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another shooting expedition into the interior; but a combination of circumstances induced me at length to leave Africa for a season, and re-visit my native land. I felt much sorrow and reluctance in coming to this resolution; for, although I had now spent the greater part of five seasons in hunting in the far interior the various game of Southern Africa, I neverthe less did not feel in the slightest degree satiated with the sport, which it afforded. On the contrary, the wild, free, healthy, roaming life of a hunter had grown upon me, and I loved it more and more. I could not help confessing to myself, however, that in the most laborious yet noble pursuit of elephant-hunting, I was over-taxing my frame, and too rapidly wearing down my constitution. Moreover, the time, required to reach those extremely distant lands frequented by the elephant, was so great, that it consumed nearly one-half of the season in going and returning, and I ever found that my dogs and horses had lost much of their spirit by the time they reached those very remote districts. My nerves and constitution were considerably shaken by the power of a scorching African sun; and I considered that a voyage to England would greatly recruit my powers, and that, on returning, I should renew my pursuits with increased zest.

Our judgment on Mr. Cumming and his book has been an unfavourable one; but it is honest and unprejudiced. His volumes have been reviewed by many critics at home: but, that our verdict might be uninfluenced by theirs, we have scrupulously abstained from reading any thing that has been written on the subject. Only now, as we are concluding our notice of it, we are told that none of the English reviewers have touched upon those points in Mr. Cumming's desert career, which have excited our disapprobation. Perhaps it may be thought that we ought to have done as they, and confined our remarks to the literary character of the work, and to the amount of valuable and interesting information to be obtained from it. With views thus directed, we should have found much to approve; and to the merits of the book in this way we willingly give our testimony. But we have felt ourselves compelled to regard the book in that point of view, in which it struck us most forcibly; and we leave our readers to say if we have written of it aught, which is not fully justified by the facts and records on which we have animadverted. We do not fear that many of our Anglo-Indian gentlemen, in or out of the public service, will be inclined to make Mr. Cumming their model, although they may for awhile follow his "spoor "in the hunting grounds of South Africa. But there may be those among them, who, dazzled by the spurious renown of the lion hunter, might mistake his errors and misdoings for essential parts. of the true sportsman's character, and be tempted to imitate, or at all events not be sufficiently careful to avoid them, should they ever find themselves surrounded by the scenes and the circumstances so glowingly described by Mr. Cumming.

ART. VII.-Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh, edited by his son, Robert James Mackintosh, Esq.

THE book, which we anew introduce to our readers, is one familiar no doubt to many of them: for it appeared some years ago, and was noticed at the time-but so partially, that the Indian topics, which occupy more than half its pages, were scarcely touched upon. The great celebrity of Mackintosh, as a philosopher and a man of letters, is, it is true, European; yet the influence he exercised on the small circle in this country, into which it was his lot to be cast, and his impressions of "farthest Ind," give an interest to his private history, which belongs to that of hardly any other individual, who has visited these remote shores. That there have been men of a career more brilliant, we do not for a moment question; but we feel certain there have been none, whose memoirs possess an equal charm. The dull routine of life in India was peculiarly fitted to draw out the talents of one like him, whose world was his library; as it led him with redoubled zeal to seek in literature relief from the ennui of ordinary Indian society. His criticisms on books are specimens of exquisite taste and extensive reading. Conversation, in the highest sense of the word, was to be met with in his company. His visitors did not come for the purpose of listening to the dissertations of a lecturer; but, on the contrary, he possessed the rare charm of imparting instruction without the appearance of doing so. Of those, who enjoyed the privilege of mixing in his circle at Parell, there remain, we believe, none now at Bombay: the greater portion are, like himself, gathered to their fathers, and the few have long since retired from the service. It was but a little while ago, that the newspapers announced another blank in the list-the old merchantbanker, Sir Charles Forbes. The book under review brings us acquainted, in an interesting manner, with society at Bombay, as it existed in those days. We flatter ourselves, therefore, that we shall be at once consulting the tastes of our readers, and discharging a debt, which we feel to be due to the memory of Mackintosh, by giving a connected narrative of his

residence in India.

Our hero was born at Aldourie, near Inverness, in 1765. He was an only child; and, his father being often absent on regimental duty, his mother had more even than the common share of her sex in directing the early dispositions of her child.

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She is represented to have been a woman of a very superior stamp, and to have been in the habit of encouraging her son in his early taste for study, somewhat in opposition to the wishes of her husband, who, though in other respects a kind and indulgent parent, complained that the boy would become nothing better than "a mere pedant." a mere pedant." In 1779, he lost his kind mother, who died at Gibraltar, whither she had followed her husband, and where, thirty years afterwards, her son erected a monument to her memory. At the age of fifteen, we find him in Aberdeen College, where he remained for four years, wrote poetry, acquired a taste for philosophy, and made the acquaintance of Robert Hall. In 1784, he went to Edinburgh to study medicine; and in 1788, proceeded, for the first time, to London.

The period was one of great political excitement. It was the era of liberty, or at any rate of what was done in its name. The French Revolution was on the point of bursting; America had all but achieved her independence; Wilberforce was striving to abolish slavery. But the most remarkable circumstance of all, at least to the Indian reader, was the impeachment of Warren Hastings. Among the crowd assembled in Westminster Hall to listen to the eloquence of Burke and Sheridan, and to witness the deportment of a man, who, in his day, had held the destinies of millions, but who was now a culprit at the bar of the High Court of Parliament, was one, then poor and unknown to fame, but who was destined soon after to break a lance with the Demosthenes of that hour-the noble Burke; and himself to sit in judgment over those nations, "living under strange 'stars, worshipping strange gods, and writing strange characters, 'from right to left," among whom the orator was transporting his audience. Little could Sir James have thought, that he would ever have any connection with the country, whose guidance was on that day held up to public reprobation; and perhaps still less could he have foreseen the renown and the con⚫ sequences of the Vindicia Gallica.

But it is not our intention to dwell upon these scenes; we shall rather press on to the period of Mackintosh's sojourn in India, contenting ourselves, en passant, with one or two only of the leading circumstances of his life prior to that event. In London he made the acquaintance of several of the leading men of the day, among whom we find as his most intimate friends, Sidney Smith, Whishaw of the Chancery Bar, Joseph Phillimore, Hallam, Chief Justice Mansfield, Francis Horner, Attorney General Law, and Scarlett (since Lord Abinger). By some of this number he was persuaded to abandon the medical

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profession, and turn his attention to the study of law. He also, at that time, married; and first appeared as a public writer in the columns of the Oracle' newspaper, to which he contributed articles upon the politics of France and Belgium. This occupation, while it fell in with his taste for discussion, produced him a moderate salary. He continued thus employed till the year 1791, when the publication of the Vindicia Gallica, and its rapid sale through three successive editions, at once stamped his reputation as a scholar and an author. A few years afterwards, he succeeded to an excellent practice at the Bar, which, when the appointment of Recorder of Bombay was offered to him and accepted, was said to be worth £1,200 a year.

Sir James's object in accepting the Recordership, was, we are told, a pecuniary one. The magnitude of the salary tempted him. Under the impression that his household expenses in the East would be comparatively light, and that he would save a proportion of his income, sufficiently large, to enable him to return to his native country after a few short years, he took the fatal step-fatal to his greater renown, of relinquishing the charms of London society for those of a dull and infant coterie abroad. But soon all his visions of early affluence were dispelled; and he had to regret, like Edmund Spenser,

"My luckless lot

That banished had myself, like wight forlore,
Into that waste where I was quite forgot."

We do not however consider, that, in sending men of distinguished ability like Mackintosh to India, they are "thrown away." We believe on the contrary, that India especially requires men of the highest abilities.

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We cannot, therefore, agree with Robert Hall, Mackintosh's early friend, who, when bidding him farewell, writes -"I am surprised that a great empire can furnish no scene of honour and rewards for men of genius (a race always sufficiently rare, and now almost extinct), without sending them to its remotest provinces. It seems to me to betray a narrowness of mind in the persons, who compose the administration; as if, while they felt the necessity of rewarding, they were not fond of the vicinity of superior ' talent." We should rather attribute these remarks to the sentiment of regret, which must have filled Hall's breast, at parting with an early and distinguished friend. We might fill pages, indeed, with extracts expressive of the regret, which Sir James's most distinguished friends experienced at his departure for India. We, however, refrain, attractive as the matter is; but Francis Horner's tribute

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we cannot pass over in silence. In a letter to Mr. William Erskine, he says:-" Give my respects to Sir James and Lady Mackintosh, when you see them. I never pretend'ed to express to either of them my sense of the great kindness, they have shown me, since I came to London, 'because I could not express it adequately; I shall ever feel it 'with gratitude, if I am good for anything. To Mackintosh, indeed, my obligations are of a far higher order than those even ' of the kindest hospitality; he has been an intellectual master to me, and has enlarged my prospects into the wide regions of moral speculation, more than any other tutor I have ever had in the art of thinking: I cannot even except Dugald 'Stewart, to whom I once thought I owed more than I could ever ⚫ receive from another. Had Mackintosh remained in England, 'I should have possessed, ten years hence, powers and views, which are now beyond my reach. I never left his conversation, but I felt a mixed consciousness, as it were, of inferiority and capability; and I have now and then flattered myself with this feeling, as if it promised that I might make something of 'myself."

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The Winchelsea, Captain Campbell, the ship in which Sir James and his family embarked, quitted the Downs on the 13th February, 1804, and, after a favourable voyage of less than four months, arrived at Bombay. The season was, perhaps, the worst which could have been chosen-the end of May, when the monsoon is gathering in all directions, preparatory to a burst the month following. Of this, a fortnight. after, Sir James had full proof. Writing to Mr. Sharp, he says:

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"The rain tumbled from the heavens in such floods, that it seemed absurd to call them by the same name with the little sprinkling showers of Europe. Then the air was delightfully cooled, and we all exulted in our deliverance; but we were too quick in our triumph; we soon fouud that we were to pay in health, for what we got in pleasure. The whole frame ' is here rendered so exquisitely susceptible of the operation of. 'cold and moisture, by so long a continuance of dry heat, that 'the monsoon is the usual season for the attack of those disor⚫ders of the bowels, which, when they are neglected or ill treated, degenerate into an inflammation of the liver, the peculiar and most fatal disease of this country. Dr. Moseley's para'dox I now perfectly understand, that the diseases of hot countries arise chiefly from cold. No doubt, cold is the immediate cause of most of them. In the monsoon, heat succeeds so rapidly to damp and comparative cold, and they are so

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