It would be unfair to expect in such a narrative the rich and varied interest that belongs to the autobiography of Meadows Taylor, whose career was as eventful and exciting as that of any hero of romance, and who has told it with a vividness and graphic power which few writers of romance have equalled. "He was one of the last of those," remarks Mr. Reeve, "who went out to India as simple adventurers." His boyhood and youth were full of precocious adventure and achievement. At the age of sixteen he obtained a commission in the military contingent of the Nizam. At seventeen he was employed as interpreter on courts-martial, and at eighteen was appointed "assistant police superintendent" of a district comprising a population of a million of souls. The duties of this post "involved not only direct authority over the ordinary relations of society, but the active pursuit of bands of Dacoits, Thugs and robbers," and occasional military expeditions to reduce some lawless chief to obedience. But the most remarkable and laborious years of his life were those during which he filled the office of "political agent" at Shorapoor, administering the affairs of that principality and holding the guardianship of the young rajah during a long minority, while cut off from intercourse with Europeans and exposed to continual plottings and intrigues of native functionaries and court favorites. The skill, tact and courage with which he executed the delicate and complicated functions of this anomalous position, and encountered its difficulties and perils, make themselves felt and appreciated in all the details of the narrative, while the picture presented of Eastern character and manners is one which only the most intimate knowledge, combined with rare faculties of delineation, could furnish, and differs in many features from any other to be found in European descriptions of life in India. "Meadows Taylor was never, properly speaking, in the civil service of the East India Company or the Crown, nor did he hold any military appointment in the British Indian army. He was throughout life an officer of the Nizam. He never even visited Calcutta or Bengal." He was thus thrown out of the main line of advancement, and never attained the rank or emoluments that fell to the share of many less gifted contemporaries. Hence the peculiarly adventurous character of his career and the novelty of the scenes which he depicts. Hence, too, perhaps, the width of his attainments, the enlightened spirit he displayed in his intercourse with the natives, and his cultivation of his literary powers as the main resource of his leisure while isolated from the society of his own race. His start in life belonged to a period long antecedent to the days of competitive examinations, but his assiduity and desire for knowledge needed no stimulant and were the keys to his early success. "His perfect acquaintance with the languages of Southern India--Teloogoo and Mahratta, as well as Hindoostanee--was," we are told, "the foundation of his extraordinary influence over the natives of the country and of his insight into their motives and character." He taught himself land-surveying and engineering, and constructed roads, tanks and buildings. He studied geology, botany and antiquities, and applied the knowledge thus obtained to practical purposes. He gained an acquaintance with the principles of law, Hindoo, Mohammedan and English, that he might devise codes and rules of procedure for a country where there were no courts or legislation, and where he had to administer justice according to his own lights. In the midst of his thousand avocations he found time to write a series of novels portraying the manners and superstitions of India, and depicting the various epochs of its history, with a fidelity and liveliness that have gained for these works a wide popularity. Yet perhaps the strongest impression made by this record of his life comes from the evidence it affords of his humane and conciliatory spirit in his dealings with the native Indians of every class, his unselfish devotion to their welfare, his habit of treating them as equals and his power of inspiring them with confidence, with the result of enabling him to preserve a large and important district from participation in the Mutiny, without the aid of troops and against the constant pressure and appeals of surrounding populations all in full revolt. His autobiography has already gone through several editions in England, and we cannot but regret that it has not been republished in America, where the interest in the country and events to which it relates is of course far less general and intense, but where, we may hope, the appreciation of heroic energy and noble achievements is not less common.