34 ORIENTAL LITERATURE ILLUSTRATES CUSTOxMS & MANNERS. 
for the exclusive purpose of European 
education, to the manifest detriment, if not 
tile ruin, of oriental literature. In the 
month of April, it appears, fiom the pro- 
ceedings of the Society, that the Secretary 
(Mr. J. Prinsep) submitted to ittiie necessity 
of a respectful remonstrance against the 
Government decree in question ; which being 
drawn up in the ensuing month, was ac- 
cordingly forwarded on the 3d of June. In 
answer to this, Mr. Secretary Bushby, under 
date the 10th of the same month replies, that 
Government refers the Society to the Com- 
mittee of Public Instructions for its general 
views on the subject of the address. That 
owing to financial difficulties, it declines ap- 
plication to the Court of Directors for “spe- 
cific pecuniary aid in furtherance of native 
literature,” and that it resolves to disconti- 
nue the printing of oriental works, (literary) 
from “ a great portion of the limited educa- 
tion fund having hitherto been expended on 
similar publications,” which in its estimation 
has served for little else than “to accumu- 
late stores of waste paper!” but at the same 
time it is willing to make over to the Asiatic, 
or any other Society those parts already print- 
ed, if there is any anxiety for their possession. 
Such is the purport of the Government letter 
respecting oriental lore, in 1836! When the 
Consul Mummius sacked the Grecian city, 
he designated in his ignorance of their value 
the most precious specimens of painting and 
sculpture, as mere waste lumber. J’he cases 
are to our judgment nearly parrallel. As 
however it would be altogether foreign to our 
purpose to enter into discussions of this na- 
ture, we shall content ourselves with re- 
marking that, taken in its intellectual sense, 
a more unhappy measure never emanated 
from the resolutions of this Government. 
Up to the period of which we are speaking. 
Government, whatever its errors elsewhere, 
had been invariably the munificent patron of 
every thing tending to our illumination in the 
acquirement of Indian intelligence. Is it to 
be reserved for a reforming age, and a Go- 
vernment professing to be ‘ liberal,’ to throw’ 
us back upon the obscurity of ignorance I 
We readily admit the great importance of 
education in the European languages, but w’e 
never can allow that there is nothing of value 
in oriental literature for it does indisputably 
(end to illustrate the topography of the coun- 
try, and the manners and the customs of the 
people. In the symbolic language of Eastern 
nations are to be found the [)hilosophic 
and mythologic reveries of all the existing 
sects and secret societies. Bacon conceived that 
the union of spirit and matter was allegoriz- 
ed in the fable of Proserpine being seized by 
Plato asshe was gathering flowers. In this 
opinion Darwin concurred, because it was 
rendered curiously exact by the discovery 
that oxygen is given out of vegetables, and 
that in this state it is eagerly absorbed 1 y in- 
flammable bodies ; he supposed that the fable 
of Jupiter and Juno, by whose meeting the 
vernal showers were said to be produced, was 
merely to pouitray the production of water by 
the combination of its two elements. The 
inference to be drawn from these allusions is 
obvious, that valuable matter is to be found 
though it must be sought for amidst a mass of 
superstition and fable. That the Court of Di. 
rectors came to the same conclusion on the 
value of oriental literature, the following ad- 
dressed to the Su preme Government will prove. 
FORT WILLIAM, 
Public Department, June 19, 180G. 
The following Extracts from Letters from 
the Honorable the Court of Directors, are 
published for general information: 
Extracts from a Letter from the Honorable the 
Court of Directors, dated the 25th of May , 1798 
Par. 105. “ You will have observed by 
our dispatches from time to time, that we 
have invarially manifested, as the occasion 
required, pur disposition for the encourage- 
ment of Indian literature; we understood, 
it has been of late years a frequent practice 
among our servants, especially in Bengal, to 
make collections of oriental manuscripts, 
many of which have afterwards been brought 
into this country. 1 hese remaining in pri- 
vate hands, and being likely in a course of 
time to pay itto others, in which probably no 
use can be made of them, they are in danger 
of being neglected, and at length in a great 
measure lost to Europe, as w'ell as to India. 
W e think this issue a matter of greater regret, 
because we apprehend, that since the decline 
of the Mogul En.pire, the encouragement 
formerly given in it to Persian literature has 
ceased, that hardly any new works of cele- 
brity appear, and that few copies of books 
of established character are now made ; so 
that there being by the accidents of time, and 
the exportation of many of the best manu- 
scripts, a progressive dimunition of the origi- 
nal stock ; Hindostan may at length be much 
thinned of its literary stores, without greatly 
enriching Europe. To prevent in part this 
injury to letters, we have thought that the 
Institution of a Public Repository in this 
country for oriental writings, would be use- 
ful, and that a thing professedly of this kind, 
