308 Literary Intelligence. [No. 3, 



The following is extracted from a letter from Professor Wright of 

 Dublin to Dr. W. N. Lees, dated March 19th, 1860. 



Just now the Government and the mass of the people (led by 

 Trevelyan, Monier Williams, &c.) are possessed with a rage for Ro- 

 manizing the Oriental characters, and anglicizing the Hindu races, 

 and what not, the result of which, so far as I can see, is, that Oriental 

 learning will sink among us still lower than it is, that we shall have 

 lots of bad Hindustani translations of English books, and that the 

 native literature, which is really iiseful in a historical point of view 

 at least, will be utterly neglected. Your Asiatic Society must bestir 

 itself and try to save what it can. For myself, I am working at 

 the 2nd vol. of the Arabic Grammar, and after that, I shall probably 

 edit a reading book with a complete glossary. Besides, I have on 

 hand, an English Hindustani Dictionary, which I am compiling from 

 my own reading and the best published sources I can get. Have 

 you seen Ahlwardt's onslaught on the fame of Von Hammer, entitled 

 " Chalefelahmar's Qasside von W. Ahlwardt, Greifswald, 1859" — a 

 good book, as is also his edition of an historical work with the title 

 "El Fachri, Geschichte der islamischen Reiche...von Ibn Etthiq- 

 thaqa...von W. Ahlwardt, Gotha, 1860." Further there is the 9th 

 fasciculus of Juynboll's c^Uslll &*>\ya containing the introduction and 

 the notes to the first 2 fasciculi (588 pp. and cviii. pp.) ...Vuller's 

 Persian Lexicon goes on slowly, — I have seen 6 fasciculi in 8 parts 

 as far as aJjJji'.... Possibly you may not have seen Chwolson " uber 

 die Ueberreste der altbabylonischen Literatur in Arabisehen Ueberset- 

 zungen," a most extraordinary work and very interesting, if one 

 could only believe it all. Yet Chwolson is a good and cautious 

 scholar (as his " Ssabier in d. Ssabismus" shows), and has studied 

 this particular branch of the Arabian literature more than any man 

 alive. The chief work is the Agricultura Nabatha3orum (^*sJ| 

 AjJoaUi) along with the translations by ^-jA 2 ^ <i^'- 



A letter from Dr. Sprenger dated last October, an extract from 

 which is published in the last No. of the Zeitschrift, announces the 

 result of his examination of the MS. of Wakidy's Mughaziy in the 

 British Museum. Though an imperfect one, this MS. contains a 

 third more of matter than the text published in our Bibliotheca by 



