264 journal, r.a.s. (ceylon). [Yol. II., Part II. 



(one of the exercises of the writer) will serve as an 

 example : — 



On Woman, 

 When lovely woman stoops to folly, 



And finds too late that men betray ; 

 What charms can soothe her melancholy 



What arts can wash her guilt away ? 



The only art her guilt to cover, 



To hide her shame from every eye, 

 To give repentance to her lover, 



And wring his bosom — is to die. 



Whilst on the subject of translations, it is perhaps not 

 amiss to introduce into these pages one or two remarks upon 

 the subject of the translated Holy Scriptures. It indeed 

 behoves everyone who feels assured that the religion of the 

 Bible will, in process of time, become the universal faith of 

 the Ceylonese, to have the Scriptures translated into correct 

 idiomatic Sinhalese, so that this Book of Books may prove 

 to the Sinhalese scholar what the English version is to the 

 English, — in the words of "Dr. Lowth, " the best standard of 

 the English language." That any of the Sinhalese versions 

 now extant are as correct as they can or ought to be, I am 

 not prepared to say. Nor, if called upon to pronounce an 

 opinion with reference to the style adopted, can I much 

 hesitate to decide in favour of the old version in preference 



