236 



Proceedings of Societies : 



[Jan. 



Asiatic Society of Bengal. 



2d August 1837. — Adverting to the edition of the Miscellaneous 

 Essays of the late Mr. H. T. Colebrooke announced among the pre- 

 sentations to the library this evening, Mr. J. T. Pearson called to the 

 attention of the meeting that although it was impossible nov^^ to return 

 thanks to the illustrious author for what might be called his dying 

 bequest to literature, the Society might justly place on record some 

 appropriate acknowledgment of its great obligations to this eminent 

 orientalist, and some expression of its regret at the termination of his 

 honourable and useful career. He thought it would be an excellent 

 plan to follow the example of the Institute at Paris, in its eulogistic 

 memoirs on the death of eminent members— such as those pronounced 

 by the Baron Cuvier on so many occasions. 



The meeting concurring in Dr. Pearson's proposition which was 

 seconded by Mr. Hare, and the Vice-President, Dr. Mill, having ac- 

 ceded to the request of the meeting to embody in their present resolu- 

 tion an abstract of the services rendered by Mr. Colebrooke to the 

 Society, and to Asiatic literature in general,— it was accordingly 



Resolved unanimously, that the Asiatic Society cannot place on its 

 shelves this last donation from Henry Thomas Colebrooke, so long one 

 of its most distinguished members, without recording a tribute of affec- 

 tion for his memory, of admiration for his great talents, and regret for 

 the loss sustained by oriental literature through his lamented death. 



" Mr. Colebrooke was proposed as a member of this Society in the 

 year 1792, and his first essay " on the duties of a faithful Hindu 

 widow" was read in the last season of Sir William Jones' occupation 

 of the chair, in April 1794. Though on an insulated subject only, 

 which various circumstances however render deeply interesting, this 

 short essay well exemplifies the manner in which he exhausts every 

 subject of that nature that he undertakes : and is a happy prelude to 

 that series of splendid contributions to the society, which in profundity 

 of acquaintance with all subjects of Indian literature and science,— in 

 the union of the most extensive erudition with the most chastened 

 judgment, and an accurate scientific acquaintance with the several 

 subjects which his essays collaterally embrace, are unsurpassed by 

 those of any other contributor to our Researches, — or by any who, 

 either before or since, have pursued the same unbeaten paths of lite- 

 rature. 



