146 



Notices of Books. 



XY.— Notices of Books. 



1. — Oriental Historical Manuscripts in the Tamil Language ; trans- 

 lated, with Annotations. — By William Tailor, Missionary, 2 Vols. 

 4to. pp. 600. Madras, 1835. 



The issue, from the Madras press, of a work of the above mentioned 

 character and dimensions, is a phenomenon in the literary history of 

 our Presidency, which imperatively calls for a notice from the local 

 Literary Journal; and, though the publication made its appearance 

 some months ago, it is still sufficiently recent to warrant our adverting 

 to it at this time, now that the enlarged scope and extended limits of 

 this Journal enable us to do so. 



It is right, at the outset, to. apprise our readers, that, in the literary 

 notices of this kind, which will, from time to time, appear in the pages 

 of this Journal, it is not intended to conceal the fallibility of the Editor 

 under the pompous editorial we of the English Reviews. Constituted 

 as society is in this country, every individual of the small circle is, more 

 or less, known to all the others ; so that the Editor's incapacity would 

 be known, to his ridicule and the discredit of the publication he con- 

 ducts, should he arrogate to himself the ability to pronounce a judg- 

 ment upon matters, which, it is well known, he understands little or 

 nothing about. 



The nature of his professional studies and employments, has pre- 

 vented the Editor from bestowing much attention on oriental lore, 

 so that, on occasions like the present, he will guarantee his readers 

 from the infliction of his own crude, imperfect notions on the subject, 

 by promising to appeal to the aid of the Committee of Papers, or to 

 friends or correspondents well versed in the matters treated of. 



On this occasion, we submit to our readers a brief analysis of the 

 contents of the two volumes, drawn up by the learned translator him- 

 self, who kindly undertook to do so at our request. We shall merely 

 premise, on our own parts, that the whole character and execution of 

 the work displays great learning, profound research and critical 

 acumen, on the part of the translator and annotator ; and we should 

 not faithfully execute our duty as public journalists, did we not 

 earnestly call the attention of oriental scholars to its contents. To 

 the junior branches of the Civil Service, we cannot but think, these 

 manuscripts, in the common colloquial dialect, as well as other 

 portions in the higher dialect, would be very useful. The work we 

 hear has gained the suffrages of some of the senior members of that 

 service. It is gratifying also to observe a very respectable list of 

 subscribers prefixed. We hear that the work has attracted the atten- 

 tion in England of Mr. Richard Clarke, recently one of our first-rate 

 Tamil scholars here; and, also, that the council of the Royal Asiatic 



