lii APPENDIX. 



vvliich she has promoted the study of Sanscrit at the University of Bonn ; by the ap- 

 pointment lo that University of A. W. Von Schlegel, who is one of the best Sanscrit 

 scholars of the present age ; and finally, by thehigli respect which she shews to Baron 

 VVni. Humboldt, whose philosophical inquiries into the grammatical construction of 

 Oriental languages, has at once proved the extent of his philosophical genius and 

 the value of his philological inquiries. Bavaria, by the choice which she has made 

 of Dr. Ruckert for the Oriental Professorship at the University of Erlangen, by the . 

 disinterested maimer in which she has enabled Professors Bopp and Frank to carry 

 on their Oriental studies in France and in England, and to complete their Sanscrit 

 grammars, has conferred a benefit on those who make a study of Oriental literature. 



Holland^ by having established at Batavia the first literary society that was ever 

 formed in Asia, for investigating the literature and science of that part of the globe, 

 by having encouraged the works on botany and natural history of Van Rhcede, 

 Burman, Linnjeus,* and Rumphius ; by having patronized and assisted with the whole 

 influence of her government, Valentyn's valuable history of the Dutch East-India 

 possessions, is entitled to the very first place amongst those nations who have pro- 

 moted the acquisition of knowledge relative to Asia. 



Portugal, from having been the first European power which ever had any perma- 

 nent establishments in India, possesses amongst her records many valuable memoirs 

 relative to the state of the people of that country, during a great part if not the whole 

 of the sixteenth century. 



S|)ain, from having been so long the seat of the Mohammedan kingdoms of 

 Seville and Cordova, at a time when those kingdoms were famed for the encourage- 

 meut which they gave to every branch of literature, contains in her public and private 

 libraries valuable information relative to all those branches of literature and science 

 which were known by the Mohammedans in Spain, and at Bagdad during the most 

 remarkable period of their history, and which are intimately connected with the 

 diflerent branches of literature and science which still prevail throughout many 

 parts of Asia. 



Rome, from being the seat of the College of the Propaganda, and the deposi- 

 tory of the reports which were made by the Jesuit, and all the other Catholic 

 Missionaries in India, during the 15th, 16th, l"tli, and 18th centuries, affords much 

 information relative to the people of India which cannot be procured from any other 

 source in Europe or Asia. France, from the very early encouragement which she 

 gave to the study of Oriental literature ; from the value and the number of the 

 Oriental works in her libraries ; from her early intercourse with Siam; from the able 

 men she has had in her diff'erent factories in Asia Minor ; from the researches made 

 by La Bourdonnais and Dupleix, into every branch of the trade and politics of India; 

 from the works of Commerjon, Lechenaade de la Tour, and Gentil, on the science 



* Linnseus, besides his other great works on natural liistory, wrote the Flora Zexylanica. 



