________________
154
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(August, 1928
JORN MARSHALL IN INDIA: Notes and Observations set out for Hügli in the February following. In in Bengal, 1668-1672 : edited and arranged under April 1670 we find him at Patna, then under the subjects by SHAFAAT AHMAD KHAN, LITT.D. charge of Job Charnock, and he remained there (Oxford University Press. Twenty-one shillings until September, when he returned to Hügli with net.)
& fleet loaded with salt petre. His next station This is a remarkable book in many ways. From was Balasore where he arrived on 16th October. the information conveyed in the Prolace, it would In January 1670-1 he was back in Hügli once appear that the individual who has contributed more and from May 1671 to March 1672 was again the least towards its composition is the gentleman at Patna. For the next four years he was "second" whose ruume is presented on the title-page. Nover At Kasimbazir and in December 1676 took over theless, in vol. IX of the Proceedings of the Indian charge of the office of Chief at Balasore and "Sixth Records Commission (Lucknow, December 1926), in the Bay." The last connected entry in the twenty pages are given to a paper by Dr. Shafaat Diary records his arrival at Patna on 25 May 1671; Ahmad Khan" which purports to be, and in fact but a few other entries of various dates are added is, an advance copy of the Introduction to the which cover the period to March 1672. In Chapter present volume. We now learn from the Proface ! VI an account is given of the famine in Patna that Dr. Shafaat Ahinad Khan's share in this at the latter end of May 1671, and this is followed Introduction and in "the arrangement of the by a number of geographical notes and comments work under appropriate headings" has been "very on Hindu religion and philosophy, astrology, sinall: "and if we may judge from othor admissions, chronology, medicine, folklore and manners and the notes are largely, if not entirely, provided by customs. Chapter XII deals with Muhammadan others. For example, the notes to Chapter VIII | laws and customs, with a cursory allusion to the are wholly supplied by Sir Richard Temple and Dr. Parsis: and in the final chapter various miscella. Ganganatha Jha, and the whole of the section neous notes, which cover a wide field, are grouped on Indian Astronomy is edited by Mr. G. R. Kaye. together. We are left wondering what (if anything) remained The commentary at the end of each chapter is to be "edited and arranged under subjects." Dr. packed with information, as might be expected Shafaat Ahmad Khan believes that "the book from the co-operation" of the many " specialists" will revolutionize our conceptions of seventeenth who are named in the Preface, and of others who century India." This estimate of its contents is are not namod. too high: we shall be on safer ground when we
H. E. A.C. suggest that it is more likely to revolutionize our
LETTERS ON RELIGION AND FOLKLORE, by the conception of authorship in modern India. John Marshall does not play a prominent part
late F. W. HASLUCE, MA., annotated by MARin the early history of the East India Company : GARET HASLUCE, M.A., Cambridge. Luzac & Co., but he went to Bengal at the mature, and unusually London, 1926.
ate, age of twenty-five, after graduating at Christ's The gifted widow of the yet more gifted former College. Cambridge, and occupied his leisure in the Librarian of the British Archæological School serious study of Indian antiquities. "If his re- nt Athens has performed a notable labour of love searches had been published in 1680," wrote in editing his last letters. The fine work he was Professor E. B. Cowell in 1872, "they would have doing for the archæology of Near Eastern Chris. inaugurated an ora in European knowledge of tianity was cut short by tuberculosis, and after India, being in advance of anything which appeared short time he died at Leysin, the Swiss resort before 1800." The manuscripts which are now of those unfortunately attacked by that fell disease. printed are to be found in the Harleian collection From Athens he travelled over the South of France at the British Museum, and use has already been in search of health, till finally he settled down at made of them by Sir Richard Temple in various Leysin, but throughout his fatal illness he was always publications and (in a lesser degree) by Dr. C. R. full of hope, and though he could not write any Wilson. Among the Harleian MSS. is also pre. more books, he carried on a lively and informing served a rough translation of the Bhagavata-purana correspondence with a fellow worker, Prof. R. M. which was made from a Persian version of the Dawkins, accompanied by many capital sketches. Sanskrit, and Marshall likewise owned at the time Extracts from these letters his widow has now pub. of his death at Balasore on 31 August 1677, a number lished and they reveal the spirit of a really brave of "Arabian and Persian books" and a "history man. of China in folio," which have disappeared.
It is not possible to review a book of this kind, The Diary, which forms the first part of the and one cannot do more than draw the attention volumo, begins with his election as a factor : "I! of scholars to it, and they will find it not only writ to my brother" on 1 January 1667-8, "That delightful reading but filled with information on I had a great desire to travell." The outward many an obecure point in the study of the Near voyage is described in detail. He arrived in Balasore East. Indeed, Mrs. Hasluck has a passage in her Road on 5 July 1669, from Manulipatam, and Preface which is worth taking to heart in this
