Imatges de pàgina
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tion, not fcrupuloufly verbal, would have been highly improper in a work on fo delicate and momentous a fubject as private and criminal jurifprudence.

SHOULD a series of Brahmens omit, for three generations, the reading of MENU, their facerdotal clafs, as all the Pandits affure me, would in ftrictnefs be forfeited; but they muft explain it only to their pupils of the three highest claffes; and the Bráhmen, who read it with me, requested moft earnestly, that his name might be concealed; nor would he have read it for any confideration on a forbidden day of the moon, or without the ceremonies prescribed in the fecond and fourth chapters for a lecture on the VEDA: fo great, indeed, is the idea of fanctity annexed to this book, that, when the chief native magiftrate at Banares endeavoured, at my requeft, to procure a Perfian tranflation of it, before I had a hope of being at any time able to understand the original, the Pandits of -his court unanimoufly and pofitively refused to affift in the work; nor fhould I have procured it at all, if a wealthy Hindu at Gayà had not caused the verfion to be made by fome of his dependants, at the defire of my friend Mr. Law. The Perfian tranflation of MENU, like all others from the Sanferit into that language, is a rude intermixture of the text, loosely ren dered, with fome old or new comment, and - often with the crude notions of the tranflator; and though it expreffes the general fenfe of the original, yet it fwarms with errours, imputable partly

partly to hafte, and partly to ignorance: thus where MENU fays, that emiffaries are the eyes of a prince, the Perfian phrafe makes him ascribe four eyes to the person of a king; for the word char, which means an emissary in Sanferit, fignifies four in the popular dialect.

THE work, now prefented to the European world, contains abundance of curious matter extremely interefting both to fpeculative lawyers and antiquaries, with many beauties which need not be pointed out, and with many blemishes which cannot be juftified or palliated. It is a system of defpotifm and priestcraft, both indeed limited by law, but artfully confpiring to give mutual fupport, though with mutual checks; it is filled with ftrange conceits in metaphyficks and natural philosophy, with idle fuperftitions, and with a scheme of theology most obfcurely figurative, and confequently liable to dangerous misconception; it abounds with minute and childish formalities, with ceremonies generally abfurd and often ridiculous; the punishments are partial and fanciful; for fome crimes, dreadfully cruel, for others, reprehenfibly flight; and the very morals, though rigid enough on the whole, are in one or two inftances (as in the case of light oaths and of pious perjury) unaccountably relaxed: nevertheless, a fpirit of fublime devotion, of benevolence to mankind, and of amia. ble tenderness to all fentient creatures, pervades the whole work; the ftyle of it has a certain auftere

auftere majefty, that founds like the language of legiflation, and extorts a refpectful awe; the fentiments of independence on all beings but GOD, and the harsh admonitions, even to kings, are truly noble; and the many panegyricks on the Gayatri, the Mother as it is called, of the Véda, prove the author to have adored (not the vifible material fun, but) that divine and incomparably greater light, to ufe the words of the moft venerable text in the Indian fcripture, which illumines all, delights all, from which all proceed, to which all must return, and which alone can irradiate (not our visual organs merely, but our fouls and) our intellects. Whatever opinion in short may be formed of MENU and his laws, in a country happily enlightened by found philofophy and the only true revelation, it must be remembered, that thofe laws are actually revered, as the word of the Moft High, by nations of great importance to the political and commercial interests of Europe, and particularly by many millions of Hindu fubjects, whofe well directed industry would add largely to the wealth of Britain, and who afk no more in return than protection for their perfons and places of abode, juftice in their temporal concerns, indulgence to the prejudices of their old religion, and the benefit of thofe laws, which they have been taught to believe facred, and which alone theycan poffibly comprehend.

W. JONES.

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