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a Native prince has been wrung from the labour of those who toil that their rulers may be enriched; they know that it has been exacted by a taxation which knows no limits but the capacity of the victim to pay. If they went into any country even as conquerors, and found the whole surface of the earth burnt up because the prince had diverted all the streams as well as the rains of heaven into an immense reservoir merely to water his own garden, and the people without sustenance in their fields, though the prince's garden was full of luxuriant fruits, they would, no doubt, cause outlets for this water to be dug, and send it forth over all the land to fertilize the soil, reserving only sufficient to make the prince's portion as fertile as the rest. Now, when they enter a capital and find a large treasure amassed by the prince, and the whole country impoverished by the vastness of his hoards, the letting out of these, to be distributed again among the people from whom it had been plundered, would be like letting out the dammed-up water. It would occasion the same fertility, and equalize the general prosperity, while sufficient might still be left for all the purposes for which the prince could rationally require it. What, however, is the conduct of the conquering English, the most humane and enlightened invaders (if you will take their word for it) that the world ever saw? It is this: they let out the water, because it is of no use to them, as they cannot fill their purses with it, and they do not intend to pass their lives in the country themselves. But the silver and gold, which the prince has equally diverted from the enjoyment of his people, and at the expense of as much torture and suffering as the mind can well conceive, these humane and enlightened English sieze upon and take away; they are all unanimous about this: that it is a fair booty and ought to be carried off, however much they may afterwards quarrel about the proper portion due to each. If the prince was an unjust and unfeeling robber in plundering his subjects of all the fruits of their labour, and leaving them nothing to make existence supportable, (and on this plea we very often go to their assistance, on the pretence of relieving them from such horrible oppression,) what are the English, who, in their turn, also plunder him; and instead of returning the treasure so amassed, to be divided among the poor and famished wretches from whom it was originally taken, carry it off to be divided among men who have already more than enough, to build fresh palaces and create new enjoyments for brigadier-generals, political agents, trustees, lawyers, et hoc genus omne? The prince plundered his people by ancient prescription and established usage, as well as by the right of the strongest. The English plunder both prince and people by the last alone. If he is just in what he does, on what possibve pretence can we go to deprive him of his justly-acquired gains? If he is unjust, are not those who divide among themselves the fruits of his injustice equally guilty? It is really such a violation of all moral justice, that the mind shrinks from its contemplation, and wonders how any degree of prejudice, engendered by education and habit,

could reconcile "honourable men" to such a mode of obtaining fame and fortune.

There are, at this moment, no doubt, in England, ten thousand individuals who owe all their wealth and their importance to India, and who, with the very few exceptions of merchants, practising physicians, and lawyers, have derived it solely from the revenues exacted from the oppressed and over-taxed people of that unhappy country. It would be no exaggeration to suppose that the incomes enjoyed by these 10,000 individuals, estimating them at an average of only 10007. a year each, amount to ten millions sterling. Now, if these individuals would only impose on themselves a voluntary income tax of 10 per cent., (the proportion in which the Natives of India have contributed toward the accumulation of their fortunes being nearer 90 per cent. of their labour and gains,) a fund of one million a year might be raised for the improvement of the country from whence they derive their all-to which they are indebted for every thing they possess. This would be but a slight return, were it even continued through life. But it would be something if they would only make this voluntary sacrifice to Gratitude for one year. If but one million sterling were raised, the interest of that sum, in perpetuity, would furnish an able and intelligent band of advocates for India in Parliament, would establish an Association or Institution with branches in every town in the kingdom, and would excite an interest in the fate of our Asiatic subjects throughout every village in Great Britain, such as the country never yet saw, and such as no opposing power could long successfully resist.

If the contention were, who should pay to such a fund as this according to the rank of a Brigadier, and who according to that of a Major-General, we should applaud the generous effort to pass from the lower to the higher rank. But in such a contention as that to which it has been our painful duty to advert, there is nothing to endear the name of the living or embalm the memory of the deadno one association that can rouse up agreeable or generous recollections-where all is heartless, selfish, unsympathising, and cold.

STANZAS

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Written after reading the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold.'

FAREWELL! but not for ever, say farewell,

High-minded Pilgrim, Rome's and Virtue's friend;

Still, still, on fair Italia's sorrows dwell,

Her laurels rear, her bleeding fame defend:

The Spartan's epitaph is not for thee;

And Rome shall fall! when Byron's fame will blaze'

Some soul congenial-if such e'er can be

In future ages shall adorn thy bays,
As thou hast Tasso's, with immortal lays.

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Where are the " Men of Rome!" the grand of soul!
The intellectual masters of mankind!

Who bent a subject world to their control

Where, but within thine ardent kindred mind?
Beneath the vivid magic of thine eye,

Egeria's grot assumes celestial hues;
Beneath th' ennobling influence of thy sigh,
Love, purest Love, its ancient form renews,
And lives depicted by thy pensive muse.

Venice, declining Venice, though decay

Had sunk thy walls beneath the ocean's bed,

Wert thou not named in one poetic lay,

Save Harold's-thou wert rescued from the dead;

His name would raise thee, flaming in his verse,

Above the reach of envy or of time;

For 'twas his pride thy glories to rehearse,

Thy ancient deeds and energies sublime,

Thou wert the "city of his heart," the mistress of his rh

Oh! mighty champion of the antique world!

Friend to the shades of heroes! does thine eye

View, with a tear, the sacred relics hurl'd
Around the plains of wither'd Italy?

The wild commixture of three thousand years!
Her statues, temples, arts, all mould'ring laid,
Unto thy penetrating glance appears

Less mournful than the human mind decay'd,
Italia, lost Italia's sons, in slavery's garb array'd.

Thy tuneful Ariosto's, Petrarch's shade,
With all the spirits of the free and wise,
Shall round thy laurel crown the wreath embraid,
"They keep his dust in Arqua, where he lies;"

Say not Farewell, then, Poet of the Soul,

Still mend the world with thy instructive page,

Still let thy heaven-dictated numbers roll,

The condensed mental vigour of an age;

All that the raptured soul can raise, or bleeding heart ass

Sublimity's enraptured Child! farewell!

Lorn, tearful Bard! impassion'd Muse, adieu!
The heart on Harold's pilgrimage shall dwell,
And crown his bust with wreaths of every hue:
Immortal minstrel! still the feeling heart

Shall throb with rapture at thy chasten'd lay;
Shall linger o'er thy page, and sigh to part-
Still, at the word Farewell, shall weeping say,

Romantic Poet of the heart! oh, deign with us to stay

SIR,

THE OLDEN TIME.-No. I.-MILTON'S AREOPAGITICA.

To the Editor of the Oriental Herald.

August 19, 1820.

I was surprised to observe, on looking back to your fifth volume, (p. 647,) that so many more months than I had designed had elapsed since the date of my promise, without any attempt towards the performance. Your pages have, indeed, been occupied by very modern subjects of no small interest; while I have had engagements also connected with the time present. I will, however, no longer delay to glance, as I proposed, at the time past. Nor can the undertaking be commenced more according to my own inclination, or more in unison with the liberal tendency of your work, than by noticing an edition of that justly-admired production which furnished, with so much propriety, the first sentence to your first volume.* SENILIUS.

'Areopagitica: A Speech of Mr. John Milton, for the liberty of Unlicensed Printing, to the Parliament of England. First published in the year 1644. With a preface by another hand.

'This is true Liberty, when free-born men,
Having to advise the Public, may speak free,
Which he who can and will, deserves high praise;
Who neither can nor will, may hold his peace ;—
What can be juster in a state than this?

EURIPID.

London: Printed for A. Millar, at Buchanan's Head, over-against St. Clement's Church, in the Strand, 1738.'

Before I describe what is peculiar to this edition, it is worthy of remark, that Milton has borrowed his highly appropriate motto from a passage in The Suppliants, where the poet, to display the advantages of a democracy over a monarch's domination, introduces a dialogue between Theseus and a Theban Herald. The latter having boasted of belonging to a city, ruled, like Indian cities under the discretion of Leadenhall-street Directors, by one man only, not by multitudes, Theseus replies, concluding with Milton's quotation:

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"Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew her put to the worse in a free and open encounter ?"-MILTON'S AREOPAGITICA.

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Upon his arbitrary will alone

Depend the laws, and all their rights are lost.
But under written laws, the poor and rich
An equal justice find; and, if reproach'd,
They of low station may with equal scorn
Answer the taunting arrogance of wealth;
And an inferior, if his cause be just,
Conquers the powerful. This too is a mark
Of freedom, where the man who can propose
Some wholesome counsel for the public weal,
Is by the Herald called upon to speak.
Then he who with a generous zeal accepts
Such offer, gains renown; but he who likes not
His thoughts to utter, still continues mute.
How can a city be administer'd

With more equality?"

I quote these lines from the Euripides of that accomplished scholar, Michael Wodhull, who, though born to the advantages of aristocratic fortune, was a uniform and enlightened asserter of popular rights. Like Milton, he would translate such a passage con amore, as all will readily agree who had the advantage of knowing the author of the poem on The Equality of Mankind.' I return to the title page.

The Areopagitica has, deservedly, passed through so many editions, as to be in the grateful recollection of all the liberalminded, all

"Who know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain.”

I shall, on this occasion, decline to quote any part of that work, but would rather offer my best services to give a more extended circulation to the noble sentiments contained in the Preface, by another hand,' which introduces this edition, published, with no small local propriety, where Buchanan appeared as the presiding genius. That preface is now ascertained, on good authority, to have been written by the poet Thomson. The author of Liberty, which that monarchist, Samuel Johnson, says he "tried to read," but "soon desisted and never tried again," is not yet, I apprehend, from the inattention of his biographers, or their want of information, generally known as an excellent prose writer and an enlightened politician.

It is peculiarly to be regretted that this republication of the 'Areopagitica,' by Thomson, was unknown to one, especially, of his biographers, who had not failed to do that justice to the free and manly sentiments, soon to be quoted from the Editor's Preface, which he has done to another of his productions. It is the Earl of Buchan to whom I refer, who published, in 1792, an Essay on the Life of Thomson.' He deems it "no wonder that when the brutal Johnson tried to read Liberty,' when it first appeared, he soon de

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