corps distinguished by its many honourable services in almost every part of the British dominions; but which has been more particularly signalised in our late campaigns against the aggressions of the Mahratta empire, under the command of Major-general Wellesley.

The progress of our army during the eventful period that succeeded the doctor's appointment, afforded him an opportunity of exploring the country, and conversing with the native inhabitants, along a line of march of several thousand miles; while his enquiries were conducted on a more liberal scale than could be permitted to his contemporaries on the same service, amidst the busy scenes of Indian warfare. The classical education necessary to qualify him for his profession, and the advantageous leisure which it affords for literary pursuits, together with his own zeal in the acquisition of knowledge, have rendered this gentleman eminently qualified to describe a people living in a mode of association so different from European manners and usages.

The peculiar disposition and habits of the man seem also to have had considerable effect in opening to him the paths of knowledge. Happily free from that pertinacity in argument and fancied importance which sometimes accompanies men of learning, and always obscures their merit, by repelling their associates, the doctor enjoyed much of the confidence and indulgence of the superior officers along with whom he served. We find in the "Indian Recreations" that Generals Sir J. Henry Craig, Alexander Mackenzie

Mackenzie Fraser, and Hay Macdowell, far from controuling their worthy chaplain in the distribution of his time by their official authority, uniformly encouraged his pursuits, on every occasion compatible with the service in the army: nor did this indulgence arise from any complacency to rank, or the influence of powerful connexions, but from that partiality which is naturally produced by an unassuming conduct and conciliatory manners.

How fully our author has availed himself of these different advantages, no one needs to be told who has perused the work alluded to; a work which, although it professes only to contain slight strictures on the domestic and rural economy of the Hindoos, is nevertheless replete with various knowledge respecting different but collateral topics, and in which scientific and agricultural details are enlivened by many interesting anecdotes, illustrating the character and manners of that celebrated people. The style of the author is chaste, classical, and nervous: though he generally discovers a profound knowledge of his subject, the treatment of it is at once luminous and animated; and the reader is carried along by him with equal ease and pleasure, as if he were perusing the most familiar topic in a popular work.

The different essays (above 100) are short, and they appear to have been communicated to the public nearly in the same form in which they were originally composed. They display no laboured decorations of style, no systematical arrangement of subjects, and indeed but little order, except that of the time and place

where

where they were written. The different branches of rural economy are treated as the subjects presented themselves, at the stations of the troops, or during their progress; yet there is hardly any confusion or obscurity in the discussion, and seldom a recurrence of the same topics and ideas. On the subject of the disaffection of any part of the army we could have wished him not to have touched, and that equally from private as well as public considerations; for on this ground we suspect he is liable to all the hazards dreaded by the Roman satyrist :

"Incedo super ignes

Cinere suppositos doloso."

Upon the whole, although there must be some inadvertencies in so multifarious a work, it would be difficult, we apprehend, to point out a performance of the same extent, in which we shall find either a greater share of information, or a smaller mixture of pedantry and affectation.

Of the native inhabitants of India, we find in these volumes that Dr. Tennant is uniformly the strenuous advocate and benevolent friend; and it must gratify the feelings of every lover of his country to find that the British government, with all its imperfections, hath greatly meliorated the condition of the peaceable and patient Hindoos. Of this pleasing fact there is the most satisfactory evidence running through the whole of these pages. In an account of the garrison of Allahabad, we find the following reflections on the government of the upper provinces of India :

"The inhabitants of Oude, in their political asso

ciation

ciation, if a state of anarchy can merit such a name, are living in that condition which was decreed as a curse against Esau: their hand is against every man, and every man's hand is against them.' They have actually before their eyes what your celebrated demagogues only enjoy in beatific vision, a view of society reduced to its first principles. Each individual here travels either with the prospect of defending himself against thieves and robbers, or of assuming himself that perilous vocation; and hence every man who has been absent for any considerable time has a sacrifice offered to the gods by his family, if happily he return safe to his family. Every province, almost every district, displays a faithless servant of the empire, or some ambitious chief usurping absolute power, and practising all the extravagancies natural to an unprincipled mind on its sudden elevation to the plenitude of despotism.

"While you, therefore, inveigh in such impressive language against European violence in the east, we who are on the spot content ourselves with the humble persuasion, that for a country in such a state to be possessed by a British army is a kind dispensation of the Ruler of nations. It is felt and acknowledged as such by the natives themselves. The protection which it immediately affords gives them an opportunity of laying aside their swords and spears, and of literally turning them into plow-shares. With regard to myself this conviction has arisen, not from books, but from the stronger evidence of ocular demonstration,"

1804-1805.

Dd

THE

THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK.

WILLIAM MARKHAM, LL. D. Archbishop of York, was born in Ireland about the year 1720. He was educated at Westminster school, and then removed to Christ Church, Oxford, where he took the degree of bachelor of arts in 1742, and that of master in 1745. At school and at college he was distinguished by the elegance of his exercises, and particularly of his Latin verses. A high degree of excellence in writing Latin poetry may be acquired without poetical genius, as it consists in combining detached ideas and sentences of the classical writers and applying them to a proposed subject. This being a mechanical operation is of very general attainment; and accordingly in most of our schools boys may be found able to produce an unexceptionable copy of Latin verses, who are strangers to the elegancies of their native language it is, however, useful, as it cannot be executed happily without the exercise of taste, and an intimate acquaintance with the works of the most celebrated Latin poets.

About the year 1750 Dr. Markham was appointed first master of Westminster school, and he continued to discharge, with great reputation, the laborious dutics of that useful and honourable employment until January 1764. At his present advanced period of life he frequently attends the public exercises of the school; and it can always easily be collected from his manner whether the scholars have pleased him or not by their performances.

An