The

have the conclusive evidence of Parr* as to his qualifications in Greek and Latin, nor was his progress in Hebrew and Sanscrit behind them. His oriental acquirements, indeed, are those most generally known to the world. To these he added a colloquial knowledge of modern languages, and there is ample evidence in his manuscripts of his being well versed in mathematics. His defects arose in a great measure from excellencies not sufficiently disciplined. The mind which, with mirror-like fide lity, is capable of reflecting the beauties that present themselves to a fertile imagination, may also exhibit blemishes. There is a daguerreotype faculty, so to say, of genius, to represent both combined, nor is it always an easy task for self-love to separate the truly beautiful from the meretricious. Perfection in regard to taste, no less than conception and execution, is very rare. subject of these remarks was no exception to this truth. That he had his own doubts in regard to the standard of his literary labours, is most probable, had we nothing more conclusive to judge from than his aversion to publication in his more advanced years. This aversion might originally have its source partly in the want of means to meet the expences of publication, which at one, and that the darkest, phase of his life, he laboured under. In the prime of life, he looked to literature, not merely as a recreation, but as an available means of income. In maturer years, he appears altogether to have abandoned such an idea. Whatever in the literary path he contemplated latterly, was only in the way of pastime, or bagatelle. As he grew older, his deafness, we imagine, added to that indifference to publicity which became positive repugnance. Whatever he now composed, was confined to the admiration of a small circle of friends. It is our duty to exhibit him as he really was, nothing extenuating, and nothing withholding that is due to biographical truth. Then shall we have simply to tell of a man of undoubted genius, of rare gifts somewhat misapplied and wasted, of unstained integrity of character, and of warm and kindly feelings and aspirations. His penetrating and expansive mind went perhaps too far upon the wing of imagination into the dim and shadowy regions of the speculative and the mythic. From these again he could at a bound revert to the genial realms of humour and burlesque. As respects the former, such recondite subjects have for many minds an overpowering fascination, drawing it with potent spells into an enchanted land of syrens, and spirits of air and flood.

In the remote tracks of home tradition and Ethnic speculation, his flights were as vigorous as they were frequent, but even in the

*Moore's Life of Sheridan.

darkest portion of his course, there was a track of light such as genius only leaves. He might not always convince, but he could not fail to charm, by his originality, his learning, and his eloquence. The love of speculation became with him a passion, in some sort, but not an obtrusive one. Far inferior to him in erudition and reading, it is not to be wondered at, that his conclusions might appear startling to near relations and connections. Such are not always the best judges of character, or even the most lenient. In his case, we have the evidence of the Revd. Mr. Streatfield that some members of his family did him grave injustice. This may account for an estrangement of some years' duration between himself and his brothers, who though truly worthy men, nevertheless held very different pursuits from his; and being more practical men, most likely held in sovereign contempt the ideal and the mythic. Unaware of the steps by which he arrived at his induction, we can easily conceive what caviare the whole affair must have been to their sense, and how to their honest and more brawny impressions, it must have appeared insanity as well as impiety, to hint that Adam was Pan, Eve Pandora, and Vishnu in the Varaha Avatar, the Redeemer of the world! To speak phrenologically, his organ of veneration was so largely developed that he was liable to be carried away by the impul sive liveliness of his imagination, and the ductility of his feelings, beyond the bounds of prudence if not of decorum itself. The brilliancy of his own fancy cast a glare round the most eccentric speculations, which were sure to be illustrated by vivid antithesis, and classic felicity of erudition. It is minds thus toned that are liable to be warped by the mirage of intellectual speculation. The besetting fault of minds so constituted, is a proneness, not to scepticism, but its very opposite, a tendency to the belief of more than is warranted. We shall not be surprised then on finding that an intellect of his calibre should for a moment have been puzzled by the voluble and plausible fanaticism of a man like Richard Brothers, appealing to scripture itself for curious coincidencies which seemed to harmonise with contingencies of the time. We have an apt illustration of this tendency to extension of belief in the marvellous in another remarkable man, also associated with Indian recollections,-John Zephaniah Holwell, the historian of the said catastrophe of the so-called, "Black hole of Calcutta." Mr. Holwell was no less distinguished for his administrative talents and his ability for business, than for certain psychological eccentricities, such as a belief in genii, and that human souls are fallen angels permitted to do penance in the form of humanity. This sort of hobby may be ridden by more than may be dreamed of in the bills of mortality; for

who is without some oddity of belief, or motive, would he but have Halhed's candour to avow it? Developments of this kind no more infer general unsoundness of mind than the retention of extraordinary opinions, though existing in the mind, predicates their non-existence. It is thus that the mirthful hoyden may be more truly virtuous than the sedate but sly prude. Were all who entertain opinions that their duller or more phlegmatic neighbours may deem odd, to be therefore considered as of unsound understanding, who would be pronounced the reverse? The day has been, nay now is, that suggests the prudence of a man abstaining from riding his hobby too much coram populo. A question of abstract nicety might thus place a man in a false position, though in all that affects his dealings with society he may be practically right. Had George III. but whispered a belief in transubstantiation, it would have excited 'admired disorder and might have shaken allegiance. On matters of practical government, on the other hand, his obstinacy even to the severing of fourteen colonies from the empire, came within the line of sane prerogative.

It would seem to be a difficult point for many to judge wisely between the physician and the quack, but at this hour we believe quackeries as absurd as Brothers' revelations. To suppose Mr. Richard Brothers to be an honest man even, much less a true exponent of prophecy, if not himself a prophet, was it seems, in days when metallic tractors, earth baths, tar water, and mesmerism attracted a large affluence of implicit faith, deemed a kind of solecism of rationality. The belief itself, or a leaning towards it, in any of these oddities of the day, as in the Brothers' oddity, might have passed with other follies of the hour, but the assertion of one or other of them in so conspicuous a place as the House of Commons was for the million too astounding. Were all who verge on the line of nonsense in Parliament liable to be brought to question in regard to the mens sana, on account of what they utter there, it might make a fearful reduction in the votes of the House. As respects Brothers himself, he was by rank and station a gentleman, and as far as we can understand, an amiable and sincere enthusiast. His vaticinations, however, were in one sense inexpedient; they were not seasonable, and had an agitative tendency, at a time when agitation was felt by all to be dangerous. It appears that he not only claimed to be a prophet like unto Moses, but assumed also the character of a Jew, and to be the leader of the Jews, who according to his prediction, were soon to be restored to the holy land. Having at length promulgated prophecies regarding the French revolution, the destruction of London, and so forth, sprinkled with apocalyptic illustrations, Govern

ment took the alarm, and he was on the morning of the 4th March, 1795, arrested at his house, by two king's messengers and their assistants, on a charge of high treason. He received the messengers with a complaisance and mildness that were habitual to him, and even expressed his knowledge of the purpose they were come for. After they had shewn their authority for intruding upon him, he submitted without opposition to have all his papers examined. A crowd gathered, who appeared furious at his being arrested. He was taken in the first instance to the house of Mr. Ross, the messenger in Crown Court Westminster. There were grounds, or there were supposed to be, for deeming that he had become the tool of faction to delude the people and to excite sedition. The warrant on which he was apprehended was grounded on the XV. of Elizabeth, in which he stood charged with "unlawfully, maliciously, and wickedly writing, publishing, and printing various fanatical prophecies, with intent to cause dissensions, and other disturbances within the realm, and other of the king's dominions contrary to the statute."

Mr. Halhed now made a motion in the House of Commons for the release of Mr. Brothers. His friends were naturally anxious that he should not thus make, what they not unjustly considered, an exposé of himself. Sir Elijah Impey, with the warm earnestness of genuine friendship, wrote to Mr. Halhed the night before his motion was to come on urging that he should not make such a display. It was all in vain. He replied that he must make his motion-and that he should not be at home to Sir Elijah next morning. He had in fact made up his mind to what he conceived an act of imperative duty. "On Wednesday, March 31, 1795,"-(testifies Mr. E. B. Impey,) "Halhed made his motion in the House, and delivered his extraordinary oration. Extraordinary, indeed, and startling and extravagant in its premises was the greater part of the speech; yet so ingeniously and systematically was it constructed, and so eloquently was it delivered, that it was listened to in profound silence for three long hours. My father often described that silence, by saying, "you might have heard a pin drop in the house." Another writer, whose remarks were printed at the time, thus delivers his opinion of Mr. Halhed's performance. "The speech he delivered pursuant to his notice on the 31st March, is one of the finest flowers of parliamentary elocution; for closeness of reasoning, and persuasive candour, it is almost unparalleled. Though the scholar and man of brilliant talents are discernible in every part, yet nowhere is the accuracy of the logician sacrificed to the graces of the orator. We might suppose our own judgment bribed by the occasion of the speech, for assuredly the character of the British senator never

shines more than when his abilities are employed to rescue from persecution, a man whose only imputed crime is an effort to warn his countrymen against dangers he fancies he sees prepared for them; but when we recollect the manner in which the speech was received, on its delivery-what deep attention pervaded the house-what solemn expectation it excited-with what eagerness every sentence was heard-that wit was, by the importance and elegance of it, disarmed of its profligate sneer, and sophistry of its quirking reply, our judgment becomes unalterably confirmed, and we feel no sentiment but astonishment, that an instant discussion was not provoked, by some candid and spirited member seconding Mr. Halhed's motion."*

The discussion which the writer of the above wished for, did not take place, as there was no seconder, and for some time afterwards there was no end of ridicule in all its phases of squib, epigram and pamphlet—of which the prophet had his ample share. David Levi, the author of "Lingua Sacra," and other works, addressed a series of printed letters to Mr. Halhed, of a controversial character of course. He pointed out the weakness of the pillars against which Mr. Halhed had rested his evidence for Brothers-especially in regard to the apochryphal book of Esdras, which Mr. Levi called an arrant piece of plagiarism, probably written by some Hellenistic Jew, taken into the service of the Christians of the second or third century. He treated with contempt Brothers' pretension to be a prophet like unto Moses, and Mr. Halhed's testimony in support of this pretension. "I cannot conceive," he wrote, "how he (Brothers) can be accounted a Jew, (and which he certainly must before he can lay claim to be their prince), while he is deficient in the most essential qualification of a Jew, namely, God's covenant in his flesh: circumcision is an indispensable rite, and no one can be incorporated into their society till he has undergone the operation. How the prophet came to overlook this, which is so essential to his mis sion, I know not: but it is plain to me that he has not learned his business,"+

Perhaps an extract from Mr. Halhed's speech may be not unacceptable to our readers, as it keeps close to the argument of liberty of conscience, and personal liberty.

"Christianity, we all know, is subdivided into an innumerable multiplicity of sects, who differ from each other in more or fewer subordinate articles; but they must all necessarily admit the interference, in some shape or other, of God in the government of the world, and the authenticity of the Scriptures, in which all Christianity depends.

"Register of the Times," April, 1795.

Letters to N. B. Halhed, M. P. in answer to his testimony, &c. &c.