IV. 



ESSAY 



ON 



SANSCRIT ALLITERATION, 



By the Rev. WILLIAM YATES. 



Alliteration is a subject, which in different eras of the world has 

 engaged the attention and consumed the time of men of the most powerful 

 minds, both in the East and in the West. In the dark ages, when men 

 retired to monasteries, hermitages, deserts and caves, taking with them all 

 the learning of their time, it excites no surprise, that they attempted to 

 relieve the tedium of solitude, and to whet their ingenuity, by compositions 

 which required the most vigorous efforts of intellect. It may be lamented 

 that they were not employed in more profitable pursuits ; but it cannot be 

 denied, that they have afforded the strongest proofs of skill and persevering 

 labour. Owing, however, not to any want of capacity, but rather to a 

 deficiency even in the Latin language when compared with the Sanscrit, 

 the recluses of the West were never able to equal the sages of the East. 

 Their alliterations appear to be confined chiefly to letters, and not to extend, 

 as in Sanscrit, to syllables, to words, to padas, and to whole stanzas. The 

 following may be taken as a specimen of their attainments in this art : — ■ 



Inter cuncta micans igniti sidera coeli, 

 JSxpellit tenebras e toto Phoebus ut orbe ; 

 Sic csecas removit Je sus caliginis umbras, 

 Fivicansque simul vero prsecordia mote, 

 <S'olem justiciae se se probat esse beatus. 



