common gaol. He was tried before the Supreme Court, by a jury of Englishmen, convicted, and hanged. No transaction, perhaps, of this whole administration more deeply tainted the reputation of Hastings than the tragedy of Nuncomar. At the moment when he stood forth as the accuser of the Governor-general, he was charged with a crime alleged to have been committed five years before, tried, and executed; a proceeding which could not fail to generate the suspicion of guilt, and of an inability to encounter the weight of his testimony, in the man whose power to have prevented, or to have stopped (if he did not cause), the prosecution, it is not easy to deny. As Hastings, aware of the sinister interpretations to which the destruction of an accuser, in circumstances so extraordinary, would assuredly expose him, chose rather to sustain the weight of those suspicions than to meet the charges by preventing or suspending the fate of the accuser, it is a fair inference, though mere resentment and spite might hurry some men to as great an indiscretion, that from the accusations he dreaded something worse than those suspicions. Mr Francis, in his examination before the House of Commons on the 16th of April 1788, declared that the effect of this transaction upon the inquiries carried on by the Board into the accusations against the Governor was 'to defeat them; that it impressed a general terror on the natives with respect to preferring accusations against men in great power; and that he and his coadjutors were unwilling to expose them to what appeared to him and these coadjutors, as well as themselves, a manifest danger.'

The severest censures were very generally passed upon this trial and execution; and it was afterwards exhibited as matter of impeachment against both Mr Hastings, and the Judge who presided in the tribunal. The crime for which Nuncomar was made to suffer was not a capital offence by the laws of Hindustan, either Moslem or Hindu; and it was represented as a procedure full of cruelty and injustice, to render a people amenable to the most grievous severities of a law with which they were unacquainted, and from which, by their habits and associations, their minds were totally estranged. It was affirmed that this atrocious condemnation and execution were upon an expost-facto law, as the statute which created the Supreme Court and its powers was not published till 1774, and the date of the supposed forgery was in 1770; that the law which rendered forgery capital did not extend to India, as no English statute included the colonies, unless where it was expressly stated in the law; that Nuncomar, as a native Indian, for a crime committed against another Indian, not an Englishman, or even a European, was amenable to the native, not the English tribunals; that the evidence adduced was not sufficient to warrant condemnation; and that, although the situation in which the prisoner was placed with regard to a man of so much power as the Governor-general should have suggested to the Judge peculiar circumspection and tenderness, there was every appearance of precipitation, and of a predetermination to find him guilty and to cut him off. In the defence which was set up by Sir Elijah Impey, the Chief Judge, in his answer at the bar of the House of Commons on the 12th of December 1787, he admitted that a native inhabitant of the provinces at large was not amenable

to the English laws or to the English tribunals; and it was not as such, he affirmed, that Nuncomar was tried. But he maintained that a native inhabitant of the English town of Calcutta, which was English property, which had long been governed by Englishmen and English laws, was amenable to the English tribunals, and justly, because he made it his voluntary choice to live under their protection; and that it was in this capacity, namely, that of an inhabitant of Calcutta, that Nuncomar suffered the penalties of the English laws. If the competency of the jurisdiction was admitted, the question of evidence, where evidence was complicated and contradictory, could not admit of any very clear and certain decision; and the Judge opposed the affirmation of its insufficiency by that of the contrary. He denied the doctrine that an English penal statute extended to the colonies only when that extension was expressed. The allegation of precipitation and unfairness, still further of corruption, in the treatment of the accused, he not only denied with strong expressions of abhorrence, but by a specification of circumstances endeavoured to disprove. . . . Of the evidence it may fairly be observed, that though the forgery was completely proved by the oaths of the witnesses to the prosecution, it was as completely disproved by the oaths of the witnesses to the defence; that there was no such difference in the character of the parties or their witnesses as to throw the balance greatly to either of the sides; and that the preponderance, if any, was too weak to support an act of so much importance and delicacy as the condemnation of Nuncomar. Even after the judgment, the case was not without a remedy; the execution might have been stayed till the pleasure of the King was known, and a pardon might have been obtained. This too the Court absolutely refused, and proceeded with unrelenting determination to the execution of Nuncomar; who, on the 5th of August, with a tranquillity and firmness that never were surpassed, submitted to his fate, not only amid the tears and lamentations, but the cries and shrieks of an extraordinary assemblage of his countrymen.

For Mill's life and teachings, see his son John Stuart Mill's Autobiography and Professor Bain's James Mill (1882).

Andrew Cherry (1762–1812), actor, dramatist, and author of 'The Bay of Biscay,' was the son of a Limerick printer and bookseller. Having at seventeen abandoned his father's business for the stage, he attained some eminence as an actor at Drury Lane, and managed theatres in Swansea and Monmouth. Of his nine or ten plays several were fairly successful, but only The Soldier's Daughter can be said to hold the stage.' On the other hand, at least three of his songs bid fair to prove imperishable The Bay of Biscay,' 'The Green little Shamrock of Ireland,' and 'Tom Moody, the Whipper-in.' There is probably no piece in English literature so familiar to everybody as 'The Bay of Biscay' whose author's name is so utterly unknown; not one in ten thousand who know the song by heart have any idea who wrote it (as is the case with not a few of our most popular songs), or ever heard of Andrew Cherry or his works. Nor is it always easy to see why some songs have attained

and maintained their exceptional popularity, though doubtless it depends well-nigh as often on the music as on the words. In this case the composer, John Davy, is also little known. 'Tom Moody' ends with the following characteristic stanza:

Thus Tom spoke his friends ere he gave up his breath :
'Since I see you're resolved to be in at the death,
One favour bestow-'tis the last I shall crave-
Give a rattling view-hollow thrice over my grave;
And unless at that warning I lift up my head,
My boys, you may fairly conclude I am dead.'
Honest Tom was obeyed, and the shout rent the sky,
For every one joined in the tally-ho cry,
Tally-ho! Hark forward!

Tally-ho! Tally-ho!

Edward Lysaght (1763-1811), wit and songwriter, was the son of a proprietor at Brickhill in County Clare; graduated B.A. at Trinity College, Dublin, and M.A. at Oxford; studied law at the Middle Temple; and was called both to the Irish and to the English Bar. Ultimately he practised in Dublin only, where he was a commissioner of bankruptcy, was a successful political pamphleteer, and had a brilliant reputation in literary and social circles. He died in poverty. Among his songs are 'Our Ireland,' 'The man who led the van Of the Irish Volunteers,' and 'Kate of Garnavilla.' 'Kitty of Coleraine' has been claimed for him on doubtful grounds; and 'The Sprig of Shillelah,' usually printed as his, appears to have been by another hand. Some of his best verses were addressed to his godchild Lady Morgan (see page 780).

Theobald Wolfe Tone, born a coachmaker's son in Dublin, 20th June 1763, studied there at Trinity College and at the Middle Temple in London, and was called to the Irish Bar in 1789, but acted as secretary of the Catholic Committee, helped to organise the United Irishmen in 1791, and four years later had to flee to America and thence to. France. He laboured there incessantly to induce the Directory to invade Ireland, and held a command in Hoche's expedition to Bantry Bay in 1796. In 1798 he again embarked in a small French squadron, which was captured after a fierce fight at the mouth of Lough Swilly. Tone was taken to Dublin, tried, and condemned to be hanged as a traitor, but cut his throat in prison, 19th November 1798. His fragmentary autobiography and journals describing the greater part of his career were edited by his son and published in America in 1826. Written with considerable spirit and vividness, their revelation of an adventurer and a character of reckless audacity has largely helped to make Tone the chief popular hero of rebellious Nationalism in Ireland. They are reprinted in Barry O'Brien's Autobiograpy of Wolfe Tone (1893). Contrasted estimates of Tone may be found in Madden's United Irishmen (3rd series, 1846), and the Duke of Argyll's article in the Nineteenth Century for 1890.

759

George Nugent Reynolds (1770?-1802), author of many songs ('Kathleen O'More' one of them), of a long epic, and of a musical-dramatic piece on the French invasion of Ireland in 1796, was the son of a proprietor at Letterfyan in County Leitrim. His loyalty was suspected by the Government, so that he was removed from his magistracy, and he had come to England to study law a year before his death. He has had the misfortune to have credited to him a number of pieces demonstrably by other authors; thus from 1830 on his friends persistently asserted that Campbell's Exile of Erin' was his production.

Thomas Dermody (1775-1802), who has been called 'the Irish Chatterton' rather from his sad fate than from the originality of his poetry, was the son of a schoolmaster at Ennis in County Clare. He showed extraordinary aptitude for the classics and a precocious facility in writing English verses of all kinds; but having run away to Dublin, he lost the friends his abilities conciliated by irrepressible idleness and drunkenness, and threw away several chances of a good education. Having enlisted, he behaved well during a spell of foreign service, but, back in England, he swiftly sank into ruinous dissipation, and died in misery. The two or three collections of poems published in his lifetime were after his death collected as The Harp of Erin (2 vols. 1807) by J. G. Raymond, who also published his Life (2 vols. 1806).

William Hone (1780-1842), famous as 'infidel' author, publisher, and Radical reformer, was born at Bath the son of strictly religious parents, at ten became a London lawyer's clerk, and at twenty started a book and print shop which soon failed. Already a pronounced democrat, he struggled to make a living by writing for various papers, started The Traveller (1815), and next The Reformist's Register (1817); and made himself notorious by a series of squibs and satires against the Government, some of which, such as The Political Litany, unmistakably contained parodies of the Catechism, the Athanasian Creed, and the litany. He was accordingly prosecuted, but in December 1817 he was acquitted after three separate trials for publishing things calculated to injure public morals and bring the Prayer-book into contempt. Among his later satires, illustrated by George Cruikshank (long his most intimate friend), were The Political House that Jack built, The Queen's Matrimonial Ladder, The Man in the Moon, and The Political Showman. The Apocryphal New Testament (1820) was not designed to promote the reverent study of Scripture ; and the Quarterly Review denounced him as 'a poor illiterate creature' and 'a wretch as contemptible as he is wicked'-unjustly, as the sequel showed. Ancient Mysteries dealt largely with the old miracle-plays, and showed some curious reading. But his Miscellanies, The Every-day

Book (1826), The Table-book (1827-28), and The Year-book (1829) were recommended by Southey to all interested in our national and local customs as having rendered good service in an important department of literature; they constitute a calendar of popular English amusements, sports, pastimes, ceremonies, manners, customs, and events incident especially to several days of the year. Charles Lamb was as commendatory-'I like you and your book, ingenuous Hone,' was the beginning of verses to him; the Every-day Book was, indeed, dedicated to Lamb. Scott and Christopher North were also hearty in praise of these miscellanies, filled with curious lore. Yet in the end Hone found himself in a debtor's prison, from which his friends extricated him to start him in a coffee-house-also a predestined failure. In 1830 he edited Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, and he contributed to the Penny Magazine and the Patriot. By this time he had become a generally popular personage, old grudges having been forgotten; in the later years of his life he became devout, and used, indeed, to preach for orthodox independent ministers. Among the sixty-four publications given under his name in the Dictionary of National Biography (most of them written, compiled, or edited by himself) are two autobiographical works on his own early life and his conversion in later years.

William Stewart Rose (1775-1843), the translator of Ariosto, was the second son of the Treasurer of the Navy. Educated at Eton, he sat in Parliament 1796-1800, and then till 1824 was reading-clerk of the House of Lords; but his tastes were wholly literary. To gratify his father, he began A Naval History of the Late War (vol. i. 1802), which he never completed. Later works were verse translations from the French of the first part of Amadis de Gaul (1803) and of Le Grand's text of Partenopex de Blois (1807); Letters to Henry Hallam, Esq., from the North of Italy (2 vols. 1819), and a free metrical version of Casti's Animali Parlanti (1819), to whose cantos he prefixed introductory addresses to his friends Ugo Foscolo, Hockham Frere, Sir Walter Scott, and others. In 1823 he published a condensed translation of Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, and commenced his famous version of the Orlando Furioso (vol. viii. 1831). This is not merely Rose's best work—it is still the best extant English translation of Ariosto, the only one which preserves much of the spirit of the original. It was finished at Sir Walter Scott's request. Rose was also author of a poem on The Crusade of St Louis (1810), Rhymes (1837), of epistles to his friends, and of tales and sonnets; and he was an occasional contributor to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews. Ill-health latterly compelled him to withdraw from society. Hoole in his translation of Ariosto had adopted the heroic couplet, whereas the original ottava rima was reproduced

by Rose with some success, as may be seen from these stanzas:

Let him make haste his feet to disengage,

Nor lime his wings, whom Love has made a prize;
For love, in fine, is nought but frenzied rage,
By universal suffrage of the wise :
And albeit some may shew themselves more sage
Than Roland, they but sin in other guise.
For what proves folly more than on this shelf,
Thus for another to destroy one's self?
Various are love's effects; but from one source
All issue, though they lead a different way.
He is, as 'twere, a forest where, perforce,
Who enter its recesses go astray,

And here and there pursue their devious course:
In sum, to you I, for conclusion, say,
He who grows old in love, besides all pain
Which wait such passion, well deserves a chain.

Noel Thomas Carrington (1777-1830) was the son of a Plymouth grocer, who served in the navy, taught a school at Maidstone, and for ten years managed successfully a private academy at Plymouth Dock. From his youth he wrote poems, mainly in praise of Devonshire, its scenery, customs, and traditions. His best-known pieces were The Banks of Tamar (1820) and Dartmoor (1826). His collected poems, with a Life, were published in 1830. The extract is on the disappearance from earth of the pixies :

They are flown,
Beautiful fictions of our fathers, wove
In Superstition's web when Time was young,
And fondly loved and cherished: they are flown
Before the wand of Science! Hills and vales,
Mountains and moors of Devon, ye have lost
The enchantments, the delights, the visions all,
The elfin visions that so blessed the sight
In the old days romantic. Nought is heard
Now in the leafy world but earthly strains--
Voices, yet sweet, of breeze, and bird, and brook,
And water-fall; the day is silent else,
And night is strangely mute! the hymnings high-
The immortal music men of ancient times
Heard, ravished, oft, are flown! Oh ye have lost,
Mountains, and moors, and meads, the radiant throngs
That dwelt in your green solitudes, and filled
The air, the fields, with beauty and with joy
Intense; with a rich mystery that awed
The mind, and flung around a thousand hearths
Divinest tales, that through the enchanted year
Found passionate listeners! The very streams
Brightened with visitings of these so sweet
Ethereal creatures! They were seen to rise
From the charmed waters, which still brighter grew
As the pomp passed to land, until the eye
Scarce bore the unearthly glory. Where they trod,
Young flowers, but not of this world's growth, arose,
And fragrance as of amaranthine bowers
Floated upon the breeze. And mortal eyes
Looked on their revels all the luscious night;
And, unreproved, upon their ravishing forms
Gazed wistfully, as in the dance they moved,
Voluptuous to the thrilling touch of harp
Elysian !

Thomas Brown (1778-1820), writer on philosophy, was son of the minister of Kirkmabreck in Galloway, and was trained a physician. He appeared as an author before his twentieth year, his first work being a review of Dr Darwin's Zoonomia. On the establishment of the Edinburgh Review he became one of the contributors on philosophical subjects; and when Leslie's fitness for the Mathematical chair in the university was disputed by the orthodox because he had approved of Hume's theory of causation, Brown, who still practised medicine, warmly espoused Leslie's cause, and vindicated his opinions in an Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect. By modifying Hume's doctrine in one or two points he sought to show that it does not necessarily lead to scepticism in theology. In 1810 the philosophical physician was appointed colleague and successor to Dugald Stewart in the chair of Moral Philosophy, and he discharged the duties amidst universal respect till his death. Part of his leisure was devoted to the cultivation of a taste for poetry, and he published The Paradise of Coquettes (1814), The Wanderer of Norway (1815), and The Bower of Spring (1816). Though not without fine thoughts and images, his verse wanted force and passion, and is now utterly forgotten. In philosophy, his exposition was relieved by passages of old-fashioned eloquence; he quoted largely from the poets, especially Akenside, and was too flowery in his illustrations. His Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind were long popular as a textbook, but were never original nor profound, and are now antiquated. He departed from Reid and Stewart and the Scottish school in the direction of the English associationism, under the influence of French sensationalism. Mackintosh held that he had rendered an important service to mental science by his 'secondary laws of suggestion or association-circumstances which modify the action of the general law, and must be distinctly considered in order to explain its connection with the phenomena.'

Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) was a great original investigator in chemistry and physics, a brilliant lecturer, and an author who expounded scientific verities in a wonderfully popular style. He was born at Penzance, where his father was a wood-carver. Both at school there and at Truro

he developed a taste for story-telling, poetry, and angling, and for experimental science; and in virtue of several rather pleasing poems was regarded as a poetical genius. Apprenticed to a Penzance surgeon in 1795, he made chemical experiments and entered on an encyclopædic course of study, and in 1797 seriously took up chemistry. At Clifton, where in 1798 he became assistant to Dr Beddoes in his Pneumatic Institute, he met Coleridge and Southey, experimented on the respiration of gases (more than once nearly losing

his life), and discovered the effect of laughing-gas. The account he gave of this in his Researches, Chemical and Philosophical (1799), led to his appointment as lecturer to the Royal Institution, where he delivered his first lecture in 1801; and his eloquence and the novelty of his experiments soon attracted brilliant audiences. In 1803 he began those researches in agriculture in connection with which were delivered his epoch-making lectures, published as Elements of Agricultural Chemistry (1813). His fame chiefly rests on the views originated in his Bakerian lecture On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity (1806), followed up by the grand discovery that the alkalies and earths are compound substances formed by oxygen united with metallic bases. He first decomposed potash in 1807; when he saw the globules of the new metal, potassium, his delight was ecstatic. He next decomposed soda, baryta, strontia, lime, and magnesia; discovered the new metals sodium, barium, strontium, calcium, and magnesium; and proved the earths proper to consist of metals united to oxygen. In 1812 Davy was knighted, and married a lady of wealth; in 1813 he resigned the Chemical chair of the Royal Institution. To investigate his new theory of volcanic action he visited the Continent with Faraday, and was received with the greatest distinction by the French savans, though England and France were at war. In 1815 he investigated fire-damp and invented the safety-lamp. He was created a baronet in 1818, and had succeeded Sir Joseph Banks as President of the Royal Society, when in 1820-23 his researches on electro-magnetism were communicated to the society. After an apoplectic attack in 1826, he twice wintered in Italy, and he died at Geneva on his way homeward. Among his writings were Elements of Chemical Philosophy (1812); a disquisition On the Safetylamp (1818); Salmonia, or Days of Fly-fishing (1828), an entertaining and popular volume modelled on Izaak Walton, but of considerable scientific interest-for Davy was not merely an enthusiastic angler but a patient student of the natural history problems suggested by the pastime. The interlocutors are Halieus, an accomplished angler; Ornither, a country gentleman interested in sports generally; Poietes, an enthusiast for nature; and Physicus, a naturalist-all mainly imaginary characters, though the substance of actual conversations is sometimes given, and notes from Davy's journal were systematically worked in. In his Consolations in Travel (written at Rome in his last winter there, and posthumously published in 1830), we have a series of speculations on moral and ethical questions, with descriptions of Italian scenery, mainly in conversations between Ambrosio, an enlightened Roman Catholic; Onuphrio, an English patrician verging on scepticism; and a third interlocutor, Philalethes, who may generally be taken as representing Davy himself, though sometimes his views are put in

the mouth of 'The Unknown.' Eubathes, who occasionally appears, was Dr Wollaston. Davy, though a member of no communion but 'the Church of Christ' in the widest sense, was keenly interested in the defence of spiritual religion and the belief in immortality and God against materialism or the more radical forms of scepticism.

Salmon and Sea Trout.

SCENE-Loch Maree. TIME-July. Poietes. I begin to be tired. This is really a long day's journey; and these last ten miles through bogs, with no other view than that of mountains half hid in mists, and brown waters that can hardly be called lakes; and with no other trees than a few stunted birches, that look so little alive that they might be supposed immediately descended from the bog-wood, everywhere scattered beneath our feet. This is the most barren part of one of the most desolate countries I have ever passed through in Europe; and though the inn at Strathgarve is tolerable, that of Auchnasheen is certainly the worst I have ever seen,-and I hope the worst I shall ever We ought to have good amusement at Pool Ewe, to compensate us for this uncomfortable day's journey.

see.

Halieus. I trust we shall have sport, as far as salmon and sea trout can furnish sport. But the difficulties of our journey are almost over. See, Loch Maree is stretched at our feet, and a good boat with four oars will carry us in four or five hours to our fishing ground : and that time will not be misspent, for this lake is not devoid of beautiful and even grand scenery.

Poiet. The scenery begins to improve; and that cloudbreasted mountain on the left is of the best character of Scotch mountains: these woods, likewise, are respectable for this northern country. I think I see islands also in the distance: and the quantity of cloud always gives effect to this kind of view; and perhaps, without such assistance to the imagination, there would be nothing even approaching to the sublime in these countries; but cloud and mist, by creating obscurity and offering a substitute for greatness and distance, give something of an Alpine and majestic character to this region.

Ornither. As we are now fixed in our places in the boat, you will surely put out a rod or two with a set of flies, or try the tail of the par for a large trout or salmon our fishing will not hinder our progress.

Hal. In most other lakes I should do so; here I have often tried the experiment, but never with success. This lake is extremely deep, and there are very few fish which haunt it generally except char; and salmon seldom rest but in particular parts along the shore, which we shall not touch. Our voyage will be a picturesque rather than an angling one. I see we shall have little occasion for the oars, for a strong breeze is rising, and blowing directly down the lake; we shall be in it in a minute. Hoist the sails! On we go!we shall make our voyage in half the number of hours I had calculated upon; and I hope to catch a salmon in time for dinner.

Poiet. The scenery improves as we advance nearer the lower parts of the lake. The mountains become higher, and that small island or peninsula presents a bold craggy outline; and the birch wood below it, and the pines above, make a scene somewhat Alpine in

character. But what is that large bird soaring above the pointed rock, towards the end of the lake? Surely it is an eagle !

Hal. You are right, it is an eagle, and of a rare and peculiar species-the grey or silver eagle, a noble bird! From the size of the animal, it must be the female; and her aery is in that high rock. I dare say the male is not far off.

Physicus. I think I see another bird of a smaller size, perched on the rock below, which is similar in form.

Hal. You do it is the consort of that beautiful and powerful bird; and I have no doubt their young ones are not far off.

Poiet. Look at the bird! She dashes into the water falling like a rock, and raising a column of spray; she has fallen from a great height. And now she rises again into the air; what an extraordinary sight !

Hal. She is pursuing her prey, and is one of our fraternity, a catcher of fish. She has missed her quarry this time, and has moved further down towards the river, and falls again from a great height. There! You see her rise with a fish in her talons.

Poiet. She gives an interest which I hardly expected to have found to this scene. Pray are there many of these animals in this country?

Hal. Of this species, I have seen but these two, and I believe the young ones migrate as soon as they can provide for themselves; for this solitary bird requires large space to move and feed in, and does not allow its offspring to partake its reign, or to live near it. Of other species of the eagle, there are some in different parts of the mountains, particularly of the Osprey; and of the great fishing or brown eagle; and I once saw a very fine and interesting sight in one of the Crags of Ben Weevis, near Strathgarve, as I was going, on the 20th of August, in pursuit of black game. Two parent eagles were teaching their offspring-two young birds— the manœuvres of flight. They began by rising from the top of a mountain in the eye of the sun (it was about midday, and bright for this climate). They at first made small circles, and the young birds imitated them; they paused on their wings, waiting till they had made their first flight, and then took a second and larger gyration,—always rising towards the sun, and enlarging their circle of flight so as to make a gradually extending spiral. The young ones still slowly followed, apparently flying better as they mounted; and they continued this sublime kind of exercise, always rising till they became mere points in the air, and the young ones were lost, and afterwards their parents, to our aching sight. But we have touched the shore, and the lake has terminated: you are now on the river Ewe.

Poiet. Are we to fish here? It is a broad clear stream, but I see no fish, and cannot think it a good angling river.

Hal. We are nearly a mile above our fishing station, and we must first see our quarters and provide for our lodging before we begin our fishing: we must walk a little way before we find the inn.

Poiet. Why, this inn is a second edition of Auchnasheen.

Hal. The interior is better than the exterior, thanks to the Laird of Brahan: we shall find one tolerable room and bed; and we must put up our cots and provide our food. What is our store, Mr Purveyor ?

Phys. I know we have good bread, tea, and sugar.