tion of a few pounds. By this decision, Asoph ul Dowlah was deposed, and Saadut Ali raised to the musnud, as the eldest surviving son of Sujah ul Dowlah. It is an intricate question of law and of policy, and the limits of this article preclude us from entering into it. But even Mr. Mill* acknowledges that it is impossible to read the Governor-general's minute, recording the transaction, and not to be impressed with a conviction of his sincerity. And the Court of Directors, in their letter of the 5th of May 1799, after a long commentary, observe: “Having taken this general view, with a minute attention to the papers and proceedings before us, we are decidedly of opinion that the late Governor-general, Lord Teignmouth, in a most arduous situation, and under circumstances of embarrassment and difficulty, conducted himself with great temper, impartiality, ability, and firmness: and that he finished a long career of faithful services, by planning and carrying into effect an arrangement, which not only redounds highly to his own honour, but which will also operate to the reciprocal advantage of the Company and the Nabob."

During the administration of Sir John Shore, a dispute, embittered by harsh terms of altercation,

• Hist. Brit. India, vol. iii. p. 350, 4to.

took place between the Supreme Board and the
Madras Government under Lord Hobart, regard-
ing the Omdut ul Omrah, Nabob of the Carnatic.
In October 1795, Lord Hobart endeavoured to
prevail upon the Omdut to cede all his territories
on payment of a stipulated sum ;-a measure in
which the Governor-general acquiesced; for, by the
mortgageof his territorial possessions to hiscreditors,
and the assignment to that body of rapacious claim-
ants of all their forthcoming produce, the Nabob
became unable to pay his annual kists to the Com-
pany. But Lord Hobart failed in his object, and
proposed to the Supreme Government the forcible
occupation of Tinnevelly and the cession of the
Carnatic forts, as security for the liquidation of
the cavalry debt incurred by the Nabob with
the Madras government. The Governor-general
strongly discountenanced and protested against
such a measure, as an infraction of treaty. In his
minute, Lord Hobart urged the necessity of the
procedure, on the principle of self-preservation-
the decay and depopulation of the Carnatic-and
the breach of treaty on the part of the Nabob him.
self, by the assignment of districts to which alone
the Company could look for payment. This dis-
pute was aggravated by the awkward circumstance

1

of the subordinate functionary being of higher rank than the supreme. Lord Hobart appealed to the Court of Directors, but their decision was superseded by the return of Lord Hobart, who was succeeded by Lord Clive; and in the beginning of 1798, Sir John Shore, who a few months before his retirement, was raised, as we have seen, to the peerage, returned to England, having been succeeded by Lord Mornington.

Lord Teignmouth lived in habits of familiar intercourse with Sir William Jones at Calcutta, and succeeded him as president of the Asiatic Society. In that capacity, he delivered, on the 224 May 1794, a warm and elegant eulogy of his predecessor, and in 1804 published memoirs of his life, writings, and correspondence. It is, upon the whole, a pleasing piece of biography, recording almost every thing interesting in his public and private character, partly in his own familiar correspondence, and transferring to the reader much of the respect and admiration for that extraordinary man, with which the writer was himself impressed. The work is closed with a delineation of Sir William Jones's character, which, though it might have exhibited greater force and discrimination, could not well have been presented in chaster and more

interesting colours. The fault of the work is the redundancy of the materials which Lord Teignmouth deemed it necessary to work up into it. For instance, the long and verbose correspondence between Jones and Revicksky, afterwards imperial ambassador to the court of St. James, chiefly in Latin, is translated and incorporated with the book, the originals being given in the Appendix; but the greater part of these letters contribute little to the development of Sir William Jones's mind or feelings; and though they give occasional intimations of his studies, and general remarks upon Asiatic literature, yet they are too slight to satisfy curiosity, and too declamatory and enthusiastic to be instructive or amusing. There is something sickening too in the mutual eulogium with which each bespatters the other. They display, however, the astonishing command of Jones over the Latin idiom. At the same time, it is scarcely possible to suppress an angry, almost a contemptuous, feeling, when we perceive to what an extravagant eminence he is inclined to raise the Asiatic poets. “ In harum litterarum," he says of the classics, “ amore non patiar ut me vincas, ita enim incredibiliter illis delector, nihil ut suprà possit: equidem poesi Græcorum jam inde a puero ita delectabar, ut ni

***"

hil mihi Pindari carminibus elatius, nihil Anacreonte dulcius, nihil Sapphus, Archilochi,* Alcæi, ac Simonidis aureis illis reliquiis politius aut nitidius esse videretur. At cum poesem Arabicam et Persicam degustarem, illico exarescere The remainder of the letter is lost: but that a classical scholar should avow that his enthusiam for the Greek poets became frigid when he had made himself acquainted with Asiatic poetry, is scarcely credible. Dr. Parr has more than once, in the hearing of the individual who is writing these pages , thundered out his reprehension of his old friend and pupil, for having thus given utterance to what he called “a damnable heresy."

Lord Teignmouth inserted also the correspondence of Jones with Schultens, the celebrated Dutch orientalist. The letters are written with the flowing pure Latinity, which distinguishes those to Revicksky. They are obviously the product of a mind disciplined to a severe classical taste, but not remarkable for depth of thought or fertility of sentiment. Every thing is panegyric and hyperbole. The relative merits of the Asiatic and European writers are contrasted, but no vigour of conception fixes the attention, and they are barren of the nice

• Might one be permitted to ask, what remains of Archilochus Sir William Jones could have had access to ?