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ART. VI.-Sir James Outram.

How few are the men that have really any practical sig nificance for the generation that has succeeded them. It is one of the reflections that should be often in the minds of those who regard themselves as in any way neglected, that the world can so well dispense even with its greatest men. They pass; their place is taken by others; and they speedily become but a name. Even those who continue to rule us from their urns, do this rather by what they were than by what they did. We find Goethe, though he had among the literary men of his time contemporaries whom he respected, and in his own way loved, declaring that Germany lacked a man like Lessing, who was not merely a great writer, but a great man, and confessing that that which remained as the most precious possession was, after all, character. Clever he said they were, these contemporariesmany of them-they knew more than Lessing did; but they were little where he was a giant-vain triflers and half-andhalf men; and no legacy could they leave comparable to his legacy. Herein lies a comfort for all alike. True and lasting influence may equally be the share of all; and it is in a great degree independent of special circumstances. When, fortunately, the great character finds for itself a sphere supreme as much by reason of elevation as of usefulness, the deepest requirements of the human soul seem to be satisfied in the last result by the contemplation of it: the image stands before us invested with all the power of poetry; it has an attraction beyond that of fiction, because we feel that the unity is due to no factitious and arbitrary will moving outside another will, to which it is but a puppet; that it has the centre of interest in itself, due to the harmony that has been realized or won through a determination after truth and goodness. Look at two typical characters by way of contrast and illustration. Napoleon, with his mean, small soul, squabbling about the merest trifles of punctilio with Sir Hudson Lowe on St. Helena! How dissatisfying it is! how utterly the inner resource and self-support-which multitudes of men with but a fraction of Napoleon's intellect would have shown-are absent! we look on disappointed and turn away in regret, as at some hideous abortion and transgression of Nature against its own laws. Then, not to take a distant illustration, look at such a man as our own Prince Consort. How serene, how self-restrained in adversity! how far above small

distractions, notwithstanding natural impatience and irritability, in great trials! how peaceful his last days with the sense as of some great victory gained! Such lives as this are a permanent and joyful possession for humanity in the wide and silent and secret scope of their influence; in the benignant possibilities they must awaken in all who contemplate them: the biographies that record them are storehouses of high impulse, and aids to that self-surrender which re-converts humanity to itself in making life once more so far self-consistent and beautiful, in spite of the excesses and crimes and sins that stain and often threaten to subdue it.

Sir James Outram, whose biography by Major-General Sir F. Goldsmid has suggested these remarks, was by no means a perfect man. He had faults of temper, was often lacking in tact; he failed sometimes in those elements of prudence which must stand for so much in official life; but his character was so lofty, his nature was so noble, his selfdenials so exceptional and spontaneous, that he may be said to have triumphed over his faults, and that they came even to add a halo and attractiveness to his person. Bacon said there is no beauty but hath some strangeness in the proportion,' and sometimes, it must be confessed, the sentence has risen to our minds in studying the peculiar and exceptional elements that were combined in The Bayard of India.' This, we think, we shall be able to justify by the few points which it will be possible for us to take up at the present moment. One thing must be in our favour. Not a few of the positions and the judgments of Outram have a special value for us at the present moment; some of the things he specially studied, and the matters in which he was most interested, now greatly occupy the thoughts and the hearts of Englishmen throughout the world. A mere recital of the facts connected with certain of the main incidents in his career would be richly instructive; they must prove doubly so when drawn upon only to illustrate and bring into. full relief the heroic elements in his character. With this purpose, therefore, we shall set forth briefly his position in reference to these five subjects: the taming of the wild Bheels and Kolees; the first wars in Afghanistan; the subjugation of Scinde and mediation for the dethroned princes and the famous blood money;' his campaigns against Baroda Khutput, or bribery, which was also a campaign against his own immediate interests; his defence of Lieutenant Hammersley against Government; his restoration of Shawl and Sibi to Kelat, and his loss of favour on account of it. Outram's life

is so essentially of one piece-so void of all compromise, of all tortuousness and schemings-that, notwithstanding the vast miscellany of facts that are necessary to form a complete narrative, his life is especially susceptible of the kind of treatment we propose.

1. When the youth of twenty-two, who had been so fittingly reared by his widow mother, was despatched on that perilous enterprise of conciliating the wild Bheels of Western Khandesh, his own best friends, we are told, grieved over his decision. They thought he was about to throw away all his prospects. He knew his own capability. He who was afterwards to be known as the smallest staff officer in the army,' had rightly gauged his own possibilities in regard to the work he had to do. At first his motto was sharp and short.' The head-centres of the Bheels in the mountains, which they had deemed unapproachable by regular troops, were surprised, the leaders taken prisoners, their followers scattered. But this, which many and able men would have regarded as the chief part of the process, with Outram was but the beginning. Love and trust must supersede force. The moment this work was done, Outram chose out the best men among his prisoners, and sought to make them his trusted friends. He then sent them to their friends to tell that he meant to improve their condition, not to destroy them. He speedily formed a Bheel guard, and threw himself among them totally unarmed to show that he trusted them. He carried this to such a point that he had to apologize to his friends at home for his temerity, and to justify it as a bold means, but the only effective means, by which he could hope to succeed with such men. He entered into their ways, and he won their hearts, desiring only their good. Enlistment forthwith began, and in the course of a few months Outram had the nucleus of his Bheel force, one of the finest bodies of men to be seen anywhere. The restless rovers were not only content to surrender to discipline, they became proud of it and of their leader. Not only so, he infected the regular and English troops with his own feelings. read

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'Not only were the Bheels received by the men without insulting scoffs, but they were even received as friends, and with the greatest kindness invited to sit down among them, fed by them, and talked to by high and low, as on an equality, from being brother soldiers. This accidental circumstance will produce more beneficial effects than the most studied measures of conciliation; and Bheel reformation will owe much to it. The Bheels returned quite delighted and flattered by their reception, and entreated me to allow them no rest from drill until they became equal to

their brother soldiers! Thus happily has another obstacle been removed.' This obstacle-a purely moral one-he explains to have been caused by the impression that his men would be unfavourably disposed towards the regular army; whereas, instead of any such result accruing from the contact, a feeling of regard for the red-coats arose in the minds of the Bheels which would assuredly, in his opinion, be communicated to future recruits. A postscript dated January 4th reports the arrival and distribution of arms and accoutrements. "The men seemed highly pleased with and proud of the former, notwithstanding that a very few months before they had expressed themselves strongly against receiving them.'

And then Outram never lost sight of the moralizing and socializing influences of education and innocent pastime. As he encouraged his Bheels in all lawful sports and games, and led the way in these, so, whenever matters were so far settled as to permit it, he established schools for the children and adults, and never ceased to take an interest in them. What he thus did for the Bheels of Khandesh he did also for the Bheels of the Dang and for the Kolees; and all within the space of a few years. Without exaggeration it may be said that the youth conquered kingdoms, and thought of it as nothing but his duty. He was therefore not only a soldier but a social reformer; and the last acts of his life are fully in harmony with his earliest. That he was a great man' is seen in his small actions as well as his great ones.

Let any one read thoughtfully the detailed account given by Sir F. Goldsmid of Outram's method in dealing with these Bheels, these Rob Roys of India,' who for ages had fought and harried and kept the country in terror, and surely he will be a slow-witted and unimpressible person if he does not perceive and acknowledge that here was a lesson for all time in the art of dealing with such wild peoples. Outram first set himself to understand the Bheels, and addressed himself to what was best in them-their reverence for power, their fearlessness, and love of independence. Having once shown that he could excel them in all the exercises that they most honoured, he threw himself upon their confidence; he appealed to their hearts and won their affections. The tribes whose complete extermination had been regarded by former governors as essential to the peace of India were, in the course of a few months, made submissive by the hand of this stripling, and presented the material for a most excellent police force, valiant soldiers, and noble and loyal subjects.

2. With regard to Afghanistan-whose name is still in all men's mouths, with a suggestion of difficulties and a dark future-Outram forty years ago clearly foresaw all that are now the special perils of the situation. When the first move

ments were made on Afghanistan, in 1839, he wrote to one of his friends

For our own sakes I think it better we should pass peaceably through Afghanistan and fulfil our mission without hostilities; because once involved in warfare, we should have to continue it under lamentable disadvantages in this country. A blow once struck by us at the Afghans will oblige us to become principals on every occasion hereafter, much to our cost and little to our credit. . . . You will be surprised that I should display so little desire for actual war; but I hope you will give me credit for some discretion, which is as necessary as bravery to a good soldier, and do me the justice to believe that I would weigh well the consequences before plunging into war when hostilities can honourably be avoided. I have well considered every side of this question, and am now satisfied that British bayonets need never be pushed beyond the Hala Mountains for the defence of India; that British armies of any strength could not be supplied or supported for a length of time on this, the Afghan, side of these mountains, and that the natural and impregnable boundary of our empire to the Indus.

And this from the man who had already approved himself a soldier, who was certain to gain were he engaged in such a war. To his friend, Lieutenant Eastwick, he wrote what seems to have some practical application even now—

Every day's experience confirms me in the opinion that we should have contented ourselves with securing the line of the Indus alone, without shackling ourselves with the support of an unpopular Emperor of Afghanistan, whom to maintain will cost us at least thirty lakhs annually, besides embroiling us hereafter with all the rude states beyond, which it must perpetually do. We have now stretched out our feelers too far to pull them back, however, and must and will carry our objects for the present triumphantly; but I cannot blind myself to the embarrassment we are storing up for the future.

And again to Major Felix, about the same time—

If as I suspect will be the case-Dost Mahomed prefers temporary exile to submission, seeing that the Shah is only upheld by the presence of a British army which must soon be withdrawn, he will return with tenfold popularity to raise the standard of the faithful against a king forced upon bigoted Afghanistan by infidel bayonets. Then will Shah Shooja be in his turn deserted by those who are now seduced to his side by British gold, but who only can be held there so long as the golden stream flows undiminishedly. The fact is not to be concealed that Dost Mahomed, at the outset of this struggle, had the preponderance of personal weight in this country, a well-tried, able, and fortunate ruler, against the bad luck, which goes a great way with natives, and bad name of Shah Shooja: and it is not to be supposed that Dost's temporary expulsion will otherwise than enlist the sympathy of his countrymen, who will hail his return too as the triumph of the champion of the true faith' over the hireling slave of 'infidels—as they will then be taught to consider Shah Shooja, if they do not already do so. . . . I am of opinion we should be restricted to placing Shah Shooja in pos