that no couple, however imprudent in their union, are ever perfecuted above a fortnight or three weeks!

Rules have been laid down for giving advice, fuch as are prefumed to render advice agreeable and effectual. I know not that thefe are necellary to be detailed here, for giving advice will always depend on circumflances to which general rules will apply very ufelefsly. To obtrude our advice can be the duty of parents and guardians only. For others it is fufficient to give it only when it appears to be requested with ferioufnefs. In giving it, the utmost candour and the ftricteft adherence to truth are neceffary; and a manner, full of fweetness and perfuafive friendship, are neceffary to render it palatable, if it militates against

the intereft or paffions of the party requesting it. Superiority must be laid afide when we wish to conciliate. While these rules are adhered to, we have nothing to fear from giving offence.' The obftinate are beneath contempt, and their anger always recoils on themfelves. The irrefolute may be determined by argument, and the wicked may be penetrated by truth. But we partake in the follies and crimes of those whom we flatter ; and when the welfare of a fellow creature is at ftake, nothing can atone for want of candour, and nothing can appear more praife-worthy than the opinion which is given boldly, and the benevolence which operates actively.

CAIUS.

profeffional labours in Benares, I received information of a ceremony which was to take place on the banks of the river, and which greatly excited my curiofity. I had often read and repeatedly heard of that moft horrid cuftom among, perhaps, the most mild and gentle of the human race, the Hindoos; the facrifice of the wife on the death of the hufband, and that by a means from which nature seems to fhrink with the utmoft abhorrence, by burning. The perfon whom I faw was of the Bhyfe (merchant) tribe or caft; a class of people we should naturally fuppofe exempt from the high and impetuous pride of rank, and in whom the natural defire to preferve life should in general predominate, undiverted from its proper courfe by a profpect of pofthumous fame. I may add, that these motives are greatly ftrengthened by the exemption of this clafs from that infamy with which the refufal is inevitably branded in their fuperiors. Upon my

the river, where the ceremony was to take place, I found the body of the man on a bier, and covered with linen, already brought down and laid at the edge of the river. At this time, about ten in the morning, only a few people were affembled, who appeared deftitute of feeling at the catastrophe that was to take place; I may even fay that they difplayed the moft perfect apathy and indifference. After waiting a confiderable time the wife appeared, attended by the Bramins, and mufic, with fome few relations. The proceffion was flow and folemn; the victim moved with a steady and firm ftep; and, apparently with a perfect compofure of countenance, approached clofe to the body of her huf band, where for fome time they halted. She then addressed those who were near her with compofure, and without the leaft trepidation of voice or change of countenance. She held in her left hand a cocoa nut, in which was a red colour mixed up, and dip

ping in it the fore-finger of her right hand, fhe marked thofe near her, to whom the wished to thew the last act of attention. As at this time I ftood close to her, the observed me attentively, and with the colour marked me on the forehead. She might be about twenty-four or five years of age, a time of life when the bloom of beauty has generally fled the cheek in India; but ftill fhe preferved a fufficient fhare to prove that she must have been handfome: her figure was fmall, but elegantly turned; and the form of her hands and arms was particularly beautiful. Her drefs was a loose robe of white flowing drapery, that extended from her head to the feet. The place of facrifice was higher up on the bank of the river, a hundred yards or more from the fpot where we now ftood. The pile was compofed of dried branches, leaves, and ruthes, with a door on one fide, and arched and covered on the top by the fide of the door ftood a man with a lighted brand. From the time the woman appeared, to the taking up of the body to convey it into the pile, might occupy a fpace of half an hour, which was employed in prayer with the Bramins, in attentions to thofe who flood near her, and conversation with her relations. When the body was taken up the followed close to it, attended by the chief Bramin; and when it was depofited in the pile, fhe bowed to all around her, and entered without fpeaking. The moment fhe entered, the door was clofed; the fire was put to the combuftibles, which instantly flamed, and immenfe quantities of dried wood and other matters

were thrown upon it. This last part of the ceremony was accompanied with the fhouts of the multitude, who now became numerous, and the whole feemed a mafs of confufed rejoicing. For my part, I felt myself actuated by very different fentiments: the event that I had been witness to was such, that the minuteft circumftance attending it could not be erased from my memory; and when the melancholy which had overwhelmed me was fomewhat abated, I made a drawing of the subject, and from a picture fince painted, a plate was engraved.

In other parts of India, as the Carnatic, this dreadful cuftom is accompanied in the execution of it with ftill greater horror. It is afferted, that they dig a pit, in which is de ofited a large quantity of combuftible matter, which is ft on fire, and the body being let down, the victim throws herfelf into the flaming mafs. In other places, a pile is railed extremely high, and the body, with the wife, is placed upon it, and then the whole is fet on fire. Whatever is the means, reason and nature fo revolt at the idea, that, were it not a well-known and wellauthenticated circumftance, it would hardly obtain credit. In truth, I cannot but confefs, that fome degree of incredulity was mingled with curiofity on this occafion; and the defire of afcertaining fo extraordinary a fact was my greatest inducement to be a fpectator.-The plate, which Mr. Hodges mentions to have had engraved of this awful ceremony, is indeed a very ftriking and interesting reprefentation of it.