my work has met with kind reception from those gentlemen who are considered to be the most distinguished members of Society.

I must be particularly thankful to Mr. W· S. Atkinson, the Director of Public Instruction, Mr H. Woodrow, the Inspector of Schools Central Division, Mr. C. Mackenzie, the Magistrate of Moorshedabad, the Honorable Mr. R. Scott the late Commissioner of the Rajshie Division at present Judge of the High Court of Judicature of Calcutta ; and Mr. W. B. Buckle the Civil Judge of Moorshedabad and Rajah Prosonno Naraun Deb Bahadoor. These are the gentlemen who have been pleased to receive my work very graciously and whom I shall remember with gratitude as long as I live. To corroborate my assertion I beg leave to quote the letter of Mr. Buckle to my address.

"Accept my thanks for your kind present of your

Dramatic Poem of Hector I am very much in

terested in it, and hope you will succeed equally well in the second Part and that your taste may extend itself to your contemporary native friends." Yours faithfully

W. B. Buckle.

Such are the particulars of the encouragement which I have received from the learned world, and which inspired in me a desire not only to redeem my promise I have made in the preface of my dramatic work on the First Part of the Life and Death of Hector, but, also to write a dramatic poem on Charles 1st king of England. This is a subject which I consider to be most pathetic as the perusal of it will excite compassion of every reader towards the venerable Lord and king of England, upon whom his insolent subjects had heaped insult after insult, cruelty after cruelty, by confining him in a pestilential hole unsuitable for the dignity of the great king of England. It is much to be regretted here that the people of London being representatives of of the first civilized nation on the face of the globe had been so cruel as to commit the crime of regicide This can only bring to my mind the days of sword and fire which heralded the Mahomedan crescent.

But those days of England are gone, we hope, gone for ever! These are the days of peace in which not

a Cromwell or Ireton will venture to raise an. insurrection in the vast dominion of our gracious sovereign.

It is not for me to express here within the compass of this little preface how far Her majesty's subjects are happy on account of Her shewing great and maternal affection towards them without any distinction of color and creed. The thread of history I must confess, has accidentally led me to give a brief account of Her majesty's reign which is a subject to be only treated by the most sublime pens.

It is to be remarked here that no "tonnage" or "poundage" can disturb England now as in the reign of charles 1st and the people live in amity and good will towards each other. Called to fill the throne of England at a period when monarchical institutions were on their trial, She has done every thing conducive to the welfare of Her subjects; she has seen ancient dynasties crumble, and solid empires to be convulsed with anarchy. Her authority is based even more on the obedience of a cheerful, a loyal, and contented people than it is on the

V

carbines and bayonets of Her soldiers. Let us therefore sing Her eminent, private and political virtue which has been practically tested by more than one generation of Englishmen. Under the auspices of Her majesty we see the revival of those glorious days in which Queen Elizabeth that great and wise sovereign had done her utmost to raise England from the verge of ruin to a stage of high civilization.

I cannot refrain from dilating on the virtues of our sovereign Queen Victoria, the natives of India I must observe, are indebted to Her for the Royal Proclamation-for that Proclamation which is a charter of their religions and civil liberties,-which is their magna charta-their bill of rights. But I cannot here forego the pleasure of alluding to the sail Proclamotion which is a document instinct with every brilliant logic and profound knowledge. Her most Gracions majesty says in that document.

“We declare it to be our royal will and pleasure that none be in any wise favored, none molested, or disquieted by reason of their religious faith or observances."

An impress of a vast and numerous people, sovereign of an endless territory, absolute commander of the lives and fortunes of Her subjects, she is ever to be remembered by them with utmost gratitude! She has not only shewn her regard for the religion of her subjects, but has also further declared in her gracious proclamation that all classes of her subjects of India irrespective of considerations of color and creed shall be equally entitled to the offices of state. Under Her majesty's sway India has not only become an epitome of the whole world but it is a seat of intelligence and centre of public opinion. Its commerce makes it the resort of the merchant yessels of all the commercial nations of the globe. The lordly river of Ganges passes through several villages from its sources in the Himalays to its mouth in the Indian ocean; from Hurridar to Gungasagur.

In the days of yore under the Mahomedan Government the sovereign's will was the law, no constitutional restriction there was upon the exercise of that will, no minister ventured to give advice upon any point of important nature; in those days heirs apparent to grand empires upon their