Si4 
layaline; -but it has not hitheita been ef- 
fected, for want of suitable means. On 
its being proposed to send a Malayaline 
translation to each of the fifty-five 
churches, on condition that they would 
‘transcribe it, and circulate ‘the copies 
among the people, the elders replied, that 
ye) oreat was the desire of the people to 
have the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, 
that it might be expected that. every man 
who could write, would make a copy on 
palm leaves for his own family. On in- 
vestigating the Syro-Chaldaic manu- 
scripts in ~Malayala, some of great anti- 
quity were discovered. The Syrian ver- 
sion of the scriptures were brought, to In- 
dia, according to the belief of The Syri- 
ans, before the year 325 of our era, and 
they alledge that their copies are exact 
transcripts, without any known error, to 
the present day. Some of these are cer- 
tainly of ancient date; one tound ina re- 
mote church contains the Old and New 
Testament engrossed on strong vellum, in 
large folio, having three columns in each 
page, - and written with beautiful accu- 
racy. The character is Estrangelo Sy- 
riac, and the words of every book are 
pumbered. The volume is illuminated, 
though not atter the European manner. 
1 lias suffered some injury from time or 
neglect, some of the leaves being nearly 
decayed. The Syrian church assigns to 
this manuscript very high antiquity. The 
order of the books of the Old and New 
Testament in it differs from that of the 
European copies, a chronological arrange- 
ment being moreattended to in the for- 
mer. ‘The first emendation of the He- 
brew text proposed by Dr. Kennicot 
(Gen iy. 8.) 1s found in this manuscript. 
The disputed passage in 1 John, c. v. 
y.7,isnotinit. In some other copies 
that verse is interpolated in black mk, 
which was done by the Portuguese priests 
in 1599. Two different characters of 
writing appear to have been in use among 
the Syrian Christians, the common Sy- 
riac, and the Estranvelo; the oldest manu- 
scriptsare in the latter. bere are other 
ancient documents highly interesting, ¢ 
mongst which are certain tablets of ae 
which were supposed to .have been lost, 
but have been since recovered, and which 
are stated to contain grants of certain pri- 
vileges to the churches of Malayala. The 
plates are six in nuniber, closely en- 
graved, four of them on both sides the 
plate. The oldest tablet is engraved in 
triangular-headed letters, resembling the 
Persepolitan or Babylonish, On the same 
plate there is writing, which has no aff 
nity to any existing character in sHindep- 
Literary and Philosophical Intelligence. 
[Oct. I, 
tan. The grant on this tablet appears tu: 
be witnessed by four Jews of rank, whose 
names are written distinctly in an old He- 
brew chavacter, resembling the alphabet 
called the Palmyrene, and to each is pre- — 
fixed the hame of Majen, that is, chief, 
The Jews of Cochin also produce tablets, 
which they contend are of equal, if not of 
greater antiquity. It is intended to print 
a copper-plate fac-simile of the whole of 
these plates, making fourteen pages, and 
to transmit copies to the learned societies 
in Tlindostan and Europe. Some very 
ancient manuscripts have also been found 
among the black Jews in Malayala. An 
old copy of the law was found written on 
a roll of leather ab out fity feet in length, 
the skins being sewed together. It is in- 
tended to deposit such of the Syriac and 
Jewish menuscripts as may be found to 
be valuable in the public libraries of the * 
British Universities. . 
The high price of Books is a subject 
of general observation, yet few per- 
sons take the trouble to ascertain the 
causes, or to make comparisons between 
their prices and those of other ar ticles, 
or to examine into their prices in England 
and in other countries. The increase 
of price arises principally from the pre-_ 
vailing taste of the public, which gives 
encouragement only to fine printing, su- 
perfine paper, and costly embellishments 
(or rather which discourages plain and 
simply useful printing), and partly from 
the advanced. prices of printing, ‘engras_ 
ving, and all the materials of Which a 
book is composed. Every person must 
be aware, that the price of a book must — 
be governed i in a certain degree by the ° 
number of copies printed, because the 
expence of setting up the types must be 
divided among the number of copies. 
The same principle holds in regard to 
the labour of authorship, the charges for 
eugraving, and all the other preliminary 
expences which are necessary to the 
production of the first copy. It is an- 
other principle equally obvicus, that the 
number of copies sold will, Yn a certain 
degree, be in the inverse ratio of the 
price, that is, if the book be cheap, more - 
copies will be sold, and-if dear, there 
will be a smaller number of persons who 
can afford to buy it. It follows therefore, 
that whatever tends to increase the first 
cost of a book toits publisher, tends in @ 
still higher degree to raise the price, be= 
cause the necessary increase of price 
will occasion a diminution of purchasers 5 
consequently all the preliminary exs 
pences must be borne by a smaller num-— 
ber of persons, or be laid on a smaller 
acne | 
