could plainly see that, even on economical grounds, it is sound policy, on the first establishment of our rule in a new country, to conciliate the native aristocracy. "So many overthrown estates," says Bacon, "so many votes for troubles." Internal peace and order are economical in the long run, though the contentment to which they are due be purchased in the first instance at a high price. This was the great point on which the brothers differed. Lord Dalhousie sided with John. When, therefore, the Board of Administration was sentenced to death, it was plain that Lord Dalhousie desired to place the supreme direction of affairs in the hands of the civilian, and to find a place for the soldier in another part of the country.

Henry Lawrence, therefore, offered to resign: John Lawrence did the same. The Governor-General unhesitatingly chose the latter, as the fitter agent of his policy; and the elder brother was appointed to represent British interests in the States of Rajpootana. Lord Dalhousie endeavoured to reconcile Henry Lawrence to this decision, by saying that the time had arrived when the business to be done was rather that of civil administration than of military or political government, and that therefore he had selected the civilian. But I think that this only added new venom to the poisoned dart that was festering in him. He was deeply and most painfully wounded. "I am now," he said, "after twenty years of civil administration, and having held every sort of civil office, held up as wanting civil knowledge . . . As for what Lord Dalhousie calls training, I had the best sort. I trained myself by hard work, by being put into charge of all sorts | of offices, without help, and left to work my way. I have been for years a Judge, a Magistrate, a Col. lector, for two years a Chief Commissioner, for five years President of the Board. I am at a loss to know what details I have yet to learn." But although he never ceased to feel that a great injustice had been done to him, he was sustained by that high sense of duty which was the guiding principle of bis life; and he took large and liberal account, with all thankfulness, of the many blessings vouchsafed to him. "If," he said, "from one man I have received less than my deserts, I have from many better men received more than was my due, and in my private relations I have been blessed as few men have been."

So Henry Lawrence turned his back upon the Punjab, and set forth on his way to Rajpootana. Once within the Rajpoot territory, he began his work. "On my way from Lahore," he wrote, "I went about right and left, so as to pay a flying visit to the chief cities of Rajpootana, as Jeypoor, Joudhpoor, Ulwar, Bhurtpore, &c., and have thereby been able to sit down quietly here ever since. my rapid tour I visited, to the surprise of the Rajabs and political agents, all the jails, or dens called jails, and by describing them since, I have got some hundreds of wretches released, and obtained better quarters and treatment. In the

On

matter of jail discipline the North-West Provinces are behind the Punjab, and even there every step taken by me was in direct opposition to almost every other authority." There was much work of all kinds to be done in Rajpootana-much of it very up-hill work. Traditionally the Rajpoots were a brave, a noble, a chivalrous race of men, but in fact there was but little nobility left in them. How to deal with them was a problem which had perplexed British statesmen before the days of Henry Lawrence, and, although he now addressed himself to its solution with all the earnestness of his nature, he was obliged to confess that he made little progress. "As is usual with me," he wrote after he had been some time in Rajpootana, "it has been a year of labour, for here I have had everything to learn. Heretofore I have had chiefly to do with one, and that a new people; here I have twenty sovereign states as old as the sun and moon, but with none of the freshness of either orb. My Sikh experience gives me very little help, and my residence in Nepaul scarcely any in dealing with the petty intrigues and foolish pride of these effete Rajpoots." There were two matters to which he especially addressed himself at this time,-one, the abolition of widow-burning, still very prevalent in Rajpootana; and the other, a thorough reformation of the prison-discipline of the States, which was then an offence to humanity. He had always a strong feeling of compassion, such as stirred the depths of Howard's heart, for the wretched prisoners, who were huddled together in the jails without any classification of criminals of different degrees or even of different sexes, and he wrote that by simply, during a rapid tour, going once into every jail, and on his arrival at Mount Aboo writing a circular, remarking that in different jails he had seen strange sights that must, if known to beneficent rulers, revolt their feelings, he managed to effect some considerable reforms, and to do great service to humanity.

But although in these ancient Rajpoot States there was much room for the exercise of his chivalrous benevolence, he did not greatly rejoice in the office that he held, for he never ceased to think that he had been "shelved." But his residence in Rajpootana was associated with even a more bitter trial. In that country his beloved wife, whose health had never been good in India, sickened and died. It was a heavy—a crushing blow; and, though he bowed himself resignedly to it, "the difference was keenly felt by him in every hour of his life. The loss of his helpmate preyed upon his spirits, and sorely affected his health. In his affliction, he sometimes turned for relief to the thought of his children, and meditated a visit to England to embrace them there; at other times he turned to contemplate the great restorative of strenuous action, and longed for some new field on which to exercise his manly energies, and in the proud satisfaction of duty done to find some solace for his private griefs. He hoped that the annexation of Oude would afford

him just the exciting work that he coveted. So, when Sir James Outram was driven home by failing health, he offered to take his place at Lucknow. But the offer came too late. A civilian had been appointed to the post; and so Sir Henry Lawrence fell back upon the alternative of a visit to England; and he was about to carry the design into execution when circumstances arrested the homeward movement.

The administration of Mr. Jackson in Oude was not successful. A man of undoubted ability and unquestioned integrity, he wanted temper and disoretion; moreover, he wanted sympathy; so he quarrelled with his subordinates, and failed to conciliate the privileged classes, whom it was the inevitable tendency of the introduction of British rule to impoverish and humiliate, and who ought to have been dealt with gently and generously in their misfortunes. So after a while Lord Canning, seeing that affairs were rapidly drifting from bad to worse, removed Mr. Jackson from the Oude Commissionership, and appointed Sir Henry Lawrence to his place. No better selection could have been made, but the wisdom of the act was marred by one fatal defect it was too late." When the new Commissioner reached Lucknow, he found that almost everything that ought not to have been done had been done, and that what ought to have been first done had not been done at all, and that the seeds of rebellion had been sown broadcast over the land. He saw plainly what was coming. On his journey to Oude he spent some little time with an old and honoured friend-the friend to whom I am indebted for the account of Lawrence's Goruckpore daysand he told the civilian that the time was not far distant when he (Mr. Reade), with the LieutenantGovernor and other big Brahmins, would be shut up in the fort of Agra by a rebellion of the Native Army.

66

But the appointment pleased him. No higher proof of the confidence of the Governor-General could have been afforded to him ; no more important duties could have devolved upon him. How he wished that he had gone there a year sooner! But he did all that could be done to repair the errors of the past. He found the aristocracy-the princes and the nobles of the land-bowed down to the dust, keeping body and soul together-men and women alike, of high birth, with the best blood in their veins by selling their shawls and jewels after dark in the bazaars. At once he took up a duty so mercilessly neglected by his predecessor, and began, without wasting time on preliminary enquiries for investigation and starvation in such cases are synonymous-to pay the stipends of the old nobility. But it was not in mortal power to arrest the growth of the rebellion, which was then striking deep root in the soil. In other parts of the country the disaffection which was exhibiting itself in the spring of 1857, might be nothing more than military mutiny a mere professional agitation, accidental, superficial; but in Oude there was small likelihood

of its stopping short of a national insurrection. Firstly, it was plain that the introduction of British rule had turned against us all the great territorial chiefs-feudal barons with large bodies of armed followers-and all the once powerful classes which had been maintained in wealth and luxury by the Court of Lucknow. It was plain also that the disbanding of the old native army of Oude had scattered over the country large numbers of lawless and desperate men, owing their ruin to the English usurpation. But, plainest of all was the fact, that a large proportion of the Sepoy army of Bengal was drawn from the small yeomanry of Oude; that the province was indeed the great home of our native soldiery, and that in every village there were numerous families sure to sympathise with the discontents, and to aid the efforts of their sons and brothers in the Company's army.

When therefore the storm burst, and it was certain that a crisis had arrived which would call forth all the energies of the English in India for the maintenance of our dominion, there was no single point of danger to which men's minds turned with deeper anxiety than to Lucknow; but over this anxiety there came an inspiring feeling of confidence when they remembered that Henry Lawrence was there. To the Governor-General this was an especial source of consolation. One of the earliest incidents of the military mutiny was an outbreak in an irregular native regiment posted near Lucknow. With this Lawrence had grappled promptly and vigorously, in a manner which had won general admiration. Lord Canning saw clearly then that the right man was at the point of danger; and when Lawrence telegraphed to him, saying, "Give me full military authority: I will not use it unnecessarily," the Governor-General did not hesitate to place the chief direction of military as well as of civil affairs in the hands of the Commissioner. With this full responsibility upon him, he moved freely and without embarrassment. He could look with the soldier's and with the statesman's eye at the appearances before him; and he was as competent to deal with details of military defence, as to accommodate in other matters the action of his government to the political temper of the times. Preparing to meet the worst emergencies that could arise, he provided for the security of the European garrison; but he endeavoured at the same time to conciliate all classes, and especially to wean the minds of the soldiery from the apprehensions which had taken possession of them with respect to the safety of their caste. It was soon, however, apparent that nothing could be done by exhortations or persuasions-by promises of rewards to the faithful or threats of punishment to the unfaithful. Neither words nor money nor dresses of honour could avail. Nothing but the stout heart and the strong arm could, under Providence, help the English in the extremity of their need.

It would be vain to endeavour in such a memoir as this to narrate the incidents of the defence of

Lucknow, even in so far as Sir Henry Lawrence was connected with them. That story belongs to history. How wisely and assiduously he laboured, with what untiring energy and devotion, in spite of the failure of the frail flesh, has been told by more than one of his comrades. He was in feeble health when first he went to Lucknow. It had been his intention to proceed to England for awhile, partly 1 to recruit his strength and partly to direct the final studies of his son, then about to enter the Indian Civil Service, when the offer of the Oude Commissionership arrested his homeward movements and braced him up awhile for the continuance of his work. But the hot weather coming in with such a crowd of anxieties, tried him severely; and it was plain to those who were about his person that mind and body had been tasked overmuch. "The erdinary labours of his office," wrote one who was continually in official association with him, “had | fully tried his strength; but the intense anxiety attending his position at the present crisis would have worn the strongest frame. At first he was able to ride about a good deal, but now he drove ¦ about in his carriage. He lost appetite and sleep, and his changed and careworn appearance was painfully visible to all." But he worked on; and when, in the second week of June, such an alarming state of exhaustion supervened that his medical staff cautioned him that further application to business would endanger his life, he could with difficulty be persuaded to lay aside his work for a little time, and on the first symptom of a slight accession of strength, returned eagerly to his duties. Active among the active, as a soldier he was ever in the front and in the midst of danger.

"Sir Henry Lawrence is doing admirably at | Lucknow. All safe there."-Such were the words in which letter after letter from the Governor-General to the authorities in England communicated the confidence felt by Lord Canning in the Oude Commissioner. And so fully was that confidence shared by the Home Government, that when the Court of Directors and the Queen's Government, warned by the critical state of our relations in India, found it necessary to nominate a new Governor-General provisionally, in the event of the death or the retirement of Lord Canning, they had no hesitation in selecting Sir Henry Lawrence as the man to whom above all others they could most confidently entrust in that emergency the supreme direction of affairs.

But it was the saddest thing of all-nothing so ad in the history of the calamities of the Indian Mutiny-that he never lived to place this crown apon his brows. Such a recognition at the last would have healed all his old wounds: would have been ample compensation to him for all the crosses be had endured. No soldier of the Company's army had ever been so honoured. Of all the Englishmen in India, he was held to be the one best able, in a crisis of unexampled magnitude, to hold the helm and weather the storm, if by any mischance or

caprice Canning had been removed from the scene. All that his honourable ambition ever sought would have been thus attained, and in the completeness of his career he would have found perfect satisfaction. But it was otherwise ordained by God. On the 2nd of July, as he was lying on his couch in an upper room of the Lucknow Residency, a shell burst beside him, and grievously shattered his thigh. His nephew, Mr. George Lawrence, immediately summoned Dr. Fayrer to his assistance, and when Sir Henry saw him he asked at once how long he had to live. When the doctor answered, "about three days," he expressed astonishment that so long a term had been granted to him, and seemed to think that he should pass away before the end of it. As shot and shell were continually striking against the Residency, Dr. Fayrer caused the wounded man to be removed to his own house, which was more sheltered from the enemy's artillery, and there a consultation of medical officers was held, and it was determined that to attempt amputation would be only to increase suffering and to shorten life.

Then Henry Lawrence prepared himself for death. First of all, he asked Mr. Harris, the chaplain, to administer the Holy Communion to him. In the open verandah, exposed to a heavy fire of musketry, the solemn service was performed, many officers of the garrison tearfully communicating with their beloved chief. This done, he addressed himself to those about him. "He bade an affectionate farewell to all," wrote one who was present at this sad and solemn meeting, "and of several he asked forgiveness for having at times spoken harshly, and begged them to kiss him. One or two were quite young boys, with whom he had occasion to find fault, in the course of duty, a few days previously. He expressed the deepest humility and repentance for his sins, and his firm trust in our blessed Saviour's atonement, and spoke most touchingly of his dear wife, whom he hoped to rejoin. At the utterance of her name his feelings quite overcame him, and he burst into an uncontrollable fit of weeping which lasted some minutes. He again completely broke down in speaking of his daughter, to whom he sent his love and blessing.

...

Then he blessed his nephew George, who was kneeling by his bedside, and told him he had always loved him as his own son. He spoke to several present about the state of their souls, urging them to pray and read their Bibles, and endeavour to prepare for death, which might come suddenly, as in his own case. To nearly each person present he addressed a few parting words of affectionate advice-words which must have sunk deeply into all hearts. There was not a dry eye there, and many seemingly hard rough men were sobbing like children."

And ever mingling, in these last hours, with the kindly and affectionate feelings of the man were the sterner thoughts of the leader. Passing away, as he was, from the scene, he had to make new ar

rangements for the future defence of the beleagured garrison. He knew what was his duty, and though it pained him to set aside one who believed that he had the best right to succeed him in his civil duties, he chose his successor wisely. Then he urged upon the officer whom he had chosen, and all present, the imperative necessity of holding out to the very last, and of never making terms with the enemy. "Let every man," he said, "die at his post; but never make terms. God help the poor women and children." He often repeated these last words. His heart was very heavy with the thought of these helpless little ones, not knowing what dreadful lot might be in store for them.

He gave many sorrowing thoughts, also, to his foster-children in the Lawrence Asylum; and when he was not capable of uttering many words, from time to time he said, alternately with his prayers for the women and children, "Remember the Asylum; do not let them forget the Asylum." He told the chaplain that he wished to be buried very privately, "without any fuss," in the same grave with any men of the garrison who might die about the same time. Then he said, speaking rather to himself than to those about him, of his epitaph"Here lies Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty." "I should like, too, a text,” he added, "To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against Him. It was on my dear wife's tomb."

He lingered till the beginning of the second day, after he was stricken down, suffering occasionally acute paroxysms of pain, but having many blessed intervals of rest; and at last passed away very tranquilly, "like a little child falling asleep," about eight o'clock a.m. on the 4th of July. "He looked so peaceful and happy," said one who entered the room just after his spirit had departed, "with the most beautiful expression of calm joy on his face. We could not but thank God that his sufferings were over, feeling sure that he was at rest."

After a little while it became necessary to move the body, and some European soldiers were sent for to lift the couch on which it lay. Before they did so, one of the party raised the sheet which covered the face of his beloved chief, and kissed him reverently on the forehead; then the others stooped down and did likewise; and, having so done, bore the body to the verandah. That evening it was buried, in a soldier's grave, with the corpses of four others who had fallen on that day; and so furious was the raging of the enemy at the time, that, I believe, not a single officer of the garrison saw the remains of his beloved general lowered into the grave. But there was not one amongst them who did not feel that he best did honour to the dead by following his great example, and being found ever at his post.

Rough and imperfect as is this brief sketch of Sir Henry Lawrence's career, I hope that it has in some measure set forth the true character of the man, and

that, therefore, little need be said about the qualities that constituted his greatness. It will not, I trust, be long before a life so eminently that of a "Christian Warrior"-a life so fitted to encourage and sustain in well-doing by the beauty of its examplewill be fully written by one far more capable than I am of doing justice to the theme.* What Wordsworth wrote, Lawrence acted. The ideal portrait of the "Christian Warrior" which the one had drawn, was ever before the other as an exemplar. He read it often; he thought of it continually; he quoted it in his writings. He tried to conform his own life and to assimilate his own character to it: and he succeeded, as all men succeed who are truly in earnest. But, if I were asked what especially it was that more than all perfected the picture of his character, I should say that it was the glow of romance that flushed it all as a glory from above. There was in all that he did a richness and tenderness of sentiment that made it not only good but beautiful. He used to say-and nothing was ever said more truly-"It is the due admixture of romance and reality that best carries a man through life." No words can express better than his own what I wish to say in conclusion, for no words can more clearly set forth what it was that made the peculiar greatness of the man. "The quality," he wrote in 1844, + "variously designated romance or enthu siasm, poetry or ideality, is not to be despised as the mere delusion of a heated brain; but is to be valued as an energy imparted to the human mind to prompt and sustain its noblest efforts. We would urge on the young especially, not that they should repress enthusiasm, but that they should cultivate and direct the feeling. Undisciplined romance deals in vague aspirations after something better and more beautiful than it has yet seen; but it is apt to turn in disgust from the thousand homely details and irksome efforts essential to the accomplishment of anything really good, to content itself with dreams of glorious impossibilities. Reality, priding itself on a steady plodding after a moderate tangible desideratum, laughs at the aimless and unprofitable visions of romance; but the hand cannot say to the eye, I have no need of thee!' Where the two faculties are duly blended, reality pursues a straight rough path to a desirable and practicable result; while romance beguiles the road by pointing out its beauties, by bestowing a deep and practical convic tion that even in this dark and material existence there may be found a joy with which a stranger intermeddleth not-a light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." And truly upon Henry Lawrence this light beamed more and more until the perfect day dawned upon him and his work was accomplished upon earth.

It is understood that Sir Herbert Edwardes has been engaged for some years upon a Life of Sir Henry

Lawrence.

+ Article "Romance and Reality of Indian Life," in the Calcutta Review.

CHAPTER II.

HOW HEREWARD SLEW THE BEAR.

Of Hereward's doings for the next few months nought is known. He may very likely have joined Siward in the Scotch war. He may have looked, wondering, for the first time in his life, upon the bones of the old world, where they rise at Dunkeld out of the lowlands of the Tay; and have trembled lest the black crags of Birnam should topple on his head with all their pines. He may have marched down from that famous leaguer with the Gospatrics and Dolfins, and the rest of the kindred of Crinan (abthane or abbot-let antiquaries decide)—of Dunkeld, and of Duncan, and of Siward, and of the outraged Sibilla. He may have helped himself to bring Birnam Wood to Dunsinane, 'on the day of the Seven Sleepers," and heard Siward, when his son Asbiorn's corpse was carried into camp,* ask | only, "Has he all his wounds in front?" He may have seen old Siward, after Macbeth's defeat (not death, as Shakespeare relates the story), go back to Northumbria "with such booty as no man had obtained before,”—a proof—if the fact be fact, that the Scotch lowlands were not, in the eleventh century, the poor and barbarous country which some have reported them to have been.

All this is not only possible, but probable enough, the dates considered: the chroniclers, however, are silent. They only say that Hereward was in those days beyond Northumberland with Gisebert of Ghent.

Gisebert, Gislebert, Gilbert, Guibert, Goisbricht, of Ghent, who afterwards owned, by chance of war, many a fair manor about Lincoln city, was one of those valiant Flemings who settled along the east and north-east coast of Scotland in the eleventh century. They fought with the Celtic princes, and then married with their daughters; got to themselves lands by the title-deed of the sword ;' and so became the famous "Freskin the Fleming" especially-the ancestors of the finest aristocracy, both physically and intellectually, in the world. They had their connexions, moreover, with the Norman court of Rouen, through the Duchess Matilda, daughter of their old Seigneur, Baldwin Marquis of Flanders; their connexions, too, with the English Court, through Countess Judith, wife of Earl Tosti Godwinsson, another daughter of Baldwin's. Their friendship was sought, their enmity feared, far and wide throughout the north. They seem to have been civilisers, and cultivators, and traders-with the instinct of true Flemings-as well as conquerors; they were in those very days

Shakespeare makes young Siward his son. He, too, was slain in the battle: but he was Siward's nephew.

bringing to order and tillage the rich lands of the north-east, from the Frith of Moray to that of Forth; and forming a rampart for Scotland against the invasions of Sweyn, Hardraade, and all the wild vikings of the northern seas.

Amongst them, in those days, Gilbert of Ghent seems to have been a notable personage, to judge from the great house which he kept, and the "milites tyrones," or squires in training for the honour of knighthood, who fed at his table. Where he lived, the chroniclers report not. To them the country "ultra Northumbriam," beyond the Forth, was as Russia or Cathay, where

"Geographers on pathless downs

Put elephants for want of towns." As indeed it was to that French map-maker who, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century (not having been to Aberdeen or Elgin), leaves all the country north of the Tay a blank, with the inscription :-" Terre inculte et sauvage, habitée par les Higlanders."

Wherever Gilbert lived, however, he heard that Hereward was outlawed, and sent for him, says the story. And there he lived, doubtless happily enough, fighting Highlanders and hunting deer, so that as yet the pains and penalties of exile did not press very hardly upon him. The handsome, petulant, good-humoured lad had become in a few weeks the darling of Gilbert's ladies, and the envy of all his knights and gentlemen. Hereward the singer, harp-player, dancer,-Hereward the rider and hunter, was in all mouths: but he himself was discontented at having as yet fallen in with no adventure worthy of a man, and looked curiously and longingly at the menagerie of wild beasts enclosed in strong wooden cages, which Gilbert kept in one corner of the great court-yard, not for any scientific purposes, but to try with them, at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, the mettle of the young gentlemen who were candidates for the honour of knighthood. But after looking over the bulls and stags, wolves and bears, Hereward settled it in his mind that there was none worthy of his steel, save one huge white bear, whom no man had yet dared to face, and whom Hereward, indeed, had never seen, hidden as he was all day within the old oven-shaped Pict's house of stone, which had been turned into his den. There was a mystery about the uncanny brute which charmed Hereward. He was said to be half-human, perhaps wholly human; to be the son of the Fairy Bear, near kinsman, if not uncle or cousin, of Siward Digre. He had, like his fairy father, iron claws; he had human intellect, and understood human speech, and the arts of war,-at least so all in the place believed, and not as absurdly as at first sight seems.