1850.] 



of Continental India, 8fc. 



145 



too great a proportion of time to Greek and Latin literature. Its 

 value is not denied ; but it is only a relative value. Sometimes the 

 astoundingly ignorant, but bold assertion is made that India has no 

 genuine poetry of her own ; and at other times, it is, with greater 

 colour of reason, stated that India has no native history. May not 

 the defect be in a want of research; or of due qualification for ef- 

 fective research? Still much is confessedly deficient. That ''his- 

 tory is only a record of crime" may be, for the greater part is, a me- 

 lancholy truth. Still there is something fascinating in the glance 

 back into past ages ; and especially when discoveries may yet be 

 made, and information yet elicited. The introduction of European 

 science and literature iuto India is a good thing. Bui the hum^n 

 mind is prone to extremes ; .and perhaps a disdain of what India, or 

 neighbouring countries, can offer in exchange, may as yet be rather 

 premature. 



Another remark is that all has not yet been done that might be 

 done, with the materials that are at disposal. The Mackenzie Manu- 

 scripts have sustained a rather common fate, of being far too highly 

 estimated, when the nature of the contents was not fully known ; 

 and then hastily, and rashly despised when the contents were but 

 imperfectly developed. The Collector of those papers was so egre- 

 giously cheated, and imposed on, by his confidential servants, that 

 after " much cry and little wool," it is not surprising that the mind 

 of the literary public underwent a revulsion ; and the whole was vot- 

 ed trash, because a part of it is so. It has fallen to my lot to have a 

 larger measure of acquaintance with the contents of the greater por- 

 tion of those Manuscripts than has been the case with other Europe- 

 ans: not excepting even Professor Wilson; for he expressly states 

 that he had (Sanscrit excepted) to do with so termed English trans- 

 lations, as hard to be understood as the originals themselves; and 

 he has given a very plain indication of regret at his want of suffici- 

 ent acquaintance with the Mahratta Manuscripts ; though they are, 

 in reality, less valuable than the titles of some of them indicate ; and 

 less than that at which he appears to have estimated them. It was 

 the intention of the lamented Mr. James Prinsep, as he stated to me, 

 by letter, that one or two quarto volumes, exclusively of close trans- 

 lation, in the manner of my two volumes of Oriental Manuscripts, 

 but with little annotation, should be extracted from those materials ; 

 and he apparently judged that after a selection, and translation, had 



VOL- XVI. NO. XXXVII. T 



