at the same time raised by the king to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the British army. Thus advanced, he returned to the east in 1755. His first act in his governorship was the reduction of a noted pirate named Angria, who had long infested the Arabian Gulf, and from whose fastnesses L.150,000 were obtained by the conquerors. Shortly afterwards, Clive's whole energies were aroused by certain intelligence brought from Bengal, the richest province of the Mogul empire, and in which, on the banks of the fertilising Ganges, the British had long held the settlement of Fort William or Calcutta. Surajah Dowlah, nominally the viceroy, but in reality the independent sovereign of Bengal, was an ignorant, dissipated young man, who had been trained up in hatred of the British name, and who had ever longed for an opportunity of seizing the property of the settlers at Fort William, which his avarice greatly overrated. He found a plea for the fulfilment of his wish, and attacked the settlement. Then took place the memorable catastrophe of the Black Hole, fatal to one hundred and twentythree British subjects. The brutal despot to whom the affair was ascribable, revelled in his conquest over sals were possible. Clive heard with indignation and the defenceless settlers, and never dreamed that reprihorror of the seizure of Calcutta and the proceedings attending it, and, as similar feelings were entertained by the whole population of Madras, he had no difficulty in obtaining the command of a force of 900 English and 1500 sepoys, for the relief of Fort William. A naval armament, under Admiral Watson, was destined to assist in the same service. As soon as Clive reached the Ganges, he commenced operations with his wonted vigour. In an amazingly short space of time, he took Budgebudge, routed the garrison of Fort William, recovered Calcutta, and stormed and sacked Hoogley. The nabob, though at the head of an immense force, durst not face "the daring in war," as he Asiatically called the English leader. He proposed a treaty, and Clive was most reluctantly obliged by the people of Calcutta to negotiate, when his whole soul was bent on action. In the ensuing arrangements, Surajah Dowlah showed signal duplicity, which seems to have been the means of leading Clive into a course of action forming a lamentable stain upon his name. In return for the secret trafficking of Surajah Dowlah with the French, the English commander encouraged and joined a conspiracy to dethrone the nabob, and crown a relative, Meer Jaffier, in his place. He even stooped to the unjustifiable artifice of temporarily deceiving the nabob by affectionate letters. The chief agent between the English and Surajah Dowlah was a native merchant named Omichund, an artful intriguing man, who took advantage of his knowledge of the conspiracy to demand, for his own services, the exorbitant reward of L.300,000, and insisted upon seeing a condition to that effect introduced into the secret treaty with Meer Jaffier. As Omichund could have defeated the whole scheme by a single word to Surajah Dowlah, Clive was forced to consent to the wily Hindoo's terms, but deceived him by drawing up two copies of the treaty, in one of which only was inserted a clause to the effect desired by Omichund. By these dishonourable means, the conspiracy was kept secret till the hour came for acting openly. When that hour arrived, Clive put his troops in motion, and marched against the nabob, expecting that Meer Jaffier would leave the party of the enemy, and join the English with a strong body of native troops. Surajah Dowlah brought out to the field against him a force of forty thousand infantry, and fifteen thousand cavalry, well armed, and furnished with fifty pieces of ordnance. To confront this great army, Clive had but three thousand men, and of these but one thousand were English. The armies approached each other near Plassey. When they encamped at evening, with but a mile of ground between them, the mind of Clive was for the first time seized with doubt and alarm, as Meer Jaffier showed no intention of fulfilling his promises. The English commander called a council of war, and was advised by the majority of his officers to decline an engagement, where the terms were so fearfully unequal. He himself coincided with this opinion; but afterwards, retiring under the shade of some trees, he held counsel for the space of an hour with himself, and his wonted spirit returned in force. He determined upon a battle, which accordingly took place on the morrow, and ended in the complete and irretrievable defeat of the vast force of Surajah Dowlah. With the loss of no more than twenty-two men, the skill, genius, and daring of Clive gave his little army a victory over nearly sixty thousand men. All the stores of the enemy fell into the hands of the conquerors. The great victory of Plassey decisively established the empire of the English in India. Through the gratitude of the nabob, a shower of wealth fell on the Company and its servants. Clive, who was but a servant of the Company, and not forbidden by its rules to accept of rewards, might have taken to himself an almost unlimited sum, and he did accept a large one-between two and three hundred thousand pounds. At a later period, he also received from Meer Jaffier a gift for life of the annual rental paid to the nabob by the Company, amounting to nearly L.30,000 annually. The immediate cause of this second donation was another great success in arms of the English soldier. Shah Alum, heir of the Mogul throne, assembled an army of forty thousand men, and marched to Bengal, to expel the English and their royal protege, Meer Jaffier. Clive took the field; and almost at the mere sight of his advanced guard, the army of Shah Alum disappeared. Thus, with but one thousand Englishmen, Clive had faced and dispersed 100,000 Asiatics. Another battle took place soon afterwards, but with an enemy of a different stamp. Meer Jaffier, afraid that the same agency down, secretly invited the Dutch to send an armawhich had set him up might also one day pull him ment from Batavia, to balance the power of the English in Bengal. Clive saw the danger of allowing Meer Jaffier to form connexions with the Dutch; and, when their armament came, he attacked and routed it, though with a far inferior force. By these successes did Clive firmly establish that belief in British invincibility, by which, up to this hour, a handful of foreigners, from a far distant country, have been able to govern the immense population of Hindostan. Having placed all things in peace and security, Clive returned to Britain, with such a fortune and reputation as no man before him, it is probable, ever acquired at the age of thirty-four. He was raised by George III, to the Irish peerage, and received by the ministry of Mr Pitt with the most marked attention. He entered the House of Commons in 1761, but did not take so prominent a part there as in the India House. Between these two arenas his time was spent until 1764, when he was again called to India. After his departure from it, affairs had again gone far wrong, and principally through the corrupt rapacity of the Company's servants. When this became known in Britain, the general voice pointed at once to Lord Clive, as the only man capable of restoring order to the empire he had founded. Being appointed Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the British possessions in Bengal, he sailed for the third time from his native shores, at the close of 1764. On his arrival, he found matters to be even in a worse state than had been represented. He nevertheless accomplished every desirable improvement, and, in short, put the finishing stroke to the great work of his life, by permanently settling and confirming the power he had founded. At the end of eighteen months, he returned with broken health to Britain. Here he was not destined to close his life happily. His stern reforms had raised many enemies in the India House, and his wealth was but too well calculated to create additional foes among the spiteful and invidious of all classes. The great services of the man were overlooked, and, as years ran on, seemed to be altogether forgotten. At length, in the year 1772, his conduct was formally brought into review before the House of Commons. In the first instance he defended himself, and in such a way that Lord Chatham, who was present, declared that he had never in his life heard a more finished piece of eloquence. It made a deep impression, yet the investigation went on. He was examined before a committee, and manfully avowed every act of his career. With regard to the money received by him, he told his examinators that when he remembered the immense heaps of gold and precious stones pressed upon his acceptance, "By my honour, Mr Chairman," said he, "at this moment I stand astonished at my own moderation." The result was, that though the house found Clive to have been guilty of some unjustifiable acts, they not only did not censure him, but concluded the affair by a vote admitting that he had rendered "great and meritorious services to his country.” Though thus formally commended by the senate of Britain, Lord Clive was deeply hurt by the persecution of his enemies. His bodily health had for some time declined, and now his once vigorous and penetrating intellect partially gave way. At the comparatively early age of forty-nine, on the 22d of November 1774, this great soldier died, and died by his own hand, after having spent some years in severe suffering.* The real character of Clive is to be estimated in a After the battle, Meer Jaffier, who, during its moment. We behold in him a being formed by nacontinuance, had contrived to side with no party, ture to act as an instrument for performing some of presented himself before Clive, very doubtful of the the rougher and sterner of the world's work, and reception which might be given to him. But the formed, for this purpose, with all that vigour and English leader overlooked all backslidings, and saluted hard-headedness which seem to be called for in such the native prince as Nabob of Bengal. Omichund's functions. The highest moral qualities are perhaps fate was deplorable. He, too, appeared before Clive, not to be looked for in such a character, though we imagining that a great fortune was secured to him by can readily imagine what grace they would give to it. the treaty. "It is time to undeceive him," said the Accordingly, though Clive was perhaps under most of English leader to Mr Scrapton. The latter, a servant the lesser restraints of English gentlemen in his situaof the Company, then addressed the poor dupe. "Omi- tion, he has left a character exhibiting a few deep chund, the treaty which you saw was a fictitious one. taints, to dull the extraordinary brilliancy of his miliYou are to have nothing!" Omichund fell back insen-tary reputation. As a conspicuous public character, sible. He was restored to life, but never to the full exercise of his reason, though Clive did all in his power to soothe him, and soften the effects of the blow. * His eldest son was raised in the peerage to the English earl. dom of Powis he ranks amongst a few who do something to redeem the eighteenth century from the tameness usually attributed to it. Those who speak of the last age as a blank in acts and in the characters of men, would do well to study the colossal genius of Chatham, and the conquest of India by Lord Clive. A WISTERN MAN. published (Bentley, London), and which appears to be Sam Slick, in his third series of the Clockmaker, newly as full of quaint drollery as either of the former two, introduces a raw-boned denizen of the remote Western States, all made up of fox-traps, and as springy as a saplin-ash. They meet at a tavern, and the following is the account of their interview: "All at once he recollected my phiz, and jumpin' up and catchin' hold of my hand, which he squeezed as if it was in a vice, he roared out, Why, it ain't possible! said he. Lawful heart alive, if that ain't you! ** Come, let's liquor; I want to wet up; the sight of an old friend warms my heart so, it makes my lips dry. What will you have?-cocktail, sling, julip, sherry cobbler, purk talabogus, clear sheer, or switchell ?--name your drink, greased patch down a smooth rifle. Well, says I, I am oranges; do you take one, and I'll take the other, and let WALPOLE'S FAME. When I was very young, and during the height of the opposition to my father, my mother wanted a large parcel of bugles; for what use I forget. As they were then out of fashion, she could get none. At last she was told of a quantity in a little shop in an obscure alley in the city. We drove thither; found a great stock :. she bought it, and bade the proprietor send it home, He said, "Whither?" "To Sir Robert Walpole's." He asked coolly, “Who is Sir Robert Walpole ?"Horace Walpole's Letters. things were so weary, that they slept without heeding the roaring thunder or the rain, and so we passed the first night in the bush." The next day, she said, they set to work quite early; her husband chopped down the trees, and cut them into lengths, while she tended the children, and did what she could to help him. Then she and he put up the hut; she, with the aid of a handspike, helped to roll on the logs, and lay the foundation of their little dwelling, and when the walls were being raised, she stood on the upper logs, and helped to haul them up with a rope; then her husband notched them and fixed them; so that, by dint of hard labour, their outside walls were raised ere night, and a few cedar and hemlock boughs and tops closed them in till they were able to lay a roof of troughed sap-wood the next day. After that, they raised a wall of stones and clay against one end, which served for a chimney, with a square hole cut in the roof to let out the smoke. They next commenced chopping a bit of ground for potatoes. I forget now how they got on, but I rather think badly, and suffered much want of food during the winter. In the spring the wife fell ill with intermittent fever, and was reduced to the most deplorable condition. She also lost one of the children that year. Her husband was at last obliged to leave her, to get work at some distance, that he might procure food to keep them from absolute star vation. Just imagine the dreadful condition to which these poor creatures must have been reduced, when the husband was forced to leave the sick helpless starving wife and children alone. It so chanced that the person to whom he applied for work was a good and charitable man; he noticed the miserable anxiety of the distressed husband, and asked the cause; this was soon made known, and without waiting for further proof, the master instantly hurried him off to the relief of his suffering partner, loaded with food and necessaries for her and the children. “Oh, ma'am, sure never was sight so welcome to my eyes as that of my husband when he came in and set before me first one thing, then another; and I do believe that want of food was one of the causes of my illness, for, after a little while, I got well and strong; for our good master would never let my husband go home of a Saturday night without something for me, and his dear wife would fill a basket with cakes, and butter, and milk, and eggs, and all sorts of nice things, for me; and never, as long as I live, shall I forget the goodness of that blessed couple to me and mine." Is it not good and pleasant to hear of such worthy people? I was much struck by an anecdote she related of her eldest child, a little girl of only eight years old; and as it serves to illustrate the character of courage and energy which I have before attributed to our young Canadians, I shall fill out my sheet by relating it to you in the words of the mother, as near as I can recall them. "My husband was out at work many miles from home, and I was alone with my little ones, when about midnight I found myself taken very poorly. Indeed, ma'am, my confinement was at hand, and my pains came upon me so exceedingly fast, that no time was to be lost in getting help, for my little girl was too young to be of any service at a time like that. In this sore distress, I knew not what to do; but I woke up Elizabeth, and told her I was ill, and bade her light up the fire. This she quickly did, and set on water to warm. Mammy,' said she, you look very badly; lie down on the bed again, and I will go for ;' a neighbour's wife, who lived about half a mile higher up through the bush. "My child,' said I, 'you will not dare to go at this time of night alone through the dark woods. Mammy,' said she again, 'I can carry a cedar torch; there is dry bark on the roof.' Mrs "Take your brother with you, then, for company,' said I to her. No, mammy, he will only hinder me by falling over the sticks and logs; I will run all the way, and soon be back again with Mrs and the little thing, with the thoughtfulness of an older person, begged me to make myself easy, and lie down till she returned. And away she went, and I looked out after her into the dark night, and watched her with the torch till I saw her take the right path; but she had not been gone long before I began to reproach myself for having suffered her to go alone into the woods. What if she should miss the blazed line, and wander off the track, and get lost in the swamps or devoured by wolves or bears?' thought I; and when this notion came over me, I became like one out of my senses; I ran to the edge of the clearing, calling upon the child to return, and then I came in and sat me down and cried, to think how I had sacrificed my child. Time passed on, and I grew worse and worse. Now,' I said to myself, I must perish, for there is no one to help me; and the child will be lost, and my poor girl; and what will my poor husband say when he returns? But God was merciful beyond my deserts, for even as the last pangs of a mother seized me, I heard the quick step of my child before the door, and her voice calling out cheerfully that Mrs was coming; and in that moment of thankfulness and joy the baby was born, even before they could close the door and come to my help." The little girl had twice strayed from the path, but by good fortune discovered her error before it was too late, and had thus succeeded in bringing the needful help to her poor mother. Ilow few children of eight years of age dared have ventured forth on such an errand at such an hour! Yet this is only one instance among many of fearless and devoted courage displayed by our young folks: I could almost term it infant heroism. LORD CLIVE. THE empire acquired by the British in Hindostan, whether it prove for good or bad to either party, forms certainly one of the most remarkable chapters in modern history. Its foundations were mainly laid by the singular energy of one man, originally an obscure gentleman, and one whose qualities seemed at first of a most unpromising kind, but who, cast accidentally into a sphere where his peculiar abilities were fully brought out, ultimately became one of the most eminent men of his age. as Robert Lord Clive was descended from a family long settled near Market-Drayton, in Shropshire, and possessed of a small estate in that county. At the family seat there, on the 29th of September 1725, Robert Clive was born, being the eldest of a numerous offspring. His strangely resolute and combative character was early evinced. A relative, writing of him when he was seven or eight years of age, described him "immeasurably addicted to fighting." No enterprise was too dangerous for him to attempt, no feat too difficult for him to accomplish, in the usual line of boyish adventure. It may be supposed that a boy with such qualities and predilections could not be a very attentive or promising scholar, and in reality none of the many masters under whom he was placed could find out the way to tame or instruct him. In his eighteenth year, his despairing relatives were glad to give their heir a younger son's fate, and ship him off in the capacity of a writer for the East India Company's settlement of Madras. These The Company could at this time boast of no further possessions in India than their trading ports, and a few square miles of the surrounding country, which they rented from the native princes. Clive's landing was a moment much more worthy of an omen than that of Cæsar in Britain, or even of Cortez in Mexico. But the young and obscure writer entered Madras and assumed the duties of his office, without any peculiar notice from the elements or man. duties, as might be expected, were very distasteful to him, and he soon fell into such a state of melancholy, that he twice raised a pistol to his head to take away his life. Both times, however, the weapon failed to go off; and Clive, it is said, was impressed by the circumstance with a belief that something great was in store for him. One fortunate result of his depression of spirits was his resorting to books for amusement. The governor granted the entrée of his library to the young writer, who made use of it so freely as to retrieve to a very considerable extent the consequences of his early idleness. War existed at this time between the British and French; and not long after Clive's arrival, Madras fell into the hands of Dupleix, governor of Pondicherry. A number of the inhabitants left the place. Our youthful writer went with others to Fort St David; and as the circumstances of the hour were calculated to awaken his natural spirit, he sought and received the commission of an ensign in the Company's service. In some subsequent operations against the French, his coolness and intrepidity called down on him the notice of one of the best soldiers then in India, Major Lawrence. Still more attention, however, was drawn to him by his quelling, in a desperate duel, the pride of a military bully, long the terror of Fort St David. When, by the restoration of peace at home, Madras was delivered up to its proper owners, Clive returned for a short time to his desk; but circumstances soon drew him back into his proper sphere. At this period Hindostan was in a most unsettled state. The heir and successor of the Mogul emperors still lived at Delhi, and claimed the sovereignty of the entire peninsula, but in reality the authority was possessed by numerous independent and hereditary princes, who named themselves viceroys and sub-viceroys, but paid no tribute, excepting perhaps an occasional present. Dupleix, the French governor of Pondicherry, a subtle and ambitious man, saw how easy it would be for a civilised power to gain the virtual authority in the peninsula, if a footing were but once fairly obtained. An opportunity for this occurred, and he grasped at it. Rival claimants started up for the viceroyship of the Deccan and the nabobship of the Carnatic, and Dupleix, taking the part of certain of the pretenders, triumphantly placed them in power, with the help of French troops. Chunda-Sahib, one of those whom he assisted, became the nominal ruler of the Carnatic, but in truth the puppet of Dupleix. This acquisition of supremacy by the French in the very province in which Madras was situated, threatened nothing less than absolute ruin to the British interests in India. The Madras authorities felt this, and looked on in dismay, while their ally, the true heir of the throne of the Carnatic, was besieged by Chunda-Sahib and the French in Trinchinopoly, his only remaining possession. They might count upon seeing themselves next assailed, their property destroyed, and their lives thrown into jeopardy. They had scarcely any force to defend themselves, and in consequence all was anxiety and alarm. At this contingency, Clive, who was yet but twentyfive years of age, started forward, to change, by his daring and genius, the whole aspect of affairs. Obtaining the rank of captain and commissary, he proposed to his superiors, as the only way of saving themselves and freeing the Carnatic, that they should give him a force to attack the capital of Arcot, by which means the French would certainly be drawn off Trinchinopoly. The bold proposal was assented to, and Clive, at the head of two hundred Europeans and three hundred sepoys, marched to Arcot, in spite of thunder, rain, and storm. The result which followed was merited by the intrepidity of the young leader. At his approach the garrison of Arcot fled in a panic, and the English entered without opposition. Knowing, however, that Chunda-Sahib would instantly attempt his dislodgement, Clive was no sooner installed in his conquest than he began to collect provisions and strengthen the place. His first assailants were the late holders of the garrison, who returned in a body, to the number of three thousand men. Clive allowed them to sit down before the walls in peace, and then made a night sortie, which ended in their total dispersion, with greatly diminished numbers, while the garrison lost not one man. Chunda Sahib, enraged by this unexpected opposition, now sent his son, Rajah Sahib, to the recovery of Arcot ; and Clive, with his own numbers reduced by casualties to three hundred and twenty men, found himself besieged by ten thousand. The fortifications were wretched and ruinous, yet for fifty days the young commander defended the walls against all assaults. Rajah Sahib now attempted to bribe Clive, but the vast sums offered were rejected with scorn. At length the rajah determined upon a decisive night attack. The leader of the garrison heard of it, and was on his guard. When the enemy advanced, therefore, driving before them elephants armed with strong head-pieces of iron, in the hope of forcing the gates by their united efforts, Clive directed incessant shots against the animals, which caused them to turn in agony upon their drivers, and trample them under foot. Thrice afterwards did the beleaguering force make a desperate onset on the place, and as often was repelled with great slaughter, till, finally, Rajah Sahib gave orders to his troops to fly from the spot. Next morning the garrison of Arcot saw before them no enemy. The elated people of Madras sent the young victor a reinforcement of two hundred English, and seven hundred sepoys. With this force at command, he was not the man to remain idle. He immediately took steps to clear the Carnatic of every foe of its legitimate ruler, Mohammed Ali. Effecting a junction with one or two thousand native troops in the pay of that prince, he seized on the strong fort of Timery, and suddenly, by forced marches, presented himself before his old foe Rajah Sahib, then at the head of five thousand men. Over this prince he gained a decisive victory, and captured all the rajah's valuable military stores. Had the Madras authorities now supported the victor in an efficient way, he would have made no halt until he had closed the war; but they were dilatory, and allowed time to Rajah Sahib to collect a new army and menace the main British settlement itself. Clive, however, again surprised and defeated him signally. Major Lawrence now came from England to assume the chief command. Clive showed his magnanimity by serving cheerfully as second to his friend, who well knew the young captain's value, and called him, in letters to friends, "a man of undaunted resolution, of a cool temper, and of a presence of mind which never left him in the greatest danger-born a soldier." Under Lawrence and Clive, the arms of Britain triumphed every where. The whole Carnatic was overrun, and Chunda-Sahib taken prisoner, in which situation he died, a victim to Mohammed Ali's jealousy. Dupleix tried every art to restore the French supremacy, but in vain. The conquest of the Carnatic, however, cost Clive his health, which he was forced to recruit by a journey to England. Before his departure he married Miss Maskelyne, daughter of the well-known astronomer and mathematician, Dr Maskelyne. The eyes of the people of England were at this time directed anxiously to India, chiefly, perhaps, because no contest existed to arrest their attention in any other quarter of the world. France and Britain had concluded a peace, being content to look upon the strife in Hindostan as one not national, but concerning only two private trading companies. However, its importance was not underrated, and the gallant young captain (Clive was yet but twentyseven), who had conquered the Carnatic, and effected a most extraordinary change in the aspect of British affairs in the east, was welcomed by his countrymen with the loudest acclamations. The East India Company tendered him a vote of thanks, and presented to him a magnificent sword set with diamonds. His family, who had formerly looked upon him as a hopeless scape-grace, now regarded him as a hero, and the hope and pride of their ancient house. Constitutionally generous, he devoted a large part of the prizemoney which he brought home to relieving the pecuniary distresses of his father. The remainder was chiefly dissipated upon a contested parliamentary election, at the close of which the young soldier found himself unseated, and again poor. He then thought once more of India, and the offer of service which he made to the Company was at once accepted. He received the governorship of Fort St David, and was at the same time raised by the king to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the British army. Thus advanced, he returned to the east in 1755. His first act in his governorship was the reduction of a noted pirate named Angria, who had long infested the Arabian Gulf, and from whose fastnesses L.150,000 were obtained by the conquerors. Shortly afterwards, Clive's whole energies were aroused by certain intelligence brought from Bengal, the richest province of the Mogul empire, and in which, on the banks of the fertilising Ganges, the British had long held the settlement of Fort William or Calcutta. Surajah Dowlah, nominally the viceroy, but in reality the independent sovereign of Bengal, was an ignorant, dissipated young man, who had been trained up in hatred of the British name, and who had ever longed for an opportunity of seizing the property of the settlers at Fort William, which his avarice greatly overrated. He found a plea for the fulfilment of his wish, and attacked the settlement. Then took place the memorable catastrophe of the Black Hole, fatal to one hundred and twentythree British subjects. The brutal despot to whom the affair was ascribable, revelled in his conquest over the defenceless settlers, and never dreamed that reprisals were possible. Clive heard with indignation and horror of the seizure of Calcutta and the proceedings attending it, and, as similar feelings were entertained by the whole population of Madras, he had no difficulty in obtaining the command of a force of 900 English and 1500 sepoys, for the relief of Fort William. A naval armament, under Admiral Watson, was destined to assist in the same service. As soon as Clive reached the Ganges, he commenced operations with his wonted vigour. In an amazingly short space of time, he took Budgebudge, routed the garrison of Fort William, recovered Calcutta, and stormed and sacked Hoogley. The nabob, though at the head of an immense force, durst not face "the daring in war," as he Asiatically called the English leader. He proposed a treaty, and Clive was most reluctantly obliged by the people of Calcutta to negotiate, when his whole soul was bent on action. In the ensuing arrangements, Surajah Dowlah showed signal duplicity, which seems to have been the means of leading Clive into a course of action forming a lamentable stain upon his name. In return for the secret trafficking of Surajah Dowlah with the French, the English commander encouraged and joined a conspiracy to dethrone the nabob, and crown a relative, Meer Jaffier, in his place. He even stooped to the unjustifiable artifice of temporarily deceiving the nabob by affectionate letters. The chief agent between the English and Surajah Dowlah was a native merchant named Omichund, an artful intriguing man, who took advantage of his knowledge of the conspiracy to demand, for his own services, the exorbitant reward of L.300,000, and insisted upon seeing a condition to that effect introduced into the secret treaty with Meer Jaffier. As Omichund could have defeated the whole scheme by a single word to Surajah Dowlah, Clive was forced to consent to the wily Hindoo's terms, but deceived him by drawing up two copies of the treaty, in one of which only was inserted a clause to the effect desired by Omichund. By these dishonourable means, the conspiracy was kept secret till the hour came for acting openly. The great victory of Plassey decisively established the empire of the English in India. Through the gratitude of the nabob, a shower of wealth fell on the Company and its servants. Clive, who was but a servant of the Company, and not forbidden by its rules to accept of rewards, might have taken to himself an almost unlimited sum, and he did accept a large one-between two and three hundred thousand pounds. At a later period, he also received from Meer Jaffier a gift for life of the annual rental paid to the nabob by the Company, amounting to nearly L.30,000 annually. The immediate cause of this second donation was another great success in arms of the English soldier. Shah Alum, heir of the Mogul throne, assembled an army of forty thousand men, and marched to Bengal, to expel the English and their royal protege, Meer Jaffier. Clive took the field; and almost at the mere sight of his advanced guard, the army of Shah Alum disappeared. Thus, with but one thousand Englishmen, Clive had faced and dispersed 100,000 Asiatics. Another battle took place soon afterwards, but with an enemy of a different stamp. Meer Jaffier, afraid that the same agency which had set him up might also one day pull him down, secretly invited the Dutch to send an armament from Batavia, to balance the power of the English in Bengal. Clive saw the danger of allowing Meer Jaffier to form connexions with the Dutch; and, when their armament came, he attacked and routed it, though with a far inferior force. By these successes did Clive firmly establish that belief in British invincibility, by which, up to this hour, a handful of foreigners, from a far distant country, have been able to govern the immense population of Hindostan. Having placed all things in peace and security, Clive returned to Britain, with such a fortune and reputation as no man before him, it is probable, ever acquired at the age of thirty-four. He was raised by George III. to the Irish peerage, and received by the ministry of Mr Pitt with the most marked attention. He entered the House of Commons in 1761, but did not take so prominent a part there as in the India House. Between these two arenas his time was spent until 1764, when he was again called to India. After his departure from it, affairs had again gone far wrong, and principally through the corrupt rapacity of the Company's servants. When this became known in Britain, the general voice pointed at once to Lord Clive, as the only man capable of restoring order to the empire he had founded. Being appointed Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the British possessions in Bengal, he sailed for the third time from his native shores, at the close of 1764. On his arrival, he found matters to be even in a worse state than had been represented. He nevertheless accomplished every desirable improvement, and, in short, put the finishing stroke to the great work of his life, by permanently settling and confirming the power he had founded. At the end of eighteen months, he returned with broken health to Britain. Here he was not destined to close his life happily. His stern reforms had raised many enemies in the India House, and his wealth was but too well calculated to create additional foes among the spiteful and invidious of all classes. The When that hour arrived, Clive put his troops in great services of the man were overlooked, and, as years motion, and marched against the nabob, expecting ran on, seemed to be altogether forgotten. At length, that Meer Jaffier would leave the party of the enemy, in the year 1772, his conduct was formally brought and join the English with a strong body of native into review before the House of Commons. In the troops. Surajah Dowlah brought out to the field first instance he defended himself, and in such a way against him a force of forty thousand infantry, and that Lord Chatham, who was present, declared that fifteen thousand cavalry, well armed, and furnished he had never in his life heard a more finished piece of with fifty pieces of ordnance. To confront this great eloquence. It made a deep impression, yet the invesarmy, Clive had but three thousand men, and of these tigation went on. He was examined before a combut one thousand were English. The armies ap-mittee, and manfully avowed every act of his career. proached each other near Plassey. When they en- With regard to the money received by him, he told camped at evening, with but a mile of ground between his examinators that when he remembered the imthem, the mind of Clive was for the first time seized mense heaps of gold and precious stones pressed upon with doubt and alarm, as Meer Jaffier showed no his acceptance, "By my honour, Mr Chairman," said intention of fulfilling his promises. The English he, "at this moment I stand astonished at my own commander called a council of war, and was advised moderation." The result was, that though the house by the majority of his officers to decline an engage- found Clive to have been guilty of some unjustifiable ment, where the terms were so fearfully unequal. He acts, they not only did not censure him, but concluded himself coincided with this opinion; but afterwards, the affair by a vote admitting that he had rendered retiring under the shade of some trees, he held counsel great and meritorious services to his country." for the space of an hour with himself, and his wonted Though thus formally commended by the senate of spirit returned in force. He determined upon a Britain, Lord Clive was deeply hurt by the persecution battle, which accordingly took place on the morrow, of his enemies. His bodily health had for some time and ended in the complete and irretrievable defeat of declined, and now his once vigorous and penetrating the vast force of Surajah Dowlah. With the loss of intellect partially gave way. At the comparatively no more than twenty-two men, the skill, genius, and early age of forty-nine, on the 22d of November 1774, daring of Clive gave his little army a victory over this great soldier died, and died by his own hand, nearly sixty thousand men. All the stores of the after having spent some years in severe suffering.* enemy fell into the hands of the conquerors. The real character of Clive is to be estimated in a After the battle, Meer Jaffier, who, during its moment. We behold in him a being formed by nacontinuance, had contrived to side with no party, ture to act as an instrument for performing some of presented himself before Clive, very doubtful of the the rougher and sterner of the world's work, and reception which might be given to him. But the formed, for this purpose, with all that vigour and English leader overlooked all backslidings, and saluted hard-headedness which seem to be called for in such the native prince as Nabob of Bengal. Omichund's functions. The highest moral qualities are perhaps fate was deplorable. He, too, appeared before Clive, not to be looked for in such a character, though we imagining that a great fortune was secured to him by can readily imagine what grace they would give to it. "It is time to undeceive him," said the Accordingly, though Clive was perhaps under most of English leader to Mr Scrapton. The latter, a servant the lesser restraints of English gentlemen in his situaof the Company, then addressed the poor dupe. "Omi- tion, he has left a character exhibiting a few deep chund, the treaty which you saw was a fictitious one. taints, to dull the extraordinary brilliancy of his miliYou are to have nothing" Omichund fell back insen-tary reputation. As a conspicuous public character, sible. He was restored to life, but never to the full exercise of his reason, though Clive did all in his power to soothe him, and soften the effects of the blow. the treaty. * His eldest son was raised in the peerage to the English earldom of Powis. he ranks amongst a few who do something to redeem the eighteenth century from the tameness usually attributed to it. Those who speak of the last age as a blank in acts and in the characters of men, would do well to study the colossal genius of Chatham, and the conquest of India by Lord Clive. A WISTERN MAN. published (Bentley, London), and which appears to be Sam Slick, in his third series of the Clockmaker, newly as full of quaint drollery as either of the former two, introduces a raw-boned denizen of the remote Western States, all made up of fox-traps, and as springy as a saplin-ash. They meet at a tavern, and the following is the account of their interview: "All at once he recollected my phiz, and jumpin' up and catchin' hold of my hand, which he squeezed as if it was in a vice, he roared out, Why, it ain't possible! said he. Lawful heart alive, if that ain't you! * Come, let's liquor; I want to wet up; the sight of an old friend warms my heart so, it makes my lips dry. What will you have?-cocktail, sling, julip, sherry cobbler, purk my man, and let's have a gum tickler, for old acquainttalabogus, clear sheer, or switchell ?-name your drink, ance, somethin' that will go down the throat like a greased patch down a smooth rifle. Well, says I, I am no ways pitikilar; suppose we have brandy cocktail, it's as 'bout as good a nightcap as I know on. Done, said he, with a friendly tap on my shoulder that nearly dislocated my neck; I like a man that knows his own mind. ** I'll go and speak for it to one of the gentlemen at the bar. With that he swiggled his way through the crowd, to the counter, and, says he, Major, says he, I guess you may let one of your aidy-conks bring us a pint of cocktail the hinges of a feller's tongue.-Well, we sot down and but let it be letter A, No. I, and strong enough to loosen chatted away till we had finished our liquor; and now, feller, for I am a free-trader now. I have got a'most an says he, Slick, answer me a few questions, that's a good angeliferous craft, a rael screemer, and I'm the man that sez it. The way she walks her chalks ain't no matter. She is a regilar fore-and-after. When I hoist the fore-sail she is mad, and when I run up the mainsail she goes ravin' distracted. She goes right on eend like a rampin' alligator. She'll go so quick, she'll draw their wind out; go ahead! cock-a-doodle-doo! And he crowed like a rael live rooster.-Go ahead, steam-boat-cock-a-doodledoo! and he smashed my hat in, most ridikilous over my eyes, a-flappin' so with his hands, like wings. considerable excitin', and has whetted my appetite proBut come, said he, that cocktail and your news is perly; I guess I'll order supper. What shall it be corn bread and common doin's, or wheat bread and chickin fixin's? But we must fust play for it. What do you say to a game at all-fours, blind-hookey, odd and even, wild cat and 'coon, or something or another, jist to pass time? Come, I'll size your pile.-Size my pile! says I; why, what the plague is that? I never heerd tell of that sayin' afore.-Why, says he, shell out, and plank down a pile of dollars or doubloons, of any size you like, and I'll put down another of the same size. Come, what do you say? No, I thank you, says I, I never play.-Will you the shot for supper.-No, says I; since I broke my leg wrestle, then? said he; and whose ever throw'd pays a-ridin' a cussed Blue-nose hoss, I hante strength enough for that. Well, then, we are near about of a height, says he, I estimate; let's chalk on the wall, and whoever chalks lowest liquidates the bill.-If it warn't for the plaguy rhumatiz I caught once to Nova Scotia, says I, a-sleepin' in a bed the night arter a damp gall lodged there, I think I would give you a trial, says I; but the very thoughts of that foggy heifer gives me the cramp.. I jist said that to make him larf, for I seed he was a-gettin' his steam up rather faster than was safe, and that he could jist double me up like a spare shirt if he liked, for nothin' will take the wiry edge of a man's temper off like stop, said he; it's no use a-sittin' here as still as two rotten a joke: he fairly roared out, it tickled him so.--But, stumps in a fog. I'll tell you what we'll do; here's two oranges; do you take one, and I'll take the other, and let us take a shy among them glasses to the bar there, and knock some o' them to darned shivers, and whoever breaks the fewest shall pay for the smash and the supper too. Come, are you ready, my old coon? let's drive blueblazes thro' 'em.-No, says I; I'd be sure to lose, for I am the poorest shot in the world.-Poorest shote, said he, you mean, for you have no soul in you. I believe you have fed on pumpkins so long in Conne'ticut, you are jist about as soft, and as holler, and good-for-nothin', as they be; what ails you? You hante got no soul in you, man, at all. This won't do: we must have a throw for it. I don't valy the money a cent; it ain't that, but I like to spikilate in all things. I'll tell you what we'll do-let's spit for it; and he drew his chair up even with mine. Now, says he, bring your head back in a line with the top rail, and let go; and whoever spits farthest without spatterin' wins.-Well, says I, you'll laugh when I tell you, I dare say, but I've gin up spittin' since I went down to Nova Scotia. Spittin' would spile a trade there as quick as thunder does milk. I'm out of practice.Well, then, what the plague will you do? says he.-- Why, says I, a-takin' up the candle, and a-yawnin' so wide and so deep you could hear the watch tickin' thro' my mouth, I'll guess to bed." go WALPOLE'S FAME. When I was very young, and during the height of the opposition to my father, my mother wanted a large parcel of bugles; for what use I forget. As they were then out of fashion, she could get none. At last she was told of a quantity in a little shop in an obscure alley in the city. We drove thither; found a great stock: she bought it, and bade the proprietor send it home. He said, "Whither?" "To Sir Robert Walpole's." He asked coolly, "Who is Sir Robert Walpole ?"Horace Walpole's Letters. THE DESERT OF JERICHO. THE LEISURE OF THE WORKING-CLASSES. [From an Address of the Rev. Archibald Bennie, at the open ing of the Edinburgh School of Arts, Oct. 28, 1840.] of that day lived sumptuously on thirty rupees a-month, kissed his little favourite over and over again, and then The desert is an immense plain, with several elevations, spreading no other carpeting on their sabine floors he proceeded to tie the rope around and across her, which sink successively, as far as the river Jordan, by than a coating of fresh cow-dung, asking no other light so as to guard against all possibility of its slipping. regular gradations, like the steps of a natural staircase. whereby to read their dispatches than what was ad- Having accomplished this, he shouted to Peter to pull away-kissed the little Rosa once more, and then comThe eye can distinguish only one complete plain; but mitted through oyster-shell windows, and enjoying no after marching an hour, we come all at once on one of other luxury than a healthy shaking in a homely but mitted her to the vacant air. Nothing could equal the these terraces, which we descend by a rapid slope, and neatly curtained bullock-hackery. But times are altered, anxiety he endured whilst he beheld her slowly rising march another hour, when there is a fresh descent, and and it is now the capital of Western India, the third in upwards. And when he beheld the mother's hands apthus the whole way. The soil is a white compact sand, the scale of rank and seniority in the eastern empire. pear over the edge of the rock, and snatch her from his covered by a concrete and saline crust, produced doubt. Its increase of population has kept pace with its politi-sight, nothing could match the shout of delight which he less by the fogs from the Dead Sea, which, on their cal and commercial advancement. While neighbouring gave. The maternal screams of joy which followed, and evaporation, deposit this salt crust. There is no stone cities waned in consequence and wealth, Bombay pro- which came faintly down to his ears, were to him a full or earth, except on approaching the river or the moun- gressed in both, and attracted to itself, as to a focus of reward for all the terrors of his desperate enterprise. tains; there is, on all sides, a vast horizon; and we speculation or employment, the adventurous, the in- For that instant he forgot the perilous situation in which distinguished, from an immense distance, an Arab gal-dustrious, and the needy. The transfer of the Presi- he then stood, and the risk that he had yet to run ere loping over the plain. As this desert is the theatre of dency from Surat, and its decline in trade, brought he could hope to be extricated from it.-Sir Thomes their attacking, pillaging, and massacring the caravans Parsees, Banyans, and Boras. The overthrow of Tip-| Dick Lauder's Tales of the Highlands. going from Jerusalem to Damascus, or from Mesopo- poo's power, the capture of the Dutch settlements, and tamia to Egypt, the Arabs take advantage of some dethe decline of the Portuguese, produced a similar influx tached hills formed by the moving sand, and have also from the south. Goa, Cochin, and every other part on erected artificial ones, to hide themselves from the ob- the western coast, sent respectively Sinoys and Malpas, servation of the caravans, and to descry them from Malabar, Dutch, and Portuguese Christians. The downafar; they hollow out the sand on the summit of these fall of the Peshwa, and the breaking up of the great hills, and there burrow with their horses. As soon as Mahratta courts and armies, thronged the place with they perceive their prey, they dart with the rapidity of Brahmins and upland peasants, men of the sword and the falcon; they go to apprise their tribe, and return of the pen. The trade in pearls and carpets brought all together to the attack. Such is their only industrial Jews and Armenians, and the demand for the beautiful occupation, such their only glory; civilisation with them Arabian horse lured to its shores a dense population is murder and pillage, and they attach as much import-altogether new, presenting alternately the physiognomy ance to their successes in this species of exploit, as our of the graceful and effeminate Persian, the small and conquerors to the acquisition of a province. Their piercing features of the Arab, and the wild swarthy poets, for they have poets, celebrate in their verses and hairy-looking visages of Caubul Candaur, or Kurthese scenes of barbarity, and deliver down, from genedistan. The partial opening of the trade, the profits ration to generation, the honoured memory of their of the opium speculations, and the accession of terricourage and their crimes. The horses have a consi- tory which followed the success of arms in 1816, nearly derable share of the glory assigned them in these requadrupled the number of British inhabitants. Add citals: here is one, which the scheik's son related to to the above, Italian and American missionaries, traus on the way:— vellers, experimentalists, and professional men from the continent of Europe; persecuted Christians from Georgia; ruined families from Cashmere, Polish counts, Dutch barons, Malays, sailors, negro-servants, Macao traders, Brazil merchants, Canton shoemakers, Pekin sausage-makers, bakers, Bhya hamauls, Camatee Chutreewalas, together with a long string of gipsies, tumblers, fire-eaters, drum-beaters, sarungee-players, dancing-girls, and courtesans, from every quarter of India; and there is a mottled population of 400,000 persons, more multifarious in country, religion, caste, language, complexion, and profession, than perhaps any other city in the world could at the present day produce.Newspaper paragraph. "An arab and his tribe had attacked in the desert the caravan of Damascus; the victory was complete, and the Arabs were already occupied in loading their rich booty, when the troops of the Pacha of Acre, coming to meet this caravan, fell suddenly upon the victorious Arabs, slew a great number of them, made the remainder prisoners, and, having tied them with cords, conducted them to Acre to present them before the pacha. Abou-el-Marsch, the Arab of whom he spoke, had received a ball in his arm during the combat; as his wound was not mortal, the Turks had fastened him on a camel, and having obtained possession of his horse, led off both horse and horseman. The evening before which they were to enter Acre, they encamped with their prisoners in the mountains of Saphad; the wounded Arab had his legs bound together by a leathern thong, and was stretched near the tent where the Turks were sleeping. During the night, kept awake by the pain of his wound, he heard his horse neigh amongst the other horses fastened around the tents according to oriental usage. He recognised his neigh, and, unable to resist the desire of speaking once more to the companion of his life, he dragged himself with difficulty along the ground, by the assistance of his hands and knees, and came up to his courser. 'Poor friend,' said he to it, what wilt thou do amongst the Turks? Thou wilt be immured under the arches of a khan, with the horses of an aga or of a pacha; the women and the children will no longer bring thee the camel's milk, or the barley, or the doura in the hollow of their hands; thou wilt no longer run free in the desert, as the wind of Egypt; thou wilt no more divide the waters of the Jordan with thy breast, and cool thy skin, as white as their foam: therefore, if I remain a slave, remain thou free!-go, return to the tent which thou knowest; say to my wife that Abou-el-Marsch will return no more, and put thy head under the curtains of the tent to lick the hands of my little children.' Whilst speaking thus, Abou-elMarsch had gnawed through with his teeth the cord of goat-hair which fetters Arab horses, and the animal was free; but seeing its master wounded and bound at its feet, the faithful and sagacious steed understood by instinct what no language could explain to him. He stooped his head, smelt his master, and, seizing him with his teeth by the leathern thong which he had about his body, went off in a gallop and bore him to his tent. On arriving and placing his master on the sand, at the feet of his wife and children, the horse expired from fatigue. All the tribe wept for him, the poets have celebrated him, and his name is constantly in the mouths of the Arabs of Jericho."-Lamartine's Travels in the East. FORMER AND PRESENT STATE OF BOMBAY. A few centuries since, this island was a mere settlement of gardeners and bhundaries, known only for the arrack and cocoa-nut oil, which, in common with other palm-clad ccasts, it transmitted to the interior, and for the flower of its Mazagong mangoes, of which it sent a yearly tribute to the court of Delhi. Even little more than half a century ago, though a fortified settlement of some consequence, it was insignificant in comparison with what it is at the present day; the whole population of the place did not amount to above sixty thousand inhabitants, consisting entirely of a few tribes of Hindoos and Hindoo Portuguese. The island was constantly ravaged by Angria, and other Mahratta pirates, as far as Byeullah. The grand jury consisted of Portuguese fuzendars from Mahim, who took their seats with bare legs and shaven heads, while their sons officered the defensive militia, and figured on the parades in caps of congeed cotton. The few civil servants A CHILD CARRIED OFF BY AN EAGLE. to go down. There is no such thing as absolute mental idleness. If the mind be not active for good, it is active for evil. It may not be rightly directed, or vigorously exercised, or subject to any method in its efforts; but it will be busied about something, obeying the impulse of some predominant desire, or pursuing some familiar and favourite current of thought. No man of regular and steady mental habits will go and stand on the street. The circumstances are not suitable, and will be shunned. Here lies the great mischief of idleness. The mind is left open by it to every passing impression and accidental impulse. It is precisely in the state in which temptation can bear most successfully upon it. It is standing in the market, ready for the call of the vices; and it will not remain long without a call. It is heartbreaking to think what multitudes of the young there are who are hurried into vices of various kinds-early dissipation, with its dark and numerous train of sins. Self-murderers are they in the most fearful sense of the appalling name. Let no one for a moment suppose that, in appealing thus strongly, we would deny the working man a single rational comfort or pleasure. I have the most intense abhorrence of all those measures and schemes, whether legislative or otherwise, which would stint the poor man's beer, and spare the rich man's wine. There is no member of society who deserves more richly a measure of rational comfort and enjoyment than a hard-working mechanic. But I do not wish to see him often in the alehouse. When he takes enjoyment, I would have him to do so in presence of those whose claims upon him operate with the power of virtuous restraints, and are felt to be incompatible with excess. A habit of frequenting public scenes of dissipation will sooner or later prove fatal. It has always appeared to me that such institutions as this afford to working men a refuge from temptations to gross vice. There are higher and holier considerations, indeed, that should be brought to bear upon the character, without whose influence vice will never appear the detestable evil which it really is; and it will not be supposed that I can have the slightest intention to overlook or undervalue these. Without doing so, it may be safely affirmed, that the time spent in attendance on the School of Arts is so much taken from temptation, while it is innocently and rationally employed. I beg, therefore, to press this most earnestly upon the attention of my hearers. An idle hour upon the street may form the inlet to vices which will degrade and defile a whole life. Keep the working man from this danger-give him suitable occupation for this hour-and the probability is, you rescue him from years of misery and shame. THE CHILD A MORAL INSTRUCTOR. An infant, in the care of Charley Stewart, a boy ten A child is a moral instructor, and the silent lessons it inculcates are felt by the most vitiated and depraved. The value of the sermons preached by the cradle has never been fully estimated; but those who have visited our prisons, and who have had to deal with the most hardened criminals, know that there is a well-spring of affection in a father's heart, which even the fires of the worst guilt have not dried up; and the name of a child, like the wand of the prophet, has drawn living waters from the flinty rock. * Home itself is a school; it nourishes principles of the highest value in human life: every emotion of love, felt or received, is a part of education which cannot safely be disregarded. So far, then, as is possible, no system of education should totally separate families, or supersede the arrangements of domestic life. Except in very desperate cases, the interchange of affectionate communications between fathers, mothers, children, brothers, and sisters, every morning and evening, is of inestimable importance to morality. Cases have come under the personal cognisance of the writer, where parents, vicious but not wholly depraved, have been induced to commence a career of reform by witnessing the gradual improvement of their children. As they witnessed their progress, and saw them undesignedly revealing the dawnings of intelligence, and the development of moral principles in their little minds, they became more and more attached to them, and unconsciously took those for their examples to whom nature had designed that they should be models themselves. It should, there fore, be a principle in education to keep the bonds of family unbroken.-Taylor's Natural History of Society. LONDON: Published, with permission of the proprictors, by Printed by Bradbury and Evans, Whitefriars. DINBURGE CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF NUMBER 468. "CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL ORD. SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 12. A LEGEND OF KNOCKMARY.* WHAT Irish man, woman, or child, has not heard of our renowned Hibernian Hercules, the great and glorious Fin M'Coul? Not one, from Cape Clear to the Giant's Causeway, nor from that back again to Cape Clear. And by the way, speaking of the Giant's Causeway brings me at once to the beginning of my story. Well, it so happened that Fin and his gigantic relatives were all working at the Causeway, in order to make a bridge, or what was still better, a good stout pad-road, across to Scotland; when Fin, who was very fond of his wife Oonagh, took it into his head that he would go home and see how the poor woman got on in his absence. To be sure, Fin was a true Irishman, and so the sorrow thing in life brought him back, only to see that she was snug and comfortable, and, above all things, that she got her rest well at night; for he knew that the poor woman, when he was with her, used to be subject to nightly qualms and configurations, that kept him very anxious, decent man, striving to keep her up to the good spirits and health that she had when they were first married. So, accordingly, he pulled up a fir-tree, and, after lopping off the roots and branches, made a walking-stick of it, and set out on his way to Oonagh. Oonagh, or rather Fin, lived at this time on the very tip-top of Knockmary Hill, which faces a cousin of its own, called Cullamore, that rises up, half-hill, *The above paper, communicated by William Carleton, Esq., author of the "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry," gives a good idea of the strange hues which the national humour and fancy have thrown over most of the early popular legends of Ireland. Fin or Fion M'Coul is the same half-mythic being who figures as Fingal in Macpherson's Ossian's Poems. He was probably a distinguished warrior in some early stage of the history of Ireland; different authorities place him in the fifth and the ninth centuries. Whatever his real age, and whatever his real qualities, he was afterwards looked back to as a giant of immense size and strength, and became the subject of numerous wild and warlike legends both in Ireland and in the Highlands of Scotland. Our Lowland poets of the middle ages give incon testible evidence of the great fame then enjoyed by both Fingal and Gaul the son of Morni. Barbour, for instance, in 1375, represents his hero Robert Bruce as making allusion to these two personages at the skirmish in Glendochart. Gavin Douglas, half-mountain, on the opposite side-east-eat v as the sailors say, when they wish to puzzle a int man. Now, the truth is, for it must come out, that hose Fin's affection for his wife, though cordial enough itself, was by no manner or means the real cause of s journey home. There was at that time another giszt, named Cucullin-some say he was Irish, and some my he was Scotch-but whether Scotch or Irish, sorrow doubt of it but he was a targer. No other giant of the day could stand before him; and such was his strength, that, when well vexed, he could give a stamp that shook the country about him. The fame and name of him went far and near; and nothing in the shape of a man, it was said, had any chance with him in a fight. Whether the story is true or not, I cannot say, but the report went that, by one blow of his fist, he flattened a thunderbolt and kept it in his pocket, in the shape of a pancake, to show to all his enemies when they were about to fight him. Undoubtedly he had given every giant in Ireland a considerable beating, barring Fin M'Coul himself; and he swore, by the solemn con tents of Moll Kelly's Primer, that he would never rest, night or day, winter or summer, till he would serve Fin with the same sauce, if he could catch him. Fin, however, who no doubt was the cock of the walk there was in sweet Tyrone any ada on his own dunghill, had a strong disinclination to meet a giant who could make a young earthquake, or flatten a thunderbolt when he was angry; so he accordingly kept dodging about from place to place, not much to his credit as a Trojan, to be sure, when ever he happened to get the hard word that Cucullin was on the scent of him. This, then, was the marrow Fin gave a short good-trimon most heartily, to show her h that she made herself happy her "An' what brought you ho "Why, avourneen," said Fin, ytte in the proper way, "never the t she. . cimes. on as illing, ins of BOVEhalfd we eces. age 'nu of the whole movement, although he put it on his love and affection for yourself. burs www. anxiety to see Oonagh; and I am not saying but there was some truth in that too. However, the short and the long of it was, with reverence be it spoken, that he heard Cucullin was coming to the Causeway to have a trial of strength with him; and he was naturally enough seized, in consequence, with a very warm and sudden fit of affection for his wife, poor woman, who was delicate in her health, and leading, besides, a very lonely uncomfortable life of it (he assured them), in his absence. He accordingly who died in 1522, introduces their names into his poem, the pulled up the fir-tree, as I said before, and having Palace of Honour: snedded it into a walking-stick, set out on his affectionate travels to see his darling Oonagh on the top of Knockmary, by the way. In truth, to state the suspicions of the country at the time, the people wondered very much why it was that Fin selected such a windy spot for his dwellinghouse, and they even went so far as to tell him as much. "What can you mane, Mr M'Coul," said they, "by pitching your tent upon the top of Knockmary, where you never are without a breeze, day or night, winter or summer, and where you're often forced to take your nightcap without either going to bed or turning up your little finger; ay, an' where, besides this, the sorrow's own want of water?" "Why," said Fin, "ever since I was the height of a round tower, I was known to be fond of having a good prospect of my own; and where the dickens, neighbours, could I find a better spot for a good prospect than the top of Knockmary? As for water, I am In Irish traditionary narrative, as appears from Mr Carleton's sinking a pump,+ and, plase goodness, as soon as the Wad not be till her leg a garten, Though she was young and tender. present sketch, Fin and his dame are kept within something comparatively moderate as respects bulk and strength, at the same time that enough of the giant is retained to contrast ludicrously with the modern and natural feelings assigned to them, and the motives and maxims on which they and their enemy Cucullin are represented as acting. causeway's made, I intend to finish it." *A common name for the cloud or rack that hangs, as a forerunner of wet weather, about the peak of a mountain. †There is upon the top of this hill an opening that bears a very strong resemblance to the crater of an extinct volcano. There is also a stone, upon which I have heard the Rev. Sidney Smith, truth, any how, Oonagh." ing the ity nd id W 1y Fin spent two or three happy days w... and felt himself very comfortable, en dread he had of Cucullin. This, however, him so much that his wife could not but pe something lay on his mind which he kept was to himself. Let a woman alone, in the mean t ferreting or wheedling a secret out of her gen when she wishes. Fin was a proof of this. 1 1 "It's this Cucullin," said he, "that's troubling me. When the fellow gets angry, and begins to stamp, he shake you a whole townland; and it's well known that he can stop a thunderbolt, for he always carries one about him in the shape of a pancake, to show to any one that might misdoubt it." As he spoke, he clapped his thumb in his mouth, which he always did when he wanted to prophesy, or to know any thing that happened in his absence; and the wife, who knew not what he did it for, said, very sweetly, "Fin, darling, I hope you don't bite your thumb at me, dear?" "No," said Fin; "but I bite my thumb, acushla," said he. "Yes, jewel; but take care and don't draw blood," said she. "Ah, Fin, don't, my bully-don't." "He's coming," said Fin; "I see him below Dungannon." "Thank goodness, dear! an' who is it, avick? Glory be to God!" "That baste Cucullin," replied Fin; "and how to manage I don't know. If I run away, I am disgraced; and I know that sooner or later I must meet him, for my thumb tells me so." "When will he be here?" said she. F.T.C., now rector of the adjoining parish, say that he found Ogham characters; and, if I do not mistake, I think he took a fao-simile of them. |