But first, of woman. I hold most religiously, that the study of woman any where, but particularly in India, is the study of philosophy; nor would it be an exaggeration to say, that transcendental beauty furnishes more instruction than transcendental philosophy; for beauty is philosophy without the mysticism of Kant or Richter; philosophy written in plain and living characters, burnished by the hand of nature herself on bright complexions, inscribed in brilliant faces, and taught by eloquent eyes. In Anglo-Indian society, as in every other, woman is the most important and powerful of the social elements. Married women give the tone not to manners only, but to modes of thinking, in the English circles of India. Single ones have no perceptible influence, for they soon get married, and melt into the character of wives and mothers. No such thing as a regular set of unmarried women exists there; as for a knot of old maids, the forlorn bench of our coteries and ball-rooms, it was never so much as heard of. Judge then of the influence of this very circumstance upon those who move in those circles, and in particular on the female portion of them. A batch of new arrivals are like the hams and cheeses imported by the same vessels; they will not keep till another season. If they do not meet with a suitable match

soon after they have lighted on the Indian soil, they must lower their hopes from the delightful dreams of a rapid fortune, shining liveries in Portland Place, and a mansion and park in Hampshire -hopes which a union with a civilian of rank can only realize,—to some lieutenant-colonel with a liver perforated like a sieve, or a colon almost brought to a full stop, and a pocket not much replenished by a twenty-five years' service. "If 'twere done, when 'tis done, then twere well it were done quickly," says Macbeth.

But, gracious heaven! what mistakes people run into, when they talk opprobriously of women going out to the Indian market to be married, and what absurd theories do they construct upon that foolish assumption and ridiculous prejudice! I maintain that, for conjugal love, conjugal happiness, lasting, unbroken, undecaying attachments,for that perfect identity of wishes, of fears, of griefs, of gladnesses, that mutual amalgamation of tastes and sensibilities, which constitutes the highest bliss than can reign in that paradise of the affections -that which Horace in two words describes so beautifully to be the beatitude of the sexual union, the irrupta copula, the chain, at once bright as gold and strong as adamant, which clasps two hearts and souls together-there is nothing that

equals an Anglo-Indian marriage. True, the affair is quickly decided, and so much the better; for both parties are spared all the odious haggling and the intolerable humming and ha-ing which precede the matrimonial engagement in England. An Anglo-Indian marriage is quite a veni, vidi, vici sort of thing. A few glances rapidly interchanged commence and complete the conquest. Before the band has completed five bars of the quadrille, the proposal is made, accepted, and ratified. And what a world of trouble and vexation is saved! How delightfully is the lover spared (he has enough to employ him at his desk without the superfluous business of a tedious courtship) all those deadening, cold-blooded references to fathers, mothers, brothers, uncles, aunts, through the whole gauntlet of which he has to run in this country for a little bit of matrimony! Your marriages in India are like the primæval marriages of Eden. The female, indeed, like her first parent, would not "unsought be won," and it is very seldom, or never, that she makes the first proposal; but she requires no very fatiguing chase to catch her; and he who belongs to the corps of eligibles, and is in good circumstances to marry, marries almost sans phrase, and takes possession of a prize gracefully surrendered to his grasp, without the fears and perturbations of the

pursuit. I repeat, once more, that this readymade love spares him a million of those inquietudes, doubts, alarms, jealousies, which torment our lovers at home,-" more pangs and fears than wars or women have,”—where they have to undergo the tedious process of a previous manufacture.

Thrice and more than thrice happy Anglo-Indian, on whose head the auspicious heavens thus shower rupees and beauty, the smiles of fortune and of woman commingling in due proportions to bless thee;-the smiles of the celestial goddess lending redoubled fascination to those of the earthly one, whom thy arms encircle,-their union the truest omen and firmest guarantee of conjugal love and conjugal enjoyment! It is true, that beauty ceases to blaze from the first moment that it arrives in India; but it does not on that account "shake its light wings" and fly altogether. It does not shine, indeed, with the heat of a Persian sun, that strikes dead its worshippers. So much the better. Instead of the common-place blushing tint of the European countenance, you take its mild and subdued lustre (no bad exchange), subdued perhaps into almost a vestal paleness; but it is a paleness which, in a woman essentially pretty or beautiful, disfigures no lineament, distorts no feature, obliterates no dimple, but brings them all forth into

stronger relief, and, like the moon of Paradise, "shadowy sets off the face of things;" whilst the eyes, the windows from which the soul peeps, rain the same, if not more than the same influence; * discourse the same, if not more touching eloquence; and are doubly radiant from the extinction of the lesser lights that, in your healthy, English faces, play in rivalry around them.

Away, then, with this stupid gossip about the mercenary marriages of India-the markets, as they are called, where English beauty is bought and sold. I affirm, without hazard of contradiction, that there are more interested and venal marriages celebrated in the space of one day in London, than have taken place in Calcutta, Madras, or Bombay, since those places have been presidencies. If those places are markets, Almack's and the Italian Opera are shambles. How many young ladies, who have reached the marriageable period, could I name, who, at the very time that they were curling up their noses at Miss S. or Miss W., who had just sailed on their outward-bound voyage to the East, with the undissembled speculation of getting husbands, were themselves from morn to night occupied in the hope of entangling

Bright eyes

Rain influence and adjudge the prize.-Milton.