: his throbbing brain; his heart was black and hard as the rocks of Elephanta; the darkness of night shone like day beside the gloom of his spirit and the yell of the jackals, trooping to their meal, was sweeter to his ear than the song of the bulbul. In the morning, while his companions still slept, he began to move, slowly and on foot, to his castle. When he entered, the pyre was already erected, and he stood by, outwardly calm and unmoved, while the fire devoured all that the world had contained, for which he could have wished to live. Then, carefully collecting her ashes into a vase, he laid them in the chamber which had been decorated, the day before, for the bridal festival, and retiring in silence, shut himself up, for several days, from all human intercourse. The death of the Harah Chief had, in the mean time, opened the succession to a distant relative, who immediately placed himself at the head of the clan, and regarding it as a duty imposed on him by every law of honour and feudal usage, to assume the quarrels as well as the authority of his predecessor, and to avenge his fall and the abduction of his daughter, drew together the survivors of the tribe, and marched at once against the Rahtore. Arriving at the scene of the last battle, which lay upon his road, the young Harah found a few scattered skeletons picked clean by the jackals and polished by the white ants; for, of the many who had fallen there, the greater number had been taken away bodily by the tigers, and devoured in the jungle. Sliding in the blood, which was still black and slimy on the ground, they covered the remains of their kinsmen in the earth, and, animated with newly-awakened fury, moved on to their destination. Closed gates and the stillness of a ruin were all that the Rahtore's fortress opposed to the assault; and the Harahs, hearing no stir of life, as they rode around the grey walls, and knowing the temper of their enemy, began to fear some fatal and cunning ambuscade. When the long-expected alarm was given to the Rahtore, arousing himself from his torpor, he said it was well, and asked for his arms and a horse. He gave no orders, and summoned no help; but in his saffron robe, and armed to the teeth, rode out slowly, sternly, and alone; his guards bowed their heads in respectful silence as he passed; to interrupt him or offer a remonstrance would have been a sacrilege. The gate was closed behind him; and urging his horse to a gallop, and taking a wide circuit, to give impetus to his onset, he came down like a whirlwind upon the Harahs. The first few who ventured to oppose him, he cut down; but as he passed on, striking right and left, his progress was impeded by numbers, and his arm weakened by many wounds, until at last, faint and bleeding and mangled, he sank upon a mound of slain enemies, who had fallen all around him. It was only then that his garrison prepared for action. Opening a narrow gate for the Harahs, they cut them down as they strove inward by twos and threes, and when that aperture was choked with dead, issuing through the main gate, and taking the open field, they dispersed the survivors into the woods. Thus ended one of the fiercest and most sanguinary episodes in the history of the Rajpoot tribes; one which was followed by a long peace of mutual exhaustion, and is remembered and perpetuated in local tradition even to this day. Poetry. WEEDS AND FLOWERS. WELL spoke the ancient gardener, Who came to view his handiwork One soft and sunny day. To trim them for the spring. "Ah, yes!" quoth he, "The soil is mother to the weeds, And so it is in many a home, Where'er we chance to turn, Will make his mother mourn; Receive the lesser share. Perchance she feeleth that he needs Her best maternal powers, And proves anew The saying true, "The soil is mother to the weeds, Nounger by a Century. THERE are few things more pleasant and instructive than to cast a glance backward at intervals as we advance in life-to take our stand at some point, and mark the progress that we have made year by year, or from birthday to birthday, whether it be in the bettering of our worldly circumstances, or in the advancement of our moral and intellectual culture; to note which of our cherished projects has succeeded, and which of them has failed; which of the friends of our youth has walked with us handin-hand to the present time, and which of them has turned away his face, and gone over to the other side. From such a survey, if impartially taken, we rise refreshed and strengthened for the journey yet before us; we see, more or less clearly, on what points we are weakest; and we gird up our loins afresh, with the determination that, when we next rest for a moment by the roadside, we shall be able to look back with less of fear and more of pride than at present-that the work we have to do shall be better of its kind, and our progress more marked and distinct. As with men, so with nations. While the world rolls on, it is wise at times to retire for a moment, and by the light of history to call up the shadows of past ages; so that, by comparing the habits, manners, and customs of our ancestors with those of to-day, we may educe from the comparison a lesson for our future guidance. With this view, we now purpose to take a brief retrospective survey of England as it was a century ago, when our great-great-grandfathers were working and playing, laughing and crying; and fluttering through their little space of existence as we, their children, are doing in our hour. A hundred years ago, George the Second was King of England, with the Duke of Devonshire for his Prime Minister, and William Pitt for one of his Secretaries of State. The Prince of Wales, afterwards George Third, was a young man of one-and-twenty, tied to the apron-strings of an intriguing mother, with whom he resided at Leicester House. England was at war with France, the bone of contention being certain disputed boundaries of Nova Scotia. George Washington, a major in the English service, was already making himself a name; and acquiring that knowledge which, a few years later, he was to turn to such distinguished use in another cause. The management of the war in its earlier stages was marked by incompetence at home, and disaster abroad. General Braddock had been killed, and his little army cut to pieces; and for some time the French were held in check by the undisciplined valour and unflinching bravery of the American colonists alone. The Duke of Newcastle—a weak, anile, and intriguing man-was Minister at the commencement of the war; and while his councils were marked by dissension, incapacity, and mismanagement, so that, to avoid the storm he had long been raising, he was at length obliged to resign; the enthusiasm of the nation itself for the war was without bounds. No pretext was required to make a war with France popular in those days. The French were looked upon as our natural enemies, whom we were bound to fight and slay upon every possible occasion. Corporations, magistrates, numerous public bodies, and many rich individuals, volunteered large sums of money to assist Government in carrying on hostilities. Patriotic songs were everywhere sung; the most popular men were those who used their eloquence in urging on the war; the fever raged from one end of England to the other, and was kept alive, and fanned into a flame, by the fear, which obtained everywhere, of a French invasion. A press-gang, armed and unscrupulous, ranged through the country; English seamen were forbidden to serve in the ships of other nations; the gaols were ransacked for felons willing to exchange chains and a halter for his Majesty's uniform; and our great national arsenals rang night and day with warlike clamour, while the forging of instruments of death went busily on. One method, at this time in vogue, of raising money for carrying on the war was the expedient of a state lottery. Two lotteries of £500,000 each were formed. The tickets were £10 each; the highest prize was £10,000; the first ticket drawn was entitled to £500, and the last to £1,000. For the benefit of those who could not afford to purchase a whole ticket, they were divided into shares of one fourth, one eighth, one sixteenth, and other values. The Government pocketed £900,000 by these little affairs, the remaining £100,000 being divided into numerous prizes. But while the heart of the nation beat thus boldly, the King's heart was greatly troubled about his little electorate at Hanover. German to the backbone, despotic in his ideas, dull and sensual by nature, he could neither sympathise with, nor understand, the mighty pulsations of a great nation in its time of need. Could he have lived in Hanover, and have still been King of England, he would have been happy: but the wilful English people preferred having their king among them. Now that there was war with France, would not his cherished electorate be in danger? He must go and see for himself: and go he did, in spite of the murmurs of the people; setting off at four o'clock one April morning, in a post chaise for Harwich, and leaving England in imminent fear of invasion by the French. Lord Powlett made a motion in the Upper House against the King's departure, but no one was bold enough to second it; for the doctrine that "the King could do no wrong," still obtained among all the higher ranks of society. It is amusing, but a little sickening, to read of the adulation and roo-tooing of which his gracious stolidity was the object. Even when he hired 8,000 German mercenaries to protect 800,000 of Englishmen ; the Peers and Commons, in Parliament assembled, tendered him their humble and hearty thanks for the favour he had done them. So the 8,000 Hessians, together with 10,000 Hanoverians, who quickly followed them, took up their quarters on English ground, to the great disgust of the commonalty, and even of the innkeepers, who refused to find them either quarters or forage. There were at this time but two political parties,-the Ins and the Outs. "The Ins strove to stay in, and keep the Outs out; the Outs strove to get in and turn the Ins out." Each party abused the other most heartily, while neither of them cared a button for the people.* A hundred years ago Mrs. Siddons was a child just able to toddle about the house; while Godwin, the celebrated novelist, was an infant at the breast. The only music yet given to the world by Mozart was of that domestic kind with which all parents are acquainted; while Chatterton was not yet able to read. Goethe was busy with his youthful studies; while Mirabeau's oratory was yet confined to the nursery. Gibbon was a young man, working hard, and laying the foundation of that vast knowledge of which he was afterwards to make such splendid use. Dear Oliver Goldsmith was working like a slave beneath the roof of the sordid Griffiths; while Gainsborough and West were yet students. The dawn of Cowper's fame was slowly brightening; and Haydn's sweet notes were beginning to attract attention. Samuel Johnson was in the meridian of his career. The Dictionary, published in 1755, had given the crowning point to his fame. Fifteen hundred guineas was the amount he received for his gigantic task; out of which, however, there were sundry heavy items to deduct. Smollett was working hard at various literary employments, and had recently introduced to the English public the renowned "Knight of La Mancha." Richardson was writing his world-known novels; and John Howard was lying in a French prison. In the religious word, Wesley, Whitfield, and Sweden * In this particular, the lapse of a century has produced no very perceptible improvement. Ed. B.M. |