dering back to Europe information regarding a subject of which her philosophers are even now comparatively in ignorance.

After this paper was written, and almost the whole of it had passed through the Press, we received the Asiatic Society's Journal for June 1844, containing a translation into Latin of the astronomical portion of one of the Siddhantas,-the Siddhanta Siromani of Bhaskar Acharya. The translator, Dr. E. Roer of this city, is entitled to the best thanks of all who are interested in the Hindu Astronomy for this work, which as it left his hands, has evidently been well executed, but which has since then suffered sadly at the hands of the printers. A careful perusal of this article has confirmed our previous conviction, that the Siddhantas are utterly unfit for educational purposes, even if they were free from philosophical and religious falsehood, which is very far from being the case. We are very glad that Dr. Roer has begun to translate such works, and we trust he will go on. The more the Hindu system in all its parts-religious, scientific, political, social and domestic, is known,-the more hope there is of good being effected.

LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK'S ADMINISTRATION.

BY SIR JOHN KAYE, K.C.S.I.

Thornton's History of India, Vol. V., London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1844.

M

R. THORNTON has just completed in five volumes the History of India, which he has been for some time publishing in separate parts. It brings the history of the Indian Empire down to the period of the new Charter, and embraces the whole of Lord William Bentinck's administration. How far it is likely to prove the rival of Mill's, hitherto the History of British India, is a question of time, and cannot at present be determined with any degree of certainty. It has one claim to the patronage of those who have been, and continue to be connected with, the Government of India, which is entirely wanting in that celebrated work; it is wholly in the interest of the Court of Directors. We mention this as a fact, and not as a reproach. In the praise which Mr. Thornton is so fond of bestowing on our honorable masters, he has been actuated, we doubt not, by the conscien tious conviction that they are incomparably the fittest instruments which could have been selected for the Government of this vast Empire. And although we may not find in the present History the same fascination of style, the same clearness of narrative, or the same deep philosophical views which give so great a value to Mill's History, it is still an advantage to possess a work on the same subject written with a bias in the opposite direction, As far, however, as we can venture to anticipate the judgment of the public, we are inclined to think that the present work is not likely to supersede that of the elder historian who has so long and so justly occupied the foremost place in public estimation. Those who have leisure for the perusal of only one History will probably take up Mill, with or without the conservative comments by which Dr. Horace Wilson has endeavoured to neutralise the text. Those who have time to look into two historical works on the same subject, will take up Thornton also in preference to Auber.

The great defect of Mill lies in the inveteracy of his prejudices against the administration of particular men whom he appears to take a delight in dishonouring. These prejudices are insensibly communicated to the reader, by being mixed up in small particles, with the representation of almost every event in which the obnoxious ruler took a share. It requires no ordinary effort, therfore, to divest the mind of these unfavorable impressions, and to obtain a true and unbiassed idea of these transactions. Thus Mill's description of the conduct of Clive, Hastings and Wellesley,

three of the greatest men ever employed in building or consolidating an empire is very wide of the truth. It is scarcely more to be depended on than Hume's History of Charles the Second; and for the same reasons, partly from the strong personal bias of the historian, and partly from the want at the time, of those documents without which it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand the real motives by which public men have been actuated. Since the publication of Mill's History, the private correspondence of these three illustrious statesmen has been laid before us, and we are enabled to understand the precise circumstances in which they were placed, the impulse under which they acted, and the objects they hoped to accomplish in all those measures which have been so unsparingly censured. We have carefully looked into Mr. Thornton's work to ascertain whether he has succeeded in avoiding the error into which Mill was betrayed by those honest antipathies which arose chiefly from imperfect information, and which always leant to virtue's side, whether in treating of those actors on the great scene for whom he has no partiality, he has been careful to do justice to their motives; and we regret to have met only with the most mortifying disappointment.

We allude more particularly to the chapter which Mr. Thornton has devoted to the administration of Lord William Bentinck, and which is written with a singular contempt for that justice and impartiality without which no historian can be accepted as a safe and sure guide. Not only does Mr. Thornton appear to have entirely failed in appreciating the true character of an administration which forms an era in our Indian History— for this a grasp and comprehensiveness of mind was requisite, the absence of which we can readily account for and forgive-but his mind seems to be so completely filled with all the narrow prejudices in which men of little minds have indulged against his Lordship, that every transaction which can affect his character is exhibited through a distorted medium. Whatever was objectionable in an administration crowded with important innovations is magnified beyond its due proportions, while his great and beneficial acts are rarely alluded to, and when mentioned at all, are in almost every instance misrepresented. It is difficult to imagine a stronger contrast than the original of that administration presents to the picture which Mr. Thornton has drawn of it. One is tempted almost to imagine that he must have resigned his pen to some one who had experienced a personal rebuff from Lord William. Yet even the enemies of that nobleman in India, whose vanity he wounded, or whose personal interests he thwarted, never questioned his great personal ability or the general merits of his administration, however they may

have disapproved of those acts by which they or their friends suffered. But here we have a writer aspiring to the lofty character of a historian, who to the surprise equally of the late Governor-General's friends and enemies, refuses the smallest merit to his administration,-except in the matter of Suttees,and who has the temerity to affirm that he did less for the interest of India and for his own reputation, than any other Governor-General, Sir George Barlow excepted; that if every act but one was covered with oblivion, his reputation would be no sufferer; and that but for certain extravagances, his administration would appear almost a blank! And we are expected to receive this as a fair and unbiassed description of Lord William Bentinck's administration.

But not only is the narrative disfigured throughout with prejudices which destroy its value, it is rendered still more objectionable by the most palpable omissions. Many of the most important of those measures which have given Lord William Bentinck's administration a living name in India, second only to that of Cornwallis, are passed over in total silence. If the abolition of Suttees is the most illustrious of his Lordship's acts, the introduction of natives to the public service, which has changed the character of our administration and secured the attachment of the native community to our rule, is by far the most important; yet, it is altogether omitted. And the omission is not occasioned by the necessity of condensing the transactions of the period into a small compass. Other events of infinitely less moment have so disproportionate a share of space allotted to them, as to lead us to suspect that Mr. Thornton is really ignorant of the relative importance of events, which is one of the first rudiments of historical science. The whole number of pages devoted to Lord William Bentinck's administration is sixty. Of these, no fewer than eleven and a half are given to the brief and insignificant campaign which consigned the tyrant of Coorg to a prison, and absorbed his little kingdom in the British Empire. To the disputes between the King of Queda and Siam, which have scarcely a remote bearing on the History of India, and to which a daily paper would have begrudged a column, except as a subject of party strife, Mr. Thornton absolutely allots twelve pages and a half, although he could not find room to mention so important an event as the establishment of Singapore. And the little "tempest in a teapot " riot got up by a Teetoo Meer in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, which was forgotten in less than a week, is discussed with all the solemnity of a grand historical event, and no fewer than four pages of reflections are devoted to this contemptible little affair.

The spirit of detraction which deprives this sketch of Lord William Bentinck's administration of all historic value, and makes us regret, for the author's reputation that it was ever published, is not confined to particular measures. It begins with the very first allusion to his Lordship's connection with the Governor-Generalship, and pervades every notice of subsequent transactions. Mr. Thornton opens the chapter by alluding to the difficulty of perfectly understanding the motives of public men, yet he presumes to have discovered the motives of Lord William Bentinck's conduct in every instance, and he pronounces them to be base and ignoble. Even of that bright and unsullied act of humanity, the abolition of Suttees, he can only say "let it be hoped, let it not be doubted, that he was actuated by higher and better motives." It is no easy task to restrain one's indignation at finding all the little prejudices of Leadenhall Street thus palmed on the public as a History of Lord William Bentinck's government. The circumstances connected with his appointment to the high office which he filled with so much benefit to his own character and to the interests of India, are placed in the same unfavorable light as every other event of his administration. We are told that it arose from his "restless hankering after oriental power;" that on Mr. Canning's sudden relinquishment of the office, Lord William Bentinck took the usual step of offering himself as a candidate for it ;-a proceeding which, in Mr. Thornton's opinion, can scarcely be justified under any circumstances. It is abundantly true not only that he solicited the office, and was particularly anxious to be placed at the head of the Indian Government, but that he considered his claims to this situation superior to those of any other candidate. When formerly Governor of Madras, he had devoted his active mind with great ardour to the study of Indian politics. He had made himself master of every subject connected with the internal economy and working of the Government. He had sketched out many plans for the improvement of the administration. In his eagerness to carry those views into effect, and to prevent their being subverted by superior authority, he had, in one instance, adopted the extraordinary step of quitting his own presidency and proceeding to Calcutta. All these plans and prospects of usefulness were broken up by his sudden recall. Though conscious of having been most unjustly treated on that occasion, he did not feel with the less keenness the disgrace of his deposition. In his letters to his private friends in India, he repeatedly alluded to it as a calamity which no consolations of philosophy could soften. In his public documents he distantly hints at that event as one which was still painfully fresh in his