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2 My grandfather left his father's vicarage in Warwickshire for the distant East more than one hundred years ago. I have still by me a letter of warning to the country parson, not to send his boy to India, as "Clive was the very devil." Notwithstanding the diabolic character of the ruler of the country, the boy throve there; while his father, with the seven remaining children, were all swept off by typhus in a few days!

Of the next generation no less than seven were in India at the same time. Of these the best known was the fifth son, James, to whom was erected the ghat or landing-place where travellers first put foot on Indian soil at Calcutta. It was James who first started a feeling for historical research in India.

My father was the third son, and arrived in Calcutta in the year 1809. Of his career of thirty-three years' service, during which he occupied many important offices, rising to be Member of Council in India, it is not for me, his son, to speak. Returning home, he was quickly elected a Director of the East India Company, and at the abolition of that Direction was elected again into the Indian Council, which took its place. Finally, after sixty-five years' service, he retired. His honoured days were spared to welcome my return from India; but a fortnight after my arrival he fell asleep in the fulness of years, leaving for us, his children, and for his many friends, an example of that unselfish devotion to duty and unassuming ability found in many of those who have by their unrecognized labours made India what it is. One of the things most remarkable in my father was his vast knowledge of everything connected with the East. You might turn to him as to an encyclopaedia, with the certainty of receiving every information on any Indian subject. Persian, Hindostani, and Arabic were familiar languages to him; and with the literature, especially that of Persia, no one was better acquainted. From my earliest years I have heard tales of the East, and my boyish imagination was excited by many of these which my father had turned into ballads. I was also not quite ignorant of Indian literature, for I was intended for the Indian Civil Service, and, although I gave up my appointment to take to the art of