did act honestly by their men then, is, that now they pretend to no credit for treachery; but rather boast of their prowess during the war. But to suspect them and accuse them is quite in keeping with Mr. Gardner's own character. He very naturally judges them by himself. The European character has not shone in the Punjab. The book of the war, as regards the Sikhs as well as the British, has yet to be written. Many a tale of gallantry and soldierly devotion has yet to be told of friends and of foes. The men who saw how the Sikhs stood to their guns and who witnessed the compact retreat of the two French Battalions through a British Regiment at Sobraon, when the works had long been in our possession, can appreciate the qualities of the Sikh soldier, and can understand that honour is due to those that subdued him. But it is neither by exaggerated nor distorted pictures such as Colonel Monton's or Major Smyth's that credit is to be obtained or truth elicited. In noticing the work of the latter, we have discharged a necessary but painful duty-necessary, as regards the cause of truth and faithfulness-painful, as respects those feelings which we would ever desire to cherish towards a British officer. But Major Smyth has himself entirely to blame. He has, not anonymously, but in his own proper name, published a book, the downright untruthfulness of many of whose details can only be paralleled by the surpassing vileness of some and the surpassing absurdity of others. It is, for the most part, not a "florid" but an ugly deformed romance-a romance which merits the utmost severity of reprehension, not merely on account of its indecencies and puerilities, its wretched fabrications and exhibitions of evil temper, but because, while in reality, to a great extent, no more trustworthy than the veriest fiction; it yet pretends to the sober dignity of authentic history. MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES. Panorama of the city of Dacca, lithographed and published by Messrs. Dickenson, 114, New Bond Street. ART is the handmaid of History-or ought in a great measure to be so. Though the cloud capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, and solemn temples of ages have crumbled away for the most part; yet are traces of their grandeur to be found in such of the writings of some of their admirers as have survived the wreck of many centuries. Some fragmentary portions of them still remain, like the foot of the gigantic statue, that has passed into a proverb, to furnish a palpable hint of the colossal proportions, yet exquisite taste of the original work in its totality. The pen in regard to the interests of fame, has proved after all, a more enduring testimonial than marble and brass. The art of printing in all its varieties, whether it embrace letters, or pictorial impressions, is more likely to defy the ravages of time than iron or stone. ter endures. The scratches of a pen may still convey ideas, when It is an adage that the written characmore material things have ceased to transmit them. The marble is liable to accidents that affect not its representations on paper, for when developed into exquisite forms that appeal to the taste and feelings of civilised man-they may still have no conservative claim upon the attention of the destroying Goth of the times of old, or the consideration of the iconoclastic Islamite of our own more recent days. Art every day is becoming much less perishable, in consequence of the wonderful resources of modern discovery. A picture may fade away in the dust of centuries, but grouping, drawing, and expression will continue to live in the impressions of the Engraver and Lithographer. Those who may come after us, will in this respect be more fortunate than our ancestors, since though time may destroy the thing itself, it will continue to live, in the faithful reflection that science enables its adepts to furnish of all things visible that have in them any element of the poetry of life. The modern in consequence travels in his chamber, and contemplates pictures and statues in his own studio, thanks to the contrivances of acute minds, and artistic eyes and hands. Indeed to the indolent, to the invalid, and to the poor, the travels that the printer and the lithographer enable them to take; are undergone with a zest, alacrity and economy both of exertion and money; and perhaps even with an amount of instruction and information, which could not have been accumulated had they roughed it through all the realities for themselves. In looking at the graphic and beautiful picture, the title of which heads these remarks, it is not easy to withhold a sigh at the thoughts which it naturally suggests, of the vanity of human wishes and the a perishability of all earthly glory. The day has been that Dacca was a place of note, a capital of mighty importance in a political and mercantile point of view. That day is gone, it may be for ever; unless some unforeseen contingency should perchance under the vivifying power of advancement and regeneration, dependent upon the magic energy of steam, develope agricultural and commercial facilities and potentialities now dormant. Till then-it may be said of the once rich, stately, prosperous, and splendid Venice of Bengal, that -the glory is departed! The execution of this panoramic view, in all its parts, is excellent. The observer is looking, as it were, across that beautiful river, at the Strand face of the long and picturesque line of palaces and gardens, reminding one of Garden Reach. Indeed Dacca has been considered as bearing in some respects a strong resemblance to Calcutta. Both cities are on the bank of a noble river, and both abound in magnificent palace-like mansions. To us, however, by far the most interesting portion of the pictured capital, is that which testifies with mute eloquence of its decline and fall. We turn away with comparative indifference from the spruce, garish, or more gorgeous residences, of bustling clerks, merchants, Session Judges and Commissioners of Revenue, to the native part of the town now in ruins. Apparet domus intus et atria longa patescunt. 66 Fate sits indeed on those dark battlements and frowns-but time beautifies death and ruin. Such will it ever be, and decay follows prosperity as wave comes after wave. To the meditative, THE PAST is even more interesting than the present—and its voice seems in hollow tones to repeat the awful legend, and to point its moral to circle succeeding circle, of mutation in dynasty. Babylon the great is fallen-is fallen!" Bloody are the tales, and startling the revelations that could be made by the desolate chambers and choked-up passages of the Lall Bague-could it but find a miraculous organ of utterance. Lowly hovels and mud huts now shelter themselves beneath the aristocratic walls of the Fort and Palace of the haughty Nawabs of Dacca. Where now are the men "Pride in their port, defiance in their eye," that ruffled it here-and whose names were once so famous? Where are the rulers equally unscrupulous in squeezing the revenues of a province, or directing adroitly the assassin's dag. ger, or poisoner's potion? They seem to rise in 'dim procession led,' Naibs and Courtiers, Cazis and Dewans, Patan adventurers unscrupulous as brave, and wily Hindu financiers smooth and impassive, while secretly wielding perhaps the detinies of Bengal, by means of their hoarded lakhs. All, all are gone-and like the shades of Banquo's glass, history evokes her dead, and a glance at these ruins of the once flourishing haunts of the mighty in their day-give a momently glance to the mind's eye, of the astute, remorseless Murshíd Kúli Khan, the kindly but debauched Sujah-the rash intruding fool' his son-the unfortunate Surferaz-the able, unscrupulous soldierly, yet generous Aliverdy, fostering in his dotage the Cockatrice Surajah Dowlah; and the stately vacilating but useful (to us!) Mir Jaffier Khan! With the advent of British power the glories of Dacca may be said to terminate. The India Register of Medical Science. Edited by Edward Edlin, M. D. Part 1. W. Ridsdale. It is not long ago that Calcutta could boast of two organs for recording and disseminating medical knowledge, but they are both defunct. The one was the Medical and Physical Society of Bengal, and the other the Medical Journal, established in 1834, by Messrs. Grant and Pearson of Calcutta. The circumstances of the decline of the first of these, would form a not uninstructive commentary on the wisdom of that homely old saying-" let well alone." For years that excellent association had prospered, while adhering to the principles on which it had been founded, and guided by which, its endeavours were crowned with signal success. Whenever they accumulated to a sufficient amount, as respected quality no less than quantity-the usual course was to bring out a volume of Transactions. As time wore on, however, a change came over the shadow of the practical dreamer. An occasional volume of Transactions suited not the notions of certain "fast men." A more rapid system of publication succeeded to the original plan. There was a craving to shine at more frequent intervals-clicquery, disunion, exhaustion of the finances, and eventual extinction followed. In regard to the other vehicle of medical intelligence-the Journal commenced upon in 1834 (being the first Medical Periodical ever established in India) was the adventure of two individuals of the profession, hazarding thereupon their own comfort, and what pecuniary means were required; for patronage (save from the subscribers) the work we learn, never found. The Medical Board of the day did for it literally-nothing. They did not patronise it in any way. Considering the importance of maintaining such an organ in the profession, recollecting also that it was the first attempt here. at getting up such a periodical; this gross neglect on the part of those, who officially at least, may be deemed the heads of the profession, reflects very little credit on the Board of that day. It is to be hoped that more generous and liberal ideas in respect to the claims of medical literature have found their way to the Board since, and from what has already reached us, we believe this to be the case, and that Dr. Edlin has good reason in regard to his official superiors to congratulate himself. Tempora mutantur! It is undeniable, however, that attempts of this kind, must be less or more affected by the state of the Medical Corps; whose sayings and doings it endeavours to rescue in some measure, from stagnation and oblivion. By no effort of the most konied flattery, can the state of the Medical Service of Bengal, be said to be either very flourishing or promising. It catches few or no rays of encouragement or panegyric from the high places of the land. It is not necessary to enter into details, regarding a subject which would seem to possess but a minimum of interest for the public at large. The public at large hates grievances, and especially those affecting so insignificant a fraction of the community as the Doctor-Logue. It is enough for our purpose, as faithful chroniclers of what passes within the compass of our ken, to observe, that the fact is sufficiently well known, that the Medical Corps is not an united one, and it assuredly does not seem to be a favourite, or favoured one. We are not, all things considered, much surprised at this-for no corps can command external respect, that is not known to be united and firmly guided by enlightened and liberal principles within itself. It may be too, that its members are too opiniative, and too ready to take up any proposition on the part of a colleague contentiously, rather than calmly, and impartially, and philosophically. Science has many sides-and requires many sided intellectuality of research. Nevertheless, it is a besetting sin of the age, that conclusions are jumped to, rather than travelled to inductively. A medical man, too often, is dogmatical in opinion and argument. How rare it is in the commerce of life to find a professional man offering an opinion suggestively or hesitatingly. It is always excathedra, unflinchingly (affirmatively or negatively,) and as it were infallibly. The younger the man in the ranks of the profession, the more remarkbly prominent is this trait. Each is as it were a little Pope of Medicine and Therapeutics-with a six hundred horse power of dogmatism-and ready to hurl the most trenchant remarks at all and every, beyond the immediate horizon of his own still crude-and very recently acquired knowledge-the ventriloquism of his teachers, rather than the distilled product of his own faculties of reflection, judgment, observation and comparison. The conservative instinct is neither very strong in the corps itself, nor ever counted on from without. It may be dealt with by a side wind, or affected obliquely in a variety of ways, as by letting an appointment fall in abeyance here and there, or quietly dropping altogether till they merge in abolishment, some odds and ends of advantage. We are not aware that on those occasions, the Board constituting the supposed head of the Corps, is either consulted, or interferes protectively. At any rate it possesses no power, nor is the sphere of its cogitations, and legislation, such as to inspire any very extraordinary sentiments of respect for it, as a deliberative or administrative body. Justly, or unjustly, it has occasionally been blamed for not merely abstaining from protective appeals to the supreme powers, but for even suggesting how the skirts of emolument might be shortened and appointments sheared or lopped off altogether. It is to be hoped some day or cther |