the Jobares, probably Jomanes, for Yamuna, or Jumna. Kleisoboras cannot be identified, unless we conceive it some corruption of the Greek mode of representing Krishnapura, the city of Krishna, which would apply to several places in this direction. The whole was the territory of the Pandavas, or Pandai, the sons of Pandu, by his wife Pritha, who was the daughter of Sura, or the Hero; King of the people, called in Sanscrit Surasena, and in Greek, Suraseni, the people, who were a host (Sená) of heroes. These examples might very easily be multiplied, but we know not what further confirmation can be needed, to shew that when Alexander invaded India, persons and places bore genuine Sanscrit ap, pellatives, some of which were connected with ancient traditions, and were long prior to that event. Their existence, however, as contemporary instances is equally fatal to the theory of their subsequent origin, and proves the impossibility of the general construction of the Sanscrit Language being stolen from the Greek grammar. That Greek owes any thing to Sanscrit is equally improbable, and has never been conjectured. The common origin of both, as well as of Latin and German, from some primitive tongue as conjectured by Sir Wm. Jones, Colebrooke, Schlegel, and Bopp, is mnch the most satisfactory mode of accounting for the resemblances, in radicals and derivatives, which so remarkably characterise the family. We shall conclude our comments with the opinion of Bopp, whose extensive philological acquirements and philosophical researches into the structure of the Languages in question, render him the very first authority on this subject.

"A careful enquiry into the analogy of the Sanscrit with several European Languages must on many accounts be considered as truly valuable. It shows the higher or lower degree of affinity by which nations, who in the remotest antiquity wandered from the land of their ancestors into Europe, are connected with the present inhabitants of India. It shews, secondly, that those refinements of grammatical construction by which the Sanscrit is so advantageously distinguished from all the spoken dialects of the Indian world already existed in that remote antiquity_when colonies, leaving their Asiatic seats, transplanted into Europe their native tongue; because by the same refined grammar which dis tinguishes the Sanscrit from the Bengali, Tamul, Hindustani, and -Mahratta Languages, it is connected with the Greek, Latin, and the ancient Teutonic dialects, and among the latter particularly with the Gothic: hence we may conclude that the beauties of the Sanscrit Language are not the work of the learned, or the priesthood, as some might be inclined to suppose, but that they really were in daily use in the mouth of the people, and were so strongly impressed upon their minds, that they did not forget them in their transmigrations beyond distant mountains and seas. We might further conclude that a nation possessing a Language so polished in so early a period, where we are altogether abandoned by the light

of history, must be able to boast of a very ancient literature, and it is credible that those who remained in their native country, or more in its vicinity, for it is probable that what we call Sanscrit was spoken also in its primeval form by the ancient Medes and Persians, would think upon means to preserve in their purity the tenets of their religious and civil institutions; and that they might deliver to their successors the venerated traditions of their ancestors, they would probably invent means of writing them down before their brethren who wandered abroad, could recover sufficient leisure for that purpose. Therefore what the Brahmans tell us concerning the antiquity of their Vedas, and other religious writings, stands upon a more solid ground, than they perhaps themselves are aware, and before the contrary has been more effectually proved that has been yet done, we may with due precaution and necessary restrictions, listen to the reports of the Hindus, who are certainly not merely guided by vanity, when they so unanimously speak of the high antiquity of part of their li terature."---- Annals of Oriental Literature.

ART. VI. Poems, by H. L. V. DEROZIO.-Calcutta: printed for the author, at the Baptist Mission Press; and sold by Messrs. S. Smith and Co. Hurkaru Library.

THE present volume is the production of an East Indian, and reflects great credit on the taste, the feelings, and the talents of the author; and we may venture to assure those, who may be tempted to look into the publication before us, that their trouble will not go unrewarded.

IN speaking of Mr. Derozio in the character he has assumed, we may avail ourselves of our professional privilege, to express our sentiments of admiration for his muse. Viewed in connection with the poetarum genus of India, our author must be said to rank high, and to possess various qualities of excellence, of which many of that class are destitute, without having any thing to answer for, on the score of those glaring defects, with which some of his cotemporaries abound. It is also on another ground, that we conceive him to be deserving of applause; and that is, that there is nothing of an immoral or licentious tendency to disgrace his writings. He cannot be charged with perverting, as some have done, the best gift of nature; that of poetry:—and this forms no small recommendation of his present attempt. Favorably as we are disposed to think of Mr. D. it strikes us, that his principal fault is a want of perfect confidence in his own powers, which restrains him from giving his imagination the utmost latitude of play. He seems to be the gentle and timid shepherd, who in the silence of retirement, unseen and undisturbed, tunes his pastoral pipe; and gives vent to

the feelings of his surcharged bosom, he is not exactly what we should wish him to be, the bold and practiced minstrel, who with a masterly hand, strikes up his harp, for the "listening of those, who love the music of the departed ;" he is not (though we do not despair of his one day joining it) of the band, who "repose amidst the eternal severity of the Majestic summit" of Parnassus; those "peerless spirits," whose matchless aspirations "clothed in the glittering robes of fancy" "ruffle not, but smoothe and cherish the wings of their contemplation."

To be attractive, poetry must be feeling and impassioned; else will it lose much of its interest; it must not only concentrate into one point all the vivid and sparkling beauties, comprised in the various colours of the solar iris, that, however worthy of admiration, produce no lasting impression; but it must be imbued with the glow of the burning rays of the glorious and refulgent orb of day. Let it be recollected, that it is this two-fold quality, infused into the productions of our best poets, that has rendered them so particularly enchanting, and at the same time gained them so enviable a reputation, as that, which they maintain in the commonwealth of learning. It is, nevertheless, not quite impossible to please some readers by the display of minor perfections, or to amuse them by the intermixture, with the aforementioned essentials, of those epigrammatic points, which are so liberally scattered in the writings of Moore. Merit of this sort is of a negative character; and a poet, who wishes to build his fame on a more durable foundation, must endeavor not to rest his pretensions too anxiously on this point; not to be satisfied with any thing short of exhibiting properties of a more sterling and durable nature, than such as are ordinarily to be found in the effusions of the middling class of poets. The latter appear to be far more desirous of earning present popularity, than permanent celebrity. To gaze at the mere external charms of the muse of poesy may afford a transient gratification; but if we have never approached her with enthusiasm, and worshipped her with idolatrous devotion; never hung in transports on the eloquence of her tongue, and never felt our bosoms respond to the tender and thrilling cadence of her lyre, we know comparatively nothing of the exquisite bliss, which flows from the ligitimate source of impassioned poetry. Beneath, the earth may smile with the richest luxuriance, and above, the firmanent may glitter with myriads of orbs, yet it is the influence of poetry only, that can impart enchantment, even to so wonderful and lovely a scene as this.

WE entertain no mean opinion of Mr. Derozio's publication, which contains promises of much greater future celebrity than what he is likely to gain at the presént moment. Yet let us not be understood to place him, with all his merit, which is certainly not of an inferior order, in the same rank with those master spirits, who could, without much labour, exertion or

K

fore-thought, wield whole creations by the witchery of their genius; who had only to utter the creative words, and a world of intellectual beauty and loveliness would instantaneously spring forth into existence-men whom it would be criminal not to regard as beings of a class, far above the vulgar herd of mankind. They are so many suns rolling in their respective orbits, beyond the power of each other's attraction, and unconscious of deriving their strength and their beauty from other sources than their own; and whilst their united splendour irradiates worlds around them, their glory remains undiminished and unobscured. It can never

be seriously maintained, that the characteristic features of Indian poetry are capable of raising its writers to such a height; and if that poetry be removed, in a great measure, from entire dullness and insipidity, by the conjoint efforts of a few such individuals, as our author, it is saying a good deal in praise of it. Of late years it has begun to make a conspicuous figure in the literary world, and to assume a shining character; the light, however, which plays about it, though occasionally very gorgeous and brilliant, is something like that which is reflected on the bosom of the ocean from the silvery beams of Cynthia, only tinging the surface of the waves, but communicating no congenial warmth to the depths of its waters. It is under this head, that we are sensible we should be justified in placing the effusions of our author, and we hope that this candid expression of our sentiments will not be conceived as any disparagement of his merits.

MR. DEROZIO's versification is distinguished for smoothness, ease, and sweetness; but his poetry wants loftiness and vigour of imagination; it wants grasp of intellect, and an irresistible energy of power, with the admixture of terrible beauty and effective brilliancy of thought, which we find pervading the effusions of our great poets. If our author be deficient in these points, he has at any rate the charm of harmony peculiar to himself, a quality sufficiently calculated to invest his poetry with a pleasing, though not very deep, and permanent interest. Our author has many sparkling lines, many beautiful stanzas; but still he is deficient in that impassioned tone of fervid feeling, and that glittering splendour of imagery, which, like the meridian blaze of the sun warms, animates, and cheers every object on which its rays are darted.

BEFORE proceeding, however, to an analysis of Mr. Derozio's effusions, we would just remark that we find them composed chiefly in the octasyllabic measure, a measure that certainly does not combine great taste and felicity, in comparison with the heroic, though it is one, which such established writers, as Sir Walter Scott, and some others have selected. At all events, it does not appear to us, to possess the advantages of the heroic, and unless managed with infinite skill and ingenuity, it degenerates into laxity, feebleness and heaviness. The only topic, to which we deem the octasyllabic suited, is that of Love; because it

is soft, tender and gentle like the passion, which it is often chosen to celebrate. We would recommend it to Mr. Derozio, to aspire to a distinction beyond that of an amatory poet, if he be ambitious not of fleeting popularity, but lasting fame, and of living in the memory of his readers, instead of being perused for the moment, and then forgotten never to be be remembered again, without fresh and successive efforts, to renew the faded impression of his muse on their minds.

It is time, however, that we revert to the publication now before the public, which will be able to judge how far the testimony we have borne to his poetical talents is true or not. We adduce the

following, entitled the " Harp of India" as a specimen :

66 Why hang'st thou lonely on yon wither'd bough?
Unstrung, for ever, must thou there remain?
Thy music once was sweet-who hears it now?
Why doth the breeze sigh over thee in vain?
Silence hath bound thee wita her fatal chain;
Neglected, mute and desolate art thou,
Like ruin'd monument or desert plain,

O! many a hand more worthy far than mine,
Once thy harmonious chords to sweetness gave,
And many a wreath for them did fame entwine,
Of flowers still blooming on the minstrel's grave:
Those hands are cold; but if thy notes divine,
May be by mortal waken'd once again,

Harp of my country, let me strike the strain."-p. 1.

THIS fine sonnet forms an appropriate introduction to the succeeding pieces, and though we will not undertake to affirm that it is unexceptionable, it may be received as a tolerably fair sample of the productions contained in the volume, and of the author's pretensions to poetic distinction.

"The

WITH regard, however, to the next effusion styled, Maniac Widow," though the strain of poetry, which runs through it, is sweet and harmonious enough, yet we cannot discover the propriety and naturalness of putting sentiments that are calm, collected and beautiful, into the mouth of one, whose mind is represented to be in a complete state of confusion and bewilderment, incapable, as it must thereby be rendered, of thought and reflection, as well as insensible, in a great degree, to every thing passing around it, and also lost to every impression from external circumstances, and possessing feelings, whose edge has been blunted, and a heart, whose affections have been chilled and deadened by the weight of misfortunes and sufferings, which no human device can avert-no emolients assuage.

LOVE is a prolific subject with poets, in so much that, if the world could supply no other, that one would alone afford an ample