Another of the countless testimonies to Mrs. Garrick's worth. 'A statesman without pow'r and without gall, and Lord Lyttleton (12th October, 1771) wrote to him 'I think I love you more than one of my age ought to do, for at a certain time of life, the heart should lose something of its sensibility; but you have called back all mine, and I feel for you as I did for the dearest of my friends in the first warmth of my youth.' So it was with Bishops Newton and Warburton, with Lord Camden, with Burke-to whom he was always dear David' or 'dearest Garrick-with Hogarth, with Reynolds, and with hosts of others. And indeed a nature so kindly, so sympathetic, so little exacting, might well endear him to his friends. His very foibles, of which so much has been made; his over-eagerness to please; his little arts of finesse to secure the admiration which would have been his without effort; that acting off the stage of him who was 'natural, simple, and affecting' upon it; were those of a loveable man. They speak of over-quick sensibility; and, balanced as they were by the finer qualities of generosity, constancy, tact, active goodness, by his wit and unfailing cheerfulness, they must even have helped to make up the charm of his character to those who knew him best. And then, as Johnson said, 'he was the first man in the world for sprightly conversation.' 'I thought him less to be envied on the stage than at the head of a table.' 'His conversation is gay and grotesque. It is a dish of all sorts, and all good things: a view which Burke incidentally confirms in a letter sending Garrick the present of a turtle, as 'a dish fit for one who represents all the solidity of flesh, the volatility of fowl, and the oddness of fish.' He shone as a talker, even in Paris, beside D'Holbach, Diderôt, Grimm, Marmontel, Helvétius, Beaumarchais, and the rest of that brilliant circle. Twelve years after Garrick's last visit there Gibbon heard heard people constantly exclaiming in the best society, with characteristic but pardonable vanity, Ce M. Garrick était fait pour vivre parmi nous;' and they claimed a share in his renown by reason of the French blood in his veins. Garrick did not enjoy his retirement long. While on his wonted Christmas visit to the Spencers at Althorp, in 1778, he was attacked by his old ailment. He hurried back to his house in the Adelphi, and, after some days of great pain and prostration, died upon the 20th of January following. His death was a national event. His body lay in state for two days, and so great was the crowd, that a military guard was necessary to keep order. His funeral was upon an imposing scale. The line of carriages extended from Charing Cross to Westminster Abbey, and the concourse of people of all ranks along the line of the procession was greater, say the papers of the day, 'than ever was remembered on any occasion.' Among the pallbearers were Lord Camden, the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Spencer, Viscount Palmerston, and Sir W. W. Wynne, and the members of the Literary Club attended in a body, eager to pay the last honours not less to the friend than to the great actor, who, in Warburton's phrase, had 'lent dignity to his art.' There were many sad hearts and many tearful eyes around the grave where the cheerfullest man in England' was to be laid to his rest. One who had done him much wrong by many an ungracious speech we will believe did penance in that solemn hour. I saw old Samuel Johnson,' says Cumberland, 'standing beside his grave, at the foot of Shakspeare's monument, and bathed in tears.' Johnson wrote of the event afterwards as one that had eclipsed the gaiety of nations. He even offered to write his old pupil's life, if Mrs. Garrick would ask him. But, remembering the many savage slights he had shown to him that was gone, she was not likely to make such a request. It might have been wiser, however, to have done so than to leave his good name at the mercy of such little-honest chroniclers as Murphy and Davies, whose misrepresentations she despised too much to think them even worthy of her notice. In October, 1822, at the extreme age of ninety-eight, Mrs. Garrick was found dead in her chair, having lived in full possession of her faculties to the last. For thirty years she would not suffer the room to be opened in which her husband had died. Years wrought no chill in her devotion to his memory. He never was a husband to me,' she said, in her old age, to a friend; 'during the thirty years of our marriage he was always my lover! She was buried, in her wedding sheets, at the base of Shakspeare's statue, in the same grave which forty-three years before had closed over her dear Davie.' 6 ART. ART. II.-1. Report to the Secretary of State for India in Council on Railways in India, for the year 1867-68. By Juland Danvers, Esq., Government Director of the Indian Railway Companies. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty. 2. A Letter to the Secretary of State for India on the Constitution and Management of the East Indian Railway Company. By R. W. Crawford, Esq., M.P., the Chairman of the Company. IT T was the remark of Lord Dalhousie, that nothing short of a great victory or a great reverse was sufficient to create in English society even a transient interest in the affairs of India. Since this truth was uttered, eighty-four millions of English capital have been invested in Indian railways, and forty-nine thousand English proprietors of stock and debentures have acquired a direct interest in the prosperity of our Indian administration and in the permanence of our rule. It may, therefore, appear redundant to offer any apology for devoting a few pages to a summary review of an undertaking which involves pecuniary considerations of so large an amount, and which is fraught with consequences of the greatest importance to our great empire in the East, and to the hundred and fifty millions who compose it. The work we undertake is lightened in no small degree by the reports presented annually to the Secretary of State for India by Mr. Danvers, the official director, who represents the Government at all the meetings of the various Boards. They are distinguished as much by a judicious arrangement of the various branches of the subject as by an amplitude of detail, which, far from embarrassing the mind, leaves nothing to be desired to convey a clear and comprehensive view of this great enterprise, and of its progress from year to year. With the aid of the statements contained in his report, and of information derived from other sources, we propose briefly to sketch the early history and the distinguishing characteristics of the Indian system of railways, to give the latest statistical notices of them, and to touch on the influence they are exerting on the people and the government of India. The idea of introducing railways into India was vaguely discussed in the Calcutta journals for several years before 1843; but the first definite and practical suggestion was made by Mr.-now Sir Macdonald-Stephenson, who resigned his professional prospects in England in that year, and proceeded to Calcutta with the determination to devote his energies to the establishment of railways on the continent of India. On the 1st of January, January, 1844, he published a pamphlet on the subject, together with a sketch-map of the principal lines on which, according to the best information then available, the construction of railways appeared likely to prove beneficial to the country and to shareholders. Neither the public nor the Government manifested much interest in the subject. On the retirement of Lord Ellenborough, Mr. Stephenson addressed Mr. Wilberforce Bird, the Deputy Governor of Bengal, and Governor-General ad interim, stating that no pecuniary aid would be required from the State, and that no concession was solicited beyond the free grant of the land, and the appointment of two or three official directors to consolidate the undertaking and to give confidence to the public. Mr. Bird took up the question with great heartiness, and it was energetically advocated by the liberal and enlightened Secretary of the Bengal Government, Mr. Halliday, as well as by the most influential of the local journals. Mr. Stephenson was informed, in reply to his communication, that the Deputy-Governor was deeply sensible of the advantages to be gained by the construction of railways along the principal lines of communication throughout the country, and was anxious to afford any well-considered project for that purpose his utmost support.' This communication, which was promulgated in the official Gazette, was the earliest recognition of the importance of the enterprise by the public authorities. Fortified by this encouragement, Mr. Stephenson returned to England in July, 1844, to organise measures for the prosecution of the work. Concurrently with this movement, an effort was made by Mr. Chapman on the Bombay side to interest Government in the establishment of railways at that Presidency, and was recommended to submit his proposals to the India House, which resulted in the adoption of the Great Indian Peninsula line. At the same time Mr. Andrew projected a railway in the northwest provinces of Hindostan, and secured a large amount of patronage; but it was mainly owing to the perseverance of Mr. Stephenson that the project was carried successfully through the difficulties it encountered in Leadenhall-street, and in the mercantile circle in London. Those obstacles were of the most serious character. Twenty years before, when the scheme of railroads was for the first time faintly set before the public in England, the idea of a conveyance which should travel twice as quick as the mail was considered perfectly absurd, and it was remarked, that we should expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off on one of Congreve's ricochet rockets as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine going at such a rate.' Vol. 125.-No. 249. Scarcely Scarcely less fanciful were the objections now raised to railroads in India. The natives, with their stereotyped habits, it was affirmed, would never take to this novel mode of conveyance; and, if they did, they would be smitten down by the tropical heat, the white ants would devour the sleepers in a twelvemonth, and not only the carriages, but the rail itself would be swept away by the floods. Neither were English capitalists prepared to risk their funds upon a doubtful enterprise at the distance of half the globe, over which they could exercise little control, and which was too likely to fall a victim to local jobbery and peculation. It soon became evident that, without a direct guarantee from the State, the establishment of railroads in India was altogether hopeless. But although the proposal was encouraged at the India House by Mr. Shepherd, by Sir James Hogg, and by the great secretary, Mr. Melvill, some of the most influential of the Directors, and more especially Mr. Tucker, the leader of the 'Old India' party, scouted the idea of any such innovation. The letter of Mr. Bird, however, appears to have produced a favourable effect; and the Court, feeling that the question could no longer be shelved, determined to send out an able engineer to conduct investigations on the spot, and to make a report to Government. The office was refused by several men of eminence in the profession, one of whom, however, consented to undertake it for 10,000l. a year and a baronetcy. Mr. Simms was at length selected, and proceeded to Calcutta in 1845, in company with Mr. Stephenson and a small staff. After a careful survey of the country, Mr. Simms recommended that a line should be laid down from Calcutta to Delhi, a distance of a thousand miles, the cost of which he estimated at 15,000l. a mile, inclusive of the. expense of constructing and stocking it. When the report came before the Supreme Council, three of its members, Sir Herbert Maddock, Mr. Millett, and Mr. Cameron, proposed to limit the aid of the State to the free gift of the land; but Lord Hardinge, then at the head of the Government, who set a higher value on the undertaking than his colleagues, recorded it as his opinion, that while it was the greatest boon we could confer on India, it would be preposterous to suppose that the simple grant of the land, the value of which, at the rate of 2001. a mile, would not exceed 200,0007., would be sufficient to attract fifteen millions of British capital to India; and he proposed to add to it a subsidy of 1000l. a mile. The report was transmitted with these minutes to the India House, but the Court of Directors, better acquainted with the pulse of the stock-market than the Council in Calcutta, felt that it would be absurd to introduce such |