PATNA DURING THE MUTINY. 193 



story,) he brought home some couch grass, t and told his man to 

 plant it for ornament in his garden. 



Although both Hastings and Tayler possessed administrative 

 talents of high order, they both would have saved themselves, and 

 everybody else, a world of trouble had they used honey in the place 

 of gall, for ink, and followed the plan of the Emperor Nang-fu, who 

 destroyed his enemies, by making them his friends.* It is said that 

 Francis, the chief antagonist of Hastings was implacable ; but I 

 don't believe this theory, for in my humble way, I always found, in 

 India, these so-called implacable fellows, the easiest to get on with, 

 if they were only treated fairly, and without a parade of insolent 

 superiority, particularly when one stood a round or so above them 

 on the official ladder, as Hastings did compared with Francis. 



In my youthful days I spent much of my time at Daylesford, 

 where, after dinner, my host would read out manuscript verses 

 written by Warren Hastings, in which ridicule of Francis appeared 

 in almost every line. I moved uneasy in my chair whilst the 

 recitation was going on, and like Macaulay, thought my reckoning 

 high ; but the invective was so very cutting, that I was wont to 

 apply it subsequently to my playmates when the evil side of my 

 nature came uppermost, and I wished to "rile" them. 



The celebrated legend, " Men^ cequa in arduis,^^ attached to the 

 portrait of Hastings in Calcutta, may fairly be translated by the 

 watchword of one of Trollope's characters, " 'Tis dogged as does 

 it," for Warren's principal role in life appears to have been getting 



t The most troublesome weed we have, and yet, strange tosay, I have never found a farmer who could point 

 it out in flower. The creeping root-stock alone being recognised. 



* " Hastings had no very high opinion of his coadjutors. They had heard of this, and were disposed to be 

 suspicious and punctilious. When men are in such a slate of mind, any trifle is sufficient to give occasion for 

 dispute. The members of the Council expected a salute of twenty-one guns ; Hastings allowed them only 

 seventeen. They landed in ill-humour : the first civilities were e.xchanged with cold reserve. On the morrow 

 commenced that long quarrel, which, after distracting British India, was renewed in England, and in which 

 all the most eminent statesmen and orators of the age took active part, on one or the other side." (Macau/ay.) 



The coadjutors here mentioned were Francis, Clavering and Monson. A fellow feeling makes us wondrous 

 kind, and Macaulay, who exulted in "dusting varlets' jackets" with his gigantic blue and yellow broom, 

 naturally sympathised with his ana.r andron, who shot Francis, killed Clavering, with an ostentatious display 

 of his " elegant Marian," and lampooned all three of his colleagues as occasion suggested. 



Hastings was a dead hand at Latin grammar, but he seems to have profited very little by the well-known 

 example, .„ 



" Parvi sunt forts anna, nisi est consilium ciomi. 



which seems to mean, that those who are for ever squabbling amongst themselves, are poor tools for bringing 

 peace and prosperity to India. 



o 



