people from oppression, must encourage resistance and revolution; and whoever protects rulers from revolutions, must encourage oppression. To protect both equally and at the same time is impossible. Sir Charles boldly avows the most democratical doctrines; maintains the rights of man; defends the doctrine of resistance; and says, "the only refuge of a people, intolerably vexed, is in emigration or insurrection." Who is to be the judge of the vexation being intolerable does not appear: but if the people, (and they must be the best judges) then the right to revolt whenever men are dissatisfied, is clearly admitted-a position that we do not mean to dispute, particularly when emanating from so high an authority as this. It will be useful to the English reader to let him see what, upon the confession of this distinguished individual himself, is the actual conduct of the Government in India towards the native state of Hyderabad, about the welfare of which the East India Company profess so much solicitude, and which they desire to be considered as taken under their more especial care and protection. He says, At present, by imposing a Minister on a Prince, and supporting that Minister during pleasure (which is the conduct we actually pursue by forcing Rajah Chundoo Loll on the Nizam) we make the sovereign subject to his servant; we make the minister tyrant over his master; we patronize a virtual usurpation; and if the man, whom we choose for our own purposes, be a vicious ruler, (as this is acknowledged to be,) we sanction by our countenance all the evils of his misrule. p. 219. The letter which Lord Hastings addressed to Sir Charles Metcalfe, in reply to this, dated Oct. 25, 1822, is one of the highest interest, and would deserve, like many others from the same pen, to be reprinted at length, were it possible to find room for it here. He combats the notion of our right to interfere because we are supreme, as being a mere claim of the right of the strongest; and on the subject of the Resident's anger at Chundoo Loll's complaining of his conduct through another channel, the Marquis says, "to require that application for complaint should come through the hands of those complained against, would exclude complaint altogether." This is undeniable; but, unhappily for the whole Indian nation, the British Parliament has even sanctioned an order of the Court of Directors, which enjoins that no complaints or appeals of their native subjects, against their Governments abroad, shall ever be sent to them except through the hands of the Governments themselves: and the constant plea upon which the discussion of public complaints through the press in India was opposed, was the very ground now so justly deprecated by Lord Hastings, namely, that complaints against secretaries, and other public functionaries of government, in India, ought to be made through the regular channels; or, in other words, through these very functionaries complained against, themselves. Such are the weaknesses and inconsistencies of human nature! We commenced with a hope that we should be able to conclude what we wished to say, on this subject, in the course of a single article: but although we have already far exceeded the limits usually assigned to any one topic, we have only arrived at the commencement of the war which was literally waged upon the house at Hyderabad, by Sir Charles Metcalfe, Mr. Adam, Mr. Stuart, and, subsequently, by Mr. Fendall and Mr. Bayley also. The history of that persecution, for it appears to us to deserve no other name, is too curious, and too instructive, to be omitted, or given in half a dozen lines. We shall, therefore, reserve this for a second article, and arrest our pen here, as a convenient halting place, having brought the affair up to the period when it was resolved to take the pecuniary transactions between the Government of the Nizam and the house of W. Palmer and Co. out of the hands of the latter, and transfer them to those of the East India Company's Resident; or, in other words, robbing a British house of business of the fair and just advantages, which it was enjoying from capital embarked in certain undertakings, with the knowledge, consent, and guarantee of the Indian Government; robbing also all the constituents of that house, among whom were hundreds of their own distinguished and meritorious officers, who had made certain sacrifices to furnish the house with funds for the purpose of fulfilling its engagements, and for the legitimate use of which they were fairly deriving the benefit of larger interest than was to be obtained in the Company's own dominions. The apparent motive of all this seems to have been a desire on the part of the Government, at home and abroad, to get the loan and its advantages into their own hands, to exercise an unwarrantable political influence over the affairs of the country, and to crush individuals who appear to have become obnoxious to them merely from the estimation in which they were held, and the power and influence which this gave them, at a Court where the Resident seemed to think that "two suns shine not in one hemisphere," and determined, like the Turk, "to bear no brother near the throne." There will of course be much public discussion of all the questions involved in this matter hereafter; so that the public of England will hear more of it from others. But we cannot close even this imperfect outline of the first portion of the narrative, without saying, that throughout the whole affair, the character of Lord Hastings appears to the highest possible advantage. We have never shrunk from exposing his weaknesses, when they needed such exposure; and on the concessions which he made to the importunities of his colleagues on the subject of the Indian press, we have said enough to show that we are not unconditional admirers of his Lordship's public career. We hope, however, to receive equal credit for sincerity, when we say that we have risen from the perusal of these Hyderabad Papers with the highest opinion of the integrity, right feeling, and sound reasoning of the Marquis of Hastings, in every instance in which he was opposed to his colleagues. There is not the shadow of a ground for believing that he was even influenced in the most remote degree in what he said or did on this subject, by any reference to the personal interests of the parties concerned in the house itself; and as to any participation, direct or indirect, of personal advantage to himself, from any thing that was sanctioned by his authority, it appears to us, that his character is as free from any ground of imputation of this nature" as is the driven snow from stain." His best friends could not render his fame more essential service, than by compiling a volume of his admirable minutes and letters from this voluminous collection, and circulating them extensively among all classes of society. The part taken by Sir Charles Metcalfe and Mr. Adam, though equally free from all suspicion of corrupt motive, as far as personal interest is concerned, is marked by very opposite qualities indeed to that of Lord Hastings. The conduct of the Court of Directors has been haughty, insolent, unjust, and alternately distinguished by the most pompous affectation of oracular wisdom, and the most silly display of ignorance and imbecility, forming, as usual, an exhibition which cannot fail to make them appear ridiculous in all eyes but their own. And lastly, a British house of business, that is acknowledged even by its most bitter enemy, Sir C. Metcalfe, to have done abundant good in the country in which it was established, and is shown by Mr. Henry Russell, his predecessor, (of whose excellent letter to the Court of Directors we shall have much more to say hereafter) to have been productive of the most essential benefit to the Nizam's government, and to all classes of people living under it,—is broken up and destroyed, by a series of measures which we shall expose in detail, and which has driven it to bankruptcy and ruin; hundreds, nay thousands, of innocent individuals, who have not only had no share in these transactions, but who have the most powerful claims on the East India Company's protection and assistance, are reduced to beggary and destitution by the acts of their Government, and punished with the utmost severity for transactions with which they could have had nothing whatever to do. The Directors may smile in secret over all this wreck and devastation, of which they and their servants abroad have been the willing and consenting instruments. But we trust the British public at large will not fail to treasure up these records of their iniquities for the day of trial, when it will be to determine whether the finest countries of the earth shall longer continue to be subject to the curse of an insolent, an oppressive, and an irresponsible monopoly of acknowledged despotism. ON THE RECOVERED MS. OF MILTON, NOW IN THE PRESS. To the Editor of the Oriental Herald. SIR, I observed in a late advertisement, that "early in the ensuing year will be published," in the original and a translation, the recovered MS. "Joanni Miltoni Angli de Doctrina Christiana," which, among scholars and divines, has justly excited no small curiosity. The last thoughts of Milton, in the maturity of age and judgment, when, as Waller happily says, "leaving the old," we "stand upon the threshold of the new" world, while The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, Lets in new light through chinks that time has made : the latest conclusions of such a mind on such a subject as that de Dei cultu, would be, indeed, a valuable discovery. Such, however, is, I fear, scarcely to be expected, should the recovered MS. prove, as generally supposed, to be the same of which Phillips writes, as you have correctly quoted him, (ii. 250,) and to which Toland thus referred, in 1698, in his Life of Milton (ed. 1761, p. 136): "He wrote likewise a System of Divinity, but whether intended for public view, or collected merely for his own use, I cannot determine. It was in the hands of his friend, Cyriac Skinner; and where at present is uncertain." Phillips evidently describes not an original argumentative treatise, but a compilation, or, in his own words, “ a perfect system of Divinity," which Milton had "thought fit to collect from the ablest of divines, who had written on that subject.” These, no doubt, were several, though the biographer names only Amesius and Wollebius. The first of these theologians, William Ames, has an article in the Biographia Britannica (i. 171). He was "famous for his casuistical and controversial writings; but much more so abroad than in his own country." Becoming obnoxious at Cambridge for his puritanical notions, he resigned his fellowship at Christ Church about 1611, and withdrew into Holland, where for twelve years he filled "the divinity chair in the university of Franeker." Thence he retired to Rotterdam, where he died in 1633, at the age of 57, just as he had "determined to remove to New England." He is described as a strict Calvinist in doctrine, and of the persuasion of the Independents." Among the numerous and very learned works of Ames, the Medulla Theologica appears, by its title, to have been most adapted to Milton's purpose. He might also have consulted the Lectiones in omnes Psalmos Davidis; and being then a strict Trinitarian, would probably approve the treatise De incarnatione Verbi, published in 1626," against the Socinians." ،، John Wollebius, the other theologian named by Phillips, was "a native of Basil," who died in 1629. His Compendium Theologiæ was published at Cambridge in 1642, and is described as a curious and valuable little tract, which has been translated into several languages." This was, doubtless, the work of Wollebius, to which Phillips has referred. Milton appears to have returned from his travels in 1640, at the age of 32. He, probably, soon commenced the occupations of a tutor, including "the Sunday's work," of which Phillips has given an account. Now the circumstances of Milton's life appear to justify the supposition that these employments of a tutor had ceased, at least, before 1650; nor is it probable that during his latter years Phillips continued to be his uncle's inmate, or so much at his disposal as to become his amanuensis, through the bulk of no less than 735 pages; and Toland (p. 3,) speaks of his acquaintance with "a person that had been once Milton's amanuensis," evidently neither of the nephews. I hope I may be mistaken, but I cannot help suspecting that this MS. so unexpectedly discovered, will be found to contain the earlier notions of Milton, adopted from the learned Calvinistic authorities of that age, and not his matured and latest opinions on theological subjects. Even a cursory examination of Milton's writings would be sufficient to show that his earliest pieces incidentally discover an unqualified acquiescence in the orthodox opinions of his time, especially on the subject of the Trinity. Thus, towards the conclusion of his treatise Of Reformation, (1641,) his earliest publication, he utters the following sublime if not scriptural invocation: Thou, therefore, that sittest in light and glory unapproachable, Parent of angels and men! next thee I implore, Omnipotent King, Redeemer of that lost remnant whose nature thou didst assume, ineffable and everlasting Love! And Thou, the third Subsistence of Divine Infinitude, illumining Spirit! the joy and solace of created things! One tri-personal Godhead! Yet in the Paradise Lost, the poet, as I believe Bishop Newton admits, approaches orthodoxy only at the distance of High-Arianism. There occurs no language which can be fairly construed into an invocation of a Trinity; and in b. iii. 213-221, the poet appears to represent the angels as wanting the will rather than the ability to make the atonement, a notion comporting with Arian theology, though directly opposed to the orthodox dogma of an infinite satisfaction. But I find myself becoming too scholastically theological, especially for a work devoted to other valuable purposes, and must solicit your excuse. The poet, however, thus introduces "the Almighty Father" appealing in man's behalf to the compassion of the celestial assembly: Say, heav'nly powers, where shall we find such love, Man's mortal crime; and just, the unjust to save? Dwells in all Heav'n charity so dear? He ask'd, but all the heav'nly choir stood mute, Patron or intercessor none appear'd, Much less that durst upon his own head draw The deadly forfeiture and ransom set. In Milton's latest treatise, Of True Religion, Heresie, &c., published in 1673, only a year before his death, he thus writes, as he assuredly would not have written in 1641: The Arian and Socinian are charged to dispute against the Trinity. They affirm to believe the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, according to the scripture and the apostolic creed. As for the terms of Trinity, Triunity, Co-essentiality, Tripersonality, and the like, they reject them as scholastic notions, not to be found in scripture, which by a general protestant maxim is plain and perspicuous, abundantly to explain its own meaning in the properest words belonging to so high a matter, and so necessary to be known; a mystery, indeed, in their sophis |