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OCTOBER, 1879.]
BOOK NOTICES.
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and many works must have been composed at a other peoples, ancient or modern, in the earneststill earlier period of which even the names have ness and assiduity with which they have studied been forgotten. Temil literature seems to have the grammars of their various tongues, and to known no youth. Like Minerva, the goddess of this must be attributed the wonderful perfection learning amongst the Greeks, it seems to have several of those languages have reached as organs sprung, full-grown and fully armed, from the of thought, and much of the acuteness for which head of Jupiter. The explanation of this is that the Indian mind is famed. But the study of the every work pertaining to, or illustrative of, the languages of their country by Indian scholars youth of the language appears to have perished. has never become comparative, and, therefore, has Probably, however, & careful search made by never become scientific. It has fallen behind the educated Natives in houses and mathas would be scholarship of Europe in grasp and breadth, and rewarded by some valuable discoveries.
consequently in fruitfulness in results. If, howWhat an extensive and interesting field India ever, educated Natives resolved to apply thempresents for the comparative study of languages, selves to a study so peculiarly suited to them, I and nowhere will ampler scope be found for this consider it certain that excellent results would study than in the districts, directly or indirectly, soon be realised. If they began to compare their under the Madras Government. The Dravidian vernaculars one with another, ancient forms with family, which has its chief home in this Presi- modern, and both with Sansksit, they would soon dency, includes, according to the most recent find that Language had a history of its own, enumeration, 14 languages and 30 dialects; in throwing light on all other histories, and that addition to which, Sanskrit, Hindustani, and instead of being the driest of subjects, it was one English claim attention. The comparative study of the richest in matters of wide human interest. of the languages of India has remained up to this A further advantage of priceless value might also, time in the hands of Europeans, but it is a it is to be hoped, be realised in time in the coinbranch of study to which educated Natives might | mencement and development of a good modern be expected to apply themselves with special zeal, Vernacular Literature-a literature equal-if that and in which, if they applied themselves to it, I were possible to the ancient literature in beauty feel sure that they would attain to special excel- of form, and superior to it-which would be poslence. The people of India have surpassed all sible enough-in the value of its subject matter.
BOOK NOTICES. THE SONG OF THE REED and other Pieces, by E.H. PALMER, And Love behind the lover's self doth hide. Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic, Cambridge. (London: Trübner & Co.)
Shall Love's great kindness prove of none avail ? "The Song of the Reed" from the Masnavi is one
When will ye cast the veil of sense aside, of the shortest of the twenty-six pieces in this
Content in finding Love to lose all else beside P volume, of which twenty-one, occupying, with the "Love's radiance shineth round about our heads notes on them, about two-thirds of the 200 pages of As sportive sunbeams on the waters play; type in it, are from the Persian and Arabic. Alas! we revel in the light He sheds Among the poets from whom translations are made
Without reflecting back a single ray. are JelAlu'd-din Rami, Hafiz, Aghadu'd-din Anvari,
The human soul, as reverend preachers say, Omar el Kheiyam, 'Amak, Hussein Våiz Kashifi,
Is as a mirror to reflect God's grace'; author of the Persian version of the Fables of Keep, then, its surface bright while yet ye may, Pilpai, Firdausi, 'Antărăh ibn Moawiyeh ibn For on a mirror with a dusty face Sheddad--a pre-Musalmanik poet, and others. Pro- The brightest object showeth not the faintest trace." fessor Palmer is a master of Arabic and Persian, And here is his version of Taza batdza nau and has a most thorongh command of English ver- banau, generally attributed, though wrongly, to sification, so that, whether strictly literal or not, he
Håfiz, and so often translated :seizes the spirit of his original, and gives his readers
"O minstrel ! sing thy lay divine, a version that is racy and poetical. Here, for ex
Freshly fresh and newly new! ample, are the last two stanzas of the first poem :
Bring me the heart-expanding wine, "Nature's great secret let me now rehearse
Freshly fresh and newly new! Long have I pondered o'er the wondrous tale, “Seated beside & maiden fair, How Love immortal fills the universe,
I gaze with a loving and raptured view, Tarrying till mortals shall His presence hail;
And I sip her lip and caress her hair, But man, alas ! hath interposed a veil,
Fresbly fresh and newly new! 1 See Ind. Ant. vol. VI. p. 228, for Bicknell's version,
