The metropolitan bishop of the Syrian church resides at Candorad. It appears that he had himself meditated the translation of the Scriptures into the Malabar language, a work greatly needed by upwards of two hundred thousand Christians in the south of India. The representations of Dr. Buchanan excited the good bishop to the immediate prosecution of his design, and the year following our author himself carried the manuscript of the New Testament to be printed at Bombay. The version will be continued till the whole Bible is completed, and copies circulated throughout the Christian regions of Malabar.'

This detail, though somewhat tedious, was necessary, in order to put our readers in possession of the gratifying information which it conveys. Gratifying indeed is it to learn, that among the many and various languages spoken by those with whom our political and commercial intercourse has given us connexion in the East, there is not one of any importance remaining to which English exertions will not in a short time have communicated the Holy Scriptures. And we are justified in entertaining very warm hopes, from the establishment of the College at Calcutta, which led the way to the translation of the Bible, and that of the Bible Society in England, which is facilitating the diffusion of the versions, as fast as they can be prepared, in every quarter of the globe. Neither of these institutions could have availed to any extensive degree in India, without the other: but the good which, under Providence, they may produce united, it is impossible to calculate. It is impossible, we repeat, to estimate the good which may be confidently expected from the general diffusion of the Bible. Its silent operation excites no jealousies, is liable to no misinterpretations, commits the important cause by no imprudences. No false religion has yet been proof against its influence and those who distrust the success of Christianity in India, arguing from the bigoted attachment of the Hindoos to their native superstition, must certainly allow that their superstition has never hitherto been thus fairly mct and assailed. We are not, however, so sanguine as to imagine that the present generation will reap the fruits of their labours. Indeed they have done wisely in directing their culture first where the ground has been already cleared, in supplying the wants, and refreshing the faith of the native Christians, whose number, including

:

The members of the Bible Society, who have sometimes been accused of lukewarmness towards the establishment, have now a glorious opportunity of refuting such suspicions, by stepping forward in strenuous support of a measure which has always had their warmest approbation, the education of children; and which does not surely less deserve their patronage now, when it is proposed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and conducted on the principles of the Established Church, than formerly, when it was recommended by Mr.Lancaster, and conducted on no religious principles at all.

the Ceylonese, amounts to nearly a million. There was a tedious and gloomy interval, before the light gradually disseminated by Wickliffe's translation of the Bible burst out in the flame of reformation. When once kindled, its force was irresistible. So it may prove some generations hence in India. The absurdities of penance, and the sanguinary rites of human sacrifice, will no more be able to stand against the spiritual worship and the rational obedience which the Bible enjoins, than absolution could be substituted for actual virtue, or holy water for real purity, with those who now enjoy the opportunity of deriving their religion from its uncontaminated source.

Our readers will perhaps have collected from those observations that we consider the Bible as the best missionary. But we would by no means be understood to insinuate that those pious persons ought to be discouraged, who, in the hope of converting a few from their errors, are willing to make every sacrifice and undergo every danger. There is little fear of this number being increased beyond the demand which will be created by the diffusion of the Scriptures in the native tongues. Let them settle in Bengal, as Ziegenbalg and Swartz settled in Tanjore, and form, wherever they settle, a circle from which the rays of useful knowledge may diverge in all directions. It seems now understood that even the alarmists apprehend nothing, unless the government were to employ their active interference. Mr. Malcolm speaks clearly to the point. Now surely we possess a strong pledge from those resident on the scene of danger, if danger exists, that they will not hazard their personal security by real experiments, even if it were possible that any friends of Christianity were so imprudently zealous, as to desire a conversion enforced by the executive power. But with regard to the fact, the natives respect those established Christians who show an appearance of sincerity in their religion, and even encourage them. The Rajah of Tanjore, says Dr. Buchanan, 'discoursed with me a considerable time concerning Mr. Swartz, whose portrait he has placed among those of his ancestors, and whom he ever looked up to as his father and guardian. I smiled to see Swartz's picture among the Hindoo kings, and thought with myself that there were many who would think such a combination scarcely possible. The missionaries had just informed me that the Rajah had erected a college for Hindoos, Mahomedans, and Christians; in which provision was made for the instruction of fifty Christian children.' No one indeed can read our author's journal without feeling convinced that the arts of persuasion and the process of assimilation may go on without the slightest danger of exciting a jealous alarm among the natives. "There have been for ages past numerous casts of missionaries in Hindostan, Pagan,

Mahomedan, and Christian, all seeking to proselyte individuals to a new religion. The difficulty in regard to the Protestant teachers, is to awake attention to their doctrine.'

For the satisfaction of those who lately expressed so much prophetic alarm lest the Bible should be read to the natives at their public assemblies, it may be necessary to prove by example the apathy of the Hindoos with respect to other doctrines, even at a moment when the strongest excitement might be apprehended. Dr. Buchanan incidentally mentions, that when he was present at the festival of Rutt Juttra on the banks of the Ganges, he had not witnessed one voluntary sacrifice of a young man at the idol's tower, his attention having been engaged by a more pleasing scene.

"On the other side, on a rising ground by the side of a tank, stood the Christian missionaries, and around them a crowd of people listening to their preaching. The town of Serampore, where the Protestant Missionaries reside, is only about a mile and a half from this Temple of Juggernaut. As I passed through the multitude, I met several persons having the printed papers of the missionaries in their bands. Some of them were reading them very gravely; others were laughing with each other at the contents, and saying, 'What do these words mean?"-p. 146.

Now the missionaries who met with such ill success at the Friendly Isles, lived in tolerable tranquillity for a time; but an assembly of the people, or a season of public tumult, always foreboded them danger, and at last terminated in their destruction. Here was an assembly of Hindoos, amounting to an hundred thousand, with a few Christians in the midst of them; whom, however, a scene of that tumultuous nature excited to no more dangerous feelings than those of doubt, or at the worst, contempt. While this instance may tranquillize our fears, we add another which may raise our hopes. We allude to a practical proof of the possibility of wearing off those prejudices which, under another branch of the subject, we mentioned as one great obstacle to the conversion of the Hindoos; a proof afforded by the conduct of the Sepoys, in the late expeditions. Their rigid tenets, it is well known, forbid their going to sea, and government never insist upon their compliance in this point. But within a month after notice of the late expeditions had been given in Calcutta, many more had volunteered their services than the number required. The army too is familiar with instances, which, trifling as they may appear in this country, are not so in India, when even the high cast Raypoots have sacrificed their superstitious feelings to the wants of their officers, and suffered their vessels to be polluted by the touch of an European. These are the first steps towards assimilation, and prove that the way, though tedious and difficult, is open and practicable.

One assistance only is required from the government, and that much more for the sake of the British residents, than for any benefit to be derived from it by the natives; we mean the establishment of a local church. It is a forcible argument which Dr. Buchanan urges, that' of the individuals engaged in the late disturbances at Madras, there were perhaps some who had not witnessed the service of Christian worship for twenty years; whose minds were impressed by the daily view of the rites of the Hindoo religion, and had lost almost all memory of their own.' All writers, who know the East, agree in the expediency of this measure. Let every attention, says Mr. Malcolm, be paid to our own church establishment. Nothing,' observes Mr. Morier, excites a better impression of our character than an appearance of devotion and religious observance. If therefore there were no higher obligation on every Christian, religious observances are indispensible in producing a national influence.' It is notorious that our total neglect of public worship in India degrades us in the opinion of the Hindoos as a people without religion.

The expediency of employing the arm of power to suppress the idolatrous rites and human sacrifices of the natives, is more problematical and in spite of the accusations which have been lately urged with more zeal than understanding against the directors, the measure will be best left where it rests at present, with the government in India. The example of the Marquis Wellesley shews that an European does not see without horror the existence of such abominable customs, and in all probability the immolation of widows might be prevented by us as easily as by the Mahomedaus, or as the sacrifice of infants by ourselves. We dare not affirm so much of the idolatry at Juggernaut. A multitude of 200,000 pilgrims* collected from all parts of India to a ceremony which has been sanctioned in their minds by the force of custom, as well as the associciations of religion, might not be dispersed without some exasperated efforts, dangerous at least to the immediate vicinity if not to the body of the empire.

The reader who has accompanied us thus far in our remarks, will perhaps think it hard to be told that there remains much in the work which has led to them, which it is impossible to communicate in an article pretending to any kind of method. The accounts of the author's visit to the inquisition, still existing, we are sorry to say, in full force at Goa, of his conferences with the

The tax however paid by these pilgrims, if still levied for the original purpose, the preservation of order, must in future be applied to another equally obligatory, such as alleviating the misery of the scene, of which Dr. Buchanan has given such striking instances. At all events, now the facts have once been discussed, the price of blood can no longer find its way into the Company's treasury.

Syrian Christians, and his researches among the Jews in Cochin, are too long to be extracted, too full of matter to be abridged, and too interesting to be neglected. For these we must refer to the work. Those who turn to it, will find, within a small compass, no inconsiderable quantity of original information; strung together, it must be owned, rather than arranged, and retaining with its journallike form, all the characteristics of the most unmethodical accuracy. We regret that this mode of composition, if composition it is to be called, does not impress the memory as forcibly as it attracts the attention. It is of more consequence to add, that the book, though in some parts warmly coloured, preserves throughout a tone of candour and moderation which it would be well in the opponents of Dr. Buchanan and his cause always to imitate.

ART. IX.-1. The Dramatic Works of John Ford; with an Introduction and Explanatory Notes. By Henry Weber, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. Edin. Constable & Co. London. Longmau. 1811. 9. A Letter to William Gifford, Esq. on a late Edition of Ford's Plays, chiefly as relating to Ben Jonson. By Octavius Gilchrist, Esq. 8vo. pp. 45. Murray, London. 1811.

3. A Letter to J. P. Kemble, Esq. involving Strictures on a recent Edition of Ford's Dramatic Works. 8vo. pp. 30. Murray.

1811.

T is almost impossible to sit down to the perusal of an early dramatic author without an involuntary retrospect to Shakspeare; and though it is our duty to accept what is set before us, without pretending to cater for ourselves, yet we could not repress a wish that Mr. Weber had bestowed his attention on some of those bards, who immediately preceded, or were coeval with that immortal poet. The commentators who have undertaken the revisal of his dramas, have either altogether omitted their names, or produced them merely to prove the want of those helps which they yet suppose Shakspeare to have received from them; thus, from Rowe to Malone, the figurative expression of Dryden has been literally accepted, that Shakspeare found not, but created first the stage.' Nothing, however, will be deducted from the fame of Shakspeare, if their due share of praise be appropriated to those who accompanied, at a wide distance, the literary progress of the bard of Avon : and this, in some liberal and comprehensive history of the English drama and its writers, we yet hope to see accomplished. In the meantime, we are of opinion that the works of Marlow, Marston, and Decker, neither of them in genius inferior to Ford, would have justified Mr. Weber's