their power; and in the confiscation of the Connaught estates did great injustice to a great number. On the lower classes, indeed on the whole community he conferred a great benefit in increased security, the greatest pre-requisite of material prosperity; (though with the great drawback that there was no security against himself); he was wise enough (not so the master whom he served) to know that the surest way of securing a good revenue is to have a prosperous people. Even in the one injustice which was shared in common by the whole nation, the attempt to establish uniformity of religion—an injustice continued even to the present day—he displayed moderation and caution at the outset. But it is not probable that the Irish regarded him with anything but dislike; the whole nation would sympathise keenly with the indignities cast upon their lords justices, their parliaments, and lords of the pale; and burn with anger at the treatment of Loftus, Mountnorris, Clanricarde, Kildare. 'Black Tom' was in no favour with the Irish peasantry.

One word more of Strafford's end. Let it be remembered that it is the closing scenes of his life that are most calculated to awaken sympathy in his favour, to incline the witness of them to palliate his faults. Nothing can exceed the nobleness of his devotion to his master, in the midst of unworthy treatment, of threatening danger, of acute bodily ailment. He perceived the approaching peril, and wished to retire to Ireland-but Charles wanted him; and promised that "while there was a king in England, not a hair of his head should be touched by the parliament." He acceded to the King's wish; his impeachment followed; that great trial in which he defended himself with such magnanimity, and such power, in a speech at once inexpressibly touching and strikingly able, broken though he was with misfortune, bent with disease: then the bill of attainder, directed to the more complete and certain accomplishment of the object of the com

mons, and resisted by the 'Straffordians,' most of whom were lawyers; the passing of that bill by the peers as well as the commons, and its presentation to the king; Strafford's magnanimous release of the king from his promise, an act in unison with the whole devotion of his life; the wretched King's disgraceful assent to the bill, and his pitiable letter to the Lords; and the one involuntary utterance of the wounded heart-"Nolite confidere principibus et filiis hominum quia non est salus in illis." And then came the closing scene of that eventful life: the last office of the scaffold.*

If, as Hallam says,† it be treason to revere the name of the Earl of Strafford, we may at least be permitted to admire his greatness; and to pity the lot of one who not only devoted his abilities, but also sacrificed his life in the cause of a master to whom he was in everything so immeasurably superior.

N. S. B.

May 12th, 1641.

† Hallam, vol. II., p. 55. "But it may be reckoned as a sufficient ground for distrusting anyone's attachment to the English Constitution, that he reveres the name of the Earl of Strafford." At pp. 103-112 of Hallam, will be found a discussion of the legal question involved in Strafford's trial. The account of the Trial in Forster's Life, from p. 378 to the end, is most interesting; and there is also a good account in Guizot, pp. 274-289, who says in his preliminary Discours,' p. 5: "Strafford était justement accusé et injustement jugé." Throughout, Forster's Life has been my principal authority, and I have borrowed from him largely in language as well as substance. Radcliffe's Essay is interesting as to Strafford's private life

and habits.

J

war.

A TOUR IN DEHRA DOON.

T was in the month of October, 1862, that accompanied by some friends, I left the small station of Roorkie for the sacred city of HurdThe rainy season was over. The clouds, "those daughters of the earth and waters and nurslings of the sky, had ceased to weep for human sins." The sun shone out bright and clear, and revealed a most enchanting scene on the banks of the Ganges canal, along which our route lay. Rising one above the other were the mighty Himalayas, clad from base to summit with diverse belts of vegetation; here clumps of acacia, here forests of ilex, and on the higher summits groves of conifers; high above all towered, as though reaching to heaven itself, that lofty range, clad with perpetual snow, whose tips were lit up with a golden hue, while the vast expanse of virgin snow, through many a weary day's march away, rose into the sky with every glacier clearly defined.

It was our first day's journey on a tour through the valley of Dehra Doon. This valley is bounded on the north by the Himalaya mountains, on the south by a low range called the Sewalik hills, and on the east and west by the Ganges and Jumna rivers. It is about forty miles long and twenty broad. Protected alike from the hot winds of the plains and the cold blasts of the Himalayas, the climate is a temperate and salubrious one. It is a land overflowing with milk and honey. Mango and apple, cherry and leechy, grow

side by side. Large and flourishing plantations of tea, coffee, and sugar cane are springing up in the valley, which abounds with every species of game, from tiger to teal.

As I have before mentioned, our course lay along the Ganges canal, one of the greatest engineering works in India, and by far the greatest monument extant of British skill and enterprise. Extending over more than five hundred miles in length, measuring in its depth ten feet, and in its breadth one hundred and seventy, the main irrigation of the Ganges canal is a work which stands unequalled in its kind. The idea that a small band of men, from a distant land beyond the sea, should make the river,—the most sacred in the land, one which has always been regarded with the greatest awe and reverence by the dusky inhabitants, and to propitiate whose favour is the dearest object of their lives,-the means of making their fields fertile and driving away famine-the scourge which spared neither old nor young, but slew them by thousands and tens of thousands-is one full of sentiment and poetry. While the canal was in process of excavation, the priests declared that the waters of the Holy Gunga would never flow down a channel dug by human hands; but they found that British skill and engineering could rule even the waters of the sacred stream. The wily priests, rather than lose their reputation among their followers by a false prophecy, declared that the chief engineer was a son of the goddess herself, and he now occupies a respectable place in the Hindoo Pantheon.

After a couple of hours' ride we arrived at the sacred city of Hurdwar. It is here that the Ganges rushes down from the mountains, clear as crystal. The city is built on the banks of the river, and near the frequent ghauts are built temples dedicated to the Hindoo deities, Ganesh and Shiva.

To Hurdwar come thousands of pilgrims from all parts of India. The Hindoo's life-long wish is to die

at the sacred city, and be thrown at last into its all-holy stream; for he believes that the soul of him who has accomplished this great object will be exempt from the ordeal of repeated birth, and will merge at once into that Infinite General Soul from which it was an emanation. It is this desire to escape further transmigration, to be absorbed into the Infinite, that causes so very many Hindoos to commit suicide in the Ganges on the sacred day. For in April a great fair is held at Hurdwar, and multitudes flock there, for the double purpose of washing their sins away, and of buying and. selling. Merchants from different climes and nations then assemble here. The Arab, with his long flowing robe and grey beard, leading a string of fiery coursers; the merchant, with muslins of the most delicate texture that the looms of Dacca can produce; the Afghan, with his small but sturdy steeds, laden with the luscious fruits that grow in his mountain home; jewellers of Delhi, with their large iron boxes filled with precious stones and ornaments of the most exquisite workmanship,-jewels of rare value, fit to shine in a monarch's crown or ransom a captive king.

It being the month of October, however, we found Hurdwar a very quiet, lonely, half-deserted town. The greater number of the inhabitants are priests. For the gentlemen of the cloth, so much of it as there is, the natives have a great respect. The attire of some of the clergy was more remarkable for simplicity than elegance. It consisted of a piece of string and half a

cocoa-nut.

Our tents were pitched a couple of miles from the city, on the summit of a hill, and from our tent door we enjoyed the most beautiful prospect that the fondest admirer of the picturesque could desire. Beneath us we could see the Ganges winding in innumerable directions, in one place flowing smoothly down, and in another rushing madly over rocks and glistening stones, and bearing on its waters large trees which had