'ed war than people at home will be; for I never had the least 'suspicion that we were to go to war with the King of Ava, till a letter reached this presidency, in February last, asking us 'what number of troops we could furnish for foreign service. I thought that the local officers of Chittagong and Arracan might have carried on their petty aggressions on both frontiers for 'another year, and that they would probably have got tired, and 'settled matters among themselves. Such fellows do not read Gro'tius or Vattel; and we must not expect them to be guided entirely by their piety. Now that we are actually at war, it is some 'satisfaction to have those great names on our side.'-(Vol. ii. p. 91.) As governor of Madras, he was not the less incessantly engaged in discussions, and enquiries, and correspondence, connected with the war, than if it had been of his own seeking. Nor could he, in case his own reputation had been at stake in its success, have stripped his presidency barer, to the last sepoy that could be spared for foreign service. His sepoys embarked without one missing, and those remaining had severe service; but his confidence in the loyalty of his people does not seem to have been ruffled beyond the occasional disturbance of poligars, which we are seldom,' he says, for any long time entirely free from in this country.' Notwithstanding his zeal and knowledge, it is evident, that the advice he freely gave was not followed to a degree to make him at all responsible for the course pursued. As we had not the direction of the war, we had no right to give ' opinions regarding it; and it was only by laying hold of the opportunities furnished for remark, by sending away so great ' a part of our army, that I was enabled now and then to say something about the war.'-(Vol. ii. p. 17.) The principal errors that he notices in the Bengal plans, resulted from most exaggerated estimate both of the numbers and the prow'ess of the Burmans, and indeed of all other enemies. This has led to the discouragement of enterprise, to slow and cumber'some operations, to much expense and loss of time, by employing several corps where one would have been enough; and lastly, to what appears to me a great and useless increase of the Bengal army.'-(Vol. ii. p. 175.) There was also a 'great want of many of the arrangements and combinations by ' which the movements of an army are facilitated, and its suc'cess rendered more certain. There were, no doubt, great dif'ficulties; every thing was new; the country was difficult, and the climate was destructive; but still, more enterprise in ex'ploring the routes and passes on some occasions, and more foresight in others in ascertaining in time the means of convey'ance and subsistence, and what was practicable, and what was not, would have saved much time.'-(Vol. ii. p. 160.)

a

The original plan of the invasion of Ava was romantic and visionary; and there were so many projects after it commenced, that he scarcely ever expected to see any one plan pursued consistently. His experience in managing conspiracies in the Pindarrie war would have led him to raise a rebellion in Pegu, to have set up a false king if a real one was not to be had, and at the peace, to have declared Pegu an independent state; which, from its natural advantages, must have soon become more powerful than Ava. Notwithstanding these criticisms, it is an instance of his love of truth, that he vindicates Lord Amherst from the great injustice of the idle clamour' raised against him, The Court are too unreasonable when they expect to find every day for the supreme government such men as appear only once or twice in an age. You cannot have a Lord Cornwallis, or Wellesley, or Hastings every day, and must take such men as are to be found.'-(Vol. ii. p. 176.)

The burden of so much public business would have crushed most men's spirits, but the moment he breaks away from the council room, the elasticity of his mind restores him, as in former years, to the appropriate enjoyments of every scene. Pous sin could not have wished a sweeter subject, or the inspiration of more painter-like feelings, than are described in the following scene, part of a letter to Lady Munro, written the day before he descended into the burning plains of the Carnatic.

We are now encamped about two hundred yards above the spot where our tents were when we last passed this way, and very near the large banian tree to which we first walked. It is a beautiful wild scene of mingled rocks and jungle, and aged trees and water. I wish we had something like it at home. It is pleasant to see the different groups of travellers with their cattle coming in one after another; some sitting and some sleeping under the shady trees and bushes so thickly scattered around. There is something delightful in viewing the repose and stillness which every one seems to enjoy.'-(Vol. ii. p. 77.)- Nothing soothes me,' he says in another place, so much as being alone among mountain scenery-it is like resting in another world.'

His reflections are equally true and touching on looking upon a very different scene,-the waving grain surrounding the dilapidated station where he had been quartered when a subaltern thirty-five years ago. Most of my companions there ' are now dead; and how changed I am myself! I then thought 'that I was labouring to rise in my profession, and to retire to ' enjoy myself in my native land; but the older I grow, I get the more involved in business, and oppressed with labour.'(Vol. ii. p. 81.) His description of another, and still more different picture-the Enterprise, a steam vessel, manœuvring for

the gratification of the public, is as lively a sketch as Wilkie need desire to work on.

The evening was as favourable as it could possibly be; a close sky, a smooth sea, and a light breeze directly from the sea. The immense crowd of people reminded me of what you see at a race in England, but only that there was no drinking or quarrelling. I never saw half so great a number on any occasion. The beach was crowded from the saTuting battery to the Custom-House, with thousands of natives, in all their various fanciful costumes. The multitude of carriages was far beyond what I thought the whole Carnatic could have furnished. Every thing that could be mounted on wheels, from a hencoop or a dog-house to a barouche, was in requisition. In some of the hencoops, which would not have held two European ladies, seven or eight native women and children were crammed, all grinning with delight. Among the multitude there were, I believe, people from almost every province in India. I saw a great number of respectable-looking Indian women in carriages, who, I imagine, never appeared among Europeans before, and many of whom, I am sure, you would have thought beautiful, and certainly graceful, beyond any thing in Europe. I scarcely looked at the steam vessel : all that it can do may be seen in five minutes; but I wish I could have made a panorama of the living scene to send to you.'-(Vol. ii. p. 197.)

Taking leave of his private letters, we feel as if we were parting with a friend. It is impossible to have been thus permitted to come within the circle of his affections, and not love his person, though we never saw him. It has been already mentioned that Lady Munro had returned to England with her child. We were introduced in the first volume to his garden in the Baramahl, and in the Ceded Districts. But the garden scenes contained in the following passages, written to Lady Munro after her departure with his son, are worth all the gardens between Delhi and Tanjore. The name of the child had been diminutived by the child himself to Kamen from Campbell.

I then turned towards the garden, where I always found you, and Kamen trotting before you, except when he stayed behind to examine some ant-hole. How delightful it was to see him walking, or running, or stopping to endeavour to explain something with his hand to help his language. How easy, and artless, and beautiful are all the motions of a child! Every thing that he does is graceful. All his little ways are endearing, and they are the arms which nature has given him for his protection, because they make every body feel an attachment for him. I have lost his society just at the time when it was most interesting. It was his tottering walk, his helplessness, and unconsciousness, that I liked. By the time I see him again he will have lost all those qualities, -he will know how to behave himself,-he will have acquired some knowledge of the world, and will not be half so engaging as he now is. I almost wish that he would never change.'-(Vol. ii. p. 180.)—I was in the garden this morning, every thing is growing in great luxuri

auce, but particularly the hinah and baboal hedges. The new well is half full. I looked, on my way home, at what you call geraniums, but which seem to me to be more like wild potatoes. I stood for a minute admiring them, merely from the habit of doing so with you; for, had I followed my own taste, I should as soon have thought of admiring a brick-kiln as of gazing at a hundred red pots filled with weeds. There is something very melancholy in this house without you and your son. It has the air of some enchanted deserted mansion in romance. I often think of Kamen marching about the hall equipped for a walk, but resisting the ceremony of putting on his hat.'-(Vol. ii. p. 185.)

After the opportunity which we have given the reader of judging for himself, he will not want any opinion from us on the character of Munro. Mr Gleig speaks of having many more such letters. We will not call their publication a duty. But for ourselves, we had rather that Cowley's Odes had been all burnt, and that his biographer-the Courtier Bishop-had published the language of his heart.' Were a sibyl to propose to us the alternative of recovering an additional volume of Cowper's Correspondence, or a lost book of Livy, we should let the poetical historianbide his time.' The pleasure of the heart, realities and romance, is of a more affecting, and of an infinitely more improving kind. The affections of private life are, after all, the great foundation and resource on which human happiness has to depend. Every representation of them that interests the feelings and commands the understanding, and which institutes a kind of personal companionship with an individual full of tenderness and virtue, is, even in creations of fiction, a present of incalculable value; but in the history of real life, is a benefit and a blessing almost approaching to the possession of such a friend.

We need say as little of Munro's intellectual endowments. As an author, he would be entitled to take the very highest place, for the rare excellences of manly sense delivered in a plain and manly style-great talent for the description of scenery, and the narration of events—a droll and pleasant humour, sporting with the feather, not piercing with the sting-a most natural expression of deep feeling, because deeply and naturally felt. There was a real moral enthusiasm about him on all occasions. Forty years in India had not deadened his sympathy for the Greeks. I trust that the independence of Greece will be sc'cured. I am more anxious about that little country than about all the great powers.' Europe is more indebted to that country than has ever yet been acknowledged. I have seen no book 'which gives to Greece all that is due to her.' His indignation against the most flagrant act of modern impolicy and injustice

6

was as strong as it deserved.

If the French do enter into a 'war with Spain, I hope it will end in the expulsion of the Bour'bons both from France and Spain.' We quite agree that Bonaparte's invasion was not one jot more wicked. For Bonaparte himself, he felt, on visiting St Helena, the sentiments which fallen greatness must inspire in all except the vulgarest hearts. Besides, the setters-up and pullers-down of Oriental kings cannot be expected to have, in this respect, modified their language to the legitimate tone of European etiquette; at least not until they have passed the latitude of St Helena. His taste in literature was pure and simple. Accordingly, his criticisms on Persian compositions are such as would have astonished Sir W. Jones. We believe a page of Homer to be worth the whole Shah Nameh. Munro says, a chapter of Don Quixote is worth all their poetry together. The bombast of some of our public military letters from the East seems at one time to have disgusted his taste, and ruined his faith in them as documents for history, as much as civilian verbosity wore out afterwards his patience and his eyes.

It is difficult to marshal the comparative excellences of a mind, where you have to choose among so many. If nature can be said, in such a case, to lead the way, she meant to make him one of the most eminent soldiers of our age-perhaps the rival of his friend. His boyish reading had taken a military turn. Our Indian campaigns gave him abundant occasion for improving his talents by watching their egregious follies. We imagine that the Duke of Wellington, even as a beginner, was not much in the habit of canvassing for opinions. It is, therefore, no inconsiderable compliment to the professional reputation of Munro, among those who knew his merits, that the former should express so much eagerness for his approbation after the battle of Assye. A long letter begins with these words: As you are a judge of 'military operations, and as I am desirous of having your opinion ' on my side, I am about to give you an account of the battle at 'Assye.'-(Vol. i. p. 347.) Munro evidently thought the battle might have been spared. If there was any thing wrong at As'sye, it was in giving battle; but in the conduct of the action every thing was right.'-(Vol. i. p. 354.) For money, Munro seems to have had more than a philosophical indifference-a highminded disdain. He took very differently the want of military rank, and the loss of all occasion for the exercise of those talents which he could not but feel that he possessed. At last, on the breaking out of the Pindarrie war, fortune threw in his way a brilliant opportunity of justifying his own ambition, and the ex

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