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dominions, in order to divert hina from his inroads into the Carnatic. The conduct of the general is feverely cenfured by our author, who thinks that the fatal draught was intended to punish conduct derogatory from the true courage of the foldier and the liberality of the man. Other officers, captured after a fair conteft, were treated differently. Though the conduct of Tippoo may in this way be palliated, the explanation does not meet the whole of the tyrant's behaviour; and we are inclined to believe, that he was chiefly influenced by revenge, at being called back from his favourite object, when he had almost achieved it.

The Malabar coaft, ftrictly confidered, commences in the neighbourhood of Bangalore; and from Cannanore the achievements of general Abercrombie began, followed in another campaign by the most brilliant fuccefs. Other places on the coaft are described, with accounts of the events of which they were the scenes, and of the natural productions of the country. The latter we cannot particularly notice; but the catalogue comprifes almoft every thing that is noble in the vegetable kingdom, with various objects of luxury, curiofity, and use.

- The kingdom of Travancore-belli teterrima caufa-is accurately defcribed, as is the country about Cape Comorin. We find, in this part of the work, nothing more interesting than the defcription of the Nayrs.

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The difgrace which Tippoo fuffered,' (before the lines of Travancore) was owing to three battalions of Nayrs, and five hundred archers, in all three thousand men, who, ftimulated by the cause of their country and of their religion, were crowned with victory. The Nayrs are the nobility of Malabar, the ancient dominions of the Zamorins, and in times of their profperity formed the body guards. On the first appearance of Cabral at Calicut, the Zamorin fent two of his Nayrs to compliment him on his arrival. They have at all times been famed for their valour and love of war. They are of the great military cafts the Khatre, and fupport to this day the fpirit of their ancestors. They are exceffively proud, and are never known to laugh. They are befides fo very infolent to their inferiors, that it is faid, if a perfon of the lower order dare to look at a Nayr, he may be put to death on the fpot with impunity. Among the good qualities of the Nayrs, may be reckoned their great fidelity. It is cuftomary for them to undertake the conduct of Chriftian or Mahometan travellers, or strangers, through their country. The latter never venture without taking a fingle Nayr with them, who makes himfelf refponfible for their fafety; even an old decrepit man, or a boy is fufficient for the purpose. Should any misfortune befall the charge, it is related, that the Nayrs, unable to bear the difgrace, have frequently been

known to put themselves to death. Notwithstanding this, at other times they are notorious robbers, and even will murder the traveller unprotected by one of their caft.

In their perfons they are well made, and of great strength; their complexion more black than olive, their hair crifp, but longer than that of the Negro; their ears enormously long; they think that custom graceful, they lengthen them by art, and hang on them and their nofes numbers of baubles. They at times load their arms and necks with filver bracelets and chains of pearl. In time of war, on their head, they wear a moft ungraceful clout hanging down, pointed on each fide, and a fhort wrapper round the waift, with a dagger ftuck in a fash; all the rest of them is naked. In one hand is a fword of vaft length. Such is the figure of one given by captain Byron, engraven by Vivares. In religion they are of the Hindoo; in marriage ftrict monogamifts.' Vol. i.

P. 177.

The island of Ceylon, the Taprobana of antiquity, was extended, by the ancient geographers, much beyond its real magnitude, either becaufe navigators, when, in imitation of the boldness of Hippalus, they ftretched across the Indian Ocean, miftook the coast of Malabar for Ceylon, or because a part has fince been fubmerged. Mr. Pennant thinks that it once was united to the continent on the west, where the water is ftill fhallow, and that the Lacadive, perhaps the Maldive, Iflands, might have been a part of the main land.

The traditions of our great progenitor Adam, in all parts of this ifland, are remarkable.

The inhabitants are the Cingalefe; these are aboriginal, and differ totally in language from the people of Malabar, or any other neighbouring nation. Their features more like Europeans than any other. Their hair long, most commonly turned up. They are black, but well made, and with good countenances, and of excellent morals, and of great piety. Their religion is derived from Buddo, a profelyte of the great Indian Foe: his doctrine spread over Japan and Siam, as well as that of Foe. It confifts of the wildest idolatry, and the idols, the objects of their worship, are the most monstrous and phantaftic. The pagodas are numerous, and many of them, like feveral in India, of hewn-ftone, moft richly and exquifitely carved. The Cingalefe believe Buddo to have come upon earth; and that to him belonged the falvation of fouls: all human happiness, fay they, proceeds from him: all evil, from the devil, to whom he permits the power of punishment. When fick, they dedicate a red cock to that being, as the Romans did one to Efculapius. During the time he inhabited the earth, they tell us, that he ufually fate under the fhade of the ficus religiofa, which, in honor of him, is called in the. Cingalefe tongue, Budaghaha. His religion is the eftablished religion of the ifland.

The civil government is monarchical. The emperor, in the time of Knox, was abfolute, and clamed the moft undifputable right over the lives and fortunes of all his fubjects. He was a most barbarous tyrant, and took a diabolical delight in putting his fubjects to the most cruel and lingering deaths. Elephants were often the executioners of his vengeance, and were directed to pull the unhappy criminals limb from limb with their trunks, and fcatter them to the birds of the air, or beasts of the field. The emperor's refidence was at Candy, nearly in the center of the island; but he was, in Knox's time, by the rebellion of his fubjects, obliged to defert that city. The government is faid, by Wolff, p. 235, to be at prefent very mild, and regulated by the statute laws of the land, the joint production of divers wife princes, and are confidered as facred by the Cingalefe. It is poffible that the tyrant, in the days of Knox, had deftroyed the liberties of his country, which were afterwards restored.' Vol. i. P. 190.

The Portuguefe firft difcovered Ceylon; but the Dutch poffeffed it for many years. The harbour of Trincomalè, on its eaftern fide, has been contefted in the late wars, as a fecure retreat from the monfoons, which raise fo dangerous a furf in the roads of Madras. The Cingalefe are not the only inhabitants of the island. A race of wild men, called Wedas, inhabit its faftneffes, and live on meat or on roots. They are dexterous in the ufe of the bow, but are unable to forge the points of their arrows; have a lighter complexion than the Cingalefe, and are unwilling to affociate with them; live without fubordination, and feem to have no religion.

Ceylon nourishes, among other quadrupeds, the elephant, the tiger, and the bear; and many of the most poifonous ferpents are alfo found on the ifland. Of the birds, the principal is the peacock, which is a native of India. The thips of Solomon first brought thefe birds to our continent; and his Tarthith was probably in India, or had commercial connections with it. Among the inhabitants of the waters, we thall only notice the great fword-fifh, the enemy of the whale, which has driven its formidable weapon through the bottom of a ship, mistaking it for a whale, and died unable to extri

cate it.

The Flora is uncommonly rich. Spices of every kind abound here. The bread-fruit tree, the bamboo, the mango, the whole tribe of nutritious palms, the pine, the cotton-tree, the Barringtonia, the orange, the nepenthe, the morus Indica, and many other trees and plants, are found in the island.

The plates of the firft volume are nine, reprefenting places, objects of natural hiftory, &c. We cannot, in every inftance, commend the choice or the execution of them.

(To be continued.)

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The Works of Horatio Walpole, Earl of Orford. (Concluded from Vol. XXIII. p. 256.)

THE laft volume of this collection confifts wholly of letters to different perfons, written during a very interefting period. It is pleafing to difcover Mr. Walpole's real opinions of public occurrences, and of the merits of different writers; opinions generally judicious, and probably candid; for thefe are the effufions of friendship, not the ftudied criticisms of an author. The letters are written in that light familiar ftyle, which is calculated to render them, in a manner, the copies of a rational pleafing converfation. To fome of the most celebrated French epiftles they bear a refemblance; but we prefer the effufions of Mr. Walpole to thofe of the French, as they appear to us to contain a greater variety of natural and interesting reflections.

The letters to field-marfhal Conway, the first of the fifth volume, comprise a period of fifty-five years, from 1740 to 1795. From a correfpondence with a character fo exalted in times of great political exertions, we must be allowed to make confiderable extracts. These we shall introduce with a just account of the epiftles from the pen of the intelligent editor.

Thefe letters are the carelefs effufions of unbounded confidence on all subjects, between two perfons, both eminent for their abilities, during the unbroken duration of a friendship which almost began, and only ended with their lives. Such letters were certainly never originally intended for publication; but as from that very reafon they become doubly interefting, affording indubitable proofs, not only of the livelieft wit and the happiest expreffion, but of the most disinterested attachment, the foundest integrity and the most anxious affection; to fupprefs them would be to fupprefs one of the beft eulogies on both their characters, and would deprive the world at once of a bright example, and of a confoling inftance of real, rare, uninterrupted friendship.

Indeed fo arbitrary is the diftribution even of pofthumous fame, that it may, perhaps, be chiefly from thefe letters, and other works of his friend, that the character of marshal Conway will be best known to pofterity. The pure, tried, unfhaken integrity of his foul, his cool determined valour, the mild domeftic virtues of his heart, his unwearied fearch after knowledge, his admirable tafte and various accomplishments, were accompanied by such modeft, fuch philofophic diffidence of his own opinion and acquirements, and were exalted by fuch noble and extraordinary fimplicity of character, as rendered him inattentive to the acquifition of popular applaufe, while fatisfied with the confcioufnefs of deferving it." Vol. i. P. xiv.

The following letter of advice to Mr. Conway, who was fecond in command in the expedition against Rochefort, is worthy of felection:

If you have received mine of Tuesday, which I directed to Portsmouth, you will perceive how much I agree with you. I am charmed with your fenfible modefty. When I talked to you, of defence, it was from concluding that you had all agreed that the attempt was impracticable, nay impoffible; and from thence I judged that the ministry intended to caft the blame of a wild project upon the officers. That they may be a little willing to do that, I still think-but I have the joy to find that it cannot be thrown on you. As your friend, and fearing, if I talked for you first, it would look like doubt of your behaviour, at least that you had bid me defend you at the expence of your friends, I faid not a word, trusting that your innocence would break out and make its way. I have the fatisfaction to find it has already done fo. It comes from all quarters but your own, which makes it more honourable. My lady Suffolk told me last night, that she heard all the feamen faid they wished the general had been as ready as Mr. Conway. But this is not all; I left a pofitive commiffion in town to have the truth of the general report fent me without the least disguise; in confequence of which I am folemnly affured that your name is never mentioned but with honour; that all the violence, and that extreme, is against fir John Mordaunt and Mr. Cornwallis. I am particularly forry for the latter, as I firmly believe him as brave as poffible.

This fituation of things makes me advife, what I know and find I need not advife, your faying as little as poffible in your own defence, nay, as much as you can with any decency for the others. I am neither acquainted with, nor care a straw about, fir John Mordaunt; but as it is known that you differed with him, it will do you the greatest honour to vindicate him, inftead of disculpating yourfelf. My moft earnest defire always is, to have your character continue as amiable and refpectable as poffible. There is no doubt but the whole will come out, and therefore your juftification not coming from yourself will fet it in a ten times better light. I fhall go to town to-day to meet your brother; and as I know his affection for you will make him warm in clearing you, I fhall endeavour to reftrain that ardour, of which you know I have enough on the leaft glimmering of a neceffity: but I am fure you will agree with me, hat, on the representation I have here made to you, it is

not proper for your friends to appear folicitous about you.

The city talk very treafon, and, connecting the fufpenfion at Stade with this difappointment, cry out, that the general had po. fitive orders to do nothing, in order to obtain gentler treatment of Hanover. They intend in a violent manner to demand redress, and are too enraged to let any part of this affair remain a mystery. Vol. v. P. • 53.

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