its summit. Perhaps in no other part of India is there so wide, or so highly diversified a prospect to be obtained. On the base of the image one may rest and eye the landscape, even to satiety. All that the fondest admirer of picturesque scenery could desire is here concentrated. • Beneath, the Ganges, meandering in innumerable directions, forming capriciously, at its pleasure, islands and peninsulas - here flowing with the utmost serenity, and reflecting each passing shadow on its silver waters there, with an angry roar, rushing over stones which would vainly impede its progress, it proceeds furiously towards the sea. On its banks, immediately in front, the pretty town of Khunkul is conspicuous; its white stone houses, and regularity of building, so widely different from the generality of Indian towns, carry back the imagination to England. The enthusiast will almost fancy the Ethiopian of a different colour: he will, in his mind's eye, substitute the independent English farmer for the pusillanimous Faquir; and will only be recalled from his delirium by the blackened, scorched-up appearance of the adjacent hills: they are opposite, on the other side of the river, stretching to the right; and at their feet is situated the small town of Hurdwar. Its lofty minars rise above the Ganges in simple elegance. They diversify the scene, and draw one's attention a little higher up the shore, to the sacred gauts of Gaee, and Hirkee Paree. Here, where crowds of deluded wretches adore the flowing stream, the coup-d'œil is striking. Men, women, and children, old and young, the priests of Brahma, and their credulous followers, mingled promiscuously together, cause a hum sufficiently great to rouse the contemplative stranger on the Chand-Puhar. But I have done with Hurdwar, and its many beauties: though, before I take my leave, it is necessary to remark, that a large fair is annually held here, to which multitudes, from all parts of India, resort. Thus far I have prosecuted my travels one thousand four hundred miles distant from Calcutta, at once the boundary of Hindostan and the Company's influence.' The author allots chap. iii. to the Ghoorkah valley in Tibet; Suttee; Badsha-Mahel; and Panniput. An interesting account occurs of the Troglodytes, the rudest and most ignorant of all the tribes of mankind, naked sleepers in caves and feeders on roots. The great fair at Hurdwar is described in chap. iv. The appearance of a missionary there, and his reception, will amuse the English reader. In chap. v. we have a statistical account of the government and domains of the Great Mogul. Next occurs a description of Delhi, and its principal edifices and ruins; such as the mosque called Jumma-musgid, and the mausoleum of Humaioon. In chap. vii. Bindrabund and its Faquirs, an order of mendicant monks who collectively possess large property, are introduced, and some prevailing misrepresentations are corrected. We find the writer at Agra in the viiith chapter, which includes a glowing account of the tomb called Tauge-Mahal, (Wonder of the World,) erected by Shah Jehan, (King of the World,) father of Aurungzebe, to the memory of his wife Noor Jehan, (the Light of the the World). It is said to have cost 800,000l. sterling, and is approached first by a plain stone gateway, leading to a most magnificent one of black and white marble, covered with innumerable domes, and supplied with a massy pair of brazen gates, "Which, opening, grate harsh thunder." These (continues the writer) conduct to the Tauge gardens; and it is from hence, while standing on the marble slabs which descend to them, that the coup d'œil is in my opinion unrivalled.” We are sorry that we have not room for the rest of this picture of oriental grandeur. The scene next shifts to Lucknow; where a man-wolf, or sheepeater, is disgustingly described. In the succeeding chapter we have reflections on concubinage, half castes, Hindustanee women, zenanas, their great expences, and the difficulty of matrimony. Chap. xi. presents an animated description of tiger-hunting, of which the author appears quite an amateur. The two following chapters are allotted to Hindu marriages, metempsychosis, avarice, funerals, and barbarous customs; the author's return to Calcutta; and observations on that splendid metropolis. The remaining sections are episodical, or rather form a needless appendix, describing the passage home, the Cape of Good Hope, and the island of St. Helena. The work displays, altogether, talents and good sense; applied to the commentary of new, strange, and distant objects, manners, and opinions. MISCELLANEOUS. Art. 24. An Essay on the Evidence from Scripture that the Soul, immediately after the Death of the Body, is not in a State of Sleep or Insensibility, but of Happiness or Misery; and on the Moral Uses of that Doctrine. By the Rev. R. Polwhele, Vicar of Manaccan and St. Anthony, Cornwall. 8vo. 38. sewed. Cadell. This Essay is composed with some ability, and evinces in the author a considerable familiarity with the principal writers on his own side of the question, of whose arguments he has given a tolerably accurate and perspicuous statement: but he seems to be by no means equally well read in the works of his opponents; and we look in vain for the most distant reference to the writings of Law and Blackburne, in which the reader will find every statement of this author anticipated, and, in our opinion, satisfactorily answered. We are far from wishing to enter at length into this celebrated controversy; which, till we met with the present pamphlet, we had thought that the illustrious divines above named had entirely laid asleep: but we are at a loss to imagine what motives could induce a Christian to contend, pedibus et unguibus, for a doctrine which invites the Deist to represent the Gospel as almost superfluous, or a Protestant to maintain an opinion which seems to lead almost inevitably to the doctrine of purgatory, As for the metaphysical difficulties on which this writer lays considerable stress, they all vanish if we refuse our assent to the gratuitous assumption that the soul always thinks; an assumption certainly without without evidence, if not contrary to it:-but, even if we were to grant that consciousness was uninterrupted during life, does this prove its continuance without interruption after death? One argument against the supposition of an intermediate state of consciousness, which has always appeared to us to be alone decisive of the question, is thus stated by Mr. Polwhele, who attempts to answer it, but in our opinion without success. In the present life, it has been insisted on, we are placed in a state of probation, to be judged hereafter for the things done in the body. On the dissolution of the union between the soul and the body, a period is put to this moral responsibility. All moral action, therefore, hath necessarily ceased. And moral energies are scarcely conceivable without moral action; nor intellectual energies without the moral. From this suspence, therefore, of its faculties and affections, the inference is, that the soul must sink into a state of insensibility.' With respect to this reasoning, I must observe, that though with the termination of a life of trial, all moral accountability must have an end, and consequently all moral action, yet it by no means follows that moral energies must cease, — much less intellectual. That neither moral nor intellectual energies can exist without moral action, as involving moral responsibility, is doubtless a gratuitous assumption.' (P. 21.) 6 How this gratuitous' assumption may appear to others we know not to us it seems absolutely self-evident. The soul, according to Mr. P., retains in its separate state its personality and consciousness, and perhaps a more enlarged capacity, and a livelier apprehension in its recollections and anticipations, and a keener sense of happiness or misery, as admitted to spiritual communications, or as excluded from all intercourse with Heaven.' (P. 23.) How we can affirm all this of an intelligent being, and yet deny it the character of a moral agent, it seems not easy to conceive. Nor can it admit of a doubt that the dispositions, feelings, habits, every thing in short which constitutes the moral character of such a mind, must undergo considerable change from the uninterrupted exercise of these enlarged powers, and the enjoyment during so long an interval of spiritual communications; so that the soul, which was unfit for heaven at death, might be so far purified as to be capable of admission there at the resurrection. This, however, is plainly contrary to Scripture, which assures us that we shall be tried according to the deeds done in the body. The moral uses, which Mr. P. hopes to derive from his favourite doctrine, appear to us altogether fallacious; or, if otherwise, to be equally deducible from the contrary opinion. He seems to have forgotten that those Christians, to whom he opposes himself, believe in the resurrection of the dead; and that the thousands of years,' which he represents as being equivalent to eternity, would be in fact only a long sound sleep, in which the commencement and the termination of insensibility must appear to coincide. As for the sinner and the infidel, we suspect that they would flatter themselves' just as readily that there will be no intermediate state, as that there will be no resurrection. 1 This pamphlet is printed at the request of the Church Union Society,' as their Prize-Essay for 1818. CORRESPONDENCE. - A Constant Reader,' unmindful of our often promulgated rule never to accept accounts of books from unknown hands, has sent to us a brief notice of the republication of An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Falstaff, of which we made a cursory report so long ago as the year 1777, M. R. vol. lvii. p. 79. We see no necessity for re-entering on an examination of this ingenious little effusion: but, as we did not on the above occasion know the name of the writer, we may now, and in this manner, convey to our readers some of the information respecting him which occurs in our correspondent's letter. The author, Maurice Morgann, Esq., was formerly Under Secretary of State to Lord Shelburne: he was the last survivor, in the male line, of an antient family in Pembrokeshire, who at one period were possessed of large estates in that county. Their possessions, however, through the indolence of a long succession of occupiers, brought up to no lucrative profession, and whose minds, "of too fine a texture for business,' were more intellectual in their pursuits than attentive to the vulgar though highly necessary duties of domestic concerns, have long since passed into other hands, and not a remnant of their once extensive property remains in the family: which still, in the female line, is represented by the Saunders's of Pentre, and Glarhwdu, and by the Williams's of Trevach; who derive no other benefit from their descent than the reputation that survives their once celebrated ancestors, and the gratification arising from the respect that still attaches to the name of Blanbylan, once the hospitable mansion of this respectable family.'-Doctor Symmons, in a note in his Life of Milton, (p. 82. note z.) eloquently describes this work as forming "a more honourable monument to the memory of Shakspeare than any which has been reared to him by the united labours of his commentators. The portrait, (he adds, alluding to a passage he had extracted from this essay,) of which I have exhibited only a part, is drawn with so just, so discriminating, and so vivid a pencil, as to be unequalled, unless it be by the celebrated delineations of the same great dramatist by the hand of Dryden.’ We are sorry if we have disappointed the expectations of 'Old Comical,' but he must allow us to regard the omission as now past remedy; since there would be no fun for our readers in going so far back on account of a claimant with avowed small pretensions. The note of Juvenis will be transmitted to the person concerned in it, who is now at a distance from the editor. Mr. Fischer's letter is received, and shall be forwarded to the gentleman who has the writer's work in hand. In the last Review, p. 1. 1. 22. for symmetrys and congruisys, read symmetry and congruity. THE MONTHLY REVIEW, For JULY, 1820. ART. I. An Analysis of the Egyptian Mythology: to which is subjoined a Critical Examination of the Remains of Egyptian Chronology. By J. C. Prichard, M.D. 8vo. pp. 526. 11. 78. Boards. Arch. 1819. A LEARNED and elegant grammarian has thus pictured the difficulties of his task: " Non mediocres enim tenebræ in sylva, ubi hæc captanda; neque eò, quo pervenire volumus, semitæ trita; neque non in tramitibus quædam objecta, quæ euntem retinere possunt.' The image is, if possible, still more applicable to the abstruse subject of Egyptian mythology; which is deeply buried in the darkness of antient tradition, and not to be approached but through the maze of thorny and perplexed controversy. With these impressions, we might be disposed to abstain from such an inquiry as equally uninviting and useless: but deeper reflection will shew us how closely it is linked with some of the most momentous objects of human speculation. Among these, its reference to the authenticity of those sacred writings which contain the first memorials of the primeval world, and their simple and perspicuous narration of the distribution of mankind from one stock over the globe, is by no means of minute importance: nor is the learned author of the work before us unmindful of the duty imposed on him, of pursuing his researches with a steady and solicitous view towards this primary object. The following treatise,' he says, owes its existence to some observations which a late writer + of distinguished learning has founded on a review of Jablonski's work. The facts which it has developed, he remarks, inevitably lead us to the conclusion, "that the Egyptian religion is the produce of the country, peculiar to itself, and without any marks of foreign improvement or innovation. Isis, Osiris, Ammoun, Typhon, and Thoth, are natives of Egypt, receive their names from its vernacular language, * Varro de Ling. Lat. l. 4. edit. Dordrac. + Professor Murray, in his edition of Bruce's Travels. REV. JULY, 1820. and |