debasing superstitions which they thought had killed all genius, had there the happy and heaven-taught art to beautify nature-and that the Hindus have a Shakspeare in their Kalidasa-such a Shakspeare as was possible to humanity so existing-for as the people are so must be their poet-his inspiration coming from communion between his heart and theirs and though we call it heavenly—and though in one sense it be even so-yet of verity born of earth.

That Drama was of the loves of an Apsara, or one of the Nymphs of Heaven, sentenced by a heavenly curse to become the consort of a mortal; that mortal was Sun-andMoon descended; his chariot could cleave the sky-instinct with spirit like an eagle on the wingand in his course Pururavas accompanied the Sun. But now we are on the soil of the common earth, in "the light of common day," among the life of common creatures -and you will wonder to feel that you are yourself a Hindu. Yes, you are a Brahman-your name is Charudatta-and you are the hero-no great hero after all-of the Toycart. Nay, what is better-a man, and a good one-and fit to shew your face either by the Hoogley or the Ganges, the Tweed or the Thames. For on the banks of one and all-in spite of all jugglery-it is felt that

"An honest man's the noblest work of God."

But who wrote the Drama with the magnificent name of the Toycart? A King. For hear the Manager in the Prelude. "There was a poet whose gait was that of an elephant, whose eyes resembled those of the chakora (the Greek partridge), whose countenance was like the full moon, and who was of stately person, amiable manners, and profound veracity; of the Kshetriya race, and distinguished by the appellation SuDRA; he was well versed in the Rig and the Sama Vedas, in mathematical sciences, in the elegant arts, and the management of elephants. By the favour of Siva he enjoyed eyes uninvaded by darkness, and beheld his son seated on the throne; after performing the exalted Aswamedha, (the emblematic sacrifice of a horse

one of the most solemn rites of the Hindus in ancient times,) having attained the age of a hundred years and ten days, he entered the fatal fire. Violent was he in war, and ready to encounter with his single arm the elephant of his adversary; yet he was void of wrath; eminent among those skilled in the Vedas, and affluent in piety-a Prince was Sudra."

He wrote the Toy-cart; and when did he flourish? Some think about the end of the second century after Christ; the traditional chronology places him about a century before our era. But Professor Wilson rightly observes, that the place which the Mrichchakati holds in the dramatic literature of all nations will be thought matter of more interest by most readers than its antiquity or historical importance. That it is a curious and interesting picture of national manners, every one will readily admit; and it is not the less valuable in this respect, that it is free from all exterior influence or adulteration. It is a portrait purely Indian.

The Manager, in the Prelude, tells us that in Avanti lived a young Brahman of distinguished rank, but of exceeding poverty-by name Charudatta. Of his many excellences, a courtezan, Vasantasena by name, became enamoured; and the story of their loves is the subject of King Sudra's Drama, which will exhibit "the infamy of wickedness, the villany of law, the efficacy of virtue, and the triumph of faithful love." What better ends can the legitimate drama have in view? And it is a legitimate drama, in Ten Acts, giving a picture of Hindu domestic life-its manners and its morals-in much different from ours, but exhibiting the power of the same passions, for good or for evil, and the authority of Conscience presiding over them all-and that, too, majestically, in the midst of the most trying and appalling miseries. The state of society represented is one, Mr Wilson says, "sufficiently advanced to be luxurious and corrupt, and is certainly very far from offering a flattering similitude, although not without some attractive features." There is meanness, baseness, cowardice, and cruelty; but generosity

too, honour, courage, and a forgiving spirit; and at the close, we cannot but feel that Sudra deserves to stand high among Royal authors-and that happy must have been the subjects of such a King. Gibbon, we think it was, who sneeringly said that 'twas not easy to believe that the wisdom of Solomon could have been possessed by one who was a Jew and a King. Sudra was a Hindu and a King, and lived in a palace; but of his own high heart he had learned the same wisdom, that." from heaven descended on the low-roof'd house of Socrates." He taught in the Toycart, that nothing was good but virtue. The character of Charudatta is throughout preserved in all he says, does, or suffers, and without the slightest tendency to exaggeration; the charm of the whole being a simple single-mindedness, and a trustful integrity which never for a moment is he in danger of let ting go, and which being in him religion, appears in worst extremities sublime. Environed with death and its most frightful accompaniments, he appears-Hindu as he is-supported by the resignation and faith almost of a Christian martyr. Whenever he appears, during the progress of the drama, all ranks of men, and all kinds of characters, do honour to his virtues; and his name is never once mentioned from beginning to end but with praise. Yet he is depressed by the consciousness of his

own poverty, and believes that he is despised; a natural mistake in the mind of a magnanimous man, who had once been munificent. For knowing that the source of his bounties had been dried up, and that the streams could flow no more, he doubted not, from his knowledge of the ingratitude of human nature, that the past would be forgotten, and contempt accumulate on the head of one once so rich and now so poor. For public opinion is shaken by such a change. Yet he is as far as may be from a misanthrope; and it is manifest that were he again wealthy, bis hand would be as lavish as ever. He is very sensitive, but not in the least soured; and his strength of mind under all trials shews that misfortune had not taken away the props on which his character had been borne up, but merely the means of being in outward act what he still is in his own inward spirit—a man whose happiness lies in making others happy-and what higher happiness can there be either for Brabman or Christian on that side of the grave where all miseries grow rankly, and their seed seems sometimes to be scattered far and wide over the fairest fields where what we call joys are trying to grow-even by airs so soft and sweet, that one might well believe they were breathed from heaven!

Here is the Brahman:

(Sits down.)

Health to you, may you

Maitreya, who is also a Brahman, the friend and companion of Charudatta, and the Vidushaka or Gracioso of the piece, (a character of mixed shrewdness and simplicity, with an affectionate disposition,) hesitates to go, alleging that the royal road is crowded with loose persons, with cut-throats, courtiers, and courtezans and that amongst such a set he will fare like the unhappy mouse that fell into the clutches of the snake, which was lying in ambush for the frog. Cries are heard behind the scenes, and Vasantasena appears, pursued by Samsthanaka, the king's brother-in-law, along with the Vita, or parasite companion and minis. ter of his pleasures, and his servant. This Prince, “an ignorant, frivolous, and cruel coxcomb," is enamoured of the beautiful Courtezan, and wooes her after a royal fashion. "I have called her," quoth he to the Vita, "the taper lash of that filcher of broad pieces, Kama; the blue-bottle, the figurante, the pug-nosed untameable shrew. I have termed her love's dining dish-the gulf of the poor man's substance— the walking frippery-the husseythe baggage-the wanton. I have addressed her by all these pretty names, and yet she will have nothing to say to me." The Vita, too, wastes his eloquence in vain. "You fly like the female crane that starts away from the sound of thunder. The trembling pendants in your ears toss agitated against your cheeks, and make such music as the lute to a master's touch. Believe me, you look like the guardian goddess of the city, as round your slender waist sparkles with starlike gems that tink ling zone and your countenance is pale with terror." The poor girl calls for her female attendants-"Pullava! Parapuria!" and the King's brother in-law, much alarmed, says to the Vita, "Eh! sir! sir! Men? men ?" But on being assured that they are women-women-he heroically draws his sword, and exclaims, "Who is afraid-I am a hero-a match for a hundred of them-I would take them like Duhsasana, by the hair, and, as you shall see, with one touch of my well-sharpened sword, off goes your head." She implores mercy, and he answers, "You may live." The Vita again uses his arts, and

thus describes the profession of Vasantasena. "Why, you are quite out of character: the dwelling of a harlot is the free resort of youth; a courtezan is like a creeper that grows by the road-side-her person is an article for sale-her love a thing that money will buy, and her welcome is equally bestowed upon the amiable and disgusting. The sage and the idiot, the Brahman and the outcast, all bathe in the same stream, and the crow and the peacock perch upon the branches of the same creeper. The Brahman, the Kshetriya, the Vaisya, and all of every caste are ferried over in the same boat, and like the boat, the creeper, and the stream, the courtezan is equally accessible to all."

And is this the heroine of a moral drama? Even so-the heroine of the Toy-cart; and despicable a thing as you may think her, even from your eyes, before all the play is over, haply she may draw tears. To these brutal words she meekly replies, "What you say may be just-but believe me, merit alone, not brutal violence, inspires love.”

Vasantasena is a courtezan; but we are not, says the learned and enlightened Translator, "to understand by that name a female who disregarded the obligations of law or the lessons of virtue; but a character reared by the state of manners unfriendly to the admission of wedded females into society, and opening it only at the expense of reputation to women, who were trained for association with men, by personal and mental accomplishments to which the matron was a stranger. The Vesya of the Hindus was the Hetera of the Greeks. Without the talents of Aspasia, or the profligacy of Lais, Vasantasena is a gentle, affectionate being, who, with the conventions of society in her favour, unites, as the Hetera often did, 'accomplishments calculated to dazzle, with qualities of the heart, which raise her above the contempt that, in spite of all precaution, falls upon her situation.' The defective education of the virtuous portion of the sex, and their consequent uninteresting character, held out an inducement to the unprincipled masters both of Greek and Hindu society, to rear a class of females who should supply those wants which rendered

It is not

other virtues of her sex. true even where women are most honoured, as in Britain ;-utterly false, if pronounced of women in ancient Hindostan. 'Tis wrong to seek to exalt one virtue by the degradation of the whole of that nature of which it is the loveliest attribute; and not in the spirit of the Christian Faith. In our own poetry, the frail and fallen are not spoken of as excommunicated from all intercommunion with our best sympathies; than their sorrows there are few or none more affecting; and we are glad to see them sometimes partaking of that peace which, in its perfection, is our holiest idea of happiness here below the skies. Vasantasena in this Hindu drama is humble in her humiliation-to the poor she is charitable in every creature in distress she acknowledges a brother or a sister-malignity or hatred have never found access to her heart-and she venerates the virtue of the happier matron, in the dishonoured lot to which it may be said she was born

home cheerless; and a courtezan of this class in Greece inspired no abhorrence. She was brought up from infancy to the life she professed, which she graced by her accomplishments, and not unfrequently dignified by her virtues. Her disregard of social restraint was not the voluntary breach of moral or religious precepts. The Hindu principles were more rigid; and not only was want of chastity in a female a capital breach of social and religious obligations, but the association of men with professed wantons was an equal violation of decorum, and, involving a departure from the purity of caste, was considered a virtual degradation from rank. In practice, however, greater latitude seems to have been allowed; and in this drama, a Brahman, a man of family and repute, incurs apparently no discredit from his love of a courtezan. A still more curious feature is, that his passion for such an object seems to excite no sensation in his family, nor uneasiness in his wife; and the nurse presents his child to his mistress, as to its mother; and his wife, besides interchanging civilities, a little coldly perhaps, but not compulsively, finishes by calling her sister, and acquiescing, therefore, in her legal union with her lord. It must be acknowledged that the poet has managed his story with great dexterity; and the interest with which he has invested his heroine, prevents manners so revolting to our notions from being obtrusively offensive. No art was necessary,' in the estimation of a Hindu writer, "to provide his hero with a wife or two more or less; and the acquisition of an additional bride is the ordinary catastrophe of the lighter dramas.'

It would not be easy to state the case more truly than it is stated in these philosophical sentences; and the purest minded may, we think, with no other sentiments than those of pity and compassion-not unaccompanied with something of kind regard, and even of admiration-follow the fortunes of Vasantasena in this interesting drama. She belongs, indeed, to a class of Infortunates; but her sins were the sins of her country; and 'tis certainly a harsh, probably a false judgment, that with the loss of chastity a woman loses all the

there is sadness in her smiles-and she seems mournful, even when arrayed in all her allurements. Of her life we are shewn nothing-except her love for one man, which is disinterested and sincere; and, so far from there being any thing of coarseness in her manners, or grossness in her mind, these are all natural elegance and grace, and that, but from our knowledge of what is her lot, is felt to be pure. Gentle and tenderhearted, yet she has spirit to repel what she loathes; and even if she were less good, surely her sufferings bring her within the inner circle of our humanities, and believing she is dead, we weep over her beneath that heap of leaves when thought dead, and doubt not that her spirit is received into heaven.

But to return to the story of the Drama.

The King's brother is aware of Vasantasena's love for Charudatta, whom he calls a miserable wretch, because he is poor; but the Vita has more discernment, and remarks, "It is truly said pearls string with pearls." Meanwhile she overhears her pursuers speaking of Charudatta's house as being close at hand; and taking off her garland, and the rings from her ankles, that