never enable a mimic to acquire, even for a moment, the imagination of a Shakspeare, or the intellect of a Newton. In truth, we are easily deceived by all external imitations, for the least resemblance will satisfy even the best judges. As to imitations of the mind, they may perhaps lead a good mimic to form a notion of the temper of the person whom he has in his eye at the time, but it is absurd to suppose, that the power of mimicry can be carried farther than this, at the utmost. Nevertheless, the power of imitation even to this extent, is undoubtedly a very important link in the mysterious chain' of our being, and deserves the attention which our author has bestowed upon it. But we must here break off for the present, as this paper has already exceeded the space we had proposed for it. The remainder of the chapter, as well as of the volume, is so full of interesting matter, that we shall resume the consideration of it in our next number.

(To be continued).

ART. VII. Inquiry into the State of the Indian Army, with Suggestions for its Improvement, &c. By Walter Badenach, Esq., Captain, Bengal Army. 8vo. pp. 151. 8s. 6d. London: Murray.

IN referring, on a late occasion, to some of the circumstances which attended the Burmese war, we were led to express an opinion, that the state of discipline and the whole condition of the East India Company's army have become such, as urgently to demand the most serious consideration of our government. We promised, at some fitting opportunity, to revert to a subject of such vital influence upon the durability of our Indian empire; and we have now accordingly selected this volume for notice, much more for the general importance of the inquiry into which it professes to enter, than by reason of any great merit or value in the book itself. It is in truth a feeble, desultory, and rather egotistical production; and though it contains many facts well worthy of attention, it enforces them with no ability, and offers very few feasible suggestions upon their obvious tendency. Its statements are framed with a total want of pointed connection and energy; and its arguments are weak, superficial, and often inconsequential. In the few comments upon the state of the Indian army, for which we can find room, we shall therefore make little farther use of Captain Badenach's publication, than for the occasional convenience of quoting notorious and indisputable data; and where we have occasion to go farther, we shall be quite contented to appeal, for the justice of our conclusions on the inefficiency of our present military system in India, to the experience of every dispassionate observer, who has resided or served in the country. We have good reason to know, that our opinions are in consonance with those of authorities which, assuredly, need only to be named, to command the highest weight and respect.

We have before observed, that, during the operations of late years in India, the Sepoy regiments, from whatever causes, had certainly failed to display many of those excellent qualities of soldiership, on which their high reputation during the last century had been deservedly founded. From this conclusion, at least, no eye-witness of the campaigns of Bhurtpore and Ava will, we apprehend, be found to dissent; and, however reluctant the Company's own officers may naturally feel to acknowledge another fact, we know it to be equally incontrovertible, that in the interior discipline and organization of the native regiments of infantry, there has been also a lamentable falling off within the memory of the veterans of thirty years' service. We hold, that the second fact here stated sufficiently accounts for the first: we see no reason to imagine any necessary degeneration in the inherent qualities of the Sepoy soldier; and we are convinced, that, whether he has evinced himself courageous or dastardly, devoted to his officer or prone to mutiny and indiscipline, the result is alike, the praise or the fault of the system under which he has been trained. It is easy to point to a few glaring vices in the existing organization of the Company's army, which must at once fully explain this deterioration of its qualities.

Among these defects, the most palpable are the totally inadequate numbers of European officers, as compared with the immense native force; their injudicious distribution to regiments;-the absence of sufficient excitement among them to zeal and ambition, owing to the extreme tardiness of regimental promotion; and, the utter want of an arrangement, which should induce or compel every individual to retire from the service, who is unfitted for it, either by broken health and constitutional infirmity, after long residence in a pernicious climate, or by advancing years, or by natural incapacity and sloth. We shall devote to each of these defects of the existing system, in succession, as much notice as our limits will permit. And first, with regard to the proportion of European officers-Captain Badenach, whose accuracy we have discovered no room to doubt, has calculated the total amount of the Company's army, including about eighty thousand irregulars, as follows:

Artillery

Sappers, Pioneers, &c.
Cavalry

Infantry

15,782

4,575

26,094

234,412

TOTAL...... 280,863

Yet this immense force, forming the largest standing army in the world, except perhaps the Russian, is officered by less than four thousand two hundred Europeans! But, if we descend to particulars, we shall find the disproportion between the number of effective officers and men yet far greater. For example, by the present organization of the Company's army, each regiment of

native infantry of above a thousand men, is officered, nominally, by twenty-three Europeans: nominally, for every military officer, whether employed on the proper staff of the army, or in the commissariat, barrack, and clothing departments, or attached to numerous irregular corps, or holding civil or political office, must, under the existing regulations, still be borne on the strength of some regular regiment. The gross number of officers thus taken from the effective strength of the regiments, is accurately counted by Captain Badenach to be near seven hundred; while nine hundred more are absent from India altogether, in Europe or places within the charter, on furlough, or on sick certificates for the benefit of their health. The result of the whole system is clearly proved, by a table in Captain Badenach's book (p. 6), to be, that on an average, each regiment of native infantry cannot possibly have more than eight or nine effective officers present and doing duty with it. But the practical fact is even more striking; and it is well known, that there are seldom found more than five or six officers present with a regiment of native infantry. We wish any member of the House of Commons would move for the names and number of European officers actually present with each of the regiments of Bengal native infantry which mutinied at Barrachpore: or, for a similar return of the officers present with the four battalions of Madras Sepoys, which, when opposed to the Burmese, near Prome, upon the only occasion of their being trusted without a support of British infantry, were, after the fall of their gallant brigadier, Colonel M'Donall, totally put to rout by the barbarian

enemy.

The effects of this inadequate mode of officering the native infantry, are too plain to need exposition. The native of India is totally deficient in that innate bravery and confidence in his unassisted manhood, which, in the British soldier, are constitutional, and almost independent of the accidents of command: in action, the Sepoy requires to be under the immediate eye of an European officer, and needs the inspiration of the presence and example of his superiors. At least, every company of native infantry should be within the sight, the cheering voice, and the guidance of its proper European officer. Yet, while, even for a British regiment of a thousand men, an establishment of forty-seven officers is considered not too many to enforce the duties of command and example, and, of these, more than three-fourths are generally present: the Sepoy battalion of the same strength has only twenty-three officers, and above half the number are but nominally attached to the corps. The remedy for this defective organization is simple: the total establishment of twenty-three officers to a battalion, is but too small in itself; and it should at least be kept complete, by replacing individuals removed to staff or civil employments.

But, proceeding to expose the second evil to which we have referred--the injudicious distribution of officers to regiments has

even more serious consequences than their inadequate numbers. In the first place it is necessary to observe, that, at present, as soon as a Company's officer attains the rank of major in his regiment, his promotion thenceforward does not proceed in his own corps, but according to general seniority, by his rank in the army; and thus, in the Madras infantry, the chance is fifty to one, and, in Bengal, seventy-four to one, against his succeeding to the command, as lieutenant-colonel, of the same battalion in which he has served, and of the Sepoys whose personal confidence he may have gained. This system, the injudicious change of our own times, is not the same under which the native infantry formerly earned a well-merited reputation, second only to that of British troops. In those days, the Sepoy was wont to serve for years under the same officers; and by long habits of personal obedience and intercourse, he learned to venerate his leader as a lasting protector, and almost as a parent. In the simple language of the native soldiery, they were proud, and fond of designating themselves as the children of their commander. On his part, the British officer, living continually with the same men, knew them all individually, and took a natural interest in their welfare: the bond of protection and fidelity was unbroken between him and them. The affections of the natives may be won by the European: but it is always the work of time; and the Sepoy never places much confidence and reliance on his officer, until he has known him long, had experience of his superior courage, and been cherished by his kindness.

But the European officer now is, perhaps, during half his residence in India, separated on staff employment from his men, and thus alienated from their attachment; and the moment he becomes lieutenant-colonel, he, in any case, goes to a new corps, to the soldiery of which he is a stranger, and whose affections he has had no opportunity of gaining. It is evident, that the officer who is destined in the native army to the career of regimental service, should, as far as possible, be confined to the same corps, and ascend through all its grades, from subaltern to commanding officer, among the same men, if it be meant that he shall know them well, and cultivate the love and respect of a soldiery, who are characteristically the willing slaves of habitude.

But the abstraction of so large a proportion of regimental officers from regimental duty, has a yet more injurious result than the mere loss of their number. It has the natural tendency of removing from each corps the most active and intelligent of its members. Every Company's officer, who has either energy or ability to recommend him, struggles to escape from the thankless routine of regimental service and the stagnation of regimental promotion, to staff or political employment, always of additional emolument, and usually of more distinction. The vast increase of our Indian empire, with which the additional establishment of European officers has in no degree kept pace, has created a great number of new

places the commissariat, and barrack and clothing departments, which alone give extra-appointments to numerous officers, have only been created in India within the last thirty years; and the field of staff, civil, and political office, is so wide in comparison with the total sum of officers, that by far the larger portion of the intelligence and activity which is contained in their body, is directed to those branches of the service. We intend no invidious reproach, when we remark the indubitable consequence, that the regimental duty of the native army is hence necessarily abandoned to the least efficient part of the Company's officers. Let any impartial observer declare, what spectacle a regiment of native infantry usually exhibits it is officered at most by half a dozen old or healthbroken men, and three or four raw boys: the latter, cadets fresh from England, and, of course, too inexperienced to command the respect of the veteran Sepoy; the former, shattered in constitution, and exhausted in mental vigour, dispirited at the hopelessness of promotion, and wearied and disgusted with the endless routine of subordinate duties, to which men of education are never long chained without losing all pride of emulation and enterprise, and becoming listless and torpid in mind, slothful in habits, and utterly averse from exertion.

If this picture be correct, and we have never found any eye-witness hardy enough to deny its truth, how can it be a subject of wonder, that the character of the native army has undergone a woeful deterioration? Undoubtedly, the extreme tardiness of regimental promotion is one great enduring cause of this extinction of energy and zeal in regimental officers. For this also the displacing from regiments of all individuals holding other employments, would be one great means of cure. The removal of individuals from time to time by such appointments, would prevent stagnation, and at least create a constant, though it should not be a very rapid, flow of promotion. They who adhered from choice or necessity to regimental duty, would have the cheering prospect of rising in their corps; the strength of a regiment would be kept complete, and a large proportion of its officers would not be worn-out or inexperienced men. If the expense of seven hundred or a thousand additional officers for the Company's army be objected to, we would simply rest the whole case upon the inquiry, whether the safety of our Indian empire is, or not, of superior value to such a cost? For its government may be assured, that no less a consideration than this is involved in the condition of the native army.

But since expense is, doubtless, a weighty consideration, it may be observed, that the cost need not by any means equal the full pay of the additional officers. In the king's service, nominations to staff appointments during the peace have been restricted, for the most part, to officers from the half-pay. The same system might be adopted in India; and every regimental officer accepting extraoffice should be placed for the time on unattached half-pay, his army