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ORIENTAL LITERATURE.

In our last Number, under the head of " Oriental Literature,' (p. 181.) we gave some account of three publications, the works of Major Stewart, Professor of Eastern Languages at the East India College, near Hertford, reserving for the present Number a brief notice of his "Introduction to the Anvari Soohyly of Hussein Vaiz Kashify." This work, published early in the present year, (1821) is a quarto volume, very handsomely printed by Bulmer, containing above 112 pages, of which 32 are wholly in the Persian character, being the text of the seventh chapter of Hussein Vaiz's celebrated Anvari Soohyly. Six pages are devoted to the Arabic text of the corresponding section in the "Kaliła Dumna," which we must consider as a valuable addition, that work being rare, and above one thousand years old. Of the Persian text Major Stewart gives a translation as literal as is necessary for the student, and consistent with the correctness or elegance of our language, and he has added tables and an analysis of the Arabic words. In his preface our ingenious translator remarks, that, with the exception of the Sacred Scriptures, no book has perhaps undergone so many versions as the Kalila Dumna, or Pilpay's Fables: "it exists," says he, "in all the known languages of the world, but is now universally acknowledged to have been originally written in Sanscrit, and is named Puncha Tantra." Early in the sixth century it appears to have been translated from the Sanscrit into Pehlevy, or ancient Persian, and in the eighth century, from Pehlevy into Arabic, by Abd Allah Ibn Almokuffa, a Persian who had become a convert to the Mohammedan religion. From the Arabic it was next translated into Persian by Abu al Maoly Nasir Allah, and from his version the celebrated scholar Hussein Vaiz Kashify composed the work entitled Anvari Soohyly, or the "Light of Canopus," containing, besides a very flowery and beautiful preface, fourteen chapters, each inculcating some moral lesson or system of politics. Hussein Vaiz florished in the fifteenth century. The seventh book or section, which Professor Stewart has here selected for the use of his pupils, treats "on circumspection and deliberation, and on the means of effecting an escape from the machinations of enemies, by stratagem. In the last number of our Journal we strongly recommended to students of the Arabic and Persian languages,

this fourth and latest work of the Professor; yet, as we have just heard with surprise, a writer under the signature of Gulchin has published in the Asiatic Journal for September or October last, a criticism on Professor Stewart's translation, presenting at the same time his own; but in what degree he is qualified to censure or correct others, will best appear on reference to an article published in the Asiatic Journal of this month, (November) where an Orientalist, who assumes the title of Musnif, undertakes to prove that in the small space of ten lines, as translated by Gulchin, there are no less than eighteen errors; at which rate his version of the whole chapter would furnish many hundreds.

We shall next proceed to notice the "Rudiments of Bengali Grammar," published in August of the present year, (1821) by another ingenious member of the East India College, near Hertford; Graves Chamney Haughton, M. A. Professor of Sanscrit and Bengali. This work is comprised in a quarto volume of nearly 200 pages, beautifully printed; and on the authority of two or three acquaintances, whom a long residence in Bengal, diligent study, and colloquial practice of the language, have rendered competent judges, we venture to affirm, that Mr. Haughton has executed his task with considerable skill; and the importance of this Grammatical Treatise will be fully manifest, when we consider, (in the words of our author's preface) "that the Bengali is the vernacular dialect of five and twenty millions of British subjects, of whom, perhaps, not above a fourth part is able to speak any other language.'

In a future number of this Journal we shall call our readers' attention to the "Specimen Catalogi Codicum Mss. Orientalium Bibliothecæ Academiæ Lugduno-Batavæ," of which, though published in December of the last year, (1820) a copy has only reached us three or four days ago; and we shall therefore content ourselves on the present occasion, with mentioning, that it is the work of Mr. Hamaker, Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of Leyden, where the volume, containing above 270 pages, quarto, was printed. However short the space of time that this work has been in our possession, we are enabled to pronounce it a rich treasure of Eastern Literature-the title above quoted has sufficiently explained the nature of its subject. In this "Specimen" the learned Professor has examined and described twelve of the precious works selected from the nume-ous Eastern Manuscripts preserved at Leyden. Those twelve abic. The titles and copious extracts are given in the age, and faithfully translated. Biographical notices

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of the authors, and a multiplicity of historical, geographical, philological, and critical illustrations, evince how admirably Mr. Hamaker is qualified for the great task which he has undertaken. "Si vita viresque supersint, totum aliquando Codicum Orientalium Catalogum, pari exornatum cura atque expolitum, tibi tradere decrevi," &c. (p. vi.) We learn from the preface, (p. vii.) that under the auspices of Professor Hamaker, a young and highly accomplished Orientalist, one of his pupils, named Uylenbroek, proposed to publish in the year 1821, a description of the province of Irak Agemi, or Parthia, derived from Eastern authors. We shall close this article with the mention of a letter lately received from one of our correspondents in Bengal, who informs us, that a very curious work on the religion and superstitions of those extraordinary Indian sects, called Jeynes and Boodhists, may shortly be expected from the pen of Colonel William Francklin, who has devoted particular research to the subject of serpent worship, which appears to have prevailed in most regions of the world: also to cavern and temple worship. Colonel Francklin has long been known and deservedly esteemed as the ingenious author of "Travels in Persia," the "History of Shah Aulum," and an "Essay on the Plain of Troy." He has also composed a "Dissertation on the ancient city of Palibothra," and other interesting works.

OBSERVATIONS

On some Remarks in the last No. of the MUSEUM CRITICUM.

I BEG leave to offer, through the medium of your publication, a few cursory observations on an article headed E. H. Barker O. T. N., which graces the last Number of that recently resuscitated work, the Museum Criticum, and which, from its dictatorial and arrogant tone, evidently emanates from a junta, in their own opinion at least, præclarorum hominum ac primorum signiferúmque.

Its

want of modesty, however, though its leading, is not its worst feature. The temper and the feelings, in which it originated, may be clearly deduced from the opening paragraph; which, in itself, independently of the circumstance that this periodical is under the direction of a preux chevalier of criticism, (not to hazard the conjecture that the article in question proceeded from him,) is far more illiberal and ungentlemanly than any thing, which has been laid to the charge of "Messrs. Burges and Barker."

That it may lose none of its force, I quote it at length:"Our attention has been called to the following passage of a popular and entertaining work, called Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk: the author speaking of the Literature of Edinburgh, says, 'Mr. D-; the Professor of Greek, has published several little things in the Cambridge Classical Researches, and is certainly very much above the common run of scholars.' Vol. I. p. 168. What the common run of scholars' at Edinburgh may be, we know not; but what Mr. D-is, the world has had some opportunity of learning, from a work, which he calls a continuation of Dalzel's Collectanea Graca. Our only wish is to contradict most positively the assertion, that he has ever been a contributor, small or great, to this publication. How such a strange mistake originated, we cannot form the least conjecture.'

Would any one have expected that so trifling an error in Peter's Letters, of which there can be no doubt Professor Dunbar is wholly innocent, should be seized with such avidity for the unworthy purpose of being rendered subservient to an unhandsome reflection on the work of a contemporary scholar, and this too by men, who appeal to "the uniform tenor of their writings and their lives" in proof of their gentlemanly character? Having occasionally observed this gentleman's name in the Classical Journal, I can readily believe that this circumstance alone would be amply sufficient to provoke the above-cited splenetic effusion. It is scarcely credible that only a single page should intervene before we arrive at professions and protestations, such as the following:-"From all asperity of criticism, and indeed from the censure of contemporaries we have abstained altoge ther, as not calculated to advance the real purpose of the undertaking. If in any instance we have inadvertently suffered a sentence or a word to escape us, which could give uneasiness to any one, we feel sincere regret. To oppose or

discourage the writings of other scholars has been directly the reverse of our intention!!!" If this amiable and inoffensive tone be not the mere picta tectoria lingua, we shall doubtless find in the succeeding Number a suitable apology to Professor Dunbar, for this wanton and unprovoked attack.

Leaving to Mr. Barker the explication of the mysterious initials O. T. N., and to this writer the undisturbed enjoyment of his vapid joke upon the subject, I proceed to notice an assertion equally hasty and positive, and equally unwarranted, with many, that occur in the few pages devoted to this subject in the Mus. Crit. Mr. Barker having been introduced as the author of that "extraordinary" Pamphlet, (a very convenient and ambiguous epithet,) entitled Aristarchus Anti-Blomfieldianus, it is remarked:"But with the bitterness of his wrath, for which he cannot find a semblance of provocation, we have no wish to meddle." That Mr. Barker has found, not indeed "the semblance," but many real causes, of provocation, I am convinced will be readily admitted by all, who have given his book an attentive and unbiassed perusal; and in favor of this opinion a strong presumption may be derived from the confessedly unprecedented circumstance of an elaborate reply having immediately appeared in the Quarterly Review, expressly in vindication of the person, against whom the Aristarchus was directed. It may perhaps be a subject of regret to those, who are disposed to regard Mr. Barker's indefatigable exertions in the cause of literature with the favor and consideration, which they so eminently deserve, that his answer should not have been framed with that attention to politeness and refinement, which characterise the compositions of more designing writers; who thus evade all charges of personal animosity and uncharitable motives, by appealing to their mild and gentlemanly and polished phrases. The facts, however, which Mr. Barker has stated remain unrefuted, and he has merely spared his readers the trouble of affixing the terms of reprobation.

An "extraordinary" exemplification of the figure termed Anacoluthon occurs in the course of this brilliant apostrophe to Mr. Barker and the Aristarchus. We are first told that the extracts given in the Reviews, "have been sufficient to satisfy the world respecting the taste, the feeling, and the scholarship of Aristarchus, and have at once succeeded in procuring him a notoriety, which he had been so many years la