of the allegories in which they are delivered, that under other names, as the Fables of Pilpay, &c. &c. it has already been translated into more than twenty languages of Europe and Afia. In those translations, however, it has fuffered much mutilation, as well as confiderable distortion in its primitive feature of fimplicity; and it is only in Mr. Wilkins's almost literal version that we fee the faithful por-, trait of the beautiful original.

In 1788 Sir William Jones published his Tranflation of SACONTALA, or the Fatal Ring, an Indian Drama, written by Calidas, an author of diftinguished merit in that clafs of Indian literature, who flourished about a century before the commencement of the Christian æra. In this publication we find exhibited a genuine and lively portrait of Indian manners and fentiments, as they actually exifted nearly two thousand years ago, and poffibly at a period far more ancient; fince, according to the Brahmins, Dufhmanta, the regal hero of the piece, and husband of Sacontala, fate upon the throne of India, above a thousand years before Christ; and it is probable that the poet would fo far obferve confiftency, as to endeavour to represent the manners of the age in which Dushmanta reigned.

It

It is, indeed, a moft valuable acquifition to the writer who would wish accurately to delineate thofe manners, and throws confiderable light upon many points, relative to their customs and opinions, with which the ancients were very fuperficially acquainted, and which they have, frequently, very grofsly mifrepresented. These four publications I have used as a fort of commentary to rectify what was falfe, or elucidate what was obfcure in Diodorus Siculus, Herodotus, Strabo, Philoftratus, and Pliny; and I trust the following pages, in which their relations are contrafted, will evince both the minute attention, and the unwearied diligence of the author, who first, in Europe, undertook the arduous task of comparing Sanscreet and Greek literature.

These various efforts, fo worthy of a great and enlightened nation, to investigate the fciences, and develope the complicated annals of a people, concerning whom more has been WRITTEN and lefs really KNOWN, than any other nation that anciently tenanted the vast regions of Afia, were accompanied by the most active and vigorous perfonal exertions, of a fimilar kind, upon the spot-The TAAR-leaf, the papyrus, and even the infcribed vellum, will perish in a few revolving centuries; but

the

the engraved tablet of copper, or brass, and the folid column of marble, muft, for a far more exended period, defy the corroding violence of time.--These were diligently sought for, not only in our own settlements in the east, but through all the extent of Hindostan, by that literary fociety of gentlemen established under the aufpices of Sir William Jones, in Calcutta, denominated the Afiatic Society. The scientific labours of these gentlemen are displayed in that grand repository of Sanfcreet information, the two volumes of ASIATIC RESEARCHES, which have fuccefffively arrived (the laft only within a few months) in this country, the ministry of which never did a more wife or prudent thing, than when they sent out the great orientalist, their prefident, to fuperintend the jurifprudence of those Afiatic provinces, the prevailing languages and manners of which were fo familiarly known to him. The early efforts of that Society were crowned with fignal fuccefs. The buried tablet has been dug from the bowels of the earth; the fallen and mouldering pillar has been reared; coins and medals, ftruck in commemoration of grand and important events, have been recovered from the fepulchral darkness of two thousand

years;

years; and the obsolete characters engraved on their fuperficics have, with immenfe toil, been decyphered and explained. It is by the increafing and concentrated light which those precious remains throw upon the claffic page, that the footsteps of the hiftorian must be guided, and his path through the obfcure maze of antiquity illumined.

Abul Fazel, the learned Secretary of Akber, the most magnificent and powerful monarch that ever fwayed the Indian fcepter, had previously, in the fixteenth century, by the most laudable and ftrenuous exertions, in fome degree explored that path, and penetrated that obfcure maze. All the authority however of fovereign power, exercised in the mildest manner, and employed to promote the best purposes, by the most liberal of princes, added to the weight of influence, which his own distinguished talents and virtues gave him over the grateful race of Brahma, introduced that diligent inveftigator of Sanfercet antiquities, little farther than to the threshold of the grand Temple of Indian theology, and science. Of the vigour and extent of the Secretary's researches, the AYEEN AKBERY, OF Mirror of Akber, remains a wonderful proof; and Mr. Gladwin, in obliging the Afiatic world

with a verfion of that work, in 1783, has much contributed to mitigate the toil of the Indian Geographer, and Annalist. Of this celebrated production, which Major Rennel terms an Authentic Register of all matters relating to Hindoftan, that is, as far as they were known to Akber, being equally high in price, and difficult to be procured, I was not so early in poffeffion as I could have wished; but having, at length, by the favour of Samuel Johnson Efq. of the India House, obtained it, I have amply profited by that gentleman's fpontaneous kindness. The firft volume of this oriental performance, treats rather of Mohammedan, than Indian manners; of the arrangement of the court of Akber; and of the economy of his houfhold. In the hiftory of that Emperor's reign it will be of infinite ufe; but was foreign to the fubjects more immediately under discussion. Of the second volume, which contains the geography of the Soobahs, and a concife hiftory of their several fovereigns, the reader will find in the following fheets, fo correct an abridgment as cannot fail highly to gratify his curiofity, and cannot injure the tranflator, who, I heard with regret from his London bookfeller, is no more! Of the third volume, which treats of the aftronomical con