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and if he is not read, he has no right to lay the blame exclusively on the Indian public. Mr. Torrens might indeed, and probably would have been a happier man in England; so would most of us : but we do not see any reason for saying that he would have been more successful as an author. But while Mr. Hume neglects Mr. Torrens' official career, he adopts a strange method of describing and eulogizing his literary labors. Out of a Memoir of ninety pages, no less than forty are filled by extracts from different Reviews on Mr. Torrens' published works. We were aware that the publishers were in the habit of recommending books by culling the laudatory sentences of the newspaper criticisms, but we never before heard of a biographer eking out his Memoir by forty pages of "Opinions of the Press." We do not censure Mr. Hume for admiring Mr. Torrens' translation of the Arabian Nights; on the contrary we believe that there is great justice in his admiration; but the work must stand or fall by its own merits, and is not to be forced on the public by forty pages of posthumous puffing. Passing from the Memoir to the collection of fugitive pieces-we find some incomplete, some so very fugitive as to be scarcely worth the trouble of collecting, and some unintelligible.

Amongst the unintelligible pieces are one or two of which the point can only be discerned by a few private friends, while the general reader finds nothing to amuse him except a clever but not very reverent parody of the style of certain portions of the Bible. Among the very fugitive pieces are some of Mr. Torrens' poems, which we are not disposed to estimate very highly; while the uncompleted pieces consist chiefly of fragments of the Arabian Nights' translation, and a few chapters of a novel called Madame de Malguet.

The publication of these specimen extracts reminds us of nothing but the old story of the man who carried about a brick to show what his house was like. The Arabian Nights' translation was doubtless a very clever work of the novel, we have given at full length a laudatory advertisement from Miss Edgeworth: if they be good books, the public will find out and buy them; it is mere bookmaking, and highly unjust to the memory of Mr. Torrens to publich a few extracts, which, in their isolated condition it is impossible to appreciate, or indeed to understand. For the best things in the collection are the sporting and dramatic articles. On both these subjects-viz. Sport and the Drama-Mr. Torrens writes with an earnestness which we miss in his other productions; he must indeed have been an invaluable ally to Abel East, and these papers well deserve to be rescued from the ephemeral doom of periodical publications. On the whole, we think these two volumes a mistake, and if Mr. Torrens is not so much appreciated as his friends think he ought to be, they must

blame, not the Indian reading public,-which like other publics is always glad to read what is worth reading,-but Mr. Torrens' editor and biographer. The book which we have just noticed, together with "Bole Ponjis," form two of the most prominent features in Indian modern light literature. There can be no doubt of the great ability both of Mr. Torrens and Mr. Parker. We are inclined to rank the latter highest as an author. His two volumes are much too long, and contain a great deal which might have been advantageously omitted. From the quaint to the ridiculous is but a step: and it would require far greater raciness and wit than we find to justify such a title as "Bole Ponjis." We do not think that Mr. Parker any more than Mr. Torrens is a great poet; but the latter has left among his fragments, at least his editor has given us, nothing equal to Mr. Parker's Tale" The Junction of the Oceans;" the idea of which is poetical in a high degree, and admirably sustained throughout. We cannot but feel that a man who could thus give free rein to his imagination and move for so long a time in a self created world, a man, too, who could write (if Mr. Parker will pardon the juxta position,) the verses on Mr. Sims-the old Calcutta clerk-full of life, portraiture and quiet humour, might have done something better; and if we refuse, notwithstanding "Bole Ponjis," to change our opinion as to the shortcomings of Indian light literature, it is not without a conviction that both Mr. Torrens and Mr. Parker might have done more than they have to remove or lessen the reproach.

But we live in an age of progress. India has its Railway and its Telegraph it will not remain without its Punch. The Delhi Sketch Book claims to be the oriental courier of the celebrated London Charivari; to represent, in a concrete form, the wit and humour of modern India. Such a claim was hailed by us all with eager delight. There is much in this Indian life of ours that is painful, much that is dreary, much that is depressing: from this depression some seek one mode of relief some another. The unfortunate European soldier,-sometimes unhappily the European officer likewise,-has recourse to the intoxication of liquor; the civilian, and the man of business tries to kill the same enemy, ennui-by the intoxication of work. But both the dissipated and the overbusy man miss at times those more healthful recreations of bodily exercise and out-of-door amusement which are prohibited by cruelty of climate, and no less that mild, intellectual excitement which in England is constantly afforded by the press. This latter want the Delhi Sketch Book undertook to supply; how has the undertaking been performed?

We do not wish to be hypercritical; nor to deny that many clever squibs and amusing pictures have appeared in the Delhi Sketch Book. Neither do we forget that certain allowances may

and must be made for such a publication in India. A Times newspaper is perhaps a necessary condition of a successful Punch. Subjects which have been presented to and discussed by the whole population of Great Britain for five days of the week, form the text of Punch's laughing homilies on the sixth. Here we have no Times nor any thing like a Times. The topics which interest people in Bengal are not mooted in the North West; public opinion is divided in the North West on matters which are regarded with profound indifference in the Punjab. Nay, the scope of common interest does not extend even so far as we have implied; each station has its own news-its own interests-its own jokes; a caricature which amuses all Delhi will be frequently unintelligible at Lahore. On this account, great allowance is to be made for the Sketch Book; but when all has been made, is it a publication which reflects credit on the Indian Press? We confess we think not; and this not from want of ability, either among the writers or the draughtsmen who are to be found among the Indian community, and for all we know, on the staff of the Delhi Sketch Book, but from that unpardonable carelessness which is in this country the frequent source of literary failure. An impression seems to prevail on the editorial mind, and to be easily acquiesced in by an over-indulgent public, that anything is good enough for India. What we should unhesitatingly condemn at home, we are disposed to tolerate here. We resign ourselves to mediocrity and consequently prevent excellence. What else is it which induces the editor of the Delhi Sketch Book to continue week after week, and year after year, a slovenly style of mechanical execution which would disgrace a second or third rate provincial press ? Those who have seen the Delhi Sketch Book upon a club table in England, will recollect their disgust at the thinness of the paper, the poverty of the type, the rudeness of the engraving, as contrasted with the comfortable and elaborate air of the English periodicals. The engravings of the Sketch Book are more like the efforts of an amateur than the production of one of the chief presses of India, and yet they receive an indulgence which an amateur would be ashamed to demand. We know that mechanical apparatus and skilled labor are not so easy to obtain in Delhi as in London; but they are to be obtained: and the way to obtain them is to insist on having them, and not to give a good-natured, feeble indulgence to an indifferent article. The Indian community is too prone to this sin of excessive good nature. For years we rested satisfied with infamous roads, and travelling at the rate of three miles an hour. Suddenly we asked ourselves why we should travel more slowly and less comfortably than our countrymen in Australia or our brethren in America; forthwith we were indignant

with the Government which had so long presumed on our apathy, and as the fruit of our indignation, bridges, roads, Horse Dak Companies and Railways sprang, and are springing into existence.

In literary matters our apathy is as yet undisturbed; reform therefore lingers. We make up our minds as a matter of course that a Punch published at Delhi, must be printed in bad type, on poor paper, with rough, unskilful engravings; the consequence is that the supply does not exceed the demand; we are satisfied to ask for a scorpion and can scarcely wonder that we do not receive an egg. And yet we do not hesitate to say that there is no reason whatever why a Delhi Sketch Book should not be as well printed, and its pictures as carefully engraved as those of a London Punch, and it is to the interest of society and the benefit of progress, to be exacting and dissatisfied till the required improvement is made. But typography is not the chief cause of our quarrel with the Delhi Sketch Book. The same latitudinarianism, the same disrespectful disparagement of the reader, extends from manner to matter. Broad caricature is the poorest style of wit, but at the same time the easiest. Broad caricature is the prevailing feature of the Sketch Book. Many good ideas are thus spoilt in treatment: many clever suggestions marred by carelessness of execution. The series of sketches entitled the "Royals in India" affords a good instance of what we mean. Here the idea of making merry with the harmless but amusing ignorance of new comers, and holding up to a severer ridicule the affectation of superiority by which this ignorance is sometimes accompanied, was a good one, and fell within the just limits both of wit and satire. But the whole thing is disfigured by excessive caricature: "the Royals" are exaggerated into perfect idiots and mere dandies; too frequently the clumsy device is adopted of helping out a poor drawing by poor letter press, and the point of a satirical picture is made to consist in some words of bad Hindustanee proceeding from the mouth of one of the portraits. Lord Dalhousie and Sir William Gomm being almost the only public men, in a general sense of the term, in all India, are fair game; but there is no game whatever in making distorted portraits of those distinguished individuals, and we appeal to our readers whether the likenesses of the Governor General and the Commander-in-Chief do not bear out our expression. Either art is wanting to give a correct resemblance, or the Delhi Sketch Book entertains the schoolboy idea of fun, that it consists in drawing people with corpulent bodies or big noses; an idea which we pardon in a schoolboy, but cannot for a moment tolerate in the Indian Punch.

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We wish we could stop here; but we feel bound to say the Delhi Sketch Book appears to us to have disregarded the warning which we saw expressed more than once by a friendly con

temporary, and not merely allowed wit to degenerate into caricature, but caricature to trespass upon coarseness.

This, if continued, must be fatal to the publication. The Indian public is long suffering it will endure bad paper, bad print, and bad jokes, but to do it justice, we believe that it will not endure vulgarity.

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We come lastly to the most important portion of Indian modern literature, the newspaper press. Of this important corporation we are inclined, both by sympathy and conviction, to speak with considerable respect: sympathy-for are we not cultivators of an adjoining field? conviction-for we do not forget the services which the Indian press has rendered; that it is the chief source of amusement to a society singularly in want of amusement; that its labours have been for the most part characterized by industry and perseverance; above all, that its independence has been seldom if ever impeached. It is then in no spirit of hostility that we ask the question, Does the newspaper press enjoy that credit and exercise that influence in India which it does in England? and if this question be answered, as we think it must be, in the negative, what is the reason of this inferiority? The answer to this second question is, we believe, neither simple nor apparent. We are ready to allow that it is not possible for Indian paper to secure the same galaxy of talent or the same universality of information as are concentrated on the London Times; still, we believe that there are other more serious obstacles to newspaper success in this country than the absence either of efficient reporting or literary ability. It is matter of common consent that the power of a newspaper consists in the combination of secrecy and publicity; the incognito of the writer, the multiplication of the readers. The causes which have led to the overpowering success of the Times are numerous, and some of them, we believe, very deeply rooted in the complications of the English social system but no one can doubt that among the chief causes has been the amazing skill with which the Jones and the Robinsons who write those thundering articles which are to prevent a revolution, to recommend a war, to command a treaty, or to rebuke a Queen, are concealed from view, the personality of the impersonal Times prominently developed. Garrick was a great actor, and would so identify himself with the character he represented as to move men to tears of sorrow, or laughter, women to swoons and hysterics: John Doe and Richard Roe were potent fictions of the law, who with solemn gravity lost and won each from the other many hundred thousand pounds of solid cash; the Wizard of the North is a mighty conjuror, and sorely deceives the eyes and all the other senses of the lieges; but Garrick was plain unmistakeable David Garrick, Esq.

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