ten,-whose sketch of Almorah is too well known to require more than a passing allusion,-informs us in the following humorous language: "One of the most striking circumstances at Almorah is the great use made of female labour. In an evening ride, one is almost mobbed by sets of jolly looking lasses returning from the heights, loaded with fire wood, grass, and the bark of trees. These ladies also act as grass cutters for the stables, and carry loads from house to house with much greater zeal and activity than their husbands, many of whom stay at home to nurse the babies." When husbands turn their wives into the lowest household drudges, they must be content to take the consequences. It has been ere now observed that nowhere, out of Calcutta, are Churches better attended than at hill stations. It is on one account curious that it should be so; as from the unfortunate, but perhaps necessary order which assigns to the Chaplains of the East India Company a stay of only two years at a hill station, they can rarely gain that tenure in the place, which a clergyman ought to have, and must have, to be respected. Unless his flock know him, they cannot respect him much; and to be known and respected, he must have been for some years at a place. Herein he differs much from the physician for the bodies of men; who likewise has but two years for his stay on duty at a hill station. The doing good to the soul is a more delicate matter than doing good to the body. And we regard it, as one amongst the causes of the members of the Ecclesiastical service not having that influence that their peculiar calling ought to give them, that either, by their own request, or the necessity of the case, they usually see such frequent changes of station. On an average we believe they remain at the same station only three or four years; and they are rarely sorry at having the opportunity of going to the hills, where they can be but two. Every hill station forms an important sphere of ministerial duty, from the circumstance of so many that are assembled there being men of superior attainments: and, from the congregations generally gathered at the churches of hill stations, no doubt the Chaplains appointed to them are alive to the necessity of their discourses being of a higher order of merit, as compositions, than when they preach before a more mixed congregation. To the churches themselves, as buildings, as great praise is due. Simlah is the largest; and through the liberality of its residents and visitors, is in process of being adorned with stained glass. But stained glass, unless first-rate, is hardly worth putting into an Ecclesiastical building: and, it was a somewhat hazardous experiment, though we cordially hope the result will fully answer the expectations of all who subscribed for its purchase, to import stained glass from Umballah. A perfect stained : window is still a desideratum in the North West Provinces and we cannot be generally found fault with in India for lavishing too costly sums on our churches. Almorah is at present, we believe, without any church at all. Nynee Tal promises some slight improvement in its Ecclesiastical edifice. It is now waterproof, which for a number of years it was not: and some fair future day, when the addition has been sufficiently brooded over, its nave is to be lengthened and a chancel to be added, and, perhaps, a handsome stained glass window, fresh out from England, may adorn it. We should strangely like to hear a peal of seven, or even five, bells from its little tower. How the hills round would ring their changes too, in their musical echos : "Solitary, clear, profound, Giving to them sound for sound." A finer spot could hardly be found for evoking the rich voices of the ancient hills; but alas! for the weight of bells, and the difficulty of transit. They are as heavy They are as heavy as pious, and unfortunately are not used in the drawing-room. Such a bell as summons the residents of Nynee Tal now to church, may be heard on Salisbury Plain, in the neighbourhood of any large flock of sheep and, if the worthy folks of Nynee Tal could manage to get a peal, or even one bell of rich and mellow sound, from England; and then convey the present tenant of the tower to the middle of their lake, and allow it to fall overboard, its loss would be an universal gain. But we must draw these rambles in the Kumaon hills to a conclusion; though, truth to say, it is very agreeable to linger amongst them; and to recall the pleasant hours that one has passed amidst the lovely scenery to be found in the neighbourhood of Nynee Tal; doubly so, when one's own pleasure was shared in company, where "Hearts are of each other sure :" Then, sunshine has a greater charm; and the passing clouds, that sweep through every house at times, serve but to make its bright gleams, as they come in, the more welcome, as they cheer us up, and then-passing on to kiss some mountain top-gladden us with a pure and heartfelt gratitude to Him, who has made so beautiful this our temporary resting-place. ART. V.-1. The Odes of Hafiz, MS., Shiraz. 1801. 3. Malcolm's Persia. Vol. II. London. 1805. 4. Dissertations on Oriental Literature. London. 1792. 5. Descriptive Catalogue of Tippoo's Library. Camb. 1809. 6. Sketches of Persia. London. 1828. 7. Sir W. Jones' Discourses. 1796 8. Castello's Rose Garden of Persia. London. 1845. POETRY has ever been held in the greatest veneration in the East. Its admirers include almost the whole population. If the ancient Greeks and Romans gave to their poets all the honours they lavished on their inferior divinities, the Persians have ranked them with their Emams and Prophets, and have as willingly abided by their commands as by the injunctions of their Holy Writ. The Persians are enthusiastically devoted to poetry; it forms the very essence of their religion; the works of their best poets may be called their scriptures. The meanest artisan, the rudest soldier, the proudest noble and the Tyrant-King, are alike charmed by the strains of the minstrel, who sings a mystic song of divine love. They may forget the words of Mahomet, they may neglect the maxims of their Sherrahs, but the verses of Sadi and Hafiz are indelibly impressed on their memory. Ten years ago we met a divine at Shiraz, deeply read in the mystery of the Koran and the Moslem theology, who was of opinion that the very teachers of their religion-the Mollahs and the Moftahs-preferred the imagination of Hafiz or the judgment of Sadi to the inspired wisdom of their twelve apostles. Sir John Malcolm, full fifty years ago, was "forcibly struck" with the fact, that a common tailor, who perhaps in our country is as ignorant of Milton and Shakspeare as the natives of New Zealand, while engaged repairing the Ambassador's tents, entertained his companions with reciting some of the finest mystical Odes of Hafiz. Nor is this all. The morality of the Persian poets is conveniently adapted to the flexible disposition of the Persians. It has been remarked by some German philosophers, that Mahomet has appealed only to the passions and the emotions of his countrymen, and seldom or never to their judgment; but the Persian poets have been still more pliable and more political, and have watched the current with keener optics. They sometimes inculcate ascetism, the rudeness of sullen independence, and support the spirit of suffering virtue; but they also justify the means by the end, and gloss over the accommodative disposition of servile subjection. The weak and ease-loving Moslems of the present time have consulted their own temper in their choice of a creed, and are much more inclined to profit by the laxity of their poets' opinions than to observe the austere precepts of their morality. Whenever religion has imbibed the "colours" of the imagination, the uneducated multitude have paid a willing submission to its commands. The faithful have found their vices countenanced and supported by the wisdom of their poets, and they have clung to their poets with all the affection and all the fears with which an accomplice clings to the ringleader. Every man has a number of verses from Sadi and Hafiz by heart, which he is ready to bring forward in self-defence, to stave off any charge of infamy or criminality. The poet's judgment is strong enough to justify an evil in the eyes of the Believers, and the exculpation is immediate. A verse from Sadi, which has run into a proverb, and whose equivocal meaning we condemn, is quoted with success by every offender against truth. "A lie," says the poet, purporting good, is better than a truth exciting disturbance." We doubt if Sadi could have meant this as a defence of all possible falsehood, but yet the verse is used in its widest signification. In the year 1792, when the Ambassadors of Tippoo Sultan were at Madras, engaged in their mission of raising an insurrection against the British Government, one of them in his letter to his master advises him to agree to a proposal, "upon the principle recommended by the sage and worthy Khanjeh Hafiz Shirazi, on whom the mercy of the Lord may for ever rest, with friends cordiality, with enemies dissimulation." Here is an instance of a grave and far-sighted prince being addressed and counselled by his Ambassador, to mould his political conduct according to the maxim of a lyric poet! In Europe it would be considered gross stupidity in an Envoy to advise his sovereign, in his official correspondence, to accept or reject terms of peace on the precepts of a poet or a dramatist; but in the East, the "law and the prophets" are best known to the bards, and it is no umbrage to a statesman to follow their counsel in danger. There is another story told of Prince Sufdur Jung, Nuwab of Oude, that a petition being presented to him with a couplet from Sadi for its motto: "O Tyrant! the oppressor of the helpless, How long will your streets continue populous;" the King wrote two lines of Hafiz on its back, and sent the mendicant away: "I have been denied access to the streets of the virtuous, If you dislike this, change my destiny." But it has been very well remarked by Sir William Jones, that though the verses which justify vice are oftener quoted than those in praise of virtue, yet the doctrine which Sadi and Hafiz inculcated was to return good for evil. Or, what a greater authority than Sir William has observed:-"They have recommended good works to men and clemency and justice to their rulers." But though the influence which once the Persian poets possessed over their countrymen has unfortunately been turned from its legitimate channel and employed in the defence of successful vice, yet it is still held in such veneration by the Moslem that they have acknowledged its supremacy even when their antagonists have used it against their creed. It has been related to us by an eye witness whom we consider trustworthy and deserving of confidence, that Futteh Ali Shah, King of Persia, and a man of acknowledged talents, on whom the Muses lavished some of their gifts, being out one Friday to attend service at the royal mosque, one of his attendants struck a poor Christian, who ventured to approach the cavalcade, accompanying the blow with an awful imprecation: "Begone to hell, O cursed dog! This is not your church." The injured youth, who had much more wit in him than he had credit for, made use of his presence of mind with great effect; his reply was from Hafiz: "I have been to the Temple, the Mosque and the Church Futteh Ali Shah smiled with admiration and extended his hand to the Giaour, who went home with his condition bettered by two hundred rupees. We can add a score of other instances to substantiate our assertion; but we shall not proceed any farther with the subject. Enough has been said. The Persians have called poetry legitimate magic, and have used much art in the arrangement and selection of words. Often, even to the sacrificing of sense to euphony, they have spared no labour to render the verses smooth and elegant. Their poetical compositions are of several kinds. GHUZLS, or Odes, are of different lengths, and different construction. A whole Ghuzl must rhyme throughout with the same word. Some affirm that a Ghuzl should not extend to more than eighteen couplets, and others allow it to extend to eleven only. But we remark as a peculiarity in Persian Odes, that every couplet is complete in itself, and that any image, however beautiful, is not dwelt on for more than one verse. This custom, of course cramps the genius of the poet, and his imagination, though fruitful and inclined to rise above rules and " poetical disciplines," succumbs to the evil influence of the restraints imposed on it, and quenches its vigour in continual alliteration. The poet is compelled to harp on the same subject and image, or adopt every image which presents itself, and the taste is soon vitiated. The usual subjects of the Ghuzls are beauty, love, and friendship; but with the Sufis it has been em |