"Mr. Hare, of Bedford Square, London, under whose roof the Rajah had for two years lived, a welcome guest, was also with him during the greater part of his illness; and Mr. Hare's niece, who was well acquainted with his habits, and possessed his full confidence and strong regard, attended upon him, day and night, with a degree of earnest and affectionate solicitude, well deserving the epithet of filial.*

"He repeatedly acknowledged, during his illness, his sense of the kindness of all around him, and in strong language expressed the confidence he felt in his medical advisers. It was a source of gratification to the friends with whom he resided in London, to find, that, distressing as the event was to the family he was visiting, he had every comfort and accommodation that a large house, a quiet and healthy situation, and attached and affluent friends could bestow.

"He conversed very little during his illness, but was observed to be often engaged in prayer. He told his son and those around him that he should not recover.

"An examination of the body took place on Saturday, when the brain was found to be inflamed, containing some fluid, and covered with a kind of purulent effusion: its membrane also adhered to the skull, the result, probably, of

"From this family," observes Dr. Carpenter," I have received every advantage I could desire, in forming or confirming my opinions as to the Rajah's habits and character; and to the several members of it, his other personal friends must feel grateful for the numerous sources of comfort which he enjoyed among them. Mr. Arnot (in the Athenæum') says, with perfect justice, that they 'discharged the duties of hospitality towards him, ever since his arrival in England, with a kindness, delicacy, and entire disinterestedness, which are honourable to the English character.'

6

"Possessed of the Rajah's unbounded confidence, acquainted with all his movements, and enabled to judge with complete accuracy of his habits and dispositions, the unhesitating and unequivocal testimony of this family, one and all, to the unvarying purity of his conduct, and the refined delicacy of his sentiments, is as decisive as it is valuable. I had, myself, repeated opportunities of observing with what earnest respect he appreciated true delicacy in the female character: and I learn that, while he always maintained his habitual politeness to the sex, and may therefore have misled the superficial observer, he manifested a very prompt and clear discrimination as to individuals; and that he commonly expressed strong dislike, and even disgust, where they seemed to him to depart from that true modesty which is essential to its excellence."

previously existing disease: the thoracic and abdominal viscera were healthy. The case appeared to be one of fever, producing great prostration of the vital powers, and accompanied by inflammation of the brain, which did not exhibit, in their usual degree, the symptoms of that affection."

A short time before the Rajah expired, Mr. John Hare told his Brahmin servant, that if there were any observances which were required by his master's caste, or which would be satisfactory to his own mind, or to his Indian friends, he might now perform them; and Ram Rotun accordingly uttered a prayer in his master's ear, in which the frequent repetition of the word Om was alone distinguished. He also placed iron under his bolster. Rammohun Roy says, that "Om, when considered as one letter, uttered by the help of one articulation, is the symbol of the Supreme Spirit." "Om implies the Being on whom all objects, either visible or invisible, depend, in their formation, continuance, and change." (See Transl. pp. 109. 113.) What was the precise import of Ram Rotun's prayer, we have no present means of ascertaining; but those who peruse the "Prescript for offering Supreme Worship," from which the above interpretations are extracted, will not deem it improbable that the prayer was purely monotheistical; if it had been employed by the direction or even permission of the Rajah himself, no doubt could have existed as to the object of it. Following some requirements of caste, he had been accustomed to employ, at stated times, prescribed forms of prayer derived from his ancient faith; and this was in no way inconsistent with his reception of Jesus as the specially-appointed Revealer of the will of God. It is, indeed, the circumstance which affords the strongest ground to expect the speedy adoption of Christianity by the intelligent Hindoos, that they can receive the doctrines of Christ and his apostles, respecting faith, worship, and duty, without renouncing, or even relinquishing, the faith and worship of Om. The Mahometan has to renounce his belief that Mahomet is the Prophet of God; and the Jew, to receive Him as the Messiah whom his forefathers rejected, and whom his

rabbis have taught to regard as a false Christ: but the Brahmins and their followers have only to go back to the purest forms of their own faith-the faith of Noah and of Abraham; and they are then prepared to be "the children of Abraham," and to become "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ." Rammohun Roy has been enabled to prepare the way for Christ among his countrymen; and the benefit of his labours has but commenced.

The knowledge that the Rajah had, in various ways, manifested solicitude to preserve his caste, with a view both to his usefulness and to the security of his property, and the belief that it might be endangered if he were buried among other dead, or with Christian rites, operated to prevent the interment of his remains in any of the usual cemeteries. Besides this, the Rajah had repeatedly expressed the wish that, in case of his dying in England, a small piece of freehold ground might be purchased for his burying place, and a cottage be built on it for the gratuitous residence of some respectable poor person, to take charge of it. Every difficulty, however, was removed by the offer of Miss Castle, in which she had the warm accordance of all her intimate friends, to appropriate to the object a beautifully adapted spot, in a shrubbery near her lawn, and under some fine elms. There this revered and beloved person was interred, on the 18th of October, 1833, about two P. M. The coffin was borne on men's shoulders, without a pall, and deposited in the grave, without any ritual, and in silence. Every thing conspired to give an impressive and affecting solemnity to his obsequies. Those who followed him to the grave, and sorrowed there, were his son and his two native servants, the members of the families of Stapleton Grove and Bedford Square, the guardians of Miss Castle and two of her nearest relations, Mr. Estlin, Mr. Foster, and Dr. Jerrard, together with several ladies connected with the attendants already enumerated; and as there could be no regular entry of the interment in any official registers, those who witnessed it have signed several copies of a record drawn

up for the purpose, in case such a document should be needed for any legal purposes.

The person of Rammohun Roy was, as we have already observed, a very fine one. He was nearly six feet high; his limbs were robust and well-proportioned, though latterly, either through age or increase of bulk, he appeared rather unwieldy and inactive. His face was beautiful; the features large and manly, the forehead lofty and expanded, the eyes dark and animated, the nose finely curved and of due proportion, the lips full, and the general expression of the countenance that of intelligence and benignity. The best portrait of him extant is a full-sized one by Briggs. It is a good picture, as well as an admirable likeness. There is also a miniature by Newton, and a bust by Clarke. A cast was taken from his face a few hours after his death.

A short time before that melancholy event, he had brought his negotiations with the British Government, on behalf of the King of Delhi, to a successful close, by a compromise with the Ministers of the Crown, which will add 30,000l. a year to the stipend of the Mogul. The deceased ambassador had a contingent interest in this large addition to the ample allowance of the Mogul pageant, and his heirs, it is said, will gain from it a perpetual income of 3000l. or 4000l. a year. He intended to return to India this year viâ Turkey, Russia, and Persia.

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No. XX.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

SIR CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, D. C. L.,

JUDGE OF THE HIGH COURT OF ADMIRALTY.

SIR CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON was born in the year 1766. His father, the Rev. Christopher Robinson, D. D., held the livings of Abbury in Oxfordshire, and of Witham, Berkshire, to which he had been presented by the Earl of Abingdon, upwards of forty years, and died in 1802, at the age of eighty-four, having lived long enough to see his son in the possession of wealth and eminence.

Young Christopher was matriculated at Magdalen, Oxford, of which college Dr. Robinson had been a fellow in 1782, with the intention of graduating and entering into deacon's orders. To the displeasure of his father, however, he preferred Doctors' Commons to the church, and was admitted advocate in Michaelmas term, 1793. As one of nine children, he was launched into the profession with no larger patrimony than a good library and a gift of twenty pounds. But his course was smoothed by the zealous patronage of Sir William Ashurst, one of the Puisne Judges of the King's Bench, an old friend of the family, who commended him to the notice of Sir William Scott. By the shrewd advice of that eminent lawyer, he commenced a series of Reports in the High Court of Admiralty, in 1797, and continued them with laudable diligence till 1808. Strange to say, though the judges of those courts were the highest authorities on subjects of international law in Europe, there had previously existed no record of their decisions. In the preface to a more recent work,