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SIR JOHN MALCOLM.

ing himself also in his proper military capacity; that each was employed in administering and civilizing a vast country, and impressing his own stamp on its institutions. Thus alike in many of the prominent circumstances of their lives, it were. vain, and perhaps wrong, to regret that they were not alike in the circumstances of their deaths. Malcolm died in a fresh old age, attended by the wife of his youth, and the children who regarded him not only as a father, but also as a companion and a friend. Lawrence, after several years of widowhood, and with no child near him, in the prime of his manhood, died a soldier's death.

Mr. Kaye has been very felicitous in the choice of subjects for the exercise of his admirable talents as a biographer.* Mr. Tucker might not indeed be a great man in the ordinary sense of that term; but he was a man on whom very great responsibilities devolved in the administration of Indian affairs, in this country and in England; and he was always equal to the task of sustaining these responsibilities. Lord Metcalfe was a great man; and he too bore an important part in the acquisition and administration of our Indian empire. Sir John Malcolm also was a great man; though his greatness was of a different order from that of Lord Metcalfe, and perhaps not of so high an order. Their biographer has done full justice to their various characters, and has contrived to render them almost as well known to his readers, as if they had been their personal associates. But he has done more than this. As people generally learn most of what they know of the history of England from Shakespeare, Scott and Bulwer-or did so before the publication of Mr. Macaulay's history-so we believe that any student will get a much more inward, hearty knowledge of the history of India under the British rule from these three works of Mr. Kaye, than from any formal history that has yet been written, or is likely to be written for a long time to come. The three men's lives run like a connecting thread through a whole rosary of most important transactions, extending over a very long period. Tucker began his Indian career in 1787, only thirty years after the battle of Plassey; and three-score years after, as chairman of the Court of Directors, he sent out Lord Dalhousie as Governor General; nor did his connexion with India cease until 1851. Metcalfe was born in Calcutta in 1785, nine days before Warren Hastings left India; but his proper Indian career began. in 1801; and he was mixed up, in a more or less important way, with most important transactions, almost from his first arrival, down to the day of his departure, in 1838. In 1783, two years

*For reviews of Mr. Kaye's lives of Tucker and Metcalfe, see Calcutta Review Vols, XXII, and XXIV.

before Metcalfe was born, Malcolm arrived in India; and he too, like Metcalfe, was very early employed in important affairs. He left India in 1830; but like Tucker, he took an earnest interest in its affairs down to the day of his death in 1833. Thus these three lives cover the whole period from the close of Warren Hastings's administration down to the annexation of the Punjab. And then their departments were so different, that the treatment of their lives separately does not lead to repetition, but only to greater fulness, and a more distinct exhibition of the various events of the time. And what country can exhibit so stirring a history? India has not had the happiness-whatever other happiness she may have had-which is said to appertain to the land whose annals are blank. No, truly hers have been written on all four pages of the sheet, and crossed like a young lady's letter.

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We have said that Malcolm was a Scotchman, but it was not "Caledonia stern and wild" that gave him birth, but the rich vale of the Esk, where the scenery resembles the richest English landscape. His father had been educated for the ministry of the church, but had been prevented by a defect of utterance from entering it. He was tenant of Burnfoot, a farm of considerable extent, partly arable and partly pastoral. But he was not conteut to abide by his short-horns and his black-faced: but entered into speculations, in which, like so many others who have "too many irons in the fire," he burned his fingers. But his character did not suffer. "A close investigation into his concerns revealed only the just dealings of the man." "He felt the 'burden that was upon him, for he was a man by nature of an anxious and sensitive temperament, but, sustained by a good 'conscience, he bore up bravely beneath it. There was not perhaps a day of his life in which he did not remember his misfortunes-but he suffered with true Christian resignation, and was thankful for the blessings that remained." Such was "Auld Burnfit," a noble specimen of that proper middle class which Scotland alone possesses; a class which is a middle class, not because it stands between the higher and the lower, and belongs to neither, but because it belongs to both, so that its members can associate with the higher class without servility, and with the lower without arrogance. And the "guid-wife" of Burnfoot was worthy of her husband; "a woman of high principle and 'sound understanding, but womanly in all; of quick parts and ready resources; strong in doing and in suffering; but gentle and affectionate, a support in adversity to her husband; and to her children a tender, a watchful, but not an over-indulgent mother. How much they all owed to her, it is difficult to say. She lived to be the mother of heroes, and was worthy

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of such a race." Yes! difficult to say, as it is difficult to count the sand-grains. To have such a mother is not a matter for saying, but for feeling, and for evincing thankfulness, not so much with the lips as in the life.

The quiver of the farmer of Burnfoot was filled with a goodly sheaf. Ten sons were ready to speak with his enemies in the gate,-only the worthy man had no enemies;-while seven daughters were ready to give a hearty, homely welcome to his friends, of whom he had many. John, the fourth of the sons, was born on the 2nd of May, 1769, and thus was a day younger than Arthur Wellesley. He got his education in the parish school of Westerkirk, and still more in the parlor and the kitchen of Burnfoot. From his pious father and mother he learned much; and not little from the stalwart ploughmen and shepherds of the border. He might have been a good scholar, if he had chosen ; but scholarship was not the quality which he then held in highest esteem. His energy expended itself mainly in mischief. One of those light-hearted, restless boys who will always break through all rules, but with whom it is impossible to be angry, or to be angry for any length of time. We are pretty sure that it was neither with very intense anger, nor with very intense sorrow, that the worthy school-master came to the conclusion that, whenever any mischief was perpetrated, he could not be wrong, however appearances might point in another direction, in assuming that "Jock's at the bottom o't." And when, many years after, he received from the Persian envoy a copy his History, with the inscription, "Jock's at the bottom o't," we may be very sure that it did not take him by surprise to find Jock at the bottom of something else than mischief.

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We have said that Mr. Malcolm was of that middle class which, in Scotland, stands between the higher and the lower, and belongs to both, as distinguished from the middle class elsewhere, which, standing between the higher and the lower, too generally belongs to neither. To this he was indebted for the means of setting his sons on the ladder which so many of them climbed so manfully. Robert was a civilian in the Madras presidency; James, afterwards Sir James Malcolm, K. C. B., was in the Marines, and Pulteney was on the way to the Red Flag at the Fore, determined, doubtless, to be what he in due time became, and what so many midshipmen determine to be, but never become, (but are all the better for the determination) an Admiral and a G. C. B. And now came John's turn. He had not quite attained the age of twelve years, when Mr. Johnstone of Alva intimated to Mr. Malcolm that his brother, the well-known Governor Johnstone of Ceylon, could procure for John an appointment in the military service of the Company. All felt that the ap

pointment would have been more desirable at a later period; but it was not certain that it could be got then; and so the boy must take the tide at the flood. Still it seems to have been resolved that as much delay should be interposed as could be permitted. In the summer of next year, Mr. John Pasley, a London merchant, brother of Mrs. Malcolm, paid a visit to Burnfoot, and proposed to take his nephew with him to London, to have him brushed up a little before his presentation to the honorable court to pass for his cadetship. "So mere a child was he, (says Mr. Kaye) that on the morning of his departure, 'when the old nurse was combing his hair, she said to him, 'Now Jock, my mon, be sure when ye are awa', ye kaim ye'er head and keep ye'er face clean; if ye dinna, ye'll just be sent haim again. "Tut, woman," was the answer, "ye'ere aye sae feared, ye'll see if I were awa amang strangers, I'll just do weel aneugh." When we first read this anecdote, we were disposed to regard it as apocryphal; but we landed, after deep cogitation, in the conclusion that it is authentic, but that the deduction which Mr. Kaye draws from it is erroneous. He supposes that John's hair was combed every day by the old nurse; but we know enough of Scotch farm-house life to be sure that a boy of his stamp must have performed this office for himself at a very much earlier age. It was only because he was starting for London that the faithful old woman thought it her duty to "mak the callant a wee thocht dacent," and this she would have insisted on doing, if he had been a score instead of a dozen years old.

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And Jock did "weel aneugh" among strangers. After seeing the wonders of the great metropolis, he was sent to school for a short time; but apparently the appointment which Governor Johnstone had secured for him, must be taken up within the year. There was no minimum age at that time prescribed for entrance into the Company's service; but each cadet was required to present himself before the Court of Directors, and receive their consent to proceed to India. "So, towards the end of that year, 1781, John Malcolm was taken to the India-House, and was, as his uncle anticipated, in a fair way to be rejected, when one of the Directors said to him' Why, my little man, what would you do if you were to meet Hyder Ali ?" Do, Sir! 'said the young aspirant, in prompt reply, I would out with my sword and cut off his head.' 'You will do,' was the rejoinder, let him pass.' And so the matter ended. Now we presume that we ought to be very indignant at this scene, and to congratulate ourselves on the fact of our living in these days of competition, and the Philosophy of History, and the Differential Calculus. Well, these are all very well in their place; but it SEPT., 1857.

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would be well if a few "marks" could be given for such juvenile spirit as was displayed in Malcolm's answer.

Although his commission, as a cadet of Infantry in the Madras army, was dated in October, 1781, Malcolm did not sail till the autumn of the following year, and did not reach Madras till the 16th of April, 1783, when his age was a fortnight short of fourteen years. Although his life on the braes of Eskdale had made him large and strong, his appearance was juvenile even for his years. The fresh bloom of his undowny cheeks, and the merry twinkle of his bright eye, and his unsophisticated manners, were those of childhood. He soon became a favourite with all who came into contact with him. Under the designation of "Boy Malcolm," a soubriquet that long adhered to him, he gained quite a reputation, in a small way, as being " at the bottom" of all the pranks and mischief in which young ensigns are wont to indulge. We are afraid that he did not stop here; but that at this period of his life he passed over the line that separates mischief from vice. If so, he soon returned. He had been trained up as a child in the way of goodness, and the promise was fulfilled to his faithful parents, that he should not long wander from that path. By the beginning of 1788, we find him speaking of his career of folly as a thing of the past; and his good resolutions was not like the morning cloud, or the early dew. During all the rest of his life, while he retained an unusual share of the buoyancy of youth, he seems never to have strayed from the paths of virtue. One effect of his youthful folly was the contraction of debt. An ensign's pay in those days was very small; but he ought to have been able to live upon it. He had applied to his uncle in London for a remittance, and he had sent him £200. But the letter came into the hand of his brother Robert, who judiciously withheld the money, and allowed the young ensign to work his way back to independence, "Do not (says Robert Malcolm, writing to his mother, in February, 1789) blame John, poor fellow. Nothing but distress led him to what he did. It was even unknown to me till I received my uncle's letters, which I suppressed, and wrote to John in a different style than his uncle had done. Had he got the money my uncle ordered,'viz. £200-he would effectually have been ruined. But I knew too well his situation to give him a shilling. He has now cleared himself from debt, and is as promising a character in his profession as lives." We see then that in the course of six years, he got into debt, and got out of it. Now we know that the former process is easy enough, but that the latter is not specially easy for any one, and that it must have been specially difficult for a young man on an ensign's pay, as an ensign's pay was in those days. If then we suppose that for half of the six years

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