the public offices as writers, and has given to the cause of literature and education one distinguished scholar in the person of Huri Keshowjee, whose Mahratta versions of English scientific works have been pronounced by the most competent judges among his own Countrymen to be the best executed translations existing in the language, and who merits, by his eminent attainments, his useful labours, and his unassuming virtues, a higher reward from the British government than he has yet received.

In former days it appears.

followed the ordinary calling of his caste, and worked as a carpenter and builder. But his father had been a Bhuktu, and, some years ago, he himself having gone on a pilgrimage to Mudhee or Puithunu, and received instruction and initiation there, returned to Bombay a Bhuktu, exorcist, and mystic practitioner. The success of his practice-especially in the class of diseases considered as daimoniac-has been so great, that he has long given up all other business, and has grown to be generally recognised by all the other Bhuktus as their superior in power. The emoluments which such a man might have derived from his success in London, amidst a vast population so abounding in riches, and so lavish in expending them where occasion needs, must not form a test for measuring the worldly prosperity of the Bombay thaumaturgist. As a carpenter, he might have earned his ten, twelve, or fifteen rupees a month; as a Bhuktu he probably receives, in the shape of presents and gratuities, ten times the last-named amount; and although one hundred and fifty pounds a-year will appear to Europeans a poor fruit of success in such a profession, vet, when it is remembered, that, in India, even one hundred pounds per annum is deemed and, owing to the patriarchial simplicity of Hindoo habits, really is an affluent income, which but few indeed of its learned Pundits are so fortunate as to obtain, the comparative prosperity of the Bhuktu will be more correctly appreciated.

It was between eight and nine at night that we made our visit to the establishment of this individual. Having sent on our Bramhin companion to the Muthu to inform the Bhuktu of our arrival, and request permission to approach, we awaited his

return on the Kalbadee road; but so long a time elapsed without his reappearance, that we became impatient, and, resolving ourselves to explore the mysterious locality, got out of the carriage, and walked down the lane towards a blaze of light in the distance, which we rightly conjectured to be the Muthu. Here we found the Bramhin in high altercation with two or three parties standing in the verandah of the Muthu, who were reproaching him, in no gentle language, for bringing Europeans to witness their proceedings, or even informing them of their existence. We were fortunately able to acquit him of this charge; and, addressing the principal man of the group, who was no other than the Bhuktu himself, informed him that he accused the Bramhin wrongfully, adding, that he had no cause for exhibiting so much anger, as we came there not to ridicule or disparage his operations, but simply to gather information; that we should feel obliged to him if he allowed us to be spectators of what was going on in the Muthu; but that we had no desire to intrude against his wish, and, for this reason, had sent on the Bramhin to obtain his permission. Somewhat appeased by this address, yet still with a clouded brow and a sullen reluctance of deportment, which courtesy failed to wholly overcome or conciliate, he told us, if we chose, we might come into the veranda, and stand at the door, or one of the windows which looked into the Muthu, but not to enter the latter unless we took off our shoes. We preferred standing at the door, from which all within was visible. The room before us was a small and very clean apartment, about twenty feet square. The tabernacle, which was taller and richer than that of the Girgaum Muthu, stood against the centre of the western wall, and was lit up with a great number of clear, brilliant lights, and wreathed with white flowers. No instruments of music or of noise appeared in the room; nothing, indeed, but the illuminated tabernacle, a smoking censer, and a small vase of water. Two Parsee women, relations of a patient, sat on the ground, on the side opposite the tabernacle. Erect and motionless, in the centre of the room, with his face fronting the tabernacle, his left arm crossing his breast, supporting the right elbow, his chin drooped, his

cheek leaning upon the palm of his open right hand, and his eyes riveted in a fixed, unwinking gaze upon the idol, stood-it might be the husband, brother, or son of one of these mourners—a Parsee daimoniac patient, now under the process of cure. We stood

and watched him for a full quarter of an hour. He never moved a muscle, or took his eyes from the idol during that time. No one spoke; everything was perfectly still, so still indeed, so clean, so bright, that the rich tabernacle with its brilliant lights, and its tresses of snowy flowers casting out their strong perfume so silently, and the white cloud of incense that rose with equal silence from the censer, and blent its fragrance with theirs; and this solitary man, standing before the shrine in such absorbed and reverend contemplation, and the women sitting so humble and silent in the back-ground-all reminded us very strongly of the night-vigil held in the Roman Catholic Church on the night between Maunday Thursday and Good Friday, before one of the lesser altars, which is adorned, lit up, and watched, while the greater altar is stripped and placed in mourning.

We asked the Bhuktu who this patient was; he replied

"He was a maniac-he is my disciple; he was brought here some months ago raving mad-foaming, convulsed, knowing no one, tearing every one that came in his way; ask those women, his relations, in what condition he was then, and look at him now."

"Is he now cured?"

"You see him. When he came here he knew no one-would speak to no one; now he is sensible, and converses rationally. Speak to him yourselves."

Saying this he went up to him, laid his hand upon his shoulder, and said, "Come Pestonjee! speak to those gentlemen."

For the first time since our arrival the Parsee now gave signs of life. Moving his head half round to the Bhuktu, with a heavy, fixed sort of look, yet with an expression implying at once dependence and confidence, he muttered, in a low voice, one or two words which we could not catch, and then, relapsing into his former statuesque attitude and silence, became once more intently wrapt in contemplation of the tabernacle.

"Your patient," we remarked,

seems, after all, very far from being thoroughly restored.”

"You cannot well judge him at present; he neither understands the cause of, nor likes this interruption. It is true, however, he is not quite restored, but he is partially so he is very much so. Had you seen him when first brought here, and been able to compare his condition then and now, you could not but acknowledge the extraordinary change that has taken place, and his rapid amendment from utter madness to gentleness and a comparatively rational state. His cure is not completed; it is still in progress, and will be perfected."

"And what process of cure have you pursued?"

"You see the process."

"We see nothing but a man in a reverie; there must be something more than this. What is your objection to informing us? We are not likely to open a rival Muthu."

"Why should I inform you, and why should you seek to know? One ought never to search into the religion of others, nor reveal the secrets of his own."

In confirmation of these maxims, he poured forth a torrent of quotations in Sanscrit verse, stanza succeeding stanza with such rapidity, that all chance either of understanding or of reply was equally hopeless. Not that he was, necessarily, a man of learning—we believe far from it; but many Hindoos, nay, many persons who profess themselves Pundits, and seek employment as such, provide themselves with a ready stock of Sanscrit quotations, which they learn by heart, and introduce on all possible occasions, as regularly as Ephraim Jenkinson did his medley of opinions upon the cosmogony of the world.

As soon as the Bhuktu had exhausted his stream of verse, we replied—

"All that you have quoted is, doubtless, very true; but still it is scarcely applicable. The point here is a medical rather than a religious one; and you yourself must have practically considered it so: otherwise, why should you object to our witnessing your operations, and yet permit Parsee women to do so; or why introduce a Parsee patient into the Muthu at all, if it be so sacred? Parsees are as much excluded from Hindoo rites as Christians."

"The Parsee has faith: he is a

disciple. You would not become

80.

"Though not disciples, we feel a great interest in the subject of these cures, and the various operations at the Muthus; and other Bhuktus have given us information on the subject without incivility, and without expecting us to become disciples."

"And what may they have told you?"

"That you employ such and such means to bring on the Waren."

"Well! it is true they do employ such means at other Muthus in Bombay; but none of these rude, coarse, noisy means are employed by me."

"What, then, are the means you employ?"

"It is useless for you to ask; for, did I tell you, you could not possibly comprehend them."

"Yet, if you tell us, we shall try. Europeans are not quite so ignorant of your mysteries, nor so utterly stolid of understanding, as you seem to imagine. The substance of your Pooranus is known to us, We have Menu's institutes, and the Bhuguvud Geeta, your law, and your philosophy, in our language: portions even of your Vedus, and of the still more secret Shaktu books, are translated and printed, and known all over Europe."

"I tell you, when you go again into the womb of a mother, and taking another birth, are born again in this world, then, and not till then, will you be able to understand my system." "Still, what is it?"

"It is SUMADHI: but what that is, 'tis in vain for you to ask, or conjecture: you could not even conceive it."

We bade the Bhuktu farewell, and came away with our companion. We had seen as much as there was any

chance of doing, with so unwilling a revealer of mysteries; and had heard all he was likely to communicate. This all, indeed, might be summed up in the single word SUMADHI; but that word-like the accidental expression of the more frank and civil Bhuktu of the Girgaum Muthu, "charged with Kanoba," was in itself a revelation; little as he who made it thought so. The former papers will have exhibited one phase of the system in Kanoba's Muthus, which we may term the exciting or stimulant. The acknowledg. ment about SUMADHI, coupled with what we witnessed of the profound stillness reigning around the Parsee patient, and his own wrapt, trancelike state, will give us a glimpse of the other, the tranquillising, sedative, or Quietist phase. Without embracing both in our conception, we shall not justly appreciate the whole system of Kanoba. As regards the assertion of the Kalbadavee Bhuktu, that he never employed the stimulant process, it must be taken with great restriction. We know that, at times, he does employ it, from parties who have been present; and we have ourselves passed the Muthu, when not only the clangour from inside was loud, and the fragrance strong, but even the street outside was filled with his drummers in full clatter. But that in many, perhaps most, of his cases, the SUMADHI, or Quietist process, is resorted to in preference, is very likely. The admitted employment of this singular process as a part of the daimon-exor cising system, is a point of considerable interest, and renders it necessary that we should endeavour to obtain a clear idea of what SUMADHI itself is. But this will demand a chapter by itself.

We believe it was M. L'Abbe Raynal who said that America had not yet produced a single man of genius. The productions now under our notice will do more to relieve her from this imputation than the reply of President Jefferson

"When we have existed," said that gentleman, so long as the Greeks did before they produced Homer, the Romans Virgil, the French a Racine and a Voltaire, the English a Shakespeare and a Milton, we shall inquire from what unfriendly causes it has proceeded that the other countries of Europe, and quarters of the earth, shall not have inscribed any poet of ours on the roll of fame."

The ingenuity of this defence is more apparent than its truth; for although the existence of America, as a separate nation, is comparatively recent, it must not be forgotten that the origin of her people is identical with that of our own. Their language is the same; they have always had advantages in regard of literature precisely similar to those which we now enjoy; they have free trade, and a little more, in all our best standard authors. There is, therefore, no analogy whatever between their condition and that of the other nations with whom the attempt has been made to contrast them. With a literature ready-made, as it were, to their hand, America had never to contend against any difficulties such as they encountered. Beyond the ballads of the Troubadours and Trouveres, France had no stock either of literature or of traditions to begin upon; the language of Rome was foreign to its people; Greece had but the sixteen letters of Cadmus ; the literature of England struggled through the rude. chaos of Anglo-Saxon, Norinan, French, and monkish Latin. If these difficulties in pursuit of knowledge be

compared with the advantages of America, we think it must be admitted that the President had the worst of the argument.

But although America enjoys all these advantages, it cannot be denied that her social condition presents impediments of a formidable character towards the cultivation of the higher and more refined branches of litera

ture. Liberty, equality, and fraternity are not quite so favourable to the cultivation of elegant tastes as might be imagined; where every kind of social rank is obliterated, the field of observation, which is the province of fiction, becomes proportionately narrow; and although human nature must be the same under every form of government, the liberty of a thorough democracy by no means compensates for its vulgarity. It might be sup posed that the very obliteration of all grades of rank, and the consequent impossibility of acquiring social distinction, would have a direct tendency to turn the efforts of genius in directions where the acquisition of fame might be supposed to compensate for more substantial rewards; and when men could no longer win their way to a coronet, they would redouble their exertions to obtain the wreath. The history of literature, however, teaches us the reverse: its most brilliant lights have shone in dark and uncongenial times. Amid the clouds of bigotry and oppression, in the darkest days of tyranny and demoralisation, their lustre has been the most brilliant. Under the luxurious tyranny of the empire, Virgil and Horace sang their immortal strains; the profligacy of Louis the Fourteenth produced a Voltaire and a Rosseau; amid the oppression of his country, grew and flourished the gigantic intellect of Milton; Ireland, in the darkest times of her gloomy history, gave birth to the im

perishable genius of Swift; it was less the liberty of Athens than the tyranny of Philip, which made Demosthenes an orator; and of the times which produced our great dramatists it is scarcely necessary to speak. The proofs, in short, are numberless. Be this, however, as it may, the character of American literature which has fallen under our notice must demonstrate to every intelligent mind, what immense advantages she has derived from those sources which the advocates of her claims would endeavour to repudiate. There is scarcely a page which does not contain evidence how largely she has availed herself of the learning and labours of others.

We do not blame her for this; far from it. We only say that, having reaped the benefit, it is unjust to deny the obligation; and that in discussing her literary pretensions, the plea which has been put forward in her behalf is untenable.

But ere we proceed further, we must avail ourselves of this opportunity of expressing our obligations where they are due-it is to the enterprise of a Liverpool publisher we are indebted for this very elegant-we believe, indeed, the first complete edition of our poet's works, brought out in this country; and we sincerely hope he will gain from the gratitude of a discriminating public a reward more substantial than any approbation of ours can bestow. Prefixed to this edition is a preface from the accomplished pen of Mr. Gilfillan, which contains critical observations upon the poet's works, with some of which we are happy to be able to agree. There are others from which we dissent; but as our present task is not criticising Mr. Gilfillan's preface, but writing a criticism of our own, we shall leave these matters to the discri nination of our various readers.

It is impossible there can be a more complete illustration, than the works now before us, of the truth of our assertion, that the national poet of America has not as yet been produced. The muse of Mr. Longfellow owes little or none of her success to those great national sources of inspiration which are most likely to influence an ardent poetic temperament. The grand old woodsthe magnificent mountain and forest scenery-the mighty rivers-the trackless savannas-all those stupendous and

We

varied features of that great country, with which, from his boyhood, he must have been familiar, it might be thought would have stamped some of these characteristics upon his poetry. Such, however, has not been the case. Of lofty images-and grand conceptions we meet with few, if any, traces. But, brimful of life, of love, and of truth, the stream of his song flows on with a tender and touching simplicity, and a gentle music, which we have not met with since the days of our own Moore. Like him, too, the genius of Mr. Longfellow is essentially lyric; and if he has failed to derive inspiration from the grand features of his own country, he has been no unsuccessful student of the great works of the German masters of song. could almost fancy, while reading his exquisite ballad of the "Beleaguered City," that Goethe, Schiller, or Uhland was before us; and yet, we must by no means be understood to insinuate that he is a mere copyist-quite the contrary. He has become so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of these exquisite models, that he has contrived to produce pieces marked with an individuality of their own, and noways behind them in point of poetical merit. In this regard he affords another illustration of the truth of the proposition with which he started, that the legendary lore and traditions of other countries have been very ser viceable towards the formation of American literature. But, as is happily observed by Mr. Gillfillan :— "Longfellow bears so well his load of accomplishments and acquirements, his ornaments, unlike those of the Sabine maid, have not crushed him, nor impeded the march of his own mind. He has transmuted a lore gathered from many languages, into a quick and rich flame, which we feel to be the flame of genius."

We cannot commence our extracts better, than with that exquisite little poem, entitled "The Psalm of Life," every line of which is full of touching beauty, besides inculcating a philosophy we may all study with advantage: