this work, as one of respectable appearance and composition; but
unaccountably to us, from page 269 for a very considerable space, (in
fact, from the outbreak of the Cabool insurrection to the end of General
Elphinstone's retreat,) we find a _literatim_ reprint of Lieutenant
Eyre's work. How is _that_?

This account is not very luminous; and it is painful to observe that
the man who was abject, and the man who was lucky, were the two
selected for mercy. What proportion had previously been dismissed, is
not said. The affair occasioned much discussion, as we all know; and
the author speaks doubtfully of the necessity[1] under which the
execution took place, as not "satisfactorily ascertained." He speaks
even more doubtfully of the _persons_ supposed to be implicated, viz.
the Shah and the commander-in-chief, than of the _thing_. Little,
indeed, could have been known distinctly, where rumour ascribed to each
separately the most contradictory acts and motives. Us it surprises,
that Lord Keane has not publicly explained himself under such gloomy
insinuations. But, in the mean time, this is plain, that the Shah is
entitled to benefit by the doubts hanging over the case, not less than
our own officer. The writer suggests as one reason for a favourable
judgment on the Shah, "previous acts of humanity in the course of his
life." Undoubtedly there are such acts, and there are none well
attested in the opposite scale. In particular, he spared the eyes of
his brother Mahmood, when, by all oriental policy, he had every
temptation to incapacitate an active competitor for the throne. Two
considerations heighten the merit of this merciful forbearance; Mahmood
was the elder, a fact which slightly improved his title; and Mahmood,
in a similar situation, had _not_ spared the eyes of an elder brother.

[1] But afterwards, at page 166, there is a dreadful insinuation that