474 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[OcT. 



to his friends at Poonah : u These 

 English are a strange people, and their 

 general a wonderful man ; they came 

 here in the morning, looked at the Pet- 

 tah wall, walked over it, killed all the 

 garrison, and returned to breakfast ! 

 What can withstand them ?" 



Colonel "Welsh records the surprise of 

 a native at a small water-mill erected 

 for grinding corn, and adds, " it was in- 

 deed fully equal to that of the Bengalee, 



.'ho, upon being questioned respecting 

 n English gentleman, who had recently 



who, 



an English gei 



erected a wind-mill, exclaimed c What 



kind of man this Englishman ? Catch 



horse and make work ! catch bullock and 



make work ! and catch wind and make 



work !' " 



At the siege of Elitchpoor, a story of 

 some na'iveti is told of Colonel Wal- 

 lace 



We had been one night working very hard at 

 a battery half way up the hill, and afterwards 

 cleared a road up to It, but no power we pos- 

 sessed could move our iron battering guns above 

 a few hundred yards from the bottom, so steep 

 and rugged was the ascent. I was just relieved 

 from working by a fresh party, and enjoying a few 

 moments' rest on some clean straw, when the offi- 

 cer commanding the working party came up to 

 Colonel Wallace, and reported that it was impos- 

 sible to get the heavy guns up to the battery. 

 The Colonel, who was Brigadier of the trenches, 

 exclaimed" Impossible 1 hoot mon ! it must be 

 done! I've got the order in my pocket!" These 

 words, although they failed to transport the guns 

 into the battery, fully illustrated the true charac- 

 ter of this noble and devoted soldier. 



Crossing a ferry once at Chowhaut, he 

 saw a boy of fourteen or fifteen row a 

 boat across the river with one of his 

 feet, while sitting on the stern, and ac- 

 tually make it move with several people 

 in it, as fast as the one on which Colonel 

 Welsh was standing. 



Here was a resource of unsophisticated nature 

 displayed to advantage ; and it recals to my mind 

 a feat somewhat similar, which I once witnessed 

 when out snipershooting at Pallamcottah : a nul- 

 lah was full from bank to bank, and I observed a 

 naked native child, five or six years old, go up to 

 a buffalo, and, with a small switch, drive it into 

 the stream, and no sooner bad the tractable ani- 

 mal taken to the water, than the infant driver, 

 laying hold of his tail, kept himself above water 

 till they reached the opposite bank, when they 

 parted company. I have even my doubts whether 

 they were not perfect strangers before this so- 

 ciable rencontre. 



. Speaking of Yellore (1823), he de- 

 scribes the cpndition of the King of 

 Candy 



The King of Candy is, I believe, still alive in 

 the same place ; he has many attendants, is libe- 

 rally supplied, and permitted to go about the fort 

 in the day-time, with considerable state. Being 

 an uncommonly large and corpulent man, with 

 horrid features, and excessively dark, he has such 

 an idea of the consequence attached to corpulency, 



that he actually stuffs his garments in front with 

 a large pillow, every time he goes out in an open 

 palanquin. He is reported to have lost his king- 

 dom by violence and oppression, his own subjects 

 having joined the English in his overthrow ; and 

 even now, when a state prisoner, without a sha- 

 dow of power, he at times gets into the most inde- 

 cent and violent fits of rage, and makes the whole 

 fort of Vellore resound with his voice, in terms of 

 reproach or abuse of his attendants. This mon- 

 ster is too well used ; a remark not generally ap- 

 plicable to the situation of state prisoners. 



Colonel Welsh's account of the Syrian 

 College, for the education of Christian 

 priests, at Cotyam, in Travancore, is of 

 some interest. We do not remember 

 meeting with similar details anywhere. 



CfDonoyhue, a Poem, by Hannah Maria 

 Bourke. A long metrical tale of a Prince 

 of Killarney, in seven cantos, inscribed, 

 successively, with the words Chase, Pro- 

 phecy, Feast, Combat, Spell, Midnight 

 Hour, Departure, without any other key 

 to the contents, or any thing in the 

 shape of epitome, to give the reader a 

 hint of the subject before he begins, or 

 direct him to particular passages. If 

 this be intended to entrap him into the 

 perusal of the whole, the scheme will 

 fail of its object. A tale in verse, in its 

 very announcement, is an alarming a 

 repulsive thing. Why ? simply, we 

 suppose, because nothing new, or more 

 strictly, nothing fresh, is anticipated by 

 any body of any experience in modern 

 books. The machineries, if not the ma- 

 terials of poetry, are worn to rags ; every 

 body uses the same language, and meta- 

 phors, and allusions the same turns, 

 tones, and cadences. The common-places 

 of versification, in short, are become too 

 common to be longer tolerated. Be- 

 sides, a tale of any complexity is not for 

 verse, and its shackles, at all the days 

 when such things were wonderful are 

 for ever gone by. Prose is more po- 

 lished than it used to be has become 

 more susceptible of all the charms va- 

 riety^ and flexibility can give can more 

 readily shake off the customary suits of 

 fashionable dress, and certainly convey 

 the conceptions of the brain and the 

 heart more directly and distinctly than 

 verse at any length, in the ablest hands, 

 ever could accomplish. Short pieces, 

 prompted by simple topics single inci- 

 dents flights of fancy, unelaborated 

 excited feelings touches of emotion, or 

 workings of passion these, in their ef- 

 fects, rather than their causes or occa- 

 sions, are all that can be now listened 

 to as poetry. To read metrical tales is 

 a labour, when at the best ; what must 

 it be when mediocrity handles thread- 

 bare topics ? Place two tales, both un- 

 known, one in verse the other in prose, 

 before twenty cultivated persons, and 

 we doubt if, in twenty trials, one will 



