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Proceedings of Societies : 



sence of written documents, we must needs proceed by such fragments 

 and morsels,— it is very necessary to bear this in mind. With respect 

 to my own occasional share in these researches,— of which you have 

 made such kind and flattering mention, ~I fear that what I have suc- 

 ceeded in deciphering has scarcely adequately repaid the labour 

 bestowed : my own judgment could never admit the idea, which some 

 even of considerable eminence in these pursuits would have led me to 

 entertain as probable, that the classical period of Indian history had 

 been attained : 1 adopted at length firmly, however reluctantly, the 

 conviction which both internal and external evidence forced upon me, 

 that the monuments in question belonged to a much darker as well as 

 more recent age. Abetter fortune, as well as a higher merit, has 

 characterised the efforts in the same kind of another Member of the 

 Society now present ; whose happy researches on other monuments, 

 conducted under much greater disadvantages in every way than mine^ 

 has finally led to a conclusion, which I think all but certainly esta- 

 blished, that they belong to and illustrate a most classical and im- 

 portant part of the history of this country. I beg my friend the 

 Secretary's pardon for talking thus of disadvantages; for it appears 

 almost ungracious to notice what, however enhancing, as it does, the 

 eminent inductive sagacity that he has displayed in his discovery, 

 might seem also to derogate from the universality of his varied and 

 extensive knowledge. I would not have mentioned them— had I not 

 been convinced that he needs but the will, if he could find the leisure, 

 to rid himself entirely of them. I know at least that if he could bend 

 his thoughts that way, he needs far less time than most men to add a 

 critical knowledge of the learned languages of the country, so auxi 

 liary to his successful researches in the coins and monuments of- 

 India, — to the many other distinguished merits which have made his 

 Journal of our Society, even in his sole portion of it, the object of 

 attention to literary Europe. Of his value as a Secretary, I cannot 

 possibly say more than that he has caused even the loss of the 

 transcendent merits of Wilson to cease to be thought irreparable by us. 



My business, however, as I must not forget, is not to express my 

 sense of the merits of other Officers of this Society (however inci- 

 dentally forced on my notice in this instance), — but to acknowledge 

 your kind opinion of myself and to accede thankfully to the proof of 

 it contained in your parting request to me. To be associated in this 

 manner in the remembrance of this Society with its illustrious founder, 

 and the many others whose contributions have conferred ornament 

 and dignity on its proceedings,— is what 1 cannot suffer even my senses 



