4.55

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No. XXIII.

JOHN BALLANTYNE, Esq.

For this notice we are indebted to a highly respectable literary journal, to which we have already had occasion to refer.

John Ballantyne, born in the town of Kelso, Roxburghshire, was the son of respectable parents engaged in a mercantile line. He enjoyed the advantages of that sort of tuition which is, greatly to the benefit and honour of the country, so readily to be obtained in Scotland. We allude to the instruction which the grammar school, established in every parish, affords an opportunity of receiving at a very moderate charge; and which has not only been the foundation for higher attainments, but the sole system of study enjoyed by many a one who has reflected eminent credit on the literature of his native land. Here, perfectly informed in the useful branches of education which fit individuals for active pursuits, or well grounded in languages, whether of modern date for the intercourse of the world, or of antiquity for the labours of learning, the young Scot lays in those stores and acquires those habits which, in after years, are exhibited so conspicuously in the man of business or the scholar. In academic shades, or by private devotion, the polish and deeper intricacies of classic lore may be superadded; but in no part of the universe can so much solid and competent knowledge be gathered as in these admirable institutions, which are open to every class, and within the reach of all but the very poorest.

In his youth, the subject of this sketch displayed great readiness and facility, and sufficiently indicated that smartness of talent and ability which distinguished him at a riper age. While still a young man, his mind was turned to literary concerns by the establishment of a provincial newspaper, The

Kelso Mail, begun by his elder brother James, which he subsequently conducted, and which is still edited by his younger brother. The celebrity which Mr. James Ballantyne's improvements in printing soon obtained, opened a wider sphere of action, and the family removed to, and settled in, Edinburgh. The extensive publications in which the Border Press has since appeared, are the best proof of the wisdom of this measure; but the ever-active mind of John Ballantyne was not to be confined to the college of the printing-house; he embarked largely in the bookselling trade, and afterwards in the profession of an auctioneer of works of art, libraries, &c. His share in the famous Scottish novels was also a source at once of occupation and emolument: perhaps no person knew more surely than he did who was the writer of these renowed works. For the last few years a declining state of health compelled him to relinquish several of his plans, and he travelled upon the continent in search of that restoration which he was destined never to find. Retiring from the metropolis to a seat in the country near "fair Melrose," the edition of the English novellists was undertaken as an easy occupation, to divert the languor of illness, and fill up those vacancies in time which were likely to contrast with the former habits of busy life. The trial was brief. While flattering himself with the hope that his frame was reinvigorated by change of air and exercise, this gentleman died in the prime of his days. He was, we believe, about the age of forty-five.

Mr. Ballantyne married, at an early age, Miss Parker, a beautiful young lady, and a relative of Dr. Rutherford, author of the View of Ancient History and other esteemed works, (to whose memory we would fain pay a grateful tribute, for to him the writer of this was indebted in boyhoood for that direction of his faculties to literature which has been the source of much of his happiness.) Of this union there are no children to deplore the loss of a father.

Mr. Ballantyne, in his temper and acquirements, was formed to be the delight of society. He sung admirably, was full of original wit and repartee, and perhaps was rarely surpassed in

the felicity with which he related anecdotes, or told tales of humour. It was from him that Mathews got his exquisite old Scotchwoman, and, exquisite as it is, there are many who held the prototype to be at least no ways inferior to the masterly imitator. The company of such a person was naturally much courted, and the convivial habits of the north were possibly not the best suited to his delicate constitution. Vulgar dissipation was below his notice, but even the pursuit of finer pleasures is fatal to the invalid. Much esteemed and much regretted, leaving a great blank in the literary and social sphere in which he moved, the lively and intelligent editor of Mr. B.'s novelists, has anew pointed the moral that neither vivacity of heart nor intellectual powers can resist the stroke of fate, though aimed at the epoch when the physical strength of man is most surely relied on to withstand the blow.

No. XXIV.

HIS HIGHNESS AZEEM OOL DOWLAH BAHAUDAR,

LATE NABOB OF THE CARNATIC.

THIS prince is the immediate descendant of a Rajah, who, during a long reign, had always been faithful to the British interests. On the death of the late Nabob Azeem ool Dowlah Omrah in 1801, Azeem, the only surviving son of Wallajah, the former Nabob, was discovered in a retreat which his mother had prepared for him, to save his life during the reign of the former Prince. The Begum having produced the most satisfactory proofs of his identity, this prince was immediately placed by the Company on the throne of his ancestors. Good care was taken, however, that the whole of the possessions of the Nabobs of Arcot, situated in the Carnatic, should, at the same time, be

transferred by treaty to his powerful commercial patrons. The new Nabob was permitted to reserve to himself a clear annual revenue of near three lacks of pagodas, the British government undertaking to support a sufficient civil and military establishment for the protection of the country, and collection of the revenue. Being suddenly attacked with sickness, his Highness died August 2d, 1819, after an illness of about forty hours, accompanied with symptoms similar to those of the prevailing epidemic. The funeral was splendid. The ceremony was conducted with appropriate military honours. The flag at the fort being hoisted half-mast high during the whole day, and minute guns, corresponding with the age of his Highness, fired from the saluting battery, when the procession began to move. The corpse was carried from the palace of Shady-Makl to the principal Mosque in Triplicane, through a street formed by the body-guard of the governor.

Azeem ool Dowlah was of a mild and amiable disposition. Raised from a dungeon to the Musnud (although the legitimate heir of the nabob Wallajah) he was ever faithfully and loyally attached to the splendid alliance which retained to him the means of endeavoring to realize in this world the paradise which his religion taught him to believe awaited him in the

next.

His features were strikingly handsome, and altogether free from the aspect of subdued ferociousness, which so often characterizes the countenance of an eastern nabob. Excessively corpulent in his person, he quickly sunk beneath the effects of the malignant disease which has now, for two years, been the Scourge of India.

The late Wallajah Rajah, in the opinion of a late GovernorGeneral of Bengal, (Sir John Macpherson, Bart.) was the wisest prince who ever sat on an Asiatic throne; indeed, he was the only one who, by the selection of the proper men and means, notwithstanding some rude assaults, preserved nearly all his dominions and authority unimpaired until the day of his death.

COMPILED IN PART FROM ORIGINAL PAPERS, AND IN PART FROM CONTEMPORARY PUBLICATIONS.