40 Withdrawal of Members. [Feb. 



Professor Theodor Noeldeke of tlie University of Sfcrassburg, one 

 of the most distiuguislied Arabists of Grerinany — perhaps, since the 

 death of H. Fleischer, H. Thorbecke, and Aiigust Miiller, the most dis- 

 tingaished — , the author of numerous works dealing with the language, 

 literature, religion and history of the Arabs. But he is not only cele- 

 brated as an Arabist. In Syriac also he is one of the chief authorities in 

 Europe, and has explored the many dialects of that widely spread form 

 of Semitic speech, of which his grammars are the standard authority 

 for the Mandasan, or language of the Gnostics or Sabians of the Kur'an, 

 the northern or Edessan Syriac, the Falmyrene of the inscriptions of 

 Tadmur, and the dialects spoken by the Christians of Palestine, la 

 the Pahlavi of the Sasanian kings also he has greatly advanced our 

 knowledge, and has edited a work in that language, one of the few 

 remnants of the literature which was swept away by the Muhammadan 

 conquest, containing a romance or legendary history dealing with 

 Ardeshir Papakan, the founder of the Sasanian dynasty. 



Dr. Reinhold Rest, the late Librarian of the India Office, a post 

 from wich he retired a few months ago after an incumbency of 24 years, 

 who is regarded with respect and affection throughout the entire world 

 of Oriental studies. Himself the most many-sided student in all bran- 

 ches of that department of learning — even the most remote, such as 

 the dialects of Indo-China and the vast tract occupied by the Malay 

 languages on the one side, and the Svvahili of the African coast on 

 the other — he has been always ready to place his great stores of know- 

 ledge at the service of other members of the craft, and to help forward 

 the advancement of science wherever he found an opportunity. Yet, 

 though his favourite studies lay in somewhat out-of-the-way regions, 

 he has by no means neglected the better-known fields of Oriental letters, 

 and he has long since won his place among solid scholars in Sanskrit. 



He has been honoured by the University of Oxford with his 

 honorary degree of M.A., by that of Edinburgh with the degree of 

 LL.D., and by the Government with the Companionship of the Indian 

 Empire. The members of this Society, in whose work he has always 

 felt the warmest interest, recognize that in enrolling him among their 

 Honorary Members they are doing no less honour to themselves than to 

 him. 



The following gentlemen have expressed a wish to withdraw from 

 the Society: — 



Movilvie Golam Sarwar. 



Rai Bahadur Dhanapati Singh, Dugher. 



R. Sewell, Esq., C.S. 



