far, however, we are not surprized that they should define the occupant to be merely a person who has a preference of cultivation from hereditary residence.' An independent right, they contended, dependent on the will of an arbitrary sovereign, was a contradiction of terms: and, on this abstract ground, they proceeded to divide the country into districts, to be sold to persons whom they termed zemindars, a name unknown to the Hindoos, and borrowed, together with the office, from the Mahommedan institutions. These men, from revenue officers, had become a kind of feudatory princes, accountable to government for a certain revenue proportioned to the extent of their respective districts; and, of course, taking care to assess the ryot in the mode most conducive to their own interests. Colonel Wilks contends that this is wrong; and shews, from a variety of authorities, that the ryot is the real proprietor. By the Hindoo law he car sell, devise, or bequeath land; and the very act of sale and transfer infers a right in the property. To secure the same right to the purchaser, no less than six formalities are necessary: 1. The assent of townsmen. 2. Of kindred. 3. Of neighbours. 4. Of heirs. 5. The delivery of gold; and 6. Of water. Numbers of passages are quoted, all of which tend clearly to establish an indefeasible right in the individual occupant of the land; and it seems that the natives are every where exceedingly tenacious of this right, and never abandon their property, either by sale or otherwise, without the greatest reluctance. Tippoo Saheb, indeed, exacted so much of the produce as to leave to the proprietors no share for themselves after defraying the expense of cultivation: under such circumstances many disavowed their property; but what they had thus disclaimed under Mahommedan tyranny, they immediately reclaimed under the British government.

From an equal number of authorities, Colonel Wilks proves, that the sovereign has no absolute right in the soil, but only to a certain proportion of its product. Cultivated land,' says the text of Menu, is the property of him who cut down the wood, or who first cleared and tilled it.' The Mahommedan law is precisely similar: Whosoever cultivates waste lands, acquires the property of them, whether infidel or mussulman.' In the Chinese code, there is a statute to the same effect. In fact, this must have been the origin of all private property in land. It is not pretended to be held in absolute dominion; a certain proportion of the produce belongs to the community or the sovereign, in return for the protection and peaceable possession of it. By the Hindoo law, the division of the produce is one-sixth to the king, one-thirtieth to the Brahmins, one-twentieth to the Gods, and the rest to the proprietor, which, allowing one-half for the expenses of cultivation, leaves him just one-half of the net proceeds. The Shasters condemn the Rajah who shall augment this assessment, ' to infamy in this world, and hell

pains in the next.' The zemindar has but one-tenth of the tax collected for the sovereign, or one-sixtieth of the whole, yet this is the person, says Colonel Wilks, whom a British government has named proprietor of the land,' and to whom a property in it has been granted for all time to come.

6

It is well known, that a considerable difference of opinion prevailed on this point, between the late Lord Cornwallis and the present Lord Teignmouth. When the revenue of Bengal was permanently settled, the latter thought it advisable to postpone the measure until farther light was thrown upon the subject of tenures in India; but his opinion was unfortunately overruled: we say unfortunately, for though the condition of the landholder has been greatly improved by the measure, strict justice has not been done to him. At Madras also, a very considerable difference of opinion prevailed respecting the zemindary system. In the controversy,' says Colonel Wilks, to determine whether the sovereign or the zemindar were the proprietor, each party appears to have reciprocally refuted the proposition of his adversary, without establishing his own; they have severally proved that, neither the king nor the zemindar is the proprietor.' It remains then, that the ryots, who hold and cultivate the land, are the real proprietors. As the question is still open for consideration in a large portion of the territorial possessions of the East India Company, and as a partial recognition of a proprietory right in the land-holder has been admitted in the northern provinces, we doubt not that truth and justice will ultimately prevail through the whole Peninsula.

In the narrative, as well as in the notes and appendix, are to be found many interesting and amusing anecdotes, illustrative of the manners of the different tribes of people who inhabit the vast peninsula of India; but which our limits will not allow us to transcribe. In No. 4, App. we have a brief but curious account of the doctrines of the sect of Jungum, whose priests, though of the fourth or servile caste, yet hold the Brahmins in such contempt, as habitually to distinguish them by the opprobrious appeilation of dogs. They deny the metempsychosis altogether, and worship exclusively the deity Siva, whose appropriate emblem, in its most obscene form, they wear round the neck, and guard with the strictest care, as it is considered disgraceful to outlive its loss. Poornea, the present minister of Mysore, had a Jungum friend who lost his lingam, and determined not to survive the misfortune. Poornea, however, dissuaded him from his purpose. It is a part,' says Colonel Wilks, of the ceremonial preceding the sacrifice of the individual, that the principal persons of the sect should assemble on the bank of some stream, and placing in a basket the lingam images of the whole assembly, purify them in the sacred waters. The destined victim, in conformity to the advice of Poornea, sud

denly

denly seized the basket and overturned its contents into the rapid Caveri. "Now," said he, "we are on equal terms: let us prepare to die together." The discussion terminated according to expectation. The whole party took an oath of inviolable secrecy, and each privately provided himself with a new image.'—p. 506.

It is remarkable that the name and office of 'Bard,' are precisely the same in India as they were in Europe. Their fabulous origin in the east dates from the nuptials of Siva with Parvaté, when, to add to the honours of the marriage feast, this deity created poets to sing his exploits to the assembly of the gods. Being desired by Parvaté, to sing her praises also, they excused themselves by alleging, that the exclusive object of their creation was to chaunt the praise of heroes.' Parvaté, indignant at their uncourteous refusal, pronounced on them the curse of perpetual poverty.' Siva could only alleviate it by allowing them to visit the earth, where they should occasionally be placed in the midst of riches and plenty, and obtain approbation; but, according to the malediction c Parvaté, 'always be poor.' The alleged prediction,' says Colonel Wilks, 'contributes to its own fulfilment, and is the apology of the Indian bards, for not being much addicted to abstinence of any kind.'p. 21.

We take leave for the present of Colonel Wilks, sincerely hoping that, precarious health,' which, it seems, impeded the completion of the work, will not prevent the early appearance of a second and last volume,' which will be so much the more interesting, as the events, which it will have to record, approach our own times. Of the merits of the work, and the manner of its execution, we shall with-hold our opinion, until the whole is fairly before the public, presuming that the remaining part is so far advanced, as to prevent the author, were he so inclined, from profiting by any hints which we might venture to suggest on the general plan and arrangement of his Historical Sketches of the South of India.'

ART. VIII. Memoirs of the Political and Private Life of James Caulfield, Earl of Charlemont, &c. By Francis Hardy, Esq. Member of the House of Commons, in the three last Parliaments of Ireland. 4to. pp. 443. London, Cadell and Davies.

1810.

THE

HE most interesting part of the History of Ireland, and that which most deserves the attention of an English statesman, is comprized in the thirty or forty years that immediately preceded the Union. The astonishing progress of that country in wealth and population, the important concessions on the side of civil and religious liberty which it extorted from the British Government and from

were

its own legislature, and the many able politicians it produced during that period, all this together forms a subject so important, that even the unexampled greatness of the events, which at the same time were taking place in almost every part of the civilized world, has not altogether thrown it into the shade. Hitherto, however, the occurrences of this period have not been treated by persons who capable of adding much to the interest of their story by their mode of telling it and by a perverse fate, the annals of one of the liveliest nations in Europe have been consigned to the dullest of writers. Nothing but an ardent thirst of information, or a strong sense of duty, could impel a man to toil through the wearisome pages of Musgrave and Plowden; and it requires no common talent, as well as no common industry, to trace the history of the country through the original documents from which these ponderous collections are drawn. Accordingly the great mass of readers who possess neither of these qualities, or who are not disposed to exercise them upon such a subject, know much less of what has happened in Ireland during the reign of his present Majesty, than in Hindostan during the same fifty years. This is the first attempt we have seen to supply what we conceive to be a considerable defect, and to allure people by the mixture of entertainment, to the knowledge of a subject, curious in itself, and particularly deserving the attention of those who mean to interfere in the management of public affairs. Not that these Memoirs of Lord Charlemont' form a complete history of Ireland during the life of that nobleman: that is what they neither are, nor pretend to be, but they afford a very liberal and entertaining contribution towards it; they supply a great deal of important matter which is not to be obtained from any other source, and they exhibit almost an unbroken thread of narrative, on which it would not be difficult to hang that additional information which the perusal of this volume will naturally make the reader desirous to acquire.

Nor does our approbation stop here. Mr. Hardy deserves great credit for the candid, calm, gentlemanlike tone which he has preserved throughout his work, even where the course of his narrative brings him down to the days of recent and furious party dissention, and to scenes in which he was himself an actor. This is most praiseworthy in what we may (without meaning to use a contemptuous expression) call a provincial writer. Political quarrels are generally more bitter in proportion to the narrowness of the theatre on which they are conducted; and, following out this rule, we think we have remarked, that the Scotch and Irish Whigs are more bitterly Whig, and the Tories more intensely Tory, than the partisans of either faction in England, between whom the struggle is less constant, less personal, and consequently less acrimonious. As a

contest

contest approaches to parochial importance,' it in general also approaches to parochial bitterness and illiberality. Besides, there are other causes independant of the relative magnitude of the two countries, and arising out of the peculiar state civil and religious of Ireland, which tended unavoidably to widen the breach between the parties, and to inflame political animosities to a pitch of fury happily unknown in England for many years. However, Mr. Hardy has escaped the contagion, and writes the history of Ireland as fairly as any man can write the history of his own time. He is a party man,--and indeed what Irishman of any talent or consideration is not a party man?—a Whig de la vieille roche,' of the Rockingham breed, learnt bis principles of liberty in his youth from John Locke,' &c. &c., and was a steady active supporter of the long opposition of Mr. Grattan. Still, in spite of the bias which his mind must naturally have received from these circumstances, we do not find that he has at all deviated from the path of moderation and candour. He has maligned no character, and we speak from authority better than our own, when we add, that he has misrepresented no fact of any importance. He speaks indeed with becoming affection of his leaders and associates, but he bestows upon his adversaries a just and even liberal measure of praise.

He has interspersed this work with characters of almost every person that has attained to any eminence in Ireland in the course of the present reign. This we consider the most interesting and best written part of the book. These characters are executed with spirit, and, we believe, with fidelity, and never fail of conveying a strong and distinct idea to the mind. They are evidently not drawn from fancy, but are full of those minute and peculiar traits, which shew that they must have had their resemblances in actual life. If Mr. Hardy has in this instance exceeded himself, it is, we are inclined to suspect, because in describing the great actors on the theatre of Irish affairs, he has judiciously availed himself of the conversation of their most eminent contemporaries. He has in his preface acknowledged some obligations of this sort to Mr. Grattan, and we think we can here and there distinguish the raciness of the soil,' as it were something of that epigrammatic turn of thought, and that peculiar, but powerful expression which characterize the speeches of this distinguished orator.

We must not complain, if rather more than justice has been done to the person whose life it was his immediate object to write. Something must be allowed to affection, to gratitude, and to that love of his subject, which even where these powerful motives do not come in aid of it, an author naturally feels. Lord Charlemont appears to have been a man of an amiable disposition, highly educated, and of a sound, and even elegant, but not a very forcible understanding.