TO HIS EXCELLENCY

SIR HENRY EDWARD BARTLE FRERE,

K.C.B., &c. &c.,

GOVERNOR OF BOMBAY,

This Work is Brapertiully Bedicated,

IN HUMBLE TOKEN OF ADMIRATION,

BY

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

MANY of the following pages have already been read before the public and received the stamp of approbation, as affording a series of sketches calculated to give instruction and encouragement to the Indian Youth. What were delivered in the shape of desultory Lectures, together with the addition of hitherto undelivered sketches, having been put in a collected form and sent the round of some half-a-dozen English scholars (among whom may be named the kind and learned Rev. Drs. Wilson, Mitchell, Fraser, and G-, and K-, as particularly affording encouragement), the Author ventures to put them forth in the form of the present volume, with fear and trembling.

Indian Society has undergone some change since the latest missionary and other publications relating to it were issued; and the writer has attempted in the following pages a faithful picture of India in some of the most prominent intellectual, social, and moral bearings of the present day. The aim has been particularly kept in view to state in honest boldness the faults and discrepancies to be perceived in Native character; and as human nature is too vast for any particular description, there may seem contradictions in some places, either in the narration of existing facts, or in the hopes entertained of the future. But these contradictions may be easily reconciled by the reader, who would persuade himself to believe that the existence of defects in a portion, and even the larger portion, of the inhabitants of a country, need not necessarily dim the bright prospect of the future inspired by a recognition of the worth of the other and smaller portion.