attention of manufacturers to Dr. Watson's remarks in regard to'size.' It is very probable, in connexion with recent complaints from India in respect to the mildewing and rotting of consignments of cotton cloths in the rainy season, that our manufacturers of grey shirtings and jaconots are already aware of the importance of the subject, and have taken measures to prevent the recurrence of oversizing, or using size which engenders mildew. Nothing has been commoner in native bazaars of late years, than to see unbleached cloths pitted over with dark spots, which are mildew. In these the thread becomes rotten, and breaks into holes; nor is it possible by any washing to get rid of the spots. This used not to be,' we have often heard remarked, and why it should occur we have no knowledge; let the cause be what it may, it is doubtless prejudicial to the interests both of producer and consumer in a very material degree.

In this notice we have purposely confined ourselves to the description and illustration of those articles of wearing apparel in India which can, more particularly than any other, be reproduced in our own country with comparative ease and certainty; and we have therefore left others almost or entirely unnoticed-turbans, for instance, which are often as fine as Dacca muslins. To have reviewed all, indeed, would have extended the limits of this article to an undue length. We cannot therefore enter upon the descriptions of Cashmere shawls, which is a manufacture peculiar to that province alone, and has only partially, and that in an inferior degree of quality, extended to the Punjab and to Delhi. But we do not, however, the less recommend study of the processes described, to the general reader and shawl manufacturer; to both they will prove of considerable interest, and they contain the fullest information. Why it is that the best Paisley and French shawls fail to prove as charming as those of Cashmere, we do not precisely know; but it appears to us, that while their texture is undoubtedly soft and fine, and the patterns wonderfully elaborate, there is a monotony of colour, and probably less durability of dye, than in the Indian. In these respects manufacturers have only to blame themselves; for whether in the arrangement of colours for effect, or in the use of dyes, they have examples enough for all purposes. It is to be regretted that the exquisite woven shawls of Cashmere grow rarer and rarer every year, and that their place has been usurped by the hand-embroidered fabrics, of lower value and of more showy and more vulgar patterns. It is a common impression we know in England that the latter descriptions are the most valuable on account of the hand

labour bestowed on them, whereas the fact is exactly the contrary. The hand-embroidered shawls display a skill and patience in execution which is almost incomprehensible; but for elegance and chasteness of design, and softness and finish in quality, they are far behind the woven shawls which are still preferred by the princes and nobles of India, and which, both as to pattern and colour, are unsurpassable. In the Punjab and at Delhi a comparatively new branch of manufacture has been established of late years, of which specimens are now frequently met with in England. These are the embroideries on Cashmere cloth and net, with floss silk and braid, which are known as Delhi scarfs; and tunics, jackets, and the like, mostly for European wear. We have seldom seen them used by natives of the country. The native designers who invent patterns for Cashmere shawls could hardly fail in those for monotone articles, and the richness and elegance of grey Cashmere cloth embroidered with a darker tint, of white with red, and of white, blue, black, or red braid, with yellow or white floss silk, is as perfect as can be imagined. The workers, we believe, employ entirely the wooden needles used in the hand-worked Cashmere shawls, which are made of hard wood slightly charred so as to maintain smoothness, and are described at p. 128 of Dr. Watson's work. A hole in the centre of the needle receives the yarn. The article of carpets is not one in which our manufacturers are likely to enter into competition with Indian weavers; but were the patterns and dispositions of colour in the native articles better known, many useful lessons might be learned from them. What can be richer in effect than the pattern of which a chromo-lithograph is given at the close of Dr. Watson's work? The centre is a warm creamy white ground, on which is a delicate flowered pattern of yellow and red flowers, and dull dark blue leaves. Next this is a dentated border of vermilion and yellow; then a border of dull blue, with red flowers picked out with white, relieved by a narrower border of white and red; a broader border follows with a bolder pattern of white and blue picked out with yellow; and as a finish, the first blue grounded border is repeated. The effect is at once rich and completely harmonious throughout; and is perfectly adapted to the intention of the fabric, which is a small rug or perhaps a divan carpet in common use in India, and which, furnished with a pillow, is the usual place for sitting or reclining in Mahommedan families. Woollen carpets are rarely used by Hindus; and the manufacture is, we think, entirely confined to Mahommedans. The Warungul carpet-weavers are descendants of the original colony planted there by the

first Mahommedan invaders of the Deccan in the early part of the fourteenth century, and have never been disturbed. The art they practise was most likely brought originally from Persia. There are many signs of an increased importation of these beautiful fabrics, which can be made to any size, into England. If not as delicate and elaborate as the Persian, they are at least far superior in execution, colour, and design to the coarse Turkey carpets so largely used.

In conclusion, we beg to tender our thanks to Dr. Watson for his beautiful and most instructive work, which we can hardly doubt will fulfil his intentions in its construction. He has evidently brought his personal Indian experience to bear upon a mass of material which, in less skilled hands, would most likely have proved wearisome and unintelligible. As he has arranged his details, they are as entertaining to the general reader as they are full of information and instruction to the manufacturer, upon points which no ordinary agent, nor indeed anyone except he had the means of ascertaining the exact requirements of the natives of India, of all localities and classes, could have pretended to supply. It is under Dr. Watson's experience that the India Museum has attained its present perfection of arrangement; and we have no doubt that when it is transferred to its proper position in the new India Office, it will take its place as a permanent exhibition of the arts and manufactures. of our great Indian empire. The manufacturers of England, however, cannot, even as it is, be too grateful to Dr. Watson for what he has already done in the arrangement and distribution of seven hundred working specimens of native Indian fabrics. In the local museums of reference, Dr. Watson has provided material and means of imitation which were not only perfectly unknown before, but which could never have been collected by individual travellers, or agents accustomed only to live at the presidencies or among Europeanized native communities. What the English manufacturer has to do is to supply those millions of people who inhabit native states and English provinces far away from the great presidencies, where English manufactures have as yet entered sparingly, but into which under the present system of railways they can be poured without hindrance, and subject to the conditions we have laid down, only following Dr. Watson's plain and sincere directions-without stint or limit. We may never supplant the Indian handloom-weaver, but we may at least compete with him in many simple articles of attire, which, even if moderately successful, would give an impetus to our own productions of which it is impossible to estimate either the amount or the importance.

ART. VI.—The Life, Letters, and Speeches of Lord Plunket. By his Grandson the Hon. DAVID PLUNKET, with an Introductory Preface by Lord BROUGHAM. 2 vols. London: 1867.

THE

HE author of this very interesting book is a junior member of the Irish Bar, who should rise to eminence in his profession, if title by descent be a valid claim, for he is a grandson of Lord Plunket and of Chief Justice Bushe. Mr. Plunket from boyhood, to use the expression of his greatest ancestor, has had before him the images of these illustrious 'dead; and he has judged correctly that a Life of Lord Plunket, and a record of his oratorical genius, compiled with care from authentic sources, would be still welcome to numerous readers. We regret, indeed, that a work of the kind was not written some years ago, when contemporary experience might have enriched it, and when the brilliant career of Lord Plunket was clear in the sight of living witnesses. The materials for his biography are now less abundant; the memory of his public services, and of his renown as a lawyer and orator, is fading rapidly into mere tradition. Hardly a member of the House of Commons, not one certainly of considerable mark, remembers his triumphs in that Assembly; and only a few of his professional brethren can recall the days when his fame in the Four Courts eclipsed all other lights of the Irish Forum. The great political questions-the Union with Ireland, and Catholic Emancipation-with which he was especially identified, have lost the passionate interest they once excited, and, accordingly, even Plunket's speeches on them must now appear comparatively lifeless. For these reasons this memorial of him comes too late in a certain sense; and yet we are glad that it has been published, for the condition of Ireland, that most serious of political problems, is unintelligible without a study of the period comprised in Lord Plunket's life. Such a career, moreover, as his was a notable instance how honour in the State can, in spite of many opposing circumstances, be won by talent, industry, and good sense-will always be of interest to Englishmen; and every admirer of modern eloquence will be attracted to a work that contains specimens of Lord Plunket's speeches, in some respects to be classed among the best examples of English oratory. Nor has the present generation lost all personal sympathy with this eminent man; it may be said of him as of the late Sir Robert Peel, that this bright luminary has

not so far sunk into the twilight of past years, but that its ' radiance still cheers and warms the horizon it has left.'

We have read these volumes with interest, but in one particular our expectations have been disappointed. One characteristic of Lord Plunket was his command of a very original style, concise, vigorous, and idiomatic; and he had the faculty of lighting up a subject with most apposite and happy illustrations. We had hoped that these gifts would have been transmitted to his descendant, and that Mr. Plunket might have blended with them the genial humour and rhetorical art of Chief Justice Bushe, his maternal grandfather. But though this book deserves commendation, and is not ill written in any sense, it has no traces of the manner of Lord Plunket, or of Bushe's graceful and felicitous diction. One quality, however, of Lord Plunket's mind, and that one of no little importance, appears to have been inherited by his grandson. With oratorical genius and fervour Lord Plunket possessed an excellent judgment, and much sobriety and coolness of thought; and, though he lived in an age of passionate excitement, when many powerful and noble minds were hurried into extravagant courses, he never deviated from the path of prudence. Mr. Plunket, if we may judge from his book, is equally self-contained and sedate; his opinions are usually reasonable and moderate; and his views on the great political questions in controversy during Lord Plunket's life are with rare exceptions temperate and thoughtful. This is a merit of no ordinary kind, especially in a young Irish author, dealing for the most part with Irish subjects; and we have great pleasure in recommending this work as an intelligent and instructive biography. It describes Lord Plunket's career, and the historical events associated with it, clearly and well; it is always fair and candid in tone; and it is singularly free from the biographer's vice of general and unvarying adu lation. Not the least valuable part of the book is the preface from the pen of Lord Brougham, containing a graphic and discriminating sketch of Lord Plunket's characteristics as an orator. This venerable and illustrious man, like Cicero in his Tusculan retreat, delights in recalling to a younger age the figures of the great public speakers among whom he was proudly eminent, and he has delineated with a skilful hand the peculiar excellences of a contemporary sometimes his antagonist, whose reputation rivalled his own, though his eloquence was of a different order.

Lord Plunket sprang from a Presbyterian family, for some generations settled in Ireland. In after years the successful lawyer adopted the ancient coat of the Fingals, and in his