The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-19 00:00:00

The great song of " The Land o' the Leal,"
too well known for us to quote, was also from
Lady Nairn's pen. Most of her productions
were anonymous, and she enjoyed the gratifi-
cation of hearing them praised, but did not
avow the authorship, except in a fow instances.
The Editor says :
Some years subsequent to this event, it occurred to the
relatives and literary friends of the deceased Baroness that
as theme could no longer be any reason for retaining her
incognita, full justice should be done to her memory by
the publication of a collected edition of her works. This
scheme was partially executed in an elegant folio, entitled
" Lays from Strathearn ; by Carolina Baroness Nairn.
Arranged with Symphonies and Accompaniments for the
Pianoforte, by Finlay Dun." It bears the imprint of Lon-
don, and has no date. In this work, of which a new edi-
tion will speedily be published by Messrs. Paterson, music
' sellers, Edinburgh, are contained seventy songs, but the
larger proportion of the author's lyrics still remain in
MS. From her representatives we have received permis-
sion to select her best lyrics for the present work, and to
insert several pieties hitherto unpublished. Of the lays
which we have selected, several are new versions to old
airs ; the majority, though unknown as the composition of
Lady Nairn, are already familiar in the drawing•room and
the cottage. For winning simplicity, graceful expression,
and exquisite pathos, her compositions are especially re-
markable; but when her muse prompts to humour, the
laugh is sprightly and overpowering.
We rejoice to know the fact that we shall
have all the poems of this great female song.
writer collected, and we anticipate great piba-
sure in perusing them.

An Address to the Reconstructors of our Indian
Empire. By Robert Davies Luard, late of
the Bombay Civil Service. London : Effing-
ham Wilson.
THosE who are inclined to think with the
Times that the present revolt in India is the
fruit of pampering and petting, the caprice of
a spoiled people towards a too indulgent and
paternal Government, will do well to read this
pamphlet, which is written in rather un •
measured language by an extreme partisan of
the opposite view. There is nothing like
hearing both sides of a story, and it is only
by studying the cons as well as the pros that
the public is likely to arrive at the truth.
Some extracts from Mr. Luard's work we shall
lay before our readers, in order that they may
see the notion as to the causes of the out-
break that he has formed. His introduction
is as follows :
Whenever the reconatructors of our Indian empire
succeed in getting through the mass of garble which will
as usual be interposed to mislead them, they will find that
the present disasters in India are the inevitable conse•
quences of the culpable apathy of the British nation, the
utter indifference it has always manifested to the affairs
of that country, and its consequent ignorance of what
most concerns the happiness and welfare of a population
numbering one-seventh of the whole human race.
At the close of the charter granted in 1833 for twenty
years, the people of India, groaning under the moat galling
tyranny the world ever beheld—a tyranny which has been
ably depicted by the late Sir Charles Napier, in a letter
which appeared in the Times of August 17th, 1857—at
the close of that charter the people of India did endeavour
by every means in their power to rouse the people of Eng•
land to a consideration of their wrongs. Tne press teemed
with accusations against men in power ; names and facts
were brought forward; it was confidently foretold that
unless the requirements of the people of India were at-
tended to they would at last take matters into their own
bands ; that they could no longer submit to be robbed by
process of law ; to have their homes desecrated and their
religion insulted, with the fullest approval of men who
proclaimed themselves to be quite irrespective of tight
and wrong. The charter, however, was renewed, as usual,
with indecent haste. The natives of India saw that they were
once more leased out to their former tyrannical masters ;
and as this renewal has always been a signal for the officers
of Governmeht to throw aside all decency, I can only
suppose the doings in India in 15.5.1 55.46 to have been
pretty much what they were in 1834 3.5 36, and subse-
quently. until inquiry, snch as it was, came round.
No people, not even Hindoos, will year alter year sub•
mit to be plundered and sneered at ; to have such viola-
tions of the law as I have witnessed brought home to
every man's house; to be denied all justice on the spot;
to be referred to England, and then to spend the rest of
their lives between the Court of Directors and the Board
of Control—which latter upon one occasion (Meer Jaffeer
Alee:s case) informed them coolly, by the mouth of its
president, that if the petitioner succeeded in obtaining
justice it would induce numbers of other natives to follow
his example, and the India Board would then be besieged
by petitioners for redress ; to find, in short, that although
the British Parliament enacts laws they do not take care
that these laws are not made, as they have been, instru-
ments of tyranny.
So outrageous is the villainy which I have witnessed,
that, nest to the inhuman conduct of the natives in these
mutinies, nothing gave me no low an opinion of their
characters as the manner in which they quietly looked on
and saw whole communities pillaged by the officers of
Government, European and native. I was at one time