India in the Seventeenth Century - As depicted by European Travellers

Permit me to place by the side of this another of his impressive deliverances In a fine figure the sublimest of Roman poets paints the struggle of warrior hosts upon the plain the gleam of burnished arms the fiery wheeling of the horse the charges that thunder on the ground. [...] We would fain believe that out of the union of the East and the West brought about by the genius and energy of Clive and Hastings certain definite ideals as regards the government of dependencies and certain definite conceptions regarding the nature and responsibilities of Empire are being evolved in the English political world in accordance with the march of events in English history since the d [...] Out of the fictitious book I get the expression of the life of the time of the maners of the movement the dress the pleasure the laughter the ridicules of society the old times live again and I travel in the old country of England. [...] The Maypole rises in the Strand again in London the churches are thronged with daily worshippers the beaux are gathering in the coffeehouses the gentry are going to the Drawing-room the ladies are thronging to the toy-shops the chairmen are jostling in the streets the footmen are running with links before the chariots or fighting round the theatre doors. [...] That writer who appears before the public under the name of Sydney Grier has i nnotated and edited for us the Letters of Warren Hastings to his wife which help us to realise some of the sterling qualities of the administrator who was a living example of 3fens aequa iu arduis ; and which throw a flood of light on the life and doings of some of the notable characters of the day.