THE influence of the wife and the mother upon society is so palpable and resistless in the most advanced stages of improvement, that the philanthropist will demand with anxious solicitude, after the recital of some scenes in these volumes, What is the character of woman in India? Let her history be developed to us; give us no exaggerated delineation, no distorted or extravagant caricature, no picture which may be regarded as an exception arising from peculiar circumstances. There are general laws which affect the whole community; there is a common source from which every running brook is supplied; there is a river, the streams whereof pervade and moisten the whole social soil: the female character may be regarded as the fountain, the swelling tide which nourishes and bears onward the dispositions, the attachments, and the desires of each succeeding generation. The corrupt principles of the heart, the debased standard of morals, the diseased affections of a perverted nature, embodied in one representation, will be generally descriptive of the whole sex in India. Treated as beings of an inferior order; kept back from the commonest means of information and mental improvement, enjoyed by their sisters in western countries; excluded from the diffusive influence of expanding principle, and taught to look upon the present as the only moment of gratification; they are occupied in domestic toils without any cheering and heart-exciting affections, while they are denied all participation at the social board. Thrown too upon the resources of animal nature merely for any portion of enjoyment, they are accustomed to regard themselves as only the instruments of slavery or passion. In addition to which, the very objects of their worship-to the external symbols of which, as the profanum vulgus, their intercourse is solely limited, -are presented in the scenes of idolatrous festivity, as immersed in criminal indulgence. Would it be wondered that their character should be blindly selfish, and the motives of their conduct exclusively, and to the extreme, epicurean? The arrangement and the economy of the domestic circle cherish still more the luxuriant growth of these rank weeds in the feminine breast in India.

The remains of the patriarchal state are perceptible in their internal management and government of social life, and to this the present condition of India may be ascribed. The patriarch's authority is even more jealously enforced now, and carried into the ramifications of the family than in ancient society. It is here systematized and secured by the sanctions of religion, as well as by the custom of ages. Every house presents the remote, as also the most subordinate division of genealogical relationship. There seems, too, the closest intercourse between the affiliated branches, so that the father of the last or preceding generation, exerts an authoritative influence, even more arbitrary than the power of an adviser. His sons, and their wives, their children also and it may be, their destined brides too-live within the same enclosure, and often under the same roof; so that sometimes it assumes more the appearance of a clan, than a single family. And hence, except among those whose habits have been changed, and whose origin or connexions have been interrupted by the invasion or policy of foreigners, there is an internal policy paramount to all civic control; and blind custom and ascendant authority are more consulted and obeyed than the rights and wishes of each member of the circle. When the eldest parent in the line is removed, the rule and consequence are entailed upon his son, who then becomes the superior; and the widow of the deceased, if she survive, merges among the subordinate branches; and if she will brave the days of widowhood, her lot is hard indeed. Natural affection rarely succeeds to make any abatement of the dreadful penalty; hers is a cup of bitter sorrow, of unmixed woe, and her solitariness is unmitigated by any generous or hallowed associations. Every ten days must she submit her head, aged and bowed down though it be, to be shaved; in her ablutions, and they must be daily, during uncongenial weather or sickness, the water must be poured upon her head, and not over her shoulder; every night her task is to watch the burning lamp, and supply it with oil till the morning, and sad would the morrow be, did she suffer it to be extinguished. This child of sorrow and bereavement is allowed to feed on only one meal each day; and never must she recline upon a bed, -the lowly and hard ground is the pallet on which her wearied frame reposes. The recreations and pleasures of general society are denied her, and the cloth which distinguishes widowed suffering, in which she must always appear, is deemed the constant, though silent accuser of her cold affections, her selfish and profane love of life.

Woman, as a mother, while the husband lives, is seldom allowed in India to bear any rule in the family: children are without natural affection; so that the place assigned to females in Hindoo society is, to appearance, abject in the extreme. The institutes of Menu, whose inspiration is as unquestioned as his legislative supremacy is universal among them, do indeed direct that the female who is to be chosen for a wife should not be reproachable for reddish hair, or too much or too little of the proper shade, for a deformed limb or inflamed eyes, for being immoderately talkative, or for being troubled with habitual sickness; while her name must be neither that of a constellation, a tree, nor a river, of a barbarous nation, nor of a mountain, of a winged creature, a snake, nor a stone, nor of any image which occasions terror. Besides an agreeable name, she must possess a form which has no defect; she must walk gracefully-like a young elephant; her teeth must be moderate in number and in size, and her body of exquisite softness. But there are no rules for the virtues of the heart, the degree of knowledge, the habits of the mind, or the graces of benevolence; and little wonder! Could they gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? In childhood's years a female must be dependant on her father; in youth, on her husband; and, should she survive his decease, her dependance must be on her sons. The nature of this dependance may be imagined, when it is added, that at no period of life, in no condition of society, should a woman do any thing according to her own mere pleasure. Their fathers, their husbands,