either of which could not fail of proving detrimental to the company, confidering that the Bengal trade, notwithstanding the various restraints imposed by the Nabob, was ftill very lucrative. For forty years therefore the English company attempted no military refiftance.

But the peaceable acquiefcence of the English rather increafed than diminished the exactions impofed by the governors of the province; befides, that the acts of oppreflion exercifed by thofe inferior defpots were abetted by the Emperor at Delhi. Determined therefore to try the effect of arms, the company in the year 1685, with the approbation of King James II. fitted out two fleets, one of which was ordered to cruife at the bar of Surat, on all veffels belonging to the Mogul's fubjects, and the other defigned not only to commit hoftilities by fea at the mouth of the Ganges, but likewife carried fix hundred regular troops, in order to attack the Nabob of Bengal by land.

The conduct of this war was entrufted to Job Charnock, the company's principal agent at Hughley, a man of courage, but void of military experience. He defeated the forces of the Nabob in two different actions; but pitching his camp in an unhealthy part of the province, in the space of three months he loft by ficknefs three hundred Europeans, which was two thirds of his whole force.

The misfortune attending the army was compenfated by the fuccefs of the fleet that had been fent out to Surat, which greatly diftreffed the trade of the Mcgul's fubjects, and took from them

prizes to the amount of a million fterling money. The clamour raifed by the merchants in confequence of this difafter, induced the Emperor to fend one of his officers from Delhi, with orders to hear the complaints of the English, and to mitigate the oppreffions which they had fuffered. Hoftilities foon after ceafed; and by a treaty figned in Auguft, 1687, it was ftipulated that the English should not only be permitted to return to all their factories in the province, but might likewife erect docks and magazines at Ulabarca, a village fituated on the western bank, about fifty miles from the mouth of the river.

This treaty was no fooner ratified than the war at Surat broke out afresh, and the Nabob of Bengal not only gave up the English trade to the rapine of his officers, but demanded a very large fum, as an indemnification for the lofs which the country had sustained by the late hoftilities. In confequence of fome unexpected events, however, an accommodation again took place between the contending parties without this requifition being granted; and the company received a patent from the Emperor, allowing them to trade free of cuf toms, on condition of paying annually the fum of three thoufand roupees.

In 1696, an infurrection was commenced by the rajahs on the western fide of the river Hughley, within whofe jurifdiction were fituated the principal fettlements of the English, French, and Dutch, all which immediately augmenting their refpective forces, declared for the Nabob; of whom they at the fame time requested permiffion to put their factories into a state of de

fence.

fence.

The Nabob ordered them in general terms to defend themfelves; and they, confidering this order as implying a grant of their request, proceeded with all expedition to raise walls and baftions round their factories; of which that of the English was at Calcutta, where they had built their principal magazines. Such was the origin of the three European forts in the province of Bengal, the first that ever were fuffered to be erected by foreigners within the Mogul empire.

In 1698, they obtained from Azim-al-Shah, the grandfon of Aurengzebe, permiffion to purchase from the Zemindar or Indian proprietor, the town of Soola-kutty, Calcutta, and Govind-pore, with their districts, the prince referving an annual fine. About this time, the union of the two companies, by augmenting the ftock, increased the trade, and enlarged the views of the direction. The commerce of Bengal more especially became the object of their attention. The fubordinate factories of Coffimbuzar, Dacca, and Ballafore, were refettled the exports and imports were doubled in value and quantity, and the garrifon of Calcutta was augmented to 300 men: all which the government of Bengal, contrary to its ufual maxims, beheld without repugnance, and even without demanding money as the price of its forbearance and favour. The increafing importance of the colony induced the company, in 1707, to withdraw the fettlements in it from their former dependence on Madrafs, and to declare Calcutta a prefidency accountable only to the direction in England.

The tranquility which the

company now enjoyed was in a fhort time difturbed by the Nabob Jaffier Khan, at this time appointed Governor of Bengal, and who was better enabled to take cognizance of their affairs by having removed the feat of government from Dacca to Muxadavad, in the centre of the province. Mixing policy with oppreffion, he greatly restrained the freedom of their commerce, without openly violating the privileges which they had obtained from Aurengzebe and Azim-alShah. In order to obtain a redrefs of their grievances, the prefidency of Calcutta, in the year 1713, proposed to the company in England the fending an embaffy, fupported by a valuable prefent, to the Great Mogul. The expedient was accordingly adopted; and after various delays occafioned by the intrigues of the vizir, they at length obtained the principal objects of their miffion. One of those was, that the company fhould be allowed ta purchase thirty-feven towns in Bengal, which would give them a diftrict extending ten miles fouth of Calcutta along the banks of the river Hughley, the paffage of which` might be eafily commanded by the erection of batteries or redoubts; and what added to the value of the acquifition was, that the revenue of the territory would be fufficient to defray the charge of its protection. The confequences of fo advantageous a grant were beheld with indignation by the Nabob Jaffier, who had endeavoured from the beginning to counteract the purpofe of the embaffy; but not daring openly to difpute the Mogul's orders, he prevailed, by fecret intrigues, with the holders of the land, not to part with it to the company

company upon any terms which might be offered. Jaffier however admitted the immunity of the company's trade, which no longer paid any customs in the province.

"In the mean time, the fettlement of Calcutta had attracted such a number of inhabitants, as excited the jealoufy of the Governor of Hughley, who, pretending that he fhould be punished for fuffering fo many of the Mogul's fubjects to withdraw themselves from his jurifdiction, threatened to fend a cadi, or Mahomedan judge, and officers of the police, to adminifter julire amongst the natives living under the English flag. The meafure would have renewed the fame inconveniences, which had forced the English to quit Hughley: it was therefore counteracted by a bribe given to Azim-al-Shah, who forbad the Governor of Hughley from proceeding in his intentions. By this conftant attention to money, Azim-al-Shah in three years amaffed three millions of pounds fterling, which he carried with him out of the province: but he left behind him his fon Farrukhir to get more; who, in 1713, gained the throne, after his father had perished in difputing it with his

brothers."

From this time, the English company continued to reap the fruits of their commercial privileges till the year 1756, when, by the rupture between Great Britain and France, and by the inteftine divifions in India, it neceffarily became involved in all the calamities of war. The military tranfactions of this period, are related with the fame precision and accuracy which diftinguished the former volume of this hiftory; and if 6

in the language and forms cf expreffion there appear frequent marks of hatte and inattention, they may readily be pardoned in a work of fuch extent and labour.

Ifaiah; a new Tranflation, with a preliminary Differtation, and Notes critical, philological, and explanatory. By Robert Lowth, D. D. F. R. S.S. Lond. and Gotting. Lord Bishop of London. 4to.

HE verfions that have hither

ΤΗ

to appeared of the prophecies of Ifaiah, both in ancient and modern languages, having been made on a miftaken opinion of the nature of those compofitions; it is not to be wondered that they have failed in giving a juft and expreffive refemblance of the original. “It has, I think, fays the learned prelate, been univerfally understood, that the prophecies of Ifaiah are written in profe. The ftyle, the thoughts, the images, the expreffions, have been allowed to be poetical, and that in the highest degree: but that they are written in verfe, in measure, or rhythm, or whatever it is that diftinguishes, as poetry, the compofi

tion of thofe books of the Old Teftament, which are allowed to be poetical, fuch as Job, the Pialms, and the Proverbs, from the hißorical books, as mere profe; this has never been fuppofed, at least has not been at any time the prevailing opinion. The opinions of the learned concerning Hebrew verfe have been various; their ideas of the nature of it vague, obfcure, and imperfect; yet ftill there has been a general perfuafion, that fome books of the Old Teftament are

written

written in verfe; but that the writings of the prophets are not of that number."

The defign of the preliminary differtation is to refute this erronecus opinion; to fhew that there is a manifeft conformity between the prophetical ftyle and that of the books fuppofed to be metrical; a conformity in every known part of the poetical character, which equally difcriminates the prophetical and the metrical books, from thofe acknowledged to be profe. This fubject, which the learned author had before treated in his eighteenth and nineteenth Prelectións, is here more fully and minutely difcuffed.

The firft, he fays, and most manifeft indication of verfe in the Hebrew poetical books, prefents it felf in the acroftick or alphabetical poems, of which there happily remain many examples, and thofe of various kinds. The nature, or rather the form, of thefe poems is this the poem confifts of twentytwo lines, or of twenty-two fyftems of lines, or periods, or ftanzas, according to the number of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet; and every line, or every ftanza, begins with each letter in its order, as it ftands in the alphabet, that is, the first line, or firft ftanza, begins with aleph, the fecond with beth, and so on. There are ftill extant in the books of the Old Teítament, twelve of thefe poems; reckoning the four firft chapters of the Lamentations of Jeremiah as fo many diftinct poems; three t of them perfectly alphabetical: in

which every line is marked by its initial letter; the other nine lefs perfectly alphabetical, in which every ftanza only is fo diftinguished."

After examining fome remarkable circumftances in these compofitions, he concludes, that both thefe fpecies of alphabetical poems confift of verfes properly fo called; of verfes regulated by fome obfervation of harmony or cadence; of meafure, numbers, or rhythm. For it is not at all probable in the nature of the thing, or from examples of the like kind in other languages, that a portion of mere profe, in which numbers and harmony are totally difregarded, fhould be laid out according to a fcale of divifion, which carries with it fuch evident marks of ftady and labour, of art in the contrivance, and exactnefs in the execution. And in general, that the rest of the poems of the Hebrews, bearing evidently the fame marks and characteristics of compofition with the alphabetical poems in other refpects, and falling into regular lines, often into regular ftanzas, according to the paufes of the fentences, which ftanzas and lines have a certain parity or proportion to one another, thele likewife confift of verse measured by the ear, and regulated according to fome general laws of metre, rhythm, harmony, or cadence."

The attempt to discover the laws of the Hebrew metre, or rhythm, he confiders as vain and impoffible: but he conceives that there are other circumstances which fufficiently difcriminate the parts of the

† Pfal. cxi, cxii. Lam. iii.

Hebrew

Hebrew fcriptures that are written in verfe, from thofe that are written in profe. The first and principal of thefe, is the correfpondence of one verfe, or line, with another, which he calls parallelifm. When a propofition is delivered, and a fecond is fubjoined to it, or drawn under it, equivalent, or contrafted with it, in fenfe, or fmilar to it in the form of grammatical conftruction, thefe he calls parallel lines, and the words or phrafes anfwering one to another in the correfponding lines, parallel terms.

Parallel lines he reduces to three forts parallels fynonymous, parallels antithetic, and parallels yn thetic. Of each of thefe he gives a variety of examples, in order to fhew the various forms, under which they appear: firft from the books univerfally acknowledged to be poetical; then correfpondent examples from the prophet Ifaiah;

and fometimes alfo from the other prophets; to fhew, that the form and character of the compofition is

in all the fame.

First, of parallel lines fynonymous: that is, which correfpond one to another by expreffing the fame fenfe in different but equivalent terms. As in the following examples:

O-Jehovah, in- thy - ftrength the-king fhall-rejoice;

And-in-thy falvation how greatly fhall-heexult!

The-defire of-his-heart thou-haft-granted unto him;

And the-request of-his-lips thou-hast-notdenied.' Pf. xxi.

Because I-called, and-ye-refused; J-ftretched-out my-hand, and-no-one re

garded, &c. Prov. i. 24. Seek-ye Jehovah, white-he-may-be-found; Call-ye-upon-him, while-he-is near,' &c.

Ifa. iv. 6.

The author produces many other examples, from the prophets, in which, he obferves, the parallel lines fometimes confit of three or more fynonymous terms; fometimes of two; which is generally the cafe, when the verb, or the nominative case of the first sentence is to be carried on to the fecond, or understood there; and fometimes of one only.

The terms in English, confifting of feveral words, are hitherto dif tinguished by marks of connection; to thew, that they anfwer to fingle words in Hebrew.

Sometimes, he obferves, the lines confift, each of double members, or two propofitions.

Bow thy heaven, O Jehovah, and defcend;

Touch the mountains, and they shall fmoke,' &c. Pf. cxiv. 5.

And they fhall build houfes, and shall inhabit them;

And they fhall plant vineyards, and shall

eat the fruit thereof, &c.' Ifa. Ixv. 21. Sometimes they are formed by a repetition of part of the first fen

tence.

The lofty city, he hath brought her down:
He hath brought her down to the ground;
He hath levelled her with the duft.
The foot shall trample upon her;
The feet of the poor, the fteps of the
needy.' Ifa. xxvi. 5, 6.

There are parallel triplets, when three lines correfpond together, and form a kind of ftanza; of which however only two commonly are fynonymous.