HINDOO MANUAL AND CREED. (Continued from p. 231.) Twenty-fifth-Oupass. XXXII.-25th.-Oron Ouday Septemi, happens on the seventh day of the new moon of January, and is called Soorjy Poujah, or worship of the sun, to which they make offerings of particular flowers which grow in the Ganges. Twenty-sixth--Oupass. XXXIII.-26th.-Bheem Ekkadossi happens on the eleventh day of the new moon of January. It is dedicated to Kishen, in commemoration of a glutton, named Bheem, who fasted in honour of Kishen he is called the brother of Judisteen. Bheem is the name given to gluttons in general. Twenty-seventh-Oupass. XXXIV.-27th.-Pournemi, or the full of the moon of January, is consecrated to Vistnou the conservator: they fast, and make ablutions, and give alms, on this day. Twenty-eighth-Oupass. XXXV.-28th.-Seeb Ratre Chowtordossi, or the fourteenth af ter the full moon of January, happens on its twenty-ninth day, and is dedicated to Seeb the destroyer: they fast and make offerings, and pray all night, which is expressed by the word Ratre, added to the name of the god, in whose honour the solemnity is kept. Twenty-ninth-Oupass. XXXVI.-29th.-Gobend Dew Dossi happens on the twelfth day of the moon of February, and is dedicated to Vistnou the conservator, or consoler, as the word Gobend, or Gobend Dew, implies. It is a name given to the second of the three first created beings. They observe fasting and prayers. Thirtieth-Pourob. XXXVII.-30th.-Dhole Jattrah happens on the full moon of February, and is sacred to Kishen Thaukoor. The Hindoos on this day, scatter the powder of a certain red flower, called faag, all over their clothes, and the feast ends with rejoicings. Thirty-first-Oupass. XXXVIII.-31st.-Baruni Jattrah, or Modou Kistnan Teradossi, happens on the twenty-eighth day of the moon of February. When it falls on Saturday, they call it Barani; and if the planet Salou Bissah is then in the meridian, they call it Maha Barani, and if the planet Subo Jogue, is in conjunction with Saloo Bissah, it is then called Maha Maha Barani. These conjunctions are necessarily uncertain; but when they do occur, they celebrate a feast, purify themselves in the Ganges, and make offerings to Sourji, or the sun. Thirty-second---Oupass Pourob. XXXIX.-32nd.-Locki Poujah happens on the first Tuesday in March: they worship the goddess this day, and return her thanks for having prospered the fruits of the earth. Thirty-third-Pourob. XL.---33rd.--Drouga Poujah, and Bhasonti Poujah, happens on the seventh day of the new moon of March, and continues till the tenth. On the last day they throw her statue into the Ganges. This feast is instituted with the same design as the grand one, but it is not so generally and expensively observed, of which I have spoken in No. XXII.---15th. Thirty-fourth-Oupass Pourob. XLI.---34th.---Seeb, or Sounias Poujah, commences on the first, and lasts till the thirteenth of March, and is only interrupted during the Drouga Poujah, spoken of in the foregoing festival. Sounias Poujah is the Lent of the Hindoos. The Churruck, or day of flagel lation, falls on the thirteenth of March; the casts of Bhramons and Coists are exempted from it, by the Augtorah Bhade, and, in fact, none but the lowest people submit to these public penances. But all casts and tribes fast and pray the twenty-ninth, which is the day preceding the Churruck. This solemn feast is consecrated to Seeb, or Mahadew, or Moisoor the mutilator, the protector from evil, through whose intercession they pray the Eternal to guard the Hindoos from the power of Moisasoor and his adherents, and to revoke the final sentence which he has pronounced against the rebellious Dewtahs. XLII.---God created three females, or companions, for the three first-created beings. To Bhirmah he gaye Bhirmani; to Vistnou, Lockie; and to Seeb, Bhowanny Drouga. Bhirmah had two children by his wife, the eldest called Kousubmonnou, and the youngest, Doukie Rajah: the first was governed by a pious and praiseworthy spirit, the latter by a vicious and turbulent one. Doukie Rajah had a daughter, called Dhiti, married to her cousin Kousabmonnou, and he had a son called Endeer, who, as well as his de scendants, were exemplary, virtuous, and kept the laws of God, which Bhirmah and Bhirmani taught him. Doukie Rajah had a second daughter, called Odhiti, married to her cousin ..... called ..... who had a son called Moisasoor: both he and his descendants followed the example of their grandfather, Doukie Rajah, despised the precepts of Bhirmah and Bhirmani, and gave themselves up to vice, and contemned the laws of God. MELANCHOLY HOURS. No. VI. Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen. Gray. POETRY is a blossom of very delicate growth; it requires the maturing influence of vernal suns, and every encouragement of culture and attention, to bring it to its natural perfection. The pursuits of the mathematician, or the mechanical genius, are such as require rather strength and insensibility of mind, than that exquisite and finely-wrought susceptibility, which invariably marks the temparament of the true poet; and, it is for this reason, that while men of science have, not unfrequently, arisen from the abodes of poverty and labour, very few legitimate children of the Muse have ever emerged from the shades of hereditary obscurity. It is painful to reflect how many a bard now lies, nameless and forgotten, in the narrow house, who, had he been born to competence and leisure, might have usurped the laurels from the most distinguished personages in the temple of Fame. The very consciousness of merit itself often acts in direct opposition to a stimulus to exertion, by exciting that mournful indignation at supposititious neglect, which urges a sullen concealment of talents, and drives its possessor to that misanthropic discontent which preys on the vitals, and soon produces untimely mortality. A sentiment like this has, no doubt, often actuated beings, who attracted notice, perhaps, while they lived, only by their singularity, and who were forgotten almost cre their parent earth had closed over their heads;-beings who lived but to mourn and to languish for what they were never destined to enjoy, and whose exalted endowments were buried with them in their graves, by the want of a little of that superfluity which serves to pamper the debased appetites of the enervated sons of luxury and sloth. The present age, however, has furnished us with two illustrious instances of poverty bursting through the cloud of surrounding impediments, into the full blaze of notoriety and eminence. I allude to the two Bloomfields-bards who may challenge a comparison with the most distinguished favourites of the Muse, and who both passed the day-spring of life in labour, indigence, and obscurity. The author of the Farmer's Boy hath already received the applause he justly deserved. It yet remains for the Essay on War to enjoy all the distinction it so richly merits, as well from its sterling worth, as from the circumstances of its author. Whether the present age will de inclined to do it full justice, may indeed be feared. Had Mr. Nathaniel Bloomfield made his appearance in the horizon of letters prior to his brother, he would undoubtedly have been considered as a meteor of uncommon attraction; the critics would have admired, because it would have been the fashion to admire. But it is to be apprehended that our countrymen become enured to phenomena :- it is to be apprehended, that the frivolity of the age cannot endure a repetition of the uncommon :-1 -that it will no longer be the rage to patronize indigent merit: that the beau monde will therefore neglect, and that, by a necessary consequence, the critics will sneer!! Nevertheless, sooner or later, merit will meet with its reward; and though the popularity of Mr. Bloomfield may be delayed, he must, at one time or other, receive the mecd due to his deserts.Posterity will judge impartially; and if bold and vivid images, and original conceptions, luminously displayed, and judiciously apposed, have any claim to the regard of mankind, the name of Nathaniel Bloomfield will not be without its high and appropriate honours. Rousseau very truly observes, that with whatever talent a man may be born, the art of writing is not easily obtained. If this be applicable to men enjoying every advantage of scholastic initiation, how much more forcibly must it apply to the offspring of a poor village taylor, untaught, and destitute both of the means and the time necessary for the cultivation of the mind! If the art of writing be of difficult attainment to those who make it the study of their lives, what must it be to him, who, perhaps, for the first forty years of his life, never entertained a thought that any thing he could write would be deemed worthy of the attention of the public!—whose only time for rumination was such as a sedentary and sickly employment could allow; on the taylor's board, surrounded with men, perhaps, of depraved and rude habits, and impure conversation! And yet, that Mr. N. Bloomfield's poems display acuteness of remark, and delicacy of sentiment, combined with much strength, and considerable selection, of diction, few will deny. The Pæan to Gunpowder would alone prove both his powers of language, and the fertility of his imagination; and the following extract presents him to us in the still higher character of a bold and vivid painter. Describing the field after a battle, he says, Now here and there, about the horrid field, The shriek of torture, and the groan of death, At every leaf that rustles in the breeze P. 12, Essay on War. If Mr. Bloomfield had written nothing besides the Elegy on the Enclosure of Honington Green, he would have had a right to be considered as a poet of no mean excellence. The heart which can read passages like the following, without a sympathetic emotion, must be dead to every feeling of sensibility. STANZA VI. The proud city's gay wealthy train, But if to the church you e'er went, If you knew what the village has been,. VII. That no more upon Honington Green Dwells the matron whom most I revere, If by pert observation unseen, I e'en now could indulge a fond tear. |