The Brahmins stood around their idol, and as Mahmud approached to cleave its head, they offered a ransom in money equal in amount to more than £10,000,000 for its preservation. Mahmud scorned to bargain for idolatry. He broke the stone image by heavy blows with his mace. It was hollow within, and its belly was filled with rubies and pearls of incalculably greater value than the amount offered for its ransom. The fact affords a probable reason for the liberality and devotion of the Brahmins. The treasure and the fragments of the idol were sent triumphantly to the holy cities of Arabia and to Ghasna. Mahmud, the Ghasnavide, returned with all the magnificence of a conqueror to his own dominions. He will ever rank as an eminent personage, and one of the most celebrated warriors in Oriental history. He was endowed with many virtues; rendered Ghizni a celebrated seat of learning-he founded a university, presided over by the philosopher, Oonsuri; yet after patronizing, he mortally offended the celebrated Ferdusi. His avarice was insatiable, and no man ever accumulated such great treasures of diamonds, rubies, pearls, gold and silver. In 1030 he died in grief, although at the head of an army of 100,000 infantry and 55,000 cavalry, with 1,300 war elephants, because the Turkmans, introduced by himself, had acquired a power which threatened the dissolution of his kingdom, and which, soon after his death, was overturned by the Seldschukian Turks, who established in Persia a new and famous dynasty. The Ghisnivide Dynasty existed, reviving but more frequently declining in power, until destroyed by Mohammed Ghor, who established his brother's throne in Ghisni in 1174, annexed Lahore, attacked the powerful king of the Hindoos, and his army of 200,000 infantry and 3,000 elephants, and routed them with terrible slaughter, pursuing them for forty miles. The King of Delhi raised a new and greater army; but the Mussulman marched into India, and with his squadrons of cavalry broke down the vaunted "rank-breaking elephants, the war-treading horses, and bloodthirsty soldiers" of the King of the Hindoos, although they had sworn by the Ganges to perish or conquer. The impetuosity of Scythian warfare put into utter confusion and into complete flight the great army of the King of Delhi, who fell in this battle, one of the most bloody on record. During the nine expeditions of Mohammed Ghor into Hindos | tan, he carried back to Ghizni, treasures to an incredible amount, placed bis lieutenant Cuttub in the Government of Delhi, defeated the King of Kanouje, besieged and entered the sacred city of Benares, destroyed its thousand shrines of idols, and sent 4,000 camels loaded with its treasures of precious stones and gold to Ghisni. But this great conqueror was assassinated while asleep, near the banks of the Indus, by a band of Gwickwars, who forced their way, after slaying the sentinels, into his chamber, where they plunged twenty daggers into his body. IIe left no heir, but his lieutenant Cuttub founded an independent kingdom, governed by Mohammedans, in the India of the Hindoos; * while another lieutenant ruled in the Mussulman territories. The Affghan Dynasty was distinguished for its ferocity, assassination, and irregular accessions to the throne, until broken down by the inroads and conquests of Timor the Tartar, called Tamerlane, and until vanquished by the most remarkable descendant of Tamerlane, the Great Baber, and the permanent founder of the Mohammedan, or Mogul Dynasty, in 1526. During the three hundred years of the Affghan Dynasty, such was the irregularity of successions, caused by assassinations, civil wars, and treachery, that no family succeeded for three generations, in sitting on the throne of Delhi. No power has been pregnant with greater calamities than those which afflicted the Hindoos during the whole of the Affghan tyranny. From the downfall of the Affghan Sovereigns, in 1526, until the death of Aurengezibe, in 1707, the Mogul Empire maintained a power and splendor over all India of the greatest magnificence; but from the death of that bigoted, intolerant, and yet bold and vigorous monarch, the decline of that empire was, until its fall, rapid and irretrievable. The Mogul dynasty-the conquests of the Portuguese, Dutch, and French-the first intercourse of the English with Hindostan— the condition of India at that period-the progress of the Company until they became territorial Sovereigns, after the day on which Clive fought and gained the battle of Plussy the Mahratta and other wars-the extinction of Portuguese, Dutch, and French power and commerce in and with India, we must reserve for our next, and its following numbers. But, after fairly examining the government and administration of the East India Company, since that extraordinary corporation, of usually rather an ignorant than an intelligent proprietary, became territorial | British dominion, and with so few crimes to sovereigns, condemning their previous ava- tarnish the honor, credit, and bravery of the ricious policy and the conduct of many of their nation, which sent forth the adventurers, officers and agents, who often committed great merchants, fleets, and soldiers, who from crimes, and outraged both religion and morals, being mere traders for 140 years, have pro-and looking at the radical defects of their gressively, during the last 100 years, made plan of government, we are compelled to ad- the Queen of England sovereign over all the mit that it will appear wonderful in history, kingdoms once forming the empire of the not that they have performed so little, but Hindoos, and afterwards of the Mohamme that they have accomplished so much, for dans and Mahrattas. the benefit of India, for the extension of IN selecting these works from the many which the author left behind him, we have been influenced less by any similarity or congruity between them than by the simple wish to make our readers acquainted with the once renowned but now little-known satirist, whose mirthful sallies passed from mouth to mouth in the days of queen Bess much as the good things of a Hood or a Sidney Smith did in our own younger days. But his wit as well as his satire partook largely of the grossness of the times in which he lived, as the books before us abundantly testify; and in this and other instances of a similar nature our object will ever be to present our readers with the spirit, if not the quintessence, of an author, while we leave the scum and dregs of his productions to their deserved oblivion. In the present case it is especially incumbent upon us to adopt this course, for the author, *Pierce Penilesse his Supplication to the Devill Describing the over-spreading of Vice, and the Suppression of Vertue. Pleasantly interlac'd with variable delights: and pathetically intermixt with comceipted reproofes. Written by THOMAS NASH, Gentleman. London, Imprinted by Richard Ihones, dwelling at the Signe of the Rose and Crowne, nere Holburne Bridge, 1592. [Reprinted for the Shakespeare Society, 1842.] Nashe's Lenten Stuffe, containing the Description and First Procreation and Increase of the Towne of Great Yarmouth in Norfolke: with a new Play never played before, of the Praise of the Red Herring. Fitte of all Clearkes of Noblemens Kitchins to be read: and not unnecessary by all serving men that have short board-wages, to be remembered. Famam peto per undas. London, Printed for N. L. and C. B. and are to be sold at the west end of Paules. 1599. 66 in the epistle prefixed to his "Christ's Tears," says: Many vain things have I vainly set forth, whereof now it repenteth me. St. Augustine writ a whole book of his Retractions. Nothing so much do. I retract as that whereinsoever I have scandalized the meanest. Into some splenetive veins of wantonness heretofore have I foolishly relapsed to supply my private wants: of them no less do I desire to be absolved than the rest, and to God and man do I promise an unfeigned conversion." Now this is nobly said; and far be it from us to make the Retrospective Review the vehicle for bringing to light what so ingenuous a mind would gladly have consigned to the flames. We shall, however, make one reservation: we do not engage to blot all that Nash himself would have blotted, as thereby much of the raciness of his personal satire would be lost; but blot we will all that could reasonably be construed into a breach of modesty. The history of Thomas Nash is that of Savage, Chatterton, Hood-a tale of the misery (self-procured or otherwise) which is so often the concomitant of genius. He was born of gentle parentage at Lowestoffe in Suffolk, his father being a member of the Nashes of Sir Robert Cotton. He took his degree of Herefordshire, and in some way a relative of B.A. at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1585, and was, as he himself tells us, a resi dent there ("the sweetest nurse of knowledge in all that university") for almost seven years. For some unexplained reason, however, he quitted Cambridge without proceeding M.A. Mr. Payne Collier, to whom we are indebted for the edition of "Pierce Penniless," thinks he left his College under some imputation of misconduct. He appears soon afterwards to have visited Italy, Ireland, and many parts of England. In 1587 he was in London and associated with the celebrated Robert Greene, the dramatist, in literary occupations. Two or three years later he engaged in his contest with the Puritans, which was the opening of the celebrated "Martin Marprelate controversy." His adversaries were very numerous, but Nash's sprightly warfare with the small shot of satire and wit, was unmatched even by a host of theologians and a cannonade of scripture quotations. Among all his antagonists none had so large a share of his bitterest objurgations as Gabriel Harvey, with whom the contest was protracted through several years, until it was at length put a stop to by the public authorities. Nash also wrote several plays, and other pieces too numerous to be named here. The satirist is not a likely man to get friends: few respect him other wise than as some savages are said to worship the devil-lest he should hurt them. This may partly account for the extreme misery and distress into which Nash fell; but extravagance and debauchery are alleged as other causes; and these alas! are no unusual concomitants of genius when it takes this direction. Besides other misfortunes in which his satirical vein involved him, we find him, in 1597, imprisoned by the Privy Council for having written a play called "The Isle of Dogs. About the same time he wrote a letter to his kinsman, Sir Robert Cotton, in which occurs the expression: "I am merry now, though I have ne'er a penny in my He died-probably under forty purse." years of age-in 1601. It was in one of his "pennilesse" periods, if we are to take him literally, that he wrote the first work on our list: this was in 1592. Having spent manie yeres in studying how to five, and livde a long time without money; having tyred my youth with follie, and surfeited my minde with vanitie, I began at length to looke backe to repentaunce, and addresse my endevors to prosperitie. But all in vaine: I sate up late, and rose early, contended with the colde, and conversed with scarcitie; for all my labours turned to losse, my vulgar muse was despised and neglected, my paines not regarded, or slightly rewarded, and I myselfe, (in prime of my best wit) layde open to povertie. Whereupon, in a male-content humour, I accused my fortune, raild on my patrones, bit my pen, rent my papers, and ragde in all, points like a mad man. In which agonie tormenting myself a long time, I grew by degrees to a VOL XXX. NO. IL milde discontent; and pausing awhile over my standish, I resolved in verse to paynt forth my passion which, best agreeing with the vaine of my unrest, I began to complaine in this sort: Why i'st damnation to despaire and dye, Divines and dying men may talke of hell, Deceitfull artes, that nourish discontent! Vaine thoughts adieu, for now I will repent; And thus he goes on with his lament of neglected talents, and the poor requital of literary labor. "I cald to mind a cobler, hostler that had built a goodly inne, and that was worth five hundred pound; an might dispende fortie pounds yerely by his land; a carreman in a lether pilche that had whipt a thousand pound out of his horse tayle: and have I more wit," he asks, "than all these? am I better borne? am I better brought up? yea, and better favored? and yet am I a begger? what is the cause ?" The answer to this string of interrogatories is much the same in substance, as that which an unsuccessful or an improvident literary man would now give, namely, that it is the fault of an undiscerning public, which prefers the trashy and ephemeral to the substantial and profound. "Everie grosse-brainde idiot is suffered to come into print, who, if hee set foorth a pamphlet of the praise of puddingpricks, or write a treatise of Tom Thumme, thicke and three-folde, when better things or the exployts of Untrusse, it is bought up lye dead." So complains Pierce Penilesse, Opus and usus are knocking at my door twenty times a weeke," he says, "when I am not at home." length, finding that pretended friends will give him nothing, though entreated for God's sake, he bethinks himself of a tale that he has heard, of pecuniary advances made by "the gentleman in black," and thereupon indites a "Supplication to the Divell." This "supplication" is nothing more than a satire on the prevailing vices of the day; and we now proceed to adduce from it, a few specimens of the author's peculiar humor. but without redress. 66 At "In the inner part of this ugly habitation stands Greedinesse, prepared to devoure all that enter, attired in a capouch of written parchment, buttond downe before with labels of wax, and lined 15 with sheepe's fels for warmenes: his cappe furd with catskins after the Muscovie fashion, and all be-tasseld with angle-hookes, instead of aglets, ready to catch hold of all those to whom he shewes any humblenes: as for his breeches, they were made of the lists of broad cloaths, which he had by letters-patents assured to him and his heyres, to the utter overthrow of bow-cases and cushin-makers; and bumbasted they were, like beer barrels, with statute-marchants and forfeitures." In Penilesse's "complaynt of pryde," he is extremely severe against the sectaries of his age, who think "to live when they are dead, by having theyr sect called after their names. "We devide Christ's garment amongest us in manie peeces, and of the vesture of salvation make some of us babies and apes coates, others straight trusses and divell's breeches, some gally gascoynes, or a shipmans hose; like the Anabaptists and adulterous Familists, others with the Martinists, a hood with two faces to hide their hypocrisie, and, to conclude, some, like the Barrowists aud Greenwoodians, a garment ful of the plague, which is not to be worn before it be new washt. Hence atheists triumph and rejoyce, and talke as prophanely of the Bible as of Bevis of Hampton. I heare say there be mathematitians abroad that will proove men before Adam; and they are harboured in high places who will maintayne it to the death that there are no divells. It is a shame (Senior Belzebub) that you shoulde suffer yourself thus to be tearmed a bastard, or not prove to your predestinate children not only that they have a father, but that you are hee that must owne them!" A side note adds, The devill hath children, but fewe of them know their owne father."" Pierce, after belaboring the pride of merchants' wives, upstarts, parasites, &c., proceeds to point out the peculiar forms and phases of pride which distinguish various nations. The Spaniard, for example, is "born a braggart;" the Italian, "a more cunning, proud fellow;" the Frenchman, "wholly compact of deceivable courtship." But it is against the Danes that he inveighs most bitterly. "The most grosse and senselesse proud dolts are the Danes, who stand so much upon their unweldie burlibound souldiery, that they account of no man that hath not a battle-axe at his girdle to hough dogs with, or weares not a cock's fether in a thrumb-hat, like a cavalier: briefly, he is the best foole bragart under heaven. For besides nature hath lent him a flabberkin face like one of the four winds, and cheekes that sagge over his chin-bone, his apparaile is so puft up with bladders of taffatie, and his back like biefe stuft with parslie) so drawn out "A thousand jymjams and toyes have they in theyr chambers, which they heape up together with infinite expence, and are made beleeve of them that sel them, that they are rare and precious things, when they have gathered them up on some dunghill, or rakte them out of the kennel by chaunce. I knowe one [who] sold an olde rope with foure knots on it for foure pound, in that he gave it out, it was the length and bredth of Christ's tomb. Let a tinker take a peece of brasse worth a halfpenie, and set strange stampes on it, and I warrant he may make it more worth to him of some fantastical foole than of all the kettels that ever he mended in his life. This is the disease of our new-fangled humorists that know not what to do with their wealth. It argu eth a verie rustie wit so to doate on worm-eaten elde." But, into the preface to his second edition, Nash introduces the following remarks for the behoof of the insulted archæologists: "The antiquaries are offended without cause, thinking I goe about to detract from that excellent profession, when (God is my witnesse) I reverence it as much as any of them all, and had no manner of allusion to them that stumble at it. I hope they wil give me leave to think there be fools of that art as well as of al other; but to say I utterly condemn it as an unfruitfull studie, or seeme to despise the excellent qualified partes of it, is a most false and injurious surmise." The "Supplication" goes on next to lash envy and wrath; and here he has, incidentally, a fair chance of a slap at the litigious spirit of the age. "If John a Nokes his henne doo but leap into Elizabeth de Gappes close, shee will never leave hunting her husband till he bring it to a nisi prius." But we must pass over some of our author's excellent stories to give a specimen of his most cutting invective as directed against his enemy, Gabriel Harvey: "Put case (since I am not yet out of the theame of Wrath) that some tyred jade belonging to the presse, whome I never wronged in my life, hath named me expressly in print (as I will not doo him), and accused me for reviving in an epistle of mine the reverend memorie of Sir Thomas Moore, Sir John Cheeke, Dr. Watson, Dr. Had. don, Dr. Carre, Master Ascham, as if they were hath a belly as big as the round church in Cambridge, [-a bad simile, since it is as unlike as may be to a holy sepulchre !] a face as huge as the whole bodie of a baseviall, and legs that if they were hollow a man might keepe a mill in either of them!" While upon this subject, we must not lose an anecdote of the learned Dr. Watson, quaintly told by our author. "A notable jest I heard long agoe of Dr. Watson, verie conducible to the reproofe of these fleshly-minded Belials, or rather belly-alls, because all theyr mind is on their belly. He being at supper, on a fasting or fish night, with a great number of his friends and acquaintance, there chanced to be in the companie an outlandish doc no meate but for his mastership's mouth; or none but some such as the sonne of a ropemaker [the trade of Harvey's father] were worthy to mention them. To shewe how I can rayle, thus would begin to rayle on him:-Thou that hadst thy hood turned over thy eares, when thou wert a bachelor, for abusing of Aristotle and setting him upon the schoole gates painted with asses eares on his head, is it anie discredit for me, thou great baboune, thou pigmee braggart, thou pamphleteer of nothing but poeans, to be censured by thee, that hast scorned the prince of philosophers? Off with thy gowne and untrusse, for I mean to lash thee mightily. . . . Poor slave! I pitie thee that thou hadst no more grace but to come in my way. Why could not you have sate quyet at home and writ catechisms, but you must be comparing me to Martin, and exclayme against me for reckning up the high schollers of worthie memorie? Ju-tor, who, when all others fell to such victuals piter ingeniis præbet sua numina vatum, saith Ovid; seque celebrari quolibet ore sinit. Which, if it be so, I hope I am aliquis; and those men quos honoris causa nominavi, are not greater than gods. Methinks I see thee stand quivering and quaking, and even now lift up thy hands to hea ven, as thanking God my choler is somewhat assuged; but thou art deceived, for however I let fall my stile a little, to talk in reason with thee that hast none, I doo not meane to let thee scape SO.... "I have reade over thy sheepish discourse and entreated my patience to be good to thee whilst I read it. ... Monstrous, monstrous, and palpable; not to be spoken of in a Christian congregation! thou hast skumed over the schoole men, and of the froth of their folly made a dish of divinitie brewesse, which the dogges will not eate. If the printer have any great dealings with thee, he were best get a priviledge betimes, ad imprimendum solum, forbidding all other to sell waste paper but himselfe, or else he will be in a wofull taking. .. I doubt thou wilt be driven to leave all, and fall to thy father's occupation which is to goe and make a rope to hang thyself. Neque enim lex æquior ulla est, quam necis artifices arte perire sua! "Redeo ad vos, mei auditores. Have I not a indifferent pretty veine in spurgalling an asse? if you knew how extemporall it were at this instant, and with what haste it is writ, you would say so. But I would not have you thinke that all this that is set down heere is in good earnest, for then you goe by S. Giles the wrong way to Westminster; but onely to shew how for a neede I could rayle, if I were throughly fyred !" Thoroughly fired indeed! and well may our friend Pierce conclude that he himself is not altogether free from "the sin of wrath" against which he has been declaiming; but, we must now pass on with him to the complaynt of gluttonie." Here he falls foul with Master Dives, the type of a London alderman then, and according to the vulgar idea, in our own days. "miserere mei," he exclaims, "what a fat churle it is! Why, he (agreeing to the time) as were before them, he overslipt them; and there being one joynt of flesh on the table for such as had meate stomackes, fell freshly to it. After that hunger (halfe conquered) had restored him to the use of his speech, for his excuse be said to his friend that brought him thether, Profecto, domine, ego sum malissimus piscator, meaning by piscator, a fish-man; (which is a libertie, as also malissimus, that outlandish men in their familiar talke doo challenge, or at least use, above us). At tu es bonissimus carni fex! quoth Dr. Watson, retorting very merrily his owne licentious figures upon him. So of us, it may be said, we are malissimi piscatores but bonissimi carnifices. I would English the jest for the edification of the temporalitie, but that it is not so good in English as in Latine: and though it were as good, it would not convert clubs and clouted shoone from the flesh-pots of Egypt to the provant of the Low Countreys; they had ra ther (with the serving-man) put up a supplication to the parliament House, that they might have a yard of pudding for a penie, than desire (with the baker) there might bee three ounces of bread sold for a half-penie.' Sloth is the next " complaint" that Penilesse brings forward; and, among the means to avoid it, he recommends plays, such especially as are borrowed out of our English Chronicles. "How would it have joyed French) to think that after he had lyne two brave Talbot," he says, "(the terror of the hundred yeare in his tomb, he should triumphe againe on the stage, and have his bones new-embalmed with the tears of ten thousand spectators!" With the "seaventh complaynt, of lechery" the "supplication" closes. Pierce having drawn up his document ready for presentation, and duly addressed it "To the High and Mightie Prince of Darknesse, Donsell dell Lucifer, King of Acheron, Styx, and Phlegeton, Duke of Tartary, Marquesse of Cocytus, and Lord High regent of Limbo," casts about for the means |