most powerful nation, of which the real strength lies in British law and British institutions adapted to their special conditions. He will not hear a whisper of that spirit of annexation which the Right Honorable Joseph Chamberlain, with a remarkable ignorance of Canadian sentiment since 1783, very recently declared had some existence at the commencement of confederation in parts of the Canadian provinces; though he will find Canadians ever ready to welcome American capital and enterprise for the development of their unbounded resources. He will find that the closest and kindliest intercourse exists between New England and the Maritime Provinces, and that many thousands of the descendants of the Loyalist makers of those provinces, having returned to the homes from which their fathers were ruthlessly forced, now help to strengthen friendly ties between kindred communities. Canadians and citizens of the Republic now forget the past, with all its bitterness, and take an equal pride in the achievements of peoples allied to each other by so many bonds of a common origin, language, and interest. Champlain and Winthrop, Washington and the Adamses, Hutchinson and Galloway, Brock and De Salaberry, Williams of Kars and Inglis of Lucknow, Lincoln and Gladstone, Disraeli and John Alexander Macdonald, Longfellow and Tennyson, Parkman and Macaulay, Grant and Sherman, Dewey and Roberts, are names which are worthy of respect and honor, whether we live near Hawarden Castle across the Atlantic, on the banks of the Ottawa or of the St. Lawrence, under the elms of Cambridge, at Mount Vernon by the side of the Potomac, or beneath the shadow of Table Mountain in South Africa. JOHN G. BOURINOT. ENGLISH NEGLECT OF OLD INDIAN POETRY. THE way in which India is treated-India on whose possession the standing of England as a world-power reposes-is well calculated to give rise to utter astonishment. During the recent terrible famine, extending over an area which contains 60,000,000 people, when hundreds of thousands were dying month after month, and the roads were full of the corpses of men and the carcases of beasts, so rich a country as the United Kingdom gave not a penny from its State Exchequer for the relief of suffering. All was left to private benevolence; and small enough were the contributions, owing to the war in South Africa. There, again, since the fall of 1899, the most terrible misery has been brought upon once free and flourishing lands. For nearly forty years I have been making the acquaintance, in London, of a great many Indians who have been coming here: Hindoos, Mohammedans, Buddhists; students, men of letters, Rajahs, and ministers or agents of native Indian princes. How often have I heard them complain of the want of both knowledge and interest in their country's history, condition, and welfare, which, to their amazement, they had found among so many otherwise highly educated and intelligent Englishmen, including notable politicians and public writers! I could not contradict these complaints; for I had had too much experience of the same kind whenever in English society the conversation had turned on Indian affairs. I Once I had such an experience with a friend of mine, a Liberal Cabinet Minister, and a man of considerable culture. I spoke to him of the Russian danger, looming at no great distance, as a menace to England's great Asiatic Empire. He was rather disinclined to accept this view; and, as a reason for his own opinion, mentioned the large number of the English population in India. His remark, I confess, took me aback. asked what proportion he thought the number of the English inhabitants bore to that of the natives. He evaded the question, saying that it was difficult, on the spur of the moment, to go into statistics. Seeing how shakily matters stood with my friend, who, as a Cabinet Minister, was one of those responsible for the rule of India, I pressed him good humoredly to give me, at least, some general idea of what he imagined to be the proportion. After much hesitation, and with evident signs of mental confusion, he said: "Well, I think there are about 3,000,000 Englishmen in India." "And how many natives?" This question, he thought, it would be too difficult for him to answer, unprepared as he was. I then told him—it was some years ago, before the more recent census that there were in India about 280,000,000 natives, as against 140,000, not Englishmen, but Europeans of various nationalities. These 140,000 included the white English troops, which numbered, at that time, about 64,000. My friend now became quite distressed. He would scarcely believe that things stood so. I promised to send him next day the official statistics, which, through the kindness of the India Office, I had received in manuscript copy before they had been printed. In private intercourse I have often found similar incredible ignorance in quarters where it was scarcely to be expected. With the exception of the small class of military men and officials who have been in India, very few persons, even among prominent politicians, take the trouble to make themselves acquainted with Indian affairs. The budget of that colossal empire is always discussed, or, rather, hurriedly disposed of, at the end of the parliamentary session. A glance at the House of Commons on such an occasion shows that there are frequently not more than a dozen members present - some awake, others in a comatose state, lying about on the seats. Indians of distinction, who listen as strangers in the gallery, are always amazed at the extraordinary spectacle thus presented to them. They scarcely trusted their own eyes, some of them said to me afterward. This political preface was perhaps necessary for the better understanding of another extraordinary phenomenon. The rich and remarkable poetical literature of ancient India is wholly unknown in England to the large mass of educated people, so much so that the very name of the most famous Indian drama, "Sakuntala," and that of its author, Kalidasa, have, in my experience, often been unknown to ladies and gentlemen who might have been supposed to possess at least a smattering, or a vague knowledge, of such things. To speak frankly: Is it not a great shame that a renowned drama which has held its place on the Indian stage for nearly fourteen hundred years should never have been acted in England until about two years ago, when it was given, for the first time, by amateurs, not in a theatre, but oh, ye insulted gods of the Hindoo Olympus! — in the Conservatory of the London Botanic Society in Regent's Park. Yet Kalidasa, the author of "Sakuntala, or the Ring of Recognition," has been called the Shakspere of India by no less a writer than Sir William Jones, the distinguished English Sanskrit scholar, and first translator of the play. It was a hundred and twelve years ago-in 1789, the year of the great French Revolution that his translation was first brought out. Strange to say, no other English version was published later, until Sir Monier Williams put his hand to a kind of emendation. I had occasion recently to discuss the subject with an English author of considerable merit. He had lived in India, was conversant with its literature, and had frequently written on that subject. To my surprise I found that he was not aware of the existence of two different versions of "Sakuntala," which essentially vary in many parts. Yet the second version had been made known in Europe so long ago as 1842. His own surprise at what I stated to him was no less great than mine. When that famed drama was acted in the London Botanical Gardens I had occasion to speak to a good many people belonging to the highly cultured and socially upper classes. Among them, again, I met with but little knowledge, and even that among a very few indeed. It is different in Germany, among both men and women. There "Sakuntala " is truly a word to charm with. Handy little editions are to be met with everywhere; and the appreciation of the drama may be said to be universal among all who can lay claim to a higher education. In the programme of the Elizabethan Stage Society of London, which has done meritorious work, and through whose agency Kalidasa's play was at last brought before a small audience in the Conservatory aforesaid, the following passages occurred: "It may be stated without exaggeration that modern German scholarship has done more to elucidate the ancient history and literature of India than the scholarship of all other nations of Europe. Indian poetry is better appreciated in Germany than in England or in France. Indian dramas are often acted on the German stage." Six years ago, the writer of that programme continued, he found a cheap and elegant edition also of "Vasantasena," a German rendering of the Indian "Mrichchakati,” in all the shop-windows of Wiesbaden and Frankfort. The play, he said, had been often on the stage, and was pretty well known to the German public. I may add that other works of Kalidasa are also published at Leipzig in handy and cheap little editions. Even "Seventy Songs of the Rig-Veda," translated by Karl Geldner and Adolf Kaegi, and published in 1875, had at that time and for years afterward a good circulation. The praise of "Sakuntala" was sung long ago by Goethe, Schlegel, Humboldt, and other eminent men in Germany and France. Goethe thought that if we wanted to know all that is beautiful and tender, the name of Sakuntala needed only to be pronounced, and then everything was said: "Willst Du die Blüthe des frühen, die Früchte des späteren Jahres, Willst Du, was reizt und entzückt, willst Du, was sättigt und nährt, English scholars were the first to open up the treasures of old Indian poetry. Yet, after a hundred and twelve years how many English people have read that play? How many have even heard its name and that of its author? Yes, the statement of the writer of the Elizabethan Stage Society's programme is but too true. Whilst in England there is a painful blank of general knowledge, in Germany both Kalidasa's play and that of King Cudraka - "Vasantasena, or the Earthen Waggonette' —are largely read. Of "Sakuntala" there are but two English translations, founded on the same first text. Of German translations there are not less than eight. The first was made by Georg Forster, the distinguished scientist and sympathizer with the principles of the French Revolution, who had devoted himself also to the study of Oriental languages. His version, however, was based on the work of Sir William Jones. It appeared as early as 1791, in the midst of the storm and stress of revolutionary events. A second edition of it was brought out in 1803, after Forster's death at Calcutta, by the German poet Herder, whose own works testify to the wide interest he felt in the literature, the history, and the archæology of all nations. Then, some thirty years later, there followed, in rapid succession, a number of new German translations, several of them by eminent scholars. Their authors are: Bernhard Hirzel, Otto Boehtlingk, Ernst Meier, Edmund Lobedanz, Friedrich Rückert (the poet and Orientalist), Ludwig Fritze, and Hermann Camillo Kellner. Irrespective of these versions, adaptations for the stage have been repeatedly made in Germany. But how stands England in that respect? The translation by Sir William Jones was made from the so-called Bengali text. The other text, which varies to some extent from the one he used, and which has beauties of its own, was discovered nearly fifty years ago. It became first known by Boehtlingk's translation, and is called the Devanagari text. They harmonize, no doubt, in the main; but in several scenes |