extend their conquefts on one fide, through Africk, into Europe itself; on another, beyond the borders of India, part of which they annex to their flourishing empire: in the same interval the Tartars, widely diffused over the rest of the globe, fwarm in the north-east, whence they rush to complete the reduction of CONSTANTINE'S beautiful domains, to fubjugate China, to raise in these Indian realms a dynasty splendid and powerful, and to ravage, like the two other families, the devoted regions of Iran: by this time the Mexicans and Peruvians, with many races of adventurers variously intermixed, have peopled the continent and ifles of America, which the Spaniards, having restored their old government in Europe, discover and in part overcome but a colony from Britain, of which CICERO ignorantly declared, that it contained nothing valuable, obtain the poffeffion, and finally the fovereign dominion, of extensive American diftricts; whilft other British fubjects acquire a fubordinate empire in the finest provinces of India, which the victorious troops of ALEXANDER were unwilling to attack. This outline of human transactions, as far as it includes the limits of Afia, we can only hope to fill up, to ftrengthen, and to colour, by the help of Afiatick literature; for in history, as in law, we must not follow ftreams, when we may investigate foun

tains, nor admit any fecondary proof, where primary evidence is attainable: I should, nevertheless, make a bad return for your indulgent attention, were I to repeat a dry list of all the Mufelman hiftorians, whose works are preserved in Arabick, Perfian, and Turkish, or expatiate on the histories and medals of China and Japan, which may in time be acceffible to members of our Society, and from which alone we can expect information concerning the ancient state of the Tartars; but on the history of India, which we naturally confider as the centre of our enquiries, it may not be fuperfluous to present you with a few particular obfervations.

Our knowledge of civil Afiatick history (I always except that of the Hebrews) exhibits a fhort evening twilight in the venerable introduction to the first book of MOSES, followed by a gloomy night, in which different watches are faintly discernible, and at length we see a dawn fucceeded by a funrise more or less early according to the diverfity of regions. That no Hindu nation, but the Cashmirians, have left us regular hiftories in their ancient language, we must ever lament; but from Sanfcrit literature, which our country has the honour of having unveiled, we may ftill collect fome rays of historical truth, though time and a series of revolutions have obfcured that light which we might reasonably

have expected from fo diligent and ingenious a people. The numerous Puránas and Itibáfas, or poems mythological and heroick, are completely in our power; and from them we may recover fome disfigured, but valuable, pictures of ancient manners and governments; while the popular tales of the Hindus, in profe and in verse, contain fragments of history; and even in their dramas we may find as many real characters and events, as a future age might find in our own plays, if all hiftories of England were, like those of India, to be irrecoverably loft: for example, a moft beautiful poem by So'MADE VA, comprifing a very long chain of inftructive and agreeable ftories, begins with the famed revolution at Pátaliputra by the murder of King NANDA, with his eight fons, and the ufurpation of CHANDRAGUPTA; and the fame revolution is the subject of a tragedy in Sanfcrit, entitled the Coronation of CHANDRA, the abbreviated name of that able and adventurous ufurper. From thefe, once concealed but now acceffible, compofitions, we are enabled to exhibit a more aecurate sketch of old Indian history than the world has yet seen, especially with the aid of well-attefted obfervations on the places of the colures. It is now clearly proved, that the first Purána contains an account of the deluge, between which and the Mohammedan conquefts

the hiftory of genuine Hindu government must of course be comprehended; but we know from an arrangement of the feafons in the aftronomical work of PARA'SARA, that the war of the PA'NDAVAS could not have happened earlier than the close of the twelfth century before CHRIS г, and SELEUCUs muft, therefore, have reigned about nine centuries after that war: now the age of VICRAMA'DITYA is given; and, if we can fix on an Indian prince, contemporary with SELEUCUS, we fhall have three given points in the line of time between RAMA, or the firft Indian colony, and CHANDRABIJA, the last Hindu monarch, who reigned in Behár; fo that only eight hundred or a thousand years will remain almost wholly dark; and they must have been employed in raifing empires or states, in framing laws, in improving languages and arts, and in obferving the apparent motions of the celeftial bodies. A Sanferit hiftory of the celebrated VICRAMA'DITYA was infpected at Banares by a Pandit, who would not have deceived me, and could not himself have been deceived; but the owner of the book is dead and his family difperfed; nor have my friends in that city been able, with all their exertions, to procure a copy of it: as to the Mogul conquefts, with which modern Indian hiftory begins, we have ample accounts of them in Perfian, from

ALI of Yezd and the tranflations of Turkish books compofed even by fome of the conquerors, to GHULA'M HUSAIN, whom many of us perfonally know, and whofe impartiality deserves the highest applaufe, though his unrewarded merit will give no encouragement to other contemporary hiftorians, who, to use his own phrase in a letter to myself, may, like him, confider plain truth as the beauty of hiftorical compofition. From all these materials, and from these alone, a perfect hiftory of India (if a mere compilation, however elegant, could deferve fuch a title) might be collected by any ftudious man, who had a competent knowledge of Sanfcrit, Perfian, and Arabick; but, even in the work of a writer fo qualified, we could only give abfolute credence to the general outline; for, while the abstract sciences are all truth, and the fine arts all fiction, we cannot but own, that, in the details ́of history, truth and fiction are so blended as to be fcarce diftinguishable.

The practical use of history, in affording particular examples of civil and military wisdom, has been greatly exaggerated; but principles of action may certainly be collected from it; and even the narrative of wars and revolutions may ferve as a leffon to nations and an admonition to fovereigns: a defire, indeed, of knowing past events, while the future cannot be known, and