6

the judgment is to be applied to Art, educa- terity, but, if this be art, the workman in tion becomes indispensable because discern- Bacon's studio who carved a bird in a cage ment is so, for, wherever man has part the has as high a claim to the title of artist, and false is sure to mingle with the true. Here the Chinaman who sends us a nest of balls, there are traps for the ignorant, delusions one within the other, and each with a surfor the ardent, and false coin for the rash. face of the most exquisite fret-work, a better We are caught at first with that which we claim still. learn afterwards to despise; and though a In treating of pictures tourists would do. fine natural taste may frequently discrimi- well to acquaint themselves a little with the nate those objects deserving homage, yet, usual phraseology. The Madonna Seggioas a rule, whatever the ignorant admire in la' has no meaning whatever, and The art, and all its branches, is generally, if not Ascension of Mary,' instead of 'The Assumpthe wrong, the inferior thing. The lady's tion of the Virgin,' is a needless novelty, 'Art beneath an Italian sky' is therefore not and might be called a profane one, since the to be compared with her Nature,' though word Ascension is only applied to our Lord. by no means without its merits-for the A little attention to correcting the press gallery at Hamilton Palace, and doubtless also is not beneath such an able writer's other opportunities, had not left her totally notice. The lingua Toscano in bocca untaught. Nor will her taste be arraigned Romano' might induce an ill-natured reader for having been caught by a style of art to think she did not know better. which has recently attracted great populari- We would remind a tourist also, that noty here. We allude to those two examples thing requires greater discretion than the of what Eustace calls the patient skill of introduction of private persons and affairs the sculptor-the Pudor and the Disingan- into a narrative intended for the public. Innato, by Corradini, at the chapel of S. Severo dividuals may be very interesting and dear, at Naples. The Pudor will be recognised as but unless they are famous for something the original of those 'veiled figures' so much more than rank they should never be directadmired in the Great Exhibition, though ly paraded, but treated rather as abstract those have carried what may be called the beings, with no more of personality attachtrick much farther than their model. Where ed than just to whet the curiosity of the the effect is so pleasant to the eye it is difficult to persuade ourselves that it requires no great art, and therefore presumes no high merit, to produce it--but whoever observed these heads very attentively will have discovered that the apparently mysterious process is a very simple one. A head is modelled by the sculptor in a general form, and strips of clay in the shape of folds disposed at intervals over it, leaving cavities between, through which portions of the features are

reader.

But these errors in judgment will be soon forgotten by this lady's readers :—not so the vivid impressions of reality which she well understands to conjure up.

tan. By J. W. Kaye. 2 vols. 8vo. 1851.

seen, but which the eye, carrying on the ART. II.-History of the War in Afghanisidea suggested by the folds, imagines to be covered with the most transparent medium; whereas they are covered with nothing at UPON several recent occasions we have exall, but only duly deficient in sharpness. A pressed a very decided opinion as to the highly-finished and well-expressed head thus publication by private individuals of official concealed would be labour lost;-in point despatches; and now, we must at once say, of fact, therefore, instead of overcoming the we should have been disposed to comment difficulties inseparable from a fine work of upon the use made of similar documents by art, the sculptor has only avoided them; the Mr. Kaye, but that we have understood that veil is much easier to execute than the the Court of Directors, soon after the aphuman countenance divine. The patient pearance of his History, ordered forty copies skill' is more properly attributable to the of it. Supposing such to be the fact, we do other figure-a man enveloped in the meshes not consider it necessary to dwell severely of a net; yet this again is only intended to on the licence assumed by a writer whom conceal the absence of a higher artistic his former employers have, on whatever power, for the sculptor was not capable of special grounds, forgiven. It may, however, modelling a figure correctly, and therefore be very safely stated in limine that the work cast this covering of mere labour over his is one in which, after all our vast series of ill-understood forms. The covering, it is blue books, the reader will find many imtrue, is a marvel of labour and manual dex-portant particulars disclosed which had

The country which was the scene of the events described is one of great and particular interest.

hitherto been wholly, and peradventure | kingdom created by Alexander, and subsiststudiously, concealed. ing through several centuries-to disappear at last like a vessel sinking in the oceanAfghanistan presents a field for the researches of those who may desire to trace the conIn geographical position Afghanistan bears nexion between Ancient Greece and India, a resemblance to Switzerland, and there is and to discover what influence either of these even in the political condition of these countries may have exercised over the other mountainous regions as close a similarity as in regard to mythology, literature, or manany parity in outward circumstances can ners. To the period of Grecian ascendancy, possibly bring about between two nations,dim with the mist of years' and barely the one of European and the other of Asiatic discernible as it now is even with the light race. The grouping of the Afghan tribes, thrown upon its numismatic records by the and their distribution under chiefs, ruling in- genius of the late Mr. James Princep and dependently of each other, and yet held to- the toils of other antiquaries-there suc gether by the ties of a common origin, a ceeds a long term of total darkness, whence common faith, and in some respects a com- Afghanistan emerges in the tenth century in mon interest, gives to their internal economy the form of a Mahommedan State, with a sort of rude likeness to that of the Hel- Ghuznee for its capital, and Mahmood, the vetic Confederacy; while, with regard to son of Subactagee the Tartar, for its soveexternal politics, the Afghans, like the Swiss, reign. With him commenced those inroads have preserved themselves by their own upon India which ended in the substitution energies from permanently sinking under of a Mahommedan for a Hindoo Empire in either of the great powers between whom that country; whence its rude and arrogant they have for so many ages stood.

conquerors little dreamt that, in the reflux of political power, an army was one day to issue, before whose skill and courage this their mountain citadel itself should fall, as if by the stroke of a magician's wand.—But if, in its relation to the past, Afghanistan be so replete with interest, there is still more in the chances of its future destinies to occupy the thoughts of Englishmen.

Looking back to the early history of the two countries, we may perhaps find that, notwithstanding the advantage enjoyed by Helvetia in having Cæsar for its first chronicler, Afghanistan has more in it to excite and reward the diligence of the antiquary. We confess that we should but recently have feared to incur ridicule by even alluding to the opinion of those who find in the Afghans In these days of many-volumed publicathe descendants of the ten lost tribes of tions we are loth to blame Mr. Kaye for the Israel; but we must say that we think no conciseness of his introductory chapters; yet man need feel sensitive on that head since with his store of materials we wish that he the appearance of the late statement of, had said more than he has done about the the arguments pro et contra by the Right Afghans, as seen in their social and domesHon. Sir George Rose. We cannot go tic sphere. In the following passages, how. into his details at present; but, to glance ever, the main lights and shades of their merely at a few leading points, the fact national character seem to be exhibited with of their own universal tradition, their call- discrimination and fairness. ing themselves collectively 'bin Israel,' 'Few and far between as were the towns→→→→ children of Israel (though they repudiate the kingdom was thinly populated. The peowith indignation the name of 'Yahoudee' or ple were a race, or a group of races, of hardy, Jew), the to us new fact that one particular- vigorous mountaineers. The physical charac ly warlike tribe style themselves Yousufzie or the tribe of Joseph-and several others, taken together with the strongly Jewish cast of the modern Afghan physiognomy, seem to rebuke the levity hitherto prevalent in essays alluding to this conjecture about their origin. As the seat also of that Bactrian

ter of the country had stamped itself on the moral conformation of its inhabitants. Brave, independent, but of a turbulent vindictive character, their very existence seemed to depend upon a constant succession of internal feuds. The wisest among them would probably have shaken their heads in negation of the adage

Happy the country whose annals are a blank." They knew no happiness in anything but strife. * We are very sensible that an apology may seem It was their delight to live in a state of chronic due to Sir G. Rose for such a merely passing re- warfare. Among such a people civil war has a ference to his work (The Affghans, The Ten Tribes, natural tendency to perpetuate itself.

Blood is

and Kings of the East, &c. London. Svo. pp. 162.lways crying aloud for blood. Revenge was a 1852; but his own pages contain many illusions to

points of the highest importance, which he admits fords so much hope of speedy additional information not to have been as yet properly worked out-more on that and other matters, that we think it better to especially the question as to the degree of Hebraic wait for an enlarged edition of his singularly interestelement in the Afghan language. His Appendix af-ing treatise.

virtue among them; the heritage of retribution evinced in his intercourse with a society passed from father to son; and murder became differing so entirely from all to which his a solemn duty. Living under a dry, clear previous experience had been confined. How bracing climate, but one subject to considerable did he and other Afghan chiefs whom we alternations of heat and cold, the people were

strong and active; and as navigable rivers could name, if totally unlettered, acquire were wanting, and the precipitous nature of those outward graces of manner and deportthe country forbade the use of wheeled car- ment which certainly among ourselves never riages, they were for the most part good horse- exist in total separation from all inward culmen, and lived much in the saddle. Early ture ?-But whatever their acquirements, we trained to the use of arms, compelled constantly are convinced that their natural susceptibito wear and often to use them in the ordinary lity of improvement is far above the ordiintercourse of life, every man was more or less

a soldier or a bandit. Their very shepherds nary Eastern level; and we suspect that were men of strife. The pastoral and the pre- there is a lurking vein of poetry in their datory character were strongly blended; and character, such as is rarely to be detected in the tented cantonments of the sheep-drivers the workings of the remoter Asiatic mind. often bristled into camps of war. We cannot quote the passage, but we reBut there was a brighter side to the picture. member to have read in one of the latter Of a cheerful, lively disposition, seemingly but little in accordance with the outward gravity diaries of Sir A. Burnes a description of a of their long beards and sober garments, they gorgeous sunset witnessed by him in the might be seen at evening tide, playing or dano- country to the north of Cabool, while in ing I ke children in their village squares; or as- company with several Afghans. He partisembling in the Fakir's gardens, to smoke and cularly mentions the exclamation that burst talk, retailing the news gathered in the shops, from the lips of one of the party as he reciting stories, and singing their simple Afghan gazed on the scene before him: 'che sulballads, often expressive of that tender passion tanut'-what majesty! In these two words which, among them alone of all Oriental na

tions, is worthy of the name of Love. Hospita- there was evinced a perception of the subble and generous, they entertained the stranger lime and beautiful, probably not to be parwithout stint, and even his deadliest enemy was alleled by anything ever uttered by the safe beneath the Afghan's roof. There was a most highly cultivated native of India. In simple courtesy in their manner which con- harmony with this capacity of receiving imtrasted favourably with the polished insincerity pressions from the beauty and majesty of of the Persians on one side, and the arrogant

ferocity of the Rohillas on the other. Judged outward nature, is their delicacy of feeling by the strict standard of a Christian people, remarked upon by Elphinstone, and which they were not truthful in word, or honest in the preceding extract notices as characterisdeed; but, side by side with other Asiatic na- tic of their ballads and love-songs. tions, their truthfulness and honesty were con- Of a people so likely, if better known, to spicuous. Kindly and considerate to their improve far more interesting objects of study mediate dependents, the higher classes were

We want

followed with loyal zeal, and served with de- than the generality of the tribes of the East, voted fidelity, by the lower; and perhaps in no we wish to be told more than it has pleased Eastern country was less of tyranny exercised our author to communicate. over either the slaves of the household or the some information on the details of their inmates of the zenana. Unlettered were they, domestic life-the social position of their but not incurious; and although their more women especially-what part they take in polished brethren of Persia looked upon them the regulation of the household and in the as the Boeotians of Central Asia, their Spartan early instruction of their children. We also simplicity and manliness more than compen

sated for the absence of the Attie wit and elo- are curious about what establishments for quence of their western neighbours.'-vol. i. education in youth, and employment for pp. 11-13. maturer years, may be afforded by their religious and municipal organization. We This is, we really believe, far from being want to know, in short, what the Afghans too favourable a picture; nay, we must even do when they are not fighting; since the demur to some of the deductions made from most pugnacious of races must have interthe praise which Mr. Kaye concedes.-Can vals of repose from the business of bloodthe Afghans, we would ask, be fairly de- shed and strife. On all these points our scribed as being altogether unlettered? If author tells us little; so, with a hope of so, then polished manners are attainable some day seeing a treatise de Moribus without any tincture of what has been de- Afghanorum' from his pen, we pass on to clared to be most efficient in divesting the the more immediate object of his present human race of rudeness. Every one who work, the history, namely, of our own dealconversed with Dost Mahommed during his ings with that extraordinary and most pic exile in India must have observed the tone turesque people. of high breeding, the perfect self-possession!

6

After-dinner eloquence is not always com

monplace or meaningless, and perhaps the more enlarged views of enlightened statesmost distinctive peculiarity of our Eastern manship might reasonably be expected. Empire was never more happily hit off than The machinery for combining these adin the speech delivered by the Prussian Am- vantages is simple. The governor-general bassador at the entertainment given by the is associated with a Council consisting of a Court of Directors to his friend Lord Har- commander-in-chief,—as fresh from Europe dinge, on the return of that eminent person as himself, with two members of the civil -(spes altera Roma)-from his triumphs on and one of the military service,-men who the Sutlej. 'India,' said the Chevalier Bun- may be presumed to be thoroughly possessen, 'has been the conquest of the middle sed of that knowledge in which the two orders;' and we may add that to this cir- superior members are most likely to be decumstance is owing much of what there is ficient. In all ordinary matters the voice of of anomaly in the system, and of practical the majority of this Council is decisive, but good in its working. To the middle orders on any extraordinary occasion the governormainly did the merchants, who first formed general is free to act as he pleases-on his the Imperial Company, of course belong; own responsibility. All that the other and it is to a Court chosen by the share- members can in such cases do is to record holders that the primary direction of its their opinion for the information of the auaffairs was long in fact, and is still in name thorities in England. A better plan than entrusted. The persons thus elected, and this for reconciling despatch with deliberawhose peculiar privilege it is to appoint tion, local knowledge with more comprehenyoung men to the civil and military branches sive views of general policy, could not, we of the Indian service, belong with rare ex- think, be devised. The Governor-General ceptions to the middle orders, and conse- is free to act as he pleases; but the circumquently it is from that class that their no- stance of three or four well-informed and minees are for the most part taken. But as experienced men being required to record our Empire expanded and its importance their opinions upon the course which he became more visible, ministers and parlia- may announce his intention to pursue, imment began to assert their claims to exer- poses precisely the degree of restraint necise a political control over the general ad- cessary to insure the circumspection of a ministration of its affairs. Hence arose the statesman resolved on acting upon his own double government both at home and abroad. undivided responsibility. It was by perHere we have a Court of twenty-four Direc- haps the ablest person who has ever gotors, men generally of Indian experience, verned India that the example was set of sitting in the City of London, to govern in nullifying this provision; and this precedent subjection to the revising authority of what having been followed, the consequences have is called a Board, but in reality is a Minister been such as generally ensue when men of of State sitting at Westminster. In India inferior capacity are tempted to imitate any we see a body of civil and military servants, irregularity of a more gifted predecessor. men trained from their youth to the duty of If it were in almost dispensing with his Eastern Government, acting in subordina- Council that one governor-general achieved tion to a few high functionaries who repre- the triumphs of the Mysorean and Marhatta sent the Ministry rather than the Company, campaigns, it was in attempting the same and for the most part know nothing of the line of independent conduct that another inlanguage and little of the character of the curred the calamities of the Afghan expedimillions under their sway. The good sense tion.-We say 'attempting:' because, in and public spirit of the parties employed fact, though the very superior man may ac on both sides have prevented the jarring quire the liberty of acting upon his own unwhich might have been apprehended from biassed opinion, such freedom is denied to this systematic subjection of local know- all of inferior powers, and a ruler of merely ledge and professional experience to minis-average capacity, who ventures to detach terial power and aristocratic ascendancy. himself from his authorized and responsible On the whole the two classes have co-ope- colleagues, in doing so generally falls into rated heartily-each supplying in some de- the hands of other advisers of less responsigree the defects of the other. If on the side bility and authority.* of the Directors and their nominees there is to be found minuter knowledge derived from personal acquaintance with the details of local administration, it is from the Board of Control and those who usually fill the places of supreme authority in the East that

* It is true that an Act of the Indian Legislature that is, of the Supreme Council collectively-is necessary to legalize the separation of the GovernorGeneral from his Council; but this can hardly be withheld when the Governor-General himself proposes the law, and declares the safety of the State to demand its immediate enactment.

Simla has, like Capua, many sins to an- he possessed a stronger will and a more powerswer for; among others, that of enticing ful understanding. He was a man of much deaway from the proper scene of their duties cision and resolution of character; not troubled too many of the high functionaries of British with doubts and misgivings; and sometimes, perhaps, hasty in his judgments. But there India-especially the very highest-those was something noble and generous in his ambiwho in their hearts own less allegiance to tion: he never forgot either the claims of his Leadenhall than to Downing-street and the country or the reputation of his chief; and if Horse-Guards. No governor-general will he were vain, his vanity was of the higher, but ever, it is to be feared, resist the fascinations not the less dangerous class, which seeks rather to mould the measures and establish the fame of that favoured spot, or consent to sit per- of others, than to acquire distinction for self. spiring at the head of a troublesome council- Such were the men who accompanied Lord board in Calcutta, when he can reign cool Auckland to the upper provinces.-i. pp. 303 and unquestioned in the delicious atmos--306. phere of the Himalaya. A good view of Simla would accordingly form a significant. No fair hanging Committee' could prefrontispiece to a history of the Afghan War; sent this spirited sketch, and omit its penfor it was there that the manifesto announc- dant-which sets before us a less dashing ing the intention of interfering in the affairs group-to wit, the responsible Council then of the countries beyond the Indus was signed sitting in Calcutta, to be kept in official igby the hand of supremacy on the 1st October, 1838.

This composition of the irresponsible cabinet, whence that manifesto in our author's opinion issued, is thus stated :

norance of all which was being planned by its lively counterpart at Simla, until the season for either suggesting or objecting should be long past and gone.

This Council then consisted of three memJust as Mahomed Shah was beginning to H. Fane, being absent in Upper India on bers (the Commander-in-Chief, the late Sir open his batteries upon Herat, and Captain Burnes was entering Caubul, Lord Auckland, duty), of whom the senior was one now taking with him three civilians, all men of well known and much respected in our ability and repute-Mr. William Macnaghten, Northern Capital, Mr. Alexander Ross. Mr. Henry Torrens, and Mr. John Colvin That gentleman had passed through the turned his back upon Calcutta. various grades of the civil service, having Mr. Macnaghten was at this time Chief Se-filled with distinction situations in every decretary to Government. That he was one of the ablest and most assiduous of the civil ser- partment. He was a favoured friend of the vants of the Company all were ready to admit. late Lord William Bentick, whose character With a profound knowledge of Oriental lan- in the grand points of honesty and firmness guages and Oriental customs, he combined an his own resembled. The next was the late extensive acquaintance with all the practical member for Kinross and Clackmannan, Madetails of government, and was scarcely more jor-General Sir William Morrison, of the distinguished as an erudite scholar than as an efficient secretary. In his colleague and assist Madras Army, whose reputation as a soldier ant Mr. Torrens there were some points of re- and a man of business had led to his being semblance to himself; for the younger officer the first person promoted under the proviwas also an accomplished linguist and a ready sions of the Charter of 1833, by which miwriter; but he was distinguished by a more litary men were eligible to a seat in the Sumercurial temperament and more varied attain- preme Council. The third and last was Mr. ments. Perhaps there was not in all the pre- Wilberforce Bird, of whom it sidencies of India a man-certainly not a young man-with the lustre of so many accomplish enough to say that throughout his subsements about him. The facility with which he quent career he had maintained the high acquired every kind of information was scarcely character acquired at a very early period by more remarkable than the tenacity with which the judgment and energy with which, while he retained it. With the languages of the East magistrate of the populous and turbulent and the West he was equally familiar-he had city of Benares, he quelled two of the most read books of all kinds and in all tongues; and serious émeutes recorded in the history of the airy grace with which he could throw off a French canzonet was something as perfect of our Eastern Empire. its kind as the military genius with which he Betwixt these Councils which should councould sketch out the plan of a campaign, or the sel best might have formed an amusing subofficial pomp with which he could inflate a state-ject for an à priori speculation. With our paper. Mr. Colvin was the private secretary of present information we can only guess what the governor-general, and his confidential ad- the one would have urged had it been alviser. Of all the men about Lord Auckland, he owed a voice in time-but we can see very was believed to exercise the most direct infiu

may

be

ence over that statesman's mind. Less versa- clearly from the measures pursued what tile than Torrens, and less gifted with the must have been the advice of the other. Of lighter accomplishments of literature and art, the comparative merits of two such bodies