the poet does not seem at all aware of the kind of impression the fact will make, that the noblest of heroes had just once in his life lost his meekness and self-command. This wretch,' he says, 'bent on evil, who for some fault had been formerly kicked to the ground by the foot of Rama, and had conceived a mortal enmity against him, now recollected the ancient grudge.' We may observe too, that, according to a description, given in the first book, of the imperial city, no such person as this distorted and malevolent hag should have been found existing in it. That description runs thus:

In that city of well-fed, happy people, no one was unlearned, no one practised a calling not his own, no one dwelt in a mean habitation, no one was unhappy, none without relatives. There was no miser, no liar, no swindler, no one proud or rash, none malevolent, no boaster, no one meanspirited, no worthless person, none who subsisted on the wealth of another, there were none who lived less than a thousand years; no one implacable, and none without a numerous offspring. The affections of the men were fixed on their own consorts, and the women were chaste and obedient to their husbands; both sexes were patient and faithful in the discharge of their respective duties; no one was without ear-rings, or a crown or a necklace; no one went unperfumed, or without elegant clothing, and none were poor in that magnificent city. No one was seen with tarnished ornaments, no one without a nishka of gold, and none without ornaments on the hands. There was no one perverse, no impious person, no brahman without the constant fire, no neglecter of sacrifice, no man who gave less to the brahmans than a thousand rupees, no one who did not properly discharge the duties of life. Brahmans were constant in sacrifice and in reading the Veda, and averse to receiving gifts; no man was an atheist, a liar, or passionate; there was no tale-bearer, no person infirm, nor any one ceremonially unclean. No one was parsimonious, no one unperfumed, no one insincere; there was no one afflicted there, and none unadorned with ornaments. The women, endued with beauty, wit, sweetness, prudence, industry, and every good quality, were adorned with clean ornaments, and dressed in clean apparel; no one was unwise, malevolent, deformed, or idle. There was no one unfortunate, of narrow mind, or wretched; no one uneasy, no diseased person, no one afflicted with fear,' &c. &c. &c. &c.

It was owing to there being no reviewers in those times, that the poet, after these positive statements and iterations, could with the most easy assurance proceed to tell of the deformed person, the spiteful disposition, and the mischievous contrivances of Kikeyee's attendant, and of that promptitude to evil with which the royal dame herself adopted her malicious inventions. The project (by suggesting which Kikeyee declares that the ugly prompter is transformed into an ex. quisite beauty to her sight) was, that her majesty should recal to Dusha-rutha's memory two carte blanche sort of promises he had once made her, in gratitude for her kind attendance on

him when grievously wounded in a battle with the evil genii; which promises she had at the time declined to turn to account, telling him that she should some time or other claim their fulfilment, when any boon particularly desirable occurred to her mind. Her wicked adviser urged her to claim, now immediately, fulfilment of these two indefinite promises, first engaging his majesty to make a most solemn oath, that, whatever the two things should be that she should ask, he would grant them; and the two favours she was then boldly to ask were no other, than that Rama should be instantly exiled to a great distant forest, to live as an ascetic fourteen years, and that her son should be installed in his stead. But the first movement was to be, her going directly into the house of wrath, enacting the part of a person distracted with grief and indignation. A very curious explanation is here given by the tranlators:

• House of displeasure. It was and still is the custom for great men to make two or more apartments in their houses, for persons of different sexes who may be displeased, to retire to. The affronted person retires to the appointed apartments, after which the other persons of the family come to know the reasons of the displeasure. When the person who gave the affront comes, an explanation usually takes place, and the parties are reconciled.'

Thither our heroine went accordingly, tore off and flung on the ground her ornaments, and among them a necklace formed of many hundred thousand pearls,' shuffled on 'sordid apparel,' and laid herself on the floor. Great was the amazement and distress with which, on returning home from the scene of joyful preparation,

The aged and sinless monarch beheld his young spouse, dearer to him than life, lying on the earth, imagining mischief. As an elephant in a mighty forest beholds a female elephant pierced by the poisoned arrow of the hunter, so the king beheld the distressed Kikeyee, resembling a climbing plant torn from its support, or a fallen goddess, or a Kinnuree expelled from her splendid seat; a fallen Upsura; or an illusive appearance raised by inchantment, or a deer entangled in the toils; and stroking her, with his mind overwhelmed with fear, he thus addressed her, fallen, and breathing like a serpent, "O goddess, &c." ›

She is anxiously entreated, conjured, supplicated, to assign the cause of her being in this situation, and assured that no request she can make will be beyond the power or the will of her devoted lord, who avers that, far as the wheels of the sun travels, the earth is his;'-and it is very remarkable that, among other suggesting questions as to what she would have him to do, this divine one,' this sinless one,' this mirror of just government, is not ashamed to make this inquiry: Say what innocent person thou

wouldst have executed.' He pathetically volunteers pledges and oaths in great profusion; she aggravates upon bim the inviolable obligation, by most solemnly calling all the gods to witness what he has sworn-and then, without further ceremony, comes out with her two demands. The imperial dupe, on whom all epithets expressive of wisdom have been lavished by the poet, is at first, of course, stricken with amazement, and recovers his powers of reflection only to feel himself filled with anguish. And there follows a very long pathetic and tragical scene, in which he gives utterance to all his agonizing emotions; bewailing his destiny, blessing his son, reproaching himself, execrating the beautiful miscreant, heaping on her every term of obloquy, but yet sometimes, amidst his anger and despair, softening into tender expostulation and entreaty. The changes of language are sometimes, even ludicrously abrupt; but there is really a considerable portion of the genuine expression of violent distress and indignation. Many of his expressions are just merely his feelings made audible, and are therefore nothing in point of intellectual conception: but some of his reproaches partake considerably of ingenuity and poetical force. If any English reader labours under a deficiency of terms and diversities of thought for domestic invective, he may consider whether he can make any use of such as these :-O night of universal death in the form of a consort!' I resemble a man who having drunk generous wine mixed with poison, discovers his error too late.' I have kept thee as a man preserves a rope with which he is himself at length hanged.' 'Simple as a child, I have unwarily placed my hand on a black serpent.'

The most virulent and the coarsest reproaches had been all fair in the present instance. For the beautiful spouse, with ' elongated eyes,' manifests, while witnessing all this anguish, the same gratification as that with which a fisherman sees the victim secure in his net or on his hook, mixed with such anger, such truly fiendish anger, as has been sometimes shewn at the earnest struggles of that victim. She talks, in high and peremptory style, to the captive of her wicked art, about virtue and duty.

. Beholding him fallen motionless on the earth, bereft of sensation through grief for his son, she exclaimed, "Already guilty of a criminal delay, why dost thou lie afflicted on the earth? On hearing my word, it becomes thee to rise and stand in the path of truth. Those versed in the rules of duty say that truth is the queen of virtues. Engaged in a promise to me, thou hast heard that Shirya, lord of the earth, having made a promise, obtained beatitude by giving his own body to the hawk. Thus also the illustrious Ulurka, pulling out his own eyes, gave them to the brahmin, learned in the Veda." "Truth rests on one foot; it is

Brahma. Truth is the abode of virtue. Truth is the imperishable Veda; by truth is supreme felicity obtained. If thou approve virtue, O most excellent one, follow after truth. Let thy promise be rendered effectual, seeing thou hast promised. For the sake of virtue, at my requisition, send thy son Rama to the forest. Thrice I repeat my request ; if thou refuse, I will quit life in thy presence."'

And she swears furiously, that she will take poison if he do not comply immediately. If the reader is tempted to think this threat would have had rather a comfortable sound to him, had he been in the old monarch's situation, he must be reminded, that it is a prevailing notion among the Hindoos, that a person may, by suicide, fix the most aggravated guilt and penal consequences of murder on the individual against whom the act is perpetrated.

During this scene in the palace, all the preparations in the city have been most zealously forwarded, all the twice-born,' and all other sorts of people co-operating, with exulting an ticipation. The sun, risen without a cloud,' might behold numberless chariots, banners, golden vessels, with the waters of the Ganges, mountains of fruits and spices, a white bull, bands of music, and all other products and signs of wealth, gladness and virtue; and among them, forming a most remarkable feature of this immaculate city, thousands and thousands of courtezans, with beautiful brows and rolling eyes, expert in female arts,' His majesty is impatiently expected to appear; and an old gentleman, who is at once state-coachman and privy counsellor, and who appears to have acted in these capacities even in a former reign, eight or ten thousand years before at the least, introduces himself, as he had a right to do in virtue of his official rank, into the royal presence, to announce to his majesty the advanced hour and the completeness of the preparations. The monarch with difficulty gives the order to fetch Rama. The venerable fourin-hand statesman drives furiously to the palace of the young monarch elect: the description of which palace, with its environs, comes upon us with the utmost blaze and roar of the oriental style.

the villa of Rama, resplendent as Kilasa, or the palace of Indra; adorned in front with a golden image, the outer pillars adorned with gems and strings of pearls, splendid as the thick autumnal clouds, and spacious as the caverns of mount Meru; ornamented with garlands of gems and pearls, and perfumed with sandal wood and lignum aloes, emitting delightful odours, adorned with golden leopards and beautiful paintings, arresting the eyes and minds of all by its glittering splendour: bright as the moon or the lord of day; equalling the residences of Indra, and lofty as the summit of Meru; resembling a vertical cloud, large and splendid, be spangled with gems of various sorts, and surrounded by the royal retinue, and the elephant on which Rama rode, resembling Iravut, and adorned with pearls."

The flash and glare of all these splendours become so intense by the poet's merciless repetition, that we have hardly sight enough left to attend the prince's cavalcade, at the account of which every other prince may sicken and die with despairing envy.

The chief of men, ascending the thundering spacious car, bright as the fire, lined with tygers' skins, adorned with gems and gold, dazzling the eyes of the beholders with its brightness, magnificent as Meru, and drawn by horses equalling young elephants, appeared like the thousandeyed Indra in his swift chariot drawn by celestial steeds. Rama, glittering with splendour, mounting the chariot, urged onward his rapid course like a thunder cloud discharging itself in the air. A prodigious burst of applause arose from the multitude at his coming forth, like the shouts of two armies rushing to battle, and a mighty crowd in the highway begirt the sovereign of men. Thousands and myriads of steeds and mountain-like elephants followed him. Heroic men went armed before him, perfumed with sandal wood and lignum aloes, and bearing scymitars and bows. Then was heard in the way the sound of musical instruments, the voice of the panegyrizing heralds, and the shout of heroes. The subduer of enemies went forward amidst a profusion of odoriferous flowers, showered on him by women beautifully adorned, standing at the windows of the stately houses,' &c. &c.

To be sure, on reflection, it is true that a good portion of this splendid foolery might be imitated in Paris, or any other European capital: heralds, and shouts, and scynitars, may be had: even the gold and gems might be borrowed for a grand occasion on adequate security: but the myriads of mountain-like elephants? There is what puts you down! It is really fair and obvious here to remark, that nothing can be more ridiculously self-unknowing than for Europeans, as to the greatest part, to laugh at the parade of gaudy splendour among the orientals, and in their descriptive poetry, excepting when such poetry extends the exhibition into impossibilities. For in these philosophic and Christian countries, where true dignity, and reason, and the power of estimating things by their intrinsic value, and every thing of that kind, have attained, it is said, an unexampled perfection, at least among the cultivated classes, it is within. every one's observation, that the first rank of human creatures, and the second rank, and the third rank, (and we do not know how much lower we should go) are striving and vying with all their might, to put themselves in as much tinsel of equipage and exterior magnificence of all kinds as they can, both on what are called grand public occasions, and in much of the ordinary economy of life. Taken in the mass, with

due allowance for exceptions, emperors, princes, statesmen, Christian brahmins, and district magnates, afford the most unequivocal signs of being made of one blood' with the