threatened by the brother's treachery, bore away his prize | to devote the hours spent in retirement at Khasgunje to in triumph, and sought an asylum in another court.

the writing or the dictation of the incidents of his early life. In looking back upon past events, the colonel occasionally expresses a regret that he should have been induced to quit the king's service, in which, in all probability, he would have attained the highest rank; but, eminently qualified for the situation in which he has been placed, and more than reconciled to the destiny which binds him to a foreign soil, the station he occupies leaves him little to desire, and he has it in his power to be still farther useful to society by unlocking the stores of a mind fraught with information of the highest interest.

The life of the Begum Sumroo presents a more extraordinary tissue of events, extraordinary even in Asiatic annals, notwithstanding the numerous stepping-stones to wealth and power which were offered to the enterprising in the wild and troublous periods of Indian misrule. In early youth, this singular woman attached herself to a German adventurer, called by the natives Sumroo; but whether this appellation was a corruption of Summers, a name he is said to have taken upon his entrance into the company's service, or of a soubriquet supposed to have been bestowed upon him on account of his gloomy and saturnine aspect, is not known; both versions of the story being equally current in India. This man commenced his career in the east as a private soldier in the English army, from which he speedily deserted, and made his way to the upper provinces. He is described as a lowborn, uneducated person, so illiterate as not to be able to write his own name. He possessed talents, however, which recommended him to the notice of Cossim Ali, nawaub of Bengal, who took him into favour, and gave him the command of his army. While in the service of this prince, Sumroo perpetrated a deed which stamped his name with indelible infamy. Inviting the English residents at Patna to his table, while partaking with the most unreserved confidence of the banquet, he gave a signal for a general massacre, and not one escaped the assassin's dagger. This act of perfidy proved as useless as it had been base and treacherous; the Company's troops under Major Adams speedily recaptured the city, and soon afterwards the entire conquest of Bengal obliged Cossim Ali and his followers to seek refuge at the court of Sujah Dowlah, Nawab Vizier of Oude. During the remainder of his life, English officers had often the mortification of seeing this renegade basking in the sunshine of favour at the courts of native princes; and though, as their star prevailed, he was compelled to try his fortune in more distant scenes, his prosperity daily increased. He established himself at the head of a considerable force, who were attached to his person, and wanted nothing but pay to be exceedingly effective. Finding it difficult to satisfy them or their leader, Nudjift Khan put him into possession of a very considerable jaghire, or rather a small principality, in the province of Delhi, which the begum retains to this day.

Sumroo died in 1776, and, at his decease, the corps which he had raised was kept up in the name of his son, though the chief authority fell into the hands of the extraordinary woman who has since made so conspicuous a figure in Hindostan. The origin of Zaib ul Nissa (ornament of her sex,) a name which, as well as the title of begum, was conferred upon her by the King of Delhi, is not known. By some persons it is said that she was a dancing girl; and many are of opinion that she was a Cashmerian by birth, an idea which has arisen from the remarkable fairness of her complexion. But though this is not a common circumstance amongst the natives of Hindostan, instances are sufficiently frequent to render it very possible that she was born at Agra, the place in which she attached herself to the fortunes of Sumroo.

There can be no doubt that the begum possessed more than ordinary share of personal charms, for, at an advanced age, the remains were very striking. She is

rather under the middle size, delicately formed, with finechiseled features, brilliant hazel eyes, a complexion very little darker than that of an Italian, and hands, arms, and feet which Zoffani, the painter, declared to be models of beauty. Of these, though now grown fat and wrinkled, she is justly proud. It is well known that, while apparently excluded from all share of authority, women in India in reality often obtain unlimited sway over their husbands' property. Little or nothing is said of Sumroo's son, but his widow, as she is called, speedily became a person of great importance. By some of her contemporaries it is averred that, at a very early period of life, "her highness" became a convert to the Roman catholic faith, which she now professes, and that she was married to a German by the forms of that church; others seem to think these circumstances doubtful, and are of opinion that, like many Mahomedan women living with Europeans, she for a long period retained her own religion, though considering herself as much the wife of her protector as if he had fulfilled all the ceremonial of the Moslem contract.

Having made these arrangements, they set forward on their journey, attended by a strong escort, and each being provided with pistols, which the lady well knew how to use. At the appointed spot, the escort was attacked, or apparently attacked, by a party in the begum's interest; the guards were put to the rout, and the fugi. tives seemed to be completely in the power of their sup posed enemies. There was a great deal of confusion, and amid several reports of musketry, news was brought to the bewildered Frenchman, that the begum had shot herself. He instantly dismounted from his elephant, and rushing to her palanquin, found the attendants in great affliction and disorder; these people confirmed the fatal intelligence, giving as a proof the lady's veil saturated with blood. Knowing the resolute disposition of his wife, he concluded from this act of despair that all was lost, and destitute of the resources of a strong mind, and unsuspicious of double-dealing, he saved his enemy from the guilt of his actual murder, by putting a pistol to his head. The begum, taking care to have better information than her luckless spouse, the moment his death was ascertained, After the death of Sumroo, the begum entered into threw open the doors of her palanquin, and mounting an another matrimonial engagement, with a French adven- elephant, addressed the troops in eloquent and impassioned turer, a Monsieur L'Oiscaux, or Le Vassu, who had been language, descanting upon the affection she bore to the in the Mahratta service, under General Perron, and was people bequeathed to her care by their former chief, her afterwards employed by her as commander-in-chief of opposition to the wishes of the dastard who would have the troops belonging to her jaghire. Like many widows, plundered and left them, and her determination to live the lady soon discovered that she had committed aand die in the discharge of the important duties which grievous error in the choice of a second husband; but there are very few who could extricate themselves so boldly and artfully from the entanglement. The cause of the begum's earnest desire to get rid of her new lord is variously related; but, in all probability, those persons are right who have attributed it to the desire which the Frenchman manifested to return to Europe. Native women of rank and wealth are well aware that they will lose all their consequence in a foreign country, and they usually make it a sine quá non, that those whom they espouse shall agree to spend the remainder of their days in India. Naturally alarmed at a proposition which seemed to be dictated by the purest selfishness, and which assured her that she was indebted for her husband to the wealth she had amassed, and which he now desired to lavish amongst strangers to her, by whom she would be regarded as an object of contempt, she made no outward opposition, but dissembling deeply, determined to circumvent a plan which threatened to be so injurious to her interests.

she was called upon to perform.

Until this moment, it is said, she had never appeared in public; but the exigency of the case excused her assumption of masculine rights. Her appeal to the soldiers was received with the greatest enthusiasm, and they conveyed her back to camp with shouts and acclamations. From that period, she publicly exercised all the rights of a sovereign, and has retained undisputed possession of her authority. Officers formerly attached to the Mahratta service relate that they have seen her in the zenith of her beauty, leading on her troops in person, and manifesting in the midst of the most frightful carnage the reckless intrepidity which seems only to belong to the other sex. Upon one of these occasions, during the reign of Shah Alum, she is said to have saved the Mogul empire, by rallying and encouraging her troops, when those of the king were flying before the enemy. It is certain that she performed good service, and its reward was proportionate. The emperor created her a princess, or begum, in her own right, exalting her to a rank only second to that of the imperial family. Linking her fortunes with those of Delhi, she, with her usual foresight, showed herself favourable to the English interests, and in the treaties of 1805, adroitly managed to have her territories not only confirmed to her, but exempted from the jurisdiction of the civil power, greatly, it is said, to the obstruction of all executive measures of police.

The internal management of her estate, however, renders her independence less objectionable, since she contrives to keep her subjects in excellent order, and to render the revenues extremely productive.

Le Vassu was no match in diplomatic arts for his subtle wife; she pretended to enter with the greatest readiness into the scheme, but conjured him to keep his intentions secret, lest the troops, exasperated by the abandonment of their chief, should endeavour to detain them by force. While apparently engaged with the greatest alacrity in the collection of the gold and jewels which he proposed to carry along with him, she employed various emissaries to inflame the minds of the people against the Frenchman, and to represent his intended desertion in the most odious colours. These agents took care to contrast her love and devotion to the interests of The town of Seerdhuna, the capital of her district, is those over whom she had been placed, with her husband's populous and flourishing; her fields, according to combase betrayal of their confidence; and when every thing | mon report, look greener, and her peasantry more con was prepared according to her wishes, she alarmed Le tented, than those of native states, or even of the Vassu with rumours of an intended revolt. She assured company's provinces, in her neighbourhood. She mainhim that there would be the greatest difficulty in effect- tains a body of troops for the protection of her own ing their escape from a highly-excited people, who had person and the collection of the revenue, besides the resolved upon their destruction should they be taken in quota she is required to furnish to assist in the performthe act of quitting the province, and declaring her deter-ance of the police duties at Meerut. These soldiers are mination never to survive the disgrace of a capture, she represented the horrors which would ensue in such a glowing manner, and worked so strongly upon the imagination of her husband, that he agreed to follow her example, promising to kill himself should their party be insufficient to quell the insurgents.

under the command of officers of European descent, but to judge from the accounts which sometimes appear in the Calcutta papers of the abject nature of their enforced subservience to the will of an imperious and arbitrary woman, they cannot be of a very high grade.

The begum's troops, who are principally Rajpoots,

the British government, did not scruple to commit atrocities of the most frightful nature. The darkest stories are circulated of murders perpetrated by her order, and in her own presence; some of her subjects she is said to have impaled alive, and others barbarously mutilated. But the most shocking tale is connected with a fertile cause of female cruelty and revenge. She be came jealous of one of the females of her household, and not satisfied with depriving her of existence, prolonged her sufferings, and rejoiced over them with a savage barbarity, which can only be compared to the sanguine ferocity of the tigress, tearing and torturing her prey before she gives it the final stroke. The unfortunate girl was buried alive under the floor of the apartinent occupied by her mistress, who slept upon the spot in order to feast her ears with the dying groans of her victim, and to prevent the possibility of a rescue: the whole establishment compassionating the fate of the hapless creature who had fallen under the clutch of so relentless a monster.

thorities, and he is always ready to employ his influence in the promotion of any good work. His talents and amiable character render him a welcome and an honoured guest at the houses of the British residents at Bankapore, a civil station in his immediate neighbourhood, and Bishop Heber seems scarcely to have done justice to this excellent man, in ascribing his popularity to the smoothness of his manners, and his tact in administering to the self-love of his associates. Father Julius Cæsar is a Franciscan friar, wearing the garb and practising the self-denial enjoined by his order, the products of his little cure being barely adequate to the support of a very humble establishment.

The begum's court at Seerdhuna has been the asylum of European adventurers of various ranks, who, disappointed of the golden harvest which they had hoped to reap in the fertile fields of India, have been content to sit down for the remainder of their lives upon appointments which gave them more luxuries than they could The seclusion in which Hindoostanee women are command at home. Forming connections with Asiatic obliged to live is not favourable to the formation of the women, or giving their children wholly up to the care of female character, nor does it tend to soften and improve the natives, Seerdhuna has exhibited Europeans in a very the heart. Women of strong feelings, for want of other singular position, having nothing of their father-land excitement, are apt to exercise the most wanton cruelties about them save the hue of their skin. Some English upon their dependents, and the zenana is frequently a gentlemen, sitting at table at Agra, were surprised by scene of the greatest misery. The slave-girls of the the appearance of a man, whose fair complexion, sandy princesses of Delhi have been known to escape from the whiskers, and peculiar physiognomy, announced him to palace and fly to the British residency for protection; and belong to the Emerald Isle, but whose dress and language surrounded by such examples, and armed with absolute were purely Hindoostanee. With all the native volubipower, it is not surprising that a woman, of so determin- lity, he told the story of his wrongs, his unjust dismissal ed a character as the Begum Sumroo, should have ex-redress or employment. Upon being questioned upon from the begum's service, and his travels in search of ceeded all her contemporaries in the recklessness with which she indulged her hatred against those who had the

misfortune to offend her.

The begum's first husband, the founder of her fortunes, is buried at Agra. She, herself, is said never to have had a child; but the son, mentioned as the successor to the jaghire, of whom nothing in India seems to be known, certainly left some offspring, who have formed alliances with Europeans and Indo-Britons. The Calcutta papers, of October, 1831, announced the marriages of two gen. tlemen, John Rose Troup, Esq., and Monsieur Peter Paul Mari Le Caroli, with the daughters of Colonel George Alexander Dyce, great granddaughters of the Begum Sumroo. The ceremony was performed in the cathedral of Sancta Maria, at Seerdhuna, by the padre Julius Cæsar, and that of Mr. Troup was afterwards celebrated a second time at the begum's palace, by the protestant chaplain of

Meerut.

Several priests of the Roman Catholic persuasion are settled at Seerdhuna, and their influence over the begum, which is said to be very considerable, will, it is to be hoped, lead to a deeper sense of her misdeeds than that self-satisfied old lady appears at present to entertain. She could scarcely be in better hands than those of father Julius Cæsar, who realises the most beautiful ideas which could be formed of a Christian minister. Destitute of ambitious hopes, and debarred from those ties of kindred and affection which tend to reconcile the protestant clergy to a residence on a foreign shore, he devotes all his time and thoughts to the preservation and enlargement of his little flock. Though occasionally to be found at Seerdhune and other places where a catholic community is assembled, his residence is in the city of Patna, where he has a small congregation. He is the only European who has ever taken up his abode within the walls since the cold-blooded massacre which took place in 1764, and he is universally respected by the natives, who regard with great veneration those persons belonging to the priesthood who act up to their clerical profession, whatever their religious opinions may be. In times of expected irritation or tumult, the services of the padre are frequently called for in aid of the civil au

|

the subject of his parentage, he said that his father was an Irishmen, but seemed to know nothing farther about the matter, and to be perfectly unaware of the astonishment which his Asiatic manners and habits would occasion to those with whom he was conversing. It is very seldom that transplantation to a foreign soil produces so complete a change in the immediate descendants of British exiles, though other Europeans, French people in particular, accommodate themselves more easily to the customs and usages of the people with whom they are destined to live. Some of the most respectable of the begum's foreign retainers have been natives of France; her colonel-commandant, a gentleman named Peton, who resided at her court during a great many years, was very justly esteemed for his invariable good conduct and gentlemanly manners. Latterly, her service has fallen into disrepute; as the country has become tranquilised, the prospects of Europeans at native courts have become less brilliant, and as her highness does not offer very high emoluments, and there is no honour whatever to be gained in her employ, she is surrounded by half-castes, whose expectations are of a very limited nature, and who submit to treatment which would disgust persons of higher pretensions.

Either according to treaty, or in consequence of the begum's gratitude for the protection she has experienced, she has made the British government her heir, and, at her death, which in the course of nature must take place very shortly, the jaghire will be placed on the same footing as those under the company's jurisdiction. The begum is very liberal in her donations to public charities, and other popular institutions in Calcutta. After the death of her husband Sumroo, she kept up a monastery founded by him at Agra, for persons belonging to the Roman catholic church, of any country or nation, adding an establishment for nuns; but whether many persons of either sex have availed themselves of this asylum we have little opportunity of knowing, since European travellers pass through Agra without taking the slightest interest in any of its minor features, and the greater number are quite content with casting a listless glance

upon the buildings of note which are to be scen in the fort and the cantonments.

The begum exercises the almost boundless hospitality which native custom has prescribed to those who are placed at the head of a fief or large estate, entertaining the whole of the servants and camp-followers of parties of travellers, to whom she is desirous to pay respect and attention. The supply of firewood, ghee, grain, and sweetmeats, to the multifarious attendants of the ambulatory establishment of a great man, is a serious affair; but her highness always does the thing handsomely, and the people who are feasted at her expense have no cause to complain of the meagreness of their fare. Salutes of cannon are fired, and her troops are turned out, whenever her capital is visited by travellers of distinction, and while the retainers are furnished with the materials for a feast, the ladies and gentlemen are invited to her own table, sumptuously covered at breakfast and dinner, the banquet being followed by nautching and fire-works.

From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.

BENTHAM.

might almost as well have never been digested. The character of Bentham-in whom there was much to admire, and something to condemn-has perhaps never been so well delineated as by Hazlitt, and, with the translation from the present to the past tense, may here be introduced.

"Mr. Bentham was one of those persons who verified the old adage, that a prophet has no honour, except out of his own country.' His reputation lay at the circumference; and the lights of his understanding were reflected, with increasing lustre, on the other side of the globe. His name was little known in England, better in Europe, and best of all in the plains of Chili, and the mines of Mexico. He offered constitutions for the New World, and legislated for future times. The people of Westminster, where he lived, hardly knew such a person. We believe that the Empress Catharine corresponded with him; and we know that the Emperor Alexander called upon him, and presented him with his miniature in a gold snuff-box, which the philosopher, to his eternal honour, returned. Mr. Hobhouse is [or was] a greater man at the hustings; but Mr. Bentham would have carried it hollow, on the score of popularity, at Paris or Pegu. The reason is, that our author's influ ence was purely intellectual, having devoted his life to the pursuit of abstract and general truths, and to those studies

Jeremy Bentham, recently deceased, has been described as one of the most remarkable literary characters in Great Britain. Till the period of his decease, he existed in some measure as a connecting link betwixt the philosophic theorists of the past and present age, yet extremely little is known of his character or pursuits; for though lauded in unmeasured terms by some of his contemporaries, and made a subject among magazine writers and reviewers, the people, by whom it will be allowed all popularity and true greatness become fixed, hardly know that there was ever such a person, and very few of them indeed could tell what were his peculiar doctrines. There is a large class of individuals in this country who continue to write and publish books, and make up papers for periodical publications, and whose names are frequently enough met with in our ephemeral literature, yet who are quite unknown and uncared for by the general community, and whose productions have no visible effect whatever either on the conduct or style of thinking of the people. To this class in a great measure belonged Jeremy Bentham. He was a great and voluminous writer on metaphysical and political subjects, as well as on jurisprudence; he strove for many years for what he considered the good of the people; and he almost died for the people, for he bequeathed his body to the dissectors, in order to benefit the science of anatomy; yet, strangely enough, the people generally seem to know little or nothing of him; and it might be safely affirmed that there could not be found a dozen complete copies of his works in ordinary use. Nevertheless, according to some of the newspapers and magazines, and those who give praise on trust, Bentham was "one of the greatest philosophers of his time"-an assertion there is no possibility of disproving. From what can be guessed as to the sum of Bentham's principles, it appears he was one of those men who think themselves into a belief, that, as things go, mankind are all in the wrong; that they do nothing rightly; that the whole of the machinery of society should be stopped, the wheels cleaned and altered, and then set a-going on a "Mr. Bentham, perhaps, overrated the importance of new plan. Yet, with this whimsicality of character, his own theories. He has been heard to say (without Bentham was in reality a sincere friend to mankind in any appearance of pride or affectation) that he should the widest possible sense; and it is only a pity that he like to live the remaining years of his life, a year at a did not take pains to bring his views lucidly and point-time, at the end of the next six or eight centuries, to see edly before the community, so that they might have been studied, and, if necessary, acted upon. His plans for simplifying forms of law were, we believe, of a valuable kind, and had he brought them forward on a practical scale, great benefit might have ensued. As it is, they

'That waft a thought from Indus to the Pole,' and never mixed himself up with personal intrigues or politics. Mr. Bentham was very much among philosophers what La Fontaine was among poets:-in general habits, in all but his professional pursuits, he was a mere child. He lived for the last forty years in a house in Westminster, overlooking the park, like an anchoret in his cell, reducing law to a system, and the mind of man to a machine. He scarcely ever went out, and saw verylittle company. The favoured few who had the privilege of the entrée were always admitted one by one. He did not like to have witnesses of his conversation. He talked a great deal, and listened to nothing but facts. When any one called upon him, he invited them to take a turn round his garden with him (Mr. Bentham was an economist of his time, and set apart this portion of it to air and exercise), and there you might have seen the lively old man, his mind still buoyant with thought, and with the prospect of futurity, in eager conversation with some opposition member, some expatriated patriot, or trans-Atlantic adventurer, urging the extinction of close boroughs, or planning a code of laws for some lone island in the watery waste,' his walk almost amounting to a run, his tongue keeping pace with it in shrill, cluttering accents, negligent of his person, his dress, and his manner, intent only on his grand theme of UTILITY. He heard and saw only what suited his purpose, or some foregone conclusion;' and looked out for facts and passing occurrences in order to put them into his logical machinery, and grind them into the dust and powder of some subtle theory. Add to this physiognomical sketch the minor points of costume, the open shirt-collar, the single-breasted coat, the old-fashioned half-boots, and ribbed stockings, and you would have found in Mr. Bentham's general appearance a singular mixture of boyish simplicity and the venerableness of age.

the effect which his writings would, by that time, have had upon the world.' But we do not think, in point of fact, that Mr. Bentham has given any new or decided impulse to the human mind. He cannot be looked upon in the light of a discoverer in legislation or morals.