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them; Poetry, with its sister Arts; and the Biography of eminent men ; what has been elicited in the conversation of the Learned; what is connected with the curiosities of the Library; and what is transacted in the meetings of the Societies of Art and Science, have always been, and will continue to be, the main materials of which our Work is formed. We can assure our readers, that no industry of research or superintendence is spared on our parts, to render the Magazine worthy of their approbation; -and we only request of our Correspondents, that they would have the goodness to frame their communications in that form which may best be adapted for publication, and that the subjects should be such as will harmonize with the general character of our work. We trust, too, that when occasions may arise, as sometimes they must, in which the literary favours of our friends cannot find insertion in our pages, they will give us the same indulgence that must be allowed to all Editors,-who have not so much the duty devolved on them of judging ABSTRACTEDLY of the merits of papers submitted to them, as of their immediate fitness either in subject or in form, to a work divided into so many compartments, open to so many communications, and consequently in all confined within very limited boundaries; they will believe that the arrangement of the variety of matter of a Magazine is the great difficulty of the Editors of it; and whose attempts, therefore, at once to do justice to the Public, and to satisfy their Correspondents, will, it is to be hoped, be received with candour and indulgence.

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GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

London Gaz.-Times-Ledger
Chron.-Post--Herald-Morn.
Adver.Courier-Globe-Stand-

ard-Sun--True Sun-Albion

Brit.Trav.-Record-Lit.Gaz.

St. James's Chron--Packet.-
Even. Mail---English Chron.
8 Weekly Pa...29 Sat. & San.
Dublin 14-Edinburgh 12
Liverpool 9-Manchester 7
Exeter 6-Bath, Bristol. Shef-
field, York, 4-Brighton,
Canterbury, Leeds, Hull,
Leicester, Nottingh. Plym.
Stamf. 3-Birming. Bolton,
Bury, Cambridge, Carlisle,
Chelmsf,Cheltenh,,Chester,
Coven., Derby, Durh., Ipsw.,
Kendal,Maidst., Newcastle,

[PUBLISHED AUGUST 1, 1833.]

JULY, 1833.

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Norwich, Oxf.,Portsm.. Pres-
ton, Sherb., Shrewsb., South-
ampton,Truro, Worcester 2-
Aylesbury, Bangor, Barnst.,,
Berwick, Blackb., Bridgew.,
Carmar., Colch., Chesterf.,
Devizes, Dorch., Doncaster,
Falmouth, Glouc., Halifax,
Henley, Hereford, Lancas-
ter, Leamingt. Lewes, Linc.,
Lichf. Macclesf. Newark.,
Newc. on-Tyne, Northamp.
Reading, Rochest., Salish.,)
Shields, Staff., Stockp., Sun-
derl., Taunt.,Swans., Wakef.,
Warwick, Whiteh., Winches.,
Windsor, Wolverha., 1 each.
Ireland 61-Scotland 37
Jersey 4-Guernsey 3

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....65

Bray's Visitation Sermon..............
FINE ARTS.-Sale of Erard's Pictures ...57
LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.-New Works. .58
Musical Commemoration of Sir T. Gresham 59
The Solar and Lunar Eclipses...............60
Foreign Literary Intelligence. .....
ANTIQUARIAN RESEARCHES.-Palace of
the Therme at Paris.
"Unswept Mosaic," at Rome
SELECT POETRY.......

Historical Chronicle.

Proceedings in Parliament.

...61

61

64

.65

67

74

Foreign News, 73.-Domestic Occurr.
Promotions, &c. 76.- Births and Mar.....77
OBITUARY; with Memoirs of the Earl of
Plymouth; Earl of Pomfret; Countess
de Grey; Lord King; Lt.- Col. Hon. J.
Creighton; Sir T. H. Apreece, Bart.;
Sir E. C. Hartopp, Bart.; Major-Gen.
Sir John Malcolm; John Drummond,
Esq.; John James Park, Esq.; Thos.
Allen; Raffaelle Morghen; Mrs. Smith-
send, &c...........

.78

Bill of Mortality.-Markets.-Shares.....95

Dr. Chalmers's Bridgewater Treatise......54 | Meteorological Diary.-Prices of Stocks. 96

Embellished with Views of ST. JAMES'S CHAPEL, CROYDON;
And of COTEHELE HOUSE, Cornwall.

With Representations of the PULPIT and CARVINGS at NAILSEA CHURCH, Somerset, and the LUNAR and SOLAR ECLIPSES.

By SYLVANUS URBAN, GENT.

Printed by J. B. NICHOLS and SON, CICERO'S HEAD, 25, Parliament Street, Westminster; where all Letters to the Editor are requested to be sent, POST PAID.

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MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.

The Rev. Mr. Archdeacon WRANGHAM remarks, "In the last word of the inscription on Napper's Mite, Dorchester (noticed in your Magazine for May last, p. 423), Mr. Barnes will permit me to point out the concealed Chronogram, which I was led to suspect by the circumstance that no year is attached to the word Ann. Xeno Do ChIVM will furnish Roman numeral letters amounting in the aggregate to 1616; the precise date, I conclude, of the year when the building was completed, and the inscription put up. As I am troubling you with these few lines, I may add, with respect to Mr. Prickett's valuable work on Bridlington Priory, which I am proud to find inscribed to myself, that since he wrote, the Church at Grindel (see Mag. for April, p. 332), has been re-built, and that of Speeton nearly so; and that in numerous other churches of my archdeaconry, great and costly repairs have been made (subsequently to my parochial visitation) most ungrudgingly throughout the whole of the East Riding of Yorkshire; a circumstance which I am bound in justice to the agricultural population to state also, with regard to their neighbours in the Archdeaconry of Cleveland, of which I was Archdeacon from 1820 to 1828."

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W. S. B. observes, " In the Number for May (p. 447), noticing a picture of Cromwell looking at Charles I. in his coffin, it is said, we cannot detect an anachronism.' The date is obviously one; for the year 1649 did not commence till 25th March. And in fact, Sir Henry Halford's Memoir, on opening the vault at Windsor,' states that a leaden coffin bore the inscription King Charles, 1648.' Respecting the design, I submit that it is not possible for any one to hold a heavy coffin lid with the left hand, in the position there represented: it is on the slope, and would require support from below. When the painting was exhibited at the Louvre, its masterly execution would have obtained a prize for the artist; but the subject gave offence, and deprived M. Delaroche of that honour."

WROXTONIENSIS remarks, "The Editors of the new edition of the Monasticon, give an imperfect list of the Priors of Wroxton Priory in Oxfordshire. To the ten names they have catalogued, the following are to be added: Hugo, supposed to have been the first Prior (see an instrument printed in the note to p. 369 of Warton's Life of Sir Thomas Pope); Richard, occurs in 1410 (see p. 370 of the same work); John Adderbury, in 30 Henry VI. 1452; William Braddenham, 5 Hen. VII. 1490 (see Warton's Pope, 371), he is elsewhere called William Bradnam; Richard, in 1504 (see Warton,

ibid.); and Thomas Smith, or Smyth,
who continued Prior till the Dissolution,
ibid. A hospital for lepers, at Tavis-
tock, is only slightly mentioned by Tan-
ner, and in the Monasticon, but more
fully noticed in your vol. c. i. 489. What
appears to be the matrix of its seal, is
now found in the Ashmole Museum at
Oxford; and represents a female figure,
perhaps Mary Magdalene, under a ta-
bernacle, with a legend as follows: Di
giftum hospitalis de sca marie magde-
fini de tavistocke."

In Mr. Lodge's useful and generally ac-
curate Peerage, the Countess of Mans-
field's issue by her second marriage with
the Hon. R. F. Grevile, are styled Ladies,
&c. notwithstanding that in the second or
genealogical volume, the title was granted
as there stated, to her and her issue male,
by David Viscount Stormont only; if So,
the issue of the second marriage would
surely not be entitled to any honorary de-
signations in right of their mother's
peerage. Beatson, in his Political Index,
however, does not mention the limitation
to the male issue of Lord Stormont, but
to the male issue generally of Louisa
Viscountess Stormont. Sir Harris Ni-
colas, in his Synopsis of the Peerage,
states the limitation to be to the male
issue by Lord Stormont.-That the pre-
sent race of the Montagu's are not de-
scended legitimately from the Montagu's
Earls of Salisbury, must be quite obvious
to any genealogist. Sir E. Brydges has
pointed out the fact that the bordure to
their arms is an ancient difference signify-
ing illegitimacy.

Mr. W. WILLIAMS requests information
respecting William Kerwin, of London,
Freemason, who died in 1594, and was
buried in St. Helen's Church, where a
monument still exists to his memory,
with the following inscription:

Edibus Attalicis Londinum qui decoravi
Exiguam tribuunt hanc mihi fata Domum.
Me duce surgebant aliis regalia tecta,
Me duce conficitur ossibus urna meis."

One of his daughters was married to the
celebrated Dr. Daniel Featley.

The same Correspondent will also feel
obliged by information on the following
subject:-Stow states that on the incur-
sion of the Danes in the year 1010, the
bones of St. Edmund the Martyr were
brought to London and deposited for
three years at the Church of St. Gregory,
near St. Paul's. Dr. Yates, in his His-
tory of Bury St. Edmund's, says, they
were placed at Christ Church; and En-
tinck, in his History of London, states
that the Church of St. Helen was the
place where they were deposited. Which
is correct?

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GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

JULY, 1833.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

Mr. URBAN,

THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN INDIA.

Gloster Terrace, Hoxton, June 20. THE British Empire in India has been described as the most extraordinary spectacle "which the political world ever saw :" as nearly equalling in extent that which the Romans once established in Europe; while it has surpassed and differs from theirs in the celerity and inferior agency, numerically considered, by which it has been acquired; in the benevolent character and efficiency of its administration; and in its remoteness from the seat and source of the ruling power and influence.

It is not proposed to enter, in this letter, upon a review of the political, much less of the naval and military history of India, rich as the latter undoubtedly is in splendid instances of British skill and prowess; but rather to show, by a very brief reference to the more prominent features of the Company's administration in that country, that public opinion, or a persuasion which has been instilled into the minds of the natives that those into whose hands the government had fallen were at all times disposed to do the best that could be done with a view to the welfare of the whole community, was, and still is, the basis upon which the dominion now exercised by the East India Company on the Indian peninsula rests. This enquiry may be the more seasonable at a moment when, public opinion being the admitted basis of government at home, such changes may be contemplated in the government of that immense colony, as by suddenly outraging native prejudices, an attention to which has hitherto been one of its principal sup

• Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. ccvш, p. 775.

ports, may, by their consequences, endanger the British Empire in the East.

During the whole of the seventeenth and till the middle of the eighteenth centuries the East India Company, by whom and in whose name this empire has been acquired and established, traded to the shores of India as merchants, with various success; exposed during a considerable part of that time to hostile competition from home, and to many untoward and distressing accidents abroad. The factories which they were allowed to establish were never numerous, and the amount of their territorial acquirements was limited to the Island of Bombay, the fort and town of Madras, and the marsh within the limits of the Mahratta Ditch, upon which the splendid city of Calcutta has since been erected.

The Company's agents during this period appear generally to have traded, in their character of merchants, with the native Banyans or merchants, observing in their mercantile intercourse an integrity and punctuality, to which the natives till then had been strangers, and the most scrupulous abstinence from all avoidable interference in, or identification with, their religious distinctions and customs; but themselves maintaining, among the Mahomedans and Heathens by whom they were surrounded, the public profession of the Christian faith and worship in churches which they erected for that purpose, and by the observance of the seventh day as a day of rest and intermission of worldly occupation.

In the Black town of Madras, one of the Company's earliest possessions, the case was in some respects different. This town may perhaps be regarded as the school in which the Anglo-Indiau system of territorial administra

tion was first learned. Its population was composed of Portuguese Christians of the Roman Church, Mahomedans, and Hindoos; the latter being in great numbers, and comprehending. two opposite and rival castes-the right hand and the left hand castes. Towards this mixed population the agents of the Company stood in the relation of lords of the soil and administrators of the police, accountable to no superior in India; in which character they appear to have considered it to be their only safe and warrantable course to allow of the free but peaceable observance of all forms of worship which were regarded as religious by the worshippers; and to recognize all rights, and to protect all property, connected with the religion of any persons resident within their jurisdiction. The propriety of this course may probably have been suggested to them by the fate of the Portuguese and Mahomedans, whose systems of persecution on a religious account had been experimented in different parts of India, and had been found not more prejudicial to those who were its victims, than detrimental to the power and interests of the persecutors; while on the contrary the obvious design of the measures pursued by the Company's servants, being to impress the natives with confidence in their equity and justice, there was every reason to expect that the natives would be conciliated, by protection afforded to them without the exaction of sacrifices in return.

Acting on these principles, and with these views, the servants of the Company administered the government of the Black Town at Madras very successfully for a century and a half; controlling even the right and left hand castes, whose feuds, arising out of conflicting religious pretensions (such as a claim to carry a certain number of pots and pans on a tray at the wedding of two young Hindoos, or some equally notable cause), would not unfrequently, notwithstanding that they had separate parts of the town allotted to them, lead to sanguinary results. The merits of these rival pretensions were generally referred for adjudication to the heads of the castes, who were bound, under securities of large amount, so to adjudicate as to restore and preserve the peace of the town; and the instances are rare in which the Company's servants were

compelled to interfere any further, although they always reserved to themselves the right of so doing.

That memorable event, the battle of Plassey, by its consequences, opened a new and much wider field, upon which the principles of the Company's government in India were to be experimented and illustrated. In less than ten years it placed them by treaty, in the character of Dewan, or sovereigns depute of the King at Dehli, in the absolute government of three fair provinces, BENGAL, BEHAR, and ORISSA ; inhabited by many millions of natives, both Mahomedans and Hindoos. The general condition on which the Company first obtained this and other large territorial trusts was, that they should "attend to the rights and customs thereof, and observe the Law of the Empire" in their administration of justice. Accordingly attention was given to these objects by the Company's servants in Bengal at a very early period of their administration. The languages and laws of the natives, both Mahomedan and Hindoo, became objects of the closest attention and study; and the native establishments for the administration of justice were retained, with such modifications only as admitted into them the concurrent jurisdiction or superintendence of British judges or magistrates.

In the year 1793, a very important step was taken with a view to the future administration of justice in these provinces. After much and anxious deliberation, it was determined to enact laws or regulations, establishing courts on the European plan, viz. superior courts, both civil and criminal, circuit courts, and local magistrates; but still reserving to the native population their own laws, religious institutions, and distinctions, subject to such occasional and cautious ameliorations as the better principles of justice which obtain in Europe might supply.

The first section of the third regulation, passed by the Bengal Government in the year above mentioned, expressly declares that the regulations of the British Government were calculated to protect the natives in the free exercise of their religion; and in perfect accordance with this principle, many enactments of that year and of subsequent dates, secured to the inhabitants of India a judicial recognition of their several and respective religions,

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