156 • 



Mr, Taylor on Professor Wilson* s 



[July 



ture," in " general learning," and " critical knowledge," I readily re- 

 cognize to be my superior : if I claim any equality, it is in the moral 

 attributes of truth and simplicity. When, moreover, in pursuance of 

 his comparison by contrast, the critic says — " the one is an historian 

 the other a translator" — Ireadiiy acknowledge this also ; and, after 

 so many indications as I had given, in the two volumes of Translations, 

 of my opinion that in Hindu history we want literal Translations as the 

 basis of future deductions, I wonder that he should have thought that 

 I assumed the office myself of historian. Perhaps Professor Wilson 

 has not assumed so much : if he has done so, the future historian, 

 really such, will probably cut down his sketch to smaller dimensions. 



I have, however, now done with the critic ; and avail myself of the 

 occasion offered me to translate, and thereby quote, a few perti- 

 nent remarks of Mons. M. A. Langlois in the Introduction to his French 

 Translation of the Hari Vansa, published in 1834, by the Royal Asiatic 

 Society. Mons. Langlois says — " It has seemed to me that the opi- 

 nions of those who had occupied themselves with the ancient history of 

 India, had always wanted a basis, and that, in being called to be their 

 judges without having under our eyes the vouchers of the process, 

 which they alone had consulted, we were obliged to yield an implicit 

 credence to their assertions, often shaken by the contradictions them- 

 selves of their various systems. I have wished that it were possible to 

 furnish criticism with the proofs of which it has need, so as to give to 

 India that history, the existence of which, up to the present time, is 

 doubted. I have not been able to believe that this people, which have 

 existed so long, and occupy so vast a surface on the globe, who hold so 

 distinguished a place alike in past and present times, could continue 

 disinherited of their ancient annals : I have thought it to be needful to 

 go and seek for these in India's own books, where they will be found 

 often mingled with fables of every kind ; and that, in translating these 

 writings, it would be well to deliver over to criticism, frankly, and 

 without any attachment to a system, the materials which ought to serve 

 in this work of re-construction."* 



These sentiments are the same, in other words, as those, more than 

 once, asserted in my two volumes of translations ; and since repeatedly 

 maintained by me, both in the columns of this Journal, and elsewhere ; 

 without knowledge of M. Langlois's views, which have only very re- 

 cently come to my acquaintance. Perhaps with a pardonable com- 

 placency he places himself at the head of those who shall follow after 

 him in this plan of proceeding. I conceive, however, that the credit of 

 the plan rests with the Royal Asiatic Society. They, as far as I know, 

 first laid down the principle as to literal translations. Their idea 

 struck me as just, and I followed in my imperfect measure. M. 



* Introduction -2H*ra 2. 



