Passing from _that_ to the general pretensions of this very eloquent and philosophic book, we desire to say--that Mr. Froude is the first writer (first and sole) who has opened his eyes to comprehend the grandeur of this tremendous reign. THE ENGLISH IN INDIA. In now reproducing the three series of notes on the Indian Mutiny written by DE QUINCEY for me in _Titan_, I must advert briefly to the agony of apprehension under which the two earlier chapters were written. I can never forget the intense anxiety with which he studied daily the columns of _The Scotsman_ and _The Times_, looking wistfully for tidings from Roorkhee where his daughter FLORENCE was shut up. The father's heart was on the rack until news arrived that the little garrison was saved. The following paragraph from a letter written to his daughter EMILY on Sunday, December 1st, 1857, will give some idea of the tension of that terrible suspense:-- 'INDIA.--Up to the last mail but one (or briefly in its Latin form, up to the penultimate mail), I suffered in my nervous system to an extent that (except once, in 1812) had not experimentally been made known to me as a possibility. Every night, oftentimes all night long, I had the same dream--a vision of children, most of them infants, but not all, the _first_ rank being girls of five and six years old, who were standing in the air outside, but so as to touch the window; and I heard, or perhaps fancied that I heard, always the same dreadful word _Delhi_, not then knowing that a word even more dreadful--- Cawnpore--was still in arrear. This fierce shake to my nerves caused almost from the beginning a new symptom to expose itself (of which previously I never had the faintest outline), viz. somnambulism; and now every night, to my great alarm, I wake up to find myself at the window, which is sixteen feet from the nearest side of the bed. The horror was unspeakable from the hell-dog Nena or Nana; how if this fiend should get hold of FLORENCE or her baby (now within seventeen days of completing her half year)? What first gave me any relief was a good firm-toned letter, dated _Rourkee_,[56] in the public journals, from which it was plain that _Rourkee_ had found itself able to act aggressively.' [Footnote 56: Anglo-Indian authorities seem to spell this word in four different ways.--H.] DE QUINCEY had reason to be proud of his son-in-law, COLONEL BAIRD SMITH, whose varied and brilliant services, culminating at the siege of Delhi, are written in the pages of SIR JOHN KAYE'S and COLONEL MALLESON'S _History of the Sepoy War_. On that fateful day at Delhi, when so much hung upon the decision as to whether the British should hold the ground they had won in the first assault, it is not too much to say that 'the splendid obstinacy' of BAIRD SMITH practically saved India.