'home. I am not quite sure that I was asked; but I could safely swear that I was not there." The Governor-General, also, it would appear, thought it worth his while to deny the imputation-in a very curious manner, too, according to a statement in another letter from the Bishop:-" Lord Hastings was very indignant at the dragging in of the subject of Government house; and immediately wrote to the Lord Chancellor, explaining, as was the truth, that there was no dance at his house-the mere movement of the woman's feet, whilst she was singing, not deserving the name." It may be a question whether the singing, in such performances, accompanies the dancing, or the dancing the singing; but there are both singing and dancing; and it is generally supposed that the latter, which gives the name to the exhibition, is, as grammarians say, "the worthier" of the two. There are different styles of dancing; a native nátch-girl does not dance like Carlotta Grisi; but if movement of woman's feet" to music, under such circumstances, does not constitute dancing, we do not know what does.

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Touching on his way at Cochin, to glance at the Syrian Churches there, the Bishop proceeded from Bombay to Ceylon, where he was hospitably entertained by Sir Edward Barnes, whose sublime intentions were, however, somewhat frustrated by the eccentricities of the weather. A magnificent fête had been prepared, some miles out of Colombo, and a gorgeous edifice, in the style of a large gothic Cathedral, had been erected," after the Cingalese fashion of embellishment," in honour of the Bishop. Divers other preparations were made, on an equally grand scale, for the occasion; but, on the evening before the fête, when the Bishop was dining at Government house, a tremendous storm arose, and entirely demolished the noble structure. Foreshadowing the destiny of Bishop's College, the gorgeous gothic edifice, erected at so much expense, proved nothing but a magnificent failure. The Governor did the best he could under such circumstances; he substituted another kind of entertainment-but the disappointment was great and general. Better things, however, were done. "During my stay," wrote the Bishop, after his departure, "I had a visitation-two confirmations-three consecrations of Churches, or burying-grounds; I preached four times, and re'suscitated the Promoting of Christian Knowledge District Committee, and looked into the state of the schools; and, what is of most consequence, I got together a body of information res'pecting ecclesiastical affairs, which will furnish matter for a

paper to be addressed to His Majesty's Government."* June he sailed again for Calcutta.

In

On his arrival there, he found that Mr. Mill, Principal of the new College, and Mr. Alt, one of the professors, had already made their appearance on the scene of their future labors. The walls of the college had risen to an assuming height during his absence; and so far there was much to cheer him. But there were sources of inquietude too. Rammohun Roy was entering boldly the field of controversy: the Press-" that monstrous despotism, and tremendous instrument of corruption, which some call the liberty of the Press"-was growing audacious; and he was troubled about the question of precedence, the authorities having given to the Chief Justices of the three presidencies a place, on the social ladder, higher up than that assigned to the Bishop of Calcutta. Serampore, moreover, was flourishing in its rank soil of heterodoxy; and a body of Christians had actually built a chapel at Howrah, open to the ministration of Protestant divines of all persuasions. His correspondents, too, in England were very lax. Anxiously expected communications, public and private, did not arrive. All these evils-real and imaginary-preyed upon his spirits, and affected his health. The hot weather of 1822 found him in an irritable state, both of body and of mind. On the 2nd of July, he visited the College at an early hour of the afternoon; and, on the following day, went out with Mrs. Middleton, before the sun was down, for an evening drive. The slant rays of the sun shone full upon him, dazzled his eyes, and sickened him. He said, that he was struck; and returned home. He passed that night, and the following, in a state of extreme anxiety and irritability: but it was not until the 4th, that, the fever having increased to an alarming height, Dr. Nicolson was called in. It was then too late. All the skill of that eminent practitioner could not save him. At one time certain favourable symptoms developed themselves; but they were only those delusive signs which so often are the precursors of immediate death. And so it was. On the evening of the 8th of July, those favourable symptoms were

.6

* Besides this he ordained Mr. Armour, of whom an interesting account is to be found in Mr. Le Bas's book. "This extraordinary man," he says, "originally came out to Ceylon, as a private soldier; but subsequently he took upon himself almost the work of an evangelist among the natives, who maintained a mere nominal profession of Christianity, always conducting his ministrations in strict conformity with the services and doctrines of the established Church. His heart's desire was

that at some time he might be thought worthy to be received as an ordained missionary..... His whole soul was devoted to the service of God, and his truly Chris'tian demeanour had won for him the cordial esteem of all ranks of men."

followed by an alarming paroxysm of fever, attended with the most appalling agitation of mind. About nine o'clock, he was in a state of violent delirium; "his thoughts wandering, his articulation gone; his faculties, in short, a melancholy wreck, at the mercy of the tempest, that had shattered them." To this succeeded a state of perfect serenity; and, a little before midnight, he died.

Such, briefly narrated, was the career of the first Indian Bishop. It will be gathered, perhaps, from the manner of our narration, that we are not among the most ardent admirers of the prelate, whom Mr. Le Bas, with no great felicity of expression, describes as "the father and the founder of the Protestant Episcopal Church of our Asiatic Empire." He was the father of Protestant Episcopacy in India, but he was not the father, and most assuredly he was not the founder, of the Episcopal Church. We do not know that he was the founder of anything, but Bishop's College.

With every disposition to speak charitably of the prelatical character of Bishop Middleton, we are constrained to express our opinion that he was a cold and stately formalist. There may have been something in this very fact, especially to recom. mend him for employment, at a time, when it was apprehended, that Christian zeal would bring down upon us a sanguinary revolution, involving the forfeiture of our Indian Empire. The alarmed party may have been somewhat appeased by the appointment of so safe a man as Bishop Middleton; and his subsequent episcopal proceedings must have greatly confirmed the sense of security, which his nomination induced. Nothing was to be apprehended from the burning zeal of the first Bishop of Calcutta. He was the man of all others to uphold the dignity of our ecclesiastical establishment, without exciting the fears, or offending the prejudices, of the natives of India. He took little interest in conversion-work; and would have silenced the whole Missionary body, if he could. Brahmanism was scarcely more offensive to him than Protestant sectarianism; and even a minister of the Church of England, not on the Company's establishment, was a thorn in his episcopal flesh. Puseyism and Tractarianism were not known by those names, when Bishop Middleton went out to India; but he was of the number of those, who esteem the Church before the Gospel, who have an overflowing faith in the efficacy of certain forms of brick-and-mortar, and who believe that a peculiar odour of sanctity ascends from prayers, offered up in an edifice, constructed with due regard to the points of the compass. No

man could have had a higher sense of the external importance of his office, or stickled more rigidly for the due observance of the ceremonials, which he conceived to belong to it. He had a decided taste for salutes, and struggled manfully for precedence. In all this he was sincere. It was not personal vanity that inflated him. Self was not dominant over all. But he had an overweening sense of the dignity and importance of his office. He believed that it was his first duty to suffer nothing to lower the standard of episcopal authority, or to obscure its exterior glories. His zeal as a Bishop shot ever in advance of his fervour as a Christian. This peculiarity was not without its uses. The externals of religion had been too much neglected in India. It was desirable that something more of dignity should be imparted to the priestly character. Lord Wellesley was described by Sir James Mackintosh as a Sultanised Anglo-Indian; Bishop Middleton would have Sultanised the episcopal office. He was not without a motive-and a good one -in this. But we would fain have seen in his career a little less of the Bishop, and a little more of Catholic Christianity. He was an able and an active labourer in his way, blameless in the relations of private life, and, as a man, to be greatly respected. In Mr. Whitehead's book he stands labelled as "India's first and greatest Bishop." India's greatest Bishop is her last; and we thank God that he yet remains to labour amongst us.

ART. II.-The Ramayana of Valmiki, translated from the : original Sanscrit, by Kirtibas, Pandit. 7 Vols., 8vo. Serampore.

AMONG the many fallacies, which were at one period received and repeated concerning Hinduism, we know of none more universal than the idea, that the Brahminical theogony is inseparably connected with that of Greece and Rome. This hypothesis forms the basis of all the elder mythologies: it is the key-stone of Faber's* rambling theories, and even pervades the system adopted by Maurice, though the latter had before his eyes daily evidence of its incorrectness. Mr. Ward, in his great work on the Hindús, appears to have doubted whether the connection was so intimate as he had supposed; but the force of early impressions was still too strong for him, and he has left on record at least one ludicrous instance of the mistakes, into which he was beguiled by his adherence to the popular theory. In truth, the error is at first sight so natural, that we should rather wonder, that the earlier writers escaped it in any degree, than that they should construct and publish their theories, built upon no better foundation than external objects and mistaken customs. Saturated as their minds had been with the Greek and Roman mythological systems, and unablė to catch at first the true spirit of oriental worship, they grasped at any accidental resemblance to their preconceived ideas, and by unconsciously suppressing some facts, bringing out others into bold relief, and throwing over all the veil of their deep learning, they produced a very consistent theory, or complication of theories, and one, which, after all, is probably as accurate and logical, as any which can be inserted in its place. All such plain and palpable differences, as the bloody character of the Hindu female deities, the worship of a female destroying principle, and the presence of a Supreme Being, were set down to the accidental variations of circumstance, climate, and the original

*Faber's work on Pagan idolatry, is an attempt to carry out, more fully than usual, a popular theory, that all mythologies have some connection with the deluge, and that the mysterious OM, the ship of Vishnu, the Lingayut worship, &c. &c., are all representations of the ark, and the scenes connected with it. An immense amount of learning is wasted on the theory; and the reader, who arrives at the end of the three big volumes, generally finds, that the partial belief, he may have accorded to the doctrine, has been for ever dispelled.

+ Mr. Ward remarked the custom of crowning, at certain festivals, the temples of the officiating Brahmin with flowers, and gravely refers to the garlands, which wera brought out, at the gates of Lystra, to crown Barnabas and Paul. Under the influence of his Hellenistic theory, he quite overlooked the fact, that the garlands were for the oxen, not the gods.