calamity was the re-election of Washington for another term of four years. Accordingly, all his friends and the members of his cabinet earnestly solicited him to allow himself to be re-elected. With considerable reluctance Washington yielded to these solicitations, and suffered himself to be re-elected. The time of his re-election was just that at which the French Revolution was at its height; and it required all Washington's skill and strength of purpose to prevent the United States from being drawn into the vortex of a European war. But although he succeeded in preserving the neutrality of the states, there were many citizens who sympathised with the French revolutionists, and the democratic party, with Jefferson at its head, was gaining ground. So vehement did the struggle between the two parties become towards the end of Washington's second presidency, that even he did not escape the attacks of calumny, and the accusations of an excited public.

So disturbed was the state of political opinion in the union, that many were anxious that Washington should, for a third time, accept the office of president; but against this proposal he was resolute. Accordingly, in 1797, the election of a new president took place. John Adams, of the federalist party, having the largest number of votes, was declared president; Thomas Jefferson, of the democratic party, having the next largest number, was appointed vice-president. Adams was inaugurated on the 4th of March; and immediately after the ceremony Washington retired to Mount Vernon, where he resided for two years and a half, finding a recreation in his old age in those quiet agricultural pursuits which had always been his delight. On the rumour of the probability of a war with France, he was, indeed, appointed commander-in-chief; but he had no occasion to take the field. His health continued to be remarkably good; and, to all appearance, the day of his death was yet distant. But on the 12th of December 1799, having gone out as usual to give directions to his labourers, he was overtaken, when riding home, by a storm of sleet and rain. When he came in, his neck was wet, and the snow had lodged itself in the locks of his hair. Next day he felt that he had taken a cold, but anticipated no danger. He read the newspapers as usual, seemed very cheerful, and when asked to take something for his cold, said: 'No; you know I never take anything for a cold. Let it go as it came.' Before morning he was much worse; he breathed with difficulty, and could scarcely speak. He had himself bled by one of his overseers, and his friend Dr Craik was sent for. The remedies tried produced no effect. A little after four, he desired Mrs Washington to bring two wills which she would find in his desk. After looking at them, he gave her one, which he said was useless, as it was superseded by the other, and desired her to burn it; which she did. Shortly after, he said to Mr Tobias Lear, who lived with him in the capacity of secretary and superintendent of his affairs: 'I find I am going. My breath cannot last long. I believed

from the first that the disorder would be fatal. Do you arrange and record all my late military letters and papers. Arrange my accounts, and settle my books, as you know more about them than any one else, and let Mr Rawlins finish recording my other letters, which he has begun.' To Dr Craik he said: 'Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go.' For some hours he was uneasy and restless, often asking what o'clock it was. About ten, he said with some difficulty to Mr Lear: 'I am just going. Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead. Towards eleven o'clock, he died without a struggle or sigh. Mrs Washington, who was sitting at the foot of the bed, asked: 'Is he gone?' 'It is well,' she said, when told that he was; 'all is now over; I shall soon follow him; I have no more trials to pass through.'

Washington died on the 14th of December 1799, aged sixty-seven years. He was buried at Mount Vernon on the 18th. The news of his death was speedily carried through America, and all over Europe; and everywhere men vied with each other in doing honour to his memory.

One circumstance connected with the death of this great man it is gratifying to record. On his estate, as we have already mentioned, there was a large number of negro slaves. Part of these belonged to Washington himself; the rest were the property of Mrs Washington. During his life, the founder of American liberty seems to have acted, in the matter of slaves, in no more humane or enlightened spirit than any other Virginia gentleman of the time; but at his death he left a benevolent clause in his will, directing that all the slaves he possessed in his own right should be emancipated after Mrs Washington's death. During her life, they were still to continue slaves, because their emancipation, during that period, "though earnestly wished by him, would be attended with insuperable difficulties, on account of their intermarriage with Mrs Washington's own negroes, whom it was not in his power to manumit. At Mrs Washington's death, however, his executors, or the survivors of them, were solemnly enjoined to see the clause in his will respecting the emancipation of the slaves, and every part thereof, religiously fulfilled, without evasion, neglect, or delay.' Such of the negroes thus emancipated as should be old and unable to work, were to be comfortably fed and clothed by his heirs so long as they lived. Such of the young negroes as might have no parents living at the date of their emancipation, or whose parents might be unable or unwilling to provide for them, were to be 'bound by the court till they should arrive at the age of twenty-five years;' and negro children thus bound were to be taught to read and write, and brought up to some useful occupation, agreeably to the laws of the commonwealth of Virginia providing for the support of orphan and other poor children.' In the meantime, until the emancipation

should take place, he expressly forbade 'the sale or transportation out of the commonwealth of any slave he might die possessed of, under any pretence whatsoever.' To one of his slaves, a mulatto man named William Lee, he granted immediate liberty, with an annuity of thirty dollars.

The character of Washington has been often sketched, but probably never with such truth and ability as by his contemporary, and in many respects his rival in greatness, Thomas Jefferson. Although, in the circle of his friends,' says Jefferson, 'where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short, and embarrassed; yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with the world; for his education was merely reading, writing, and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying. His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only in agriculture and English history. His correspondence became necessarily extensive, and, with journalising. his agricultural proceedings, occupied most of his leisure hours within doors. On the whole, his character was, in the mass, perfect; in nothing bad, in a few points indifferent; and it may be truly said that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from men an everlasting remembrance. For his was the singular destiny and merit of leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war for the establishment of its independence; of conducting its councils through the birth of a government new in its forms and principles, until it had settled down in a quiet and orderly train; and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example.'

See p. 22.

HINDUIS M.

INDUISM, the general name for the prevailing religion of India, embraces a variety of creeds, differing from one another even more than the different forms of Christianity do. The several Hindu sects have each its own special directory of faith and worship; but there is a book, or rather a set of books, called the Vedas, venerated by all alike; and although the simple faith and worship there described have hardly a feature in common with modern Hinduism, yet all the sectarian books profess to be founded on the Vedas, and the worshippers believe that they have the sacred authority of those books for all their practices. It is the group of creeds, then, that are ostensibly based on the Vedas that forms the subject of the present paper; and we purpose to sketch the system in the successive phases through which it has passed, from the simple worship of the elements of nature, in which shape we first know it, down to the impure and debasing ritual of the Tantras. But before speaking of the religion itself, it is necessary to say something of the people who profess it.

The population of Hindustan is a mixture of numerous races, the relations of which to one another have as yet been very imperfectly made out. Within the historic period there have been several irruptions of Tartar and Mongol races, Mohammedans, who,

No. 58.

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entering from the north-west, spread themselves over the peninsula as conquerors, and added a still distinguishable element to the population. But a multitude of facts point to the conclusion that, in times before the dawn of history, there must have been a succession of such irruptions from the same quarter, each superposing a fresh stratum on the original tribes, whoever they may have been. One of those streams of immigration has left more marked and indelible traces than any of the others, and may be said to have moulded the whole subsequent history of India; that, namely, of the race in whose language the Vedas are written. This language, called Sanscrit, has been shewn to be nearly akin not only to the ancient language of Persia, but to the principal languages of Europe-to Greek and Latin, and therefore to their modern descendants; to the Celtic, the Teutonic, and the Slavonic tongues. In fact, the recent science of language has put it beyond all reasonable doubt that these languages, now seemingly so diverse, and spoken in regions so wide apart, were in their origin only dialects of one and the same tongue. To account for this fact regarding the languages, ethnologists have formed a theory as to the origin of the nations speaking them. They suppose that, in remote ages, a region of Central Asia, somewhere perhaps to the north of the Hindu Kush, and east from the Sea of Aral, was occupied by a nation or group of tribes all speaking substantially the same language. While yet living together in their native seats, those tribes must have attained a high degree of civilisation, for a number of terms denoting arts and relations of civilised life are found to be common to all the nations descended from them. After a time, this hive of the highest and most improvable type of the human race began to throw off successive swarms towards the west. The first swarm formed the Celts, who were the first of this high race to enter Europe, and who seem at one time to have occupied the greater part of it. At a considerably later epoch than the Celts, came the ancestors of the Italians, the Greeks, and the Teutonic peoples. All these would seem to have made their way to their new settlements through Persia and Asia Minor, crossing into Europe by the Hellespont, and partly, perhaps, between the Caspian and the Black Sea. The stream that formed the Slavonic nations —that is, the Russians, Poles, Servians, &c.-is thought to have taken the route by the north of the Caspian. At a period subsequent to the last north-western migration, the remnant of the primitive stock would seem to have broken up; part poured southwards through the passes of the Himalaya and Hindu Kush into the Punjab, and became the dominant race in the valley of the Ganges; while the rest settled in Persia, and became the Medes and Persians of history.

It is from these eastern members that the whole family takes its name. In the most ancient Sanscrit writings (the Veda), the Hindus