Pouring from smoky spout the amber stream Ay, even o'er things like these, sooth'd age has thrown 'The change of good and evil to abide, And if I should be fated first to leave This earthly house, though gentle friends may grieve, A friend and brother, long and justly loved, Who then shall mourn for me as thou wilt mourn. Thou ardent, liberal spirit! quickly feeling The touch of sympathy, and kindly dealing The latest spoken still are deem'd the best: Few are the measured rhymes I now may write; These are, perhaps, the last I shall indite.'-pp. 219, 222. With these most affecting verses we think it well to conclude these few remarks, trusting that nothing in them will be found inconsistent with the profound respect we feel for Mrs. Joanna Baillie's name, and that the freedom in which we have indulged will be accepted as a guarantee for the sincerity of our praise. ART. (453 ART. VI.-Trifles from my Portfolio; or, Recollections of Scenes and small Adventures during Twenty-nine Years' Military Service. By a Staff Surgeon. 2 vols. 8vo. Quebec. 1839. THIS HIS gentleman makes so very free with other people's names that we have no hesitation about mentioning his own. Dr. Henry was attached, during a long series of years, to the 66th regiment, and, as we are told, equally appreciated in the messroom and the hospital—a sturdy, jovial, humorous little Irishman, and a skilful surgeon. Puellis nuper idoneus, he has recently taken to himself a Canadian wife and farm, and amused his leisure by inditing these Trifles,' which are, in fact, pretty copious memoirs of his adventurous campaigns in the fields of Venus as well as Mars. We have had of late so many Military Recollections that the title did not particularly attract us; but, after the volumes had been on our shelves for more than twelve months, we casually took them down; and a perusal so amused us, that we must invite our readers to a participation in the feast of reason.' 6 The early part, in which he records his boyhood, youth, and professional education, offers nothing worth dwelling upon; and though his account of his experiences in the Peninsula contains several lively passages, they relate to scenes which have engaged so many clever pens-from Gleig to Quillinan-that we think it better to step on to India-for which region the 66th regiment embarked exactly as the news of Bonaparte's escape from Elba reached the Downs, March, 1815. As they started, our author betted a dinner that the Great Man would be caged again by the 15th of April'-a curious anticipation of Ney's pledge to Louis XVIII.—and a good dinner it must have been, since we find it hinted that the bill cost the sanguine doctor nearly 100%. in expensive Calcutta.' Among the best of his Indian chapters is that describing a voyage from Dinapore to Cawnpore : 'In the beginning of July we embarked on the Ganges, now full to the brim. If any person wishes to luxuriate among roses let him repair to Ghazepore, where the whole country, for some hundred or two of square miles, is thickly covered with them. Rose-water and the exquisite attar of roses are, consequently, cheaper here than in any other part of India; though the latter, when genuine, must always be a most expensive article, from the enormous consumption of roses in its preparation. It takes a prodigious quantity of the petals to make an ounce of attar; and to produce a quart bottle would require, I suppose, a heap about as big as St. Paul's.'-vol. i. p. 184. This fragrant exordium contrasts vividly with what comes after. When we reflect that the inhabitants of the valley of the Ganges are are in number at least thirty millions; that the superstitious reverence for the sacred river induces every family who can possibly approach it to commit their dead to its waters; and that for the greater part of the year the atmosphere is very hot, we may form some notion of the multitude of human corpses, in every stage of dissolution, that must be perpetually mixed with or buoyant on the flood-the surface waters must be actually a decoction of putridity. It can be no wonder that infectious diseases, with cholera at the head, should eternally hover over this gigantic open sewer of Bengal, and diverge far and wide from its centre of corruption. Dr. Henry has a description of the scene too painful to be quoted. We can but allude to the enormous flocks of vultures and other birds of prey eternally flapping and screaming over the floating masses of decay, tearing and disembowelling naked carcases of men, women, and children. But the horror of horrors is the fact that the voyager can never keep near the shore for an hour at a time without seeing some old, worn-out, decrepit grandfather or grandmother, carried to the verge of the stream by the hands of their own offspring, their mouths stuffed with the holy river-grass, and the yet gasping bodies tumbled into the flood. We are weary of hearing that such usages could not be interrupted without alienating the minds of the Hindoos. No superstition was supposed to be more deeply rooted than the horrid one of the Suttee-but a single rescript put that abomination down—and, except from certain sleek Brahmins interested in the matter of burning fees, not one voice has been heard to complain of the abolition. The same as to infanticide in some extensive districts, where it had prevailed from a remote antiquity. Who can doubt that all these diabolical atrocities have always been perpetrated amidst the secret loathing of the priest-ridden population of India? It is of the very essence of such tyranny that it succeeds in suppressing all outward show of aversion on the part of its victims : 'Ducitur iratis plaudendum funus amicis.' The feelings of humankind are the same everywhere; and we are well convinced that the authority of a civilised government could in no way be strengthened so effectually, as by making itself felt wherever it extends, to be the immitigable enemy of every usage that wars against the instincts of natural affection. Nay more we venture to say that the English government in India can never gain anything by authorising spontaneously any act that tends to compromise it in the eyes of the natives, as if it were, as a power, indifferent to the distinction between Idolatry and Christianity. The majority of the better educated natives are, we may rest assured, infidels to the creed of their ancestry. These These of course are very apt to suppose that the same is the condition of professing Christians, who do not hesitate to collect revenues and superintend processions for the benefit of Hindoo or Mussulman temples. Sincere Hindoos and sincere Mussulmans, on the other hand, must be shocked with our interference. Nobody but the priest who pockets the money will ever thank us, and he despises us too. Where anything has been undertaken in a distinct Treaty with an as yet independent State, the obligation, however unfortunate, must be discharged: but we should never step one inch beyond what the exact letter of the compact binds us to. The Suttee was in full vigour when Dr. Henry made the voyage. We must quote one of his shortest descriptions of it : This cruel scene took place close to the water's edge, near a huge banyan-tree, whose branches, spreading far and wide, were supported by the vigorous shoots they had sent down into the earth-now grown into strong pillars-like decrepit parents by the piety of their children. It was about ten o'clock at night, and, I suppose, two hundred people were present. The victim was very young-not more than seventeen or eighteen-and though looking a little wild, yet she distributed the flowers and sweetmeats to her friends and relations with a certain degree of composure; and then mounted the pyre with a firm step, kissed her husband's lips, and lay down beside him. Before this time several fruitless attempts had been made by two of my brother officers and myself to dissuade her from this terrible self-sacrifice-No, no—if she lived she would be an outcast from society-forced to perform the lowest offices-lose her high caste (she was a Brahmin) and be contemned and despised henceforward by all her acquaintances, friends, and relatives. Thus artfully have the Hindoo priests intertwined their sanguinary rites with human pride and vanity, and made these cogent principles subservient to their own ambitious and avaricious purposes. 'As soon as this unfortunate woman had placed herself beside her husband, a kind of cage, made of bamboos, was put over them, smeared with ghee, or buffalo-butter, to make it more combustible, and a horrible din of tom-toms, gongs and human voices was set up, evidently for the purpose of stifling the poor creature's cries. A quantity of dry wood, leaves, &c., surrounded the funeral pile, and was now set fire to, and blazed up fiercely at once, so as in all probability to save further suffering, and suffocate the victim in a few seconds. In a short time the whole was one glowing flame, which, when swayed to one side by the wind, gave the spectators a glimpse of the two blackened objects in the centre. It was altogether a dreadful sight-an infernal sacrifice, at the perpetration of which demons might rejoice!'-vol. i. pp. 188, 189 Well may the Doctor exclaim 'When we witness all these horrors in heathen lands, it is scarcely possible for the most thoughtless to avoid reflecting on the infinite obligations our favoured quarter of the globe is under to Christianity, and society generally, in all places pervaded by its influence. Christian wom women, too, have been placed under a vast debt of gratitude to this benign religion. Its divine Founder raised them to an equality with the other sex, by his countenance and gracious society when he lived on earth, and by the ennobling influence of his doctrines ever since, and the tone of purity which they have shed over human relations. Fresh triumphs of Christianity in favour of the weaker, but more virtuous sex, are now passing daily before our eyes, amongst which the recent abolition of female infanticide and widow-burnings in the East stand out in strong relief. In the Polynesian Archipelago we also witness the progressive instruction, purification, and elevation of the female savage in the social scale-or rather, we see the elements of society created where all was dark, dismal, and bloody barbarism before. And well, and zealously, and affectionately, has woman paid her tribute of good works for the benefits her sex has received from Christianity, from the very times of its first promulgation till the present day. Indeed its propagation, under a superintending Providence, was much dependant on the ministry of women, and their powerful suasion with the rougher half of mankind; and amidst multiplied instances of early bad conduct and apostacy amongst men-there is only one solitary case of female guilt amongst the Apostolic converts; and she, Sapphira, acted plainly under the evil influence of her husband. No woman ever slighted, or neglected, or despised, or blasphemed, or betrayed the Author of Christianity, or any of his Apostles-No-no. "She ne'er with treacherous kiss her Saviour stung Nor e'er denied him with unholy tongue: She, when Apostles shrank, could danger brave- --vol. i. p. 190. It is not often that our author rises from his easy sensible conversational tone; but passages like this tell all the better for their paucity. Turn a leaf and we find him in his usual vein— narrating how the commanding officer had two pretty maiden sisters on board, and how the surgeon acquitted himself as their courteous squire: 'One calm and clear evening, when the fleet had lagowed for the night at a rich mango tope, with smooth velvet turf underfoot, the sisters, the colonel, and myself, strolled along the beautiful bank-the elder on his arm and the younger on mine. The pairs, however, soon separated, and my companion and I sauntered along, following a path through the trees, until sunset: we then discovered that we were two miles from the boats, and the short twilight of the East soon began to darken apace. Hastening home, we left the circuitous path we had come by and tried a near-cut through a field; but here an unforeseen obstacle interposed. A rivulet, which higher up we had crossed by a rustic bridge of a log thrown over it, had become wider and deeper as it approached the Ganges, and now required a good running leap. this dilemma I proposed to go round by the bridge, but my young friend would not hear of it-"You have no idea how active I am-jump first In and |