drians, who confined their notices of the subject to indirect information, which they communicated in works of philology. In this abundance of historical works, Greece had to boast of two that rose highly above mediocrity, and to which the Alexandrian school could oppose no parallel. The first of these was Aratus's History of the Achaian league, which is unhappily lost. The second and still greater was the work of Polybius, that was written as its continuation. It may be called a general history of the world for fifty years, during the march of Roman power towards its climax, from the beginning of the second Punic war to the end of the kingdom of Macedon. Of its forty books only five remain entire, with fragments of the succeeding twelve. Polybius was born at Megalopolis, in Arcadia, about 200 years before our era. His father was a general and a statesman, and from his youth our historian was instructed in the sciences of politics and war. He attended his father, who went as a diplomatist to Egypt; he treated in person as an ambassador with the Roman generals; and he commanded the Achæan cavalry. The battle of Pydna left him a captive, in which situation he was conducted to Rome; but there he acquired the friendship of Scipio and Fabius, and whilst the victor of Carthage assisted him with Roman archives in writing his history, Polybius, with a gratitude that was perhaps over-accordant, lent his military talents to aid the oppressors of the world. Yet when his own country was lost, he unquestionably consoled and lessened its distresses; and when Scipio was dead, he returned thither and passed the remainder of his life. Whilst he lived among the Romans, he became better acquainted with their laws than their own statesmen; and such was his ardour for military knowledge, that he traced every step of Hannibal's march over the Alps, and every conquest of Scipio in Spain. Polybius is not eloquent like Thucydides, nor poetical like Herodotus, nor as perspicuous as Xenophon. He gives us the first draught of his thoughts. He is harsh in cadence, and is accused of Romanisms in expression. But these deductions from his merit can as easily be spared to criticism as the clod that was thrown out to Cerberus. For in the higher qualities of an historian he has no superior. The absence of speeches cannot unfavourably distinguish him from Thucydides, to a modern taste for history; and if he is less clear than Xenophon, it is because his subject is more entangled. He is vivid and compact in recital, expansive in his views, and most sagacious in tracing events to their causes. litical and military knowledge beams upon his path at every step. He is the tactician's guide, and perhaps his only fault in moral feeling is that his impartiality as a soldier absorbs his sympathy for the victims of military skill. Brutus had him ever in his hands, and some of the finest passages of Livy can be traced to this Greek historian. Po From all that can be ascertained of the Alexandrian school, it must be owned, that History, Comedy, and Speculative Philosophy, owed it no great debts for their advancement. Yet in Poetry, it evidently occupies a distinguished rank; and with regard to Medicine, Mathematics, Mechanics, and Astronomy, the shades of the greatest modern reformers of Europe would surely inform us that Science cannot look back too gratefully to the memory of Alexandria. THE TRYSTING PLACE. WE met not in the sylvan scene Where skies are bright, and woods are green, But in the city's busy din, Where Mammon holds his reign, We dwelt not on the linnet's note, But sounds of discord met our ear, The miser's cold and cautious sneer, They err who say Love only dwells No outward shrine arrests his wings, His home is in the heart; And, dearest, hearts like thine and mine With rapture must retrace, How often Love has deign'd to shine On this-our Trysting Place. M. A. A SUTTEE. To the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine. Oh, the sacrifice! how ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly it was, i' the offering. Shakspeare's Winter Tale SIR, The religious ceremonies of a country naturally become an object of curious speculation to persons who, without feeling any of the prejudices of the natives of that country, are anxious to observe the effect of so powerful an agent on the human mind. To an Englishman, the religious ceremonies of the Hindus are well worthy of attention, from their antiquity, from the strictness with which they are performed, and, some of them, from their peculiar tendency. Amongst the most curious of them, is that which enjoins the wife to BURN with her deceased husband. I have had an opportunity of observing this ceremony, with what I conceive to be unusual advantages, and I therefore wish, through the medium of your work, to communicate an exact account of that which I have not hitherto seen so particularly described in any books relating to the manners and customs of the natives of India. I do so at the present moment, because both the Parliament and the public seem to have turned their attention very particularly to this subject. Having received information that a woman intended to burn herself with her husband's body, on a particular day, a little beyond Chitpoor, a village in the environs of Calcutta, just beyond the limits to which the authority of the Supreme Court extends, I proceeded to the spot about nine o'clock a. m. on the appointed day. The place selected was a quiet sequestered spot, of no very considerable dimensions, and surrounded by high trees, except on the side where it was bounded by the Ganges. I found the deceased (a young man of the Writer caste) placed on a small bedstead near the river side, and attended by some of his male relations. At the distance of a few yards, the wife remained in a close palanquin, accompanied and surrounded by several females, with some of whom she occasionally conversed through the Venetian windows of the vehicle. On inquiry, I found that she had been married four years, had but recently cohabited with her husband, and was then but just thirteen years of age. When I saw her shortly after, she seemed to me, from her size and composed matronly manner, to be some years older. A square pile, consisting of dried wood, and sufficiently large to contain with ease the two bodies upon it, was erected just above highwater mark, and between three and four feet from the ground. The man's body, which had been previously taken to the river and washed, and over which a slight covering of a species of gauze had been thrown, was by some of the relations taken up and placed upon the pile. Notice was then sent to the women, to acquaint them that "all was ready." As I heard the order given to summon her, I instantly approached the palanquin, in which the woman lay, and there being very few persons present, succeeded in getting within about three feet of her. When the doors of the palanquin were opened, with much firmness in her general appearance and demeanour, but with a slight degree of hurry in her step, she proceeded towards the river. Her whole appearance was peculiarly interesting, independently of the solemn rite she was then about to perform. She was young; uncommonly fair for a Bengal Hindoo, well formed and grown, and with a very animated and sensible countenance. Her male relations joined hands and made a ring around, but very close to her; and her father, on whose arm she leaned, and in that order proceeded to the river, occasionally called on God (" Hurree Bhole"-God speak!) to evince his satisfaction at the act about to be performed, or, "to receive the sacrifice propitiously." As she passed the pile, she stopped for an instant, and looked very earnestly at the body. She proceeded to the river, bathed (surrounded and nearly protected from my view by the other women), and offered to the Ganges certain sweet-smelling flowers and fruits. She called on several of her female friends or relations to approach, and having taken the bangles (armlets of gold or silver) from her wrists, and other gold and silver ornaments from her neck and different parts of her person, gave to each of the women some one article. Her eye, once or twice, met mine, and she slightly and gently smiled. A Bramin now approached and read to her some passages from the Shaster, (the Hindû Scriptures,) the words of which she repeated correctly and calmly after him. She then took off her upper garments, which were of pale yellow muslin, and her father wrapped round her several yards of a dark-coloured red silk. Round each of her arms a small packet, containing, as I was informed, betel and certain aromatic seeds, was tied. A large quantity of boiled rice, and a sort of comfits, was put into a fold of her dress; and with a cheerful alacrity in her air and manner, and a placid smile on her countenance, she proceeded towards the pile, close to which I followed her. On her way to the pile, she dispersed amongst the surrounding spectators large handfuls of the rice and comfits. Her father led her round the pile, and after one circuit, whether from eagerness to finish the ceremony, or from ignorance of its forms, she attempted to get upon it, but was prevented by her father until she had completed seven entire circuits. She then mounted the pile and lay down by her husband. One of the relations placed her left arm over her husband's neck. Her countenance was still unaltered. They next placed over both bodies several alternate layers of wood, straw, a sort of tow called "Jute," and other combustible matters, and concluded the whole by emptying several pots of ghee (clarified butter) or oil, and of pounded resin over the pile. Her face was still visible, and a near relation at this moment gave her some boiled rice to eat! which she apparently swallowed! the dead man's portion being laid down before his mouth on the pile. They next covered the faces of the two bodies, first with a muslin cloth, and then with some tow; and two of the male relations went rapidly round the pile three times with lighted flambeaux in their hands, touching, but not setting fire to each of the corners as they passed. At the conclusion of this ceremony, one of them presented his flambeau to the girl's father, who, with a wild look and unsteady hand, eagerly ran to the windward corner of the pile, and averting his head set the whole on fire, crying out as before "Hurree Bhole," in which ejaculation he was joined by most of the relations, who at the same time continued to throw large quantities of pounded resin on those parts of the pile which had already kindled. The whole in an instant was one sheet of fire; and now, when interference was too late for the preservation of the woman, a circumstance occurred, that made me and the only two other Europeans who were present, bitterly regret, that we had not endeavoured to prevent this brutal sacrifice to a savage and inhuman superstition. As soon as the pile had been fired, the band of native musicians, chiefly consisting of players on a species of drum, called a Tom-tom, and on cow's horns, and other instruments, more remarkable for their discordant noises than for any musical quality, struck up a din well calculated to drown all humán exclamations. Notwithstanding the uproar, as I stood very near to the pile, I distinctly heard the woman shrieking loudly, and calling for help repeatedly for nearly a minute, when, happily, either the smoke, or the flames, put an end to her life and dreadful sufferings! From the time of her leaving the Palanquin, till her death, was about fifteen minutes. When the whole pile was consumed, and the rising tide had nearly reached the spot where it had stood, the ashes were carefully collected and thrown into the HOLY GANGES. In the foregoing relation, I have most literally adhered to facts; and have only to add, that I have not used one epithet, throughout the whole, that did not suggest itself during the performance of the ceremony on my return from which, the memoranda which I now send you were committed to writing, having been taken down at the moment in pencil. I am, Sir, your humble Servant, R. D. THY heart is in the upper world, where fleet the Chamois bounds, I know thou lov'st me well, dear friend! but better, better far, And I will not seek to woo thee down from those thy native heights, And I will leave my blessed home, my father's joyous hearth, It is my youth, it is my bloom, it is my glad free heart, To listen for thy step in vain, to start at every breath, To watch through long, long nights of storm, to sleep and dream of Death, To wake in doubt and loneliness-this doom I know is mine And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine. That I may greet thee from thine Alps, when thence thou com'st at last, * Lawine, the avalanche. F. H. |
