bly, as Sir William Jones intimates, from Menu, son of Brahma, may be derived the very name of that famous lawgiver. At least it must be considered as a very singular circumstance of similitude that of the Indian Dhermaraja, or king of justice, the symbol should also be a white bull; nor, in this retrospective view of the mythology of ancient kingdoms will the resembling name of the Egyptian legislator Mnevis, and his companion Apis, be wholly forgotten. The decisions that now follow are vastly numerous and varied, and, if minutely detailed, would be very uninteresting to the greater part of my readers, because they have, in general an immediate allusion to the local customs, and the peculiar manners, and superstitious prejudices, of India. The legal student, and persons resident in India, will probably not rest content with any analysis, much less with the subsequent one, of necessity very summary, but consult the book itself, which, by its republication in Europe, is now made sufficiently public.

The laws concerning debtor and creditor are first distinctly laid down, and the rate of interest, upon different kinds of property pledged, specified; that interest is always to be in proportion to the hazard run, and to increase or

decrease, according to the high or inferior class of the person borrowing. One and a quarter in the hundred per month, was the interest allowed by Vasishta, and is the standard regulation; but, in some very perilous cases, even five in the hundred, per month, is permitted. The common average interest of money at Rome, in its meridian glory, was twelve per cent. per annum, which does not very widely differ from the Indian.

In the next place, the characters of witnesses, proper to be admitted to give evidence, come under examination: that evidence must be solemnly given before some sacred image, a symbol of the Divinity, whose presence in that image is supposed to strike into his soul a holy awe: the most dreadful denunciations are throughout uttered against those whose evidence is not founded in truth. The priest is permitted to swear by his sacred character alone; the soldier by his horse, his elephant, or his arms; the merchant by his gold or other articles of traffic; one of the servile, or fourth class, by imprecating on his head, if he speak falsely, all possible crimes and their punishment. On great occasions criminals are to be tried by fire and by water; and of him whom that fire burns not, or who sinks not in that water, the veracity must be

considered as perfect. A variety of very severe ordinances in the criminal jurisprudence of India has been already noticed; and some, still more sanguinary, may be found in the course of this chapter. In a country where agriculture and the preservation of kine are an important concern, the most rigid laws concerning trespasses, the removal of land-marks, and the maiming of cattle, are indispensable, and they are here, very strictly and copiously laid down. The various species of defamation and personal assault are then respectively considered; the first is punished by slitting the tongue, the latter according to the degree of injury received, but generally by maiming or amputating the limb that gave the offence, besides the payment of all expences attending the cure of the mutilated person. Theft is the next subject considered. The king himself is first cautioned, by dreadful menaces, not to set the example by plundering his subjects. The punishments principally ordained, in this case, are imprisonment, confinement in fetters, corporal punishment, and heavy fines at the discretion of the judge. For stealing mén and women, however, the punishment is death. Death also with horrible tortures awaits the foul adulterer. In addition to the enormous inherent turpitude of the crime, a political reason

is here alleged for the severity of the Indian code against this offence; it breaks down the eternal bulwark of the laws of Brahma, and causes a mixture of the classes of men. In this respect, resembling our own sacred Scriptures, it extends the guilt of adultery to mental inclination, to presents, and to licentious conversation with the wife of another.

The freight of goods, and the exact prices to be paid as toll at ferries and in the guarded passages of mountains, together with the due regulations for weights and measures, next occupy the attention of the Indian legislator; a vigorous commerce is recommended to be kept up, by the ruling sovereign, as the firm basis of national wealth and greatness: the horrid traffic in human flesh is sanctioned, and the everlasting servitude of the Sudra tribe is rivetted upon that unfortunate cast by the laws of destiny, since the Sudra was born a slave, and when even emancipated by his indulgent master, a slave he must still continue: "for, of a state which is natural to him, by whom can be be divested?" Thus inconsistent, thus incongruous, is the Hindoo code, which, while it anathematizes thieves, permits the magistrate to share in the plunder, and dooms a considerable portion of the human race to insurmountable slavery,

at the very moment that it strenuously inculcates the sublime dogma of the IMMORTALITY

OF MAN.

CHAP. IX.

This chapter is a continuation of the subject of the former; and so important to the general welfare of the state does the Indian legislature consider connubial felicity, that it has provided a particular series of laws for settling the disputes that may arise, in domestic life, between man and wife. Its. impartiality, however, is deeply violated by the illiberal reflections again thrown, in the initial paragraphs, on the fairer part of the creation. They are declared utterly unfit to enjoy independence; they must be kept through life under the severest restrictions; and have nothing to do with the text of the Vedas, as if they were an inferior order of beings, and not accountable hereafter for their conduct. It must be owned, however, and lamented, that these degrading sentiments, in regard to the sex, are not peculiar to Hindostan; but have ever been too common over all the despotic kingdoms of the East, where women have immemorially been subjected to the most menial domestic