Oriental Literature. 33 



liam Ouseley, Mr. Burrow, Mr. Hunter, and 

 a number more of the same country, who spent a 

 considerable time in India, have added much to 

 our stock of knowledge respecting that important 

 portion of Asia. But among all the writers on 

 this subject, few have rendered such essential 

 service to the cause of oriental literature as the 

 Reverend Thomas Maurice, a learned and in- 

 genious English Divine, who, in his Indian An- 

 tiquities, has collected and laid before the public 

 a mass of information respecting the theology, 

 geography, jurisprudence, political establishments, 

 and various literature of Hindostan, so rich and in- 

 structive, as will entitle him to the lasting gratitude 

 of every friend to liberal knowledge, and genuine 

 religion/ 



The living languages of India have been better 

 and more extensively understood by Europeans of 

 the eighteenth century than ever before. This is 

 particularly the case with the Bengalee language, 

 of which grammars and dictionaries were intro- 

 duced into Europe for the first time during this 

 period, and into which a part of the Christian 

 Scriptures were for the first time translated. The 

 establishment of the British East-India Company, 

 and the extensive commercial arrangements of that 

 association, may be considered as bearing a near 

 relation to these events, and as having exerted a 

 favourable influence on the general interests of 

 oriental literature. 



CHINESE LITERATURE. 



It is generally known that Europe is indebted to 

 the learned men of France for almost all the know- 

 ledge of Chinese literature of which it can boast. 



* See Indian Antiquities; or Dissertations relative to Hindostan, J vols. 8vo. 



