On the 19th February 1812 the Marquess resigned his position in the Government, in consequence of differences of opinion. with his colleagues as to the manner in which the war in Spain should be supported, the Government in Ireland conducted, and with reference also to the emancipation of the Roman Catholics, a measure which he strongly advocated. In May of the same year, the Prince Regent called upon him in conjunction with the Earl of Moira (subsequently the Marquess Hastings and Governor-General of India) to form a ministry, which however he was unable to accomplish, and accordingly Lord Liverpool remained at the head of affairs. In the course of the same year he distinguished himself greatly by a speech on the subject of Catholic Emancipation, which proved at once his liberal ideas, his argumentative power and his goodness of heart. From this period till 1821 we find the Marquess principally engaged as a Parliamentary speaker, alternately condemning and lauding the measures of the Government, as they seemed to him to be fraught with e il or good to the country. In that year he was appointed to the high office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in which his taste for splendor and magnificence was displayed in the grandeur of the viceregal court, no less than was his wisdom in the settlement of the troubles of that unfortunate country, then, as now, convulsed with tumult and disorder. During his administration the most even-handed justice was dealt out to all parties in the island. The Orange Societies, on the one hand, were discouraged, the associations of Ribbonmen, on the other, were suppressed. In 1825 his domestic happiness was secured by a second marriage to a lady who appears to have been in every way worthy of him. She was the daughter of Mr. Caton, of Baltimore, in America, and widow of Mr. Paterson, and, what is somewhat remarkable for the descendant of a republican, sister of the Duchess of Leeds, and of Lady Stafford. A difference of opinion between the Marquess and his illustrious brother, the Duke of Wellington, when the latter was Premier in 1828, led to the retirement of the former from the high office which he held. The subject of difference was the much-debated question of Catholic emancipation which his Grace then opposed, although in the following year he carried it himself. In 1830 Lord Wellesley became Lord Stewart of the Household in Earl Grey's ministry; in the discussions on the Reform Bill he took a prominent part, although he was far from opposing that measure, and in 1833 he resumed the government of Ireland which he held until the summary dismissal of the Whig cabinet by king William the Fourth in the following year. In 1835 the Whigs were restored, and the noble Marquess once more accepted office as Lord Chamberlain, which he resigned however after a month's service, when he retired into private life in his seventy-fifth year. In retirement he occupied himself in those literary pursuits which had been the employment and delight of his earlier years, dedicating in his eighty-first "Amico year a volume of poems (" Primitiæ and Reliquiæ "), suo dilectissimo," Lord Brougham. In reply to a beautiful Latin ode from the Provost of Eton he sent the following touching lines, on the occasion of his bust being placed in that college: cr "Affulsit mihi supremæ meta ultima Famæ Iam mihi cum Lauro juncta Cupressus erit; Thus translated by himself: "On my last steps fame sheds her purest rays, And wreathes with Bays the Cypress and the Yew, Greets my retiring age with honors new. Finally in 1841, the year preceding his death, the Marquess, full of years and honor, had the satisfaction of finding his former honorable masters, the East India Company, acknowledging their sense of his Indian administration by placing his statue in the India House, and thus tacitly censuring the opposition which their predecessors of 1801 to 1805 had offered to the Marquess' schemes and policy. Last scene of all "—he died on the 26th of September 1842, in the eighty-third year of his age, and was buried with unusual pomp in the chapel of his old "alma mater," Eton College. ART. III-1. Forbes' Oriental Memoirs. 2. Mill's History of British India. 3. Le Voyage de M. De Thevenot. 4. Ovington's Voyage. 5. Fryer's East Indies and Persia. 6. Coryate's Crudities. It has become of late a fashion among a certain school of our English literateurs to say and sing of the changes that a "new generation" has produced on the fair face of "once Merry England." The aristocracy of commerce and of manufactures, now jostling the old aristocracy of land and titles, has, whether advantageously or disadvantageously, substituted the useful for the picturesque, or, perhaps we may be allowed to say, the directly and immediately useful for the indirectly and remotely useful. For ourselves, while noways slow to acknowledge the beauties of Manchester, we are not ashamed to confess the possession of an eye capable of seeing some beauty also in those baronial mansions that still are left to remind us of those days of heroism, which, with all their evils, were not destitute of a small kernel of good. We have a notion that even those who are the daily denizens of the long rows of window-penetrated brick-piles, will not be the worse men and women for being occasionally permitted to see and to reflect upon those other piles, which, in the midst of their aged elms and patriarchal oaks, tell of a day when cotton, to all intents and purposes, was not, and when Arkwright was as yet unborn. Such denizens will probably find on deeply pondering, for deeply ponder they can and do, that while there are many things in which the inhabitants of those mansions a few centuries ago were far inferior to themselves, yet there are also a few things in which they themselves are inferior to the inhabitants aforesaid. Or if not, yet is it something that they should at the least be occasionally reminded that they themselves are not all the world; that there is a where and a when different from the Manchester mills and the nineteenth century. With all our respect, and it is a very sincere one, for our brethren who wend betwixt the Atlantic and the Pacific, we are often persuaded, in the course of our occasional perusal of their literature, that they would not be losers but gainers were it possible to imbue them with a smattering of this very knowledge. Without endeavouring to make them unlearn the doctrine that "The States" are the finest location in the universe, and that this present age is the most go-ahead age that has been or wilf be in all eternity, we should deem it operæ pretium could they learn that the said States are not indeed co-extensive with the universe, nor this nineteenth century co-enduring with that portion of eternity called time. But it is not with our brethren of the far west that we have to do. The evil that we have to complain of is one incidental to all " new countries ;" and it is one from which European residents in India are not free. India, to be sure, is not a new country. But its European residents are as effectually cut off from all its antique associations as are the people of America from the associations of Yucatan, or from familiar intercourse with the Red men who still linger on the Savannahs. As for all practical purposes the ancestry of the Americans goes not back beyond the Pilgrim fathers, so that of the European sojourners in India extends not beyond, (if it reach even so far) the days of the sturdy Job Charnock. A useful purpose may doubtless be served by researches into the locality of Palibothra, and the antiquities of Lanka and Cashi, and upon the study of such localities and such antiquities we should be very glad indeed if we could lead our countrymen to bestow a portion of their time: but probably more good will be done by directing them to less ante-diluvian themes, by laying hold of that bond which, however feebly, still connects themselves in some sort with certain scenes. We apprehend it is no unusual sensation amongst the younger portion of our countrymen to feel, on their arrival, the want of the prestige of antiquity in the scenes wherewith they are conversant. Every thing around them is new; cantonments stiffly laid out as if they were on parade, and the commanding officer had just given the word "Attention;" Bungalows built by this Captain, that Major or such a Civilian, and all within a generation; a race of servants even that have been formed by us, who have left their old haunts and habits, and learnt a mongrel language adapted to the comprehension of the meerest griffin. If indeed we set out on a journey of discovery we can find caves where Brahmans have concealed their deeds for centuries upon centuries, forts where legends of the Mogul and upstart Maratha are told, and ruins of mansions where ancient families lived, and ancient bards exercised their fascinating power. But here are not our homes. Home, here, has none of the pleasing associations which in England the past so plentifully supplies. At best we may see around us traces of native generations in whom the majority of us take far too little interest, but no recollections of European and ancient forefathers furnish us with pleasant stories, or adorn our residences with unseen but not unfelt attractions. There are perhaps few places in India that supply this want to such an extent as Surat: it thus makes up for its air of desolation and decay. It tells the inquirer many agreeable histories. It draws him-if such his turn-to speculations upon those fabulous days when Rama left Ayodhya, and with his lady love wrought wondrous actions of knight errantry; or it provides him with facts in the history of the Delhi Throne, which then presided over the destinies of India; it presents itself as the seat where the Parsis, expelled from the country of Zoroaster and inhospitably compelled to leave Dieu, found a refuge for the eternal fire; and where the Armenians in like manner gained protection from the Emperor's liberal policy. But above all, its silent records speak of Europeans; of the enterprizing and zealous, too often the mercenary and fanatical, Portuguese; of the capricious and the uncolonial French; the commercial and pains-taking Hollanders have here their vestiges; and so lastly have the "Company of London Merchants trading to the East Indies," the querulous, feeble, unworthy father of the present Anglo Indian empire: the foundation of whose power was unquestionably laid by Dr. Boughton, Surgeon of Surat.* If we were to believe Hamilton and others, no city is more ancient than this. It is mentioned, he says, in the Ramayana.† The truth is, that in that poem we read of a country called Soorushte. Todd informs us that this is a peninsula, and was so styled because it was inhabited by a people of the Solar race.‡ This is certainly not the derivation of the word, but probably the general term of Soorushte ("the good country,") was applied to the whole rich peninsula of Guzerat, and was subsequently restricted to Surat and its neighbourhood. Although it has from various causes ceased to possess extraordinary richness and beauty, all old accounts prove that once it fully justified its appellation. Bishop Heber's idea that the name of the city is the same as the Hindustani Soorat (beautiful,) is erroneous. In its most flourishing days Surat was more celebrated for its business-like appearance than for its grandeur.§ Although the houses were lofty, their aspect was not imposing, on account of the narrowness of the streets. The palace was a poor residence * Martin's British Colonies, Count Bjornstjernas, "British Empire in the East." + Hamilton's Hindustan. Todd's Rajhastan, vol. I. § The accounts of Barthema, Mandelslo, Thevenot, Stavorinus and Forbes are in this respect contradictory. P |