But death's in his tramp As he sweeps round your camp; One charge and one roar, And you sleep in your gore! But the plague-spot has fallen Where art thou, Old Bourbon? Like thee, they are corpses- Where the victor Bourmont? - Yet the plague shall not smite The grave shall be fed. Too weak to retain, That shall blast them with war- MUSEUM OF Foreign Literature, Science and Art. APRIL, 1840. From the Edinburgh Review. The Life of Robert Lord Clive; collected from the Family Papers, communicated by the Earl of Powis. By Major-General Sir John Malcolm, K. C. B. 3 vols. 8vo. London: 1836. Yet, unless we greatly err, this subject is, to most readers, not only insipid, but positively distasteful. Perhaps the fault lies partly with the historians. Mr. Mill's book, though it has undoubtedly great and rare merit, is not sufficiently animated and picturesque to attract those who read for amusement. Orme, inferior to no English historian in style and power of painting, is minute even to tediousness. In one volume he allots, on an average, a closelyprinted quarto page to the events of every forty-eight hours. The consequence is, that his narrative, though one of the most authentic, and one of the most finely written in our language, has never been very popular, and is now scarcely ever read. We have always thought it strange, that while the history of the Spanish empire in America is familiarly known to all the nations of Europe, the great actions of our countrymen in the East should, even among ourselves, excite little interest. Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned Montezuma, and who strangled Atabalipa. But we doubt whether one in ten, even among English gentlemen of highly We fear that Sir John Malcolm's volumes will cultivated minds, can tell who won the battle of not much attract those readers whom Orme and Mill Buxar, who perpetrated the massacre of Patna, whe- have repelled. The materials placed at his disposal ther Surajah Dowlah ruled in Oude or in Travancore, by the late Lord Powis, were indeed of great value. or whether Holkar was a Hindoo or a Mussulman. But we cannot say that they have been very skilfully Yet the victories of Cortes were gained over savages worked up. It would, however, be unjust to criticise who had no letters, who were ignorant of the use of with severity a work which, if the author had lived metals, who had not broken in a single animal to to complete and revise it, would probably have labour, who wielded no better weapons than those been improved by coudensation, and by a better arwhich could be made out of sticks, flints, and fish-rangement. We are more disposed to perform the bones, who regarded a horse-soldier as a monster pleasing duty of expressing our gratitude to the noble half man and half beast, who took a harquebusier for family to which the public owes so much useful and a sorcerer, able to scatter the thunder and lightning curious information. of the skies. The people of India, when we subdued The effect of the book, even when we make the them, were ten times as numerous as the vanquished Americans, and were at the same time quite as highly civilized as the victorious Spaniards. They had reared cities larger and fairer than Saragossa or Toledo, and buildings more beautiful and costly than the cathedral of Seville. They could show bankers richer than the richest firms of Barcelona or Cadiz, viceroys whose splendour far surpassed that of Ferdinand the Catholic, myriads of cavalry and long trains of artillery which would have astonished the Great Captain. It might have been expected, that every Englishman who takes any interest in any part of history would be curious to know how a handful of his countrymen, separated from their home by an immense ocean, subjugated, in the course of a few years, one of the greatest empires in the world. MUSEUM.-APRIL, 1840. largest allowance for the partiality of those who have 45 But produced a man more truly great either in arms or in council. The Clives had been settled, ever since the twelfth century, on an estate of no great value, near MarketDrayton, in Shropshire. In the reign of George the First, this moderate but ancient inheritance was possessed by Mr. Richard Clive, who seems to have been a plain man of no great tact or capacity. He had been bred to the law, and divided his time between professional business and the avocations of a small proprietor. He married a lady from Manchester, of the name of Gaskill, and became the father of a very numerous family. His eldest son, Robert, the founder of the British empire in India, was born at the old seat of his ancestors on the 29th of September, 1725. 66 Some lineaments of the character of the man were early discerned in the child. There remain letters written by his relations when he was in his seventh year; and from these it appears that, even at that early age, his strong will, and his fiery passions, sustained by a constitutional intrepidity which sometimes seemed hardly compatible with soundness of mind, had begun to cause great uneasiness to the family. Fighting," says one of his uncles, "to which he is out of measure addicted, gives his temper such a fierceness and imperiousness, that he flies out on every trifling occasion." The old people of the neighbourhood still remember to have heard from their parents how Bob Clive climbed to the top of the lofty steeple of Market-Drayton, and with what terror the inhabitants saw him seated on a stone spout near the summit. They also relate how he formed all the good-for-nothing lads of the town into a kind of predatory army, and compelled the shopkeepers to submit to a tribute of apples and halfpence, in consideration of which he guaranteed the security of their windows. He was sent from school to school, making very little progress in his learning, and gaining for himself every where the character of an exceedingly naughty boy. One of his masters, it is said, was sagacious enough to prophesy that the idle lad would make a great figure in the world. But the general opinion seems to have been, that poor Robert was a dunce, if not a reprobate. His family expected nothing good from such slender parts and such a headstrong temper. It is not strange, therefore, that they gladly accepted for him, when he was in his eighteenth year, a writership in the service of the East India Company, and shipped him off to make a fortune or to die of a fever at Madras. Far different were the prospects of Clive from those of the youths whom the East India College now annually sends to the presidencies of our Asiatic empire. The company was then purely a trading corporation. Its territory consisted of a few square miles, for which rent was paid to the native governments. Its troops were scarcely numerous enough to man the batteries of three or four ill-constructed forts, which had been erected for the protection of the warehouses. The natives who composed a considerable part of these little garrisons, had not yet been trained in the discipline of Europe, and were armed some with swords and shields, some with bows and arrows. The business of the servant of the company was not, as now, to conduct the judicial, financial, and diplomatic business of a great country, but to take stock, to make advances to weavers, to ship cargoes, and to keep a sharp look out for private traders who dared to infringe the monopoly. The younger clerks were so miserably paid, that they could scarcely subsist without incurring debt; the elder enriched themselves by trading on their own account; and those who lived to rise to the top of the service, often accumulated considerable fortunes. Madras, to which Clive had been appointed, was, at this time, perhaps the first in importance of the company's settlements. In the preceding century, Fort St. George had arisen on a barren spot, beaten by a raging surf; and in the neighbourhood a town, inhabited by many thousands of natives, had sprung up, as towns spring up in the East, with the rapidity of the prophet's gourd. There were already in the suburbs many white villas, each surrounded by its garden, whither the wealthy agents of the company retired, after the labours of the desk and the warehouse, to enjoy the cool breeze which springs up at sunset from the Bay of Bengal. The habits of these mercantile grandees appear to have been more profuse, luxurious, and ostentatious, than those of the high judicial and political functionaries who have succeeded them. But comfort was far less understood. Many devices which now mitigate the heat of the climate, preserve health, and prolong life, were unknown. There was less intercourse with Europe than at present. The voyage by the Cape, which in our time has often been performed within three months, was then very seldom accomplished in six, and was sometimes protracted to more than a year. Consequently the Anglo-Indian was then much more estranged from his country, much more an oriental in his tastes and habits, and much less fitted to mix in society after his return to Europe, than the Anglo-Indian of the present day. Within the fort and its precincts, the English governors exercised, by permission of the native rulers, an extensive authority. But they had never dreamed of claiming independent power. The surrounding country was governed by the nabob of the Carnatic, a deputy of the viceroy of the Deccan, commonly called the Nizam, who was himself only a deputy of the mighty prince designated by our ancestors as the Great Mogul. Those names, once so august and formidable, still remain. There is still a nabob of the Carnatic, who lives on a pension allowed to him hy the company, out of the revenues of the province which his ancestors ruled. There is still a Nizam, whose capital is overawed by a British cantonment, and to whom a British resident gives, under the name of advice, commands which are not to be disputed. There is still a Mogul, who is permitted to play at holding courts and receiving petitions, but who has less power to help or hurt than the youngest civil servant of the company. Clive's voyage was unusually tedious even for that age. The ship remained some months at the Brazils, where the young adventurer picked up some knowledge of Portuguese, and spent all his pocketmoney. He did not arrive in India till more than a year after he had left England. His situation at Madras was most painful. His funds were exhausted. His pay was small. He had contracted debts. He was wretchedly lodged-no small calamity in a climate which can be rendered tolerable to an European only by spacious and well-placed apartments. He had been furnished with letters of recommendation to a gentleman who might have assisted him; but honour that only a moderate ransom should be rewhen he landed at Fort St. George, he found that quired. this gentleman had sailed for England. His shy But the success of Labourdonnais had awakened and haughty disposition withheld him from intro- the jealousy of his countryman, Dupleix, governor ducing himself. He was several months in India of Pondicherry. Dupleix, moreover, had already before he became acquainted with a single family. begun to revolve gigantic schemes, with which the The climate affected his health and spirits. His restoration of Madras to the English was by no duties were of a kind ill suited to his ardent and means compatible. He declared that Labourdonnais daring character. He pined for his home, and in his had gone beyond his powers; that conquests made letters to his relations expressed his feelings in lan- by the French arms on the continent of India were guage softer and more pensive than we should have at the disposal of the governor of Pondicherry alone; expected, from the waywardness of his boyhood, or and that Madras should be rased to the ground. Lafrom the inflexible sternness of his later years. "I bourdonnais was compelled to yield. The anger have not enjoyed," says he, "one happy day since which the breach of the capitulation excited among I left my native country." And again, "I must the English, was increased by the ungenerous man-confess, at intervals, when I think of my dear native ner in which Dupleix treated the principal servants England, it affects me in a very particular manner. of the company. The governor and several of the If I should be so far blest as to revisit first gentlemen of Fort St. George, were carried under again my own country, but more especially Man- a guard to Pondicherry, and conducted through the chester, the centre of all my wishes, all that I could town in a triumphal procession under the eyes of hope or desire for would be presented before me in fifty thousand spectators. It was with reason thought one view." that this gross violation of public faith absolved the inhabitants of Madras from the engagements intowhich they had entered with Labourdonnais. Clive fled from the town by night in the disguise of a Mussulman, and took refuge at Fort St. David, one of the small English settlements subordinate to Madras. One solace he found of the most respectable kind. The governor possessed a good library, and permitted Clive to have access to it. The young man devoted much of his leisure to reading, and acquired at this time almost all the knowledge of books that he ever possessed. As a boy he had been too idle, as a man he soon became too busy, for literary pursuits. But neither climate, nor poverty, nor study, nor the sorrows of a homesick exile, could tame the desperate audacity of his spirit. He behaved to his official superiors as he had behaved to his schoolmasters, and was several times in danger of losing his situation. Twice, while residing in the Writers' Buildings, he attempted to destroy himself; and twice the pistol which he snapped at his own head failed to go off. This circumstance, it is said, affected him as a similar escape affected Wallenstein. After satisfying himself that the pistol was really well loaded, he burst forth into an exclamation, that surely he was reserved for something great. The circumstances in which he was now placed, " naturally led him to adopt a profession better suited to his restless and intrepid spirit, than the business. of examining packages and casting accounts. He solicited and obtained an ensign's commission in the service of the company, and at twenty-one entered on his military career. His personal courage, of which he had, while still a writer, given signal proof by a desperate duel with a military bully who was the terror of Fort St. David, speedily made him conspicuous even among hundreds of brave men. He soon began to show in his new calling other qualities which had not before been discerned in him-judgment, sagacity, deference to legitimate authority. He distinguished himself highly in several operations against the French, and was particularly noticed by Major Lawrence, who was then considered as the ablest British officer in India. About this time an event, which at first seemed likely to destroy all his hopes in life, suddenly opened before him a new path to eminence. Europe had been, during some years, distracted by the war of the Austrian succession. George II. was the He had been only a few months in the army when steady ally of Maria Theresa. The house of Bour-intelligence arrived that peace had been concluded bon took the opposite side. Though England was between Great Britain and France. Dupleix was in even then the first of maritime powers, she was not, consequence compelled to restore Madras to the a3 she has since become, more than a match on the English company; and the young ensign was at sea for all the nations of the world together; and she liberty to resume his former business. He did infound it difficult to maintain a contest against the deed return for a short time to his desk. He again united navies of France and Spain. In the eastern quitted it in order to assist Major Lawrence in some seas France obtained the ascendancy. Labourdon-petty hostilities with the natives, and then again nais, governor of Mauritius, a man of eminent talents returned to it. While he was thus wavering beand virtues, conducted an expedition to the continent tween a military and a commercial life, events took of India, in spite of the opposition of the British fleet-landed, assembled an army, appeared before Madras, and compelled the town and fort to capitulate. The keys were delivered up; the French colours were displayed on Fort St. George; and the contents of the company's warehouses were seized as prize of war by the conquerors. It was stipulated by the capitulation that the English inhabitants should be prisoners of war on parole, and that the town should remain in the hands of the French till it should be ransomed. Labourdonnais pledged his place which decided his choice. The politics of India assumed a new aspect. There was peace between the English and French crowns; but there arose between the English and French companies trading to the east, a war most eventful and important-a war in which the prize was nothing less than the magnificent inheritance of the house of Tamerlane. The empire which Baber and his Moguls reared in the sixteenth century, was long one of the most extensive and splendid in the world. In no Euro on his way back to his secure and disobedient com-fhimself up in fur, and keeps himself warm by drinkpanions. ing enormous quantities of hot tea, which is retailed That drunkenness is far from being the habit of the to them and to the droschka drivers who stand for Russian is clear from several considerations. His hire, by people who are constantly going about with chief drink is quass. Clarke, who omits no circum- a portable semavar or urn, kept hot by charcoal, and stance of disparagement in his account of the Rus- with cups fixed in a belt and strapped round their sian nobleman, can say nothing worse of his diet waists." than that you will always find him drinking quass, Mr. Pinkerton has given us a picturesque drawing like the lowest peasant-who, he says elsewhere, of one of these izbitenchiki. The last mentioned cannot afford any other beverage. This is not an writer, observing that instances of extraordinary lonintoxicating beverage, being, in fact, a sort of vine-gevity are frequent among the common people, asgar; it is made by mixing rye-meal and water with cribes it partly to "the simplicity of their mode of the addition of some malt, and leaving it till the living and abstemiousness of food."-p. 79. We acetous fermentation has taken place; the flavour is will add another proof of the usual sobriety of this like that of vinegar and water. It looks turbid and people: it is said that suicides in the southern nais very unpleasant to strangers, but by use even tions of Europe may be generally traced to love, and Englishmen become fond of it, and in the houses of in the northern to drink; but Mr. Raikes informs us the nobles, where attention is paid to its brewing, (p. 330) there are no suicides in Russia. this acidulous beverage is esteemed a delicacy, espeMr. Raikes, whose experience was confined to the cially during summer. It is found to be wholesome "City of the Czar," asserts (p. 179) "that thieving, and antiscorbutic in its qualities; it is the substitute dissimulation, and a few other little defects of the for beer, and also enters into the composition of a same nature, form an integral part of the national kind of cold soup, which Mr. Venables could not character;" and he proceeds to adduce the wellswallow, and of whose ingredients he gives a most known saying of Peter the Great to this effect. His dreadful enumeration, though no Russian dinner is first impressions of Russian honesty were not likely complete without it. Climate, however, works to be favourable. An incident which happened on wonders with the human stomach, and soon accom- his arrival, just as he had entered the suburbs of Pemodates it to the endless varieties of sours, salts and tersburg, showed, as he intimates, that the metropopickles, in which the Russian luxuriates: even lis he was visiting was not in this respect far behind Clarke, while travelling over the dry and thirsty the one he had left:steppes, found his barrel of raw vinegar a dangerous "Some thieves," he says, "cut off a trunk which was fastened behind the carriage, and, under cover of English depredators. Thus was I initiated at once the night, made away with it as adroitly as any into the experience of Russian dexterity." temptation. Their The Russians are also great tea-drinkers. tea is very good but very expensive, as every pound is brought overland a journey of several months, chiefly by Chinese merchants, and is sold at prices "When Peter the Great was advised by one of his unknown to us: the finer sorts, which are said to be ministers to expel the Jews from his dominions, on a real curiosity, costing from forty, fifty, to even a account of their cunning and roguery, he replied, hundred shillings a pound. The peasantry are gene-Let them alone, my Russians are a match for them." rally obliged to content themselves with a substitute I believe his imperial majesty had a profound knowlcalled izbiten, consisting of potherbs, ginger, pepper edge of his subjects.' and honey, boiled up together, which is taken hot, and is said to be very refreshing. We believe we It must, however, be remembered that the speaker have seen a somewhat similar potation brought to in this instance himself preferred boldness and cunfishermen on our northern coasts, returning from their ning to honesty, and was willing to compliment his night of toil, and drank the moment of their land-subjects according to his own views of merit.ing:Amongst other misfortunes of sovereigns, they have "The semavar, or Russian urn, heated with char- the popular character. Why, however, is Mr. Raikes generally the opportunity of seeing the worst side of coal, which is found in every house from the highest surprised to find in Petersburgh as much roguery as to the lowest in the country, is," says Mr. Venables, in London? "an excellent invention, insuring good tea; since plaint on another occasion. He repeats this unreasonable com"The Russian tradesthe water is always boiling, and the tea-pot being men," he says, "openly confess that they are rogues, placed at the top, is kept quite hot."-p. 72. and will ask even double the price which they are prepared to take; the foreigners are equally exorbitant, but more stubborn in reduction; indeed, the demand for articles of luxury is now so limited here, The more refined istvostchiks, or coachmen, generally ask for a nachai or tea-money, instead of a dram, says Mr. Venables, who, describing a horsefair, says that a German tailor who works for the court told me frankly he must have large profits on the small con"We walked through a refreshment-booth filled sumption in order to live." These are poor grounds with peasants and horse-dealers, and found them all whereon to condemn the tradesmen of a whole naas quiet as possible, and, with hardly an exception, tion. Has it occurred to Mr. Raikes that a man who drinking tea.". 83. bazaars, he tells us complains others are hagglers, admits himself to be A little way further, speaking of the Russian one also? Common justice tells us not to take the opinion of a buyer as to the duties of a seller. Mr. Raikes comes from the greatest mart, and most Tradesman spends the day in his shop, and regular system of traffic in the world, to a region of ht: when it is cold he wraps uncertain demand, scanty supply, and unfixed prices, |