[40] "My Lord Stair opened to us the general steps which your grace intended to take, in order to pass the lines in one part or another. It was, however, hard to imagine, and too much to hope, that a plan, which consisted of so many parts, wherein so many different corps were to co-operate personally together, should entirely succeed, and no one article fail of what your grace had projected. I most heartily congratulate your grace on this great event, of which I think no more needs be said, than that you have obtained, without losing a man, such an advantage, as we should have been glad to have purchased with the loss of several thousand lives." _Mr Secretary St John to Marlborough_, 31st July 1711. _Disp._ v. 429. [41] Marlborough to Mr Secretary St John, 10th August 1711. _Disp._ v. 437. [42] Coxe, vi. 71-80; Marlborough to Mr Secretary St John, 14th, 17th, and 20th August 1711; _Disp._ v. 445, 450, 453. [43] Marlborough to Mr Secretary St John, 14th Sept. 1711. _Disp._ v. 490. _Coxe_, vi. 78-88. [44] _Victoires de Marlborough_, iii. 22. Coxe, vi. 87. MOHAN LAL IN AFGHANISTAN. _The Life of the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan of Kabul._ By MOHAN LAL, Esq., Knight of the Persian order of the Lion and Sun, lately attached to the Mission at Kabul, &c. &c. London: 1846. We have arrived at an age when striking contrasts and seeming incongruities cease to startle and offend. If we have not yet attained the promised era when the lion shall lie down with the lamb--and even of that day a VAN AMBURGH and a CARTER have given us significant intimations--we have certainly reached an epoch quite as extraordinary, and behold things as opposite conciliated, as hostile reconciled. We need not go far for illustrations: in the columns of newspapers, in the public market-place, at each street-corner, they force themselves upon us. The EAST and the WEST are brought together--the desert and the drawing-room are but a pace apart--European refinements intrude themselves into the haunts of barbarism--and bigoted Oriental potentates learn tolerance from the liberality of the Giaour. An article upon contrasts would fill a magazine. Ibrahim Pasha and religious liberty, the Red Sea and the Peninsular Steam Company, the Great Desert and the Narrow Gauge, are but one or two of a thousand that suggest themselves. On all sides Europe thrusts out the giant arms of innovation, spanning the globe, encompassing the world. England, especially, ever foremost in the race, by enterprise and ingenuity achieves seeming miracles. With steam for her active and potent agent, she drives highways across the wilderness, covers remote seas with smoky shipping, replaces dromedaries by locomotives, runs rails through the Arab village and the lion's lair. From his carpet and coffee, his pipe and _farniente_, the astonished Mussulman is roused by the rush and rattle of the train. On the sudden, by no gradual transition or slow approach, is this semi-savage brought