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than human beings, and they put up with it as patiently as slaves. At present, coolies are very scarce, as, `owing to the famine, they have all retired into the interior, where I am at a loss to conceive how they manage to live; for though food is certainly cheaper there, there is no market for labour. Their state of moral ignorance is something terrible; and I have not as yet heard that schools have been attempted, nor that any great success has attended the missionary's endeavour to enlighten their darkness. You may therefore form a pretty accurate estimate of the moral character of such a wretched and neglected race.

useful for making Strasburg pâtes de foie gras. I have known the thermometer in the domes in the fort to range as high as 116°, in the middle of the day. Well, owing to this state of hepatic enlargement, I was ordered to proceed to " Mussoorie and the Hills North of Deyrah," on sick leave; and our Brigadier being also about to start en route to Agra, he added me and my tent to his cortége, and we made a start of it, our spirits being in a more elevated state than they had been during our previous sojourn in this land of heat, exile, and mosquitoes. Of course passed through Lahore, where we visited the Shalimar Gardens, so celebrated in the time of Runjeet Sing, and there we had a picnic, and disported ourselves with games, watched the cool fountains as they played in our honour, and pulled the juicy orange from its parent tree, and quaffed the creamy Bass, or more exhilarating sparkling Moselle. It was a happy day we passed in those gardens, wandering through fragrant groves of citron and orange trees, and close to bowers of jessamine, whose sweet breath was wafted on the breeze that gently fanned the faces of

However, let us hope that brighter days are in store both for them and for us interlopers, when, under a more liberal system of government, the Englishman may feel himself safer than at present, in endeavouring, according to an old and stereotyped phrase, to "develope the resources" of this splendid region.

poems,

II.

UP AT MUSSOORIE.

By FELIX MILMAN.

ROGERS eloquently writes, in one of his beauty that accompanied our party.

"Shades of departed joys around me rise, With many a face that smiles on me no more." And who that has lived even a portion of the threescore and ten years allotted to mankind has not realised the truth contained in the couplet? A scene, a face, that has charmed or delighted us at one time, may have been banished from or lost to us, for ever, even in a few short hours.

Let us conjure up a dream of the past, and instead of describing a climate where the thermometer stands at 100° Fahrenheit, let us discourse of the time when I first got into a jan-pan, and made the ascent to dear old Mussoorie from Rajpore. I had had a good spell of Mooltan. The heat there is so great, that the Natives acknowledge that there is only a sheet of tissue paper between it and the Inferno so ably pourtrayed by the Italian poet Dante; and, consequently, had my liver so enlarged, that it was only fit for two purposesone being to burst, the other to render it

Did we not also contrast the present with the past, when fierce orgies were held in these now deserted reception halls. All the revelry is hushed; the bul-bul still tunes its plaintive voice, and carols its songs amongst the groves of the Shalimar; but the lust and revelry of Runjeet's court is now trampled out, and the past is nearly forgotten by all.

From thence we went to Umballa, and to Jullundur; and when, at last, the Hindun was crossed, and Delhi was reached, we parted company, and I made for Meerut. Thence I took palkee dâk to Rajpore, and eventually, after having bathed and breakfasted at the Auckland Hotel, made the ascent of the hill in a jan-pan; and I confess that I was wofully fearful of the awful khuds that I stared down upon as I was carried upwards, though the next time I saw them, I was riding a steady Deccanee pony at a hand gallop, down hill, and wondered at my former state of fear-so quickly does custom harden one to danger.

Landour was my destination, and

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fearfully cold I found it as I reached the hospitable home of a very dear friend, to whom I was consigned; and did I not heartily embrace the offer of a seat close to a cosy and brightly burning wood fire!

Mooltan, during many months of the year, is as intensely cold, as it is hot for the remainder; but the cold of the hills is greater, and is more sensibly felt. A box from England, with warm clothing, was awaiting my arrival, and I hastened to open it, and accoutre myself. A bottle of pale ale, after all I had gone through, was very palatable, and then there was much to talk of. My fellow-traveller, an invalid lady, was much fatigued by the ascent. It is needless to remark, perhaps, that jan-pans are not as comfortable they look, when the journey is an uphill one. They are roomy and pleasant enough on the level, but, at best, are ungainly and unwieldy affairs.

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It is a sad theme to dwell upon, but now that I am fairly into my description of the Hills, the memory of many lost faces rushes through my brain, and I ́think of the kind hearts and loving faces of those whose troubles have ended upon earth, and who have gone before, perhaps to prepare the way for us.

Genial, warm hearts, chilled and cold in the grave-no more to speak a word of love and sympathy to us who sorrowfully drop a tear of regret upon their hill-side grave. A friend, but lately writing of one related to him, who died there, says of her grave: "Visit it. It is a poetical curiosity in its way, on a mountain slope, not in the graveyard at all. Before she died, she selected a pleasant nook, like Napoleon at St. Helena. You will find it beneath the Landour Hospital, towards the west." Alas! many that were as happy as mortals could be in 1853, are now numbered with the living memories of the past. The flowers have lost their odours for us, the vase is shattered in pieces, and the picture-frame falls from the portrait that it had once so sacredly held.

Dear, charming Mussoorie! how happy I was in your cold, bracing, genial, and friendly climate. The good days of Mussoorie, we are told, are past. That cordiality, once so general there,

has cooled down, and it has became much more like a provincial town than it ever bade fair to be.

The magnificent scenery everywhere around forcibly reminded me of my inability to paint or describe it :— "Who can paint

Like nature? Can imagination boast,
Amid its gay creations, hues like this?
Or can it mix them with that matchless skill,
And lose them in each other, as appears
In every bud that blows ?"

It was

So wrote Robert Southey. at Mussoorie that I experienced the divine influence of love; and though nothing ever came of it, I cannot but look back to that time with a sigh of regret, and muse over "joys that are gone"! There is no place so convenient to the exhibition of a love for some sweet girl, as amidst the hush of nature. Everything that adds a sacredness to the scene of beauty, but woos us to happiness. All quiet and serene around, we thirst for some genial soul to pour out our heart to, and we instinctively take the first step towards falling in love. There may be some whose recollections can carry them back to 1853, when they belonged to the Flying Brigade at Mussoorie, and, peradventure, their hearts will warm as they remember the "threes about" at the corner called Chillianwalla, or those glorious gallops on the polished floor of the Club-room, and the going home at six in the morning, merely to change clothes, to jump on one's horse, and scamper at a devil's own pace round the Camel's Back!

Some, too, will recall the hours of sport in Deyrah Dhoon-twenty-four brace of quails bagged before breakfast close to the Race-course; the last picnic at the Murray or Butter Falls, or that at the Robber's Cave, where we discussed tiffin and small-talk on a large rock in the centre of a running stream. Where are those friends now? We have seen queer changes in England, on the Continent, and in India, since then; but the heart returns with boyish elasticity to those days, fraught with so much happiness, so much merriment, and pure enjoyment.

Seated in my verandah in Prospect Lodge, at Landour, and overlooking the pretty valley of Deyrah Dhoon, I oft was rapt in wonder at the many and

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Botanical Gardens, the Fairy Hill at Landour, the Murray and Butter Falls, the Almorah Road, and Colonel Cox's grounds, are the sights of the hills, and all well worth seeing.

Many and numerous were the picnics, and archery and rifle-matches, that I joined in during two happy years passed on those elysian hills. A course of lectures was inaugurated for the benefit of young Dhuleep Sing, and he was good enough to present a shawl and a diamond ring for the ladies to shoot for, and a rifle and a brace of pistols for the gentlemen.

A heavy, rolling mass of white vapour rises from the earth, and stretches across the entire valley: first the Sewalik range of hills becomes obscured, then the town and suburbs of Deyrah, and at last the whole valley. The vapour rises higher and higher, and at length drives me from the verandah. I close the doors, but it penetrates at some crevices, and saturates and damps everything written. I mope over 8 novel by the fire, or drink a bottle of the far-famed Bholé Beer made by Mackinnon, and in an hour or less, the sky is again clear, the sun shining brightly on the Dhoon, and I light my cheroot once more, and gaze on the glorious scene below.

The Park at Mussoorie, the hill on which stands the Observatory, the

Cupid is ever on the qui vive at Mussoorie, and many couples are made happy every season at the little Church

on the Mall.

And now, Mussoorie, farewell! My heart longs for thee once more, but sterner duties prevent me galloping again on thy strand, or waltzing with thy rosy-cheeked and agile-footed syrens in the dance. Mussoorie, farewell :

"Seul rayon d'une même flamme, Je suis vous, et vous êtes moi."

Reminiscences of Poets and their Songs.

I. JOHN KEATS.

THE times are considerably changed since "Maga," sitting, like Mons. Meg, in attitude of threatening significance on the Castle-hill of" Auld Reekie," fulminated monthly anathemas against "Master Keats" and his entire connexion. The times are changed since great-little William Gifford made such fierce onslaughts against the same" Cockney crew," and gave occasion to Byron's false, flippant, and ill-natured allegation that John Keats "was killed off by one critique, just as he really promised something great," and to Percy Bysshe Shelley's indignant letter of remonstrance to the truculent reviewer. Even then, a few voices were from time to time heard in enthusiastic eulogy of the youthful poet, assigning him a place with the highest of all.

These few voices have grown more and more in number, and have waxed stronger and stronger in admiration. According to the habitual animus of party spirit, the rival, or rather antagonistic sections, have urged each other on to excess of detraction on the one side, and of panegyric on the other. The more intense the acrimony of hostile criticism, the more idolatrous becomes the worship of discipleship. If the enemy had not written John down an ass, the ally would not have canonized him as a god. But as vexatious opposition sees fit to pull so unmercifully one way, jealous friendship cannot forbear trying strenuously the other; and, between the two, the unfortunate object of contention,

dragged both ways at once, is in peril of the death of the brothers DeWittnothing but mutilated limbs being presented to the public gaze, the sundered remnants of a literary broil. The tendency now-a-days is to see nothing but beauties in the author of Hyperion. Some even transubstantiate his patches into beauty. spots, and see a sublime method in his madness, and call bitter sweet, and make defect effective, and build a reputation on a blemish. For our part, we account it feasible to esteem John Keats a fine poet, without consorting him with the finest. He may be justly preferred to Pollok and Kirke White, to Croly recent ly deceased, and Bernard Barton, and yet be refused a place in that high sphere consecrated to the highest of all. He is a star; but not necessarily of the “first magnitude." One star differeth from another star in glory. He may be a gem, and yet not of" purest ray serene." He may be the equal of Shelley-perhaps above him, and yet below Wordsworth. In a word, we assent to the verdict of å sensible and impartial critic of his times, that "it was the misfortune of Keats, as a poet, to be either extravagantly praised or unmercifully condemned. The former was owing to the generous partialities of friendship, somewhat obtrusively displayed; the latter, in some degree, to resentment of that friendship, connected as it was with party politics, and peculiar views of society as well as poetry." The biographical memoir of this poet by Mr. R. Moncton Miles, M.P., is exceedingly powerful-darker and darker unto the perfect night; the last scene of all being the saddest of all, the most tragical of all. It almost seems, also, that in this case the wind had not been tempered to the shorn lamb-as though the bruised reed had been broken, and the smoking flax quenched. A youth of acutest sensibility was plunged in a sea of troubles could he-with that too sensitive frame, that over-refined physique, that delicate organisation—could he, by opposing, have ended them—could he, by buffeting, have subdued those troubles, and stilled the waters to a great calm ? Ay, there was the rub! Better mencoarser, healthier, less susceptible men-might have; but not John Keats.

We spectators, safe on the sea-shore, in the luxurious attitude of literary observers, can imagine the melancholy fate of the sea-engulphed struggler, inch by inch, till there comes

"Accompanied with a convulsive splash,

Or solitary shriek, the bubbling cry

Of that poor swimmer in his agony."

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That" hapless apothecary's boy" was so inured to crosses, that he went stooping from his "teens" to his tomb-no great interval. In 1817, he says— "I scarcely remember counting on any happiness. I look not for it if it be not in the present hour. Nothing startles me beyond the moment. The first thing that strikes me on hearing a misfortune having befallen another is this—'Well, it cannot be helped; he will have the pleasure of trying the resources of his spirit!'" In the same year he writes to his friend John Reynolds : Why don't you, as I do, look unconcerned at what may be called more particularly heartvexations? They never surprise me. A man should have the fine edge of his soul taken off, to become fit for this world." And because the fine edge never could be taken off in his case, without destroying the instrument itself, he never could become fit for this world, and it was the death of him. Yet he tried hard to accommodate his poetical self to his unpoetical circumstances to make Pegasus thrive on indifferent earthly oats, scantily supplied, in a stable of earthly

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REMINISCENCES OF POETS AND THEIR SONGS.

431 reeking atmosphere. His theory was even stoical in this respect. Thus, in 1819, he wrote from Shanklin, Isle of Wight, whither he had gone in quest of health-" However I should like to enjoy what the competencies of life procure, I am in no wise dashed at a different prospect. I have spent

too many thoughtful days, and moralised through too many nights, for that; and fruitless would they be, indeed, if they did not, by degrees, made me look upon the world with a healthy deliberation. I have of late been moulting; not for fresh wings and feathers-they are gone, and in their stead I hope to have a pair of patient sublunary legs." But when the deliberative judgment is not seconded, but is thwarted and defied by the fevered heart, by the restless feelings, by the natural temperament heated to a degree of unnatural excitement, theory is but a poor comforter, and has to creep off the stage, without "patient sublunary legs," as best it may. Says Carlyle, in his terse, graphic way-" How beautiful to die of a broken heart-on paper! Quite another thing in practice: every window of your feeling, even of your intellect, as it were, begrimed and mud-bespattered, so that no pure ray can enter; a whole drug-shop in your inwards; the fore-done soul drowning in quagmires of disgust." Did Keats die of a broken heart? If not, by a death a little more than kin and less than kind. Formerly, it was taken for granted that critics were guilty of murder, or manslaughter at the least, and that to their act and deed was directly traceable the "living did languish, and languishing did die" of Adonais. So Byron

"Poor fellow ! His was an untoward fate;

'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle,"

should let itself be snuffed out by an article in the Quarterly Review. So Gerald Griffin the novelist (of the collegians) and dramatist (of Gisippus) speaks of the consumptive poet sucking drop after drop the poison stream of that bitter critique, unable to throw aside what was working like madness in his brain. But while it seems clear enough that he suffered very acutely from the cause in question, these representations of his mental and physical condition, in reference to the cause, may have been too highly or darkly coloured. Sensitive and irritable as his nature was, Keats cherished healthy views on these matters as when he says—“I have no reason to complain, because I am certain anything really fine will in these days be felt. I have no doubt that if I had written Othello, I should have been cheered. I shall go on in patience." Perhaps irritation begot independence, or the aspiration after that "lord of the lion heart and eagle eye," in such sentiments as the following: A drummer-boy, who holds out his hand familiarly to a field-marshal—that drummer-boy with me is the good word and favour of the public. Who could wish to be among the common-place crowd of the little famous, who are each individually lost in a throng made up of themselves?—Is this worth courting or playing the hypocrite for-to beg suffrages for a seat on the benches of a myriad aristocracy in letters?" If the next is really genuine and unaffected, it is right noble, and consoles us in reviewing the poet's history: "I feel it in my power to become a popular writer. I feel it in my power to refuse the poisonous suffrage of a public. My own being, which I know to be, becomes of more consequence to me than the crowds of shadows of men and women that inhabit a kingdom. The soul is a world of itself, and has enough to do in its own home." Elsewhere he says-" The faint conceptions I

VOL. I.-57

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