The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-22 00:00:00

COURT CIRCULAR

VV INDSOR, WEDNESDAY.—Her Majesty has not left the
Castle to-day.
The following personages will form the Royal dinner
Part this evening :—Her Royal Highness the Duchess of
dent , Lady Thrham, Baroness Lehzen, Lady Mary Stop-
r.ord, Lady Theresa DighT, the Hon. the Misses Cocks and
Cavend'sh, Lord Fingall;the Hon. Win, Cowper, the Hon.
A. Murray the 'Marquis Conyngham, the Hon Colonel
Cavendish, and Mr. and the Hon. Mrs. Cavendish.
it is pow finally arranged that the Court will shortly
'remove to Brighton, although the day of her Majesty's de-
o
partur
e from the Castle is not yet determined upon ; but it
18 expected to be in the first week of the ensuing month.

8 'Viscount Melbourne
gave the first Cabinet dinner this
:!!snn, last evening at his residene': in South-street. The
nMinisters resentp were—The Lord Chancellor, the Mar-
uis of Lansdowne, Vis,..,aunt Palmerston, Lord Glenelg,
yile Chancellor of tln Exchequer, Earl of Minto, Sir John
viobho
use, Lora Holland, Mr. Poulett Thomson, and
scount Howink•
LoThe Commander of the Forces had an interview with
rid Glenelg yesterday at the Colonial Office.
frogsbe Marquis of Lansdowne arrived in town yesterday
his seat, Bowood Park, Wilts.
r' Sergeant Arabin and Colonel O'Reilly had inter-
ews .
with Viscount Melbourne yesterday in Downing-
greet
tievrile Chancellor of the Exchequer arrived at his resi-
n,reie in Downing-street yesterdayafternoon, from Hastings.
the ...Due Spanish Minister: transacted business yesterday at
The
Office.
e,, "e Alstrian, Turkish, Russian, and French Ambassa-
ur,ltransitcted business yesterday at the Foreign Office.
v iseount Palmerston returned to town yesterd from
Si
-4pshire. ay
John Hobhouse arrived in town on Monday.
ofigespatches from Major-General Napier, at the Cape of
OffiTeu.d Hope, were received yesterday at the Colonial
dsPntches,, dated the od of July, were received yester-
t_ 3' at the
India Board from Lord Auckland, the Gover-
°Ten;,:ral of India.
terd e.sPatches, dated the 19th of July, were received y.es-
he a...f at the India Board from the Officer administering
Gove.rnment at the Presidency of Madras.
b'esPatches were forwarded yesterday from the Foreign
at Co ment for Lord Ponsonby, the British Ambassador
at thenstantinoplefor the British Charges d'Affaires
Courts of Persia and St Petersburgh.

LITERATURE►

RANDOM SKETCHES OF CUTCH.
Smith, London, 1888.

The author of this work, Mrs. Postans, was for some
time resident in the province of Cutch—which is an exten-
sive tract of laud, situated in the most northern part of
Western India, and at the distance of about five hundred
miles from the Presidency of Bombay. Of this province,
which appears to be but little known to the generality of
Indian travellers, the present volume gives some interest-
ing details, which, as the result of long personal experience
on the part of the writer, deserve attention. Mrs. Postans,
it seems, quitted Bombay for Cutch in one of the native
vessels called a Kotia, which she thus describes :
" These boats, from their peculiar build, roll and pitch
dreadfully; they boast but one cabin, which is divided hori-
zontally, and, from the ridiculous lowntss et' both its compart-
ments, seems to have been intended only for the accommoda-
tion of an upper and a lower stratum of monkeys ; moreover
so infested are they with rats, and every other description of
the most uncompanionable vermin, that the sensitive voyager
must either occupy the hold in joint tenure With his horses,
dogs, and luggage, or devote himself to the full endurance of
their attacks in the little den called a cabin, the single door of
which gives full admission to the unsavory steams of onions
and dried fish, which are at all times under culinary prepara-
tion. I have never on any occasion observed the crew use
water for the purposes of ablution ; neither have I seen any
attempt made to clean a. boat, or to put it into any sort of
order. The whole scene is one of filth and confusion; fowl
coops, cocoa nuts, cooking vessels, coir ropes and passengers
mingled together, and surrounded by every ill savour that
bilge water and native cookery can produce."
In this charming vessel, Mrs. Postans, after a voyage
which lasted some days, reached Mandavie, the principal
sea-port of Cutch, which would appear, by her description,
to be a place of some importance. " The principal manu-
facture carried on," she says, " is the weaving of cotton
cloths," and the " most strikingly curious object in the
city, is a large and well built palace, most grotesquely or-
namented by a variety of carvings, of dancing girls, tigers,
and roystering-looking Dutch knaves ; each of the men
holding a bottle and a glass, with a somewhat drunken, but
most winning grace." The grace of a drunken attitude is
somewhat questionable—but let that pass. Prom Man-
Slavic, Mrs. Postans set out for Bhooj, the chief city of
the province of Cutch, and supposed to contain " about
thirty thousand inhabitants." Here she saw the reigning
Prince—or Rao, as he is called—whom she represents as a
young man of a truly amiable nature, and with good, but
undisciplined, abilities. Not having the luck to be one of
the wealthy native Indian sovereigns, he is but indifferently
provided with elephants—the test of a flourishing exchequer
in the East ; nevertheless, he has, it appears, a splendid
palace, together with a " stud of about five hundred horses,
with long tails, which are dyed red, in accordance with
the native taste." Of the Prince's harem our authoress
gives some amusing accounts. Some of the women she
describes as being exceedingly beautiful ; but all of them
are wholly uncultivated in point of mind, as is the case
generally with females throughout the East. While Mrs.
Postans was at Cutch, one of those barbarous funeral cere-
monies—which the resident British authorities have made
so many vain attempts to suppress—entitled Suttees, took
place, of which she gives the following particulars :
" The widow was a remarkably handsome woman, apparently
about thirty, and most superbly attired. Her manner was
marked by great apathy to all around her, and by a complete
indifference to the preparations which for the first time met
her eye. All interference being useless, the ceremony pro-
ceeded. Accompanied by the officiating Brahmin, the widow
walked seven times round the pyre, repeating the usual man-
tras, or prayers, strewinEs rice and coories on the ground, and
sprinkling water from her hand over the bystanders, who be-
lieve this to be efficacious in preventing disease and in expiat-
ing committed sins. She then removed her jewels, and pre-
sented them to her relations, saying a few words to each, with
a calm soft smile of encouragement and hope. The Brah-
mins then presented her with a lighted torch, bearing which,
" Fresh as a flower just blown,
And warm with life, her youthful pulses playing,"
she stepped through the fatal door, and sat within the pile.
The body of her husband, wrapped in rich kinkaub, was then
carried seven times round the pile, and finally laid across her
knees. Thorns and grass were piled over the door ; and again
it was insisted, that free space should be left-, as it was hoped
the poor victim might yet relent, and rush from her fiery pri-
son to the 'protection so freely offered. The command was
readily obeyed, the strength of a child would have sufficed to
burst the frail barrier which confined her, and a breathless
pause succeeded ; but the woman's constancy was faithful to
the last ; not a sigh broke the death-like silence of the crowd,
until a slight smoke, curling from the summit of the pyre, and
then a tongue of flame darting with bright and lightning.like
rapidity into the clear blue sky, told us that the sacrifice was
completed. Fearlessly had this courageous woman fired the
pile, and not a groan had betrayed to us the moment when
her spirit fled. At sight of the flame, a fiendish shout of ex-
ultation rent the air ; the tom-toms sounded, the people clap-
ped their hands with delight, as the evidence of their murder-
ous work burst on their view; whilst the English spectators
of this sad scene withdrew, bearing deep compassion in their
hearts, to philosophise as best they might, on a custom so
fraught with horror, so incompatible with reason, and so re-
volting to human sympathy."
Infanticide is, it seems, a crime of almost daily occur-
rence throughout the province of Cutch, which the natives
state to have been a general usage since a marriage of one
of their Chief's daughters was followed by disgrace and
ruin to some of the Jharejah families. "The young Rajpoot
mother," observes our authoress, " holding her first-born
to her breast, suffers its natural sustenance to be poisoned
at its source, and sees her little infant sink into the sleep
of death within her arms." As in the case of the Suttees,
the British authorities have striven hard to put an end to
this revolting crime of infanticide, but hitherto they have
been wholly unsuccessful. Mrs. Postans goes on to give
accounts, together with some specimens, of the poetry and
traditional literature of the province, as also of iits natural
history, its language, and the domestic peculiarities of its
inhabitants. The volume is embellished with several coloured
prints, and is altogether a very amusing, livehly written
work.

DUTY AND INCLINATION. 3 Vols.
Colburn, London, 1838.

From the diffuseness—and, we fear, we must add, pro-
lixity—so visible throughout this novel, we suspect tint it
is its author's first work ; wherefore we shall not, bear hard
upon it, but gently and impartially point out a few of its
leading defects, in the hope that they may be remedied in
the writer's next production. The tale is wholly of a do-
mestic character—a representation chiefly of English coun-
try life—and would appear to be modelled upon the fictions
of Miss Austen, more particularly the " Sense and Sensi-
bility" of that admirable novelist. The incidents, many of
which are needlessly spun out, have little of novelty to re-
commend them ; but they are unexaggerated, which is a
great recommendation, and rise one out of the other, in
perfect keeping with propriety. At the openinc, of the story
we are introduced to a General De Brooke, and his
two lovely daughters, Oriana and Rosilia, who inhabit
a villa in Somersetshire, of the romantic name of " Mount
Zephyr." Unfortunately, however, the General, whose ex-
penditure has for some time exceeded his means, is com-
pelled to dispose of this villa, and take up his abode in a
cottage in one of the most picturesque parts of Glamorgan-
shire, where he resides for some time, and where his eldest
daughter, Oriana, hastens to fall in love with a young cler-
gyman, Edmund Phillimore ; her sister, Bosnia, haviqg
previously set her the example, by becoming desperately
attached to Captain Douglas, a handsome young Scotch-
man, and brother to Lord Deloraine ; till learning that he is
something of a libertine, the magnanimous heroine resolves
to sacrifice " inclination" to " duty" and give him up. Thus
the young ladies are situated throughout the greatest part
of the tale ; but eventually both are made happy. Rosilia
marries Captain Douglas, who, on the death of his brother,
has become Lord Deloraine ; and Oriana whose first
love Phillimore has gone the way of all flesh, accepts
a second—or, at least, the writer leads us to infer
that she will do so—in the person of a young
gentleman yclept Frederick Valpee. The characters
throughout this story are correctly, but somewhat insipidly
pourtrayed—not in oil, but in water-colours. Old General
De Brooke is a virtuous, sentimental twaddler ; and
Douglas, for a town roue, one of the most amiable, un-
offending creatures we ever read of. Oriana wants indi-
viduality ; but Rosilia, the legitimate heroine of the piece,
is a spirited and highly-wrought conception, worthy almost
of Miss Austen. The language of the tale is generally
diffuse, and in many of the descriptions not a little inflated,
as where describing a granddaughter, who is introduced for
the first time to her grandfather, a tall, portly man, the
author says, " raising himself, he stood as a tower, exalted
in mute grandeur ; while she seemed budding at its base, a
humble snowdrop ; and as the dewy morn bathes its pure,
white petals, so her soft head reclining, the lucid tear be-
dewed her spotless bosom !" We would honestly recom-
mend the author when he attempts another fiction, to be-
ware of indulging in such fustian as the above, and, adopt-
ing the advice given by Dr. Johnson to Robertson the his-
torian, to be sure and cut out all his fine passages.

We are requested to state that " Nicholas Nickleby"
for December, " Athenaeum and Literary Gazette," 29th
December, " Cicerone and Post-office Directory" for 1839,
will contain full particulars of the New Public Subscrip-
tion Library, Alexandrian Institution, on the new and ap-
proved system, which has met with distinguished patronage
and success, for supplying all the New Publications through-
out the British dominions, on a scale of liberality hitherto
unprecedented: The particulars may be had immediately
on application to E. Smallwood, the librarian, 17, Old
Bond-street.

Yesterday morning a female named Horn,
three years of age, died at the ijoiversity College Hos-
pital, a few hours after her admission, from injuries received
by her clothes having accidentally caught fire.