5. The Vishnu Purana, a system of Hindu Mythology and Tradition, translated from the original Sanskrit, and illustrated by Notes, derived chiefly from other Puranas, by H. H. Wilson, 1840, 4mo. pp. 704, . lix 6. First Impressions and Studies from Nature in Hindus- tan, embracing an outline of the Voyage to Calcutta, and five years' residence in Bengal and the Doab, from 1831 to 1836, by Lieut. Bacon, 2 vols. 10 Rs., 1839, 7. Lectures on Education, delivered at the Mechanic's In- stitute, by Charles J. S. Montague. Calcutta, 1844-45, 8. Review of the Work entitled "The Conquest of Scinde, &c. By Major-General W. P. F. Napier, &c." Re- lxiv lxvi THE CALCUTTA REVIEW. [SECOND EDITION.] ART I.—ET: The Nalodaya or History of King Nala, I.―नलोदयः ॥ a Sanskrit Poem by Kálidasa. Accompanied with a Metrical Translation, an Essay on Alliteration, an Account of other similar Works, and a Grammatical Analysis. By W. Yates, D.D. Calcutta, 1844. NOTWITHSTANDING the considerable degree of erudite attention, which has, for the last half century, been given to the language and literature of Brahminism, by some eminent scholars of different nations, both in Europe and resident in the East;-among whom may be named as pre-eminent, the all-accomplished Sir W. Jones, Colebrooke, Wilkins, Halhed, Wilford, H. H. Wilson and Mill, among our countrymen, with the Schlegels, Bopp, Rosen, &c. among our continental neighbours; all of whom have more or less largely contributed to draw aside the veil which has shrouded them, for many successive centuries, from the rest of mankind,—it is still a fact that but comparatively little is yet known, even to many well educated persons in Europe, of either the ancient learning of Hindustan, or of the wonderful medium of its perpetuation to modern times. Hence the surprising discrepancy of opinion entertained upon a subject so ill understood. Some, according to the true adage-omne ignotum pro magnifico-looking at it from afar and through the haze of fancy, have most unduly enlarged the actual magnitude and relative proportions of an object, with which they have not been able to come at all into personal contact, and of which they can know nothing but through the imperfect relations of persons scarcely, it may be, less unacquainted with it than themselves; whilst others again, going on the opposite principle, that what is distant and but little known can be of small value or importance, have in the same measure depreciated that, with whose intrinsic value they have either not had the means of acquainting themselves, or else were careless of their employment, because of the certain labour demanded for, as they too easily decided, at best only a problematical advantage. Had these various notions been limited in their results to the individuals entertaining them, they would, however alike exaggerated or erroneous on the one side and on the other, A have been of little general moment: but unhappily, it was not by any means so. Infidelity, which singularly unites the opposite extremes of scepticism and credulity, found in Hindu literature, as it fondly hoped and supposed, fresh reasons for its determined disbelief of Revelation, and drew, from the asserted unfathomable depths of Hindu antiquity, new arguments in support of its equally determined hostility to Christianity. The Mosaic chronology was assaulted afresh by old combatants arrayed in new armour, and furnished with weapons deemed certainly fatal to the cause of Scripture History. Alas! that high intellectual powers should so often be found in disunion with strong moral feelings; and that some who can grapple successfully with all that is most transcendant and recondite in science and in learning, should be so absolutely deficient in the moral sense, and in power to appreciate the good and evil, the true and false in mental philosophy and religion, as not to discern the conclusiveness, or feel the force, of arguments that carry, to minds of more heavenly character and habit, all the weight of demonstration and something more yet. what is demonstrably true in abstract science, whilst it convinces the naked understanding, is wholly powerless to move the conscience, the feelings, or the will; whereas truths, the process of establishing which argumentatively may require both great compass of thought and a long habit of reasoning, will often fall with an irresistible power of conviction on the moral sense of the least literate and even the intellectually incapable; or, as the Sacred Scriptures familiarly express it-some things are "hidden from the wise and prudent, which are revealed to babes!" Indeed, the cultivation of the intellect separate from the contemporaneous cultivation of the moral man, is not seldom even more than useless to religious ends. The man so circumstanced may be fitly compared with the automaton chess-player, or the calculating machine of Babbage, or any other wonderful piece of modern mechanism; there is an apparent exercise of mind in these, that strikes the uninstructed observer with wondering amazement, whilst yet they are but mechanism after all they seem to think, to calculate, to compare, to reason, to decide-yet are they soulless, insensible machinery, the puppets of a controulling mind and will without themselves. Thus, what a vast range have some minds taken in their excursions over the works of God! they have penetrated through the many complicated contrivances, yet missed the end aimed at by the unseen, unheard, unfelt, unknown contriver of them: or they have perceived the design, and traced with accuracy the various stages through which it is effectuated, yet when so effectuated they have come to a sudden stop, without one movement of the heart, one impulse of admiring devotion, one burst of grateful and thankful adoration to that great First Cause, by them most truly "least understood," the exertions of whose all-mighty intellect are but the means of bringing to pass those benevolent and gracious purposes towards His intelligent creatures, of which all creation speaks with such constancy, persuasion and emphasis. The sceptical philosophers of Europe hailed, with exultation little short of rapturous, the first intelligence which reached them, in what assumed to be a definite shape and from authentic sources, of the all but infinite chronology of the Hindus and Chinese; and immediately set themselves, with wonderful assiduity and determination, to the task of arranging a variety of arguments drawn from the newly discovered astronomy of the East, in proof, once and for ever, of the utter falsity of the Mosaic writings. The chronology of Moses placed the first creation not above a few thousand years from our own days; the Hindus carried it back into almost the abysses of eternity, through an endless series of astronomical cycles; supporting the truth of their pretensions to so profound an antiquity by facts and calculations, the vouchers for which were really extant and within the reach of every man to read and judge for himself. Away then with the Hebrew cosmogonist, the historian of yesterday! what was he to those venerable sages, who had measured the stars and fixed their endless revolutions, many ages before him! And men having the character of rigid Baconians, who reasoned only from facts, not from theories, a posteriori, not a priori, were actually able to persuade themselves, and would fain too have persuaded others, on the alleged authority of a Hindu antiquity, as yet but guessed at, that Revelation was no longer tenable; that all the united force of irrefragable argument, of moral intuition, and of accumulated experience, was to give way before the giant literature of Hindustan! That day has passed; and, as all candid reasoners then predicted, successive inquiries, far from justifying the triumphant exultations of sceptical philosophers, have so utterly refuted their baseless reasonings as to leave them not a wreck behind. These men well exemplied the saying of Cæsar -“Facile id quod volunt credunt homines;"-They believed Hinduism and discredited Christianity, because they wished the latter to prove false at any rate. But, although a more extended acquaintance with "the wise men of the east" has availed to lower the credit of scepticism, and to put to perpetual silence all its former vauntings, still the language and literature of Hinduism are known, in any detail, only to a few; and still the most incredible notions prevail in regard to them. "Minute philoso |