INDIA IN HISTORY.*
Ir is a little surprising that when Mr. G. IL Trevelyan wrote the ingenious essay in which ho claimed for Clio that she is still a Muse, a patroness of an art and not the pedantic overseer of an impossible science, when ho contrasted French and British histories Tin Pigmy of India, from the Earthed Thom to the l'retent Day. By the late Captain L. I. Trotter. Re.lied Milton brought up W 1011 by Archdeacon W. ti.
Ratan. Londoo : ed. sell
with those written by Mommsen and Treiteehke, he failed to note that no Frenchman has ventured to write a history of India. Nor does he mention the fact, which must have been impressed upon him in his youth, that with the exception of the settlers in Kashmir and Amara (home of the Shan invaders who called themselves Ahoms) no Hindu people seems to have cared to record its own annals. The Neo-Hindus of our own day go further, and, with a seltsatisfaction queer to us matter-of-fact Westerns, plume themselves on their disregard of historical facts. Hinduism, they say bluntly, is superior to Christianity precisely because it does not profess to have any historical basis. The Higher Criticism may deny that Vyasa, Viswamitra, or Krishna himself ever existed. It matter); not whit_ to the pious Hindu, since it is the doctrine attributed to these beings that counts. Hence the paradox that the Neo-Hindu proudly proclaims that the spirituality- of his creed is independent of its ethical content, end that a god or a sage may with impunity be depicted as a morally imperfect person, if only he enunciates philosophical speculations or mystical fancies which satisfy the mental craving of his followers.
For us simpler folk of the West history is a branch of literary art, and its use may be found, on Mr. Trevelyan's authority, in the sense that " a review of the process of historical evolution teaches a man to ace his own age, with its peculiar ideas and interests, in proper perspective as one among other ages." Indian affairs are too often discussed in terms of current politica, and opinions on Indian matters are too often formed with a sole view to a priori considerations. The time approaches, evidently, when the British democracy must make up its mind as to its future relations with its groat Dependency. It is justly grateful to the brave Indian
• soldiers who are fighting the battles of the Allies in many fields under the kindly and competent guidance of the British subalterns who love and admire their sepoys and count on their loyal devotion. But there is also the Indian politician, shrewd, wary, ingenious, and of him the British public knows loss, though it has a suspicion -that the educated Indian is imposing his will on his governors with growing persistency, courage, and success. That there is political tension hi India fs obvious, and, perhaps, a fine occasion for what when it succeeds, we call statesmanship. Some elementary know-
, ledge of Indian history can do us no harm. For instance, it might be well if the British public had some idea how it has happened that it is not the Portuguese, nor the Marathas, nor the Moghals, nor the French who are now administering the peninsula. Captain Trotter's summary is just the book to enlighten us at no great cost of time and trouble, since four hundred and eighty-five pages of large print containing a vivid and picturesque epitome of two thousand years of history are not too great a task for any man's industry or patience.
• Captain Trotter was no dryasdust pedant. Educated at Charter. house and Merton College, Oxford, he won a cadetship in the East India Company's service. In 1848-49 he fought in the groat battles of the second Punjab campaign. In 1853 he was with the old 2nd Bengal Fusiliers in Burma, and in 1857 ho had his share of responsibility and peril in the Mutiny. In 1862 he retired on half - pay, to livo for another fifty years, during which his pen was busy on Indian objects. Even in old ago the romance and fascination of India still filled his mind, and he could write with the authority of one who had fought and administered, and knew and loved the Indian soldier, His most sustained effort was this History.
Archdeacon Hutton, the Reader in Indian History at Oxford, has revised Captain Trotter's History and brought it up to 1911. His contribution is not the least interesting part of the book, and some of his footnotes are singularly illuminating. Take, for instance, that which reminds us that in one of Busey's sallies from Cuddslore, " Sergeant Bernadotte, the future King of Sweden, was taken prisoner by the English." And his descondante now rule at Stook. hokn, and intermarry with the Royal House of Prussia!
Archdeacon Hutton will forgive us for pointing out that (perhaps in: the stress of war time) his proof-corrector and indexer have made some venial slips.. For example, on p. 474, Sir Bampfylde Fuller is deScribed as " Lieutenant Governor of Bengal," and his eminent successor as " Mr. R. Hare," when the present Sir Lancelot Hare is evidently meant. The index contains no reference to Eastern Bengal and Assam or to the State of Manipur, though we find the cryptic entry " Quinton, Dr., in Assam, 426." But the export will easily correct such slips, and the average Briton, we fear, will not notice thorn. Let us hope that the average Briton will at least have the seem to enjoy a manly and straightforward narrative of Indian history by a gallant old veteran of Dalhousie's and Canning'a campalgtes.
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