only about fifteen years since, have been attended, it seems, with extraordinary success. It seems too, that about a thousand native pupils are now attending the Scottish superior school chiefly to become teachers. The feelings of the more enlightened natives may be gathered from the address presented by them to the society above-mentioned, and which is highly interesting.

66

"In the days of remote antiquity, the people of Bharat Varsha, or Asia, possessed a superiority over all nations in their love of knowledge, and regard for the general good. This region was also the choicest portion of the habitable globe, and the original site of the human race. Amongst the tribes of Bharat Varsha, those of Hindustan were, above all, valiant, powerful, energetic, merciful, sincere, and wise. Hindustan was the garden of empire, and the treasury of knowledge, and consequently the people were happy, independent, and addicted to honourable practices.

"Owing to various causes, however, the Hindu monarchies were destroyed, and the Hindus lost their learning; became conceited, blind with passion, dark to knowledge, and animated only to selfish considerations. In consequence, they were reduced to the last degree of dependency and degradation: immersed in an ocean of suffering, and fallen to the lowest stage of insignificance. If we compare them now with other nations in wisdom and civilization, our regret must be inexpressible.

"But while we are thus situated, owing to our arrogance, to many new and absurd customs, that have crept in amongst us, and to our mutual disagreements, we are not the less apt to consider ourselves as happy, superior, and independent; never to think of our condition in its true light, nor to acknowledge it as it is. Consequently, any endeavour to change or improve it is out of the question.

"The chief causes of our depressed situation may, we think, be regarded as the following wants:

"That of social and mutual intercourse.

“Of mutual agreement.

"Of travel.

"Of study of different Shasters.

"Of love of knowledge.

"Of good-will to each other.

"Other causes are especially indolence, insatiable appetite for riches, and the desire of sensual enjoyment.

66

Many defects in the constitution of our society are owing to the distinction of Castes, Family, Rank, and Wealth. Those who possess these in a high degree seldom visit other persons, except on occasions of business and emergency; and, on the other hand, they evince little affability towards those, who are compelled to seek their presence; the intercourse, therefore, that now exists amongst ourselves, is confined to the interchange or solicitation of assistance, to the observance of ordinary forms and modes of insincere civility; or, in a word, it springs from motives of self-interest, and never from a feeling of affection or esteem. It is obvious, that as long as no one feels an interest in the good of

others, or is actuated by any but motives of self-interest, agreement or concurrence in opinion on any subject cannot be expected; the truth remains unknown, the parties being incapable of correcting their mutual errors.". '-pp. 65-67.

We give a few lines upon the Jaina system. This remarkable race, whose antiquity is unquestionable, and whose existence nevertheless is only now becoming popularly known in Great Britain, and principally from the works of the Rev. W. Taylor,* Col. Tod, and Mrs. Postans, deserve, we think, the closest possible investigation from scholars. Their depression is notorious, their antiquity confessed, their candour manifest, and their love of learning evident from their scrupulous preservation of all records and papers, which the Brahmins as sedulously destroy. The library of Anhulwara, therefore, discovered by Col. Tod, (see our last Number, pp. 146-7-8, Art. Arabian Nights,) would probably furnish the desiderata of ancient Indian history.

"The source and root of the mythology now popular in Hindostan, is a principal of pure and simple Deism; the sect of the Jainas contains stronger traces of this original character, both in their worship and their creed, than the Bramanas.-The Jainas were once a powerful people, and are now humbled and dispersed; and it is contrary to the evidence of things in other continents, that ruin and dispersion should be taken as signs of recent origin, and present prosperity as a proof of greater antiquity."-pp. 364, 365.

The following anecdotes must conclude our extracts from this volume.

"In the thirty-fifth year of Akber's reign, it was said of Sheikh Kamal Biahani, that he was endowed with the miraculous power of transporting himself instantly to a distance, so that a person who had taken leave of him on one side of the river would, upon crossing to the other, be again saluted by his voice. Akber went to see him, and begged him to communicate his skill, offering in exchange for it his whole kingdom. The Sheikh refused to instruct him. On this Akber ordered him to be bound hand and foot, and threatened to have him tossed into the river, where, if he possessed the faculty to which he pretended, he would suffer no injury; and if he was an imposter he would be punished deservedly for his fraud. This menace alarmed the Sheikh; he confessed the whole to be a trick, practised in confederacy with his son, who was covertly stationed on the opposite side of the stream, and counterfeited his father's voice."-p. 362.

"It is now very generally acknowledged, that since Europeans began to open to the Hindu the sources of wealth and enjoyment, the trammels of caste have been observed to bear but lightly upon him; and it is felt by all who have an opportunity of judging of the native charac

*See Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 37, Art. Tamil Historical MSS. We are happy to see continued notices of the progress of discovery in these, by the labours of Mr. W. Taylor, in the valuable Nos. of the Madras Journal of Literature and Science, a singularly interesting quarterly publication.

ter, that what has been so long and generally regarded as interwoven with all his feelings and prejudices, has been, to a great extent, an excrescence upon his habits, generated by the combined influence of political depression, and cunning and selfish superstition. When the influence of these has been counteracted by a happier state of things, the natural feelings and propensities of mankind have easily triumphed over Caste. The highest Brahmin now mingles in an intercourse with the Feringhees, which, less than half a century ago, would have been regarded with horror and dismay, as entailing the most indelible contamination, or subjecting to the most intolerable purifications and penances. The public assemblies, on occasions of complimentary festivity at the mansion of the Governor-General, are now frequented by crowds of native gentlemen, happy to participate in the honour of an invitation: and it need scarcely be added, that what finds countenance at court, meets with abundance of imitators in the ranks of private fashion. To the houses of the wealthy Hindu, the European is now finding a reciprocally easy access; and the writer of these remarks has himself partaken in the hospitaity of natives of high rank and caste, where even the sacred cow has been served up to gratify the tastes of the European guests." pp. 170, 171.

ART. VI.— Whist, par M. Deschappelles. (A Treatise on Whist, by M. Deschappelles. Second Part.-The Laws. London.) 1839.

EUREKA! Our readers will recollect the cry of Archimedes, when quitting the bath in the pristine simplicity of his nature, he rushed through Syracuse with considerably more of philosophy than garments, to establish the truth which he had discovered at the bottom of his tub. With similar eagerness but somewhat more of etiquette, inasmuch as the new Police Act has come into activity, we present ourselves before our readers in a sheet or half sheet, whichever offers, to establish the difference between purity and alloy; not indeed of crowns or of gold, but of that which brings in both to its noblest votaries; and which, when three or four of them are gathered together, is ever to be found in the midst.

It is indeed of that mysterious influence which inspires even the dull, and hushes the eloquent; that checks the flow of conversation, wrinkles the brow of beauty before its time, bids science pause in its career, supersedes learning, and relieves avarice of its load; that stoppers the decanter, and vacates the piano; draws the glass of toast and water from the willing hand of temperance, opens the miser's purse, unites strangers in the sacred bond of brotherhood and rubbers, and separates, alas! even conjugality, by an impassable baize or velvet of 3 feet 4 inches:-it is of this influence we are now to treat.

Whist the very name is mystery-the sound is mysterythe etymology also is mystery. Who knows whence it came? and who can tell what it is, or where it is going? Readers whose aspirations refer to the mighty past, recall Hoyle, and General Scott, and Matthews.

"But where repose the all-Etruscan three?"

Stat

as Byron himself has asked, in vain. Hoyle eludes the explorers of antiquity through every book-stall; Scott has become obsolete; Matthews himself, though twice reprinted, is no more. nominis umbra! for the three names form but one shade that darkens over the past-a shade silent and voiceless as that of Ajax in the same place, when the snow-falling eloquence of Ulysses could not win him over, even to shake hands.

We do not know exactly how often the spirit of whist has assumed a human form for the express benefit of Europe; but we are strongly inclined to conclude that M. Deschappelles is the identical White Horse so long expected in India, as the tenth point, or incarnation, of Brama; and who is to dispose of Knaves, and Kings and Queens, according to his pleasure, give rules for the doubtful cards, and play the deuce with his adversaries ; these may sit and lose in silence, or play on to the last stake" in murmuring wrath," as Campbell so long since poetically foresaw of them in the Pleasures of Hope.

It is idle to recall the past with its first hey-day dreams and fascinations; though even then unconscious childhood boasted its little all of skill, and youth deemed itself matured;-Eheu, nesciens futuri! That fancied manhood of Whist was most truly prematured, and now reads its own errors in the wisdom of Deschappelles. Genius ennobles and controls everything. Cookery bowed her haughty head before Ude," and thanked him for a throne," the throne which he proudly raised for her and himself in the loftiest altitudes of the human stomach; and what shall Whist and whist-players refuse to Deschappelles, who has made everything in art and nature, and a great deal that is in neither, subservient to her power?

We have indeed but a portion of the immortal performance before us a feather at a time from the wing of the French Gabriel and certainly it would be no ordinary mind that could comprehend the whole of such a revelation at once. Mahomet and Deschappelles alone, received, as they assure us, the mighty secret in a few moments: and both of these were men, and with men's intellect, though mens divinior; especially chosen vessels for the great tasks they had to perform.

M. Deschappelles' present work is epic, for it begins in the middle, or at the fifth chapter, and in a high heroic strain. The

Muse, it is true, is not invoked as by other bards; but as the work is written in the plural, it follows that she formed a junction with the author before he commenced operations; and this proves him to be an able tactician, like Soult and Wellington. Who indeed would sit down to Whist by himself? The invocation consequently is, for want of a better object, addressed to the reader in shape of a preface, Sublime, Moral, and Philosophical, as the Homeric Poems, and nearly trenching on the same subject— namely, the woes of the Greeks.

"This volume contains the Rules of the Game of Whist; it forms but one part of our treatise on the game, and we publish it separately, in compliance with the earnest request of our friends, and the wishes of the public. Though wholly uninfluenced by a desire either of fame or of profit, we may yet find a sufficiently powerful motive for action in the ambition of pleasing or being useful to others.

"In order that a law may be efficacious, it must be aided by two conditions: firstly, it must be understood, and secondly, it must be obeyed. The first of these conditions is attained by those definitions which point out its exact extent and limits; and the second, by that reasoning, which, by confuting objections, and by distinctly explaining its principles, ensures the universal application of the law.

"The old law of Whist, which united the two conditions in each of its articles, was extremely intricate and perplexed, and was in itself so defective, as to be totally inadequate to supply the wants of society.

"We have found it necessary to divide our work into two chapters; one consisting of the rules to be observed, and the other containing our remarks upon the rules. The former of these chapters is the more essential. As it is continually required for reference in cases of dispute, it should be well studied, and almost committed to memory. The latter may be perused more leisurely, as its spirit only is necessary to be retained.

"Thus, Chapter V. contains the text; that is the essential part, and Chapter VI. the commentaries. These two chapters are however inseparable from each other, and together form a complete work.

"Chapter V. is the result of twenty years' observation and progressive improvements. Here we are far from flattering ourselves that we have attained perfection. If we were to abstain from giving our work to the public, till we had made ourselves satisfied on that head, there would be no end to the delay. Something we have accomplished, by having laid down, in compliance with the wishes of amateurs, not an indigested and desultory production, but a rational, and almost complete code of rules; and by having thus prepared the way for future emendations and improvements.

"Chapter VI. is wholly explanatory, and merely a development of all the ideas contained in the former chapter; it is a long conversation, explaining a concise and peremptory law, which, without this illustration, would have frequently been unintelligible. For this latter chapter we claim the indulgence of our readers; it has been hastily written, in