towards the staircase, followed by our women. The murderers left the heyduke to come to me. The women threw themselves at their feet, and held their sabres. The narrowness of the staircase impeded the assassins; but I had already felt a horrid hand thrust down my back, to seize me by my clothes, when some one called out from the `bottom of the staircase: "What are you doing above there?" The terrible Marseillois, who was going to massacre me, answered by a hem! the sound of which will never escape my memory. The other voice replied only by these words: "We don't kill women." I was on my knees: my executioner quitted his hold of me, and said, "Get up, you jade; the nation pardons you." The brutality of these words did not prevent my suddenly experiencing an indescribable feeling, which partook almost equally of the love of life, and the idea, that I was going to see my son, and all that was dear to me, again. A moment before, I had thought less of death, than of the pain which the steel, suspended over my head, would occasion me. Death is seldom seen so close, without striking his blow. I can assert, that upon such an occasion, the organs, unless fainting ensues, are in full activity, and that I heard every syllable uttered by the assassins, just as if I had been calm. Five or six men seized me and my women, and having made us get upon benches placed before the windows, ordered us to call out, "The nation for ever." Vol. II. pp. 250-253.

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After many hair-breadth escapes, Madame Campan procured an asylum for the night, and on the following day joined the Queen at the Feuillans. Shortly after, she was separated from the royal family. The Memoirs terminate with a description of the embarrassment occasioned to her by the possession of a portfolio containing important papers, and with a brief notice of the trial and execution of Louis XVI.

Our readers will have perceived from the tenor of this article, and the character of our extracts, that we have been interested by these Memoirs. They are the production of a clever and observant woman, who, though not a principal performer, was much behind the scenes, and made good use of her opportunities of observation. Making due allowance for her partiality to the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, we are inclined to place great reliance on the accuracy of her details. The Editor's notes are sensible and illustrative.

Art. IV. Fifteen Years in India; or Sketches of a Soldier's Life. Being an Attempt to describe Persons and Things in various Parts of Hindostan. From the Journal of an Officer in His Majesty's Service. 8vo. pp. 540. London. 1822.

THE

HIS is very light reading; and to amuse has evidently been the Author's aim, in the strange and whimsical tissue VOL. XIX. N.S. 2 K

of anecdote, description, military detail, biography, mythology, and substantial information of which the volume is composed. From the mixture of pleasantry, sometimes running wild, and pensive sentiment, with occasional touches of pathos, as well as from the desultory, disorderly character of the work, we should judge the Author to be, as indeed the Introduction intimates, a son of generous, unhappy Erin. The account he gives of himself, is, that he came home from India, after a long residence there, in a debilitated state of health, with a large family, under the well founded expectation' that solid independency awaited him; but this expectation proving delusive, he retired to a mountain, where he pasted on the fireboard of his humble parlour, the singular order of the day issued by Napoleon, when First Consul, against suicide.' Such is the force of example, and such the influence of a great name, that Napoleon's order has, we doubt not, operated to deter from cowardly self-murder, many-possibly hundredson whom the prohibitions of the Supreme Being failed to take effect. The Writer does not seem to have tried whether a Bible on his mantel-piece, would have had the same charm against despondency, as the order pasted on his fireboard. But we must make allowances for the prejudices of an old soldier, accustomed to yield implicit obedience only to military orders. The volume contains sketches of a soldier's life; and the details of personal history with which it is enlivened, and the real actors introduced, constitute not the least attractive feature of the book. It is less an account of India, than a fireside story of adventures and travels, which lets us into the knowledge of how Englishmen and soldiers live in India. Some things related, will, of course, be recognised as not very novel information, nor is there much that is highly important, though the whole is abundantly entertaining. The Writer of the Journal, if not a man of the same stamp, in point of enlightened sentiment and reflection, with his brother officer whose "Sketches of India" we noticed in a preceding volume, is far from resembling the old general in Bracebridge Hall, whose personal services were confined to the siege of Seringapatam. The Preface states, that during the period which the Journal embraces, from 1805 to 1819, it was the officer's lot to traverse a great part of the Peninsula, from the Ganges to

the Indus.

He landed at Madras, and saw part of the Carnatic, joined his regiment in Malabar, and served with it in Mysore and Travancore; after which his fortune led him to Bengal, and a few years afterwards to Bombay, where he was employed with the army in Guzerat, which invaded Kutch-booge for the first time, marched through Katty-war,

and destroyed the fastnesses of the pirates in Okamundel. His corps being then called to join the Poonah subsidiary force, an opportunity was afforded him of seeing a considerable part of the Deckan during the late Mahratta war. The impressions made upon his mind by the scenes which he beheld in India, are now, with deference, offered to the Public.'

The redacteur of the Journal, we are given to understand, is also a military man, who joined his regiment an ensign, rose in gradation, and served a few campaigns not of an interesting

nature.

We should have been much better pleased if the thread of the narrative had not been so perpetually broken and abruptly renewed. The transitions from the adventures of Charles Thoughtless, to grave history, and again to light description, sometimes remind one of cross readings in a newspaper. To assist our selection, the work has neither table of contents, index, nor headings to the chapters. But we shall endeavour to obtain a few connected extracts. And first, as a specimen of the Author's descriptive powers, we give his account of Calcutta.

The Hoogly, on the eastern bank of which the city of Calcutta stands, is the western arm of the Ganges. In going up this fine river, the observer, if he be a man of sensibility, is strongly affected with what he sees. The luxuriance of nature and the grandeur of the scene please his eye, while the customs and manners of men make his heart bleed. He beholds many an emaciated human being, worn away to the last gasp of lingering existence, brought from a distant residence to expire near the sacred stream; the pains of death are often embittered by forcing the muddy water down his throat; for when the recovery of any person is despaired of, his immediate friends hurry him off to the river, in the hope that the goddess will restore him miraculously to life, if they can force him to drink freely. Should any one die at home, near the Ganges, it would be lamented as a great misfortune. When the grasping dispositions of mankind are considered, and it is recollected that those about a dying person share his property, the various accounts of the numerous murders perpetrated by seeming attention to this shocking custom need not be discredited. The wealthy pitch a tent, partly in the water, to screen the sick from the glare of the sun; in this the patient is placed, sometimes on a low cot, and oftener on the ground, with his head in the stream, there to be restored to health by drinking plentifully, or to die with the certainty of immortal bliss. The poor are seen writhing in the pangs of suffocation, under officious, mistaken kindness of friends, and lying all night in the water.

At the same time he views the smoke ascending in curling volumes from many a funeral pile; and the useful stream bearing away the remains of those whose friends could not afford to burn them. On

each bank his sight is shocked occasionally with dead bodies, rotten and torn by fishes, mouldering to kindred clay on the spot where the tide chanced to cast them, for no man will remove them, it being contamination to touch a dead body whose caste is unknown.

Very few Europeans remain long in vigorous health. Were a country gentleman, in the full enjoyment of all his bodily faculties in this happy climate, to be suddenly transported to St. John's Church in Calcutta, during the performance of divine service in the month of June, he would fancy himself seated among ghosts. He would look upon their sallow countenances with fear, and see the big drops like tears coursing each other on the anxious brow, notwithstanding the large fans suspended overhead, and drawn briskly backwards and forwards, by means of ropes passed from them through the windows of the church, by natives outside, to produce an artificial circulation of air. If he followed any gentleman to his home, he would see him there throw off his coat, and put on a light white jacket, as a relief from his sufferings; and on passing the buryingground beyond Chouringhee, the stranger would there perceive, in the numberless tombs and monuments, ample evidence of the terrible mortality prevailing in the land of his sojourn.

The absence of health is more manifest here than in many other parts of India. Men who follow sedentary employments, that require close mental attention, are most numerous, and soonest decline, in a province which is peculiarly inimical to the European constitution; for such quantities of putrescent matter are left by the inundations of the Ganges and Burrumpootre, that they infect the air with malignant vapours, which prove more fatal to strangers than to the natives. This remark is indeed applicable to all Hindostan, in every part of which the European is prematurely wasted by slow but sure degrees, if not assailed by fever or acute hepatitis.'

There is no doubt, however, our Officer adds, that if a proper regimen were observed from the first arrival in the country, health might be much longer preserved. But most young men live in India thoughtlessly and luxuriously as long as they are able. Before they prepare for defence, they are taken by the enemy.'

"Artificial descents to rivers,' continues our Author, 'wharfs, quays, and landing places, are called Ghauts in India. Many of these, on the banks of the sacred Hindoo streams, have magnificent flights of stone steps, leading from pagodas, whose structure, antiquity, and grandeur surprise every beholder. They are distinguished by the appellatives of gods and goddesses, as "Kallighaut," or, " Champaul Ghaut," the latter of which is an insignificant one, but it is the place where Europeans generally land, on arriving in Calcutta, and embark, on leaving it for their native soil. Thence along the left bank of the Hoogly, there is a fine promenade to Fort William, whose spreading trees, planted on each side, lend a refreshing shade, through

which cool breezes from the broad bosom of the river wing their course over the esplanade, to meet the attraction of the heated at mosphere of the city. From this point of view Calcutta appears to great advantage, for the panorama embraces the river Hoogly and shipping, the buildings and docks on the right bank, the magnificent structures of the Government House, Town-hall, Supreme Court, Fort William, Kidderpore School, the Theatre, and the fine range of palaces along the Chouringhee side of the esplanade, together with the row at right angles, extending to the river, through which the monuments, mosques, pagodas, and churches of the city have a beautiful effect.'

The city of Calcutta now extends from Kidderpore to Cossipore, a distance of about six miles along the banks of the Hoogly; and if the reader trace in imagination a half moon from that base line, about two miles in breadth, he will have a pretty accurate idea of its surface. About one hundred and ten years ago, nothing was to be seen on the space where a magnificent city and fortress now stand, but a few Indian huts, called the village of Govindpore..... The prospect around is a vast plain, unbounded by a single hill, whose soil is exceedingly fertile. No stones are to be found near the city, therefore the houses are composed of brick, and the marble and freestone of the public buildings were brought from a distance. Chouringhee, Parkstreet, Durrumtollah, the Jaun Bazar and Esplanade, now form the European part of the town. On passing along these fine streets, the mixture of native huts with houses of the most noble appearance, like Grecian temples, spoils the effect, though, when at a distance, the detached state of the houses, giving them the character of palaces, insulated in a great space, is an advantage, and strikes the beholder with greater admiration. It would not be easy to describe the grandeur of the line of buildings that surround two sides of the Esplanade of Fort William, situated about a mile from the city; to which there is a fine broad road called the Course, watered every day, that it may be in an agreeable state for the society to exercise in their carriages, buggies, tandems, and palankeens, as soon as the declining sun permits such recreation. To portray the edifices of interest would be dry and tedious. Besides those before mentioned, the churches and chapels, and the college and museum deserve notice, with the numerous beautiful garden houses that ornament that part of the suburbs below Kidderpore, called Garden Reach, to the extent of more than five miles.

In this country, unless the reader reflects how grateful it is in hot climates to have large and airy rooms, remote from the glare or in trusion of the sun, and also how easy it is with plenty of funds to raise large structures, he will be unable to conceive the magnificence and extent of these dwellings, on some of which vast sums have been expended. Nothing can, therefore, be imagined finer than the ap proach to Calcutta. These houses rise upon the sight, like so many scenes of enchantment, one after the other; the vessel or boat glides on, and sometimes touches the constantly verdant bank of the river, till Fort William, the numerous ships lying off Calcutta, and the