collingwood; the Image, and we will make onr decree together , and it sha ll robust purity of a hero whose energies are occupied with go forth over the earth, and all peoples, nations, and lan- adequate aims; and the simplicity which is always sup- guages shall serve him. / ,