in Rajpootana and commissioner at Ajmere and Mhairwar, where he remained until 1852, when he was sent by Lord Dalhousie to Hyderabad, in succession to James Stuart Fraser [q. v.], as resident with the nizam. There he negotiated the treaty by which the Berars were assigned to the British government in return for the maintenance of the Hyderabad subsidiary force (Hunter, Gazetteer of India, v. 264 et seq.) For his services on this occasion also he received the special thanks of the court of directors. On 22 Sept. 1853 Low was appointed a member of council. His experience of Indian princes and the evils of native misrule was then very wide. ‘But he had not,’ writes Kaye, ‘so learned the lessons presented to him of improvident states and opportunities wasted as to believe it to be either the duty or the policy of the paramount government to seek “just occasions” for converting every misgoverned principality into a British province’ (Kaye; see Malleson, cab. ed. i. 56). In two able minutes, dated in February 1854, he protested earnestly, though despairingly, against the impolicy and injustice of the Nagpore annexation; but on this, as on other occasions, his views were ignored by Dalhousie. In the questions that ended with the annexation of Oude, Low strongly advocated interference, showing in a minute drawn up in March 1855 that the paramount government was bound, by considerations of justice as well as by treaty obligations, to interfere. The king, he showed, would never become an efficient ruler, and the non-enforcement of Lord Hardinge's threats of seven years previously had had a widespread influence for evil (ib. i. 103). When early in May 1857 tidings arrived of the mutinous refusal of the 7th Oude irregulars to use the greased cartridges, Low advocated leniency. He refused to credit the troops with disloyalty or disaffection, but only with ‘an unfeigned and serious dread that the act of biting’ the cartridges ‘would involve a serious injury to their caste’ (ib. i. 437, cf. ante). The news of the outbreaks at Meerut and Delhi was received a day or two later, and Low, in opposition, it is said, to his civilian colleagues, advised a determined effort for the recovery of Delhi (ib. ii. 90). In April 1858, when the mutiny was practically suppressed, Low went home, receiving, as on many previous occasions, the thanks of the government of India. Lord Canning described his services as ‘invaluable.’ ‘No man,’ wrote Kaye, ‘knew the temper of the natives better. He could see with their eyes, speak with their tongues, and read with their understandings,’ and to the last, heedless of their unpopularity, he clung with honest resolution to the old-fashioned political principles in which he had been nurtured (ib. i. 103).
Low had received the East India war medal with clasps for Java and Maheidpore, the British war medal for Java, and the mutiny medal. He was made a K.C.B. in 1862, and a G.C.S.I. in 1873. He died at Norwood, Surrey, 10 Jan. 1880, in his ninety-second year, and was buried at Kemback, Fifeshire.
Low married in 1829 Augusta, second daughter of John Talbot Shakespeare, Bengal civil service, and sister of Sir Richmond Shakespeare, one of Low's assistants at Lucknow. By this lady, who survives, he had four sons and two daughters. The eldest son, Mr. Malcolm Low, Bengal civil service, retired, is now conservative M. P. for Grantham. Another, Brigadier-general Sir Robert Cunliffe Low, K.C.B., Bengal light infantry, served, like his eldest brother, in India during the mutiny, and greatly distinguished himself in the recent campaigns in Afghanistan and Burmah.
[Dod's Knightage, 1879 and 1890; East India Registers and Army Lists; Wilson's Hist. Madras Army, Madras, 1881; Kaye's Life of Malcolm, vol. ii.; Parl. Papers, Accounts and Papers, East India, under ‘Hyderabad,’ ‘Nagpore,’ ‘Oude,’ &c.; Kaye's Hist. Sepoy Mutiny; Malleson's Hist. Indian Mutiny, cab. ed. London, 1888–9; Journ. Roy. Asiatic Soc. London, vol. xii. 1888; Times, 12 Jan. 1880, in which some of the early military details are incorrect.]
LOW, SAMPSON (1797–1886), publisher, born in London in November 1797, was son of Sampson Low, printer and publisher, of Berwick Street, Soho, who died in 1800. He served a short apprenticeship with Lionel Booth, the proprietor of a circulating library, and, after a few years spent in the house of Longman & Co., began business in 1819 at 42 Lamb's Conduit Street, as a bookseller and stationer, with a circulating library attached. His reading-room was the resort of many literary men, lawyers, and politicians. Till 1837 ‘Bent's Literary Advertiser’ was the only trade journal connected with book-selling; at this period the publishers became dissatisfied with the manner in which it was conducted, and established a periodical of their own called ‘The Publishers' Circular,’ and entrusted the management to Low. The first number appeared on 2 Oct. 1837. The manager gradually introduced many changes and improvements, and in 1867 the ‘Circular’ became Low's sole property. The periodical, which was published fortnightly, supplied a list of new books, and from these lists an an-
