various political and other institutions organised by him, which were afterwards adopted by every Mahratta state, are succinctly detailed. During the eighty years' war of Shah Jehan and Aurangzeb, with a view to the conquest of Southern India (1627-1707) the Mughal armies from the north and the independent Mohamedan kingdoms of the south gradually exterminated each other. Being foreigners, they had to recruit their exhausted forces from outside. The Hindu Confederacy drew its inexhaustible native levies from the wide tract known as Maharashtra, stretching from the Berars in Central India to near the south of the Bombay Presidency. Sivaji saw the strength of his position and from time to time aided the independent Musulman kingdoms of the Deccan against the Mughal avalanche from the north. Those kingdoms, with the help of the Mahrattas, long proved a match for the imperial troops. But no sooner were the Delhi armies driven back than the Mahrattas proceeded to despoil the independent Musulman kingdoms. On the other hand, the Delhi generals, when allied with the Mahrattas, could overpower the Mohamedan states. Thus, by a life of treachery, assassination and hard fighting, the astute Sivaji won for the Mahrattas the practical supremacy in Southern India. As a basis for his operations he made himself secure in a number of impregnable hill forts among the Western Ghauts. His troops consisted of Hindu spearmen mounted on hardy ponies. They were the peasant proprietors of Southern India and could be dispersed or promptly called together at the proper seasons of the agricultural year. Except at seed time or harvest, they were always at leisure for war. Sivaji had therefore the command of an unlimited body of men, without the expenses of a standing army. With these he swooped down upon his enemies, exacted tribute, or forced them to come to terms. He then paid off his soldiery by a part of the plunder and retreated with the lion's share to his hill forts. But, although be allowed his followers to plunder freely, cows, cultivators and women were sacred, and this very largely accounts for his popularity. The success of his arms and the consequent rise of the Mahrattas were, it would appear, due to the internal

dissensions in other states, and it was generally a part of Sivaji's policy to render everything as intricate as possible and to destroy records of rightful ownership and possession. As the armies overran the country their history became blended with that of every other state in India. In 1659 Sivaji lured the Bijapur general into an ambush, stabbed him at a friendly conference and exterminated his army. In 1662 Sivaji raided as far as the extreme north of the Bombay Presidency and sacked the imperial city of Surat. Two years later he assumed the title of king (Raja) with the royal prerogative of coining money in his own name. The year 1665 found him helping the Mughal armies against the independent Mussulman state of Bijapur. Next year he was induced to visit Delhi, Being coldly received by the Emperor Aurangzeb, and placed under restraint, he escaped to the south and raised the standard of revolt. In 1674 Sivaji enthroned himself with great pomp at Raigarh, weighing himself in a balance against gold and distributing the precious counterpoise among his Brahmins. After sending forth his hosts as far as the Karnatic in 1676, he died four years later. One can scarcely expect to meet with a fairer analysis of the character of the Mahratta ruler than that given by Captain Duff. The Mahrattas became better known in India than heretofore from the year 1750, when, on the death of Sahu, the nominal Raja of Satara, the Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao seized the sovereign power by a treacherous artifice and fixed his capital at Poona. It is from this period that the records of Orme, Wilks and others contain an outline of the history of the Mahrattas who, through their increasing power and political influence, were made parties in the subsequent political convulsions of India. The year 1760 appears to have been the period when their power reached its zenith by the treaty with the Emperor, whereby the Mughal possessions in the Deccan were confined to an insulated space, and which promised to extend the authority of the Hindus over the vast empire where they had, for so many centuries, been a conquered people in their native land. Captain Duff remarks that "the extension of their sway carried no freedom even to Hindus, except freedom of opinion, and it rarely brought

protection, or improved the habits and condition of the vanquished." From that period the affairs of the Mahrattas began to retrograde, and at the battle of Panipat, in 1761, their forces were almost entirely destroyed. In process of time they came into collision with the English and the hostilities that ensued gradually crippled the power of the Mahrattas The work concludes with an account of the Third Mahratta War and the settlement of the Peshwa's territory, in 1818-19, under the administration of the Marquess of Hastings. A year or two later the Satara question continued to receive the attention of statesmen in England. The Peshwa Baji Rao remained a British pensioner at Bithur, near Cawnpore, on a magnificent allowance till his death, and, with the death of his adopted son, the infamous Nana Sahib, the last relic of the Peshwas disappeared from the eyes of men.

Regarding the author James Cunningham Grant Duff it may be mentioned that he was the eldest son of John Grant and Margaret Duff, was educated at Marischall College, Aberdeen, and, coming out to India at the age of seventeen, joined the Honourable East India Company's military service at Bombay in 1806. Next year he obtained an Ensigncy in the 1st Bombay Native Infantry (known as the "Grenadier Battalion"). In 1809 he took part in the storming of the fort of Mallia, in Katiawar. Two years later he became Adjutant and Interpreter of his regiment and was subsequently appointed Assistant to Mountstuart Elphinstone, the then Resident at Poona, who entertained a high opinion of him. He was promoted to the rank of Captain and served against Peshwa Baji Rao when the latter was dethroned in 1818. He then became Resident at Satara and administered the State in the name of the Raja till 1822 and made treaties with the jaghirdars. After five years he retired to Scotland and brought out the History of the Mahrattas in 1826. On succeeding to landed states he took the additional names of Duff and Cunningham, and died in 1858, aged sixty-nine years. His son, the late Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone GrantDuff was Governor of Madras from 1881 to 1886.

Duff's History, originally published in 1826, has been thrice 21 reprinted (in 1863, 1873 and 1878), but owing to its having for some years past, run out of print copies have fetched high prices. The present reprint consists of three volumes tastefully bound in maroon cloth and is clearly printed (at the "Valmiki " Press) on good paper. A pleasing portrait of the author, never before published and now placed at the disposal of the publishers by a distinguished member of the Grant-Duff family, appears as a frontispiece to the first volume. The Index adds to the value and utility of the work and has been reprinted in extenso from the original edition. The present reprint, however, is not a page-for-page one, so far at any rate as the first volume is concerned. This is borne out by the fact that, in the Contents, the pagination of the original edition has been adhered to, but does not agree with that in the text. A noteworthy feature of the reprint is the notes specially prepared for this edition by Rai B. A. Gupte Bahadur, a competent Mahratta scholar, and given in an Appendix at the end of each volume. They are classified, we are told, into personal, territorial and administrative. It is to be regretted, however, that the annotations are not numbered and contain no reference to the pages in the text to which they relate. The reprint contains but one plate (that of Raigarh), two others (those of Satara and of the Mausoleum of Ibrahim Adil Shahi at Bijapur) having been omitted in the volumes before us. Such is also the case with the two maps; that of Maharashtra will be missed by students; hence we are glad to learn that it is now to be supplied. The bibliography of works on Mahratta history cannot fail to be useful. Duff's History has, for some years past, been recommended as a book to be consulted by M. A. students of the Calcutta University. On them Messrs. Cambray and Co., by issuing this reprint at a moderate price, have conferred a boon. Dedicated to His Excellency the Governor of Bombay, this reprint has, we learn, been accorded the patronage of Government. We wish the publishers every success in their enterprise. The reading public should welcome this old friend in a new garb and feel grateful in consequence to Messrs. Cambray and Co,

THE CHARWOMAN'S DAUGHTER-By James Stephens. (Macmillan and Co., Ld.)

is a delightfully written chronicle of a young girl, the daughter of as lovable and independent an Irishwoman as ever went out charring for one and six in her working day, and planned royal and extravagant romances for herself and her daughter in her dreaming nights.

The writing of the book has very evidently been a labour of love to the author; the intimate details of the lives of Mrs. Makebelieve, the charwoman, and of Mary, her daughter, are pictured with so exquisitely sympathetic a pen, the characters are so ably and humanly drawn, the magic power of dreams to glorify a life on one and sixpence a day so tenderly imagined. The personality of the book centres in the two women, there are men who look with eyes of favour on Mary Makebelieve, but they are vague and unimportant factors in the whole. Of Mrs. Makebelieve it is written she "could not remain for any length of time in people's employment without being troubled by the fact that these folk had houses of their own and were actually employing her in a menial capacity. She sometimes looked at their black silk aprons in a way which they never failed to observe with anger, and on their attempting to put her in her proper place, she would discuss their appearance and morals with such power that they at once dismissed her from their employment and incited their husbands to assault her." This may appear rather characteristic of charwomen who are not a delight-nevertheless a character to be loved is Mrs. Makebelieve and Mary-Mary is a flower of girlhood. Of her Mr. Stephen writes:-"Her head was shaped very tenderly and softly; it was so small that when her hair was twisted up it seemed much too delicate to bear so great a burden. Her eyes were grey, limpidly tender and shy, drooping under weighty lids so that they seldom seemed more than half open. She had a small white face, very like her mother's in some ways and at some angles, but the tight beak which was her mother's nose was absent in Mary; her nose withdrew timidly in the centre and only snatched a hurried courage to become visible at the