to provide themselves with a fitting disguise. Ingenuity is racked to find substitutes for the coveted garments; happy are those who possess a singlebreasted coat, topped boots, and corduroys; round hats and jockey-caps are at a premium, and native tailors are employed to manufacture fac-similes of uncouth garments from all sorts of materials. Many of the gentlemen ride their own matches, and there is generally a very amusing melée, in which all descriptions of horses are entered, and which affords the greatest sport to those lookers-on not interested in the favourites. Prodigious quantities of gloves and lavender-water are lost and won by the ladies, and ruinous consequences too frequently result from the more serious transactions of the betting-stand. Gambling is one of the great evils of Indian life; and though much more limited in its extent than in former times, it is still productive of debt, difficulty, and disgrace to numbers of heedless young men. In Cawnpore, it is sometimes carried to a very dangerous extent; more particularly at those seasons when there are few balls and parties to divert the attention of idle youths from cards and dice: and at those periods the want of a public library is also severely felt. The supply of books is seldom equal to the demand; for though there are numerous clubs established in the various corps, and a few private collections belonging to the residents, the works which are to be found in all are chiefly of a light and desultory description. Books of instruction and reference are rarely to be purchased or borrowed, and however anxious young men may be to make themselves acquainted with the natural productions of India, or to study its political history, they must remain destitute of the means, unless they can afford to send to Calcutta or to England for the necessary materials. Had the government established libraries at the head-quarters of every district, a trifling subscription from the temporary residents would have sufficed to keep them up, and the advantage to young men of a studious turn would have been incalculable: but there are no facilities given for the acquisition of knowledge, and it must be picked up under the most disadvantageous circumstances. This, with the exception of Mhow, where a library has been established, is the case in every part of the Bengal presidency; and when the extreme youth of the cadets who are sent from school to fill up the vacancies of the Indian army, and their want of opportunities for improvement after their arrival, are taken into consideration, the highly intellectual state of society throughout Hindostan, must excite surprise. A church and a well-furnished library alone are wanting to render Cawnpore as delightful a residence, as an eastern climate and military duties will permit. It has not the reputation of being unhealthy, though in the rainy season it shares with other stations the prevalent diseases of fever and ague, and being the high road to the frontiers, many travellers pause on their journey, after having received the seeds of their disorders in distant places, to lay their remains in the crowded cemetery of Cawnpore. During the hot winds, it is burning, stifling, smothering; but all places liable to this terrible visitation (the simoom and sirocco of travellers' tales) are equally scorching, and in some districts the blasts from the gaseous furnace, from which the plague must emanate, blow all night, whereas at Cawnpore they subside at sun-set.

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Persons, newly arrived from England or Calcutta, may deem Cawnpore a semi-barbarous place, since wolves stray into the compounds, and there are bungalows in which the doors, destitute of locks or handles, will not shut but the arrivals from out-stations, dwellers in the jungle, companions of bears and boars (biped and quadruped) look upon it as an earthly paradise. It is well-supplied with every article of European manufacture necessary for comfort, or even luxury, though it must be confessed that they are frequently too high-priced to suit subalterns' allowances. The bazaars are second to none in India; beef, mutton, fish, and poultry being of the finest quality vegetables of all kinds may be purchased by those who have not gardens of their own, there being a sufficient demand to induce the natives to cultivate exotics for the market. In addition to the shops kept by Europeans, there are many warehouses, filled with English and French goods, belonging to Hindoo and Moosulman merchants; and the jewellers are scarcely inferior to those of Delhi. Cawnpore is celebrated for the manufacture of saddlery, harness, and gloves; though less durable than those of English make, the cheapness and beauty of the two former articles recommend them to the purchaser; and the gloves offer a very respectable substitute for the importations from France. Prints of fashions supply the mantua-makers and tailors with ideas, and as there is no lack of materials, the ladies of Cawnpore are distinguished in the Mofussil for a more accurate imitation of the toilettes of London and Paris, than can be achieved at more remote stations. Indeed, the contrast between the female residents, and their visitants from the surrounding jungles, is often extremely amusing.

The river's bank affords some very fine situations for bungalows, and the inequality of the ground offers many advantages to those in the interior of the cantonments. The roads are kept in good order, and as they stretch along thick plantations occasionally relieved by glimpses of European houses, or cross the broad parade-grounds and other open tracts, the bits of native scenery, a small mosque, a pagoda, or a well, peeping from the trees; the long alleys of a bazaar, and the open sheds of numerous artizans, present so many pleasing combinations, that the eye must be dull of perception which cannot find an infinity of beauty in the various drives and rides. Lucknow, the capital of the neighbouring kingdom of Oude, is only a few marches distant from Cawnpore, and forms a favourite excursion, more especially whenever any particular festivities are going on at the court. In the proper season, hunting-parties are also frequently made to look for tigers and wild hogs in the islands of the Ganges, or amid the deep jungles of its opposite shore.

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ON THE THREE PRINCIPAL RELIGIONS IN CHINA.

THE history of the errors of mankind constitutes an essential branch of the history of the human mind. Whatever may contribute to illustrate the latter cannot be a matter of indifference, and the investigation of its eccentricities is not one of the worst expedients we can employ to attain that end. Those great and universal errors, which are dignified with the name of religions, those moral and theological opinions, which have, at different periods and amongst different nations, taken root and flourished with more or less power and permanency, afford a subject by no means unworthy of the attention of the philosopher, who, having, by the force of reflection, securely reached the harbour of truth, surveys, with a sentiment not wholly devoid of pleasure, the vulgar still tossed about on an ocean of fallacies. These fallacies, moreover, although they may not be so ingenious and so well combined as has been sometimes supposed, possess, at least, a fund of interest and a certain degree of intrinsic merit. Man, although not always so rational as he is presumed to be, is, however, still more rarely so stupid an animal as he has been often imagined. Superstitions, apparently the most puerile and ridiculous, have not unfrequently a basis, which is sometimes, indeed, difficult to be discovered. The time has gone by when pious Europeans beheld with horror, in the allegorical representations of the gods of India, Satan and his imps usurping the homage due to the Creator, and deplored, with an honest simplicity of heart, the blindness of the idolators supposed to be abandoned to so abominable a worship. Since we have become better acquainted with these many-headed and many-armed figures, they are no longer regarded as monstrous effigies of the enemy of mankind, but as harmless though extravagant emblems, concealing from the vulgar, but revealing to the initiated, physical or moral truths, and opinions of a sublime theology or abstract metaphysics.

It is through want of attention to these considerations, that the Chinese literati have constantly indulged in virulent declamations against the votaries of Shakya and of Laou tsze. Had they been content, in their numerous writings, with reproaching the Buddhists and the Taou szee sect with adopting a system of theology and morals, less adapted than that of Confucius to the constitution of the empire, no one could have censured their zeal or refrained from participating, to a certain extent, in their opinion. The Jesuit missionaries at Peking, who studied the philosophy of the Chinese, restricted themselves, almost exclusively, to the doctrine of Confucius, and their attention was wholly absorbed by the sect of the literati, of whose prejudices they in some degree partook. A few of the best informed of those missionaries bestowed a hasty glance upon the writings of Laou tsze, Hwae nan tsze, Chang tsze, and others, some of whose detached expressions, and a few translated fragments of whose writings, appeared, notwithstanding, calculated to inspire the liveliest curiosity. Those ancient authors, and the moderns who have developed their doctrines, being neglected by the literati, who did not comprehend or who mistook them, were equally neglected by

Europeans, who, without having read them, boldly ascribed to those authors the most false and extravagant opinions: they were materialists, atheists, nihilists, astrologers, magicians. What philosophy, consequently, could be

looked for from such writers; and if the texts they have left us are obscure and beset with difficulties, was it not the shortest and simplest course to lay them entirely aside, and consider them as non-entities? This was the approved method of proceeding down to our own time.

The philosophical and theological systems, which have been current in China, deserve, however, in many respects, to be more fully investigated, and we shall endeavour to subject to examination the three principal ones, namely, those of Laou tsze, Confucius, and Shakya Mooni.

The doctrine of Laou tsze is called in Chinese taou, 'reason,' 'doctrine,' the way' par excellence. What it teaches is termed taou taou, the doctrine of the doctrine.' Its founder was born B.C. 565. As we have given a short account of the life of this philosopher,* it is unnecessary to repeat the details here. Laou tsze composed several works, particularly the Taou iìh king, a work of considerable importance, but very difficult to be understood, which contains a variety of disquisitions on ethics and metaphysics. In this work the following remarkable passages occur, which have been so often cited by the missionaries: " Taou, or 'Reason,' produced one; one produced two; two produced three; three produced all things." And again, elsewhere: "He, who is as it were visible, and who cannot be seen, is named E; he, who can be understood and who speaks not to the ears, is called He; he, who is sensible and who cannot be touched, is named Weï: in vain do you interrogate your senses respecting these three; your reason alone can resolve your doubts, and it will tell you that they compose but one." Such singular texts naturally prompt a wish to be more perfectly acquainted with the Taou tih king, the antiquity of which is of itself no small recommendation. It would be desirable that the Latin version in the library of the Royal Society should be published, which was executed by a missionary who devoted his whole life to the study of the language and literature of China, and which must, in every respect, be preferable to any translation that could be made in Europe.

Laou tsze had several disciples, amongst whom the Taou szee delight to include Confucius. It is certain that the latter, after an interview with him, declared to his disciples, who pressed him to say what he thought of him, that "Laou tsze resembled a dragon;" by which ambiguous reply,-not, however, to be interpreted in Chinese, but in a favourable sense,-he avoided delivering an explicit opinion. But if it be difficult to determine the precise sentiments of the prince of the literati respecting Laou tsze, his opinions of the sect itself are more easily ascertained. “It is a great misfortune," he observes, in the Lun yu (Vol. II. c. 16), to follow false sects." The word e twan, which Confucius uses in this passage, denotes, according to the commentator Chang, the Yang she, who, like the Epicureans, discover virtue and good in private advantage; and the Mih she, whose outrageous severity of morals recognizes those only as virtuous who sacrifice

*See vol. vi. p. 82.

themselves for the happiness of others. From the former, adds the commentator, originated the Taou kea sect (the followers of Laou tsze); and from the latter, that of Fuh kea (or the Buddhists), who still subsist. 'The opinion of the literati, therefore, is that Confucius, in the passage cited, had in view the sect of Laou tsze, the future degradation of which he foresaw, though he found nothing to condemn in the principles of the master. The passage in the Szee ke she kea, which some affect to consider as proof that Confucius received lessons from Laou tsze, appears by no means conclusive on this head: "He (Confucius) came to the kingdom of Chow to consult Laou tsze respecting ceremonies," says the author of that work. Since Confucius, at the date of this visit, was young, and Laou tsze had for a long time discharged the functions of grand master of ceremonies, it appears natural enough to consider this as a mere visit of business, and it is hardly probable that, in a single conversation, Laou tsze had time to expound his doctrine to Confucius and to make him a disciple.

The sorcerers, or those who addict themselves to magic, do great injustice to Laou tsze, in selecting him as their chief, and in considering him as the author of their absurdities. They pretend that he applied himself to enchantment, in order to deduce therefrom the means of curing diseases, and that he has left precepts on this subject. According to them, he taught that there are five elements or principles in the human body, fire, earth, metal, water, and wood; and they have adulterated his biography with the ridiculous fables which are related in the life of Laou tsze already referred to. Some literati, however, are of opinion that Laou tsze was always ignorant of the absurd art of the enchanters, but that certain addle-headed individuals, who came after him, interpolated passages in his works, for the convenience of sanctioning their fooleries by the authority of this eminent philosopher. In their opinion, Confucius, who survived Laou tsze six years, would not have been silent regarding so palpable an aberration from the principles of wise antiquity, and would not have refrained from denouncing magic and magicians, for he was one who could not be accused of base complaisance or culpable timidity.

If we examine the matter closely, we shall easily perceive that Laou tsze was not properly the founder of a new system of philosophy, but rather the restorer of doctrines which constituted the basis of the ancient Chinese mythology. The traces of a subtile system of metaphysics are distinguishable in all the ancient texts, and the allegorical veil which sometimes shrouds it is so slight and thin, that it scarcely requires to be raised. The origin of the world and the grand operations of nature are therein referred to rational causes. The language in which these notions are expressed is commonly mysterious and obscure, but without any admixture of fabulous notions, or of any myth which discovers a consecutive sense, and appears to have had the slightest consistency in the mind of the people: for it is necessary to distinguish carefully those figurative modes of expression, the unavoidable use of which in these matters gives rise to no misapprehension of consequence, and an intentional contrivance to veil a dogma or to decorate a legend. The real worth of allegories reveals itself; whereas it often requires the aid of