"The special, sole and deepest theme of the World's and Man's History," says the Thinker of our time," whereto all other themes are subordinated, remains the Conflict of UNBELIEF and BELIEF. All epochs wherein belief prevails, under what form it may, are splendid, heart-elevating, fruitful for contemporaries and posterity. All epochs, on the contrary, wherein Unbelief, under what form soever, maintains its sorry victory, should they even for a moment glitter with a sham splendour, vanish from the eyes of posterity; because no one chooses to burden himself with study of the unfruitful."

ART, II.-Reflexions sur l'Etude des Langues Asiatiques, addressées à Sir James Macintosh; suivies d'une Lettre à M. Horace Hayman Wilson. Par A. W. Schlegel, Professeur à l'Université Royale de Bonn, &c.* Bonn; 1832. 8vo. IN one of those periods when the fine arts were most triumphant, there lived a painter of acknowledged eminence, to whose genius his cotemporaries paid instinctive homage, all whose works challenged and obtained universal approbation. He saw, however, that there were potent rivals to contest the palm with him in the ordinary branches of the pictorial art, and deemed it essential to his fame to discover some new department in which he might reign "alone in his glory." A bright thought struck him; most of the pictures of lions that existed in his day resembled rather the monsters of heraldry than any thing in nature-what better plan could he adopt than to remedy this gross defect, to displace the leonine caricatures, and substitute bona fide portraits of the monarchs of the wilds? He tried and he succeeded; his lions seemed ready to spring from the canvass, the timid shuddered as they contemplated the terrific representations, the curious in natural history deserted the menageries and crowded the painter's studio. He became intoxicated with success; his vanity took the form of a syllogism in Barbara, running nearly thus:

Lion-painting is the very perfection of art;

I paint lions better than any one;

...I am the greatest man in the universe."

But, alas! the painter lived in the midst of a disputatious and perverse generation; his major proposition was denied almost as

We have not copied the long list of titles which the author has appended to his name, but there is one among them which we cannot pass over without remark; he is, it appears, a Knight Commander of the Guelphic Order, the only literary person who has yet attained that distinction, such men as Leslie, Herschel, and Brewster being deemed worthy only of the Knight Companionship. Our rulers have on many occasions shown a desire to give foreigners a preference over English scholars: "Verily they have their reward;" for those whom they have thus distinguished, have generally proved to be the most virulent libellers of England.

soon as propounded. Men came who spoke of Claude's sweet landscapes, of Salvator's wild scenery, of Raphael's sublime conceptions, and Murillo's repetitions, rather than representations, of human life. At first the reply was easy, "has any of them painted a lion?" for when the answer was in the negative, there came the obvious inference, "why then do you dare to compare him with me?" But in process of time some wicked wit advanced a step further in the argument, and declared that if they had not painted lions, they had painted what was just as good, if not better. Hereupon issue was about to be joined, when our painter learned that his minor proposition had not been permitted to pass uncontroverted; claims were made by and for other painters of lions, and one had the hardihood to assert that nobody could paint lions properly who had not visited tropical climates and actually seen the beast in his lair. Such conduct might have driven an angel to fury; no wonder that it roused our worthy painter to deeds of which he might well be ashamed in his more sober hours. He forthwith concocted a pamphlet, vituperating in no measured terms all the painters of the age; extolling lions, and himself, their only good delineator, to the third heavens, and accusing his oriental rival of having painted a lion with an unnatural curve in the tail, a gross exaggeration of the whisker, and a horrible distortion in the great toe-nail. The pamphlet was, however, eloquent, pointed and sarcastic; it proved equally the strength of the author's talents and the weakness of his temper, the depth of his knowledge and the shallowness of his discretion. In short, it was just such a brochure of splenetic egotism, wounded conceit and disappointed vanity, as the extraordinary pamphlet now lying before us.

A. W. Schlegel enjoys a European reputation, and deserves to enjoy it; we are not the persons to deny his extraordinary merits, or refuse homage to his great abilities. But we meet him now in a contest where he has voluntarily resigned his privileges, and descended from his vantage-ground. While Marius retained the stern majesty of virtue, no Cimbrian would dare to strike him, even in the dungeon; but when that same Marius had yielded to the petulance of wrath and the violence of passion, he forfeited those moral claims which had been previously his best protection. And in the same manner, when Professor Schlegel abdicates his dignity, rushes into the lists not as a noble cavalier but as an angry boxer, runs a muck like an insane Malay or an inebriated Irishman, he, too, forfeits his claim to deference, and must be treated like any other pamphleteer whom mortified pride and disappointed expectations had driven into authorship.

The principal subjects of the Professor's pamphlet are: an attack on the Oriental Translation Fund for their plan in general,

and the details in particular,-rather a curious specimen of logical arrangement; a complaint against the East India Company for not cancelling their edition of the Hitôpâdêsa, and adopting that of Professor Schlegel; an extravagant eulogy of the Sanscrit, with a cursory review of its grammars and dictionaries; a plan for the better cultivation of oriental literature in England; a complaint respecting the management of the British Museum, and a vindictive assault on Professor Wilson, for not having spoken of Professor Schlegel with sufficient respect. The offence given by the English professor is contained in the two following sentences;

"I should think it an indispensable requisite, in the first professor of the Sanscrit language, that he had acquired his knowledge in India. Schlegel has not ventured in translation beyond those works which have been previously translated by English scholars."

Will it be believed that the author calls these simple words a declaration of war? that he treats them as a deliberate denial of fame to the continental Orientalists, for he deems himself

"Knight of the shire, who represents them all,"

and regards them as a full justification for the constant depreciation of the labours of all the English writers on Eastern languages, which runs in an under current through every page of this book?

With only the first of the Professor's topics have we any concern; the others may be briefly dismissed. We trust that, if India stock rises, the Company will buy the whole edition of the Hitôpâdêsa; to the long and laboured praise of Sanscrit literature we say, as the philosopher did to the eulogy on Hercules, "Quis vituperavit?" Professor Wilson is right well able to defend his own cause, and would probably feel little obliged to us for volunteering his defence. Omitting, then, these matters, we shall examine the particulars of the accusation brought against the Oriental Translation Fund, seriatim; it will be scarcely necessary to refute them, for in the most important parts the Professor has spared us the trouble, and either in a note, or in a subsequent page, contradicted his charges almost as soon as they were made.

His first objection is to the entire system of publishing translations, as a means of diffusing information respecting the nations of the East. He says:

"I maintain that encouragements offered exclusively to translations, far from advancing a methodical and truly scientific study of the oriental languages, tend to injure it, and must exercise an influence pernicious in proportion to the extent that the committee's projects are realized. Now, if this fundamental study be neglected,-I say more, if Asiatic philology be not brought to greater perfection than it has yet attained, it will be impossible to procure good translations."

The first assertion, in this brief paragraph, is contradicted by general experience; translations, even bad translations, have led

hundreds and thousands to study the originals in their native tongue; how many owe their first desire for the study of Greek to an early perusal of Pope's Homer? How many Italian scholars have been induced to learn that language by reading Tasso, in Hoole's or Fairfax's translations? Nay, how many have been induced to study Persian by reading the German translation of the Shah Námeh? Though Atkinson's version of that poem has been but recently published, we know several ardent students whom it has led to a zealous cultivation of oriental literature. But there is another matter forgotten by the Professor, couveniently enough for his purpose, which we must not lightly pass over. There exist in most languages works of great historical and geographical value, which, in a philological point of view, are nearly worthless. Would a translation of the "Gesta Dei per Francos," prove injurious to the study of Latin, or is the text of Homer likely to be neglected, because we possess versions of Strabo, Pausanias and Josephus? It is of the first importance to England at the present moment that means should be afforded to the great body of the nation, of acquiring, at least, some general information respecting the history, the geography, the statistics, and the laws of the Eastern nations, either subjected to our sway or connected with us by trade; it is, in our opinion, a more important object than affording to a few laborious students an opportunity of entering deeply into the philosophy, the metaphysics, or the poetry of any sages, either in the eastern or western world. There is, however, no necessity for contrasting these objects; the plan of the Oriental Translation Fund excludes neither, and we are sufficiently utilitarian to rejoice that the greater portion of their attention has been given to the former.

The second objection of the Professor is, that the translators will probably be incompetent, and that, in many cases, even the best scholars will be impeded by difficulties almost insuperable. This he repeats in a great variety of forms, supports sometimes by arguments, sometimes by declamation, and not unfrequently by simple assertion; so that it is scarcely possible to form a condensed view of his reasoning. On this head we must, therefore, be almost as desultory as the learned Professor himself. He begins by expressing his fears, that many who have acquired a merely practical knowledge of oriental languages by residence in the East will offer their services to the committee, for the purpose of acquiring the reputation of authorship on easy terms. We regret that the title of author is not quite so honourable in England as to urge men to volunteer the wearisome toil of translation for the simple purpose of being able to boast that they had written books. But on the Professor's own showing, there are works which might fairly be entrusted even to such interpreters,

and though such may possess little attraction for the select few, they may contain much valuable information for the many. Can the Professor be ignorant of the distinction between the literature of fact and matter, and the literature of feeling and mind? Surely not. Has he then confounded them merely to serve a purpose? The complete answer, however, to this objection is the list of works already published under the superintendence of the committee; a list which the Professor has not ventured to quote; because it would at once have refuted his statements.

The difficulties which must impede even a competent translator are stated at great length; they are the imperfections of grammars and dictionaries, the errors of commentators, and above all, the impurity, in many instances, of the original text. Having dilated on these topics with great force, and some exaggeration, our author says,

"I think I have demonstrated that the translator of a Sanscrit, Persian, or Arabian book, of which there does not exist an edition printed and corrected with the utmost care, is necessarily compelled to undertake the labours of a judicious editor; to confront manuscripts, bring together commentaries, and, finally, make conjectural emendations. Can we imagine that a philologist, capable of executing this task, would consent to present himself in the humble attitude of an interpreter for the herd of readers?"

To the last question we can only answer, that a very distinguished philologist, named A. W. Schlegel, has published a very excellent translation of the Bhagavad-Gita, and we are happy to add, that he designs soon to favour the world with a complete translation of the Râmâyana. It is true, that by translating into Latin, the disgrace of being "an interpreter for the common herd of readers" has been avoided; but we trust that he is not such an aristocrat in the republic of letters, as to maintain that the more capable a man is of giving instruction, the less willing he should be to instruct. The names of Jones, Wilkins, Wilson, Haughton, and many others, might be mentioned in proof, that in England at least, the most able philologists are not ashamed to appear " in the humble attitude" of " interpreters for the herd of readers."

The Professor follows up this division of the subject by charging the committee with neglect of the originals, and it is worth our while to quote the passage of the Prospectus on which the charge is founded, and compare it with the Professor's translation.

"Sect. 10. These translations are generally to be accompanied by the original texts, printed separately, and such illustrations as may be considered necessary. By the publication of the original text it is intended to multiply copies of such works as are scarce, and to furnish students, at a moderate expense, with correct copies of the best Asiatic works, to which they might not otherwise have access."