was engaged in the confidential office of Moonshie to a highly talented gentleman at Fort William, from which employment he retired and took up his abode for some time at Lucknow; from whence, it was said, he went to Hydrabaad, where, it is probable, he may still be found in the exercise of a religious course of life.  His name is respected by all the good men of his own persuasion, with whom I have been most intimately acquainted.

Conceiving the subject may be interesting to my friends, I will not offer any apology for introducing to your notice a female character of great merit, whose death occurred during my residence in the vicinity of her abode.  I was induced to make memorandums of the circumstances which brought the knowledge of her virtues more immediately before the public.

Maulvee Meer Syaad Mahumud[7] succeeded, on the death of his father, in 1822, to the exalted position amongst Mussulmauns of head leader and expounder of the Mahumudan law in the city of Lucknow; he is a person of unassuming manners and extreme good sense, is an upright, honest-hearted, religious man, meriting and receiving the respect and good opinion of all his countrymen capable of appreciating the worthiness of his general deportment.  He is esteemed the most learned person of the present age amongst Asiatic scholars; and occupies his time in study and devotion, and in giving gratuitous instruction to youth, at stated hours, in those laws which he makes his own rule of life.  Neither is the good Maulvee’s fame confined to the city in which he sojourns, as may be gathered from the following anecdote, which exhibits the upright principles of this worthy man, at the same time that it discloses the character of a very amiable female, whose charity was as unbounded as her memory is revered in Furrukhabaad.

’The late Nuwaub of Furrukhabaad[8] was first married to a lady of birth and good fortune, Villoiettee Begum,[9] by whom he was not blessed with a son; but he had other wives, one of whom bore him an heir, who at the present time enjoys the musnud of his father.

’Villoiettee Begum was beautiful in person, and possessed a heart of the most benevolent and rare kind; her whole delight was centred in the exercises of those duties which her religion inculcated; she spent much of her time in prayer, in acquiring a knowledge of the Khoraun, in acts of kindness to her fellow-creatures, and in strict abstinence.

’It was her unvaried custom at meals before she touched a morsel herself, to have twelve portions of food, selected from the choicest viands provided for her use, set apart for as many poor people; and when they had been served, she humbly and sparingly partook of the meal before her.  She was possessed of great wealth, yet never expended any portion of it in the extravagances of dress; indeed, so humble was her appearance, that she might have been mistaken for the meanest of her slaves or domestics.  It was her usual custom, whenever she purchased new clothing