In The
Preparation Of This Work, Miss Roberts Prosecuted Her Researches
Into The Historical Records At The Museum With So Much Diligence
And Perseverance, As To Attract The Notice Of The Officers Of That
Institution, Who Rendered Her Much Assistance.
This work did not
take hold of public attention; the narrative is perspicuously and
pleasingly written, but it throws no additional light upon the events
of the time.
It is not unusual for young writers, in their first
essay, to mistake the bent of their powers.
On the death of her mother and the marriage of her sister to an
officer of the Bengal army (Captain R.A. M'Naghten), Miss Roberts
accompanied Mrs. M'Naghten and her husband to India, in February 1828,
taking her passage in the Sir David Scott, to Bengal. From Calcutta
she proceeded with them to the Upper Provinces, where she spent the
years 1829 and 1830, between the stations of Agra, Cawnpore, and
Etawah. Her active and inquisitive mind was constantly employed in
noting the new and extraordinary scenes around her, the physical
aspect of the country, the peculiar traits of its population, and the
manners of both natives and Anglo-Indians: the strong and faithful
impressions they made never faded from a memory remarkably retentive.
It is to these favourable opportunities of diversified observation, in
her journeys by land and water, along the majestic Ganges, or by the
dawk conveyance in a palanquin, and in her residence for so long a
period away from the metropolis of British India, which exhibits but
a mongrel kind of Eastern society, that the English public owe
those admirable pictures of Indian scenery and manners, which have
conquered, or contributed to conquer, its habitual distaste for such
topics.
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