1830.] [ 337 ] 



MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 



Life of Major General Sir Thomas 

 Munro, by the Rev. G. R. Gleig. 2 vols. 8vo. 

 1830. Munro, the late governor of Madras, 

 was, doubtless, a man whose career was suf- 

 ficiently remarkable to deserve a particular 

 recording, especially when every person who 

 contrives to get himself a little talked about, 

 must be commemorated in two volumes 

 octavo ; but to be told all of a sudden, as 

 we were by Mr. Canning, that Europe never 

 produced a more accomplished statesman, 

 nor India, so fertile in heroes, a more skilful 

 soldier, was a piece of extravagant rhetoric, 

 which none but a biographer would have 

 thought of interpreting literally. To Mr. 

 Gleig, the phrases seem not more elegant 

 than the facts are true. He himself dis- 

 claims all pretensions to judge of the admi- 

 nistration of India, but he thinks the man 

 who should contend it is, in all respects, 

 absolutely perfect, must be a bold one, and 

 he is sure, notwithstanding his disclaimer, 

 nobody ever suggested more judicious ame- 

 liorations than the subject of his memoir. 

 The author's business is, obviously, to eu- 

 logize or how came the papers to be put 

 into his hands ? and certainly he gives 

 proofs that no pains have been wanting on 

 his part to shew there was more than com- 

 mon reason for his unbounded panegyric. 



To touch upon all the incomparable 

 points, which the biographer discovers in Sir 

 Thomas, is for us quite impracticable ; we 

 can only allude to a very few, but those 

 amply sufficient, to shew the man could 

 never have had a parallel. He was charac- 

 teristically firm and unchangeable imma- 

 culate in conduct perfect in tact qualified 

 for any thing, equal to every thing, and 

 made for command. In every position, 

 and every combination of circumstances de- 

 manding these qualities, he was full of for- 

 titude, energy, and decision ; he was patient 

 in inquiry, sound and clear in judgment, 

 prompt in action temperate, candid, placa- 

 ble and so self-possessed, as never to be 

 taken by surprise. As a public functionary, 

 he lived but for the public ; he sacrificed all 

 his inclinations, his love of ease, his desire 

 for retirement, and never thought of him- 

 self. With all these noble qualities, his 

 modesty was far beyond the portion that 

 falls to the lot of official men. He never 

 obtruded his merits, and could, with diffi- 

 culty, even on peremptory occasions, be in- 

 duced to make them known. Though thus 

 absorbed by public duties, his literature, it 

 must be manifest, couldhavebeen equalled by 

 no civilian of his time. There was no subject 

 within the range of philosophy or science 

 no question connected with poetry or the 

 belles lettres, which he was not prepared to 

 discuss ; and his capability and facility of 

 passing from one topic of discussion to ano- 

 ther, astounds his biographer, who, how- 

 ever, never conversed with him, nor even 



M.M. New Series VoL.IX. No. 51. 



saw him. He judges from the materials 

 before him, and the reports of friends, who 

 were, of course, partial, and it may well 

 be supposed, incompetent. Metaphysics, it 

 seems, was the only thing for which he did 

 not encourage a taste, because he looked on 

 the different systems to be equally founded 

 in conjecture, and equally ending in doubt 

 Mr. Gleig, apparently, as well as Sir Thomas, 

 conceiving metaphysics to lie in systems, 

 and not in the observance of facts. En 

 revanche, he was a profound mathema- 

 tician (let the reader weigh the words, for it 

 is obvious the biographer does not), an able 

 chemist, a judicious speculator in political 

 economy, and a keen and successful student 

 both of moral and natural philosophy. 

 Any thing more ? Oh, yes his acquaint- 

 ance with European languages, ancient as 

 well as modern, was very extensive ; while 

 of those in use throughout the East, there 

 were few, comparatively, of which he knew 

 not something. Sir Thomas was never out 

 of the Deccan what probability is there, 

 then, of his having studied the i language in 

 use' in the upper parts of India ? Persian, he 

 wrote and spoke like a native ; he was well 

 versed in Arabic ; Hindostanee was per- 

 fectly familiar to him ; and in Mahratta, 

 Canarese, and other of the vernacular 

 tongues, he could maintain with great ex- 

 actness, either a correspondence or a con- 

 versation, &c. Can any thing exceed the 

 absurdity of all this ? And yet it is with 

 all gravity written down by a gentleman who 

 has shewn himself capable of forming sound 

 judgments on common matters. 



Amid all this unmeasured parading, Sir 

 Thomas Munro was, evidently, a man of 

 ability and acquirement of activity and 

 rectitude these are high distinctions among 

 official persons ; but we need not con- 

 clude, because nothing but sunshine ap- 

 pears, there were not occasional shades, 

 enough to bring him within the pale of our 

 common humanity. His career is not, we 

 imagine, so generally known, as to make a 

 slight sketch of it superfluous. 



This hero of India, then, was born at 

 Glasgow, in the year 1761, and educated at 

 the grammar school and college of his na- 

 tive town ; and in his sixteenth year was 

 found reading Plutarch, for the purpose of 

 ascertaining Alexander's motives for in- 

 vading India. India was not, however, his 

 destination, but a counting-house, till his 

 father's failure he was an American mer- 

 chant at the commencement of the revo- 

 lution, turned his attention to that land of 

 promise for all Scotch lads. About the 

 period of his landing in India, the war with 

 Hyder broke out, and young Munro, joining 

 the army immediately, was actively engaged 

 till the peace in 1784. Another four years 

 were spent more idly in quarters ; but in. 

 1788, through the influence of his country* 



2 X 



