CEYLON BRANCH ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, 



61 



Asiatic origin, we can find no subservience to established 

 forms,™ imagination we do find exercising a powerful in- 

 fluence, but not the roving, incoherent, but withal beautiful 

 imagination of the East, it is the imagination of the Occi- 

 dentals, going; hand in hand with severe thought on the one 

 side, and desire of novelty on the other. Had the genius of 

 Europe been similar to that of Asia, we should now find per- 

 haps, not the " Principia" of Newton, and the " Prima phild- 

 sophia" of Des Cartes, ruling Physical and Mental science, 

 but the " Numbers" and five* Elements of Pythagoras. 



So different indeed is the Asiatic from the European mind, 

 that eastern works seldom please western taste, till denuded 

 of that redundancy of repetition, and brilliancy of illustration 

 and simile, which form their most prominent characteristics ; 

 nor on the other hand, do the plain beauties or excellencies of 

 western literature please the taste of Orientals, till enriched 

 by their own luxurious imaginations. This many will 3 per- 

 haps, ascribe to deficiency of taste in the latter ; but let it be 

 remembered that taste is an arbitrary standard, differing even 

 in the same country at different times. What Englishman 

 would now tolerate, much less declare elegant, the wigs and" 

 powder, the lace and brocade of former years, and how few 

 at the present day are found to admire the unadorned beauty 

 of the early English muse ? Differing then as taste does 

 even amongst the same race at different periods of time, we 

 surely cannot be surprised that a different standard should 

 prevail in the east from that which regulates the west ; and if 

 the self-confident European declares the literature of Asia to 

 be turgid and tedious, let him remember that an inhabitant 

 of the latter continent will as confidently pronounce that of 

 Europe to be tame and insipid. That pleasing sentiment, 

 beautiful description, and enlivening imagery are to be found 

 however, in eastern, as well as in western poetry, the trans™ 



* Fire, air, water, earth and aether, the latter more commonly designated " the 

 fifth element," — " to pempton stoikeion." 



