MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 213- 



Thou may'st well support our children gently guard when I am gone, 

 I shall have no power to guard them nor support them, left alone. 

 Oh, despoiled of thy assistance lord of me, and all I have, 

 How these little ones from ruin how my hapless self to save : 

 Widow'd, reft of thee, and helpless with two children in their youth, 

 How maintain my son and daughter in the path of right and truth. 

 From the lustful, from the haughty how shall I our child protect, 

 When they seek thy blameless daughter by a father's awe unchecked ? 

 As the birds in numbers swarming gather o'er the earth-strewn corn, 

 Thus the men round some sad widow of her noble lord forlorn. 

 Thus by all the rude and reckless with profane desires pursued, 

 How shall I the path still follow loved and honoured by the good ? " 



She thus concludes her forcible appeal : 



" I've borne children, I am aged in my soul I've all revolved, 

 And with spirit strong to serve thee I am steadfast and resolved. 

 Offering me, all-honoured husband thou another wife wilt find, 

 And to her wilt do thy duty gentle as to me and kind. 

 Many wives if he espouses man incurs nor sin nor blame, 

 For a wife to wed another 'tis inexpiable shame. 

 This well weighed within thy spirit and the sin thyself to die, 

 Save thyself, thy race, thy children be the single victim I.' 

 Hearing thus hi's wife, the husband fondly clasped her to his breast, 

 And their tears they pour'd together by their mutual grief oppress'd." 



We said above that there was a little prattling boy in the family ; and the 

 following extract, which concludes the poem, will show that the Indian poets 

 knew how to make him act a pretty part. The daughter has concluded her 

 detail of the reasons which should induce them to make her the victim ; and, 



" As they heard her lamentation in their troubled anguish deep, 

 Wept the father, wept the mother 'gan the daughter too to weep. 

 Then the little son beheld them and their doleful moan he heard ; 

 And with both his eyes wide open lisped he thus his broken word. 

 ' Weep not father, weep not mother Oh, my sister, weep not so ! ' 

 First to one, and then to th' other smiling went he to and fro. 

 Then a blade of spear-grass lifting thus in bolder glee he said, 

 ' With this spear-grass will I kill him this man-eating giant dead.' 

 Though o'erpower'd by bitterest sorrow as they heard their, prattling boy, 

 Stole into the parents^ bosoms mute and inexpressive joy." 



The remaining poem, " The Deluge," which derives its chief interest from 

 being the oldest Indian tradition of Noah's flood, we must dismiss without 

 further notice, and with it the important volume of which it forms a part. 

 Our counter plea to the charge of not having done it justice must be the late 

 period in the month at which it was published ; and this apology, we trust, will 

 make our peace both with the public and its accomplished author. 



Chronological Tables of Ancient History, synchronistically and 

 ethnographically arranged, compiled from the best authorities. 

 Oxford, Talboys, folio. 



This is a very cheap and exceedingly useful work, and like all Mr. Talboy's 

 publications, beautifully printed. The merits of a book of this nature, of course 

 chiefly depend upon the authorities made use of, and the accuracy with which 

 they are used. From the preface of the present work we learn that Mr. Fynes. 



