fourteenth century, the coronet of Pembroke. | and ten years later he told the tale, rose in his From another branch sprang the renowned mind a scheme which, through all the turns Chamberlain, the faithful adherent of the of his eventful career, was never abandoned. White Rose, whose fate has furnished so striking a theme both to poets and to historians. His family received from the Tudors the earldom of Huntingdon; which, after long dispossession, was regained in our time by a series of events scarcely paralleled in ro

mance.

He would recover the estate which had be longed to his fathers. He would be Hastings of Daylesford. This purpose, formed in in fancy and poverty, grew stronger as his intel lect expanded and as his fortune rose. He pursued his plan with that calm but indomitable force of will, which was the most striking peculiarity of his character. When, under a tropical sun, he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, his hopes, amidst all the cares of war, finance, and legislation, still pointed to Daylesford. And when his long public life, so singularly checkered with good and evil, with glory and obloquy, had at length closed forever, it was to Daylesford that he retired to die.

The lords of the manor of Daylesford, in Worcestershire, claimed to be considered as the heads of this distinguished family. The main stock, indeed, prospered less than some of the younger shoots. But the Daylesford family, though not ennobled, was wealthy and highly considered, till, about two hundred years ago, it was overwhelmed in the great ruin of the Civil War. The Hastings of that time was When he was eight years old, his uncle, a zealous Cavalier. He raised money on his Howard, determined to take charge of him, own lands, sent his plate to the mint at Oxford, and to give him a liberal education. The boy joined the royal army, and, after spending went up to London, and was sent to a school half of his property in the cause of King at Newington, where he was well taught but Charles, was glad to ransom himself by mak- ill fed. He always attributed the smallness of ing over most of the remaining half to Speaker his stature to the hard and scanty fare of his Lenthal. The old seat at Daylesford still re- seminary. At ten he was removed to Westmained in the family; but it could no longer minster school, then flourishing under the care be kept up; and in the following generation of Dr. Nichols. Vinny Bourne, as his pupils it was sold to a merchant of London. affectionately called him, was one of the masBefore the transfer took place, the last Hast-ters. Churchill, Colman, Lloyd, Cumberland, ings of Daylesford had presented his second Cowper, were among the students. With son to the rectory of the parish in which the Cowper, Hastings formed a friendship which ancient residence of the family stood. The neither the lapse of time, nor a wide dissimiliving was of little value; and the situation of larity of opinions and pursuits, could wholly the poor clergyman, after the sale of the estate, dissolve. It does not appear that they ever was deplorable. He was constantly engaged met after they had grown to manhood. But in lawsuits about his tithes with the new lord many years later, when the voices of a crowd of the manor, and was at length utterly ruined. of great orators were crying for vengeance on His eldest son, Howard, a well-conducted the oppressor of India, the shy and secluded young man, obtained a place in the Customs. poet could imagine to himself Hastings the The second son, Pynaston, an idle, worthless Governor-General, only as the Hastings with boy, married before he was sixteen, lost his whom he had rowed on the Thames and played wife in two years, and went to the West Indies, in the cloister; and refused to believe that so where he died, leaving to the care of his un- good-tempered a fellow could have done any fortunate father a little orphan, destined to thing very wrong. His own life had been strange and memorable vicissitudes of fortune. spent in praying, musing, and rhyming among Warren, the son of Pynaston, was born on the waterlilies of the Ouse. He had preserved the 6th of December, 1732. His mother died in no common measure the innocence of childa few days later, and he was left dependent hood. His spirit had indeed been severely on his distressed grandfather. The child was tried, but not by temptations which impelled early sent to the village school, where he him to any gross violation of the rules of solearned his letters on the same bench with the cial morality. He had never been attacked sons of the peasantry. Nor did any thing in by combinations of powerful and deadly enehis garb or fare indicate that his life was to mies. He had never been compelled to make take a widely different course from that of the a choice between innocence and greatness, young rustics with whom he studied and between crime and ruin. Firmly as he held played. But no cloud could overcast the in theory the doctrine of human depravity, his dawn of so much genius and so much ambi-habits were such, that he was unable to conceive tion. The very ploughmen observed, and long how far from the path of right, even kind and remembered, how kindly little Warren took to noble natures may be hurried by the rage of his book. The daily sight of the lands which conflict and the lust of dominion. his ancestors had possessed, and which had passed into the hands of strangers, filled his young brain with wild fancies and projects. He loved to hear stories of the wealth and greatness of his progenitors-of their splendid housekeeping, their loyalty, and their valour. On one bright summer day, the boy, then just seven years old, lay on the bank of the rivulet which flows through the old domain of his house to join the Isis. There, as threescore

Hastings had another associate at Westminster, of whom we shall have occasion to make frequent mention-Elijah Impey. We know little about their school days. But we think we may safely venture to guess that, whenever Hastings wished to play any trick more than usually naughty, he hired Impey with a tart or a ball to act as fag in the worst part of the prank.

Warren was distinguished among his com

He was immediately placed at a desk in the Secretary's office at Calcutta, and laboured there during two years. Fort William was then a purely commercial settlement. In the south of India the encroaching policy of Du-pany, had been turned by public calamities pleix had transformed the servants of the English company, against their will, into diplomatists and generals. The war of the succession was raging in the Carnatic; and the tide had been suddenly turned against the French by the genius of young Robert Clive. But in Bengal, the European settlers, at peace with the natives and with each other, were wholly occupied with Ledgers and Bills of lading.

rously. The greater part of his savings he left in Bengal, hoping probably to obtain the high usury of India. But high usury and bad security generally go together; and Hastings lost both interest and principal.

of civilization without its mercy. To all other lous, perhaps an unprincipled statesman; but despotism there is a check; imperfect, indeed, still he was a statesman, and not a freebooter. and liable to gross abuse, but still sufficient In 1764, Hastings returned to England. He to preserve society from the last extreme of had realized only a very moderate fortune, and misery. A time comes when the evils of sub-that moderate fortune was soon reduced to nomission are obviously greater than those of re-thing, partly by his praiseworthy liberality and sistance; when fear itself begets a sort of cou- partly by his mismanagement. Towards his rage; when a convulsive burst of popular rage | relations he appears to have acted very geneand despair warns tyrants not to presume too far on the patience of mankind. But against misgovernment such as then afflicted Bengal it was impossible to struggle. The superior intelligence and energy of the dominant class made their power irresistible. A war of Ben- He remained four years in England. Of his galees against Englishmen was like a war of life at this time very little is known. But it sheep against wolves, of men against demons. has been asserted, and is highly probable, that The only protection which the conquered could liberal studies and the society of men of letfind was in the moderation, the clemency, the ters occupied a great part of his time. It is enlarged policy of the conquerors. That pro- to be remembered to his honour, that in days tection, at a later period, they found. But at when the languages of the East were regarded first English power came among them unac- by other servants of the Company merely as companied by English morality. There was the means of communicating with weavers an interval between the time at which they be- and money-changers, his enlarged and accomcame our subjects and the time at which we plished mind sought in Asiatic learning for began to reflect that we were bound to dis-new forms of intellectual enjoyment, and for charge towards them the duty of rulers. Dur-new views of government and society. Pering that interval the business of a servant of the Company was simply to wring out of the ratives a hundred or two hundred thousand pounds as speedily as possible, that he might return home before his constitution had suffered from the heat, to marry a peer's daughter, to buy rotten boroughs in Cornwall, and to give balls in St. James's Square. Of the conduct of Hastings at this time little is known; but the little that is known, and the circumstance that little is known, must be considered as honourable to him. He could not protect the natives; all that he could do was to abstain from plundering and oppressing them; and this he appears to have done. It is certain that at this time he continued poor; and it is equally certain that, by cruelty and dishonesty, he might easily have become rich. It is certain that he was never charged with having borne a share in the abuses which then prevailed; and it is almost equally certain that, if he had borne a share in those abuses, the able and bitter enemies who afterwards persecuted him would not have failed to discover and to proclaim his guilt. The keen, severe, and even malevolent scrutiny to which his whole public life was subjected-a scrutiny unparalleled, as we believe, in the history of mankind-is, in one respect, advantageous to his reputation. It brought many lamentable blemishes to light; but it entitles him to be considered pure from every blemish which has not been brought to light.

haps, like most persons who have paid much attention to departments of knowledge which lie out of the common track, he was inclined to overrate the value of his favourite studies. He conceived that the cultivation of Persian literature might with advantage be made a part of the liberal education of an English gentleman; and he drew up a plan with that view. It is said that the University of Oxford, in which Oriental learning had never, since the revival of letters, been wholly neglected, was to be the seat of the institution which he contemplated. An endowment was expected from the munificence of the Company, and professors thoroughly competent to interpret Hafiz and Ferdusi were to be engaged in the East. Hastings called on Johnson with the hope, as it would seem, of interesting in his project a man who enjoyed the highest literary reputation, and who was particularly connected with Oxford. The interview appears to have left on Johnson's mind a most favourable impres sion of the talents and attainments of his visiter. Long after, when Hastings was ruling the immense population of British India, the old philosopher wrote to him, and referred in the most courtly terms, though with great dig nity, to their short but agreeable intercourse.

Hastings soon began to look again towards India. He had little to attach him to England, and his pecuniary embarrassments were great. He solicited his old masters the Directors for employment. They acceded to his request, The truth is, that the temptations to which with high compliments both to his abilities and so many English functionaries yielded in the to his integrity, and appointed him a member time of Mr. Vansittart, were not temptations of Council at Madras. It would be unjust not addressed to the ruling passions of Warren to mention, that though forced to borrow money Hastings. He was not squeamish in pecu- for his outfit, he did not withdraw any portion niary transactions; but he was neither sordid of the sum which he had appropriated to the nor rapacious. He was far too enlightened a relief of his distressed relations. In the spring man to look on a great empire purely as a of 1769 he embarked on board of the "Duke of bucanier would look on a galleon. Had his Grafton," and commenced a voyage distin heart been much worse than it was, his under-guished by incidents which might furnish malstanding would have preserved him from that ter for a novel. extremity of baseness. He was an unscrupu- Among the passengers in the "Duke of Graf

should continue to live together. It was also agreed that Hastings should bestow some very substantial marks of gratitude on the complaisant husband; and should, when the marriage was dissolved, make the lady his wife, and adopt the children whom she had already borne to Imhoff.

We are not inclined to judge either Hastings or the baroness severely.. There was undoubt edly much to extenuate their fault. But we can by no means concur with the Rev. Mr, Gleig, who carries his partiality to so injudicious an extreme, as to describe the conduct of Imhoff-conduct the baseness of which is the best excuse for the lovers-as "wise and judicious.”

tical than to commercial pursuits; but he knew that the favour of his employers depended chiefly on their dividends, and their dividends depended chiefly on the investment. He there fore, with great judgment, determined to apply his vigorous mind for a time to this depart ment of business; which had been much neglected, since the servants of the Company had ceased to be clerks, and had become warriors and negotiators.

In a very few months he effected an important reform. The Directors notified to him their high approbation, and were so much pleased with his conduct, that they determined

ton," was a German by the name of Imhoff. | before the sentence should be pronounced, they He called himself a baron, but he was in distressed circumstances; and was going out to Madras as a portrait painter, in the hope of picking up some of the pagodas which were then lightly got and as lightly spent by the English in India. The baron was accompanied by his wife, a native, we have somewhere read, of Archangel. This young woman, who, born under the Arctic circle, was destined to play the part of a queen under the tropic of Cancer, had an agreeable person, a cultivated mind, and manners in the highest degree engaging. She despised her husband heartily, and, as the story which we have to tell sufficiently proves, not without reason. She was interested by the conversation and flattered by the attentions of | Hastings. The situation was indeed perilous. At Madras Hastings found the trade of the No place is so propitious to the formation Company in a very disorganized state. His either of close friendships or of deadly enmi-own tastes would have led him rather to polities as an Indiaman. There are very few people who do not find a voyage which lasts several months insupportably dull. Any thing is welcome which may break that long monotony-a sail, a shark, an albatross, a man overboard. Most passengers find some resource in eating twice as many meals as on land. But the great devices for killing the time are, quarrelling and flirting. The facilities for both these exciting pursuits are great. The inmates of the ship are thrown together far more than in any country-seat or boarding-house. None can escape from the rest except by imprisoning himself in a cell in which he can hardly turn. All food, all exercise, is taken in com-to place him at the head of the government of pany. Ceremony is to a great extent banished. It is every day in the power of a mischievous person to inflict innumerable annoyances; it is every day in the power of an amiable person to confer little services. It not seldom happens that serious distress and danger call forth in genuine beauty and deformity heroic virtues and abject vices, which, in the ordinary intercourse of good society, might remain during many years unknown even to intimate associates. Under such circumstances met Warrenvised-a system which was, perhaps, skilfully Hastings and the Baroness Imhoff; two persons whose accomplishments would have attracted notice in any court of Europe. The gentleman had no domestic ties. The lady was tied to a husband for whom she had no regard, and who had no regard for his own honour. An attachment sprang up, which was soon strengthened by events such as could hardly have occurred on land. Hastings fell ill. The baroness nursed him with womanly tenderness, gave him his medicines with her own hand, and even sat up in his cabin while he slept. Long before the "Duke of Grafton" reached Madras, Hastings was in love. But But though thus absolute in reality, the his love was of a most characteristic descrip- English had not yet assumed the style of sotion. Like his hatred, like his ambition, like vereignty. They held their territories as vasall his passions, it was strong, but not impetu-sals of the throne of Delhi; they raised their It was calm, deep, earnest, patient of delay, unconquerable by time. Imhoff was called into council by his wife and his wife's lover. It was arranged that the baroness should institute a suit for a divorce in the courts of Franconia; that the baron should afford every facility to the proceeding; and bat, during the years which might elapse

ous.

Bengal. Early in 1772 he quitted Fort St. George for his new post. The Imhoffs, who were still man and wife, accompanied him, and lived at Calcutta "on the same wise and judicious plan" (we quote the words of Mr. Gleig) which they had already followed during more than two years.

When Hastings took his seat at the head of the council board, Bengal was still governed according to the system which Clive had de

contrived for the purpose of facilitating and concealing a great revolution, but which, when that revolution was complete and irrevocable, could produce nothing but inconvenience. There were two governments, the real and the ostensible. The supreme power belonged to the Company, and was in truth the most despotic power that can be conceived. The only restraint on the English masters of the country was that which their own justice and humanity imposed on them. There was no constitutional check on their will, and resistance wo them was utterly hopeless.

revenues as collectors appointed by the im perial commission; their public seal was inscribed with the imperial titles; and their mint struck only the imperial coin.

There was still a Nabob of Bengal, who stood to the English rulers of his country in the same relation in which Augustulus stood to Odoacer, or the last Merovingians to Charles Martel

and Pepin. He lived at Moorshedabad surrounded by princely magnificence. He was approached with the outward marks of reverence, and his name was used in public instruments; but in the government of the country he had less real share than the youngest writer or cadet in the Company's service.

The English Council which represented the Company at Calcutta, was constituted on a very different plan from that which has since been adopted. At present the governor is, as to all executive measures, absolute. He can declare war, conclude peace, appoint public functionaries or remove them, in opposition to the unanimous sense of those who sit with him in council. They are, indeed, entitled to know all that is done, to discuss all that is done, to advise, to remonstrate, to send home protests. But it is with the governor that the supreme power resides, and on him that the whole responsibility rests. This system, which was introduced by Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas in spite of the strenuous opposition of Mr. Burke, we conceive to be on the whole the best that was ever devised for the government of a country where no materials can be found for a representative constitution. In the time of Hastings the governor had only one vote in Council, and, in case of an equal division, a casting vote. It therefore happened not unfrequently that he was overruled on the gravest questions; and it was possible that he might be wholly excluded, for years together, from the real direction of public affairs.

was responsible to none out the British masters of the country.

A situation so important, lucrative, and splendid, was naturally an object of ambition to the ablest and most powerful natives. Clive had found it difficult to decide between con flicting pretensions. Two candidates stood out prominently from the crowd, each of them the representative of a race and of a religion.

The one was Mohammed Reza Khan, a Mussulman of Persian extraction, able, active, religious after the fashion of his people, and highly esteemed by them. In England, he might perhaps have been regarded as a corrupt and greedy politician. But tried by the lower standard of Indian morality, he might be considered as a man of integrity and honour.

His competitor was a Hindoo Brahmin, whose name has, by a terrible and melancholy event, been inseparably associated with that of Warren Hastings-the Maharajah Nuncomar. This man had played an important part in all the revolutions which, since the time of Surajah Dowlah, had taken place in Bengal. To the consideration which in that country belongs to high and pure caste, he added the weight which is derived from wealth, talents, and experience. Of his moral character it is difficult to give a notion to those who are acquainted with human nature only as it appears in our island. What the Italian is to the Englishman, what the Hindoo is to the Italian, what the Bengalee is to other Hindoos, that was Nuncomar to other Bengalees. The physical organization of the Bengalee is feeble even to effeminacy. He lives in a constant vapour bath. His pursuits are sedentary, his limbs delicate, his move

The English functionaries at Fort William had as yet paid little or no attention to the internal government of Bengal. The only branch of politics with which they much busied them-ments languid. During many ages he has been selves was negotiation with the native princes. The police, the administration of justice, the details of the collection of revenue, they almost entirely neglected. We may remark that the phraseology of the Company's servants still bears the traces of this state of things. To this day they always use the word "political" as synonymous with "diplomatic." We could name a gentleman still living, who was described by the highest authority as an invaluable public servant, eminently fit to be at the head of the departments of finance, revenue, and justice, but unfortunately quite ignorant of all political business.

The internal government of Bengal the English rulers delegated to a great native minister, who was stationed at Moorshedabad. All military affairs, and, with the exception of what pertains to mere ceremonial, all foreign affairs, were withdrawn from his control; but the other departments of the administration were entirely confided to him. His own stipend amounted to near a hundred thousand pounds sterling a year. The civil list of the Nabobs, amounting to more than three hundred thousand pounds a year, passed through the minister's hands, and was, to a great extent, at his disposal. The collection of the revenue, the superintendence of the household of the prince, the administration of justice, the maintenance of order, were left to this high functionary; and for the exercise of his immense power he VOL. IV.-59

trampled upon by men of bolder and more hardy breeds. Courage, independence, veracity, are qualities to which his constitution and his situation are equally unfavourable. His mind bears a singular analogy to his body It is weak even to helplessness, for purposes of manly resistance; but its suppleness and its tact move the children of sterner climates to admiration not unmingled with contempt. All those arts which are the natural defence of the weak, are more familiar with this subtle race than to the Ionian of the times of Juvenal, or to the Jew of the dark ages. (What the horns are to the buffalo, what the paw is to the tiger, what the sting is to the bee, what beauty, according to the old Greek song, is to woman, deceit is to the Bengalee.) Large promises, smooth excuses, elaborate tissues of circumstantial falsehood, chicanery, perjury, forgery, are the weapons, offensive and defensive, of the people of the Lower Ganges. All those millions do not furnish one sepoy to the armies of the Company. But as usurers, as moneychangers, as sharp legal practitioners, no class of human beings can bear a comparison with them. With all his softness, the Bengalee is by no means placable in his enmities, or prone to pity. The pertinacity with which he adheres to his purposes, yields only to the immediate pressure of fear. Nor does he lack a certain kind of courage which is often want ing in his masters. To inevitable evils he is