CHARLES METCALFE.

From Burampooter's banks to cold Quebec, Thy name is known: and where St. Lawrence rolls Its mighty tide of waters to the sea,

Bearing the iceberg on its swollen bosom,

Thy memory is loved, no less than where The enfranchised Negro cultivates the cane, Blessing the name of England, to whose laws He owes his freedom—(it was dearly bought, And yet without a grudge); or where, again, In the far East reclines the soft Hindoo By Ganges' bank—now, rapt, in pensive prayer Addressing his fond idol, whom he deems The Arbiter supreme of Destiny-- Now turning, grateful, to the holy stream, Wherein he bathes, (kind rite, which Easterns think Gives laud to God, as blessings to mankind) ;— By such thou 'rt not forgotten. India loves The cherish'd recollection of thy deeds.

And long may she preserve, intact, thy gift—

Thine own best monument—her Press, set free

From all the shackles of despotic power— Her first instructor, possibly her best—

The wise forerunner of more gracious laws,

Of Christian principles, and Christian thoughts—

Daughter of science, education's friend, Handmaid of all that's just and pure in art, Opinion's stay, the oppressor's deadly foe, The last resort of injured liberty Long as the Press survives, those myriad tribes Who dwell upon that continent, which girds The Himalaya's snow-encircled peaks, Down to the confines of Cape Comorin, May thank thee, that no wrong, no violence, Can haughty prince or noble perpetrate 'Gainst them, without a voice of thunder raised

Its their behalf, the helpless and the poor—

Those stern decrees of independent men. Yet, rarer virtue thine it was to curb The wildest passions of Democracy:

Thou, who coulds't reach thy mild paternal hand

Forth to the gentle Indian, didst not quail Before thy sterner duty—to unite Conflicting interests, and (thy hardest task !) To blend the Anglo-Saxon with the Celt.

Why write I more? Jamaica's happiest days— The dawning hopes of peace in Canada—

And last, not least, though earliest in their date, Our Eastern triumphs—those, indeed, where Peace Caine forth with healing on her silver wings

To stanch the gory flood of horrid War—

Are link'd in history, Metcalfe, with thy name.

What are thine honours now—what are they worth—

Now thou art gone, and to thy lonely tomb !— Though not without a friend, without a child ? 'Twas spring in London: it was a time when men Were occupied in busy strife—their minds Intent on mighty changes—when their thoughts Reverted not to thee, but all their talk

Turn'd upon Taxes—upon Fiscal Laws—

Thin man's discretion, that man's perfidy: Thy daily drive—how rack'd by sore disease Thy feeble frame—what tortures slow endured Thy never-tiring courage--(yet unknown To thee that poet was); he daily saw Thy carriage with its empty coronet (How empty then !) go round the open Park, Till, week by week, its visits were more rare, And then it disappear'd: with footstep sure

The fell Destroyer on his inroad mare-lid.

At last, 'twits felt how all thy varied gifts, Thy rich acquirements, thy depth of thought, The stores which in thy mental treasury Thou hadst coneeard, were second now to one,

The brightest, purest jewel of them all— That shining fortitude which nerved thy heart

Against the agonies of slow decay- The town was busy—'twas a party strife

Of hottest fury: then the poet mark'd

Taught thee benevolence to all mankind, And, 'mid the sorrows of disease and death, Gave thee the crowning virtue of thy life,

A Christian's patience through a Christian's hope.

Note.—The writer of these lines does not feel able to bear testimony to the Inva- riable merits of the Indian Press. It is rather to to necessity of a free press in a country where It is the only organ of public opinion—to what the Indian Press might be, rather than what it ls—that the observations are addressed