with his majesty's government in doing what his majesty would do in their place.

"If the honourable Company be desirous to retain the government of the Indian empire, (we consider it an awful responsibility), it will be proper to shew that this may be done without prejudice to Christianity. It is of more consequence to the honour of our country, that the character of the Christian religion be maintained inviolate in India, than that the trade be opened or shut. It is unquestionably true, That the opening of the trade, and the permission of colonization, would be more favourable to the extension of Christianity, and of European civilization, than a system of exclusion.' He who shall deny this position must be able to maintain propositions (as has been already shewn) repugnant to the dispensations of Providence, and to the revelation of God. The rulers of the country will, therefore, keep this undeniable fact in mind; and endeavour to prevent the effects of this peculiar inconvenience of their government, by founding liberal institutions for Christianity.

"The tenure of the Indian empire, we repeat it, involves an awful responsibility. If the Company be willing to keep in their permanent service 30,000 Englishmen, of whom but an inconsiderable part return to their native country; if they would continue to preside over the numerous and increasing race of half-cast protestants, and over a population of 60,000,000 of natives; it will be satisfactory to the nation to know, that these, our brethren and fel low-subjects, are likely to enjoy moral advantages, under the government of the East-India company, at least equal to what they would have had, if they were under the national care."

We hope the very imperfect sketch here given of this invaluable memorial of Dr. Buchanan will have that effect on our readers for which it was solely intended,-to induce them to read, and impartially and solemnly to weigh, its afflicting and awful

statements.

Some may perhaps think that it is presumptuous for persons destitute of local knowledge to hazard any observations on the important subject of giving Christianity to India, either to the heathens or to our own people; but we must remind them, that the parties whom they hold to be the sole authorities are the same men who, having embarked in a very different speculation, to justify their past indifference to this sovereign "duty, maintain the inexpedience and impracticability of any attempts to supply the spiritual wants of this immense population: we therefore humbly submit that their opinion ought not to be deemed a decisive authority, but that the question should be open to discussion on its own merits.

447

ART. XXVIII.-The Countess and Gertrude, or Modes of Dis cipline. By Lætitia Matilda Hawkins. In four Volumes. London. Printed for F. C. and J. Rivington. 1812.

THERE are spots among the mountainous parts of Switzerland where the right hand may gather a full-blown flower, while the left touches a mass of ice: so it is with respect to the novel of Miss Lætitia Matilda Hawkins. We read her introductory chapter with such interest and approbation, as to render us extremely impatient to enter upon the work itself: but the glow of satisfaction which the perusal of the introduction left upon our minds was, on our first step into the precincts of the story, exchanged for a sudden chill. We found ourselves at once in the province of frigid jests, and at the congealing point of female bombast and pedantry.

As a specimen of the good sense which runs through the introductory chapter, we will, without more formality, introduce to our readers, and particularly to our readers of fashion, if it be our good fortune to have any, a passage containing very just and pointed censure on the destitute state in which the morals of servants are left by the heads of families,

"The present relaxed mode of governing a family, in too many instances deprives females of that protection which the affluent might, without injury to themselves, and certainly with a great increase of sober satisfaction, afford to the indigent. It is a very difficult matter to prevail on a woman of conscience in the upper circles' as they are called, to take the charge of a young girl on her first quitting her father's cottage; the consequence of which difficulty is, that such girls must be content at first with the lowest mistresses, from whom they not unfrequently import into nurseries and dressing-rooms, ideas and manners that are a thousand times more inconvenient than their primitive ignorance and awkwardness, "The objection to taking this responsiblity, is made in the common-place phrase, I cannot look after my servants;' but if the proprietor of a great manufactory were to say, I cannot look after my workmen,' we should see the absurdity, and he would feel the effect of it: our duty must be done, nor can we neglect it on this point through any other mistake than that of not considering our servants as persons between whom and ourselves the distinctions necessary in this world, will cease, and for our care of whom, while employed in our service, we are to give as solemn an account as of our care of our children. How half of us can stand this scrutiny, let us ask our own consciences.

"We deny the assertion, that it is impossible to take care of a large family of servants-it may be a labour of Hercules to cleanse

VOL. IV. NO. VIII.

G G

an Augean stable; but we trust there are few such slovens as the king of Elis; and if it were our lot to inherit after so dirty a predecessor, there are strong streams that may even now, and in this country, be turned to the purifying purpose of the Alpheus or the Peneus. Lady Startwell has proved, that, at twenty years of age, well-born, well-educated, and boasting no peculiar powers, it is possible to take the management of a large ready-made family' and a noble establishment, to conciliate the love of the one, by assisting them in the government of themselves, and to regulate the other by that gentle coercion which never fails to obtain respect. The means are very easy, if the mind can be abstracted from this world's paltry interruptions; and Lady Startwell will never, unless some great calamity befall her, have half the trouble in managing her household well, that others take to ruin the morals of their servants and their own tempers; for she knows what she has to do, and she does it; yet she is not apparently more occupied in her household affairs than other women of her own rank, nor half so busy as Countess Pennywise, who entertains her friends with the generosity of her tradesman in advising her not to buy soap when the price had suddenly risen.' Were all mistresses of great families like Lady Startwell, there would be no difficulty in sheltering the modesty of an humble girl in a situation of protection: such girls would be received in subordinate capacities there, instead of being driven to an alehouse and the society of quartered soldiers; and from those of good habits, they would learn them.

"We should weary were we to investigate the multifold causes which contribute to make some mistresses of families worse than good-for-nothing members of society. We will only name the inordinate love of pleasure and of dress-these things meet the eye of their servants; their drawing-room follies they may enjoy more in secret; but these and their consequences, idleness and extravagance, seem to go through the hands of servants, and are not lost 313 their passage.

"One deleterious fruit of this corrupted soil, is that soporific of household care, called board-wages. Even in the time of the Spectator, it was considered as pernicious, and certainly manners are not now such as to abate its noxious influence: It is the resort of ignorance and idleness, and the source of infinite mischief. Lady Alimony, indeed, defends it on the plea, that it is the only possi ble mode of government by which you can avoid feeding an army. instead of your household; and we doubt not she is sincere in her belief. When we have a little pushed her in her argument, her last question has silenced us: But how is it possible that I can take care of my servants, when, perhaps three times in the week, I am not at home till day-break? We could have said, that something might be done by way of check in accounts; but we had been told, that three times in the year was quite often enough for that parody on the game of cribbage,' our housekeeper's accounts.

-Then, indeed, we could say no more, but ceased to wonder that his infirm lordship had his separate establishment in another

county.

"The pride felt by some ladies in seeing their servants drest above their station in life, is auother circumstance of unfitness for protection, and an injury to the lower classes, that can result from nothing but pride. The sentiment declares itself in an implied injunction to the beholders, to consider the dignity of those who have persons so dignified in appearance to wait on them. This is pure nonsense; but the effect is something worse. Many a young wo man has been rejected where she might have done well, because her former employer has thus corrupted her; and it is a fact, that the stipend and more than the stipend, is spent by female servants even of the lowest description, in this worse than folly. The resource is pretty obvious to the meanest capacity,' and if ruin ensues, the nistress is not wholly excusable.” Vol. i. P. xxvi.

After patiently persevering through these four volumes, as soon as we recovered ourselves, the first general observation which it occurred to us to make upon the work was this, that its bulk should have been reduced at least by one half before it was sent to the printer, and that the remaining half ought to have been submitted in MSS. to some friend or friends of the ́authoress, or to any sensible man or woman standing at a sufficient distance in point of taste, erudition, and judgment, from those who have been instrumental in corrupting the natural good sense of this lady by their facetious communications.

Had the anecdotes and bons mots thrown together in such motley heaps at the bottom of the pages been naturally suggested by, or connected with, the subject of the page, and had they been ever so good in themselves, they would not have possessed the smallest right to be there: but the truth is, they are seldom introduced with the apology, insufficient as it is, of being fairly started in the mind by the matter of the story. The book furnishes strong internal grounds of conjecture as to the manner in which all this trash has been collected. To swell the publication to the size of four volumes seems to have been the sanguine determination of Miss Hawkins's mind before sitting down to the task, and we cannot help suspecting that a huge common-place book, which, probably, like a merchant vessel fitted out upon an adventuring voyage, has been freighted with whatever could be scraped together to captivate ignorant wonder, appears to have unloaded its contents into this publication. If any person doubts the correctness of this remark, we are content to abandon it to the charge of unjust asperity, if upon opening any one of the volumes at any place where there happens to be a note he does not find it confirmed by example.

It is rather extraordinary that a person of unquestionable sprightliness and vigour should possess so perverse a taste in matters of wit and humour, that, although ranging without limit over whole centuries of traditionary jokes, and evidently borrowing, begging, and plundering on all sides, she has scarcely produced one tolerable piece of humour sparkling amidst the worthless heaps which she has accumulated. We will present the reader with a specimen or two promiscuously taken from among these silly notes, which will enable him to estimate the propriety of our observations.

"Utterly irrelevant to what we have been saying, brought in by head, neck, and shoulders, but too humorous to be lost, we give a proof of the inaccuracy that even Mr. Sterling could fall into, and which his candor made him very willing to bring forward. He was so often right, that he could afford to be wrong;—and if he had lost by divulging his mistake, he must have gained by the ingenuousness of the confession. He had occasion to write to two persons at the same time; the one a solicitor, the other a catcher of rats. When we have said this, it will be supposed he mis-directed his letters. No such thing: he only misplaced the professions: the vermin-hunter took the affront passively; but the solicitor request ́ed in his reply, to know why he was styled a rat-catcher." Vol, iii. p. 25.

"The sensibility of the lower class of people, to this species of imposition, is perhaps greater than that of the higher. And, O Lord, Sir!' said a servant-maid, who had prided herself that she was to marry a scholard, because she had been courted in fine language on paper; 'when I seed my husband sign the book in church with his mark, you mought have knocked me down with a feather.'

"On an unfortunate failure in scholarship on another less important occasion, a young friend sitting by us, furnishes us with the following anecdote:

"In the representation of a play in a barn at Lewisham, by some of the lowest orders of strolling players, it was in the part of one to read a letter on the stage; and to save his teachers trouble, and his memory a burden, the lines were written: he took the paper in his hand, and advanced towards the audience, but recollecting himself, he stept to the side-scene, and, to the great diversion of the house, called out,' I say-you forget I can't read writing.'

Let the reader also turn to the note in pages 190 and 191 of the first volume, containing a list of juvenile anecdotes.

We might easily fill half the pages of this number with the same sort of absurdity if we could stoop to the task, and so far forget the interests of the reader. In the whole compass of recorded failures in attempts at humour, the work before us deserves the palm of deteriority. It is a happy circumstance, how