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CRITICAL NOTICES

OF

WORKS ON INDIA AND THE EAST PUBLISHED DURING THE QUARTER.

A Widow's Reminiscences of the Siege of Lucknow. London. James Nisbet and Co. 1858.

MANY may think, and perhaps rightly so, that of books on Lucknow and its siege no more are wanted, that that great event has had every form and phase of it painted and filled up in every colour. Every class and variety of action and suffering have been recorded, unless perhaps the purely medical and psychological, which are confined to the somewhat dry and professional pages of medical reports and reviews. It may be thought that such works as those of Mrs. Harris, Mrs. Case and the Polehamptons have rendered this little record unnecessary. Still we would not willingly want it. We have read all the Lucknow siege literature, and destitute though this be of startling incident, military picture, or political remark, we believe it to be the most artistic, because the least artificial, of them all. Pathos, simplicity, and pure natural feeling meet us in every sentence, and while the whole is a history of trial, separation and death, there is an under-current of healthy emotion, calm resignation, and triumphant trust in the Lord as a ‘rock of defence in the day of trouble.'

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The writer is the widow of Robert Henry Bartrum of the Bengal Medical Service. When the first sough' of the mutiny was heard, he was stationed with his wife and one little baby-boy at Gonda some 80 miles from Lucknow. Their alarm daily increased as intelligence came fast and thick on intelligence, of new mutinies and new massacres. last Sir Henry Lawrence's order arrived for the ladies and children in the out-stations of Oude to take refuge in the Residency, and our authoress and little one, with Mrs. Clarke and her family, set out on an elephant to join the party that was starting from Secrora, sixteen miles distant. Their husbands accompanied them so far, and the separation was most bitter. They found that the Secrora party had started two hours before, and so under the protection of a few sepoys alone they followed them, overtaking them at last after much trembling. Mrs. Bartrum found herself in the Residency in the midst of confusion, dirt, and bad food, with her child sickening daily before her eyes and attacked with cholera, and in a state of cruel anxiety for four months about the fate of her husband. Like a true Englishwoman she set herself to put things right, to assist others, to take charge of motherless orphans, and generally to be useful where and as she could. From this part the narrative is confined MARCH, 1859.

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to her own trials, while those of her husband are stated, after she has described the Relief,' in letters of his own to her which then fell into her hands. She thus describes her daily life :

"We were up as soon as it was light, having opened our eyes upon a large whitewashed room, containing seven charpoys (by which I mean native bedsteads) one long table, three chairs-or few of us were possessed of such things, and some boxes and bundles scattered about the room. Our first occupation was washing and dressing our children and setting things to rights, for this was our sitting as well as sleeping apartment, then breakfast was to be thought of, and this appeared when it suited our attendant to bring it, and then it looked so uninviting that hunger alone made it palatable. The rest of the day was employed in various domestic matters, and in endeavouring to keep ourselves cool, but the heat was most intense and many were beginning to suffer greatly from its effects. In the evening, when the work of the day was over and our little ones were asleep, we used to gather round a chair, which formed our tea-table, sitting on the bedside, and drinking our tea (not the strongest in the world) by the light of a candle which was stuck in a bottle, that being our only candlestick, and then we talked together of bygone days, of happy homes in England where our childhood had been spent, bringing from memory's stores tales to cheer the passing hour, and thinking of loved ones far away: of the father that knew not as yet that his child was a captive in a foreign land; of the bright band of sisters and brothers who formed the household circle; but most of all of the husband fleeing perhaps for his life, whose heart was with his wife and child in their captivity, and who might even then be coming to their rescue and many were the prayers sent up to heaven that such might be the case.'

Her friend and fellow fugitive, Mrs. Clark, became weak daily, until reason tottered and she did not know her own children. Her baby was baptized at her side as she lay dying, by her mother's name. Mrs. Polehampton, having lost her own husband, now became a true friend to Mrs. Bartrum. We can picture that mother as she describes herself putting her child to sleep and sitting beside him to fan away the musquitoes, whilst she read the psalms and lessons, and, as she says, "how touchingly applicable were many of those beautiful psalms to our own ( case. Never before had been breathed forth with such earnestness those words "O let the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come be'fore Thee, and preserve Thou those that are appointed to die" and 'many other such expressions. I have seldom time to do any needle ' work, because when baby wakes I have to nurse him again, and amuse him, and talk to him about papa. When I ask him where his papa he always points up to heaven. It is so strange, and I cannot bear to 'see him do it,"

Her husband was ever her thought, and there is no scene more naturał and touching or more exquisitely and simply told in the book, than that in which, when the Relief comes in, she eagerly asks an officer if he is with the reinforcement, and when she is told that he is, walks up and down the road to the Baillie Guard gate watching the face of every one that came in, spending the last solitary night sleepless for joy; on the morrow (September 26) up with the daylight, her baby dressed in the one dress that had been kept for him during the siege, until his papa should come. But it was not to be; hope deferred made her heart sick, and Mrs. Polehampton broke the sad news. "All Thy waves and Thy storms have gone over me." He had fallen at the gate. The scene

during the leaving of the Residency is well pictured. Now she lost her way, fled from the doolie, was close on the enemy's pickets ; and wearied with her boy for upwards of three hours walking through deep sand and wet mud, she at last reached the camp, and sat upon the ground to indulge in a burst of tears. We need not trace her journey to Calcutta, nor picture the death of her babe there. She sailed with Mrs. Polehampton in the Himalaya, and closes her little volume with these words. "And now Lord, what is my hope truly iny hope is even in Thee."

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Her husband mean while had escaped to Bulrampore, and thence to Ghazeepore and Benares. There, after fever, he joined the Artillery under Major Eyre, accompanied Havelock's force, but fell in the very hour of triumph. Post nubes astra. We have drawn aside the veil and gazed for a little on the sorrow through which the widow passed. Perhaps it would have been more reverent to have left it undisturbed. But the little book is there, and we commend it to our readers. It is a work as free from extravagance as it is full of natural simplicity, as truly beautiful in that simplicity as it abounds with lessons of God-given fortitude and noble English womanliness.

Why is the English Rule odious to the Natives of India? By Major W. Martin, Bengal Retired List. London. W. H Allen and Co. 1858.

THIS little pamphlet is a compilation consisting of large extracts from Mr. Shore's 'Notes on Indian Affairs', and smaller passages from Mr. Halliday's Police Minute and the Letters of the Times' Special Correspondent. From these the author, in a few remarks of his own strives to shew that our rule is odious to the natives of India because we have always. treated them with hauteur, ground them down, sold their land, given. them bad courts, shocked their sensitive Asiaticism; &c. With a basis. of truth the writer has misunderstood the whole spirit of the British Goverument of India, ignored every fact that would tell against his strong denunciations and alarmist croakings, and asserted, at least in spirit if not in so many words, that India is worse governed now than it would be under its own kings or Mussulman conquerors. He has overdone it.

Memorials of Christian Martyrs and other Sufferers for the Truth in the Indian Rebellion. By the Rev. Wm. Owen, Author of the " Life of Havelock." London. Simpkin Marshall and Co. 1859.

THIS work is a compilation partaking evidently, like Mr. Owen's former book on Havelock, more of the character of a book meant to catch the reading public and to sell than to communicate any new information, or enforce any new and before untaught lessons. Its one value is that it collects as it were into a focus, from the Letters and Speeches of

Missionaries and the Reports of Missionary Societies and religious periodicals, all memorials of the death of those English and Native Christians who, during the massacres of the rebellion, preferred slaughter to the denial of their Lord. Beyond such we have one or two very common place and nerveless chapters, in which the nature of the argument for Christianity from the testimony of its martyrs and confessors is considered, the professing Christians of the British Churches are urged to examine themselves in the light of these fiery trials, and of the noble conduct of these native martyrs, and all to rouse themselves so that more men may be sent out into the mission field. With much that is good in it here and there, the book is most badly arranged, has in it not a few errors in fact and policy, and is in its tone far from healthy or natural. The character of the Native Christian Church is very properly defended from the attacks of those who oppose missions, and the desponding doubts of Missionaries themselves. From the statistics of Mr. Mullens and Dr. Duff, the author shews that 1500 Christians were massacred of whom 240 were British Military Officers, 4 were Chaplains and 10 were Missionaries with their wives. He believes that converted Hindoos and Mahommedans were true to their new faith in a larger proportion than British Christians. We fear that we have not sufficient nor sufficiently trustworthy evidence to form any sure opinion on this point, but we must remember that many an Englishman would refuse to deny his Lord and faith as much from race and national feelings as from a real union to Christ. There seems to have been a total loss of Missionary property of £34,900, or about half the amount of that in the whole of India. We have among the roll of native martyrs the names of Wilayat Ali and Fatiina his wife, Daoud of Umritsur, Joseph the Catechist, Jhumah and Hera of Umritsur, Gopeenath Nundy and his wife, Thakur Das of Agra, and Dwarkanath Lahoree. We regret that such a glorious subject has been spoiled, and we fear utilitarianised, by such a book, and also that hitherto the religious literature of purely English writers called forth by the mutiny, has, not excepting Baptist Noel's Work, been so very bad. Yet the writers are educated good men, while mere Military men who can handle the sword but not the pen far eclipse them, with a theme infinitely lower. It arises from this, that the latter have been in India on the spot, that each one can say as he tells his story. "Quorum pars magna fui," while the former cannot distinguish exaggeration from sober truth, fact from fiction, and above all cannot cover their canvas with those tints which only they who know the land and its peoples, can exquisitely apply. It may be too that the professionalism and ignorance of the world of the clergy, unfit them to shew all the truth, in its many phases, so that their readers may catch the just spirit as well as read the true facts.

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