Star.
London, England, 1828-01-10 00:00:00

INDIA.

The Bengal Hur&aru of the 13th July, contains the
following paragraph on the subject of the Calcutta
Stamp Regulation :
‘. The Supreme Court was crowded at an early hour
yesterday morning, to hear the judgment of the Bench
as to the registry of the stamp Regulation. Thcir
Lordships delivered their judgments, as we had antici-
pated they would do, seriatim, having just committed
them to writing ; and we regret to announce, that the
Bench were unananimous in deciding on the Registry
lof the Regulations; though on some very essential
points connected with it, Sir EDWARD RYAN differed
from the Chief and Puisne Judge, viz. on the right of
petitioners against any regulation to be heard by Coun-
sel against the registry, and on the power of the Court
to judge, not merely of the non-repugnancy, but the
expediency, of any regulation submitted for registry."
The ladia Papers contain an account of a compli-
mentary minion. sent by Lord Amherst, during his ex-
cursion in the Upper Provinces of Bengal, to Runjit
Sinh, the Chief of the Sikh Nation. The Deputation,
escorted by a troop of Native cavalry, and a company
of infantry, arrived at Amritser, the ancient capital of
Punjab, on the .28th of May, after a hot but pleasant
march. They had their first audience of the Maharajah
on the following day, when the Gentlemen were much
pleased with their reception. Runjit Sinh sat surrounded
by his principal Sirdars, all clothed in amber-coloured
silk, girt with handsome arms, and adorned with splen-
did jewels. The presents sent to him by the Governor
General consisted of elephants and horses, with their
caparisons, a sabre, a gun, a pair of pistols, a telescope,
and various articles of European manufacture. The
Maharajah himself is described as a short thin person,
with grey beard and mustachios. Having lost his eye
by the,small pox, his countenance is not so prepossessing
as it otherwise would be, but it evinces intellectual
energy and command. At the time of the ►isit of the
mission, Amritser wore the appearance of a fortified
city, and a regular force of 25,000 men was encamped
round the walls. All the corps were at ezer:ise morn-
ing and evening. The brigade of infantry, under the
French Officers, is described as being a remarkably fine
and well disciplined body of men. The inhabitants of
Madras have determined upon erecting a statue at that
Presidency, to perpetuate the memory of their late Goa
Tensor, Sir Thomas Munro.

- . .
From 111 r. nutria work, " Lord Brat niddwase ei tits. Con.
temporaries," not yet pnbushet.-inananinant.
0 They wbo know Mr. Campbell only as-the author
of.' Gertrude of: Wyoming,' and The Pleasures of
`Hopei wouldoon suspect him to be a merry companion,
overflowing with humour and anecdote, and any thing
but fastidious. These Scotch Poets. have always same.
thing in reserve. It is the only point in which the major
part of them resemble their counti men. The mistaken
character which the Lady formed of Thomson front his
.' Seasons,' is well Imam. He let part of the stemma in
his' Castle of Indolence ;and the more he letout,the more
honour it did to the simplicity and cordiality of the Poet's
nature, though not always to t',:e elegance of it. Allan
; Ramsay knew his friends, Gay and Somerville, as well
in their writings as he did when he came to be. person.
ally acquainted with them ; but Allan, who had bustled
up from a barber's shop into a bookseller's, was *
,cunning shaver,' and. nobody would have .guessed the
.author of The Gestic Shepherd' to be penurious. Let
soon suppose that any insinuation to. spat effect is in.
leaded against Mr. Campbell. He is one of the few
men whom. licould..at any time walk half a dozen miles
through the snow to spend an afternoon with ; and
could no. more do this with a penurious man, than
I could with a sulky one. I know of-but one fault
he has, besides an extreme cautiousness in his writs
ings; and that one is national, a matter of words,
and amply overpaid by a stream of conversation,
lively, piquant, and liberal, -not the less interesting
for, occasionally betraying an intimacy with pain, and
for a high and somewhat strained tone of voice, bite a
man speaking with suspended breath, and m the habit
of subduing his feelings. No man, 'I should.giess, feels
more kindly towards his fellow creatures, or takesiless
credit for it. When he indulges in -doubt and sarcasm,
and speaks contemptuously of things in.. g nerali be
does it, partly, no doubt, out of actual dsssati tictiont.
but more perhaps-than he suspects, out of a fear of tieing
thought weak and sensitive; which is a blind that' the
best men very commonly practise. Mr..Camptiefi pro.
fesses to be hopeless and sarcastic, and takes paint all
the while to set up an University.
al When first I saw this eminent person, he gavetme
the idea of a French Virgil. Not that he is Mike a French•
man, much lees the French translator of Virgil. Ifotind
him as handsome• as the Abbe Delille is said to have
been ugly ; but he seemed to me to embody a French-
man's ideal notion rf the Latin poet; something a little
mote cut and dry than I had looked for ; compact and
elegant, critical and acute, with a consciousress
of authorship 'upon him; a rave over -anxious not
to commit itself, and refining and dionnishing na-
ture as in a drawing-room mirror. This fancy was
strengthened in the course of' conversation, by his ex-
patiating on the great ess of Racine.- I think he bad
a volume of the French tragedian in his hand. His skull
was sharply cut and fine ; with plenty, according to the
phrenologists, both of the reflective and amative or.
gans ; and his poetry will bear them out. For a lettered
-solitude, and a bridal properly got up, both according
to law and luxury, commend us to the lovely Gertrude
of Wyoming. His face and person-were rather on a small
scale; his features regular; his eye lively and penetra.
ting; and when he spoke,dimples played about his mouth,
which nevertheless had something restrain d and closb in
it. Some gentle puritan seemed to have crossed the bleed,
and to have left a stamp on his face, such as we often
see in the female Scotch face rather than the male. But
he appeared not at all grateful for this; and u hen his
critiques and his Virgilianiem were over, very unlike a
puritan he talked 1 He seemed to spite his iestrictiolis •
and out of the natural largeness of his sympathy said
things high and low, to break at once out of Define 's
6 Virgil' into Cotton's, like a boy let loose from school.
When I have the pleasure of hearing i.im now, I forget
his Virgilianisrns, and think only of the delightful com-
panion, the unaffected philanthropist, and the creator
of a beauty worth all the business in Racine.
n Mr. Campbell has tasted pretty sharply of theed. •
and ill of the present state of society, and for a book,
man has beheld strange sights. He wittesied a battle
in Germany from the top of a convent` Con -arbiens
battle he has written a noble ode); and be saw lha
French cavalry elver a town, wiping their blnddy
swords on the horses' manes. Not long ago he 'was
in Germany again, I believe to purchase books; far,
in addition to his classical scholarsh p, and his other
languages, he is a reader of German. The readers there,
among whom he is popular, both for his poetry and his
love sit freedom, crowded about him with affectionate
zeal; and they gave him, what•he does not dislike, a
good dinner. There is one of our writers who has more
tame than he; but not one who enjoys a fame equally
wide, and without drawback. Like many of the great
men in Germany—Schiller, Wieland, and others—be
has not scrupled to become editor of a magazine; and
his name alone has given it, among all circles, a recoils.
mendation of the greatest value, and such as makes it
a grace to write under him.
44 I remember, one day at Sydenham, Mr. Theodore
Hook came in unexpectedly to dinner, and amused us
very much with his talent at extempore verse. He was
then a youth, tall, dark, and of a good person, with
small eyes, and features more round than weak;, a
face that had character and humour, but no refite.
ment. His extempore verses were really surprising.
ft is easy enough to extempprize in Italianone
only wonders how, in a language in which twjr
thing conspires to render versemaking, and it is
difficult to avoid rhyming, this talent shouildinionstich
cried up—but in English it is another matter. ,I know
but of one other person, besides Mr. Hook, *lto can
erand he warns the power, per.
batpesmriz
the
ee in English ;
confidence,nglto do it in public.;,ol cours‘ I
speak of rhyming. Extempore blank 'Verse. with a little
practice, would be found as easy in English, as rhym-
ing is in Italian. In Mr. Hook the faculty was very
unequivocal. He could not have been aware of all
the visitors, still less of the subject of conversation,
when he came in, and he talked his full share till called
upon; yet he ran his jokes and his verses upon us
all in the easiest manner, saying something charac.
teristic of every body, or avoiding it with a pun,
and introducing so agreeably a piece of village scan-
dal upon which the party bad ben rallying Mr.
Campbell, that the poet, though not udjealoas of
his dignity, was perhaps the most pleased of us all.=
Mr. Hook afterwards sat down to the piano-forte, and
enlargingstpon this subject, made an extempoteparody
of a modern opera, introducing sailors and their clap.