with any new facts as we toiled along the strange region of wild views and uncouth sights into which Mr. Phillimore has led us. Perhaps in collecting a medley of paradoxes, which not only assail the deliberate judgment of all who have used the same evidence, but wanton in indiscriminate abuse of much that the nation loves and reveres, Mr. Phillimore may have thought, with Tacitus, that detraction and spite are always 'listened to;' and may have hoped that these arts at least would make this singular production popular. But we have no doubt that his estimate of his own powers will turn out to be as inaccurate as the judgments he has passed on his country are unsound. ART. IX.-Tara: A Mahratta Tale. By Captain MEADOWS TAYLOR. Author of The Confessions of a Thug.' 3 vols. Edinburgh: 1863. A QUARTER of a century and a generation of novel-readers have almost passed away, since we have had the pleasure of meeting the author of The Confessions of a Thug' in the field of Indian adventure; yet, we may venture to assume that his first book is not forgotten, and that his last book will take rank beside it. Both of them belong to that class of works in which there is more of reality than of imagination, and the structure of these tales serves chiefly to introduce the reader to life-like pictures of the manners and character of the people of India. This long interval of time has been spent by Captain Taylor in the service of that people, as one of the Commissioners of the Western ceded districts of the Deccan. Few Englishmen have left behind them in India a more honourable reputation; for in addition to the not uncommon merit of successful administration in a large territory, it has been Captain Taylor's good fortune to endear himself to the population, to penetrate the native character in all its phases, and to live amongst the mingled races of Southern India as one of themselves. In this respect his career has widely differed from the dominant character of Indian civilians-a class to which he did not belong : and it is probably due to this cause that he writes of India, and the natives of India, with a degree of spirit, truth, and genuine sympathy hardly to be met with in any other English author. It is, no doubt, a difficult task for a novelist to overcome the indifference or repulsion which are apt to chill the description of manners and occurrences unlike anything in our own expe impressions and allusions to be found in these pages-the more remarkable as they refer respectively to two entirely different races and different creeds, which are never confounded though perpetually mixed. The native aspect of India is like a shot' stuff, the warp and woof being of different colours. Wide over the realm still spread the ancient race, the ancient superstition, the ancient tongues, which were, as far as we can tell, the same as now they are, at the dawn of history. If there be anything immutable on earth, it is the law of caste, which has for so many ages bound this large section of mankind in its bonds of iron. Över this broad surface, Mahomedan conquest and British dominion have successively borne sway; and as the descendants of the Mahomedan conquerors are not less genuine natives of India than the Hindoos themselves, the juxtaposition of the two religions gives rise to the most singular combinations, destined as they are to coexist in one political community, though eternally divided by laws, manners, traditions, and faith. The romance of Indian history is comparatively absent from the vast plains and enervating climate of Bengal, where nature herself seems to have prepared men to obey, rather than to rule. But it is otherwise in the mountain districts of Southern India, extending to the Western coast, and through the whole of Maharashtra - the Mahratta country. The Deccan was the seat of those splendid viceroyalties which bore an imperfect allegiance to the Mogul at Delhi. The dominant race was the Mohammedan, but even the Hindoo people were warlike; and it was there that the Mahratta Empire of Sivajee (if so it can be called) took its origin, and the fanaticism and treachery of the followers of the goddess Bhowanee triumphed over the far more enlightened faith and the far more civilised administration of the followers of the Prophet. As 1857 was the date of the great Indian mutiny, and 1757 was the date of the origin of the British Indian rule, so 1657 was the year which saw the rise of the Mahratta power. Sivajee had then matured the schemes which he had long been plotting against the King of Beejapoor, and even against the authority of Aurungzebe; the rising was accompanied by mysterious marks of the favour of the savage divinity of the Mahratta creed; and the old war-cry of the Mahrattas was once more heard, and not heard in vain :- Hur, Hur, Mahadeo, Dônguras lavilé Déva,'' Oh! Mahadeo! the fire has lit the hills.' This is the epoch at which Captain Taylor has placed the action of his tale. The events he has woven into it with fidelity may be traced in Duff's History of the Mahrattas,' or in the garrulous pages of Orme; but the history of the native Indian States is apt to leave so little trace upon the memory, that the course of these occurrences, sanguinary and romantic as they were, will probably be new to the great majority of English readers. Moro Trimmul, Tannajee Maloosray, who are amongst the chief personages of this tale, still live in Mahratta tradition as the leading followers of Sivajee Bhoslay -and the fame of Pahar Singh, the robber chief who took service in the Mahratta cause, is borne in memory to this day by his descendants. This freebooter is one of the best drawn characters in the book, and in spite of his lawless life and numerous crimes, he does good service to the young King of Beejapoor, who has reason, in a memorable adventure, to grant him a free pardon. Captain Taylor affirms that a descendant of the original Pahar Singh figured in the Mahratta war of 1818-19, and subsequently took to highway robbery. Ten years later the family were found to be engaged in Dacoity and Thuggee, and it was not till 1850 that the gang was hunted down, and the last six of them brought to justice by the writer of this tale. It is thus that in India, where nothing perishes or fades entirely from sight, the ingenious author has evidently traced, from types familiar to himself, the personages of a bygone time. The same might, till recently, have been done in Spain-for Spain is semi-Oriental: in Northern Europe each generation effaces the track of its precursors. Tara, the heroine of the tale, is at once presented to the reader in circumstances of great singularity-a maiden of the highest caste, sole daughter of Vyas Shastree, one of the most accomplished pundits of the great Temple of Bhowanee at Tooljapoor, but at the same time a widow, by reason of the death of the child-husband to whom she had been betrothed in infancy. The law of caste consigns women in that predicament either to a life of asceticism, or to the priesthood,-which is too often a life of infamy,-for they cannot marry again, and even the Suttee was in some cases a merciful termination of their miserable and forlorn existence. Tara, in a paroxysm of religious enthusiasm, supposed to be inspired by the goddess Kalee herself, becomes a priestess or Morlee: but she sustains the purity of her sacred vocation; and her adventures form the ostensible subject of these volumes. We say, ostensible, because, graceful and interesting as she is, upon the whole we prefer the varied scenes of native life, in which she does not always play a part; and the utmost ingenuity cannot entirely surmount the difficulties of the extraordinary position in which she stands. It is obvious that when, to the ordinary contingencies of love VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLII. N N ' untenable.' As these prin 6 As regards India, Mr. Phi. and unworthy of an historia: French writers-not unnatu eager to exaggerate our misde of Burke; but it overflows wit As in Ireland the English na it has been incessantly treach refuses to shout with the 1 'justice,' constructs his chapte consideration is taken of the quests-of the dangers incu sary severity of a new don barbarous anarchy in which our hands; the picture befo civilisation and wealth over Quite in keeping with thi generous and profound;' the tragedy of the Blackhol an injured innocent; in fo: Plassey Clive was influence and, as a climax, the prote 1 Bet. |