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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1882.
reign of Artaxerxes II. (P). Thus it is earlier As questions of Palaeography now appear to than any Indian inscription, but, as the language be attracting attention, I would point out that is not Indian, it cannot, anyhow, be of Indian the physiological side remains to be considered. origin. Everything points to a foreign origin for This new branch of science has been founded by the Indian alphabets, and it therefore clearly fol. Prof. C. Vogt (La Revue scientifique, 26 Juin lows that Prof. Sayce has discovered the source. 1880) in an article "L'Ecritare considerée au
This brilliant discovery of our leading Orient. point de vue physiologique," thongh Dr. Gaetan alist will, I have no doubt, give as much pleasure Delaunay (somewhat later in the same periodical) to others as it did to me. I must apologise for the has questioned part of Prof. Vogt's conclusions. delay in communicating it to the Academy. Though I received it in March, I have been prevented by
A. BURNELL circumstances out of my power, including long- PS.-Prof. Sayce has just found in the British continued illness and a change of residence, from Museum some other tablets of an earlier date communicating it earlier.
viz., before 640 B.C.-inscribed in a similar Prof. Sayce tells me that Mr. Pinches has character. But these seem to be earlier forms, promised a facsimile of the whole document in in which the system of marking the vowels was the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Arch- | not fully developed, or, at least, is not so evident aeology
as in the other tablet.
BOOK NOTICES. BULLETIN CRITIQUE DES RELIGIONS DE L'INDE, par the reader's mind from the perusal of this volume
A. Barth: (Annales du Musée Guimet). Paris, Leroux, 1882.
will probably be best summed up in the lines of This number of the Revue de l'histoire des Mr. Mathew Arnold prefixed to it,Religions is occupied entirely by a paper by M. A. "An acting body, and a mind Barth, a most accomplished French Sanskritist,
Not wholly clear, nor wholly blind, which is devoted to brief notices of the publica
Too keen to rest, too weak to find, tions relative to the history of Indian religions
That travails sore, and brings forth wind." -more especially Brahmanism and Buddhism,- Mr. Whinfield has been very fairly successful issued in England, India, Germany, America and in his metrical rendering of his author, and his France during the year 1881. The Bulletin is some- version embraces a much wider field than the what on the plan of the Revues Annuelles for the
small selection published by his precursor. As Hindustani Language and Literature, so long
samples taken at random, both of the author's continued by the late M. Garcin de Tassy, but
matter and the translator's style, we give the the notices are often fuller and more critical; while
following: the list of books and papers noticed is not quite so
156. Once in a potter's shop a company exhaustive-though it mentions nearly everything Of goodly cups and jars I did eepy, of value on the subject. This bulletin of M.
And when they saw me, one cried out and said,
"Who made, who sells, who buys this crockery?" Barth's is calculated to be most useful to the general student of Oriental Religions.
198. Some look for truth in creeds and rites and rules, Some grope for doubts or dogmas in the schools
But from behind the veil a voice proclaims, The QUATRAINS OF OMAR KHAYYAM, translated into English verse by E. H. Whinfield, M.A., late Ben. C.S. "Your road lies neither here nor there, O fools!" London: Trübner's Oriental Series.
212. Suppose you hold the world in fee, what then? The Quatrains of Ghiasu'd-din Abu'l-fathah
When life's last page is read and turned, what then? Omar bin Ibrahim al Khayyam, the fellow student
You may outlive this present century, and friend of Nizâmu'l Mulk, (cir. 445-517 A.H.,) And haply see the next, but what comes then ? have already been introduced to the English reader 215. O thou who hast done ill, and ill alone, in Mr. Fitzgerald's brilliant translation of some Think not to find forgiveness at the throne; of the more striking of them. Mr. Whinfield's
Hope not for merey, for good left undone version supplies us with translations of 253 out of Cannot be done, nor evil done undone. about 800 in all, but it does not include those 220. I never would have come had I been asked ; rendered by his predecessor, which we think is
I would we liof not go, if I were asked ;
And, to be short, I would annihilate rather to be regretted. The selection, however,
All coming, being, going, were I asked. is sufficiently extensive to give the English reader
221. O heart! canst thou the darksome riddle read ? a very correct idea of Omar's verses-of which
When wisest men have failed, will thou succeed the best specimens only were translated by Mr.
Quaff wine, and make thy heaven here below, Fitzgerald, and the estimate of the author left on Who knows if heaven above will be thy mead?
