many-coloured tufts and fringes with which they are adorned. The suwarre of a great personage sweeping along the highways, little scrupulous of the damage it may effect in its progress, forms a striking spectacle, when it can be viewed from some safe corner, or from the back of a tall elephant. The coup d'œil is magnificent; but to enter into details might destroy the illusion; for, mingled with mounted retainers, richly clothed, and armed with glittering helmets, polished spears and shields, knobbed with silver, crowds of wild-looking, halfclad, wretches on foot are to be seen, increasing the tumult and the dust, but adding nothing to the splendour of the cavalcade. No great man-and Dehlee is full of personages of pretension-ever passes along in state without having his titles shouted out by the stentorian lungs of some of his followers. The cries of the vendors of different articles of food, the discordant songs of itinerant musicians, screamed out to the accompaniment of a tom-tom, with an occasional bass volunteered by a cheetah, grumbling out in a sharp roar his annoyance at being hawked about the streets for sale; with the shrill distressful cry of the camel, the trumpeting of the elephants, the neighings of horses, and the grumbling of cart-wheels, are sounds which assail the ear from sun rise till sun set in the streets of Dehlee. The multitude of equipages is exceedingly great, and more diversified, perhaps, than those of any other city in the world. English carriages, altered and improved, to suit the climate, and the peculiar taste of the possessor, are mingled with the palanquins and bullock-carts, open and covered, and the cage-like and lantern-like conveyances of native construction. Prince Baber, the second surviving son of the reigning monarch, drives about in an English chariot, drawn by eight horses, in which he frequently appears attired in the full-dress uniform of a British general officer, rendered still more conspicuous by having each breast adorned with the grand cross of the Bath. Meerza Seleem, another of the princes of the Imperial family, escorts a favourite wife in a carriage of the same description: the lady is said to be very beautiful, but the blinds are too closely shut to allow the anxious crowd a glimpse of her charms. Regular English coaches, drawn by four horses, and driven by postillions, the property of rich natives, appear on the public drives, and at reviews; and, occasionally, a buggy, or cabriolet, of a very splendid description, may be seen, having the head of black velvet, embroidered with gold. The cheetahs, or hunting-leopards, before mentioned, are led hooded through the streets; birds in cages, Persian cats, and Persian greyhounds, are also exposed in the streets for sale, under the superintendance of some of those fine, tall splendid-looking men, who bring all sorts of merchandise from Cashmere, Persia, and Thibet, to the cities of Hindostan; an almost gigantic race, bearing a noble aspect in spite of the squalidness of their attire, and having dark clear complexions, without a tinge of swathiness. Beggars, in plenty, infest the streets; and, in addition to the multitudes brought together by business, there are idle groups of loungers-Mussulmans, of lazy, dissipated, depraved habits, gaudily decked out in flaunting colours, with their hair frizzled in a bush from under a glittering scull-cap, stuck rakishly on the side of the head. Such are a few distinguishing features of the Chaudny Chouks."-(Vol. III., p. 171, et seq.)

The fourth chapter, entitled Arrah, contains a most inviting account of an Indian civilian's country house-comme il y en a peu. It has also some more good stories of

robberies and murders for those who delight in horrors; and is altogether very pleasant reading. Two biographical sketches of certain well known characters, Colonel Gardener and the Begum Sumeroo, occupy the fifth chapter, which though imperfect, we believe to be mainly correct; the wife of Colonel Dyce, whose daughters are alluded to, we always understood to have been an adopted daughter of the Begum, of which she had several.

Hundwar and Juggernaut form the subjects of the seventh chapter-and two admirable subjects they are; perhaps more might have been made of them, and there was matter to fill twice as much space with advantage. The last, in the sombre style, is the best sketch of the two. Mândoo, Gour, and Bejapore, in the eighth chapter, afford some good studies well touched. Mândoo is a splendid subject. From these deserted relics of the past, we are transported, once more, to the busy and peopled present-to the environs of Calcutta; among which, most strange to tell, although Barrakpore, Serampore, and Dumdum, are described till the subjects are exhausted, one solitary and casual mention is all that we find, either here or in the whole three volumes, of the surely not less exquisite and enchanting beauties of Garden reach!-The work concludes with a very slight account of Madras, Seringapatam, and Bangalore.

The very cursory outline we have given of Miss Roberts's work, together with the few extracts which our limits would admit of, may serve to show the reader that a very various intellectual repast is prepared, with no ordinary skill, for his refection. The Indian critic may be disposed to knit his brows occasionally at meeting a few forced or improbable stories, proceeding doubtless from over-credulously adopting all that met the ear but he will readily admit the exact and graphic nature of the descriptions, and give the fair authoress credit, not only for acuteness of observation-for making the most of what she saw-but also for most praiseworthy industry in collecting from others the information which her own inexperience could not furnish. Errors and inaccuracies there are no doubt, but they are of the kind to which all strangers are liable; and for our own parts we should prefer the freshness of feeling which marks the imperfect but characteristic sketches

of a stranger, to the colder and far less interesting, though more accurate, picture of one who has been long acquainted with his subject—a picture from which all the sharpness of first impressions has disappeared. Errors of principle, calculated to give erroneous ideas upon important points, we should have deemed it our duty to expose; but trivial mistakes, such as those in the work before us, which only practised eyes can detect, and which lead to no evil consequence, it were as useless as invidious to point out. We take our leave of Miss Roberts, with sincere good wishes that her work may meet with the success it so eminently deserves. We hope that her portfolio is not yet exhausted; but that we may look forward to the gratification of reading a fresh series of "Sketches of Hindostan."

ARTICLE IX.

Memoirs of Lord Bolingbroke.

Cook, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo.

By GEORGE WINGROVE
London: 1835.

HENRY ST. JOHN, afterwards created Lord Bolingbroke, was born on the 1st of October, 1678, in the patrimonial mansion of his family, at Battersea. The family name was derived from a maternal ancestor, William de St. John, who distinguished himself as an officer of William I., at the battle of Hastings; and, being enriched by the munificence of the conqueror, bequeathed to his posterity estates, sufficient to maintain them in a conspicuous rank among the aristocracy of the land. His great-grandfather was an active promoter of the rebellion; and was advanced to the office of chief justice, under the Protectorate. His grandmother, to whose superintendence his early childhood was committed, took great pains to transfuse into him those political and theological principles, which she herself had imbibed from the Puritans. From her he was transferred to the care of Daniel Burgess, a rigid and fanatical preacher, in great estimation among the Presbyterians. The gloomy austerity, and the Calvinistic theology, of this zealous divine, failing to convince the judgment or engage the affections, did but excite the dis

gust of his youthful pupil, and gave a turn to his character the very reverse of that which it was designed to secure.

From Burgess he was removed to Eton, and subsequently to Christ-church, Oxford. What progress he made at these distinguished seminaries is not accurately ascertained. It is known that he affected great contempt for the studies and discipline established at these places; and, if we may take his own word, he was as assiduous to reject, as others were to gain, instruction. Judging, however, from the result, we may safely conclude that his application was greater than he was willing to confess, although not so great as either to entitle him to distinction, at the time, or to furnish him with a fund of classical or scientific erudition, adequate to his future exigencies.

Even during his residence in college, he was distinguished by his gay habits-or, more properly, by a reckless career of scandalous dissipation and extravagance. But when, having left Oxford, he returned into general society, all regard for decency and prudence seems to have been thrown aside and he pursued his dissolute pleasures with an undisguised, and even ostentatious, impetuosity; as if his sole desire and ambition had been to build his fame upon a preeminency in profligacy. Yet we may well believe what he says of himself at an advanced period of his life

"The love of study, and desire of knowledge, were what I felt all my life; and though my genius, unlike the demon of Socrates, whispered so softly, that very often I heard him not in the hurry of those passions with which I was transported, yet some calmer hours there were, and in them I listened to him."

His mad career of extravagance was arrested, for a moment, by his marriage, in the year 1700, with the daughter and co-heiress of Sir Henry Winchcombe. With her he received a large accession of property; and this was the only benefit he derived-it might be all he sought-from this ill-assorted union. He did not think it worth while to control his passions, nor she her temper; and the result was an early, and final, separation.

In the same year, Bolingbroke was returned to Parliament for the borough of Wotton Bassett, in which his family exercised a paramount influence. Descended from Whig ancestors, educated in Whig principles, and surrounded by

Whig connexions, it was concluded that he would attach himself to that party, which was now also in possession of power. He soon, however, made his election in favour of the opposite party, led on by Harley; who, also, either from force of circumstances or conviction, had repudiated his Presbyterian connections, and identified himself with high-church politics. Bolingbroke might seem to have taken up his first political position very sagaciously, since he barely had found opportunity to display the splendor of his eloquence, and the vigor of his understanding, when the power of the Whigs received a severe shock, by the death of William III., in the year 1701, and the demise of the crown to the Princess of Denmark.

It was the fate, or rather infirmity, of this amiable princess, to live perpetually under the influence of some female favorite. This influence had been long exercised by the Countess, afterward Duchess, of Marlborough; and was, at this juncture, exerted in favour of her husband, to whom, therefore, the new sovereign confided the formation of her first ministry. Godolphin, an ardent Tory, was appointed premier, supported by the Earls of Nottingham and Rochester-leaders of the highchurch party. These noblemen, dissatisfied that so many Whigs should be retained in office, soon tendered their resignation. Their secession opened the way to office for Harley and Bolingbroke the former as home-secretary, the latter as secretary-at-war. In this situation-stimulated by personal ambition, as well as gratitude to the Duke of Marlborough, who admired and fostered the rising genius of the youthful secretary, encouraged, moreover, by the extraordinary success of the allied forces-Bolingbroke exhausted all the powers of his eloquence in defending the measures of the administration, and in reconciling the Commons to those enormous sacrifices, which enabled the duke to achieve that series of victories, which reared his military fame upon an imperishable basis. It was on the motion of Bolingbroke, that Parliament enabled the Queen to reward the hero of Blenheim and Ramilies, with what was dearer to him than fame itself-the magnificent estate and manors of Woodstock and Wotton.

The secession of the leading Tories had the effect of raising a powerful opposition, in Parliament, against the Godolphin