Tremble-it shakes the very ground;

While Irmengard cries,

As tears stream from her eyes

A lady-like weakness we must not despise(And here, let me add, I have been much to blame, As I long ago ought to have mentioned her name)"Here he comes ! now do hide yourself, dear Eppo, pray; For my sake, I entreat you, keep out of his way."

Scarce had the knight Time to get out of sight Among some thick bushes, which covered him quite, Ere the giant appeared-oh, he was such a fright! He was very square built, a good twelve feet in height, And his waistcoat (three yards round the waist) seemed

the district. He wears a dress of white cotton, and either; and the civilian signs it, and the moonshee a turban of fine muslin twisted round a Bokhara cap smears the surface of a silver signet with Indian ink, of red quilted silk worked with gold; his slippers of and draws the end of the document across his tongue, yellow cloth are by his side, as also his inkstand of and stamps the signet on the paper; and as he Chinese lacquer-work, his paper scissors, and his coarse reaches the anteroom again, and seats himself upon bladed knife. On his knees are several strips of his carpet, scores of people press round to gain his yellow-looking native paper, on which he eagerly favour. Farmers engaged with boundary disputes, writes with a reed pen, describing Persian characters, cultivators questioning the right by which they are and writing from the right hand to the left, muttering taxed, and others, all seeking earnestly the favour of to himself as he does so, and labouring much in the moonshee. With faces pressed against the composition, for it happens that his master has windows of the room are those whose claims are directed him to write a letter of ceremony to a chief, either not deemed important, or whose turn for being and the moonshee works hard, therefore, to get up- heard has not yet come. Among them are aged "A fine specimen, on the whole, crones; young mothers, with their infant brood; a Of rhetoric, which the learned call rigmarole." haughty, stern-looking man of middle age, obstinate The object of the letter is to request an order for and perverse-a man who would rather thus wait procuring camels for conveying treasure. But the from sunrise to sunset, day by day, than yield one first three sheets of paper must be filled with assur- tittle to his neighbour, or bear the encroachment of ances of friendship, expressed in the most poetical an inch upon his land-mark. And this man knows and hyperbolic terms; of comparisons between the the value of the moonshee-the power that represen deeds of the ancestors of the chief and all the heroes tation can give to a careless ear; he knows how petiof the Eastern world, with praises of his personal tions may be produced or evaded, how words and ancestry, the sun, moon, and stars. Now a good idioms may be brought in-not quite heard or underdeal of imagery is required to do this well, but at stood, perhaps, by the weary listener; and the petilast it is done; the fact of the camels is briefly added, tioner has proved his knowledge in many ways, and gold-dust is sprinkled over the wet ink, the paper is others with him, or the moonshee, on five pounds a carefully cut at the edges, and folded like a book- month, would not possess shawls, and silver fire-cups marker, and then the house tailor is called, who proto his kaliun, and a horse of blood and trappings ceeds to make one little bag of crimson satin worked worthy a chieftain's stud. No, no! as the civilian with gold of the brocade called "Kinkaub," and passes out to take his evening's drive, a hundred voices another little bag, of fine sprigged muslin, after shriek aloud for justice; and many a poor oppressed which the letter is first placed in the satin bag, and but honest man runs behind, in the dust of the then is shaded by the muslin envelope. A silken cord carriage-wheels, who, having no bribe to offer, has secures the mouth, and is fastened with a heavy seal, | waited all day, with this one hope-and will so wait about the size of the stand of a wine-glass. At this to-morrow and to-morrow, till his heart breaks; but juncture a man starts up from the group that sur- the wiser, richer pleader, satisfies himself with payrounds the moonshee, armed to the teeth-match- ing the hoinage of a low salaam, then turns back to lock, sword, dagger, pistols, powder-flask, kreeze, all chat with his friend the moonshee, and the chances are there, and if the messenger could but use all are that another sunset sees him in his village a his glittering arms at once, a horde could not with- triumphant and contented man. Sheikh Ooluf-oostand him; but, as it is, they are apt to prove better deen was a person of no common ability, however, for show than service,—and, combined with the and perhaps among all the moonshees of all the shield of rhinoceros hide, and the coat of quilted public offices in India, it would have been difficult to cotton, that would turn a musket-ball, they rather find a man who could erase a word so neatly, imiimpede decided bravery; and this our friend knows tate the old writing of a deed of grant so perfectly, full well, so that if a mounted marauder came with copy a signature so exactly, or take off the impresspear in rest too swiftly over the plain, our man of sion of a signet so cleverly (if worth his while), as war, without a doubt, would trust to his spur rather Sheikh Ooluf-oo-deen. But moonshees are of various than his sword. He has done so before, and lives to classes, not all so able or so influential as the inditell the tale; not of how he fled, however, but of how vidual described, and yet characters in their way. he fought, and conquered these same "men in buck- I knew one, Kurreem Khan, a Persian, for instance, ram." Now, however, with great zeal, he seizes the who prided himself on his poetry, and knew nothing letter from the moonshee, raises it to his forehead, either of that, or of anything else in the world. It wraps it in a muslin scarf, and tucks it in his waist- was his pleasure to wear the ancient Persian dress, belt; with a mighty clatter he then seeks his horse, consisting of a white turban, a muslin vest, and light that has been screaming and roaring as only an irre- blue body dress with hanging sleeves, lined with red gular horseman's ignoble steed can scream and roar, and yellow chintz; he delighted in strolling about by for the last hour, and clambering into the well-stuffed moonlight, sitting at early dawn surrounded by the saddle, the rider dashes through the gates at furious green blades of a field of damp jowarree (species speed; but the moment the residency walls are hidden of corn), and wrote execrable verses on all the by the neighbouring gardens, the letter-bearer draws most common-place incidents of his very uninteresthis rein, takes out his Kaliun, and does his duty in a ing life. His days were passed in mingled idleness very easy pleasant way. Our moonshee meanwhile and ineffable self-conceit. With a pair of striped cashturns to other duties. As fast as they can be read he mere socks, and shagreen slippers from Caubool, with runs over petition after petition, in the Mahratta or iron heels decorating his feet, he strolled about, Guzzerattee languages, his master, perhaps, writing reading his verses to every one he met, and refreshto a friend the while, about a tent, or a horse, or aing his mind and body, at certain intervals, with pic-nic; and at the end the moonshee briefly explains one or two, and a letter is directed to be written-a very ordinary letter, without gold-dust, or compliments, or brocade, or muslin bags, or large seals

larger quantities of pillau, curried bajee (spinach), and sweetened rice, than one would have thought it possible any "true believer" could have discussed with comfort.

Another moonshee, also a character in his way, at the foot of the Bolan pass. From the moment the might be classed as the melancholy moonshee. He order was given, Zowkeram forgot every tittle of his was very pale, and very thin, wore spectacles, and a learning. He forgot that he had ever learned to trace tall black lambskin cap with a scarlet bag, according a Persian word to its Arabic root; that he had ever to the fashion of such things in Bokhara, and he was written letters to Dost Mahomed and the Khan of wiser than Kurreem Khan; he did not believe that Khelat that in their several durbars had been conan eclipse was caused by the sun and moon fighting sidered marvellous specimens of rhetoric and pentogether, nor was he sure that the earth was sup-manship; he forgot his talents for negotiation and ported on the back of a tortoise, nor was he quite political chicanery, he almost forgot how to abuse a satisfied that the sun was obliging enough to go back Mohammedan, and thought only of the wars of Lanka, under the earth every night, to be ready to rise in the Devi's fights with the giants, and the horsemanship of east in the morning; he had doubts on these subjects, Roostum. His white cotton dress was exchanged for but he had no doubt of the tree in Mahomet's para- a quilted body coat of green cloth, lined with Mandise, that blossoms twice a-year with full suits of chester chintz, and edging the robe, as an English winter and summer dresses for the faithful; nor did peer would use ermine. His Arab sword depended he question that it was from the heat-drops that fell by cross belts from his shoulder, his shield occupied from the brow of Peer Mungul, that all the alligators the space between his horse and his turban, a pair of sprung that abound in the tank near Karrachee. cavalry pistols protruded from his waist-shawl (the These were his favourite matters of faith; beyond seven-barrelled weapon reposing in his bosom), and them he never speculated, but sat on the floor of the in his hand he carried an immensely long and keenly tent all day, with the gulistan upon his lap, looking tipped spear. Boots of untanned sambur skin, broiintensely miserable, and whenever news was told him, dered with coloured silks, reached above his knees, at even of the most stirring kind, he would but ejaculate, the heels of which were a pair of racing spurs, that in slow and right dismal tones, "God is great," and had once won the day for the first Delhi jockey. relapse into his previous state. I never saw Lootuj Such was the outward aspect of the worthy Zowreally cheerful till he got among the tombs at Táttál, keram when about to mingle with the illiterate desert a city of tombs in Lower Sindh, but when lounging hordes: but the inward man was not panoplied with about among them he became stimulated and com-courage, as the outward man with steel-war was his municative, told us how one was erected over the taste, not his nature; and, in strict confidence with tooth of a mighty prince of the Talpur dynasty, how the reader, it must be confessed that, perhaps, in all another was nightly guarded by a dervish in the Hindostan there could not be found a greater coward form of a tiger, and so on, till in the end, having at heart than worthy Zowkeram, the warrior moonescaped being poisoned by snakes, or buried under a shee. He rode forth through the deserts of Cutchee crumbling dome, or stung to death by wasps, all like one of the valiant, but it was because a band of which were very likely to have happened, the irregular horsemen, a troop of cavalry, and some melancholy moonshee was attacked by fever, and hundred sepoys, hedged him in on every side; and despatched by the earliest boat to the mouths of the I strongly suspect that if his village had been made Indus, an incident rather agreeable, perhaps, than the object of a night attack by three cultivators deterotherwise, as miseries always seem to be a sort of mined to punish the grain-sellers for roguery, Zowcomfort to dismal people. Then in our varieties one keram would have been the first to have rushed forth, must not omit Zowkeram, the warrior moonshee! Hindoo as he was, with a Koran on his head, and to Poor Zowkeram! I know not if the better part of shout Aman, Aman! (mercy, mercy!) He boasted valour may have saved him in the Sindhian wars, but much of his prowess, as all cowardly people do. He the banks of the Indus could not produce a more loved tiger-hunting, too, when he could sit snugly amusing character. He was a Hindoo, as his name among the branches of a tree; and battue-shooting, informs us, Ram being a noted hero in their my- when he could be second in line behind a file of thology; yet, being under a Mohammedan govern- matchlocks. I well recollect a tiger-hunt with element, he adopted the Mohammedan costume, tied his phants, that formed the princely sport of Meer Alli body-coat on the left, instead of the right side, a very Moorad: as part of the cortège, caracoling about the important distinction; and when he became excited, tents, none more brilliant, none more excited, none as he very often was, and passing wrathful, he would better armed, than Zowkeram, but the hunt once on pour invective on invective against the individual foot, the moonshee was nowhere to be found. The object, in such a torrent of words as no ear could tigress and her cubs were brought in slain, and a follow, and end quite exhausted, with the powerful brief space afterwards, with drawn sword, unfolded desire, "May your father be burnt;" just as if he turban, and face disfigured by many wounds, rushed were a good Mohammedan, indulging his national an- up the moonshee; he had fought desperately, thrice tipathy to idol worshippers and their ways, though had the tigress leaped on him from her covert, and everybody round knew perfectly well that Zowkeram's thrice had he risen to renew the strife:-it was too father himself had been burnt, and that at an expense absurd; but yet over the crackling fires that same of five hundred rupees, feasting, confectionary, and night, did Zowkeram repeat the tale to wondering all, to the eternal honour of his loving family. listeners; and the particulars he gave were so distinct, and his own bruises so apparent, that I, like others, was half inclined to cry Shah Bash! thou man of courage! until a Sindhian, who had seen the facts, told them in confidence to my head servant: the moonshee had quietly retreated to smoke his kaliun in the quiet bed of a rocky water-course, and the hunt had gone that way, a hard-pressed cub had sprung from the bank, and leaped across, fear and surprise flung the moonshee on his face, and the rocky soil dealt harshly with him; happily, both for

Zowkeram was more honest than most of his class, I doubt if he would have taken a bribe; but those who desired to oblige him were wont to make little cadeaux of matchlocks, particularly long in the barrel; two-edged Arab swords; pistols to carry seven bullets; and little matters of that sort; so that Zowkeram's armoury would have quite delighted Sir Samuel Merrick for the variety and rarity of its specimens. And his great delight was to be sent across the desert of Cutchee with orders to the governors of the towns

66

the contusions and his character, blood flowed, and brought his wine-glass over to me to make me his thus, though his descent was not noble, the moonshee confidant. Behold a specimen of his talk, "You saw still, as we see, prided himself upon his blood! the schools to-day of course-have done a deal of The acquirements of provincial moonshees as lin-good-made the Church felt. I—er—I—er," with guists are not of a very high order, and even those a beautiful diffidence, and modest, downcast eye, "I of Bombay will not bear a comparison to the City of started the notion, I believe, and the gentry round Palaces. Their chief employment at our presidency were very liberal. I wrote to two or three of them is to finish the course of instruction for young men myself." "Indeed," said I, "you must have been desiring to pass examinations in the native languages; of some help indeed. But I should have thought it but in the sister presidency of Calcutta, men of this was rather out of your way from your previous conclass devote their abilities to many abstruse and in-versation." This confused him. He looked very ugly teresting questions in the religion and antiquities of indeed. I thought at the time it was odd he had not the country, although, very unfortunately, their aid mentioned the Rector, who I knew had borne more to those pursuing such inquiries is not always to be than half the expense, and had himself drawn the relied on, as some of our first Orientalists have found, plans. I learnt afterwards, that all this story of the to the negativing of a life's labour on a particular subject. Doctor was a work of his own glowing imagination; They are very adroit, these moonshees, discovering, as the schools had been entirely set on foot by Mr. with the peculiar quickness of the native mind, ex- Montague. However, Mr. Hutchins soon recovered. actly what is required, and not hesitating to employ There is a very nice young child there. Her name any means likely to gratify their employer. A word is Edwards-a little girl with a pale face, rather tall or figure is easily changed in an Oriental MS., and a for her age. They say she is the cleverest girl in the moonshee must be clumsy indeed, who, in the employ school-I am so very glad, for I induced her mother of a statistic-hunter, a numismatist, or in any other to send her there. I did not know at the time that branch of the arcana of antiquity, cannot discover what I had said would have had such an effect. I in some old grant or Persian history exactly the one simply spoke of the goodness of Church schools." stone required to knit a clever hypothesis together. This last bit was a piece of late humility, such as it Still the moonshee must be respected, for he is the was. "By the by, can you tell me, sir, what I can doorkeeper to all the interest and real acquaintance do in a little matter that rather annoys me just now. the sojourner in the East can hope to gain, connected I am visiting a poor woman (of course for nothing) with the people and their land; and the successful who is very uneasy in her mind. She begged me to aspirant to distinction, whether civil or military, is let her disclose her troubles to me, and to give her ever the man who, day by day, has hailed with advice, as she had heard some of the good things I pleasure the advent of his "moonshee." had said to some of her neighbours. What can I do?" Of course, refer her to the clergyman of the parish," I answered. "That I did; But you know, sir,' she said, how kind you have been to me, indeed I don't know what would have become of me else, and I had rather you should talk to me than the parson.' "Then that woman is not the person I should encourage; " and so saying, I turned on my heels, and joined the ladies. The egotistical, vulgar fellow! self the beginning-self the middle-self the end. I wonder whether the peacocks in his garden are a piece of symbolism? Query for Durandus?

EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF AN
OXFORD MAN.1

T. N. H.

June 22d.—I have hardly ceased laughing ever since yesterday, when first I met that dear couple. Oh! the gaunt house is nothing to them. I won't describe madame, save only to hint that she is somewhat given to a good-humoured corpulency. I had the felicity, somehow or other, of handing her in to the dishes, which she greatly admired, with the silent admiration of a very practical appetite. "You are at the College," she said, addressing me. "I was, madam, some few weeks ago." "Yes, Mr. Hutchins was also; he took his degree (that is the right name, I believe,) at the College of Surgeons." I was soon interested; for the poor woman had evidently made him her earthly ideal. No one was so handsome, no one so clever as he; and it was half-amusing, except for another different sort of thought, to see how reverently she listened to every word he spake, while she gazed on his very plain face with a tender fondness, as if it were too good for her-more in fact than she deserved. So it was, poor woman, but in a different sense. A fleshy, turn-up nose, bull-dog neck, skull in which the bump of self-esteem, as phrenologists say, was pretty largely developed, sandy hair, what there was of it, approaching almost to red, a coarse complexion, vulgar hands and feet, and a very tall, lusty, thick-set body, with high shoulders, which was poised in air upon two bowed legs, formed his main attractions. I had a good opportunity of knowing him, for he decidedly came out after dinner-talked physical science, and adopted a sceptical line. But Montague was too much for him. He quietly exposed him, and when he got boisterous and hot, kept silence. So Mr. Hutchins

(1) Continued from p. 21.

66

Worse and worse in the drawing-room. First did he stand in front of the fire-place, as if warming himself in imagination, with his face towards the teatable, and with his hands in his coat-pockets, which diverged on either side, like two wings in an atrophy. After this he seats himself on the sofa, resting one leg upon it, with the other firmly planted on the lowest bar of a chair close by, much to the horror of the poor maid-servant, who was making herself useful with the bread and butter and the kettle. Montague could not stand it; and, rising with a look of unconcealed disgust, gently hinted to him in an under tone, at the same time touching him to attract his notice, that "it was not usual to lie down in drawing-rooms." Not at all abashed, he became cruelly vivacious, and suddenly asked Miss Montague whether she knew why opium was like yellow soap? He absolutely roared with laughter, till in mercy to his muscles the lady requested the answer, which was, "Because it's a soporific (soap-horrific)." He was asked to sing, and gave vent in a dismal succession of discords to a comic song about old boys who weren't married, because they wouldn't, and old maids who weren't married, because they couldn't, ending up with a glowing exhortation to the young to get married, while singing which moral, he looked round, and nodded and winked patronizingly and confidentially

Is not

to Miss Montague. She laughed very, very much; | little astonishment; at last she could not contain not, however, as she afterwards told me, at the song, herself, and on my ending, said, "Really, really," (it as Mr. Hutchins fondly supposed. His good wife did, needed not this iteration to convince any one that the however, which was as good. Her admiration at the old lady was in earnest,) "I cannot at all agree, Mr. aforesaid riddle was uncontainable; and she secretly Freeman, with your views about education. confided to the younger Miss Montague, that "Mr. one of the worst evils we have to contend against, a H. was a droll creature. It was his relaxation. He spirit of romance and poetry, which leads young had so much work, poor man! To-day he had a case people astray in all directions? I have seen the evil of-of-" but unable to remember the hard word, of it, in my day, I can assure you. To what must we she appealed to her husband, "Henry, dearest, what attribute the elopements-hasty and unequal marwas that poor woman's case you went to to-day?" | riages—broken hearts, which so often make domestic "What should women know about such things?" was life a misery, but to this? Once give way to the the dearest's gracious reply, uttered in a short, gruff imagination, and it is impossible to say what it will sort of snarl. I looked at his wife, and saw a sly tear end in. All the proper domestic duties are neglected, hiding itself up in a corner of her eye, and a shade the household left to itself; all the useful things passed over her, but it soon vanished, as some more which a housewife ought to know, are despised, and of his humour (such as it was) rolled out. a wife is turned into a lady who can sit at the head of a table, and sing, and in the end ruin her husband. I cannot, for my part, see the use of music, unless one has a particular taste for it. I don't see any practical good in it. It is much better to learn how to take care of a household, and to limit its expenses, I am It is ridiculous to see people sitting down to a piano, who cannot even spell their own language, filling their heads with fine thoughts which they can never realize." A smile passed over the good old Rector's face, but he was too religious to laugh at simplicity of head like this, and he quietly said, "But you know, my dear Mrs. Hutchins, the two may possibly go together. A young lady need not altogether neglect grammar, no, nor even the science of family economy, because she cultivates her love for

"A dog, a woman, a walnut-tree,

The more you beat them, the better they be."

So says the proverb; so acts Mr. Hutchins, apparently; for there are worse thumps you can give a woman than thumps with your fist-thumps much harder to bear, and more acutely felt. If a woman lose her husband's sympathy, for whom she has given up all she has and is, hers is indeed a pitiable isolation, too

sad for tears. To what else can she look in this world?

sure.

sweet sounds.'

The very dependence of her lot makes her solitude of heart more rayless and irremediable. And is not this the cause why one sees youthful gaiety and lightheartedness metamorphosed by marriage, as one often does see, into that dull, tearless, passionless, stony, icy, insensate grief, which walks about in life as if it had nothing to do with it, had no interest in "Ah! Mr. Montague, we, who are it--a grief, which shows its work like the water drop- sobered by experience, may think so, but these giddy ping on the stone beneath in the course of years the things," and here Mrs. Hutchins, in a very matronly living coffin of hope; that most painful, most heart-way, and with a good easy smile, patted the cheek of lacerating of sights-the death-life of widowed duty, beside her, "you know, will spend their time in what the younger Miss Montague, who was sitting close working and toiling, like a galley-slave, without a heart? But I am getting sentimental. they like best, and are too apt to neglect that which is useful for what is more showy. People ought to be practical first, and then, if they have time, acquire some of these accomplishments, if they have a taste for them."

After Mr. Hutchins' song, at my particular request the Miss Montagues sang a beautiful duet, from Norma, and then, "at her father's desire," Miss Montague sang one or two of the Jacobite songs, "Charlie is my darling," "Welcome, royal Charlie," (with a sly look at her brother), and another, the subject of which was the gathering of the clans. It was delightful to see Mr. Montague's usually still, pensive eyes light up with a sudden fire, as his daughter sang these songs in a wild, half-plaintive, half-ardent way, which so well embodied the spirit of the words. I could not resist a remark that the English did not seem to me to make such account as they ought of music in National Education, that they hardly seemed aware of its effects on the young mind. And I read in support of this a passage which I had, only a day or two before I left Oxford, copied into my common place-book. While I was reading the passage, I was sitting opposite to Mrs. Hutchins, and I saw the good old lady (she was some years older than her husband) raise her eyes in some

(1) From Dr. Moore's Use of the Body in relation to the Mind. The universal disposition of human beings from the cradle to the death-bed, to express their feelings in measured cadences of sound and action, proves that our bodies are constituted on musical principles, and that the harmonious working of their machinery depends on the movements of the several parts being timed to each other, and that the destruction of health, as regards both body and mind, may be well described as being put out of tune. Our intellectual and moral vigour would be better sustained, if we more practically considered the propriety of keeping the soul in harmony, by regulating the movements of the body: for we should thus see and feel that every affection which is not connected with social enjoyments, is also destructive of individual comfort, and that whatever tends to harmonize, tends also to pro

"Well, after all, Mrs. Hutchins, you must not be frightened, but I do not think the knowledge of domestic economy-a useful thing as it is in its way-the most necessary part of a young lady's education, or even of what is required for a wife; and I really very much question whether a thorough education in music would not of the two, if I were obliged to choose, have my vote." The old lady positively almost gasped for breath; she stared at Mr. Montague, as if she were really afraid he had suddenly gone mad, and was about to put her excited feelings into words, when her husband, in a harsh, snubbing tone, suddenly cried out from another part of the room, whither he had dragged Charles Montague, "We had ears given us as well as stomachs, Mrs. H., hadn't we? And what are they for, if it

isn't to use 'em?"

I confess I never felt so disposed to adopt Mrs. Hutchins's opinion as now, and I ventured to remark mote happiness and health. There is every probasility that a general improvement in our taste for music would really improve our morals. We should indeed be more apt to detect discords, but then we should also be more ready to avoid their causes, and should not fail to perceive that those feelings which admit not of cheerful, chaste, and melodious expression, are at war both with soul and body. A wholesome musical education is perhaps a necessary part of high religious cultivation, and it will be far more valuable to children than the catechistic familiarity with great truths, which being committed to memory as a task, are alas! too apt for ever after to be associated with dark ideas, instead of directing the soul to the Maker of illuminated worlds." This, though expressed in loose and rhetorical speech, implies a deep truth.