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But, Poet, if thy lesson well

From Trial and from Pain thou'st taken,
I need not teach thee what the spell

By which their influence may be shaken
I need not tell thee what the Book
In which for comfort thou must look!

Not Praise of men, not Laurels bound
By Beauty's fingers on thy brow
Not all the Charms that throng around
The circle where Fame's torches glow
Can chase a pang, or change a sin,
Or make a healthy life within !

When thou hast learnt thy hymns to raise
To God-whose Book, thy Harp beside,
Shall teach it such high Chants of Praise
As soar beyond all human Pride

Then Christ thy Theme, and Love thy Creed,

Thou shalt a Poet be indeed !"

This volume is well worthy the attention of those who like to beguile a vacant half-hour by light reading.

The Moslem Noble; His land and people. His land and people. With some notices of the Parsees or Ancient Persians. By Mrs. Young, Author of "Cutch;" "Western India," "Our camp in Turkey," Sc., Sc. With illustrations from original drawings by the Author. London, 1857.

THIS book derives its title from the fact that the well-known Nawaub of Surat is occasionally introduced into it. The lesson that it is intended to teach, seems to be that there is no difference between Europeans and Asiatics, or if there be, that it is all in favour of the latter; and that there is no difference between Hinduism, Parseeism, Mohammedanism and Christianity, unless it be that the fourth system is rather inferior to the three others. This is not a doctrine that Englishmen will receive with very much favour just at present, when they will read Mrs. Young's text along with the practical comment upon it just published at Delhi, Bareilly and Cawnpore.

A Synopsis of Science, in Sanskrit and English reconciled with the Truths to be found in the Nyaya Philosophy. By J. R. Ballantyne, 1857.

THIS work is dedicated to the memory of James Thomason, late Lieutenant Governor of the N. W. Provinces,--and well it may-for he was a warm friend to the plan of connecting the literature of the East and West, and of making western knowledge more acceptable

to the Hindus and Mussulmans by clothing it in an oriental garb. The same view was taken by the late Mr. Colvin of whose death we have lately heard. Both Governors considered that while the English language was to be studied as the store-house of ideas, the oriental languages had their proper position in making those ideas intelligible and adapted to the eastern mind.

This volume of Dr. Ballantyne is a collection of short popular Anglo-Sanskrit treatises on Rhetoric, Logic, Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Natural Science, Ethics. The first one relates to the studies pursued in the Benares Sanskrit College. His views are thus giver :

"The most perfect European education bestowed upon a young Brahman, however great a blessing it might be to himself, would exert no beneficial influence beyond his own breast, if unaccompanied by the amount of Sanskrit erudition which is indispensable for securing any degree of respectful attention to his words.

"Those who have heretofore had the direction of Educational measures in this country-whether on the part of Individuals, Associations, or the Government, appear to have acted for the most part on the principle of regarding the Hindoo mind, for all practical purposes, as a tabula rasa' in respect to any preconceived ideas, and pre-established system of literature, philosophy, or science either useful and valuable in themselves, or esteemed such by the people with whom we have to deal and the effects of this appear to me to have been highly prejudicial in many ways; as I think a survey of the general results at our presidencies, as well as elsewhere, will satisfy most candid observers.

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"It has tended to segregate from the mass of their countrymen the eleves of our Schools and Colleges; and these, finding that they have no longer ideas in common with those of their brethren who have not been similarly educated, but are rather contemned by a large portion of them, at the same time that they are conscious of being more favourably regarded by the members of the ruling nation, and more nearly assimilating to them in sentiments, have very generally evinced a disposition to regard the former with contempt, and to imitate the least commendable of the peculiarities of the latter; a self-sufficient assumption of superiority taking the place of the humility which a mere entrance within the portals of the vast field of knowledge might be expected to produce. It has also greatly incapacitated these youths for the task of communicating to their countrymen the knowledge which they have themselves acquired, even if other circumstances favored the endeavour; so that except to whatever extent circumstances may in any locality have given extension to the direct study of English, little or no progress has as yet been made towards inoculating the mass with the knowledge of the west; and lastly it has entirely repelled from us, by wounding their self-esteem and pride of learning, those classes who possess, and who, unless their position be more strategetically stormed, I doubt not will yet long continue to possess, almost unbounded influence over the large majority of the nation "

"To a reader who is not aware of the relation-the still existing relation of the Hindu languages to their living and fostering parent the Sanskrit-the only parent to which they can look up for wholesome nourishment*, - it may seem

* "It is a great and mischievous mistake to regard the Sanskrit in India in a dead language, in the sense which that term generally suggests. What is meant by a dead language? Nine men out of ten will reply at once that it is a language no longer spoken by the people as their mother tongue. This definition at once suggests to six men at least out of ten, the idea of a language, the cultivation of which, if desirable at all, is so mainly as a matter of intelligent curiosity. But a very little reflection will suffice to convince any one that of the languages which, in terms of the foregoing definition may be called dead by no means the whole fall under the description here suggested. For example, the Anglo-Saxon

paradoxical when I assert that the fit preparation of a version of any scientific treatise in Hindi, Bengali, Mahratta, Guzeratí, Támil, Telugù, and Sanskrit, is easier than the preparation of the same set of versions without the Sanskrit one. A little reflection will show that there is nothing strange in this. What is the difficulty—the transcendent difficulty - in translating a European work into an Oriental language? It is the difficulty of determining the exact amount of correspondency between the different portions of the knowledge, on any subject, elaborated by the East and West, and embodied in their respective forms of speech. Different philosophic or scientific theories give rise to different forms of expression; and where this is disregarded or forgotten, we have the story of Babel repeated indefinitely. Now, this immense difference of cast, both in thought and expression, meets us in every Indian language which we try to make the vehicle of our knowledge; but if the work which it is wished to communicate to all India is once put fitly into Sanskrit, the task is well-nigh done. There is little more difficulty in turning the Sanskrit work into each and all of the vernaculars, when there are properly instructed pandits of all nations at hand, than in turning so many ingots of gold into guineas, sovereigns, and half sovereigns, when the mint is at your command. When a book has been first rendered into unexceptionable Sanskrit. the risk of error, under proper supervision, is at an end; whereas if translations are made into each language directly from the English, the risk of misconception perpetually recurs. A correct Sanskrit version is like the golden or platina rod deposited in the exchequer office, by which all the brass and wooden yard-measures in the country can be verified, or rectified. To obviate misconception it may be proper to add, that I wish the Sanskrit version to be regarded as the measure and criterion of the sense, not as the rigid exemplar of the form to be adhered to in the vernacular versions to which it shall supply the matter and the scientific terminology."

Dr. Ballantyne's pamphlet on translation, which is reprinted as an introduction to this volume, ought to be in the hands of every educationist.

is no longer spoken by the people of England, and neither is the Latin. To call them both dead languages, however, does not fairly imply that their claims to attention are equal. In respect of their influence upon the spoken language of the day, the Anglo-Saxon from which, either as a language or a literature, we have long since ceased to gain anything new, may be regarded as the deceased parent of the English; whilst the Latin, from which our language receives yearly accretions, and by whose literature the minds of each successive generation are moulded, acts the part of a living nurse though we may choose to hold it technically dead. But if the difference be great between these two which is hidden under the general name of dead language." much more momentous is the difference which can slip fallaciously out of sight when the same conveniently loose cloak of a generalization based on the non-essential throws its misty folds around the Sanskrit also. The Sanskrit to all intents and purposes of any consequence, is no more dead than our reader, who would be able to insure his life on his own terms if he could show that he had the slightest chance of surviving it."

THE

CALCUTTA REVIEW.

DECEMBER, 1857.

ART. I.-1.-Zend: Is it an original Language? By JOHN ROMER, late E. I. C. C. S. and M. R. A. S. London, 1855. 2. Outlines of Comparative Philology, with a sketch of the languages of Europe arranged upon philologic principles, and a brief History of the Art of Writing. By M. SCHELE DE VERE of the University of Virginia.

MDCCCLIII.

New York.

3. Christianity and Mankind, their Beginnings and Prospects. By CHRISTIAN CHARLES JOSIAH BUNSEN, D.D., D.C.L., D.P.H., in seven volumes. Philosophical Section-Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal History applied to Language and Religion. London, 1854.

4. Twelve Lectures on the connexion between Science and Revealed Religion delivered in Rome. By CARDINAL WISEMAN. Fifth edition, 1853.

5. Bibliothecae Sanskritae sive Recensus Librorum Sanskritorum hucusque typis vel lapide exscriptorum critici specimen concinnavit JOANNES GILDEMEISTER, PROFESSOR MARBUR Bonnae ad Rhenum. MDCCCXLVII.

GENSIS.

6. Modern Investigations on Ancient India, a Lecture delivered in Berlin, March 4, 1854. By Professor A. WEBER. Translated from the German. By FANNY METCALFE. Leipzig, 1857.

IT

T is true of Sciences as well as of individuals, that eminence and acknowledged value must be reached through obstacles of no common magnitude, and trials of no common intensity. Through suffering is the soul perfected, through much tribulation only is it allowed to enter into the hidden arcana of truth, and to understand its revelations, humbly yet hopefully, without

DEC., 1857.

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passion, prejudice or sloth. The ancient philosophers were right in principle at least, when they demanded as the price of those instructions which they communicated, that their disciples should purge their souls of the dross of earthly passion, and the errors of too hasty generalization, ere being allowed to gaze upon the full display of the mysteries of those esoteric doctrines, a knowledge of which was reserved for only a favoured few. What this kind of noviciate' effected for the ancient systems, and many of the secret societies of the middle ages, has been brought about in more modern times, and especially since the days of Bacon, by the persecution which infant Sciences have had to bear, by the opposition that they have invariably met with, from men of limited, conservative and prejudiced minds, or from bigotted religionists, who, assuming that their own interpretation of Scripture was correct, denied the truth of facts that in nature seemed opposed to it. Thus Truth has ever had to undergo a baptism of fire, which disengaged from it the counterfeit that so often passed under its name or in company with it, and fitted it for the high function of reconciling doubts and contraries, and elevating man to that position for which his Creator originally destined him.

The recent and rapid birth of new Sciences, during the last sixty years, is one of the most striking features of modern times. We are now reaping the fruits of that silent and toilsome elaboration of first principles which engaged the schoolmen, and finally resulted in the principles on which modern civilization is based. And not merely have new Sciences sprung into being, but those that formerly existed, have received new additions to their evidences, a new extension of their facts, and a clearer manifestation of their principles. Time is an all important element in the development of truth. It was not enough that the Genius of Science fled from Europe for ten long and dreary centuries, or hid herself and wrought secretly in the womb of medieval times, but even when she gave birth to Bacon, and such exponents of his principles as Newton and Boyle, the first had to throw himself on posterity and look to the future for that reputation which was denied him by contemporaries. That future, which, with a consciousness of greatness and prophetic eye he saw, came only so late as the end of last century. Then it was that his principles became more fully appreciated, the spirit of his great' Instauratio' understood, and the rules of his inductive philosophy carried out carefully into practice. Then it was that new Sciences were evolved under their application to nature, and through Reid and Kant, even mental philosophy received an impetus, and was placed upon a basis, which all the quibbles of sophists and the doubts of sceptics shall never injure nor overthrow. The principle which has led to such important results, has been denoted by

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