to improvements and excellence, are ever destined to be polluted with mifchief and blood, a tribute of the higheft panegyric and praife is yet juftly to be paid to the actors in the Reformation. They gave way to the movements of a liberal and a refolute spirit. They taught the rulers of nations, that the obedience of the fubject is the child of juftice, and that men must be governed by their opinions and their reafon. Their magnanimity is illuftrated by great and confpicuous exploits; which at the fame time that they awaken admiration, are an example to fupport and animate virtue in the hour of trial and peril. The exiftence of civil liberty was deeply connected with the doctrines for which they contended and fought. While they treated with fcorn an abject and a cruel fuperftition, and lifted and fublimed the dignity of man, by calling his attention to a fimpler and a wifer theology, they were ftrenuous to give a permanent fecurity to the political conftitution of their ftate. The happieft and the best interefts of fociety were the objects for which they buckled on their armour; and to wish and to act for their duration and ftability are perhaps the most important employments of patriotism and public affection. The Reformation may fuffer fluctuations in its forms; but, for the good and the profperity of mankind, it is to be hoped that it is never to yield and to fubmit to the errors and the fuperftitions which it overwhelmed; that it is to guard with anxiety against their advances, to be fcrupulously jealous, and to take an early alarm. In this enlightened age of philofophy and reflexion, it is difficult indeed to be conceived that any ferious attempts to establish them shall be made; yet, if by fome fatality in human affairs, fuch endeavours should actually be tried, and fhould fucceed, it may be concluded, without the poffibility of a doubt, that all the boafted freedom which the Reformation has fostered would then perish for ever. The fentiment of liberty, and the fire of heaven which our fathers tranfmitted to their pofterity, would expire and be extinguished. Men would know the debasement of fervility, and forget the honours of their kind. They would renounce their natural, their religious, and their political rights; and be contented to creep upon the earth, to lick its duft, and to adore the caprices and the power of a tyrant.'

We have only to add that, annexed to this History, we have a judicious selection of the most valuable papers and records refpecting the establishment of the reformed religion in Scotland. -For our general opinion of the Author's ftyle, fee our remark at the end of our account of his View of Society in Europe, in the Review for March, 1778, p. 207; and a farther stricture at the close of the critique on his Obfervations concerning the Law and Conflitution of Scotland, Rev. April 1779, p. 280.

G.11.4.

ART. II. A Grammar of the Bengal Language. By Nathaziel Braf, fey Halhed. Printed at Hoogly, in Bengal. Small 4to. 1 1. ́i s, 1778. Sold by Elmfley in London *.

ΤΗ

HE wisdom of the British parliament having, within these few years, taken a decifive part in the internal policy and civil adminiftration of its Afiatic territories, and having, by a formal act of authority, in the establishment of a fupreme court of juftice, incorporated the kingdom of Bengal with the British empire, it is the duty of a good citizen to put in execution every measure in his power that may tend to complete the great work which has been fo happily begun. No measure appears more proper for this purpose than the cultivation of a right understanding, and of a general medium of intercourse between the Government and its fubjects; between the natives of Europe, who are to rule, and the inhabitants of India, who are to obey.'

In order to contribute his fhare toward the public fervice, the Author has attempted the prefent grammatical explanation of the vernacular language of Bengal, a language extremely different from that idiom, which, under the name of Moors, has been supposed to prevail over all India.

The native language of Bengal is intimately connected with the Shanferit, the grand fource of Indian literature, and the parent of almost every dialect, from the Perfian gulph to the Chinese feas. The Shanfcrit tongue, which was of the greatest extent, and of the most venerable and unfathomable antiquity, is at prefent fhut up in the libraries of Bramins, and appropriated to the records of their religion. Traces of its general prevalence may be found in the Perfian and Arabic; and the Hindoftanic or Indian language has exactly the fame connexion with it as the modern dialects of France and Italy have with pure Latin; the groundwork being the fame, the inflexions and arrangement different. But of all Oriental languages, the Bengalefe is the nearest to the Shanfcrit in expreffion, conftruction, and character.

This circumftance will doubtlefs recommend the present performance to the curious, efpecially if we may credit an affertion which the Author gives on the authority of the Raja of Kifhenagur, the most learned and able antiquary that Bengal has produced within this century. The Raja fays that he has, in his own poffeffion, Shanfcrit books which give an account a communication formerly fubfifting between India

Though printed, in the Eaft Indies, in 1778, this Grammar was not published in London till the year 1780.

and

and Egypt; wherein the Egyptians are conftantly described as difciples, not as inftructors; and as feeking that liberal education and thofe fciences in Hindoftan, which none of their own countrymen had fufficient knowledge to impart. The few paffages of Greek authors refpecting the Brachmans feem to confirm this obfervation, which, if admitted, will deprive Egypt of its long boafted claim to originality in language, in policy, and in religion.

The connexion between the Bengalefe and the Shanfcrit renders the prefent work very interefting to the learned; and the purposes to which the former is applied in the kingdom of Bengal equally recommends it to the bufy and commercial part of his Majefty's fubjects in the Eaft. The Bengalese is the fole channel of perfonal and epiftolary communication among the Hindoos, of every occupation and tribe. All their business is tranfacted, and all their accounts are kept in it; and, as their fyftem of education is, in general, very confined, there are few among them that can write or read any other idiom; the uneducated, or eight parts in ten of the whole nation, are neceffarily confined to the ufage of their mother tongue.

The Board of Commerce at Calcutta, and the feveral chiefs of the fubordinate factories, cannot properly conduct the India Company's mercantile correspondence and negociations, without the intermediate agency of Bengal interpreters; for the whole fyftem of the investment, in every stage of its preparation and provision, is managed in the language of the country.'

Important as this language muft confequently appear in a commercial line, its adoption would be no lefs beneficial to the revenue department: For although the contracts, leafes, and other obligations executed between government and its immediate dependants, continue to be drawn out in the Perfian dialect, yet the under-leafes and engagements, which these in their turn grant to the peasants and cultivators of the ground, and all thofe copyhold tenures called Pottahs, are conftantly writ ten in Bengalefe. The internal policy of the kingdom demands an equal share of attention; and the many impofitions to which the poorer fort are expofed, in a country ftill Auctuating between the relics of former defpotic dominion and the liberal fpirit of its prefent legiflature, have long cried out for a remedy. This has lately been propofed in the appointment of gentlemen of mature experience in the manners and cuftoms of the natives of Bengal, to act as jufticiary arbitrators between the head farmer and his under-tenants: with whom the indigent villager might find immediate and effectual redress from the exactions of an imperious landlord or grafping collector, freed from the delays of an ordinary court or juftice, and the expence and inconvenience of a regular fuit. Such a measure,

Z 4

by

by holding out to each induftrious individual a near prospect of property and fecurity in his poffeffions, promises, in the moft effectual manner, to enfure ftability to our conquefts, and popularity to our administration; and will probably set open the British territories as an afylum for the difcouraged husbandman, the neglected artift, and oppreffed labourer from every quarter of Hindoftan.'

Such are the important objects which Mr. Halhed prefents to his readers, as intimately connected with the ftudy of the Bengalefe tongue; and there can scarcely be entertained the smallest doubt that an attention to this language may be attended with confiderable advantages both to the European governors and the Afiatic fubjects.

The Romans, fays Mr. Halhed, a people of little learning, and lefs tafte, had no fooner conquered Greece, than they applied themselves to the ftudy of the Greek: they adopted its laws even before they could read them, and civilifed themselves in fubduing their enemies. The English, who have made fuch a capital progrefs in the polite arts, and who are mafters of Bengal, may, with more ease and greater propriety, add its language to their acquifitions; that they may explain the benevolent principles of that legislation whofe decrees they enforce; that they may convince while they command; and be at once the difpenfers of laws and of science to an extenfive nation.'

In the above paffage the Author, furely, treats the Romans with too much feverity, condemning their want of tafte, in the fame moment that he mentions their careful study of the Greek language, than which nothing can set their good tafte in a more advantageous point of view. The fuccefs with which the Roman poets, orators, and hiftorians imitated the Grecian originals, difcovers no lefs tafte than judgment; and if we except the city of Athens, what other, on the face of the earth, was adorned with more literary genius than the capital of the Roman empire! The Romans indeed borrowed all their improvements in the fine arts from the Greeks, but what European nation has not done the fame? The Greek language, therefore, was not only an ufeful and ornamental, but, in fome measure, a neceffary branch of study among all who pretended to tafte and refinement. It became the language of learning and philofophy over the whole Roman empire; but it never was adopted in the western provinces, at least as the language of legiflation, policy, or even of common intercourfe and converfation. The Romans were peculiarly attentive to the diffusion of the Latin language, as we are informed by hiftory, and as every one may be convinced from the great mixture of Latin in the modern languages of Europe. We much question, therefore, whether the example of the Romans in learning the Greek can, with any

propriety,

propriety, be urged as an argument with the English for learning the Bengalefe language. Were England to follow the policy of Rome, fhe would be at the utmost pains to extend the knowledge of the English language over her Oriental dominions; if any books could be difcovered in the Arabic, the Perfian, or the Shanfcrit tongues, that deserved notice on account of the regularity of invention, beauty of compofition, and force of reafoning, which diftinguifh the Greek and Roman claffics, England would be particularly careful to tranflate fuch writings, and to adopt them as her own; but she would never condefcend to employ a foreign dialect as the medium of either commercial or political intercourfe with people whom the regarded as her fubjects. G.H.S.

ART. II. Experiments upon Vegetables, discovering their great Power of purifying the common Air in the Sun-fhine, and of injuring it in the Shade, and at Night, &c. By John Ingenhoufz, Counsellor of the Court, and Body Phylician to their Imperial and Royal Majefties, FR S. &c. 8vo. 5 s. fewed. Elmily. 1779.

TH

HOSE who have attended to the numerous and important discoveries made by Dr. Priestley, particularly on the fubject of Air, muft have been greatly ftruck with the last observations communicated by him to the public; relative to the production of the pureft dephlogisticated air, apparently proceeding from a green and undoubtedly vegetable fubftance, which appears at the lower part of an inverted receiver filled with water, and which has for fome time been exposed to the light of the sun *.

During the laft fummer Dr. Ingenhouíz has fuccefsfully profecuted this interefting fubject; and in the present work has communicated to the public the very extraordinary results that attended his inveftigation of it. For the purpose of profecuting his inquiries, in a proper fituation, and without interruption, he informs us, that he difengaged himself from the noise of the metropolis, and retired to a small villa; and that this work contains a part of the refult of above 500 experiments, which were all made in lefs than three months: having begun them in June, and finished them in the beginning of September laft, working from morning tillight.' Whatever I have been able to deduce from my labours,' he adds, is done in a hafly manner; as my stay in this country was far too limited to allow me to compofe my work in a regular and more fatisfactory manner.'

The ingenious Author had not long been employed in interrogating nature, in his rural retreat, before he faw a moft im

See his Experiments and Obfervations on various Branches of Natural Philofophy; and our particular account of this fubject, in the first article of our Review for September laft, page 165, &c.

portant