Note. The great length of one of our original articles this Month compels us to omit the usual selections from the English Periodicals. ADVERTISEMENT. Subscribers are requested to observe that the Calcutta Magazine is divided into four distinct departments, and that the numbering and form of the pages are so arranged as to admit of the matter being bound into four separate volumes at the end of the year. Two volumes will consist of ORIGINAL PAPERS-a third of the SPIRIT OF THE ENGLISH PERIODICALS and the GLEANINGS-and a fourth will form a complete BENGAL GENERAL REGISter. At the end of the year separate Title Pages and Indexes to each volume will be supplied gratis by the Publishers. THE DEATH OF MEERUN. A PASSAGE IN INDIAN HISTORY, A. D. 1760. A writer in the third number of the Calcutta Magazine, has related with elegance and pathos the calamitous and unfortunate end of Surajood-dowlah, who although in no way a character to be held up as a model for mankind, may yet deserve our pity for having fallen from such high estate. It were indeed but negative praise to assert Surajood-dowlah to have been equal to those who succeeded him; capricious and vindictive as he was, they who subsequently occupied his place made themselves still more conspicuously infamous. Jaffier, was fortunately bound by his connexion with the British, which in some degree prevented the savage outbreakings of his temper; his principal officers too, were men whose permanency in situations was to a certain point guaranteed, and they greatly curbed his ferocity. His son Meerun was under none of these restraint and acted as he deemed fit in his own eyes. In proportion, as Jaffier was a cypher, Meerun carried on the principal business of the Court; and if history has not belied him, there never was a blacker villain. His education had been in every way neglected, which, as he was in no degree deficient in ability, had it been cultivated, might have tended to check the hasty sallies of his temper; but untaught and illiterate, he suffered his temper to rage uncontrolled. Early power is said to have a tendency to corrupt the best of minds; and to this temptation also was Meerun exposed; his word, when young in life, was law, and at last he became so fond of human blood, that like the Tyger, having once tasted of it, he would without reluctance slay men for his amusement. Satiated with the view of execution, nothing at last would suffice this son of a King, but performing himself the office, which was shunned by the meanest of his father's subjects, and Meerun with his own hand is said to have committed murders within the walls of his haram. Tyrants are ever suspicious, and the apprehension of treason never quitted Meerun's soul; unhappy was the man on whom suspicion fell, for without further evidence than caprice or other judge than prejudice, death was a sure and certain punishment; his constant saying was "Treasonable thoughts deserve death, and there is no greater punishment for treason itself; when I suspect, I use the sword; and then I am released." Previous to setting out on his last expedition, he carried with him a list which might equal the Roman proscription, and it was |