1832.] Asiatic Society 563 



ADDRESS. 

 The Asiatic Society to H. H. Wilson, Esq. thfir Secretary. 



"When other Societies in this Presidency, which, either in science or the lighter 

 walks of literature, have shared the benefit of your counsel and assistance, are now 

 anxious to associate their expressions of gratitude and regret with your approach- 

 ing departure from India, it would ill become that one with which your connec- 

 tion is the oldest and most important of all, to suffer the most distinguished of 

 its members to leave these shores, without giving some public utterance to the sen- 

 timents which must on such an occasion animate every individual member. 



From the time, now nearly 50 years since, when the Asiatic Society was 

 instituted, "for inquiring into the History and Antiquities ; the Arts, Sciences and 

 Literature of Asia" — none, Sir, has with greater assiduity, or more splendid suc- 

 cess, contributed to the advancement of that object, than yourself. In more than 

 one department of their varied inquiries, your services are eminently conspicu- 

 ous : but in that one, which must on every account claim precedence among the 

 subjects of this Society's research, they are pre-eminent and unrivalled. 



The ancient learning of India, which from the days of Pythagoras downward, 

 had been the object of distant admiration, but never of clear definite knowledge, to 

 the whole of civilized Europe, had indeed, at the period of your first arrival here, 

 begun to emerge from the obscurity which had for ages encompassed it. The 

 labours, as we are proud to declare, of some of the earliest members of this Socie- 

 ty, had led the way in unlocking the sacred treasures of Brahmanical literature : 

 through the ardent inquiring mind of our illustrious Founder and President, partly 

 preceded, partly accompanied and followed, by the profound erudition of Colebrooke, 

 the philological diligence of Wilkins, and some others ; specimens of Indian genius 

 and science had been given to the world in an English dress ; and the matchless 

 language in which all these treasures were contained, unknown before and unstudied 

 by Europeans, except a few who keeping it from all others would have made 

 it an instrument of their own interasted views, was now partially exhibited to the 

 more inquiring of the students of the West. But fully to throw open this re- 

 mote and difficult walk of learned research, to make what was hitherto necessarily 

 confined to a few amongst ourselves intimately conversant with the Pandits of India, 

 accessible in some degree to others destitute of this advantage — to render the study 

 of Sanscrit, as that of Arabic and Persian had long been, possibel , if not easy to persons 

 confined to the libraries of Europe — and thus create that general diffusion 

 of the study which, already reaching beyond our countrymen, is stimulating to 

 exertion the laborious students of France and Germany, this, Sir, is a merit, 

 which belongs, above every other individual, to you. 



For the grounds of this judgment, we need point only to your Sanscrit and 

 English Dictionary : a work, which, while facilitating and accelerating the 

 progress of all subsequent students, can hardly be appreciated justly by any 

 who has not some experience of this gigantic species of labour : a labour so 

 immense, that, even when applied to the long-studied classical idioms of Greece 

 and Rome, it has been characterized by one of the most eminent restorers 

 of learning as comprising within itself alone every variety of literary toil. 

 In the present instance, when we consider the multifarious sources from which 

 the compilation was to be made (none of which, with one brilliant exception, had 

 been before subjected to the severe accuracy of European criticism), — the 



