huge masses of ice and fragments of timber borne upon their troubled current, and into which it was certain death to plunge, with the almost inevitable pros t of becoming the breakfast of a panther if he remained! Another scream close upon him: another tree was shaken, and yet another! Another moment of yet deeper interest passed; and he saw indistinctly the body of an animal. Again it sprang, and again. The dreadful crisis had now arrived; for at the distance of not more than forty yards, he saw in full view a huge panther, crouching upon an enormous limb with cat-like watch, and evidently measuring the distance to his intended prey, preparatory to the last bound. His large, green eyes, flashing with rage, glared hideously upon him, while, as he uttered a hoarse and frightful growl, his blood-red mouth disclosed a set of fangs anything but inviting to a poor mortal, expecting the next moment to be within them. Bacon grasped the limbs by which he was holding, with convulsive energy. The ferocious animal uttered another dreadful yell, his hairs bristled, he drew his back up into a curve, and commenced the rapid and tremulous shake of his tail, the unerring signal of the final leap,-his burning eye-balls glowing yet more fiercely. He made the leap with the swiftness and precision of an arrow; but, by a tremendous effort, Bacon succeeded in giving the branch, upon which the panther caught, such a sudden shaking, exactly at the right instant, as to prevent his making a secure lodgement of his talons. The monster attempted to recover, but could touch no branch of the tree with his hindmost feet; and he was thus suspended for a moment by his claws, and hung dangling in the air, at full length, over the wide abyss of waters. But Bacon continued shaking the limb, and it was evident by the giving way that the terrible animal could sustain himself by his talons but a few seconds longer. The panther himself now raised a piercing cry of terror, and the next instant the grasp of his claws gave way, and he fell with a howl of horror into the torrent, yet rushing onward with increasing velocity. The monster clung for a moment to a broken limb, upon which he struck; but he was soon drawn beneath the surge, and borne away among the ice and drift-wood, to trouble honest yeomen, living in single blessedness, alone in the woods,-no more. In the course of the day the neighbours began to remark the precarious condition in which the freshet had probably found their solitary neighbour; and after the ice and broken timber had so far passed away as to render it safe to put forth a canoe, he was relieved from his perilous situation.' pp. 60-62; 74–79. Juliana is an admirable story, extremely well told. Miss Lawrance has furnished one of her inexhaustible legends of the olden time. James Montgomery, Mary Howitt, Charles Swain, Henry Chorley, T. K. Hervey, L. E. L., Delta, and Laman Blanchard, are among the poetical contributors; and the volume closes with some lines from the oaten reed of the Ettrick Shepherd, whose lips are now closed for ever in death. As we can make room for only one more extract, it must be the following elegiac stanzas. THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS. IN MEMORY OF E. B. Her's was a soul of fire that burn'd, Too soon for us, its earthly tent; To Him from whom it first was sent: 'Her's was a frame so frail, so fine, ་ The soul was seen through every part- That soul rests now, till God, in His great day, Body and soul eternally, No more conflicting nor estranged, One saint made perfect then shall be, From glory into glory changed: This was her hope in life, in death, may I J. MONTGOMERY. We regret that we cannot bestow either very high or quite unqualified praise upon our old favourite, the Amulet. The embellishments are not of that well chosen and highly finished character which we have been accustomed to find in this Annual; and as to the contents, though there are some good articles, there is one which we cannot pass over without an expression of both censure and regret. In the following paragraphs, taken from a tale entitled The Bengal Missionary, by Captain M'Naghten, the reader will find a covert attack upon the Dissenting Missionaries, which, though rendered innoxious by the Writer's obvious ignorance of what he undertakes to write about, is not the less offensive and pernicious in its tendency. THE BENGAL MISSIONARY. From a superficial view of these differences of faith, and variety of rites, some unreflecting people have ridiculed the term "mild," as applied to the national character of the Hindoos, for, they ask, can the followers be "mild" of that religion which commands (here they assume the fact, or, at best, argue after a petitio principii) the destitute widow to immolate herself on the pyre of her husband-the miserable pilgrim to have himself crushed to death beneath the wheels of an idol's sacred car-and the ignorant fanatic to swing himself from iron hooks which perforate the muscular integuments of his shoulder. This with much more of a similar description, sounds well and forcibly enough in the ears of uninformed men, and in the tone of ignorant declamation; and by the mass of those before whom it is employed, the facts are shuddered at, and the inference is admitted. Yet the chief characteristic of the Hindoo is indubitably mildness. The Hindoo religion is essentially inoffensive, the Mosaic, the Mahometan, and the Catholic, essentially the reverse; and it may well be doubted whether Boodhism tends more to darken the human mind, which it induces to put forth in the efficacy of its few recommended (for it has no enjoined) sacrifices of the nature described, than do the two last-named faiths-the former by engendering and nourishing a firm belief in a sensual Heaven, to be gained by deeds of sanguinary persecution; and the latter, by compelling the blind and absolute credence of its professors in the sure efficaciousness of corporeal laceration, the certain benefit of posthumous expurgatorial masses for the soul, and the entire sufficiency of an earthly absolution and remission of their sins. We are too apt to condemn a religion with which we are not very familiarly acquainted, without taking the requisite pains to compare it with those which circumstances have enabled us more deeply to examine, and the ceremonies of which have no longer the power of novelty to startle or revolt us. It is thus that the Brahminical religion has frequently been condemned for incomparable superstition and cruelty of principle, when a very little reflection and comparison would convince the censurers that it yielded to several others in its most idolatrous and bloody traits, and greatly surpassed them in the amount of its humanity. Without setting myself up as a profound theologist, or a most exemplary and faultless Christian, I can yet judge with impartiality between the several religions that are best known to a commonly-informed person; and wholly free from persecuting bigotry, I am a sincere friend to the cause of heathen and other conversion to what I devoutly believe to be the least erroneous faith. But while I give willingly and unqualifiedly my entire assent to the pious and philanthropic sincerity of those who compose our Bible and other coadjutant associations for the dissemination of the gospel, I do not, and I never did, concur with them as to the mode in which they proceeded so recently as twelve years ago, of converting to Hindoos by the exertions of erratic and often illiterate missionaries, who madly began by reviling the religion they were sent gradually to subvert; and who deemed the stern and censuring style of the primitive apostles (they never reflected on the difference between their own unletteredness, and the inspiration of the Deity), the only model on which their preachings should be delivered. In that part of the system, 1 never could concur, nor can I say that I have ever been opposed by a sufficient defence of it, though this is neither the first nor the most public manner in which I have expressed my sincere conviction of its utter inefficiency. The natural mildness of the Hindoo character was never more forcibly exemplified, than by the forbearing manner in which these traducers of their ancient religion were received. They were uniformly listened to with the most urbane attention, and they neither exhausted the patience, nor excited the vengeance of their gentle auditory; but they would 3 R VOL. XIV.-N.S. soon have succeeded in diffusing alarm, where they failed to spread conviction, had a notion been generally, as it certainly was partially, entertained, that the British government contemplated the use of force in the work of conversion. I need not say what the consequences would have been, nor how difficult the task of re-establishing confidence. In the year 1816 a most alarming rebellion was fostered and increased, if not actually commenced in the district of Bareilly, by the apprehension of such a procedure; and both Mussulman and Hindoo (the detesters of each other's faith) united in such formidable and determined numbers to frustrate the apprehended design of subverting both, that many lives were sacrificed, and much popularity lost, before the government authority could be fully re-established. In many instances (some of them within my personal knowledge) the supreme power has had to interfere, by ordering back to Calcutta, from the interior of the country, certain wandering missionaries, whose extreme indiscretion was producing the most dangerous consequences to the State, while, at the same time, it greatly injured the sacred cause with which they were entrusted. No wonder the majority of these spiritual envoys were of low degree, and of little education. A learned and a pious divine, like the incomparable Bishop Heber, did, and will ever do, more spiritual good among the natives of India, than a myriad of such well-meaning but ignorant envoys as were formerly sent there.' We find no fault with the Captain for not being a profound "theologist,' but when he talks of the essential inoffensiveness of the Hindoo religion-that is of the worship of Kali and Seeva ;and of the natural mildness of the Hindoos,'-to wit, the Thugs, and Phansigars, and Pindarrees, and Decoits of Bengal and Hindostan, and the Rajpoots of Malwah and Marwar;-when he praises the tolerance of the Brahminical extirpators of the Buddhic tribes, while every part of India exhibits the monuments of the desolating wars carried on between the votaries of different deities, he betrays an ignorance which is discreditable in any one who undertakes to write upon such subjects, but the more unpardonable in one who attempts to build ingenious inferences upon such premises. His account of the causes of the insurrection of 1816, is, however, worse still: it is a falsification of well attested facts. A eulogy upon the amiable Bishop Heber, coming from such a pen, is indeed cruel satire. Were the good Prelate still living, how deeply wounded and mortified would he feel at the disparaging encomiums which have been passed upon him, by worldly and indevout men who misunderstood his character! Among the other contributors to the Amulet will be found the names of the Ettrick Shepherd; the Author of Corn-Law Rhymes; Viscount Strangford; Thomas Kerrick; the Author of Selwyn; Mrs. Godwin; Mrs. Hofland; Miss Landon ; Mrs. S. C. Hall; Miss Mitford; Miss Pardoe; Charles Swain; Isabel Hill; Laman Blanchard; Horace Smith; the Author of Darnley; and Dr. Walsh. There is also a paper, entitled 'The Spirit of Philosophy,' which bears the name of William Hazlitt, -we presume a posthumous production. A splendid array of contributors; and there is a very fair display of talent; but we find nothing that we can conveniently extract, the longest communications being-which is not always the case---the best. Friendship's Offering awakens solemn and painful recollections. The Editor of the previous volumes, our lamented friend Thomas Pringle, was to have been succeeded by Mr. Inglis, the Author of some popular sketches of Ireland and the Channel Islands; but he, too, has been suddenly cut off in the prime of life; and Mr. Harrison, well known to our readers by his Tales of a Physician,' has been called to supply his place. Under such circumstances, it would be unfair to criticise very narrowly the contents of a volume prepared under some disadvantages; but there will be found a very agreeable admixture of tale, essay, and poetry. From the latter we select the following elegant verses. 'HOPE. 'By T. K. HERVEY. Again-again she comes!-methinks I hear Her wild, sweet singing, and her rushing wings! yore, When my plumed soul went half-way to the sky Was scarce more tuneful than its glad reply:- I know her by the rainbow in her hair,- That hung, enamoured, round her fairy feet, And culled from all their beautiful and sweet:- Come back! come back!-thou hast been absent long; |