sHAin bidasari : A Malay Poem. 
39 
meaning to the ear of the Malay, and the reader may be disposed to 
admit that the best service which any translator, who is not a poet, 
can render to him, is to help him to read Malayan poetry in the ori¬ 
ginal. That no one may be deterred from doing so by requiring at 
the outset to master the Arabic alphabet, we give our first poem in 
Homan characters,* using so far as it appears necessary, Sir Wil¬ 
liam Jones’ system of orthography.*] - It may not be the best; but 
unless we consent to adopt a comraou system, we shall never under¬ 
stand each other, and errors of pronunciation will continue to be 
multiplied as they have hitherto been. The Asiatic Society has ad¬ 
hered to the system of its founder. The Royal Asiatic Society, with 
most orientalists, have followed it; and as no one had a better right 
than Sir William Jones to legislate on the subject, we would 
earnestly recommend all contributors to this Journal to submit to hi* 
rules, even when not entirely approving of them, 
* It is the less necessary to give it in Malayan characters as Dr. 
W. R. Baron Van Hoc veil has already done so. His edition is accom¬ 
panied by an excellent translation in Dutch somewhat less literal than 
ours, and by a number of learned notes, of which we may occasionally 
avail ourselves with due acknowledgement. 
-{* The following explanation may be useful, 
b, as in far 
a, as u in tub 
<*, as the ey in they or a in dare 
i, as ee in see 
i, as in pin 
ei, as the i in pine 
u, as the oo in room 
u, as in bull 
eu, as the u in user or eu in eulogy. 
