546 Mineral Resources of India. QNo. 139- 



brated Beckford. His peculiarities, his parsimonious habits, his shrewd- 

 ness, his eye ever watchful over his interests, were sketched with 

 great felicity in that cleverest of periodicals, Knight's Quarterly Maga- 

 zine, in " An unpublished episode in the Life of Vathek." 



Steel through opposing plate the magnet draws, 

 And steely atoms culls from dust and straws ; 

 And thus our hero, to his interest true, 

 Gold through all bars and from each trifle drew. 



But the qualities which emphatically make the man, as distinguished 

 from the merely social man — the bold speculative genius, the independent 

 character, the untiring perseverance, the readiness to grapple with 

 obstacles, the skill to overcome them — these do not fall within the pro- 

 vince of the light litterateur. They are written in an alphabet and 

 a language of their own, impressed in indelible characters upon the 

 freedom, the national character, or the commercial prosperity of the 

 country, where such men have existed. They may be forgotten, or they 

 may become inappreciable to careless observers in the lapse of years ; 

 but they continue to exert an influence, not loud but deep, through 

 time- — as surely as are propagated the undulatory impulses 



From world to luminous world afar, 



though infinite to the failing sense may seem the spaces between. 

 Such qualities mingled in the character of John Farquhar : they won for 

 him prosperity in his lifetime : and respect from those whose respect 

 compensated for the gibe of the jester. 



The Memorial submitted by these gentlemen to the Council of War- 

 ren Hastings, I subjoin entire : — 



Hon'ble Sir and Gentlemen, — Having the greatest confidence that any 

 scheme proposed for the advantage of the Hon'ble Company, or for the 

 good of this country, will always be received in the most favorable, and 

 discussed in the most candid manner at your Hon'ble Board, we beg leave 

 to offer to your consideration the following plan, for casting the H. C.'s 

 shot and shells in Bengal, and for working a lead mine lately discovered 

 in Ramghur. 



The first part of our plan, you well know, Gentlemen, is no new scheme ; 

 for it appears by the following quotation from a letter of Lord Clive and 



