APPENDIX. xix 



British India have been entrusted. With one exception however, that patronage 

 was never converted into a more immediate intercourse, and the very brief period, 

 during which Sir John Shore was President of the Society, can scarcely be consi- 

 dered as constituting that exception. It was reserved therefore for your Lordship, 

 through a series of eventful years, to create leisure from high and arduous labours, 

 to give animation to literature, and vigour to research ; to inspirit the perseverance 

 toiling to elucidate the past and present condition of man, and to foster and encou- 

 rage the energies, struggling to enlarge the boundaries of science, and to develope 

 the mysteries of nature. The beneficial effects of this condescending liberality, may 

 be traced in the pages of our transactions, and the valuable papers, which have giv- 

 en new animals to Zoology, new plants to Botany, new regions to the Geographer, 

 and events to the Historian, are not more ascribable to opportunity of observation, 

 and ability in the observer, than to the encouragement granted by your Lordship to 

 the one, and the facilities afforded to the other ; and they may more especially be at- 

 tributed to the enlightened promptitude, with which your Lordship has ever befriend- 

 ed their communication to the world. 



The dissemmaciou ot knowledge is in till cultivated Societies, the worthy occupa- 

 tion of talent and power : even where that knowledge may not be of generally prac- 

 tical application, its possession may be endowed with specific value, and much that 

 is little essential to the necessities of life, is of high value to intellectual ambition. It 

 may be of trifling import to the welfare of any particular community, to discover and 

 adjust the dark traditions of remote antiquity, or to trace through the glimmering of 

 verbal coincidence, concording usages, and corresponding tenets, the bonds by which 

 nations now remote in site, and dissimilar in character, were once identified or al- 

 lied. To the mind however that is liberalized by studious enquiry, and elevated by 

 expanded views, these subjects are deeply important ; and the studies of the scholar, 

 and the speculations of the Philosopher cannot be without their effect upon the im- 

 provement of Society, and the happiness of mankind. To pursuits of such a nature, 

 the regions, which we for a time inhabit, present an inviting field, and it would ar- 

 gue an indifference, wholly unworthy of the rank which our native country holds in 

 the scale of refinement, if the British Residents in the East could disregard the op- 

 portunities, that are offered to their acceptance, of familiarising themselves with 

 the Languages, Literature, Antiquities and Religion of Asia, the birth place and cra- 

 dle of the human race. 



