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MARCH, 1878.]
BOOK NOTICES.
87
ANCIENT SUPERSTITIONS REGARDING No stingless honey in her mart we buy, "MEETING EYEBROW 8."
No thornless dates her garden will supply. Sir Henry Maine's article on South Slavonians If lamp she lights, as soon as it grows bright and Rajputs has recalled to my mind & curious The wind extinguisheth the spreading light. parallel between Hindu and Slavonian folklore. Who careless doth his heart on her bestow,
In the 20th Lambaks of the Katha Sarit Sdgara Behold, he cherishes a deadly foe: a witch is mentioned who undertook to confer The warlike king, who made the earth his prey, on her disciples the power of flying in the air, by His sabre dripping from the bloody fray, means of the eating of human flesh (mahamansa). Who with one onset put a host to rout, She is thus described :-" She was of repulsive Or broke & centre with a single shout; appearance. Her eyebrows met, she had dull eyes, Who chiefs unjustly into prison threw, a depressed flat nose, large cheeks, widely parted
Beheading heroes when no crime they knew; lips, projecting teeth, a long neck, pendulous
Who made the lioness untimely bear breasts, a large belly, and broad expanded feet."
In deserts when his name but sounded there; The only point I desire to call attention to in
Who made Shiraz, Tabriz, 'Irak, obeythis inventory of the lady's charms is the fact of Succumbed at last on his appointed day: her eyebrows meeting. For I find that Mr. Taylor, For one who his world-scanning eye made bright in his Primitive Culture, vol. II. p. 176, speaking With stabbing awl destroyed that piercing sight. of Slavonian superstitions says.--"A man whose
Bicknell's Selections from Hafiz eyebrows meet as if his soul were taking flight to enter some other body may be marked by this sign either as a werewolf or a vampire."
A Professorship of Zend has been founded at In both superstitions we find this notion, that
the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris. It is the meeting eyebrows are the outward sign of a
first cbair established in Europe for the special predilection for human flesh.
study of the ancient language and literature of
C. H: T. Persia. The first professor is M. James DarmeCalcutta, 15th Jan. 1878.
steter, the author of two works of great interest on the old Persian religion, the first an essay on
the mythology of the Avesta, entitled Haurvatat THE BLINDING OF SHÅH MANSUR BY HIS
et Ameretét, published in 1875; and the second a REBELLIOUS SON.
volume, published last year, on the origin and his Let not thy heart the World's vain goods pursue, tory of the two principles, and styled Ormand et For no one yet has found her promise true.
Ahriman.
BOOK NOTICES. A COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR of the Modern Aryan Lan-1 statements in the book the truth of which we
guages of Indus: to wit, Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, and Bangali. By John Beames, Bengal
doubt, and some which we feel disposed to deny; Civil Service, &c. Vol. II. The Noun and Pronoun. but, take it all in all, the production is in a high (London: Trübner & Co., 1875. pp. 348.)
degree creditable to the author. The first volume of Mr. Beames's work was The volume contains Book the Second, which reviewed at considerable length in the Indian comprises four chapters. The three first chapters Antiquary (vol. IV. p. 186). Our notice of the discuss the Noun; the fourth the Pronoun. second volume shall be brief.
In addition to the seven dialects which formally Mr. Beames speaks of the great and ever- come under investigation, we have remarks on growing pressure of work in Government offices, cognate forms of speech, such as Kaśmiri, Neas "the machinery of Government becomes more pali, and the Gipsy language. Mr. Beames thus complex." This compelled him to lay aside attraverses a very extensive field, in which the report one time all literary work for six months together. of a pioneer (which in truth he is) cannot reasonWe have reason, then, to congratulate Mr. Beames! ably be expected to be either perfectly accurate and the public that the second volume issued from or exhaustive. But we are very thankful for the the press only two years and a half after the first mass of information which be has supplied. On the soore of this pressure of official duty the In some of his opinions Mr. Beames strongly author asks indulgence for "the disjointed and dissents from the Pandits and even some Euunfinished appearance of some parts of the work." ropean scholars. For example, Bangalt has been Certainly there are marks of haste, and a want of represented as the eldest daughter of Sanskrit, artistic finish in the book; but we do not deem and as retaining the mother's character more fully these to be unpardonable faults. On the other than the younger sisters. But, says he,"it is in hand, the merits of Mr. Beames are great. They truth one of the youngest grand-daughters." Its are such as these-extensive knowledge, great phonosis and organic structure prove it to be "a pains and patience in investigation, & quick and very poor and rustic patois" which of late has generally accurate perception. There are many been deluged with resuscitated Sanskrit words
