One circumstance which will render these letters quite delightful to the demoiselles of France is thus related by the editor. He informs us, that the female to whom they are addressed is not an imaginary personage, the name of Florine here given to her, being the only part of the invention. About the middle of the year 1819, our Captain returned to France from an Indian expedition, and met in Paris with a very charming woman, (probably a very deep blue,) whom he had the good fortune to please, and, who having thus become the complete mistress of his fate, had formally given her consent to their union. Thus all the Captain's wishes were about to be gratified, when not even having had time to secure his prize by the usual knot, he was forced to return to Calcutta to transact other business of great importance. This sudden separation was cruel, but necessary, and as the Gods did not appear disposed to "annihilate both space and time, to make two lovers happy," and the lady did not feel inclined to undergo a course of sea-sickness, which is rather unfavourable than otherwise to the particular passion of love, our hero was obliged to depart by himself; having first, in the usual business-like way, interchanged vows of mutual constancy, in conformity with which, and in fulfilment of his part of the bond, the Captain had scarcely set his errant foot once more upon the arid soil of India, than he commenced inditing to Florine his letters on Bengal, through which he relied, on his revisiting France, to pay his homage to the empress of his heart. The reader has to learn that although Monsieur wrote, he did not transmit his edifying epistles, having a free-trader's eye, no doubt, to the postage, but brought them home with him after a lapse of three years, and flew to Paris with the whole of them in his hand ("vole aussitot à Paris, ses lettres à la main"), to present them to her by whom they had been inspired. But delays are dangerous, and all sublunary happiness uncertain. Florine had vanished away from this terrestrial sphere, and the Captain's letters, not having been honoured with her perusal, must either have been consigned to oblivion, or read by some one else, and from these premises he came to the important conclusion of inflicting them on the public. It is not our desire to wound his more sensitive feelings; but when we see a ridiculous, and in all probability an invented, love-story, pleaded as the cause of so much trash and misrepresentation being sent forth into the world under the guise of an historical account, we feel in no way disposed to consider what effect even the most contemptuous notice of the volume may have on the self-love of a coxcomb so egregiously dogmatical and conceited. We feel only the more indignant

when we find his lavish abuse of what he has not the intellect to comprehend, backed by the crude opinions of another shallowpated, more tedious, and equally superficial avant-courier, called Edouard Servan, who precedes the Captain with some "Considérations générales sur l' Inde," the first page of which gives assurance of their entire frivolity. These Considerations are made up of common-place notices, which would disgrace the prize essay of a school-boy on the same subject, and are interspersed with the same illiberal and unfounded vituperations of the English; serving to demonstrate the bigotry and ignorance of Mons. Servan, and to prove him a most worthy and apt proclaimer of the advent of his principal, le Capitaine de Marine, at whose opening letter we have now arrived.

With regard to the extent of his personal observation, one proof may be afforded to the untravelled reader by the circumstance that out of thirty-two letters, fifteen are devoted to Calcutta, while the rest of Bengal is discussed and comprized in what may be, with sufficient accuracy, termed the remaining moitié. But nothing which our limits (allowable for a pamphlet like this) can enable us to say, will give the reader who has never visited Calcutta an adequate conception of Mons. Deville's utter unfitness for the task he has undertaken. It requires an intimate knowledge of the peculiar nature and etiquette of what he calls, but has never seen, the haute société there, to enable one to perceive fully the utter incapability of such a traveller to judge of its manners and customs, even if he were not so deeply imbued with hatred against the nation of whose subjects it is composed. It were just as easy for a master of a Leith smack to give his mistress, or any one else, a veritable account of fashionable life in London, as for a French trader to impart a like knowledge of the best Calcutta society, to some sentimental girl in Paris, who, in league with his evil stars, may have induced, or inspired him (if he will have it so), to turn from his lawful occupations of registering cotton and indigo, and instruct her in the goings-on of a society, before which a bar is thrown that such as he are never permitted to pass. Nay, the shrewd master of the Leith smack would have one advantage, which Mons. Deville (to judge by the specimens of English with which he favours us,) certainly does not possess; he would, at all events, have understood tolerably well the language of the people whom his young and amorous pen might be describing a qualification not easily to be dispensed with in a chronicler of foreign peculiarities. In fact, the pamphlet abounds in proofs that our captain was altogether ignorant both of the native and English languages, or if he really be a proficient

in either, we can safely assert that he is unequalled in the art of concealing his acquirements.

Should our present remarks appear to be more general in their tendency than is necessary for the exposure of the individual under review, we beg that they may not be viewed in an offensive light by gentlemen of his profession who are connected commercially with the capital of British India, and who have too much good sense to think of going beyond their sphere, who think not of scribbling nonsense when they should attend to bills of lading, or" penning a stanza" (for le Capitaine dabbles in that way too) "when they should engross." The captains of free-traders are most respectable men, and we know several who are possessed of elegantly informed minds, and who are in every respect worthy of being received into, and capable of adorning the first circles of any society. Yet, among the higher class of Calcutta residents, there is inevitably a degree of aristocratic feeling, in consequence of which their doors are closed against Captain Deville et hoc genus omne (the few exceptions merely proving the rule), and, generally speaking, it is almost as easy for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, as for one of that profession to enter the precincts of fashionable life in Bengal. When therefore le Capitaine de Marine informs his inamorata that drunkenness and other forms of depravity have been witnessed by him on festive occasions, he may be speaking the truth, though in an exaggerated degree; but at the same time he unconsciously supplies every one acquainted with the real state of things in that quarter, with a damning proof how low were the grades of society with which he was then mingling;-grades which exist in every large capital where people of all nations and characters are crowded together, and where there is a danger of unworthy contact which it requires a proportionate degree of scrupulosity to avoid. The beau monde of Calcutta, than which a more elegant and accomplished society is not to be met with even in London or Paris, is composed exclusively of persons in the civil and military services, or of the leading merchants and gentlemen of the bar, and into that circle captains of even British free-traders are very rarely admitted. Thus, although Capt. Deville may have been invited to dinner by Mr. John Palmer, Mr. Joseph Baretto, or Monsieur Bonaffé, it was not, as he must well know, a dinner at which members of the beau monde were present, but one of those entertainments given by owners, &c. to their captains, more for the purposes of business than recreation. Now, to a reader well acquainted with this state of affairs, the idea of a pert Frenchman, unaided by any literary merits to gloss over or excuse

his flippancy, standing forth as an instructor of his countrymen, and a censor morum, with reference to the atrocities of Englishmen in India, is, for the moment, really quite insufferable. Ignorant alike of our laws and our policy, the Capitaine de Marine sets out with the ridiculous assumption that our East-Indian subjects are our slaves, and upon this assumed fact, he sentimentalizes in his first letter, and passim, in the usual style of puling pseudo-philosophy, on the primitive happiness which our intrusion has destroyed. "Happy," he exclaims, "under their palm-trees, fortunate in their mutual relations, content with their simple and pastoral life, they saw their days glide on in the sweets of domestic peace; but soon the European presented himself," (here our author falls into rhyme,)" and by the force of his arms imposed slavery on the previously happy and favoured race, who submitted and groaned under his power, and still suffer in silence" (the groans go for nothing) " the usurper of their country.

"A leur nouveau maitre soumis,
Ils gemirent sous sa puissance;
Et souffrent encore en silence
L'usurpateur de leur pays."

Attempting to give Florine some notion of the worn-out history of the Black Hole, he informs her that its perpetuating monument (by the way it is no longer to be seen) stands at one end of the angles of" Square Pond," as he translates "Tank Square," and having added, that the catastrophe in question was the consequence of a revolt among the natives against their English oppressors, he bursts forth once more with a sublimity of song which defies our powers of partial translation, but which imports that the Indian rose against his tyrants, and having armed himself, for the first time, with a sword, he furiously attacked the English ravishers of his rights, while Calcutta was witness to the horrible scene. But in the last quatrain the poet becomes either too obscure or too lofty for our easy comprehension; and while we are aware, from other sources, that the prisoners were merely placed in a black hole, we are now fain to infer something in the shape of a burial" all alive O!" and sufficient to astonish the earth herself, on finding her sons so unceremoniously consigned to her bosom. The Captain's rhyme purports that the conquering Indian took his vanquished tyrants, and was seen

"Les plonger tout vivans dans la terre étonnée,

Et sur leur tombe assis, goûtant d'affreux plaisirs,
Sourire a leurs tourmens et compter leurs soupirs!"

Probably he must have tried to read the inscription on the monument, and understanding it very literally, made the above version of the account it furnished, like the "l'homme verd et tranquille" of another genius, who thus rendered the sign of our "Green Man and Still," to his wondering countrymen.

VOL. 1. NO. I.

K

It would of course be a waste of time, were we to go regularly through the book, in order to expose all its absurdities and untruths; as these occur in every page, we shall not do more than adduce a few, and these not the most remarkable, but merely such as first meet our glance, to prove that we have not censured unreasonably, but that it was highly proper to give the coup de grace to a catchpenny publication, which might excite a prejudice against the French press, did we not well know that it has given to the world many first-rate works on subjects connected with the eastern world. Unmeasured and rancorous abuse of the English continues throughout to be the staple commodity of Captain Deville, and were his grounds of accusation and his ability but half equal to his dislike, we should not expect a much longer reign over Bengal. Prose and verse, to the same effect, are lavished upon us with the same unsparing but imbecile hand, and we only regret our inability to do justice to either style of composition, unless it were by laying specimens of each before our readers in the original language, which is inconsistent with our plan. "In those places," he says, en poêle," where pride creates the pomp and luxury of kings, a colossal power imposes the most merciless laws on the feeble inhabitants of Bengal;" then sliding back into prose, he informs his charmer that the " English never deviate from the most perfidious system of policy, and that while they flatter the natives with one hand, they enchain them with the other." It has been very truly observed, that a fool may ask a question which a wise man cannot answer; and we have proof before us, that a blockhead may deal out vague and unfounded assertions, which one who has been long acquainted with the subject could not regularly refute in less than ten times the space which is sufficient to contain them. This consideration, backed by remembrance of that obvious spirit in which this Monsieur Deville has committed authorship, decides us against filling up even a single sheet from our many valuable works on India, to prove his misrepresentations. But he is inaccurate even in his description of particulars which required no other ability but the use of his eyesight, in order to ensure correctness; thus in alluding to the grandeur of Government House, he tells his amie that its numerous guard is composed of European soldiers and Sepoys, though the truth is, that the former are not used for any such purpose.

In describing Fort William, he assures Florine that whatever might be its advantages, it is far from being a second Gibraltar, for the true Asiatic luxury which reigns thereabouts, especially among the English, has turned a fort, which ought to be impreg nable, into a "beautiful and regular town," where the military of all classes enervate themselves by the most shameful debaucheries! Oh, Captain Deville,-it were, believe us, a sufficient punishment