case the exclusion is not attended with One of them alone abstained from the the hateful and ruinous consequences repast, and as soon as they reached before described. their home, he accused the other ten "It is not necessary that offences before the chief Brahmans of the town. against the usages of the cast should The rumour quickly spread. An asbe either intentional or of great mag- sembly is held. The delinquents are nitude. It happened to my knowledge summoned, and compelled to appear. not long ago, that some Brahmans who They had been alrendy apprised of the live in my neighbourhood, having been difficulty in which they were likely to convicted of eating at a publick enter- be involved; and when called upon to tainment with a Sudra, disguised as a answer the charge, they unanimously Brahman, were all ejected from the protested, as they had previously concast, and did not regain admission into certed that it was the accuser only that it without undergoing an infinite num- was guilty of the fault which he had ber of ceremonies both troublesome and laid to their charge. Which side was

expensive.

to be believed ? Was the testimony of

"I witnessed an example of this one man to be taken against that of kind more unpleasant than what I have ten? The result was, that the ten Brahalluded to. In the cast of the Ideyars, mans were declared innocent, and the the parents of two families had met and accuser, being found guilty, was ex. determined on the union of a young pelled with ignominy from the tribe man and girl of their number. The by the chiefs, who though they could usual presents were offered to the young scarcely doubt of his innocence, yet woman, and other ceremonies performed could not help being offended with the which are equivalent to betrothing among us. After these proceedings, the young man died, before the time apThe author proceeds to describe the pointed for accomplishing the marriage. generical differences in the sectaries After his death, the parents of the girl, devoted to Brahman, Vishnu, or Siwho was still very young, married her va. The sect of Vishnu is distinto another. This was against the rules guished by one ceremony more riof the cast, which condemned the be- diculous than any that exists even trothed girl to remain in a state of widowhood, although the husband for in the code of Hindoo superstitions. whom she was designed dies before mar- "The Pahvahdam is a ceremony of riage. Accordingly all who had assisted the most serious kind, since it demands at the ceremony, or who had been pre- no less than the sacrifice of a human sent at it, were cut off from the cast, and no one would afterwards form any connexion with them. Long after this happened, I have seen some of the individuals, advanced in age, who remained in a solitary state for this reason alone. "Another incident of this kind occurs to me, which was rather of a more serious complexion than the preceding.

flow; upon which the pretended vic- tious manners. Compared with the tim shams a fainting fit, tumbles on creeds and fables of the Hindoo the ground, and counterfeits death. divinities, the mythology of Greece fitted to receive him, and is there laid was chaste and sublime, and the worship of Scandinavia rational and

He is carried into the tent which is

out as a corpse.

"Of the great concourse of people humane. It is not uncommon to gathered together, part watches night find their most sacred pagodas poland day round the tent, which nobody luted by scenes of horrible licenis suffered to approach; while another division surrounds the house of the in- tiousness, which are alone equalled dividual who has given occasion for the by the dissolute orgies of Otaheite. ceremony. Both parties raise continual In common with the ancient Egypcries and frightful howlings, which be- tians, they offer adoration to birds, ing mixed with the clanking sound of snakes, and even vegetables: but the brazen plates and the shrill squeak their idolatry is often more mischieof the sankha, produce a confusion and uproar, in the midst of which it is al- vous.

M. Dubois obtained suffimost impossible to exist. This over- cient testimony, that in ancient whelming disorder continued without and modern times they have offerinterruption till the person who was ed human sacrifices..

the cause of it pays the fine imposed upon him, which generally exceeds his

means.

In a curious analysis of the Atharvana Veda, M. Dubois informs us,

"In the mean time, the inhabitants that magical rites were sometimes of the village and of the neighbourhood, consummated by the immolation of finding it impossible to live in the midst a young girl.

of the confusion and disorder occasioned "Indeed, we may easily convince by the fanatical crowd, come to terms ourselves that no nation can have less with the chief, and pay at least a part of repugnance to human sacrifices than the what has been required of the culprit, Hindus, if we examine the conduct which in order to obtain a speedy termina- they exhibit at the present time In tion to the Pahvahdam, and to induce many provinces, the natives still can the great multitude to go to their homes. trace, and actually point out to the

"The chiefs, when satisfied, repair curious traveller, the ground and situato the tent to conclude the ceremony, tion where their Rajas sacrificed to which is effected by restoring to life their idols the prisoners whom they had the pretended dead man, who lies taken in war. The object of the awful stretched out before them. For this rite was to render their divinities more purpose they chuse one of their num- placable, and to obtain their favourable ber, and, making an incision in his aid in battle. I have visited some of thigh, they collect the blood which those abominable places, which are comruns from it and sprinkle the body of monly in the mountains or other unfrethe sham corpse, which being restored quent quented parts; ; as if those awful beings by the efficacy of this simple ceremony, who delighted to see their altars moistis delivered over alive to those who ened with human gore, and their sancassist at it, and who have no doubt tuaries strewed with the carcasses, were whatever of the reality of the resurrec- themselves conscious of the enormity of tion." the crime, and therefore desired to veil

Respecting the various supersti- the horrid spectacle from the eyes of stions which prevailed amongst men. In the secret places where these these degraded beings, Mr. Dubois detestable sacrifices were performed of has been copious and curious in his old, a little temple of mean appearance is generally found, aud sometimes but a communications. With the excep- simple niche, in which the idol is pretion of some imposing dogmas, served, to obtain whose favour so horwhich are only known by a few speculative sages, their religion consists of the grosest polytheism, exhibited in a series of institutions accommodated to ignorance and imbecility, depraved habits, and licen- crtricts.

rid a price is paid. The victim was
immolated by decapitation, and the

head was lefused for a time in the
presence of th
1.

"I have been conducted to see seve

ral of those sad charnel dens, in various

One of them is not far from

Seringapatam, on the hill near which or prisoner of war. What I have heard the fort of Mysore is built. On the of some of the petty Mahratta princes,

top of that mountain, the pagoda may still be observed, where the Rojas were accustomed to sacrifice their prisoners of war, or state delinquents.

"Sometimes they were satisfied with multilating their victims, by cutting off their hands, nose, and ears; which they offered up, fresh and bloody, at the

confirms my suspicions that human sacrifices are not yet wholly renounced."

The courts of justice are not much more pure than the worship of their pagodas. The oppression exercised by the Hindu princes and their vicegerents is universal. shrine of the idol, or hung them up, The Hindus have no real property. exposed on the gate of the temple. Their estates are always resumable "But I have also conversed with at the pleasure of their sovereign, familiarly into the object and circum- who is not only the supreme lord, stances of these sacrifices, and spoke but sole proprietor. The sanctity of them to me as events of their own of an oath is not respected--the days, and as publickly known. Brahmans in particular are addict

several old men, who have entered

war, amongst the pagan princes, was

"It appears, indeed, that this prac- ed to perjury and falsehood. Hence tice of sacrificing prisoners taken in arises the frequent practice of havnot in opposition to our notions of ing recourse to ordeals of guilt, the law of nations, being reciprocal, most of which are not less inhuman and acknowledged as the legitimate than absurd.

surprise. They still speak of it,

reprisals of one sovereign upon another. M. Dubois has not communicatThe people look on, without horrour, or ed much that is new respecting the without emotion, as a thing just and poetry of the Hindus. The Hindu regular, and as being fitly appropriate Tales he has selected are curious specimens of their humorous powers,

to the state of war.

"Of late, the intercourse of the Hin- and strikingly display the manners dus, with the Europeans and Mussalmans, and customs of this ambiguous peoand the just horrour which invaders have expressed of such atrocious crimes, ple, who cannot be classed with have nearly effected their total aboli- civilized or barbarous nations; who tion: nearly, I say, because I cannot cling to ignorance like the savage, answer with confidence for what may without emulating his courage or have taken place, under some petty his fidelity; and without the least native princes, who have preserved a tincture of refinement, submit to precarious independence up to the pre live in habits of voluptuous indul

sent day. Neither would like to risk
the falling into their hands, as an enemy gence.

VARIETIES.

From the Gentleman's Magazine, for May, 1818.
MR. URBAN,

THAT Lord Byron, notwithstand
in all his " original darings,"

has often condescended to imitate his brother bards, and that he has borrowed from them a great variety of striking images, I was fully convinced, before I read the remarks on his Plagiarisms in a late number of your Miscellany. In addition to those plagiarisms or imitations, I

beg leave to present you with a few resemblances, as follows.

In his "Fair Isabel," Mr. Polwhele

thus describes what he calls " the breath of the wintery night."

"While oft to eddying gusts, the fane
Echo'd, and rang its whirling vane,
and the gallong the eloistral way
Then upwards whistling see'm'd to scale
And in murmurs swept the arras behind;

the gales, thro' crannies, tod decay,

The buttress, and the tower assail,

And the dying embers in the wind

Kindled up, bright-blue flame;

And priests and warriours, in the gleam,
Shook their crosiers and pikes, as the tapestry shook.

Crested mitred, with menacing look,

From the Monthly Magazine, for June, 1818.

SIR, Your correspondent of last

Very similar is the following pas- month (Mr. Webb) has given us two

*

*

Half the lovely sea-girt scene
Was flush'd as with a faery sheen.
Far to the East the extensive seas
Were ruffled by the rising breeze,

Tho' soft the waters fain would flow
To kiss the silver sands below.

Nearer now, the labouring deep
Arose, as one enormous wave!
Then would another billow heave,
Vast and unbroken!-without foam
It seem'd one mass of steely gloom;
Till swelling to a haughtier height,
With shuddering sweep

It burst against a bellying rock:
And a long ridge of white

Rush'd o'er the sea, like furnace smoke;
Or, like the high-maned troop of horse
That in their headlong course,

All iron-black, toss fiery froth

Amidst the sabre's wrath."

Fair Isabel, Canto Sixth.

The troubled deep.

Then burst the cloud which o'er them hung!

The pealing thunder rung!

And instant roll'd each eyeball sightless!
And darkly now, and fiercely speeds
The impetuous blast; in foamy whiteness
Leap the mad waves, like battle-steeds,
Whose silver manes toss high and far
Amids't the sable storm of war!"

Hill of Caves.

lines from the ninth night of "Young's
Night Thoughts," which he says have
always appeared to him inexplicable:

Our nature such-ill choice ensures ill fate;
And hell had been, tho' there had been no God."

This celebrated and much-read poem, amid some of the finest poetical flights and justest observations, has in it much wild and inexplicable matter; and this may be expected in a metaphysical work, where there is a great deal of rhapsody and "the muse of fire."

The above lines, if they mean any thing, seem to me to mean the opposite position of Mr. Pope's axiom:

"Peace, O Virtue! peace, is all thy own."?

"Our course of life is such, (for Nature is always a bad word as applied here,) that, if we adopt ill pursuits, they lead, by consequence, to mischief and misery in this world, whether hell exists or not." Of the last line, it is difficult to say any thing satisfactorily, as it must always be of hell, in its generally accepted meaning.

The "Night Thoughts," as Mr. Webb must have observed, abound with bold, mystick, and antithetical language, and imagery often inexplicable, when coolly and philosophically examined; but they have, amid this, and some gross errours, the most sublime and brilliant passages that literature can boast.

From the European Magazine, for April, 1818.
ANECDOTE OF A FRENCHMAN.

A Frenchman, who had a dispute with a Turk in Constantinople, and had stabbed him, was condemned to death. The criminal thought on means to save himself; and as he knew that the Emperour was a great Mr. Polwhele's simile of "the lover of elephants, he proposed to high-maned troop of horse, tossing him to spare his life, and he would fiery froth amidst the sabre's wrath," in return teach one of these animals is to me so perfectly new, that its to speak. The emperour, who knew recurrence in Mr. Read's Poem can the sense of the elephant, thought it never pass for mere accident. possible, that by pains and art they

might be taught to do so; he there- phant were confined in a tower, and fore accepted the proposal of the pri- supplied with abundance of provisoner, and, besides, promised a hand- sions. After a little time he was visome reward if he fulfilled his pro-sited by some of his countrymen, mise in a certain time. The French- who testified their astonishment at man said, that ten years would be his mad promise. "You bring dewanted to instruct such a very large struction on yourself by it," said one animal, if he was to teach it to speak of them.-"Don't fear, gentlemen," the Turkish quite perfectly; but he said the prisoner; "ten years is a would be content to suffer the most great period of human life; I assure cruel death at the expiration of that you that before these are expired, time, if he should not fulfil what he one of us, either the Emperour, the had undertaken. After they had elephant, or I, shall be dead." agreed to this, he and a young ele

POETRY.

From the Edinburg Magazine, for May, 1818.

THE DIRGE OF TIPPOO SULTAUN.*

H

From the Canára.

(By the late Dr. John Leyden.)
OW quickly fled our Sultaun's state!
How soon his pomp has past away!

High o'er the portals jarring hoarse

Stern ramparts rose in dread array; Towers that seemed proof to martial force;

All in a moment passed away!
His Elephants of hideous cry,-
His steeds that pawed the battle