part, might serve as a substitute for her son. A Circassian youth, who bore some resemblance to the doomed prince, was selected as the victim; the ministers of the sovereign were prevailed upon by the mother to favour her project; the Circassian boy suffered the fate intended for the young prince; and the royal mother, by the expedient which she thus carried into effect, saved the life of her youngest-born.

The confidential friends to whose care the prince, Yusuf, thus signally rescued from a cruel death, was entrusted, conveyed him, continues the Eastern legend, to a place of security, where he remained in strict seclusion till he had attained the age of sixteen years. At that period the thoughtless garrulity of his nurse betrayed the secret of his birth; and quitting a retirement which was no longer safe, he wandered into Persia. While residing at Shiraz, in that country, he was visited by a remarkable dream, which induced him once more to betake himself to India, under the impression that he should there, notwithstanding his past mischances, eventually obtain sovereign power. The event answered his expectations. Fortune favoured him with her smiles. The Hooma of prosperity-the bird of which it is fabled, that whosoever shall at any time come under the shadow of its wings, shall, one day, wear a crown-was seen to hover above him; he speedily arose to eminence under the Governor of Berar; and having resolved, on the dissolution of the Bhamanee empire in the Deccan, yet farther to push his fortunes, he became the master of an extensive and fertile territory, and finally established himself as an independent sovereign at Bejapore. His daughter, upon her marriage with Prince Ahmed of Koolburga, took precedence of every other lady of the court; and, on being remonstrated with touching her pretensions in this matter, replied, that as the daughter of Yusuf Adil Shah, and the niece and grand-daughter of two emperors of Rome, she conceived herself to be more than the equal of any lady in the Deccan. It is added, that due inquiry into the grounds of this assertion having been made at Constantinople, its truth was fully established, and the claim of the princess to precedence at the court of her father-in-law, admitted thenceforward, without opposition or question.

This biographical notice of Prince Yusuf is to be found in Ferishta's Indian History; and as the learned translator of that work appears to give credit to the singular and romantic incidents which it involves, we may perhaps venture, although the theatre of action be distant, and the scenes depicted unknown to European historians, to regard as matter of veritable history, the strange and eventful story of the dangers and preservation of Prince Yusuf.

Ferishta, in his history of the kingdom of Bejapore, dwells chiefly, after the manner of the generality of historians, on public disturbances and rebellions, or on political conspiracies; omitting, or but slightly touching upon, those more private and domestic matters which, if judiciously selected and recorded, often throw a flood of light upon the true character of historical personages. The architectural remains, however, of the Seven-Storied Palace, and of other buildings at Bejapore, show that the resources of the kingdom must have been, at the period in question, both extensive, and usefully employed. The aqueducts, water-tanks, and wells, still in existence in this ancient

SEVEN-STORIED PALACE.

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Asiatic city, sufficiently testify, that the taste for useless magnificence, prevalent in Hindostan generally, and in Bejapore in particular, was at least tempered by a desire, on the part of those in authority, to confer real and lasting benefit on their contemporaries, and on future generations. It is related that there exist still, in tolerable preservation, at Bejapore, "seven hundred wells, with steps; three hundred, without steps; and seven hundred mosques;" and travellers who have visited the city, and beheld the multitude of its buildings, and the vast extent of ground which they cover, give credit to the statement.

Some of the most interesting architectural remains of Bejapore are so little injured by the neglect and devastation which have gone far to convert the surrounding country into a desolate wilderness, that they even suggest the hope, that they may be destined to become, hereafter, the ornaments of a new capital; and one which shall be better governed than that which was crumbled into dust uuder the stern despotism of Aurungzebe, and the stormy vengeance of the Mahrattas.

We have already intimated that the Seven-Storied Palace of Bejapore is more European in the style of its architecture than is usually the case with East Indian structures. Its ruined towers and arches might have formed portions of an English monastery of the middle ages; and must doubtless have suggested recollections of home to many a British heart. Here, as at Furness Abbey, or at "Fair Melrose," the traveller

"Who should climb its broken stair,

Might love to hear the breezes moan and sigh;

And fancy spirits wander'd in the air,

Sent down as guardian-angels from the sky;

Or deem that shrouded monks were stalking by,

Or helméd knights all clad in shining mail;

And as he gazed around with earnest eye,

See lovely shapes upon the evening gale,

Or fairies, silken-hair'd, along the moon-beams fly."

The character of the foliage, too, in the immediate vicinity of the Seven-Storied Palace, is singularly European; neither palm, nor cocoa-tree, nor the luxuriant banana,

"Itself a grove, impervious to the sun."

recalls the idea of the sultry clime of Ind.

The sight of the ruins of Bejapore can scarcely fail to suggest to the meditative beholder some salutary reflections on the consequences of overweening ambition. He has before him a memorial of the defeat of one of the most cherished objects of a powerful despot, even by the very means by which he purposed to ensure its success. Aurungzebe, by overthrowing the independent kingdoms of Hindostan, and dethroning its princes, in order that he might himself become sole ruler of the Mohammedan empire, weakened the barriers which opposed the growing power of the Mahrattas, and effectually paved the way for the final destruction of the Moghul dynasty.

With such lessons history abounds, and they are worthy of being marked; for they carry along with them a weighty and practical moral.

The numerous vicissitudes to which the city of Bejapore has been subjected, have given rise to the idea, that vast treasures of gold and jewels are secreted amid its ruins. The custom of burying money is still prevalent in India; and may be regarded as affording an illustration, not obvious perhaps, but pregnant with deep meaning, of the solemn words, "earth to earth; dust to dust." Runjeet Singh is said to have been the victim of a passion for accumulating and burying money; and large sums are reported to be yearly secreted by certain Indian princesses. It is not, therefore, surprising, that there should be persons willing to pay a large "consideration " for the privilege of digging and delving under the old walls of Bejapore. This is a favourite speculation among the natives; and multitudes of them lose both their time and their wealth, while deluding themselves by the expectation of finding countless riches amid the ruined walls of the deserted city.

It is to be hoped, that the remains of the Seven-Storied Palace may be preserved from the researches of these indefatigable treasure-seekers. The slow finger of time, as well as the rougher touch of war, has already wrought its work of ruin; yet there are portions of the building which exhibit a character of permanence beyond that which usually appertains to human works, and which would seem to promise an almost endless durability. The very gilding in some parts of the Palace has not "lost its original brightness;" and of the more exquisitely wrought portions of the masonry, some are at this hour as perfect, and present outlines as sharp, as when the last chip of the chisel was heard within its precincts.

It is natural and reasonable to desire the preservation of these memorials of past ages-memorials interesting alike by their antiquity, and by the homily, which, in their slow decay, they read to us, respecting the finite duration of even the most durable of the works of man.

TO MISS MEYER.

Ir the world were bright to the beautiful,

It should have been bright to thee:

For fair is the grace of thy youthful face,

As ever man's eye might see.

Soft is the tint of thy glossy hair,

And the light of thy southern smile;

And low is the sound of thy gentle voice;

As ever might Love beguile.