of Delhi. Her poetry resembles theirs, and is very popular among the natives. Dilbar, surnamed Choti-Begam, or "the Little Lady," has acquired a name among the poets of her time. An Indian biographer describes her thus: "She is beautiful and charming, pleasant to the soul, and of sweet manners; her breath, like that of the Messiah, dispels grief. Her face shines as with the light of the sun, but is gentle as the moon. Her skin is like silver; her chin is a beautiful crystal her port is majestic, her step noiseless and graceful, and her words are delicious. What more shall I say? It is as difficult to describe her beauty as her wonderful eloquence." The poems of Chanda, (moon,) called Mah-Sica, (face of the moon,) queen of Haiderabad, recall the impassioned strains of Sappho. The following song is an example of her style : Many of the simple Bayadères are women of good acquirements and poetic talent such is Moti, (pearl,) of Delhi, beloved of Martul, a distinguished Hindoostanee poet. She is the author of several graceful and elegant gazals; also Jan, (life,) or rather Jan-Sahib, (Mrs. Jan,) of Farrukhâbâd. We learn from some original biographies that she applied herself to music and literature in childhood, that she mastered the Persian language, and read the Gulistân, the Bostân, and the Bahâr-Danisch, but that Hindoostanee poetry was her favorite study. In 1847, when twenty-six years old, she published a Dirman, a collection of her poems,-which was much admired by her literary cotemporaries, and acquired for her great renown, particularly at Lakhnan, where she resides. Her poems are skillfully managed, and are marked by delicate and ingenious pleasantries. most admired of her poems is the following gazal, addressed to her lover when he left for the army :— "Lovers do not leave the street of their mistress; but while all others weary me with love, you alone are cruel. "If you never left me, no, not for a moment, could I then suspect your fidelity? "My sad cries pierce heaven; but the proud emir who has betrayed my heart, does he hearken to my laments? wine, and a perfumed zephyr lies in the air, in"When the cup-bearer brings me rose-colored toxication quickly vails my eyes. "The rose asks why, since I have my reason, I blame her sweet influence, which intoxicates me? "The pallor of my cheeks is to me a sign of death; but she who is ready to stake her life for love, can she fear death? "Alas! he does not return. Why fix my eyes on the road? It is all in vain. "And this is the emir who, having distinguished me in an assembly of beautiful women, cried, Henceforth I will never leave thee!' "Then I arose, inwardly saying, 'If I speak to another, he will die of jealousy.' "And now what can I do but search for him far and wide? Yet in spite of my violent love, I dare not take this dangerous step." These specimens will suffice, perhaps more than suffice, for most of our readers. They are genuine expressions of the universal passion, and they are genuinely poetic. Anacreon and Sappho would not have despised some of them. Our design, however, in giving them here, is to show a development of Hindoo thought, supposed by very few among us to exist in that barbarous land, especially among its women, whose intellectual position is so generally degraded. We shall reserve for another paper more varied specimens of the Indian poetry. SIX BETTER THAN NINE.-In the meridian of his reputation, Hook was incessantly worried by Albina, Countess of Buckingham, with cards for "coffee at nine o'clock," but never with an invitation for the more genial hour of six, at which lastmentioned hour the dinner on her ladyship's table was most punctually served. It may be supposed he never accepted the invitation for nine, and, to avoid their conBut the most remarkable in this tinuous recurrence for the future, returned last category of female poets is Zinat, of an answer to the last: "Mr. Hook preDelhi, who is as celebrated for her genius sents his compliments to the Countess of as for her love to Mir-Mustahsan Kalic, Buckingham, and has the honor to inform who is the son of Mir Haçan, the author her ladyship that he makes it an invariaof Sihrulbayan, and one of the most dis- ble rule to take his coffee where he dines." tinguished poets of modern India. The-Richardson's Recollections. IMPRESSIONS OF TRAVEL IN FRANCE. IN SECOND ARTICLE. N our last article we referred to the absence of beggary in much of France: it is a 66 new feature" of the country. It much improves the general" countenance" of the nation, unquestionably; but that it indicates an equal absence of want and suffering is doubtful. Mendicity is legally prohibited in many departments. The interdict is inscribed on the sign-boards of the street-corners. Poverty must therefore skulk aside, or disguise itself in some fantastic form of humor or legerdemain an artifice sad enough when associated with misfortune and wretchedness, but quite agreeable to French taste. Nothing, indeed, is more melancholy here to a stranger than the broken, subdued, and sometimes gasping voices of decrepid men or women, uttering, in the court-yards or at the porticos, humorous songs as appeals for charity. The humor of the ditty cannot disguise the broken heart; and the brow, smitten with prolonged sorrow, cannot yield the accompaniment of a smile to the comical strain. And when poor little withered children are heard, quite into the weary night, pleading thus for bread, or for suffering ones at home, one feels that the comedy of French life is, after all, the same sad tragedy that humanity enacts everywhere. Our Protestant blood has bubbled quite up to the boiling point, several times, at one fact here, in connection with this matter of mendicity; namely, that while poverty and misfortune are driven into close quarters, quite out of sight, or compelled to disguise their sorrows under comical grimaces, the priests have really taken possession of the vacated field, and ecclesiastical mendicity is rife everywhere. At every door, at almost every pillar in the churches, the appeal is made to you for "Charité, s'il vous plait!" This is not the case in the poorer or suburban churches merely, but in the most magnificent and opulent temples-at Notre Dame, the Madeleine, the Pantheon, St. Sulpice. The latter is especially fervent and multiform in inculcations of the duty. "troncs" hang almost everywhere against the pillars and the walls, with beseeching inscriptions that you would remember such and such a beneficent design-the Little 66 repair of the adjacent side chapel; the purchase of a reliquary" for the better preservation of the toe of Saint Somebody, or the ear of the martyr somebody else. The honest foreigner may stand, scratching his head, in devout thoughtfulness for hours, if he please, before these "troncs," to recall the historical claims of the defunct saint; but it will usually be in vain. Most of them are known only to the initiated, and to them only as crazy legends which people the preternatural world with ridiculous fantasies. If he evades the "tronc," let him beware how he attempts to relieve his eye with the pictures in the side chapels. The chances are, that the very first one repeats the appeal of the "tronc" with an eloquence before which his terrified soul will stand aghast. On the pillar by his side, the "tronc" beseeches charity that "masses" may be purchased for souls in purgatory. On the picture, alas! he sees the poor souls themselves (as real as paint can make them) driven over the fiery wall, pursued by demons; while stooping angels, weeping over the scene, seem incapable of relieving them till the solicited charity is accorded. Some of these pictures are absolutely intolerable. The mob of the next revolution would pay a homage to humanity and religion by tearing them down. They sometimes represent families |—widows and orphan children-bending with desolation over the open graves of their dead, while the departed soul shrinks away into the abyss of fiery suffering. Such attempts to wring from the heart of sorrow itself the pittance of charity—often the pittance of poverty-are a refinement of priestly cruelty and imposture which the good sensibility, if not the good sense of the people ought to indignantly forbid. Some of these "troncs" plead for charity in behalf of the poor. We will not suppose that they are not honestly used for the purpose; but it would certainly look better if they were not associated with so many sheerly ecclesiastical designs, and with legendary pretensions, the transparent imposture of which the most determined credulity can hardly deny. Many of the Parisian priests are learned men; they sit in the chairs of the Institute-do they believe these follies? can they believe them? And yet, when have you heard a whisper raised by them against such degradations of religion and of the people? Besides the "troncs" and the "collec- Popery, they do not violently demur at it. tion," (which never fails to go the rounds By that policy several faiths are now really at any public service,) you often find lay national religions in the empire-the Rogentlemen, (for such they appear, in man Catholic, the Protestant Reformed, dress, at least,) and oftener well-dressed (old Huguenotic,) the Lutheran Reformed, ladies, at the doorways, thrusting gilded (chiefly in Alsatia,) the Jews, (everypurses at you point-blank, and keeping where,) the Mohammedans, (in Algeria,) up the everlasting refrain, "La charité, are recognized state religions, supported s'il vous plait-la charité, s'il vous plait!" out of the treasury, and supposed to be These importunate representatives of protected in their respective rights by the the priests must be numbered by thous- government, though it is found that not ands in Paris alone. Often, too, vil- only the chief treasury aid, but nearly all lages are canvassed, street by street, with the "protection," is accorded to Popery. the appeal "la charité" from such mes- The government says, virtually, that “As sengers, or sisters of charity en costume, you are all supported by the state, you and this is done openly in departments must be at peace among yourselves." where the interdict of mendicity stares Very good advice, if it did not really down from every corner into the sad face amount to saying that "You, Protestants, of the poverty-smitten old man, the widow, must not go out of your petty limits: if or the fatherless. So extreme has this you go' evangelizing' into any neighborecclesiastical beggary become in France, hood where you are not already estabthat the public press has had to attack it. lished, we shall fine and imprison you: if The Paris Siècle, especially, has remon- you publish a book, or preach a discourse, strated against it as bringing religion into impeaching Popery, we must also punish scorn; and its correspondents from the you as attacking a state institution, and provinces have represented the country therefore disturbers of public order," as infested with churchmen and church- &c. In fine, as Popery has precedwomen, who thus claim exemption from ence everywhere, this government polthe proscription of mendicity-who, in icy amounts simply to a protection of it fact, claim the field out of which the real in undisturbed possession of the land. poor of the land-the old, the halt, the Prelates and priests, therefore, quietly acblind-have been whipped by the scourge cept it as a singular providence, which of the law. The evil is really an epidemic. makes use of a heterodox fact for the proPopery is supported by the government; tection of the "faithful." They would its priests are salaried, and its edifices rather choose that there should be no rebuilt or repaired from the state budget; cognition of Protestantism at all, and are but it is not content: its grasp is upon the amazed at finding the Jews and Mussul"means" of the humblest" work-people." mans standing side by side with themBesides its government support, the church- selves under the egis of the state; but as es in Paris alone receive no less than these heretics are in chains there, though five million francs annually as perquisites lustily fed with treasury pap, while Popery —that is, for burying the dead, baptisms, is both thoroughly fed and thoroughly free marriages, &c. This includes not its im--is fat and kicking, like Jeshurun, and mense receipts as donations and douceurs, nor the results of "la charité" appeals, which are incessantly ringing through the churches. We pass, naturally, to the religious aspect of the country. Napoleon I. attempted an odd policy respecting religion-a very good one for himself, as it gave him the control of the leading religions; but one that struck the Papists with an astonishment from which they have not recovered to this day. They hardly know how to pronounce upon it, even at this date; it is, they affirm, unquestionably heterodoxical; but as it practically favors roaring like a bull of Bashan—what matters it?-the good bishops shrug their shoulders with a n'importe. Such, then, badinage apart, is the condition of religion here in its relations to the state. There is no right of self-extension to Protestantism; many chapels stand closed to-day because they have been obtrusively built; numerous public schools (no less than eight in one department) are at this moment closed, though they were designed for Protestant children alonethey happened to be located where none of the kind had preceded them. No Protestant clergyman can legally obey the "higher law" of the apostolic commission, to "go" anywhere and everywhere, "and preach the Gospel to every creature.” What ought the Protestant clergy to do in such a case? Is that a question? What ought they to do? What, but to cast all this state 66 protection" to the winds, and, lifting a universal voice of remonstrance, shout to the Napoleons, and all other tyrants "We recognize a Sovereign higher than Cæsar; we are his embassadors, and can die in your prisons, but not compromise his dignity and his supremacy." That would be worthy of them, and it would be policy too. A hundred or five hundred Protestant clergymen, praying in the prisons of France, would emancipate the nation in one month, and quite probably emancipate Western Europe with it. But this is a hard saying, and who, here, will receive it? Under the state of things we have described, of course Popery is rampant. It has no other reason to be-the literary mind of France detests it; the popular intelligence of the nation turns away in disgust from it; the common mind has memories of it, which, if bravely appealed to by Protestantism, would leap like lightnings from the clouds. But the government uses it for policy; the priests are an army; the "religious houses are everywhere, and are moral fortresses against popular opinions and rights; and, meanwhile, Protestantism is bound hand and foot-on condition of being fed ! The priests are an army, we repeat. Add other ecclesiastics, and you have several corps d'armes. Remember that their territory here could be put into one of our single large states, and then think of the fact that within these limits is a corps of about forty-five thousand priests. And while you hesitate, with doubt, at this statement, learn the other well-ascertained fact, (for there are official statistics,) that there is an army of monks seventeen thousand strong abetting these priests!idlers, or worse, who ought to be taught the duties of good, industrious citizens, if by no other means than repairing the highways. But this is not all-nay, worse than all this, there are no less than seventy-five thousand nuns here-many of them, doubtless, good women, God bless them! but whose offices of charity could be infinitely more gracious, as well as more graceful, if performed in the unosten tatious walks of private and domestic life, as by their Protestant sisters, rather than in the begrimed habiliments and for the questionable ends of "Ecclesiastical Houses." The greatest proportion of these ecclesiastical women, of course, have little or nothing to do with charitable offices, and those who do only minister to an ecclesiastical system which imposes infinitely more evils upon the people than even such a corps of "Sisters of Charity" could counteract. There are at least thirty convents in Paris alone. There are nearly six hundred monasteries in France. The whole ecclesiastical force, including monks and nuns, can be little short of one hundred and thirty-three thousand. It has gained about one-fifth of its strength within the last quarter of a century. Protestantism, here, has had a singular history; there is at least one anomaly in it-the policy of persecution appears to have been successful with it. St. Bartholomew's, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and other hostilities to the Protestant cause, seem, contrary to the testimony of ecclesiastical history in all other cases, to have nearly succeeded in their heinous purpose. Protestantism has not, at least, recovered yet from these stunning blows. Christianity has, in every other instance, triumphed through persecution— "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church," has passed into a trite truism. Alas for French Protestantism! It has stood here for generations a mere specter of Deism, amid the sweeping follies of Popery. I know not how to account for the anomalous fact, except by referring it to the peculiar national idiosyncrasies of this most anomalous people-a people whom Gibbon long ago said were an exception to all the laws of history-greatest in its excellences and in its follies of all nations. But let us hope that this judgment of French Protestantism may be premature. There may yet be a splendid history for it. There are now about two millions of Protestants in France; they have about nine hundred clergymen of different denominations. Thirty years ago all these, except, perhaps, half a dozen, were Rationalists; that is, in honest language, Deists; and there was not, twenty-five years ago, an evangelical Protestant pastor in the city of Paris. Half the Protes the forms of Charlotte Corday, of Madame Roland, of the Princess Lamballe, and Madame Elizabeth- the shades of the beautiful, the noble, the saintly, dragged to the prisons, the guillotine, the rivers, from almost all the best homes of France tant clergy of the nation are now supposed to be evangelical; they have a majority in the ecclesiastical elections of the capital; evangelical movements are taking place in many directions; Missions, Bible Societies, Tract Societies, Sunday Schools, Colporteurage, are struggling along as en--they haunt the air still-they form a ergetically, perhaps, as the government policy will admit; and, above all, churches are organizing against the "State-Church" policy, with brave and fiery-hearted pastors-none the worse for being fiery, in the peculiar state of things here. The great want of French Protestantism is, in fact, a "baptism of fire," an outburst of zeal an enthusiasm founded on overpowering faith in the reality of the spiritual world, and which, trampling this world in the dust, will heroically challenge emperor and pope, imprisonment and death, as "seeing Him that is invisible." A dash of fanaticism even would be preferable to the moral death that once reigned, and still extensively reigns here. Enthusiasm is as legitimate to true Christianity as heroism is to war, as sympathy is to sorrow, or smiles to joy. But enough of the religion of the French. The French are considered a gay people. Are they such? Late writers say they are not. Bulwer, twenty-five years ago, remarked, in his book on Paris and the French, that they were no longer so, and that other observers besides himself had already spoken of the change which seemed to be coming over the national temperament. The Revolution-that tremendous earthquake of humanity, whose vibrations still tremble along the walls and towers of Church and State over half the world -that saddest, most solemn, most terrible, and most salutary stroke of retribution from heaven against modern nations-the Revolution has, in fact, left the murmur of its commingled sobs, shrieks, and noise of battle, in all the moral atmosphere of the country; it sighs still through the entire soul of France. The image of the beautiful Marie Antoinette, with locks turned white by the agony of one nightthe greatest sufferer perhaps in history, except Him who sweat drops of blood for us men and our redemption; the terrible specter of the Dauphin, the most beautiful child of France, whose brow, still looking down from these merry galleries like an angel's, was distorted into horror and idiocy, as if beaten by the fists of demons; phantasmagoria, full of specters, tears, and sobs, on all the sky of France. Every place of great resort has its melancholy revolutionary memory. Yonder stands the "Conciergerie," still vocal with the sigh of the prisoner; there is the Place de la Concorde, terrible in its very splendor with the memories of the guillotine; there the Hotel de Ville-you cannot silence as you pass it the suicide-shriek of Robespierre; there the Palais Royale, with its tumultuous horrors; yonder the Convent of the "Cosmes," with its slaughter of nearly two hundred priests and bishops in one day-the blood is yet on its floors; and there that solemn and unearthly monument, the Chapelle Expiatoire, over whose threshold no thoughtful man passes but with a consciousness akin to that which would accompany him into "the land of shadows and of night"--the chapel which covers the spot where were ignobly buried the remains of Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, the Swiss Guard, and so many victims! And then, if you go out of the city to the most popular resorts, everywhere the memories of the Revolution confront you,-Versailles, with the deserted chaumières of the butchered queen; St. Cloud, St. Germain, Meudon, St. Denis,-almost every church and other public edifice shows, in its dilapidations, traces of the terrible convulsion. And this is not only the case in and about Paris; it is so in the provinces-in the south, the north, the east, the west. Not only the public places and public histories, but almost everywhere, private families have a "revolutionary" history written in their dearest blood. What a baptism of commingled blood and fire fell upon this people! Where lives the man who does not see in their history that national sins have their retribution? The corruption of their courts, the persistent superstitions of their Church, the infidelity that sprung up because they had rejected the "Reformation" -all culminated in the retributive terrors of the Revolution. The Revolution was, with France, the converse term of the Reformation: the Ref |