478 



dison justly remarks, that theatrical entertainments were invented for 

 the accomplishment and refinement of human nature; and the Athe- 

 nian and Roman plays were written with such a regard to morality, 

 that Socrates used often to frequent the one, and Cicero the other. 



In the preface to Sacontala, Sir William Jones observes, that 

 " by whomsoever or in whatever age the entertainment of dramatic 

 poetry was invented, it is very certain, that it was carried to great 

 perfection in its kind when Vicramaditya, who reigned in the 

 first century before Christ, gave encouragement to poets, phi- 

 lologers, and mathematicians, at a time when the Britons were 

 as unlettered and unpolished as the army of Hanumat. Nine 

 men of genius, commonly called the Nine Gems, attended his 

 court, and were splendidly supported by his bounty. Calidas, 

 the author of Sacontala, and the Shakespeare of India, is una- 

 nimously allowed to have been one of them. Some of his con- 

 temporaries, and other Hindoo poets even to our own times, 

 have composed so many tragedies, comedies, farces, and musical 

 pieces, that the Indian theatre would fill as many volumes as that 

 of any nation in ancient or modern Europe. They are all in verse 

 where the dialogue is elevated, and in prose where it is familiar: 

 the men of rank and learning are represented speaking pure Sans- 

 crit, and the women Pracrit; which is little more than the lan- 

 guage of the brahmins melted down by a delicate articulation to 

 the softness of Italian; while the low persona? of the drama speak 

 the vulgar dialects of the several provinces, which they are sup- 

 posed to inhabit." 



I had no European officer, serjeant, or soldier, either at Bha- 

 derpoor or Zinore, nor even a Bombay sepoy; the garrison of 



