1872.] Presidenfs Address. 23 



the leisure afforded by the clerical profession, enabled him to keep up his ma- 

 thematical pursuits. The Archdeacon lately told me that he had never devoted 

 himself to observing natural phenomena. He was, however, always ready to 

 take the facts fm-nished by others ; and to deduce from them by the princi- 

 ples of applied mathematics, their legitimate physical consequences. In this 

 direction, his labours were of immense assistance to the practical investigator 

 and of great value to the cause of science. He was the author of as many as 

 nine or ten important papers in applied mathematics, which were from time 

 to time published in our Journal ; and I believe he was also a constant con- 

 tributor to the Philosophical Transactions. I may add that the Archdeacon 

 was member of our Council in 1842 and the two following years, and was 

 also constantly a member of our Committees. 



By the deaths of Sir J. F. W. Herschel, and Col. Sir P. T. Cautley, two 

 very distinguished names have gone from our list of honorary members. 



The Report of the Council on the Oriental publications will give you an 

 account of the works published by the Society in the Bibliotheca Indica, not 

 only during the past year, but to some extent since the commencement of the 

 series in 1818. I do not propose, and I am not competent, to offer a critical 

 discussion of these. They appear to me to afford substantial proof that the 

 Society is not idle or remiss in the discharge of the public duty, which the 

 reception of the Grovernment grant makes incumbent on it. I am, however, 

 induced to say a very few words on this point, because in a late number of 

 the Contemporary Review (that of September last) the eminent scholar, Max 

 Miiller, while praising, no doubt most justly, the labours of his countrymen, 

 Drs. Biihler, and Kielhorn at Bombay, expressed himself in terms, which 

 seem to me to imply an undeserved disparagement of the results produced 

 by om-selves. The passage to which I refer runs as follows : — 



"Equally important for the encouragement of native scliolarship is the pub- 

 lication of the * Bombay Sanskrit Series/ under the editorship of Drs. Biihler and 

 Kielhorn. What distinguishes these editions of Sanskrit works from all others, is the 

 .attempt to edit each text according to the strictest rules of critical scholarship. 

 Most of the Sanskrit texts which have been published in India, many also that have 

 been published in Europe, are, like the editiones principes of Greek and Eoman 

 classics,- mere reprints of one MS. If various readings of other MSS. were given, 

 they were given at random, without any previous classification of MSS. ; and in many 

 cases the editors themselves, not understanding the text as they found it, have 

 altered the original wording and spoiled it. Drs. Biihler and Kielhorn, as well as their 

 native colleagues, have honestly endeavoured to restore a text that is founded on the 

 authority of those MSS. which, after a careful examination, had proved to be the 

 raost authentic, and they have persistently abstained from introducing conjectural 

 readings. We hope that their example will be followed, and that we shall have no 

 more of those so-called eclectic editions which have brought so much discredit on 

 Sanskrit scholarship. The only thing which we regret is, that the number of texts 

 published in the Bombay Series should be so limited. If this should be owing to a 



