48 CRITfCAl, NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



natural philosophy, of which it is the worthy store-house. If my reader 

 has taken the pahner hahit that he may travel to the heavenly countries 

 of Phanes, Zeus, and Eros, let him visit that classic place and pay his 

 vows at its Theseuian altars — one of them is a fragment of the fifth 

 Plesiosaurus and the Goliah of tho race. I went seven hundred miles 

 to see it — worshijiped it — and purpose it yet another pilgrimage/* 



Travels into Bokhara ; heing the account of a Journey from India to 

 Caboul, Tartary, and Persia ; also Narrative of a Voyage on the 

 Indus from the Sea to Jjahore, ^-c. in the years 1831, 1832, and 1833. 

 By Lieut. A. Burnes, F. R.S. 3 vols. 8vo. with plates. London, 

 1834. 



"Whatever may be the disadvantages of the system, which has ruled 

 our Eastern colonies from their first establishment down to the present 

 day, it may reasonably be doubted whether the changes, which have been 

 made of late years, could have been brought about in the year 1783, 

 when they were first suggested, without endangering that moral influence, 

 which has alone enablecl the British nation to extend her empire over a 

 tract of country, almost without bounds, and over tribes inimical not 

 only to her, but to every other people. The extraordinary and exclusive 

 nature of the superstitions, customs, habits, and language of the East, 

 required a peculiar mode of Government : one, wholly diflferent from 

 any thing with which its conquerors were previously acquainted. 

 Perhaps, indeed, those very evils (and evils they undoubtedly were in 

 principle) which Mr. Fox's opponents were accused of promoting, for 

 party purposes only, were, what mainly contributed to fix the British 

 dominion in Hindostan upon its present firm basis. 



The East India Company have been stigmatized as despots, and of 

 the worst kind ; as tyrannizing over the mind as well as the body. 

 Granted. — But what would have been the consequence of at once 

 bestowing a liberal constitution, and a free press upon those, to whom 

 the very name of liberty was unknown. 



They have been upbraided with condemning the half caste population 

 to a state of inferiority, which it did not deserve. How far this accusation 

 is true, it is not for us to decide. But in a country where the separation 

 of caste is (if we may use the expression) indigenous, and where the 

 intermarriage with one of an inferior grade is viewed with feelings 

 almost amounting to horror, the conquerors could have devised no more 

 effectual means of establishing their authority than by discountenancing, 

 to the utmost of their power, all connection, immediate or mediate, with 

 the conquered. This caused them to be regarded as of a superior caste ; 

 and, by thus complying with the prejudices of the vanquished, they 

 acquired a moral influence over them, which, years of bloodshed, and 

 the slaughter of thousands, could never have procured. 



Much too has been said of the lavish prodigality of the Indian 

 Government ; and the charge is not denied. The rigid economy which 

 is so necessary to the well-being and happiness of a free nation, would 

 be viewed with astonishment — nay — even with contempt, by those with 

 whom the magnificence of their native princes is the ordinary criterion, 

 and frequently the sole stay of their power. Time, and the progress of 

 civilization, have already brought about many changes ; and the day is 

 probably not far distant, when the very measures of reform which have 

 been hitherto stigmatized as chimerical and dangerous, may become 

 absolutely necessary for the preservation of our Eastern territory. But 

 to return to our subject. The head and front of the oSence seems to be. 



