to the battle of Plassey, I compared it with Mill's. His is little more than half the length of mine, yet seems enough for public curiosity. It takes much the same view of affairs as I do, at least not more unfavourable to the actors. The offensive thing in it is the cynical, sarcastic tone, and that has at least the good effect of giving zest and spirit to the story. My account contains many things which he leaves out, some of them important. Though the general result of our decisions is the same, I defend or excuse some things which he severely blames; and, on the other hand, severely blame some things which he passes without notice. It is doubtful whether the public may think my additional facts interesting enough to make up for the additional length, especially as my narrative is never lively; but the worst thing is, that I present no new results. Clive is not vindicated, nor the stain of bad faith wiped off from our countrymen. The issue of these reflections was a conviction that I should not succeed in the future part of my History, and a very strong inclination to give it up altogether. I will own I was a good deal depressed at this prospect, and all along determined not to give in until I had looked into Hastings' time, and seen whether I was likely to take any new views there. My despondency is so great that I think I should desist if it were not for the fear of feeling the want of an employment. It is not that I could not fill up the four or five hours actually occupied by my work; but I should miss a subject to think on, whenever other subjects fail (on my walks, &c.), and also the sense of having a serious task on hand, which gives to my other readings the appearance of amusement, out of which I am not mortified by deriving no advantage.

"There is an answer to this, however. My book must be finished some time, and then the want of occupation must come, after long habit has made employment more necessary. One most serious obstacle to success is the serious state of my health. I cannot read or write, otherwise than standing, without falling asleep; even standing I am often sleepy. This prevents my reading much at a time, or keeping my attention long enough fixed to take general views, and see what particulars may be left out.

"June 7.-I am quite out of spirits at the prospect of giving up my History. I can now understand a man's sorrow for his wife, whom he thought the greatest of bores in her lifetime. I shall take back my helpmate, partly because it is weak to despair, and partly because Hastings' goverment gives a prospect of throwing new lights; but the difficulty is, to find industry to labour without the hope of reward.

"Rome, December 9, 1841.-One good effect of my despondency is its confirming my resolution not to go on with my History. I have no talent for narrative, and that is enough to have been fatal to historians as incomparably superior to me as their subjects are to mine. I need only mention Fox, whose very name might be expected to give interest to everything he wrote. Who surpasses Mackintosh in large and philosophical views, in statesmanlike reflections, in judgment and impartiality, in skilful delineations of character, and even in abundance of anecdotes, such as might be expected to make a book attractive? And yet, what is his success? Now what chance after this has a book of being read (and to be useful it must be read), which, even if accurate, impartial, and judicious, conveys in a heavy style information which few desire to possess? If I had had any doubts remaining, Macaulay's Review of Hastings' Life would have put an end to them all. This was the period on which, in former deliberations, I depended for a chance of originality; and now, besides the despair produced by the style and spirit, the whole is placed in so just a light that no future historian can go wrong in his estimate of the actors and the times."

The shattered state of his health compelled Elphinstone to withdraw more and more from society, and eventually from London. After trying Ockley and Parkhurst, he ultimately settled down at Hookwood, where he passed the last twelve years of his life, a confirmed invalid. His letters and journals show the interest which he continued to take in all Indian questions, and his remarks have all the vigour and freshness of his earlier years. His pithy comment on the conquest of Sind is quoted by Kaye from a letter to Metcalfe:

"I do not know if you have time to think of India. Sind was a sad scene of insolence and oppression. Coming after Affghanistan, it put me in mind of a bully who had been kicked in the streets, and went home to beat his wife in revenge. It was not so much Lord Ellenborough's act, however, as his General's."

He was seized by paralysis on the night of November 20, 1859, and was found insensible by a servant, who heard him fall. He died a few hours afterwards. He was then eighty.

This notice of Sir Edward Colebrooke's interesting volumes may be now brought to a close with an extract from Elphinstone's journal written on his sixty-fourth birthday:

"This leads me to a retrospect of my life since I left India; and to the question whether, with less indolence and more public

spirit, I might not have made my time more useful to others and more interesting to myself. But that question was fully and fairly considered before I resolved on retirement. I had a strong conviction that inefficiency, to say the least, would have been the result of my going into Parliament, or engaging in any other public business here (an impression which my subsequent experience and observation have confirmed). The state of my health would have made me as inefficient in India; and there was no great task to be fulfilled in that country which I might hope to accomplish by an effort, in spite of general debility and decline. Yet this is the most questionable of the cases in which I have declined opportunities of action. There remained the activity of private life, and the management of charitable, literary, and other associations, and the promotion of useful objects, to which private exertions might contribute. For these my diffidence and aversion to bustle, my slowness and hesitation when not acting alone and on my own responsibility, and many other reasons, made me utterly incapable. Among them, I ought perhaps to be ashamed to own, was a contempt for employment on a small scale, which seemed more dull and degrading than absolute idleness. I tried the only remaining line-authorship; and though without hopes of gaining reputation by the pursuit, I should not relinquish it if my infirmities did not daily render me more unfit for the task." R. M. MACDONALD.

RELIGIOUS THOUGHT AND LIFE IN INDIA.

By Professor

Monier Williams, LL.D., C.I.E. John Murray.

I.

If anything is more remarkable than another in England, it is, as I have found in my short stay here, the great-I had almost said, the stupendous-ignorance about the greatest dependency of the English crown, viz., India. It may appear strange, but it is nevertheless true, that, in spite of the heaps of books that one meets with in booksellers' stalls on Indian subjects, the knowledge of India in England is worse than a blank. I do not speak here of Indian politics, as this would be foreign to the scope of this Journal; but it is worthy of remark that Indian politics are done scant courtesy to-not to mention overbearing indifference about them-in England. The British Parliament is now and then treated to what is officially called the moral and material progress of India. Such as it is, even this information

vouchsafed to the British public is rarely read. The causes of this indifference to Indian affairs are not one or two; they are manifold. The subject itself is not simple; and the British public is too much occupied with its own affairs at home to have leisure to devote to affairs beyond the sea. It is in many ways a pity that it should be so-pity both for England and for India. Both the countries are mutually dependent. It may serve the purpose of some to say that England has nothing to gain from India; that India is a mere burden to England; but it should be noted with satisfaction that such talk does not proceed from the few who have made Indian affairs a subject of study for any length of time. There have been others who think that India is a vast continent, peopled by races of dark complexion-an inexcusable blemish, according to them-next door, in point of civilization, to the savage tribes of Africa. But I must say that there have been, and are, more honorable men, who have been assiduously trying to expose these misrepresentations about a people who have, of course, much to learn from Europe and the civilization of the West, but who are quite capable of teaching many truths of the highest importance to the wellbeing and happiness of the human race. Prof. Max Müller's excellent lectures on India: What can it teach us? were very appropriately read to the Indian civilians; but I wish some arrangements were made to read them to larger audiences, composed of men of divers interests and pursuits, so as to create an interest of a more general kind in the people of India. It is worth the trouble of any English patriot to take up the subject so ably handled by that savant, and popularise it by giving discourses to the general public of England. It is no longer in the interests of England that any such notions about India and its peoples should be allowed to prevail. The people of India are "the heirs of high antiquity;" and it would not be creditable to this great country-great in many respects to let slip the opportunity of profiting itself by the many useful lessons which that country can teach.

I think a great drawback to the spread in England of correct knowledge of Indian matters is want of good books on the subject, written by able men who have given the best of their time and attention to India. There is no lack of men who have been to India for one thing or another, and

have published the results of their experience and stay there with the ostensible object of the education of their fellowcountrymen in England in matters Indian. Such books are innumerable, and, being no better than mere travellers' tales, or the self-glorifications of missionary or political heroes, they are worse than useless. But there is another class of books written by a better class of men, and, consequently, more worthy of attention. One of these I propose to notice here.

It

Religious Thought and Life in India. Such is the title of a work by the Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, Prof. M. Williams. The work has just gone through a second edition, within a year's time from its first appearance. This circumstance ought to attest to its popularity. The subject is vast, and, to a certain extent, "dry and complex;" but the author has endeavoured-with much success, I think-to render it sufficiently attractive to general readers. The subject of religion is never simple in any country or age. Whatever the nation, whatever the age, religion has been the one inexhaustible source of speculation and of anxious yearning of the human heart. It has been the one topic which is common to the whole of the human race. pervades the life of the savage, as well as of the most highly cultivated man. It is the one thing which serves as a sort of cement between the various stages of civilization through which society has passed; and it ought to be the one thing by means of which the relations of one country to another, of the several different groups of communities which make up this composite globe, should be regulated and softened. The importance of the subject of religion cannot be overrated. It has a historical tradition. It is a subject for philosophers to investigate, whether religion-the notions of some sort of religion-was not born with the birth of mankind. But for ordinary purposes it is enough to find that, from the earliest states of known society, mankind has always evinced a craving, an unquenchable craving, after the sublime unknown, or has entertained a kind of feeling for religion. Man has been defined as a rational animal. If I were asked to define man, I should say, Man is an animal which thinks of religion.

But so many things get mixed up in the consideration of religion that the subject has grown in complexity almost with every step of the growth of society. A thousand and one