developed what affection was awakened for the humble lover who had been her teacher! In this truthful impersonation you missed the Mrs. Fitzwilliam whose name appeared in the playbill, and saw only poor Nan, so touchingly truthful was the portrait.

As a singer, Mrs. Fitzwilliam had many qualifications. Her voice, though neither extensive nor powerful, was peculiarly sweet, whilst her intonation was exceedingly perfect. She sang a ballad tune as though she heartily loved it; and her clear, joyous tones were sure to awaken pleasurable thoughts.. She left a son and daughter, both devoted to the study of music. The former, Edward Fitzwilliam, a young composer of great promise, has recently followed his mother, cut off in the very exercise of the art to which he was so devotedly attached. His sister, Kathleen Fitzwilliam-an accomplished vocal artiste, who débuted at the Lyceum in December, 1847-has quitted the stage.

Possessing amiable and kindly qualities, Mrs. Fitzwilliam was endeared to all who had the pleasure of associating with her; and innumerable regrets marked her sudden exit from the scene she had so long gladdened. In her pleasant retreat at Kensal-g -green-where the white tombs are garlanded by flowers-she has silent companionship with many who once gave lustre to the footlights of the theatre. Rosamond Mountain is with her, the sweet songstress of an earlier day, but who was warbling at the Surrey when our own Madge Wildfire sang there her snatches of song. Associated with them, too, is the Vestris, whose syren notes charmed us in the sweet spring-time, and were still heard when the autumn leaves were falling. Silence is with them now, but over their slumber the birds are heard to sing in the fulness of a joyous heart. In the same "garden of graves" rests the adopted son of Momus, Liston, as well as his life's partner, who, though small in stature, stood high in the favour of the public. Manager Morris is likewise with them. To Fanny Copeland he gave her first metropolitan engagement, whilst for Liston he procured a host of comic assumptions, which, while they secured him fame and fortune, could scarcely wean him from his love of tragedy. But Hamlet now has ceased to jest with the gravedigger. Another manager is here in a gaudy tomb, Andrew Ducrow, who could so "turn and wind a fiery Pegasus," but who, in one unfortunate year, lost his theatre, his reason, and his life. Of several others, two names more immediately occur to us- -Thomas Cooke, the clever musician and pleasant companion, and Charles Kemble, with whose name are linked so many of the glories of the stage. All have played out their part in the drama of life, and, with Fanny Fitzwilliam, await the after season. The rose of sunset folds its glory up, To burst again from out the heart of dawn.

THE ENGLISH IN INDIA.

ONE very favourable result of the Anglo-French alliance is that our neighbours across the water have begun to bestow much greater attention on the power and resources of England than has hitherto been the case. We doubt whether any school-geographer could now describe India as a country in which the French had a colony called Pondicherry, and the rising generation is rapidly awakening to a sense of England's position with regard to the world. For the benefit of those who went to school at a period when prejudice was rife, and commercial England was ignored by the French, M. de Valbezen has just published an account of his experiences in India, and a description of the Company's government, admirable for its impartiality and correct views. From this work we purpose to select some specimens, which may be welcome to our readers.

The original merchant traders who laid the foundation of our magnificent Eastern empire, could not have foreseen the expansion it was destined to undergo, for we find, in the middle of the last century, a governor stating in his farewell despatch that he and his officers had strictly adhered to the interests of trade, and that the glory of having made good bargains was an ample reward for their ambition. The modest footing on which the Company's government was placed in those days fully explains such limited ideas. It was composed of a governor, at 300 rupees a month; a council of ten officers, receiving smaller salaries; and a body of young merchants, paid wages varying from 19 to 180 rupees a month, for weighing saltpetre and measuring cloth. At the same time, however, each merchant was allowed to trade on his own account, and it is probable that the Company had no share in the best speculations. They were allowed to import goods duty free, and borrowed money to carry on their trade from the Banians. This traffic, however, was found so injurious to the interests of the Company, that attempts were made to put down the abuses, and naturally erred in the other direction. A gentleman, who gained the highest rank of the Indian hierarchy, tells us that when he joined the service, in 1769, his pay of 8 rupees a month was not enough for his lodging, and that he frequently went to bed at eight o'clock, to save candle. These extreme reforms met with transitory success: and the traffic of the agents was not the sole abuse which prevented the success of the Company. The native princes were willing to make any sacrifice, in order to gain the good-will of the European officials. Shore tells us in his private correspondence that, being entrusted with a mission to the Nawab of Lucknow, he was offered 5 lakhs of rupees and 8000 gold mohurs, if he would sell the interests of the Company. The Duke of Wellington, when Sir Arthur Wellesley, had to negotiate a treaty of peace between the Mahratta princes and the Nizam of Hyderabad. He was visited one morning by the prime minister of the latter, who offered him 100,000l. as the price of the secret of his instructions, which he promised to keep en

* Les Anglais et l'Inde. Par E. de Valbezen. Paris: Michel Lévy Frères. VOL. XLII.

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tirely to himself. "You can keep a secret, then?" said the young general. And to the urgent protestations of his visitor, he simply replied, "And so can I." Few persons, however, were capable of such instances of probity, and the corruption of the officials was threatening ruin to the rising fortunes of British India, when Lord Cornwallis perceived that the only way of conquering the evil was by making the Indian service the best paid in the world. This was the best mode of attracting to the Company's service young men who had principles of morality instilled into them in their youth; for, hitherto, so great had been the perils of the voyage and the evil reputation of the officials, that the Company's officers had only been recruited from the ranks of the adventurers, who wished to gain a fortune, no matter by what means. From the midst of these, great men certainly sprang up at intervals; Clive and Warren Hastings had begun to raise the edifice of British dominion in India; but the methods to which they had recourse were not suited for a country which prided itself on its morality.

When the Marquis of Cornwallis arrived in India, the Company was no longer an association of merchants, and other interests besides commercial transactions were awaiting its immediate representatives. During the last thirty years the victories of Clive and Hastings had secured to England an empire not inferior in riches and extent to the conquests of Cortes and Pizarro. The civil servants of the Company were now expected to render justice to millions of men differing in manners and language; to administer a complicated system of revenue in districts large as European kingdoms; to maintain order and the empire of the laws in the midst of a corrupt population; to be at the same time judge, administrator, financier, diplomatist, and, in many a case, soldier. It was evident that the fortunes of British India depended on the integrity, aptness, and devotion of these men, and Lord Cornwallis hoped to secure them by magnificent salaries. These remained at the same height, until Lord W. Bentinck reduced them slightly in 1830. At that period, however, the average annual salary of the civil servants was 17501. The Marquis of Wellesley, to whose administration the greatest deeds of British India are referrible, completed the reforms instituted by Lord Cornwallis, by founding, in 1800, Fort William College, as a training school for the civil service of India. The expenses which his plan would entail frightened the directors, and they cut down his scheme into the present restricted conditions. Although our French author is inclined to speak highly of the college, Mr. Capper, in his "Three Presidencies," lets in a curious light upon the system pursued there. He tells us that the pupils used to fudge their examination papers, and that when a very strict supervision was ordered, they managed to evade it by having their moonshies introduced into the room, dressed as syces, to pull the punkah. While the pupils attended to the ventilation, the moonshies wrote the paper. In this way everybody was satisfied.

The magistrate, the collector, and the judge are the principal managers of the Company's administration. At the summit of the administrative ladder there are, in each presidency, secretaries of finance, revenue, and foreign affairs, a species of responsible ministers; the members of the Board of Revenue, Control, and Finances, the members of the council of each presidency; lastly, the secretaries of the Indian government, and

the members of the Supreme Council residing at Calcutta. Thus organised, the civil service of India is composed of 808 officials; 484 are attached to the Bengal Presidency and the North-West Provinces; 189 belong to the Madras, and 138 to the Bombay Presidencies. Our author justly says that no long study of English colonial history is required to arrive at the conclusion that India is the only colony which has really prospered during the last fifty years. The reason for this he finds in the fact that the Court of Directors have always been a strong government, and have remained faithful, in spite of obstacles, to the good old traditions of colonial despotism, beyond which only ruin and anarchy are possible. Thus the Company have always come in for more than their fair share of abuse, and their officials have been equally unpopular. This our author ascribes partly to the current of democratic ideas so popular in England, and which could not spare a special service, magnificently paid and recruited almost hereditarily from the same families. Another reason, however, we will give in his own words:

Certain slight facts, in themselves insignificant, have served to fan the flame of popular passion against the Indian civil service. We may quote more especially the scandalous iniquities which were the basis of some fortunes made in the first days of the conquest, and the eccentric conduct of certain Anglo-Indians who returned to England three-parts nawabised. After passing some thirty years in savage districts, without any contact with European society, in the exercise of absolute power, the civil servant, returned to his country old and infirm, could not put off the airs of official dignity, the instincts of supreme authority, which had become to him a second nature. In the sick man retired to Cheltenham, or the inhabitant of a modest cottage near town, you could always trace the Don Magnifico of the happy banks of the Ganges, the omnipotent Howdah, Esq., diplomatic agent to the Nawab of Hatterabad, or the equally omnipotent Currie, Esq., collector of the Mirzipore district. Thus the novel, generally the exact reflex of popular ideas and passions, has always represented the retired officer of the East India Company under the form of a skeleton artistically clothed with parchment, a saffron face, a man, in short, whimsical, morose, snappish, living on all sorts of impossible dishes; at one time with a gigantic liver, then again with no liver at all; and if the authors have ever rendered this unpleasant personage good for anything, it has only been to dower a virtuous niece or pay the debts of a scamp of a nephew. So much for the male. As for the female, take a slice of rainbow, which you will decorate suitably with flashing bracelets, multicoloured plumes, and ornaments of silver filagree and glassware subject all this to a regimen of four meals a day, season by inter mezzos of glasses of sherry and oyster-patties, and you have described, physically and morally, according to the formula of the English novel, the Anglo-Indian woman--the Begum, if we may borrow that term from the language of the clubs. We will not gainsay the correctness of the characters of the good old times, as Thackeray and Mrs. Gore have drawn them: we are even much inclined to believe that they are taken from nature; but we may assert that the system of frequent and rapid communication now connecting India and Europe has completely modified the mode of life, the ideas, the plans for the future, and the Anglo-Indians themselves.

In addition to the civil service, properly so called, there are three categories of officials: the officers of the army who have received civil employment, the auxiliary civil service, subdivided into uncovenanted civil service and native agency, and the police. The uncovenanted service is composed of Europeans who have come to India in search of fortune, and have acquired a certain knowledge of the languages and customs of

the country. It also admits individuals born in India of European parents. The natives employed in the Company's service are selected from those educated at the government colleges, and amount to 1850 in Bengal, the North-West Provinces, and the Punjab. In addition to these, about 46,000 natives are employed in subordinate offices and as clerks.

The police are divided into two distinct parties: those in the pay of the government and those in the service of the Zemindars. In Bengal, the evils produced by these men have attained the highest pitch, and repeated complaints, hitherto in vain, have been sent in about their extortion and tyranny. The government police, however, are innocent men when compared with the Chowkeedars, or watchmen, employed by the native Zemindars. Their character will be best summed up by quoting Mr. Halliday's opinion of them: "This force of 170,000 men, levied in virtue of a custom imperishable so long as the name of the village Chowkeedar exists, is recruited from the vilest and most despised classes of the population. The Chowkeedars cost the natives legally 110 lakhs per annum, without counting what they obtain by fraudulent means, and yet they are subject to no other authority than that of a weak and ignorant village community, of whom they are at one moment the tyrants, at another the slaves. Thieves by caste, by custom, by relationship, these agents, who are independent of a regular police system, are depraved by instinct; in a word, worse than useless."

Although, then, all the high Indian appointments are in the hands of Europeans, and the natives are carefully excluded, our author does not think it could be otherwise. Even were the natives to be placed in offices of trust, they are utterly deficient in the love of truth and that feeling of honour equally necessary for the magistrate and the officer.

There are other facts, too, which must not be passed over in silence. The events of the last twenty years, years full of trials, of success mingled with reverses, have furnished a just idea of the fragility of the basis on which the English power in India rests. During the disasters of Cabul, and the uncertain campaigns of the Punjab, it was easy to convince oneself that the popular sympathies in India were with the Affghans and the Sikhs, and not on the side of the English. In vain has the English conquest drawn India from the abyss of civil wars and revolutions, that through its influence the public fortune has increased with prodigious proportions; all the blessings of a regular government, individual liberty, security of property, the great public works which intersect the country at the present day, have inspired the people with neither affection nor gratitude. For them the Englishman has been, is, and ever will be, the master, if not the enemy!

But while allowing that the Company has acted wisely in keeping the natives from participation in the government, it should, in its turn, do all in its power to give the peoples subject to its laws an honest police system, and judges whose decrees will bear the strictest investigation. In India, the most fearful abuses of justice have been committed in common cases, which do not prejudice the welfare of the government; confessions have been obtained by means of torture, innocent men left to perish in dungeons. We are aware that it is difficult to suggest any remedy for this deplorable state of things. Our author allows that close inspection has proved to him the fallacy of expecting any improvement in the moral