278 ON THE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE 



or Text of the Vinac:' P. Paulinus a S. BartholO' 

 MAEo, in his " Musemn Borgium" has, in his usual 

 petulant, inaccurate, and desiiltoiv manner, exhi- 

 bited some confused notices concerning the Bidagaty 

 the Padi-mauka, the Kaimnurcay and a '' Compemlium 

 of the Banna Laws,"" composed in the Pali languao'e. 

 Dr. F. Buchanan, in his ^^ Essay on the Reiioion and 

 Literature of the Barnias,'' (Asiat. Research, vol. vi.) 

 has pubhshed a translation of the " Kammua" e?<e- 

 cuted from the Zf7/i/2 version of Vincentio Sangep. 

 MANO, which differs considerably from the notices con- 

 cerning that work published by P. Paulinus, aceojri- 

 ing to whom, in 177^, an Italian translation of it wa.s 

 made in Pegu, at the instance of cardinal Borgia. 

 Whether any of these versions ha;ve been made directly 

 from the Pallor only throughthe medium ofa Barma 

 or Siamese version, is, at least, very dubious; Vjutxhe 

 enumeration may suffice to show how far the atten- 

 tion of Europeans has been turned to this latiguage. 

 It would appear, that the learned La Croze, in his 

 epistolary correspondence, has also treated concern- 

 ing the relations and affinities of the Pali, but I have 

 had no opportunity of consulting the collection of 

 his letters. P. Paulinus, in his coarse, acrimoni- 

 ous, and offensive way has also obtruded on the pub- 

 lic, some conjectures concerning it, but the publica- 

 tion of his " Vyacarana, seu locupletissima Sam- 

 scrdamicae linguae Institutio,'' Romae 1 804, has , 

 given a death-blow to his vaunted pretensions to 

 profound oriental learning; and shown, as was pre- 

 viously suspected, that he was incapable of accu- 

 rately distinguishing -Slaw^avV from the vernacular lan- 

 guages of India"* 



* The philological merits or demerits of P. Paulinus form no part of 

 the proper subject of this essay ; he is only mentioned here for the pur- 

 pose of disclaiming his critical authority, when placed, as it has frequently 



