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272
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
176. He who prolongs expectation spoils the work.
177. The value of a man is in proportion to his magnanimity.
178. His good actions determine the value of a
man.
179. No one will go to Heaven whose inmost thoughts are not good and intentions sincere.
180. A wise man should be on his guard against the intoxication of riches and power and knowledge and praise, and the fervour of youth, for in all these there is an impure odour which takes away the understanding and lessens
seriousness.
BOOK
A CONCISE ENGLISH-PERSIAN DICTIONARY, by the late E. H. Palmer, M.A., and G. le Strange. Trübner & Co., London, 1883.
[SEPTEMBER, 1884.
181. Do not sigh for the gifts of the world, for they are worthless.
182. A harsh reply arises from a harsh address.
This is a posthumous work by the late Professor E. H. Palmer. The MS. left imperfect at his death has been completed and edited by Mr. G. le Strange. At the head of the work stands Prof. Palmer's Simplified Grammar of Persian published in 1882, to which the elitor has added a useful list of the irregular verbs and a set of rules and tables for calculating the year of the Hijrah.
The Persian-English Dictionary, by Prof. Palmer, which was published in 1876, has been taken as the basis of the present. Those who have had occasion to use that volume must have remarked the freshness and individuality that stamped each page, and must at once have acknow. ledged that the work, in the choice and rendering of words and phrases, was the direct outcome of much study and much experience in teaching.
The expectations we had thus been led to entertain respecting the English-Persian part have been fully realised. In some cases we should perhaps have wished to see some other Persian equivalent, and in some few instances the addition of one or more synonyms; but in a work of such small compass much thought must have been given to deciding what equivalents to insert or omit. In the course of a careful examination we have been struck with the fine judgment and scholarly instinct evinced throughout. We have noted many words and phrases for which we should have to look in vain in other Dictionaries, and many of these are of extreme importance for colloquial purposes; while we have been particularly pleased with the manner in which the various shades of English verbs according to the preposition used have been reproduced in their Persian renderings.
We confidently commend this work to Students
183. Restrain your mind from doubtful things and from places of pernicious scandal.
184. He walks uprightly in whose heart and soul are faith and the fear of God.
185. How well acquiescence in the will of God drives away anxieties of the mind!
186. To give advice to men of rank exposes one to blows.
187. The sight of the eye does not profit when there is mental blindness.
NOTICE.
and Travellers. They will find it invaluable as containing the words and idioms essential alike for writing and conversation, and every one may fully trust to the material that has been supplied him by so accomplished an author.
In a postscript to the preface, the following curious instance of plagiarism is exposed:-In 1880 Sorabshaw Bayramji Doctor, published a small Persian-English Dictionary at Surat, which, while professing to be his own composition, is "no more than an incorrect reprint of Professor Palmer's Persian-English Dictionary." "Here and there some pages are so altered as to imply that they were borrowed elsewhere, but there is no mention of the work of Professor Palmer, from which has been copied at least nine-tenths, word for word, and in one passage an orthographical error has been ignorantly copied verbatim et literatim as is the manner displayed in the remainder of the work."
THE ZEND-AVESTA and the Religion of the Pârsis, by J. MURRAY MITCHELL, M.A., LL.D. (London: Religious Tract Society, 1884).
Into this small tract of 62 pages 12mo. Dr. Murray Mitchell has contrived to condense a remarkably full and lucid account of the ZendAvesta and of the principal religious tenets and practices of the Pârsis. It is rare indeed to find in so short a space so much information set forth so clearly and with such elegance of style and accuracy of fact. The author, to much personal knowledge of the system he describes, has also brought to his task an acquaintance with the writings of the most recent continental students of the subject treated of, such as Haug, West, Spiegel, Roth, Hovelacque, de Harlez and Darmesteter. For its fulness and accuracy this tract may be heartily commended to all who desire a short, readable, and correct popular account of Pårslism.
