often unjustly decried Spanish rule. Both have truly in view the well-being of those they govern; and both, though on different paths, go about to insure that well-being, more effectively often than, we regret to say, we ourselves at times succeed in doing towards the Asiatics under our own care; in whose regard, as in many other matters connected with what is termed the 'development' of men or things, we are too apt to forget that oldest, truest, wisest, of sayings, Foolish they who know not how much more is the half than the whole.' But, while allowing that the Javanese may possibly be happier and better under Dutch rule, the Visaians and Tagals under Spanish, than they might have been under our own, we hold it for a matter of equal or greater certainty that European trade, and the fortunes of the world at large, would have been greatly the gainers had we in 1762 retained for our own the already conquered Philippines, or Java in 1814. Nor can we for a moment doubt that the unrestricted power of capital, enterprise, and free trade, under the British flag would soon have thrown open and utilized the immense, and as yet but half recognized, resources of those noble islands, no less than of the Moluccas, Sumatra, and the Malay Archipelago generally, on a much wider scale and to grander purpose than has been or ever can be done by the guarded monopolies and protective systems of Holland and Spain. The time-honoured but erroneous idea that a colony is, to quote the clever author of the 'Expansion of England,' merely 'an estate, out of which the mother-country is to make a pecuniary profit,' however modified in the Continental statesmanship of our days by the better recognized claims of justice or humanity towards the indigenous or colonial populations, yet holds place as a leading axiom in the Dutch and Spanish schools of colonial policy; and it is but lately that we ourselves have, in an important measure at least, exchanged it for a more truly liberal, because a more deeply patriotic, a more widely national, and hence, necessarily though indirectly, a more cosmopolitan teaching. And thus it is that our colonies, and ours alone, fertilize, not their own proper territorial limits, or those of the Suzerain Power merely, but the world at large.

Nor should we overlook the fact, one of special meaning here, that the colonial expansion of England, far more than that of any other kingdom or nationality ancient or modern, the Phoenician not excepted, is twofold in its character, an expansion of miles and acres on land, an expansion of distances and ocean-routes at sea. Without infringing on the equal rights of other maritime powers, there still remains a sense in which the

seas are not her highways merely, but her territory, the heritage of her fathers, the heirloom of her children; not, indeed, to the exclusion of other nationalities, but to the free benefit and open advantage of all. How far the consolidation of this our oceanrule may render desirable, or even necessary, the absorption of a wider extent of landed territory, is a question which it would be unwise over-anxiously to raise before the time; unwise and pusillanimous alike not to face boldly when that time arrives. Poetic metaphors of England blindly staggering beneath the over-weight of an Atlantean burden, and the like elegant selfdepreciations of a hyper-refined and sentimental school, are but the expression of timid misunderstanding or unpatriotic spleen; they have no place among realities, no resemblance to the truth of English suzerainty by land or sea in the far East or farther South. In her colonies, on board her navies, in her plantations, in her trade-ships, England is ever England, and her pre-eminence synonymous with a more equal justice, a deeper reverence for law, a securer peace, a more widely diffused well-being, a firmer-based prosperity, than are sheltered by any other flag whatever, of the Old World or the New. That Australia and New Guinea alike, Polynesia and all its isles, the Malayan Archipelago, and the fairest shores shone on by earth's sun, may long continue to enjoy, or speedily enter into participation of these good things, should be the wish, the hope of every one who knows what these regions once were, when yet unvisited by England, what they now are, what they may yet become.

ART. III.—1. Life of the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone. By Sir T. E. Colebrooke, Bart., M.P. London, 1884. 2 vols., 8vo. 2. The Official Writings of Mountstuart Elphinstone, sometime Governor of Bombay. Edited, with a Memoir, by Prof. Forrest. London, 1884.

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O fitter name than that of Mountstuart Elphinstone, Resident at Poonah and Governor of Bombay, could be chosen to typify that spirit of political sagacity, combined with chivalrous enterprise, which characterizes the Indian Civil Service. Mr. Elphinstone brought with him, when he landed at Calcutta a boy of seventeen, a temperament ardent and generous; and it was his good fortune in his first acquaintance with affairs to be subject to influences well suited to develop the finer qualities of his nature. The civilians of his generation were inspired directly by the two greatest of Indian statesmen. Cornwallis and Wellesley were not more conspicuous in deeds of conquest or in powers of command than Clive and Hastings; but it was from them, not from Clive or Hastings, that our political system in India took its form. They it was who stamped its distinctive qualities, and rendered it at once the most incorrupt and the most efficient public administration that the world has seen. From Cornwallis was derived that high sense of honour and integrity, that obedience to duty, and that chivalrous forbearance, which have become traditions of the Service: from Wellesley that rare adaptability to the circumstances and functions of government, that plastic power of influence, that instinctive statesmanship, which are no less the badge of the English rulers of India. When Elphinstone arrived, Lord Cornwallis had already returned to England, but in the Service the forces which he had stimulated were in full activity. Cornwallis had been a living example of the spirit with which he laboured to inspire his fellows in government. Contemporary writers love to dwell on his humanity. If we give the highest interpretation to the word, as something less restricted than the mere sense of pity and philanthropy, it will not be inapplicable. In him it meant a wide and tender respect for all men, but joined to high courage and inflexible resolve. His character seems almost sentimental when he shrinks. with a 'Don't call them black fellows,' from the half-good-natured, half-contemptuous words of the young Englishman; it is stern enough when necessity obliges him, as in America, to inflict the most terrible severities of martial law. In the case of Lord Wellesley, the influence exerted upon Mr. Elphinstone was more personal. It was during his administration that the young

civilian received his first responsible employment, and he imbibed at the fountain-head those maxims of government which Lord Wellesley had set himself to teach in India. In that magnificent apology for the endowment of the College of Fort William, which may vie with the charter of any foundation in the world, Lord Wellesley has explained the political duties and aspirations which were to be fostered in the Company's servants. He was determined so to order the education of the young civilians, that they should bear themselves in the true spirit of statesmen. Henceforward they were 'to discharge the functions of magistrates, judges, ambassadors, and governors of provinces, in all the complicated and extensive relations of those sacred trusts and exalted stations,' and in so doing were to remember that they were the ministers and officers of a powerful sovereign,' and that their duties were 'those of statesmen in every other part of the world.'

The two works before us enable the public for the first time to form a real estimate of Mountstuart Elphinstone's life and work. Professor Forrest's volume contains reprints of those clear and far-seeing State Papers, which were compiled by Mr. Elphinstone to inform his superiors, or to explain his methods of government. They are by no means prolix, and the style is most happy, an admirable mean between official exactness and simple unaffected narrative. The spirited little memoir, which Professor Forrest has prefixed to his volume, is highly appreciative of Mr. Elphinstone's character, and efficiently serves its purpose of placing an outline of his life before the reader.

Sir Edward Colebrooke's volumes have a wider scope, and merit high praise as an example of what a biography should be. With admirable reticence, he has allowed the subject of the memoir to tell the story of his life by means of quotations from letters and journals, only incorporating, where necessary, paragraphs to explain allusions or to fill up gaps in a broken narrative. It is too seldom that a biographer is willing to make this self-effacement, yet it alone can secure the successful accomplishment of his task. The manner in which Sir Edward Colebrooke has briefly condensed the history of the period, where it was essential to keep his readers in the current of contemporary events, and has yet avoided the danger, so seldom escaped in this kind of writing, of launching out into the generalities of his subject, deserves special recognition.

The reader of Mr. Elphinstone's journals and letters, unless he is singularly unimpressionable, will rise from them with the sense that he has made a new friend in literature. They put before us a personality as distinct as it is attractive. But

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besides this picture of the man, there is a discursive charm no less remarkable. The variety is inexhaustible. Delightfully sketched glimpses of scenery, of 'the silent courts and halls in the midst of an almost impenetrable forest,' or of 'the gusts of smoke driving through the leafless trees,' where the jungle has caught fire; vivid descriptions of battles, where round and grape flew in every direction,' where the balls knocked up the dust under the horses' feet'; or of battle-fields, and of the dead lying blackened and withered, with the dogs feasting on them, 'tearing great pieces of flesh'-are side by side with outbursts of enthusiasm for Homer and Thucydides, disquisitions on Shakspeare, or on the majesty and harmony of Spenser's verse.' On one page is an analysis of the young civilian's feelings when he joins a forlorn hope in the storm of a hill-fort; we turn it to learn how the mystic poetry of Omar or Hafiz oppresses the mind, or to see the keen rays of sympathetic criticism striving to penetrate the spiritual barrier which wellnigh forbids the intellectual community of East and West. Sometimes are to be found the nicest perceptions of men and affairs-perceptions undimmed by the most artful professions of Oriental diplomacy, and yet never hardening into cynicism. Here is much of hope, of delight in life, and of the pursuit of lofty ideals, but here too, lest the picture should be too bright, are records of hours of spiritual darkness openly acknowledged and manfully striven against. Seldom has a man of action used his pen to describe what he saw around him and felt within, with more freedom and sincerity than has Mountstuart Elphinstone. The man as we see him is one of warm feelings, quick sensibilities, and brilliant gifts; and pervading all a spirit of gentleness and humility: one for whom no fitter phrase can be found than that noble common-place of 'a true gentleman.' But no literary record can inspire the enthusiasm which personal contact gives. There are some among us still whose spirit in youth was roused by their fathers' stories of the civilian's cool yet dashing leadership at Poonah or Kirkee; who remember the arrival in England of the kind, but very shy, man who had been the active hero of that time; and who, like Sir Edward Colebrooke himself, were among the friends that enjoyed his society in the days of retirement in which he spent the rest of his life.

Sir Edward Colebrooke tells us enough of the history of the noble house of Elphinstone, to show that the subject of his memoir was sprung of an adventurous stock. His uncle, Lord Keith, had won high renown as an admiral; and his father had served under Wolfe in Canada, and was wounded at Montmorency. Of the glimpses given us of the little boy learning