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Our observations have been confined to those parts of his work which belong more especially to the province of this Review; but enough has been shewn, we should hope, even in this rapid sketch, to explain and justify the immense labour which a succession of writers, from Lucian in the second century to Mr. Wheeler in the nineteenth, have expended upon it. And when it is remembered that Herodotus had access to very few books, and those of slender value; that he was thrown on his own personal observation for his facts, and his own theoretic philosophy for the explanation of them; that his researches in the various branches of the human family include their political history, their distribution over the earth, their religious ideas and practices, their social peculiarities, their personal characteristics, the nature and affinities of their language, and their monumental remains; that he has recorded the habits of animals and the properties of plants; that he was a keen observer of the natural features of a country as well as an accurate describer of its dimensions; and that he engaged deeply in geological speculations, and endeavoured to account (however unsuccessfully,) for celestial phenomena;-when, we say, all this is remembered, we may well be astonished at the boldness of his plan and the success of its execution.

ART. III.-Unpublished Letters of Warren Hastings.

We are about to contribute a few stones to the cairn of Warren Hastings. Not that we propose to write his life, to describe his public career, to examine his administrative schemes, or even to analyze his character as statesman or as hero. That task has been performed by a mightier hand. The writer who follows where Macaulay has reaped, must be content to glean the few ears abandoned in the carelessness of boundless wealth. The story of Warren Hastings, of his early pride, and early failures, his struggles in the Council and his triumph at Benares, his services to England, and the black ingratitude with which they were requited is now a household word. The character of the calm, sagacious statesman, whom no opposition could weary and no insult annoy, who never hated, but never spared, is as familiar to us all as the character of Wellington. But there is a side in Warren Hastings' character not yet so thoroughly appreciated. There ran through that strong nature a vein of genial natural humour such as we believe to underlie almost all great characters. In one it produces the exquisite grace which was the household characteristic of Napoleon. In another it elicits the dry satire which gave salt to the conversation of the Iron Duke. In a third it is the kindly appreciation of art which made Sir Robert Peel the first of amateur connoisseurs. And lastly, in too many it produces the ineffectual striving after poetic excellence, which enables Macaulay to style Hastings and Frederick the Great half statesmen and half Trissotins. The sarcasm is unjustifiably severe. The men of the day who are not addicted to out-door amusement find relaxation in the newspaper and the novel. Frederick and Hastings both found it in small attempts at literature, in little poems, and in those carefully written letters which have embalmed for us so much of the spirit and flavour of that age. In the present case these letters are singularly valuable. They shew us the sunny side of a mind which on the other half is dark with a weight of care which would have destroyed a heart less brave or a temper less serene.

In regard to the original letters of Warren Hastings and several by his friends, that have been kindly placed at our disposal, it suffices to state that their present possessor obtained them after the death of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed the second, and nephew of Hastings' friend. He inherited a good deal of his uncle's intellectual ability. He was a very distinguished member of the Bengal civil service, and considered in his day a great authority on all questions of revenue. He was an admirable oriental linguist, and as was stated in a former article of the

*

Calcutta Review, he could pass for a native, sit down and smoke a pipe with any group he fancied, and never be recognized as an European,-the court language or the patois of the peasantry being equally facile to him. Those who may expect that these letters will throw any light but of a faint or oblique kind on the Indian career of Hastings, will be disappointed. They are nevertheless not without high interest as admitting us to a fireside familiarity with men who were remarkable in their day for commanding force of character, or rare intellectual powers. In the correspondence before us we see the great Indian Dictator as it were in his night gown and slippers; and the reader can scarcely fail to compare the oriental ogre-like portrait of Burke and Sheridan, with the retired statesman, in his green old age, settled down as a genial, scholarly, urbane, and neighbourly country gentleman.

The materials before us may be stated as being generally of a social and literary nature, with an occasional sprinkling of light political speculation in prose and verse. Of Warren Hastings it were superfluous here to intrude more upon the reader than what we have already ventured to premise. It is different as respects his correspondent and friend, Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, the author of a treatise on Hindoo law, and of the first English Hindee grammar. Of him, much less is known now in the republic of letters, than his eminent talents and splendid acquirements deserve. "Honour to him who first through the impassable paves a road."+ The man who furnishes a grammar for a language, unknown save in the far region where it is vernacular, cannot fail to be acknowledged as a public benefactor. He paves a way through the impassable. This will be the more readily acknowledged if we bear in mind the difficulties that stand in his way, and the disproportion between his opportunities and their results. Gratefully admitting our obligations to such an agent, we are further free to confess, that he who was not only the contemporary, but the friend of a Warren Hastings, a Sir William Jones, and a Brinsley Sheridan, could be no ordinary man, even if we knew nothing more concerning him than the simple fact of his being their friend. His mind indeed was one of a quick and versatile turn, as well as of a large capacity for usefulness, had circumstances been more propitious than they proved. He resembled his friend the founder of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and its first President, in forming an exception to the remark, that a great facility for acquiring languages is not always joined to high intellectual ascendaney, or a fine imagina

Article vi. vol. 7.
† Mr. T. Carlyle on Goethe.

tion. These, however, Halhed happily united, for whatever passed through his mind was sure to acquire, in that transit, those beautiful hues which a fertile fancy well versed in various learning can alone supply. As we never had the advantage of being personally acquainted with that extraordinary man, we presume that our readers will not be sorry to be now introduced to him, by one who knew and loved him well. We mean the late Elijah Barwell Impey. Alas! that we should have to say the late, but so it is" after life's fitful fever he sleeps wellnothing can touch him further." How much touched he was by revived slanders upon his father's memory, we knew by personal communication with himself, for we had the good fortune to be acquainted with that estimable, amiable and accomplished gentleman. Though of gentle and retiring disposition yet had he a resolute will to do bravely what he deemed his sacred duty. His mission was to clear a father's reputation from grievous obloquy, and to brush from his ermine those spots which the arts of that chartered libeller, Philip Francis, had endeavoured to stain it with.

"Contemporary, and of like continuance in Parliament with my father" says Mr. E. B. Impey-" was Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, a name never to be mentioned by me but with reverence and affection. Our family friendship, and, subsequently, my own personal intimacy with that extraordinary man, enable me to confirm all that has been recorded of the versatility of his talents.* In my long walk through life, I have seldom met the man who knew so much of so many things, or who had so ready a command of all he knew. In him the brightest of intellects was accompanied by the kindest of hearts. His principles were as sound as his erudition, and his friendship not less steady and enduring than his conversation was attractive and admired. Halhed's acquaintance with Mr. Hastings and my father began in India, where he held very important employments, and where his ability and zeal were of incalculable service to the Governor General and to the Company. To Hastings he always professed personal obligations, but it was not singly by the tie of gratitude that he was bound, for life, to that great and good man: he revered Mr. Hastings as an eminent statesman who had saved and enlarged an empire; and none knew better than Mr. Halhed the difficulties with which he had to contend ;also he loved him as the friend of letters, the patron of every elevating pursuit, the pleasantest of companions, the kindest and the easiest man to live with that might be found in the wide world."

If the stern utilitarian should object that much of our materials comes under the head of literature and criticism of so light a nature as to be even sportive or trivial, it ought at the same

* See Life of Sir W. Jones, by Lord Teignmouth, and Memoirs of R. B. Sheridan, by Mr. Moore.

time to be borne in recollection that it served to soothe care, and to alleviate the pressure of painful circumstances. It was the lenitive of many a dark hour. It thus innocently promoted a beneficial end. It may do so still; for what amused the great Hastings, may also entertain us, albeit we be a more fastidious if not less mirthful generation. We are perhaps too much of the temperament ascribed to "the lean and hungry Cassius"-scorning ourselves that we should be brought to laugh at any thing. We are in all things not so easily pleased as those who have gone before us. We are made of sterner stuff, and look more for a quid pro quo in every thing. We do not like to throw a laugh away even: we must have. the laugh's worth first. Our ancestors looked not at the grassy meadow, and the coin field, with a mere cold, calculating glance, as to their probable outturn. They gazed with a consideration quite beside the agricultural or politico-economical one. They had also a feeling for by ways and green lanes, and hedge nests and flowers; where a meditative rambler might take his quiet stroll and enjoy himself, either in pleasant solitude, or in the society of some congenial friend.

From my earliest years"-writes one of our kind informants,* "I have loved the name of Halhed. The late Robert W. Halhed, of Birchfield Priory, Berks, a dear friend of my father and mother, and scarcely less of myself, was my original informant on the points of the family genealogy, and my passport to the intercourse I afterwards enjoyed with his gifted and eccentric brother." From this source we learn that Nathaniel Halhed, the grandfather, had been a broker in Exchange Alley, where he acquired a considerable estate, and died 17th January, 1730-1, at the age of 66. He had married twice: first, (who died 30th March, 1717, aged 43), Elizabeth, daughter of William Houghton, of Reading, Berks, by whom he had eight children. One of these was Captain of a man-of-war, and was lost at sea. He married secondly, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of George Mason, of Noke Herefordshire, who died 16th October, 1729, aged 44. By her he had William Halhed of the Noke, and of Great George's Street, Westminster, &c. He was a bank director, and died 30th September, 1786, aged 64. He was also twice married; first to Frances Caswall, by whom he had, 1st Nathaniel Brassey, 2nd Robert William, 3rd John (both of whom married their cousins of the name of Caswall) and Ellen Frances, the wife of Edwin Atkins of KingstonLisle, Berks. Of the early career of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed our reverend informant could know little, as he was at the time unborn. He then adds-"I distinctly remember to have heard that he proposed to himself three principles of action, from all

* The Rev. Thomas Streat field-Chartsedge Westerham, Kent.

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