Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎538r] (200/238)

Reviews and Notices.
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enough to note that 1798 must be the year intended, and that in that year
both the officers named had passed away, one by death, and the other by
retirement. Secondly, whenever a critical point in the story of one of his
heroes occurs, it is either ignored or dismissed with a few insufficient
words. Thus, there is no light thrown on the annexation of Sindh in the
chapter on Napier, though the veteran himself grimly confessed that “we
have no right to seize it,” and though another of his heroes—John Jacob—
condemned the measure, root and branch, as did the chivalrous Outram.
Indeed, Napier’s high-handed, yet by no means straightforward conduct
of that affair, involved a very strange aspect of a character otherwise noble
and great.
As a sample of slipshod workmanship may be noticed the mention of
the Governor of the Isle of France, with whom Tipu of Seringapatam had
the intercourse which led to that singular chiefs ruin. The Frenchman
was General Malartic, in whose honour a monument still exists on the
Champ-de-Mars at Port Louis. In the work under notice he is disguised
as “ Mr. Malartie.”
F. Bruckmann ; Munich.
4. Volkstum und Weltmacht in der Geschichte, by Albert Wirth
T his is a style of book more suited to the German intellect than the
English. Beef and beer are equally appreciated by both peoples ; but the
Philistine English mind is more apt to concern itself with the prices of
those nutritive articles, the history of their “ raising ” and improvement,
the prospects of continuing the future supply, and so on. The more
reflective German, on the other hand, takes an intellectual pleasure in dis
tinguishing between the subjectiv and objectiv aspects of beef and beer;
the ego of it all, whether it really goes down the gullet of free-will or of
necessity, and whether it is not rather the fact that “ some other fellow ”
merely thinks it goes down. But, this reserve of British idiosyncratic rights
once made, we must be generous and just to Dr. Wirth, and handsomely
confess that he has done his present philosophical work very well indeed.
He runs rapidly over the general results of all the historical past, from
Herodotus, Thucydides, Tacitus, Ibn Fozlan, Ma Twan-lin (who, by the
way, was no historian at all, but only a compiler; nothing is said by M. Wirth
of Sz-ma Ts‘ien, the true father of Chinese history), down to the Middle
Ages and to-day : he discusses the conflicting effects of “ culture ” and
“ race ” in determining the rise and fall of State power, thus steadily
leading our minds up to the objective goal. This all, of course, furnishes
matter for very serious thought; just as the recent “ Continental ” discovery
that life is merely a series of nerve changes from jelly to paste, and then
back from paste to jelly, causes us all to pause, and our ear most seriously
to incline for one moment to a consideration of our flabby and gelatinous
subjective condition. But still we go about our practical business just the
same, and get no “forrarder” with active life; no more able to stave off
death.
“Ein Kulturvolk hat die staatliche Macht.” That is the text of Mesopo
tamian, Babylonian, Accadian, Elamite, and Assyrian sermons alike. The