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

They came too

and collector of the district, arrived with orders to put a stop to the ceremony, or at least to remove it to another spot. late

"Il étoit trop tard-les chants avoient cessé."*

ENCOMIUM MORIE, OR THE PRAISE OF FOLLY.

IF from our purse all coin we spurn
But gold, we may from mart return,
Nor purchase what we're seeking;
And if in parties we must talk
Nothing but sterling wit, we baulk
All interchange of speaking.

Small talk is like small change; it flows
A thousand different ways, and throws
Thoughts into circulation,

Of trivial value each, but which
Combined, make social converse rich
In cheerful animation.

As bows unbent recruit their force,
Our minds by frivolous discourse
We strengthen and embellish.
"Let us be wise," said Plato once,
When talking nonsense-" yonder dunce
For folly has no relish."

The solemn bore, who holds that speech
Was given us to prose and preach,

And not for lighter usance,

Strait should be sent to Coventry;
Or, omnium consensu, be

Indicted as a nuisance.

Though dull the joke, 'tis wise to laugh,
Parch'd be the tongue that cannot quaff
Save from a golden chalice;

Let jesters seek no other plea,

Than that their merriment be free
From bitterness and malice.

Silence at once the ribald clown,
And check with an indignant frown
The scurrilous backbiter;

But speed good-humour as it runs,
Be even tolerant of puns,
And every mirth-exciter.

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

not be best, backed by the opportunities for emulation among artists flung open to them by the State, and liberally rewarded. But matters are managed very differently:-how they are managed, let our public works, and the Phidian excellence of our monuments in St. Paul's Cathedral, testify. But of this enough; we must, we suppose, be thankful for a kinder inclination shown lately by Government towards Art, and bow for it, scanty as it is, in all gratitude and humility, living on the faith and hope of more enlarged efforts when the "march of intellect" has operated upon Ministers, and our Lords have been endowed with a little more "wisdom aud understanding.”

The business of the present article is more immediately with the "British Institution," and its recent perversion of the avowed object of its establishment. This Institution was formed with the most laudable object, by some of the noblest and wealthiest individuals in the country. It promised well at the commencement. It professed to exist for the encouragement of "High Art," which was, in fact, the only branch of Art the public did not reward. For the encouragement of any other branch the Institution would be superfluous. Besides a subscription on the part of the members, the gallery of the Institution was made a public place for the exhibition and sale of the works of British artists, and very large sums of money have been received at the doors, drawn from the fingers and brains of the artists themselves, and constituting, therefore, an additional pledge that the avowed end of the Institution would be held sacred. The exhibition-room at Somerset-House was then, and always has been, open to artists. The receipts there are usefully devoted to the instruction of students in drawing, under the eye of the Academy; and the residences of the exhibitors at the Academy are always given in the catalogues, for the use of those persons who may wish to purchase works seen there. Another room, therefore, for sale and exhibition, could not have been so urgently wanted. Since then, the Society of British Artists has opened exhibition-rooms in Suffolk-street, very justly thinking that artists have a right to profit by the exhibition of their own works. What then but the pledge of encouraging works of high or historic Art could have induced artists to send their pictures to the gallery of the Institution? The portrait and landscape painter, the artist in each grade of his profession, felt interested in every separate branch, and was pleased to see and to contribute all in his power to the extension of the great object of his life and labour. What, then, is the astonishment of artists and of the public, to find the avowed object of the Institution neglected and forgotten-that object for which funds had been expressly raised-that object for which noblemen, gentlemen, and artists, had lent the labour of their hands and subscribed their money! It is to be lamented that the subscribers to the British Institution have suffered one or two members to govern every measure, and permitted the empty assumption of knowledge by one or two to keep back the exercise of their own superior judgments. What pretensions Lord Farnborough or the Rev. Holwell Carr have over any other individual subscribers to the Institution, it would puzzle the acutest examiner to find out. It does, unfortunately, happen among bodies constituted of the highest ranks in society, as well as among those of a less pretending walk in life, that the most competent are always the most retiring and reluctant to come forward. There are always to be found in both

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cases one or two who contrive, on the most unfounded pretensions, and with assumptions only of bold superiority, joined to a lacquered reputation for taste and judgment, to establish themselves among their compeers as oracles, and, vulgarly phrasing it, "to rule the roast." The monarch of taste once enthroned, the breath of a difference with him is treason, or flat perjury, as Dogberry would have it. All must bow to the grand Lama, the sun of the celestial empire. It is particularly unfortunate for England, that fashion is more arbitrary here than in any other country upon earth. One half of our private galleries of pictures have been formed by individuals at a great expense, because my Lord so and so has one." It is not to be supposed that such a possessor of a gallery knows a good picture from a bad one, a Rubens from a Rembrandt; this is the business of a picture-dealer, who collects, buys, and sells for him. Hence we see in private galleries so many pretended works of great artists, that are mere copies from originals existing abroad. Hence we have portraits of great characters always found on demand, duly painted and smoked to order. Hence the reputation of cognoscenti among our fashionable people, bestowed on particular individuals, who are thenceforward the Viscontis of the nation. A reputation once the mode, and the holder is lord of the ascendant for life. Let him belong to any public body-let him give an opinion on Art privately-let him be secured for any given purpose, and his dictum is infallible law. Absurdity is softened into rough common sense, and deformity into the agreeable picturesque, before his omnipotent decree. It is lamentable that fashion is not confined to the Court, or Almack's, to "the order," and the dweller in the west end of town, but that it must enter and pollute far loftier precincts.

To return to the British Institution,-we do not deny that purchases have been made by that body, and a few premiums given for historic works; but we assert that they have been stinted and reluctant. We do deny that the Institution has achieved any thing at all worthy the object for which it was established and adequately supported. We believe it has been openly and unblushingly avowed by some directors, who affect a deep love and knowledge of Art (whether acquired through Mr. Seguier the picture-cleaner, or not, is another thing), that they hate large works, and never desire to see them within the walls of the Institution! We shall not quarrel with the taste of such persons, because we cannot envy it; they may continue to prefer Jan Steen to Raphael. Affinity of thinking and feeling may settle in an individual the preference for the works of low above high Art; the public has no right to concern itself on the subject. It is the false pretences of those who assume the lead in a public body we censure, constituting almost a disclaimer of the original principles of a public institution. We love every class of Art, and admire small pictures as well as large ones; but while the former find patrons in the public, and the latter do not, we ask the reader whether an Institution founded for the benefit of historic or high Art, thereby professing to aid mainly the national reputation, ought to be so turned aside from the avowed end of its establishment? In portrait, landscape, and familiar life, we are eminent; it is obvious that our reputation for historic Art is a very inferior one, and the perversion of the great end of such an Institution is therefore a positive calamity.

Another most monstrous misapplication of the means which should