1837.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 801 



improved your great faculties ; — that your scientific attainments are on the most 

 extended scale ; — that as a Hebrew Scholar you were early distinguished ;— that 

 your knowledge as a modern Linguist may be said to be universal ; — that you are 

 equally familiar with the astronomy of the Siddhantas, the mythology of the 

 Purdnas, and the mystical doctrines of the Vedas ; while there is no department of 

 the literature and science of Arabia, that has escaped your scrutinizing research. 



We trust that, in the leisure of dignified retirement, you will be enabled to 

 put forth the maturer fruits of your rich and highly cultivated mind. We are 

 confident that your well earned reputation will be sustained by whatever you 

 perform ; and we are sanguine enough to hope that our country may now boast 

 of possessing an Englishman, the depth and variety of whose oriental studies 

 are not surpassed by any (numerous and distinguished as they are) of the Scholars 

 of the continent. 



We cannot allow this opportunity to pass without assuring you of the deep 

 sense of obligation we feel towards you for your unremitting attention to the 

 duties of your station as Vice-President of our Society, and for the alacrity with 

 which on all occasions you have afforded us the benefit of your opinion and 

 advice, and the aid of your learning and judgment on the difficult and continually 

 recurring references that have been submitted to our consideration. 



We are in some degree consoled for your loss to ourselves by reflecting that, 

 here you have no more to learn : — that though your acquirements are beyond the 

 standard, which is ordinarily reached in the longest and most laborious life, you 

 are yet in the vigor of manhood ; and that you are about to return to a land 

 where you will meet with the distinction, which is due to abilities so eminent 

 and to attainments so various. 



It is our earnest desire that you will gratify us by sitting for your Portrait as 

 soon after arrival in England as may be convenient to yourself. For the Mem- 

 bers of our Society who have the happiness to know you, no token of remini- 

 scence is requisite ; but the wish is reasonable that our Hall should be decorated 

 with the resemblance of one, who, while among us, was so useful and so dis- 

 tinguished a Member of our Society. 



(Signed) Edward Ryan, President. 



The Reverend Dr. Mill read the following reply, the President and 

 members still standing. 

 Mr. President, 



The Address which you, in the name of this Society, have done me the 

 high honor of presenting to me, is one which I cannot rise to answer with- 

 out some feelings of doubt and embarrassment. For I fear to incur the im- 

 putation of affected modesty on the one hand, --or on the other, what I 

 would equally wish to avoid, the appearance of slighting in any degree the deli- 

 berate judgment of an assembly like this, — were I to give expression to my actual 

 sentiments, on hearing the terms of strong and noble eulogy with which you 

 have dignified my scanty contributions to your learned stores, and the compa- 

 ratively humble attainments from which those contributions have proceeded. 

 But whatever may be the real value of these labours and attainments, — I feel, and 

 must ever continue to feel, the great obligation which your praise imposes on me, 

 of aimiog to resemble as far as I may, that standard of excellence which your too 

 favorable judgment has inferred from the specimens of me already before you. 

 1 must ever consider it among the strongest additional incentives to the assiduous 

 cultivation of that knowledge, in promoting which the Asiatic Society lias long 

 held so distinguished a place : a cause which I cannot but consider as intimately 

 connected with that of mental improvement and true religion. 



1 have long been impressed with the conviction that as an accurate knowledge 

 of the intellectual state of any people must precede and accompany all enlighten- 

 ed efforts tor their amelioration, — so to attempt that amelioration by appealing en- 

 tirely to the lower principles of our nature, the love of comforts and luxuries and 

 the like, while we disregard and despise the forms, however imperfect they 

 may be, in which their own ideas of mental and moral elevation are embodied — 

 is to overlook a most essential element in the problem of humnn improvement, — 

 to slight equally the spiritual and high nature of man, and the history of our 



