at length determines secretly to withdraw from Egypt, his relish for the life of vicissitude and adventure in that country having been much damped by a series of no very agreeable occurrences; the principal being a famine, then impending over that devoted land, which swept away its thousands, and was succeeded by the plague.

[To be continued.]

ART. II. Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay; with Engravings. 4to. pp. 360. 21. 12s. 6d. Boards. Longman and Co. 1819.

THE

THE Literary Society of Bombay was instituted on the 26th of November, 1804, at the house of Sir James Mackintosh, then Recorder of that settlement, to whose instigation principally we owe the assemblage of the original members. In the volume before us, which records the commencement of their labours, the first document is the Introductory Discourse which was pronounced by him on being elected President; and which displays luminous arrangement, majesty of eloquence, a liberal philosophy, and that exquisite sense of the proportionate value of various inquiries and of various individuals, which is denominated judgment. The sketch of French and English tendencies in literature, the panegyric of Sir William Jones, the division of studies into physical and moral, and the subsequent comprehensive survey of the pursuits of investigation, will be read with lasting applause. Some notes are attached, which contain valuable statistical documents, especially concerning the population of Bombay; whence it appears that the number of males born between the tropics rather exceeds that of females, as in our northern latitudes; and that monogamy is equally there, as here, the dictate of nature. It appears, also, that, out of 20,000 Mohammedans in the island of Bombay, only about 100 had two wives, and only five had three; so that the practical effect of polygamy is trifling indeed on any thing but domestic morality.

Account of the Festival of Mamangom, by Francis Wrede, Esq. (afterward Baron Wrede). This was a jubilee celebrated once in twelve years on the coast of Malabar; of which, in the year 1793, Mr. Wrede was witness, and which, being connected with political feuds, gave occasion to murderous violences. It is now happily suppressed.

Remarks on the Temperature of the Island of Bombay, during the Years 1803 and 1804, by Major (now Lieutenant

Colonel) Jasper Nicolls.
constructed in an exemplary manner.
series of observations more connected, and to bring it at one
view under the eye, charts similar to those used by Mr. Play-
fair in his Commercial and Political Atlas have been adopted;
and this mode of conveying information certainly facilitates
distinct impression and rapid comparison.

The register of the weather is here.
In order to render the,

Translations from the Chinese of Two Edicts relative to the Condemnation of certain Persons convicted of Christianity, and the Condemnation of certain Magistrates in Canton, by Sir George Staunton.- Respecting these curious fragments of ecclesiastical history, we shall extract the President's introductory remarks, and the first Edict:

The following account of the latest example, perhaps, of men punished for preaching religious opinions, is from our learned associate Sir G. Staunton.It is interesting in various respects. -It is an useful lesson to see intolerance stripped of all the disguises which too often familiarize and reconcile her to our prejudices. It is useful to contemplate persecution carried on against Christians, that we may learn to abhor every kind and degree of it when practised by Christians. In this case the utility is the more unmixed, because the example instructs our understanding without the possibility of provoking us to retaliate; often the unfortunate effect of narratives of persecution. The plausibility of the pretences assigned, the consideration and air of equity which characterizes the comparison of the different degrees of guilt of the supposed criminals, are contrivances and disguises, often perhaps unconsciously adopted, to soften the natural indignation of mankind against substantial injustice, which is to be found in the administration of most tyrannical laws.

IMPERIAL EDICT.

10th Year of Ria-King (A.D. 1805).

The Supreme Criminal Court has reported to us the trial, investigation, and sentence of that tribunal concerning Chin-yo-vang, a native of the province of Canton, who had been discovered to have received privately a man and sundry letters from the European Te-tien-tse (Father Adeodato, a missionary at Peking), and also regarding several other persons, who had been found guilty of teaching and propagating the doctrines of the Christian religion.

The Europeans who adhere to the Christian faith act conformably to the customs established in those countries, and are not prohibited from doing so by our laws. Their establishments at Peking were originally founded with the auspicious views of adopting the western method in our astronomical calculations; and Europeans of every nation, who have been desirous of studying and practising the same at this court, have readily been permitted to come and reside upon the above establishments; but REV. JAN. 1820.

C

from

from the beginning they were restricted from maintaining intercourse with, and exciting troubles among, our subjects.

• Nevertheless, Te-tien-tse has had the audacity secretly to propagate and teach his doctrines to the various persons mentioned in the Report; and he has not only worked on the minds of the simple peasantry and women, but even many of our Tartar subjects have been persuaded to believe and conform to his religion; and it appears that no less than thirty-one books upon the European religion have been printed by his order in the Chinese chaUnless we act with severity and decision on this occasion, how are these perverse doctrines to be suppressed? how shall we stop their insinuating progress?

racter.

The books of the Christian religion must originally have been written in the European languages, and in that state were incapable of influencing the minds of our subjects, or of propagating the doctrine in this country; but the books lately discovered are all of them printed in the Chinese character, with what view it is needless to inquire; for it is sufficient that in this country such means must not be employed to seduce our simple peasantry to the knowledge and belief of those tenets; and much less can it be suffered to operate thus on the minds of our Tartar subjects, as the most serious effects are to be apprehended from it on the hearts and minds of the people.

With respect to Chin-yo-vang, who had taken charge of the letters; Chin-ping-te, a private of infantry under the Chinese banner, who was discovered teaching the doctrine in a church; Lieut-chao-tung, Siao-ching-ting, Chu-chung-tug, and the private soldier Vang-mea-te, who severally superintended congregations of Christians, as they have been respectively convicted of conveying letters, or employing other means for extending their sect and doctrine, it is our pleasure to confirm the sentence of the court; according to which they shall severally be sent into banishment at Elee in Tartary, and become slaves among the Eleuths, and previous to their departure shall wear each of them the heavy cangue for three months, that their chastisement may be corrective and exemplary.

The conduct of the female peasant Chin-yang-shy, who undertook to superintend a congregation of her own sex, is still more odious; she therefore shall also be banished to Elee, and reduced to the condition of a slave at the military station, instead of being indulged with the female privilege of redeeming the punishment by a fine.

The peasant Kien-hen, who was employed in distributing letters for the congregation, and in persuading others to assist in their ministry; and likewise the soldier Tung-hing-shen, who contumaciously resisted the repeated exhortations made to him to renounce his errors, shall respectively wear the common cangue for three months, and after the expiration of that term undergo banishment to Elee, and become slaves among the Eleuths.

'The soldiers Chau-ping-te, Vang-meu-te, Tung-hen-shen, who have gone astray, and willingly become proselytes to the European doctrine,

doctrine, are really unworthy to be considered as men, and their names shall be erased from the list of those serving under our banners. The countrymen Vang-shy-ning, Ko-tien-fo, Yeu-seking, and Vu-si-man; and the soldiers serving in the Chinese infantry, Tung-ming, Tung-se, and Chin-yung-tung, have each of them repented and renounced their errors, and may therefore be discharged from confinement; but as the fear of punishment may have had more effect in producing their recantation, than any sincere disposition to reform, it is necessary that the magistrates and military officers in whose jurisdiction they may be, should keep a strict watch over them, and inflict a punishment doubly severe if they should relapse into their former errors.

Te-tien-tse, who is a European entertained in our service at court, having so far forgot his duty and disobeyed the laws, as to print books and otherwise contrive to disseminate his doctrines, is guilty of a very odious offence. The alternative proposed by the court of dismissing him to his native country, or of remanding him from the prison to his station at Peking, is very inadequate to his crime.

We therefore direct that the Supreme Military Court do appoint an officer to take charge of the said Te-tien-tse, and conduct him to Ge-ho in Tartary, where it is our pleasure he should remain a prisoner in the guard-house of the Eleuths, and be subject to the superintendance and visitation of the noble magistrate King-ku, who must carefully prevent him from having any correspondence or communication with the Tartars in that neighbourhood.

The noble officer Chang-foe, who has hitherto superintended the European establishments, having been ignorant of what was going forward in his department, and having made no investigation or inquiries during the time that Te-tien-tse was writing letters, printing books, and spreading his religion, has proved himself insufficient and unworthy of his station; wherefore we direct the Interior Council of State to take cognizance of his misconduct.

In like manner it is our desire that the Council of State take cognisance of the neglect and inattention ascribable to the military commanders who suffered the soldiers under their orders to be corrupted with these foreign doctrines, and then report us the result of their deliberations, in order that we may refer the adjudication of punishment to the proper court.

The Council of State shall moreover, in concurrence with the Supreme Criminal Court, appoint certain officers to examine all the books of the Christian doctrine which have been discovered; after which they shall, without exception, be committed to the flames, together with the printing-blocks from which the impressions were taken.

The governor and other magistrates of Peking and the commanders of troops stationed at the capital shall strictly attend to the subject of these instructions, and severally address edicts to the soldiers and people in their respective jurisdictions, declaring that all persons henceforth frequenting the Europeans in order to

learn their doctrines will be punished with the utmost rigour of the law, without exception or abatement, for having acted in defiance of the present prohibition. As for the rest, we confirm

the sentence of the court. Khin-tse.'

-

Account of the Morals of Nasir, by Lieutenant Edward Frissell. The Persian title of this book of ethics, economics, and politics, is Akhlauk-e-Nasiree. Its author philosophizes after the manner of the antients; professes to appeal to Plato and Aristotle; adopts the four cardinal virtues of prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice; and maintains that the mind has three distinct faculties, a faculty of reason, or angelic soul, — a faculty of anger, or irascible soul, and a faculty of lust, or animal soul; and to these three tendencies, the proportions of which differ in different organizations, are attributed all the moral phænomena of character. The antient philosophy had made a greater progress than we have retained in our books of ethics, in referring to its appropriate predisposing organ the connected moral propensity. translations from Greek literature have probably afforded such classical knowlege as is claimed in this book; the substance of which here supplies a very valuable and interesting paper, full of literary instruction concerning the state of metaphysical philosophy in the East: but it admits neither convenient extract nor useful epitome, being itself a neat and meritorious abbreviation of a larger volume. We regret to learn from the appended note, that the young author of this important contribution, who united talents for business with a respectable proficiency both in Western and Eastern literature, died of a pulmonary consumption at Calcutta, a short time after the communication of the Essay.

Arabic

Account of the Caves in Salsette, by Henry Salt, Esq.These sculptured excavations are here admirably described, and illustrated with many engravings, from drawings made on the spot. A striking resemblance to Ægyptian art characterizes both the figures and the architecture: but the graphic illustrations are requisite to convey a distinct idea of these antient monuments.

-

On the Similitude between the Gipsy and Hindostanee Languages, by Lieutenant Francis Irvine. On this topic, Europe has been inundated with speculations in all her languages. The vocabulary here subjoined demonstrates the Hindoo origin of many terms said to be in use among the Gipsies. These people are, probably, remains of the priests and priestesses of Isis; who carried their mysteries very far north under the Roman emperors, and were plundered of important establishments by the first founders of Christianity.

Trans