nation into the chastity and fidelity of their lives, which every wife cannot conveniently submit to. Besides this, there are many provinces where it has been never practised; and in others, even in some of the northern ones, it seems to be gradually wearing itself out. In all probability, it will sink into desuetude altogether, unless some of those injudicious interpositions of authority, which the petitioner invokes so ardently, should rekindle the fanaticism in which it originated. When M. Bernier visited India, during the Mogul government, more widows sacrificed themselves in one year, and in a single province, than have sacrificed themselves within the last twenty years throughout the whole country. The Suttee is prohibited also within certain distances of the Presidencies. Beyond this, it would be unwise to extend our interference. On the other hand, mild remedies are frequently found to succeed with fanaticisms much more detestable than this. What a world of wisdom did the old Senate of Rome, in their memorable decree against the most execrable ceremonies that ever dishonoured the name of religion, bequeath to the knights-errant of too officious a philanthropy! "Si quis tale sacrum solenne et necessarium duceret, nec sine religione et piaculo se id omittere," &c. &c. The whole may be seen in Livy. Those who have described the Suttee, with the view of decrying the Hindoo religion in general, are not chargeable with having given too faint a colouring to their pictures. But absurd, or even inhuman practices, are not always conclusive arguments against a whole religious system. The Hindoos are in the main a virtuous people. I know not whether their virtues are the offspring of their religion, or of their habits; but their religion, imperfect as it is, when compared with the purer morality, or more efficient sanctions of our own, must not be excluded from the influences that have formed their character. Their sacred books contain the leading maxims of ethical philosophy, imparted in the varied forms of apophthegm, and allegory, and precept. Conjugal duty, temperance, parental and filial affection, hospitality even to enemies, with the whole category of minor offices, are strongly enforced and beautifully inculcated. It would be unfair to deliver the whole system up to indiscriminate condemnation on account of this usage, inhuman as it is. With equal justice, an enemy of the Christian faith, in the spirit of a Porphyry, might array against it the inhumanities that have been committed in its name. To a reasoner of this description, what a topic would be the horrid sacrifice once prevalent over Christendom, and still lingering in some parts of it, that dooms youth and beauty to the gloom of the convent! With what nice touches might he not describe the living death, in comparison with which the flame that consumes the Hindoo widow is mild and merciful! might he dilate on the sufferings of the victim, when every image of joy, and every vision of hope, recedes for ever from her view, and the feverish enthusiasm which lifted her for awhile above the world, begins to subside, and its beloved scenes of home, of friendship, of love, recur How * Bernier was one of the earliest, and the most authentic traveller in India. His book is deemed of high authority, and was received in the House of Lords on the trial of Mr. Hastings, as good evidence of Hindoo customs. in vain to her remembrance. It is in this spirit, and with such exaggerations, that the Hindoo rite has been clothed in horrors not its own. For this purpose, the victim is usually presented to us in the flower of youth, (the inhumanity would be less with regard to an old hag of sixty,) led, like the Iphigenia of Euripides, with tottering steps to her death-bridal, with all the lingerings after life natural to the vernal season of it, and bidding an eternal farewell to its pleasures, its duties, its connexions. Ἰω, ἰω· λαμπαδουχος άμερα Διός τε φέγος, ἕτερον, Καὶ μοῖραν οἰκησομεν. These, however, are pangs to which the Hindoo widows, on such occasions, are impassive. There is scarcely an instance, amongst those recorded by European spectators, in which they seem to have betrayed the compunctious visitings of nature, or the slightest wish to abandon their resolve, although, to the latest moment, the locus pœnitentiæ is open to them, and the entreaties of their relatives and friends are often united with the remonstrances of the Brahmins to invite them back to life and its duties. The fact is, the species of existence, it scarcely deserves to be called life, to which she is destined as a surviving widow, has nothing in it to make death, in its most appalling form, an image of terror; for it is a life of penance, seclusion, and solitude, filled up by an unceasing round of ceremonies in honour of her departed husband. It is this fearful perspective, rendering life distasteful, and death a haven of rest in the comparison, joined to the honourable distinction both here and hereafter attached to the martyrdom, that, acting upon an enfeebled and enslaved understanding, becomes an irresistible motive to the fatal determination; nor can it, under such circumstances, be denied to be a powerful motive, unless "The weariest and most loathsome worldly life To what we fear of death." Add to this, that, by the delusions of superstition, she is insensible to the fears and agonies of her dissolution. She secures a place in her husband's mansion in Heaven, and the honourable epithet of Sádwi, "good and faithful;" whilst by a vicarious suffering that scarcely exceeds a few moments' duration, she redeems him from a thousand years of purgatory, and is admitted in his society into the seats of the blessed, till they are both absorbed into the boundless infinity of Nature, the illimitable ocean of eternity, and become again portions of the diffused creative power, that sustains and renovates the universe. Amidst such beatific visions, she knows no taste of death; and every outward sense of worldly pain or satisfaction is lost in the intoxicating dream of futurity. Mrs. S, the accomplished lady of Mr. S, the AdvocateGeneral at Calcutta, was once present at this singular ceremony. Being of Portuguese extraction, and entirely educated in India, she was skilled in all the native languages, but particularly conversant with the Hin dostannee. She attended upon this mournful occasion with a benevolent hope of diverting the poor victim from her resolve; and for that purpose requested a conference with her, which was readily granted, not only by her relatives, who seemed equally anxious to dissuade her from it, but by the officiating Brahmins. The preparations had been already completed; the pile, consisting of faggots heaped over each other to the height of four feet, had been sprinkled with the consecrated ghee, and those discordant wind-instruments, compared with which the wail of the bagpipe is celestial music, and the deep beat of the tomtom, whose sound reminds one of the timbrels of Moloch, had commenced their deafening pan. Upon its being announced to her that an English lady of rank was desirous of speaking to her, the palanquin in which she was borne was lowered, and she came out of it towards Mrs. S with a steady and composed gesture, evincing in her general appearance no terror nor emotion of any kind at the dreadful ordeal she had to undergo. She moved with an assured step, nor did one muscle of her frame betray the slightest faltering, or any other symptom of that internal sinking that renders the limbs faint and tremulous. Even that very peculiar hue, which exhibits violent agitation so much more legibly in the dark native mien, than in the fixed whiteness of the European countenance, was not in the least discernible. Her dark eyes were unbedimmed, and something akin to joy sparkled in them, as if she felt herself no longer belonging to a world where her portion was only subjection and sorrow, and saw the portals of another and a better opening before her. The Brahmins retired for some paces, and left the conference quite uninterrupted. "Have you well reflected," said Mrs. S, "upon the dreadful resolution you have made; or has the love of life, so natural to your age (she was about twenty-two), been overpowered by the persuasions and entreaties of others?""Quite the contrary," she replied; "many have sought to divert me from my vow, which I have well considered. It is the duty of a good wife to consider that her days end with her husband's. A husband is the stem and support of his wife; when the stalk is cut down, is it not decreed that the leaves also must wither?"-" But is there nothing beside," asked Mrs. S," that is dear to you on earth-nothing that you are unwilling to leave?"-" The death of her lord," rejoined the Hindoo woman," leaves nothing to his surviving wife but her duty, which she is bound to execute after his death with the same fidelity which was required of her whilst he lived. By that fidelity I have obtained the privilege of dying in his arms." Having said this in a tone so mild, and at the same time so determined, as to convince Mrs. S that the fatal resolution of the poor creature was not to be shaken, she addressed some persons who remained at a short distance, saying, "I am ready;" and after a few salams to the lady, reentered her palanquin, by the side of which her two brothers ran for several yards, entreating her to live, but she was inexorable. Baffled in her humane attempt, Mrs. S- felt impatient to retire from the afflicting spectacle. In a few minutes, the dismal chant of half a dozen voices, with which the discord of the instruments joined rather than blended, and the smoke of the pile strongly impregnated with the perfume of burning sandal-wood, told her that the sacrifice had begun. Just at this moment, the peons of Mr. H the Zillah magistrate and collector of the district, arrived with orders to put a stop to the ceremony, or at least to remove it to another spot. They came too late "Il étoit trop tard-les chants avoient cessé." ENCOMIUM MORIE, OR THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. Small talk is like small change; it flows Of trivial value each, but which As bows unbent recruit their force, The solemn bore, who holds that speech And not for lighter usance, Indicted as a nuisance. Though dull the joke, 'tis wise to laugh, Let jesters seek no other plea, Than that their merriment be free Silence at once the ribald clown, But speed good-humour as it runs, The wag who even fails may claim We should applaud, not hiss him; * Les Templiers, A. 5. PATRONAGE AND ART. MUCH of the public attention has been directed lately to the professions of support bestowed upon Art in this country, on the part not of isolated individuals, but of Government, and of institutions which have held themselves out as associated solely for the purpose. Certain pretensions of these latter bodies, and their deviation from the objects for which they were originally formed, have also recently attracted a considerable share of notice. The causes of their dereliction are no mystery. The assumption of all authority and influence by one or two persons only in these institutions, whose claims to taste are far inferior to those of many of their numerous members, affords just ground for animadversion. From a Government that has yet done so little for Art, we have made up our minds that little is to be expected. The grant of a few feet of land for a building, or a condescending assent to the reiterated prayer of an obsequious artist or "bowing" academy, is really a wonderful effort of generosity. It is impossible for any man who can discriminate, not to balance the boasted patronage of the State to the Arts with facts-not to see that while the State is too poor to build a gallery for a few pictures which are public property, a favoured architect may squander fifty thousand pounds with impunity; a financier may waste hundreds of thousands by a perseverance in an error, of which a junior clerk in a counting-house would blush to be guilty; and an accomplished diplomatist (a Strangford, for example,) may pocket his ten or twelve thousand per annum for manufacturing despatches at home, or transacting business abroad, which one of the employés in the Foreign Office would do better and more effectively for a few hundreds, and which ambassadors of America actually do for a tenth part of the sum lavished on our envoys. No limit is set to the waste and extravagance of money grants, and the "Honourable House" votes away item after item for any purpose demanded by the minister, while he treats the recommendations of its finance committees with contempt. If money be scarce, and retrenchment necessary, is the ten thousand a-year sinecurist clipped? Are the millions of our military and civil expenditure cut down? Alas! no. A grant to the British Museum, or a few hundreds a year to the Arts, which are calculated to extend the fame of Englishmen when the members of the present Houses of Lords and Commons (names and all, with less than half a dozen exceptions,) are forgotten, is reduced to a fraction, on pretence of economy. Nothing can exceed the puffings, and vauntings, and applauses bestowed on Government by certain "serviles," when, out of a revenue of fifty millions, a hundred or two of pounds are unexpectedly voted for some object pertaining to the Arts. Perhaps the minuteness of the sums, and the rarity of these grants, really justify extravagant plaudits. Some assert that it would be better if the Arts were left to individual patronage, Government only rendering its assistance when required to aid particular public objects. There might be some truth in this, if our rulers, when they granted money for new churches, stipulated that as far as possible they should be made to administer to the encouragement of high Art-if in erecting a public edifice they threw open the work to public competition-if public works were not bestowed by interest, like every thing else, then, indeed, it might be a question, whether private patronage, and that of associated bodies, might |