INTRODUCTION. THE Correspondence from which these Memoirs are compiled, may perhaps strike the reader as being of a date not very recent: however, we must recollect that the Indian does not change: that his manners, customs, institutions, and religion are the same as in the time of Alexander, is proved from the following passage taken from this work : "Megasthenes, who was sent ambassador by Seleucus to Sadracottos, King of Practi, whose dominion now forms the fertile provinces of Bengal, Baher, and Oude, wrote an account of his embassy, which Arrian has preserved in his History of India; and that narrative, written two thousand years ago, when compared with the modern history of the Hindoos, convinces us how little change they had undergone during that long period; nor have the conquests and cruelties of their Mahomedan invaders, nor their commercial intercourse with the Europeans settled among them, been able to alter the long established manners and customs so deeply interwoven in their religious tenets." It will be observed, that one of the principal objects of the author throughout these Memoirs, is to explain and reconcile from the existing manners and customs of the East, many passages of Scripture which may appear obscure or unintelligible to the European who has never visited those countries, and of which the modern sophist avails himself as an excuse for rejecting the authenticity of the sublime and consolatory truths contained in the Sacred Volumes. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR. JAMES FORBES, Esq., Member of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies, and of the Arcadian at Rome, lineally descended from the Earls of Granard, was born in London on the 19th of May, 1749. Educated at Hadley, by the Rev. David Garrow, of whom he makes grateful and honourable mention in these Memoirs, he became, under his auspices, an excellent classic scholar, well skilled in ancient and modern history, and possessed of much general information. Before the age of sixteen he obtained the appointment of writer to Bombay. With much talent for drawing, and a great desire to explore foreign climes, he travelled during a period of nearly twenty years through different parts of Asia, Africa, and America, studying the manners and customs of the inhabitants, and delineating the natural productions of those countries, which, with the accompanying manuscripts, fill one hundred and fifty folio volumes, containing fiftytwo thousand pages. His residence of four years exclusively among the Brahmins in Hindostan, gave him the opportunity of forming an intimate acquaintance with the opinions of this singular people. vi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH After having filled several important situations in different parts of India, with equal honour, talent, and integrity, Mr. Forbes returned to England in 1784, at the early age of five-and-thirty: before a longer residence in that enervating climate had destroyed a sound constitution, weakened the powers of an ardent imagination and highly cultivated mind, or deadened the enthusiasm and benevolent emotions of strong feeling He purchased an estate in the neighbourhood of London, and in 1787 married Rosée, daughter of Joseph Gaylard, Esq., by whom he had one daughter, married to the Count de Montalembert, Peer of France. On In the bosom of his family, and a numerous circle of friends by whom he was beloved and respected, Mr. Forbes devoted his leisure hours to literary pursuits. His piety was most ardent, his charity unbounded, his philanthropy universal. The susceptibility of feeling which so particularly characterized him, never produced the slightest alteration in the kindness and gentleness of his disposition, or on the warm sympathies of his nature in his domestic and social relations. the contrary, although severe to himself in the discharge of every religious and moral duty, he was ever indulgent to the faults of others, and willing to admit of their extenuation. He had more of that Christian charity recommended by St. Peter, which suffereth long and is kind, and thinketh no evil, and of Sterne's milk of human kindness, than is generally the allotted portion of mankind; in proof of which may be adduced the tes |