While these disgusting atrocities were passing at court, A discovery was made in the camp of a young girl, in disguise, who had served for some time in one of the battalions of Scindia's army; and when at last her sex was discovered, she met only with increased respect and attention from her comrades; not an individual of the corps presuming to utter a word that might be construed into an insult, nor hinting a doubt that could, in any shape, affect her reputa - tion. 'At length her motive for enlisting and remaining in the service was discovered; an only brother was confined for debt at Bopal, and this interesting young creature had the courage to enrol herself as a common soldier, and afterwards persisted in exposing her person to the dangers and difficulties of a military life, with the generous idea of raising money sufficient to liberate this loved relation from confine ment. "When Scindia was informed of this anecdote, he liberally ordered her discharge to be made out, gave her a handsome present in money, and sent her with a letter to the Nawab of Bopal, warmly recommending both the brother and sister to his favourable notice and protection.' We have quoted this anecdote with pleasure, because it is almost the only one which Mr. Broughton's book affords, that can be said to relieve the sombre strain of his general narrative, or to evince that one spark of human tenderness exists in the bosom of the Mahratta chief. But however despicable or dissolute the character of Scindia may be, Mr. Broughton has just cause of complaint at the manner in which his account of him has been misrepresented. He does not (as has been affirmed) describe Scindia as a disgraceful liar,' or as unsteady in his friendships,' but as surrounded by the insti gators and partakers of his youthful follies, whose characters nevertheless he had sufficient sagacity to estimate at their true worth. Neither does Mr. Broughton describe him as a babbling drunkard:' as far as we can discover, he does not even insinuate in any one page of his book that he was at all addicted to drinking-nor as despised by his enemies; but just the contrary; as feared by them all, with the sole exception of the English. Quotations thus falsified, and for such an object as was evidently in the view of the writer, indicate two qualities which it is painful to observe-deeprooted malignity, and an insolent contempt of truth. They tend to confound all individuality of character, to shake our confidence in facts, and to convert history into a vehicle for satire, and a skreen for libel. It had almost escaped us to remark that the innumerable feasts of the Hindoos are kept by the Mahrattas with ostentatious zeal. The grand festival of the Dusera, in commemoration of the victory gained by Ram Chundra over the giant Rawan, is observed with particular particular magnificence. On this occasion they let fly a number of jays bred for the purpose. "When the flight of jays was discovered, the music struck up, the cannon were discharged, the horsemen fired off their matchlocks, and the crowd rushed towards a field of grain, preserved for the purpose, which they quickly demolished; every individual returning home triumphant with a handful of the spoil. This concluding part of the ceremony is peculiar to the Mahrattas, and is designed, aptly enough, to remind them at once of their origin and profession. After the salute was fired, Scindeah mounted an elephant, superbly caparisoned with massive silver chains about his legs, neck, and tusks, and returned down the line, which then wheeled into divisions, and marched off to their respective camps. Baptiste's brigade was, on this occasion, commanded by his son, a lad about fourteen years of age, very short and thick, and so fat that he seemed to move with difficulty, and who, being dignified with the title of major, appeared in an old-fashioned English uniform, a cocked hat with the flaps down, jockey boots, and a pig-tail.' We have now had enough and more than enough of the Mahrattas. If, however, Mr. Broughton should feel disposed to give us further details concerning these freebooters, we would advise him to forego the plan of printing his remarks in letters to his brother,' and endeavour to digest his narrative into such a shape as to make it more readable. We would also recommend to him to lay aside the miserable affectation of spelling Indian words in a manner different from all other writers; he is not of sufficient authority to set aside the established orthography, and erect a system of his own. It was some time before we recollected our old acquaintance Scindia under the uncouth disguise of Seend,hiya ;-then we have Sipayhees for Sepoys, Muha Raj for Maha Raja, Duk,hun for Deccan; and Bishnu for Vishnu; as if this were not sufficient we have a comma stuffed into the middle of a monosyllable, and, for Singh, Bhaee, &c. are directed to read (if we can) Sing,h, B,haee, and so forth. Other innovations of a similar kind might be pointed out, but we forbear. Enough has been done to mark our reprobation of the attempt, and we have room for no more. ART. III.-1. The Giaour, a Fragment of a Turkish Tale. By Lord Byron. Eleventh Edition.-2. The Bride of Abydos, a Turkish Tale, By Lord Byron. Seventh Edition." WE E remember an old Italian comedy, in which Harlequin, having a house to sell, appears on the stage with a sack full of bricks and broken mortar, and exhibiting these materials as a legitimate sample of his edifice, discreetly abstains from giving any information respecting the shape and arrangement of the building. He He seems to have considered that what is solid and substantial, can receive little increase or diminution of value, from mere varieties of form and distribution; and, in like manner, it has lately been discovered, that poetical fragments may, without inconvenience, be substituted for epic or other poems. It is obvious, that to embellish striking incidents by splendid description, is the boast of the poet, and that from these exertions of his fancy must be derived the principal enjoyment of the reader. Hence it seems to follow, that the interests of both parties may be promoted, by agreeing to reduce every species of composition to its quintessence, and to omit, by common consent, the many insipid ingredients which swelled the redundant narratives of our ancestors. This practice, recommended by the example of Lord Byron, and by that of his literary friend to whom the Giaour is dedicated, would probably have been adopted by a crowd of imitators, but that the new convert, no less inconstant than eccentric, has again suddenly deserted his leader, and has exhibited, in his second Turkish tale, a model of a species of composition equally free from constraint, and equally susceptible of every degree and variety of ornament. The Giaour has been, we believe, very generally admired; but this admiration has been accompanied by almost equally general complaints of the obscurity in which the author has thought fit, not unfrequently, to envelop his meaning; and we still doubt, whether our own attempts to pierce through that obscurity have been quite successful. It has, indeed, been urged, by persons of deep penetration, that this is solely our own fault, because the tale is, in fact, extremely simple. But this is to mis-state the objection, not to answer it. No man can have supposed, that Lord Byron has failed in rendering intelligible to his readers, a very short and plain tale, which he has related both in prose and in verse; neither is it from any abruptness in the transitions from one incident to another, that perplexity arises; but the dramatic form into which the poem is cast, being often very indistinctly traced, the reader is not always able, without a painful effort of attention, to keep his feelings in unison with the changes of scenery and character. 'The tale which these disjointed fragments present, (says Lord Byron in a prefatory advertisement,) is founded upon circumstances now less common in the east than formerly; either because the ladies are more circumspect than in the " olden time;" or because the Christians have better fortune, or less enterprize. The story, when entire, contained the adventures of a female slave, who was thrown, in the Mussulman manner, into the sea for infidelity, and avenged by a young Venetian, her lover, at the time the Seven Islands were possessed by the republic of Venice, and soon after the Arnauts were beaten back from the Morea, which they had ravaged for some time subsequent to the Russian invasion.' And And he adds, in a note at the conclusion of the poem, 'I heard the story by accident recited by one of the coffee-house story-tellers who abound in the Levant, and sing or recite their narratives. The additions and interpolations by the translator will be easily distinguished from the rest by the want of eastern imagery; and I regret that my memory has retained so few fragments of the original.' From this outline it appears that the tale in question, though partly formed on the commonest model of oriental fable, was distinguished by one striking peculiarity. In eastern love-stories the heroine is usually either preserved to her lover by means of some miraculous and preternatural agency, or consigned, with very little ceremony, to death and oblivion; because, in a country where every man is, or may become possessor of a haram, the reciter and hearer of a story will generally be disposed to acquiesce in the necessity of maintaining a severe domestic police, and in the moral fitness of strangling or drowning every female convicted of infidelity. But in the present instance, the seducer of the lovely Leila is a Christian; that is, according to the courtesy of the Mahometan vocabulary, a giaour or unbeliever, who has the audacity to form and execute the desperate project of revenging the death of his murdered mistress, by the sacrifice of her executioner. It is evident that the delineation of such a character is well suited to poetry; and it was, perhaps, further recommended to Lord Byron, by a recollection of the scene in which he first heard it, of the impression which it made on an eastern audience, and of the grotesque declamation and gestures of the Turkish story-teller. The poem commences with a sort of prologue, intended to describe the sensations which a prospect of the shores of Greece, during a calm summer's day, would be likely to awaken in a mind duly impressed with admiration of the ancient glory of that country, and with disgust at the moral degradation of its present inhabitants. On this theme the poet expatiates with great delight; and we cannot refrain from quoting the following highly wrought and characteristic specimen. 'He who hath bent him o'er the dead, Ere the first day of death is fled; The first dark day of nothingness, The last of danger and distress; Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,) VOL. X. NO. XX. That That fires not-wins not-weeps not-now- The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon- "Tis Greece-but living Greece no more! That parts not quite with parting breath; A gilded halo hovering round decay, Spark of that flame-perchance of heavenly birth- Which gleams-but warms no more its cherish'd earth!' pp. 4, 5. It is difficult not to sympathize with the sensibility which dictated the first of these descriptions; and although some cold-blooded readers may, possibly, be unable to discover any analogy between the human soul and the soul of a landscape, or to comprehend the species of death which the soil and climate of Greece may be supposed to have undergone, even such readers will, probably, admire the artful and brilliant metaphors by which the poet has connected these apparently incongruous images. After this general introduction, which has received many improvements since the first edition of the poem, the reader is led to the immediate scene of action, and obtains a slight view of the reciter of the tale. This is a Turkish fisherman, who has been employed during the day in the gulf of Ægina, and in the evening, apprehensive of the Mainote pirates who infest the coast of Attica, lands with his boat in the harbour of Port Leone, the ancient Piræus. He becomes the eye-witness of nearly all the incidents in the story, and in one of them is a principal agent. It is to his feelings, and particularly to his religious prejudices, that we are indebted for some of the most forcible and splendid parts of the poem; and yet, we know not why, the author has not vouchsafed to give him a formal introduction to his readers. Scarcely has he reached the beach, when his attention is arrested Whe |