pal objects of public importance on which they turned were, the proposition of Major Kirkpatrick for stocking the Nizam's army with British officers; the execution of the orders from Europe respecting the Dutch settlements, viz. the steps previous to the attack of Trincomalee; the Candian embassy; and the Eastern expedition. Upon these points, I do not assume more than the public records will justify, when I assert that the measures of this government have been approved by the Court of Directors. "Upon the discussions respecting the Nabob of the Carnatic and the Raja of Tanjore, unable to speak from positive official authority, I shall only express my conviction, that experience will show the futility of those hopes that rest upon the expectation of carrying any essential object with them by persuasion alone, and that humanity, sound policy, and justice, will impress the necessity of a more effectual interference." Soon after his return to this country his lordship was called up by writ to the House of Peers, and placed in the ancient barony of Hobart. In 1801 he was appointed Secretary at War; in 1804 he succeeded to the titles and estates of the late Earl, his father; in 1806 he was appointed Post Master General; and, on the removal of Lord Melville to the Admiralty, he obtained the high distinction of President of the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India. The extraordinary zeal and unwearied activity displayed by this nobleman, in the execution of the important duties of his office, demand a respect which, perhaps, none in any way connected with the concerns of our Eastern Empire will be inclined to withhold. In the important discussion on the renewal of the Company's exclusive privileges, the weight of his lordship's abilities and experience was fully manifest. As a minister of the crown he had to distinguish between the advantages, in a national point of view, which would accrue from a partial opening of the trade, and the dangers which would have undoubtedly attended the realizing of the extravagant expectations and unbounded pretensions which influenced the public mind at the period of the renewal of the present charter. These pretensions, like most other popular feelings, were neither founded in justice, nor did they look to more than one side of the question, and the rights of the East India Company, the great political measures they had in the course of two centuries achieved, and the harassing exactions and the commercial difficulties which they had surmounted, and had still to contend with, were scarcely at all weighed by the majority of the nation at large. The terms of the charter of 1813 are too fully in the possession of the public to need recapitulation here. The extension of the trade to the out ports, which is its most important feature, was not, we believe, contemplated by the Gentleman who was President of the Board at the commencement of the negociation, and the policy of the Earl of Buckinghamshire, in recommending to the legislature the adoption of that measure, may be considered in almost every point of view as questionable, and has certainly not yet been made apparent. In awarding to his lordship the share of praise which justly belongs to him in the conduct of this important negociation, it is not easy to lose sight of the extraordinary ability and eloquence which was displayed by the Directors of the Company on the other side of the question The subject of the renewal of the Company's Charter and the Embassy to China, were the last acts of his lordship's' political life; and till within a few days of his decease, he was actually employ Mr. Dundas, ed, in conjunction with the leading members of the Court of Directors, in completing the arrangement of Lord Amhurst's important mission, to the favourable issue of which it is well known that he looked with sanguine expectations. His Lordship's health had declined since the autumn of 1815, and he had been some time seriously indisposed in consequence of a fall from his horse in St. James's Park, nearly three months previous to his decease. By the advice of his physicians he repaired to Bath, but obtaining no benefit from the change, and receiving little or no hopes of recovery, he removed to town, where he expired in the 56th year of his age, at his house in Hamilton Place, on the 4th Feb. 1816. On the demise of his lordship Mr. Canning was appointed his successor at Whitehall, and Mr. T. Wallace retired, after a long and active discharge of the duties of a Member of the Board.* The Earl was twice married: first to Margaretta, the relict of Thomas Adderley, Esq. of Innishannon, in the county of Cork, in January 1792; and a second time to Eleanor Agnes Eden, a daughter of Lord Auckland, in June 1799. Having no male issue the titles and estates devolve on his nephew George Henry, the present Earl. Lady Sarah Hobart, his Lordship's daughter by his first lady, is married to the Hon. F. Robinson. The Clerkship of the Common Pleas in the Exchequer of Ireland also becaine vacant by his Lordship's death. in your ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. To the Editor of the Asiatic Journal. Sir,-Many of your readers besides myself have to thank you for the valuable information contained number for October, on the long unsettled question of rank and precedence in India. Length of service in the country and military rank, heretofore the only claims to distinction, have long been found insufficient for the preservation of the due order and decorum of the refined society of British India, a society which in point of the purity of its morals and true civilization stands confessedly the first of any European colony. The course now pursued was I believe recommended by the late Earl of Buckinghamshire and is similar to the one adopted in the year 1760, with reference to his Majesty's colonies in America. I have however to regret that with the ladies the knotty point is still undecided, and that on their account it is again referred home. I would not for a moment entertain the idea that our fair country women would push their feelings so far that they would rather "Reign in Hell than serve in Heaven;" but those who like myself have witnessed the direful contests which have occurred at no very distant period at the Presidency under which I served, will scarcely entertain very sanguine hopes that even the weight of royal authority can satisfactorily allay the "pleasing hopes and fond desires" of female emulation. But, sir, much as I lament the disputes which have thus arisen among the ladies in India, I am by no means of opinion that it is a question of trifling import, or that it will be best settled when left to itself; it is mainly to the influence of the fair sex that society in India is indebted for the pure and high tone of character which it now enjoys, and while we admit the truth (a practical truth to all who have resided any time in India) it is undoubtedly proper that their rank should be assigned and fixed with the same regard to 'delicacy and feeling as has been evinced in the royal warrant which settles the rank and precedence of the other sex. I would however remind my fair countrywomen, that although it may be necessary to assign a proper rank to them in India, yet when they return to their native country all this desire of superiority can no longer be gratified. The lady governess and the wife of the chief justice may find it very proper amusement to contend for the upper hand while their husbands are absent from the Presidency, but in England the wives of John Bull, though glittering in the diamonds of Golconda, or wrapped in the shawls of Tibet, must be content to be elbowed with at least an equal proportion of citizens and right honourable dames. The question under reference appears to be as to the respective stations of those ladies who rank in England according to their birth, and those who are entitled to rank in right of their husbands only. I confess I can see nothing anoma lous in a peeress or daughter of a peer retaining the rank in India she would hold in England, although her husband's rank might be inferior, provided such precedence does not take place of the wives of the members of government. Besides these right honourable ladies must carry their rank with them in returning to England, but those who possess rank only in right of their husbands must resign it immediately on leaving India. In whatever way therefore the sovereign may be pleased to settle the point in reference, it is hoped that the difficulty of the task will be duly considered by the ladies, and that if royal wisdom itself fail to give universal satisfaction to those dear absentees, let them remember that there are those in England who are waiting to give them in their own country that homage to their virtues and minds which no rank can command and which no warrant can create. I am, Sir, &c. CARNATICUS. Bath, To the Editor of the Asiatic Journal. I am at a loss whether the challenge you allude to, in your address to correspondents, be the free translation from Sadi, or the imitation from Hafiz; but to make sure I shall answer it from both authors. Sadik is a familiar signature with me of old; but he could quote his original, when I formerly knew him. The signature of Shiraz is new; his author Sadi has long been a favourite with me; and I have had translations of his Gulistan, Bustan, and other parts of his Kulīāt lying by me for upwards of twenty years. Sadi passed a long life, one hundred and sixteen lunar years, in poverty; having travelled during thirty of them over great part of the habitable world, six hundred and fifty years ago, as a dervise, and having spent his last sixty years as a reli gious recluse; yet in a dispute between him and a fellow dervise, he took the side of the rich in opposition to the poor man; and argued that, from his easy circumstances, he is likely to be the most pious, moral, and of course charitable of the two, as having the means of being so. 1 could quote twenty passages from Sadi's works, that would agree in the sentiment expressed in the lines of Shiraz; but both he and Sadik are, I fear, too paraphrastical to furnish me with a clew, and I would recommend their at least giving the first hemistic, if a Ghaz'l, which in Persian answers as an index, either in the original or an English character. For the present I must content myself with giving you an apologue, the last of the ninth chapter, of Sadi's Bustan; wherein the au thor, cold and indifferent as he generally seems to the common occurrences of life, expresses a keener domestic feeling than I should have thought him capable of: yet on such an occasion "He could not but remember such things were, And were most dear to him!" He might say with Young: [know." چکویم کز آنم چه بر سر گزشت بصنعان درم طفلي انرر گزشت که ماهي کورش چو یونس نخورد. که باد اجل ببخش از بن نکنر قصا نقش يوسف جمالي نكرد درین باغ سروي نياير بلنر * * عجب نیست برخای اگر کل شکفت * که چنرین کل انرام در وي بخفت که کودک رود پاک و الوده پیر برل گفتم اي ننک مردان بمیر بر انراختم سنگی از مرقرش ز سودا و آشفتگي بر قرمش ز هولم در آن جاي تاویک و تنگ * بشوریر حال و بگردیر رنک * ز فرزنر دلبنرم آمر بکوش چو باز آمرم ز آن تغیر بهوش کرت وحشت آمرز تاریک جای * بهش باش و با روشناتي در آي از پنجا چراغی عمل بر فروز شب کور خواهي منور چو روز که کنرم نیفشانره خرمن برنو كروهي فراوان طمع ظن برنر بر آن خورد سعري که بيخي نشانر * كسي برد خرمن که تخمي فشانر Having occasion some time ago to send my literal translation of the above, as a part of a specimen of a life of Sadi I have also lying by me, to an old Bengal friend, his son, now preparing to go out to India as a writer in the Hon. Company's service, returned me lately a poetical version of it; which I shall now copy with some few alterations and additions, after my own literal translation :— “In the land of Sanaa (the capital of Yemen or Arabia Felix) I lost a son by death, how am I to describe the affliction I suffered for his sake: fate never ordain ed a beautiful form like that of Joseph, which the fishes of the grave (i. e. the worms) have not devoured, as the whale swallowed Jonas: in this garden (the present life) no stately cypress yet flourished, which the desolating storm of death has not torn up by the roots: no wonder, that roses should spring from that earth, under which so many rose-bodied charmers lie buried ! I said in my heart, die, oh reprobate! for infants depart from life nocent, and old men contaminated with sin: In my melancholy and disconsolate recollection of his lovely form, I tore off the stone that closed up the entrance of his sepulchre; and in this my desperate plight I entered that gloomy and narrow vault, with a gait bewildered and a face inflamed: when my reason had recovered itself from this state of desolation, 1 fancied that my soul-deluding boy was whispering in my ear: "if despair overwhelmed thee in this abode of gloom, be wise and prepare for thyself a place of greater cheerfulness ; wishest thou, that the night of the grave might be laminous as day? then carry with thee ready trimmed the lamp of good works." The majority of mankind entertain the sordid hope, that they can reap the harvest without having sown the seed: but he, oh Sadi! can eat In Sanaa once my happy land, Which nurtur'd and which fed And in his grave was laid : The cypress, empress of the groves, Yet levelled is by storms: So Joseph, in his grave laid low, Is eaten up by worms: No wonder, that this verdant earth To sweetest fruits and flowers gives birth, The pomegranate and rose; Its bitter cup of tears, The close of life oft stain. With throbbing heart and beating breast, Reflecting on his early doom His forward youth and rosy bloom, Unable all to save: Collecting my Now that alone I'd reached the place, And tomb-stone put away, When lo! I thought that form divine, Looked up with countenance benign, Aud spoke or seem'd to say : "If doubts and fears thy soul corrode, Quick, leave this dark, this drear abode, Be prudent and depart; Let virtue and religion kind And wisdom rule thy heart. Through life's bewild'ring road Forego that expectation vain, Foolish and mad indeed; Hoping without the sweat and toil Who had not sown the seed: For hie, oh Sadi! only he Can pluck the fruit, who set the tree, For him alone the soil shall yield, Its harvest and its fruit. Of my next quotation of a Ghaz❜l of Hafiz, many of our best poets, from Shakespear to Dermody's "woodbine's fragrant twine," have given us beautiful imitations; but as none of them is sufficiently apposite, I must nevertheless make bold to offer a new one. اي باد نسيم يار داري ز نهار مکن دراز دستي ز آن نافر مشکبار داري با طره او چه کار داري او مشک تر و تو خار داري أي كل تو کجا و روي زيباش * او تازه و تو غبار داري ريحان تو کجا و خط سبزش . او سر خوش و تو خمار داری نرکس تو کجا و چشم شوخش در باغ چه اعتبار داري أي سرو تو با قر بلنرش در دست چه اختيار داري. عقل تو با وجود عشقش کر طاقت انتظار داري روزي برسي بوصل حافظ Oh balmy zephyr ! hast thou a mistress? from her thou must have stolen that muskshedding pod! take care and make not so free with thy hand, what hast thou to do with her lovely ringlets? Oh rose! how canst thou rival her blooming check, her's is smooth as musk, and thine rough with thorns? oh sweet basil! how canst thon sport thy flowing locks, her's are fresh and glossy, thine brown as dust? oh Narcissus! how canst thou intrude upon her thy tipsy-rolling eye, her's is all |