The Story of My Life. By Philip Meadows Taylor. New
Edition by Henry Bruce. (Milford. 16s. net.)—Meadows Taylor, the author of the Confessions of a Thug, was assuredly one of the most gifted and tactful Englishmen who ever served in India. His autobiography, first published in 1877 after his death, is well worth reading in the new edition to which Mr. Bruce has added a long essay on Meadows Taylor's novels and many notes. The most striking portions of it are concerned with the Mutiny, when Meadows Taylor, without any troops to help him, kept Berar quiet by sheer force of character. The young Raja of Shorapur, where the author had long been stationed, joined the rebels but was captured and lamented his folly. Meadows Taylor records that an old Brahmin, long before, had predicted that the Raja would not complete his twenty-fourth year. When the old man reminded him of the prediction, Meadows Taylor thought to falsify it by securing a pardon for the Raja, who was convicted of treason. But when the unhappy youth had been given a light sentence of detention, he shot himself—perhaps by accident—and thus the Brahmin's prediction was fulfilled.
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