which have not served to transmit even the names of their founders down to our times, will frequently arrest your steps; but while these are hastening to decay, the customs and habits of the natives seem immortal, and present us now with the same traits under which they are painted by the Greeks who visited them two thousand years ago.

Perhaps in their moral character the Hindûş are worse than their ancestors, but before we absolutely condemn them we shall do well to consider the causes of their depravity. The poet has said, "Whatever day, makes man a slave, takes half his worth away," and in our measure of censure against the falsehood and perjury we meet with in India, we should re member that for many centuries they have been slaves to hard masters, and that if by subterfuge they could not conceal their property, they had only to expect robbery and violence; thus falsehood became the only defence of the weak against the strong, and lost something, at least, of its criminal character.

Yet that it is not the peculiar character of the Hindus, or encouraged by their laws or their faith, we may convince ourselves by referring to those sublime passages in their Sastras, where truth is identified with the Almighty mind, and described at once in the most awful and the

most enchanting colours; and though in the modern Hindûs every generous feeling seems broken down, and replaced by an almost brute apathy, yet the spark though smothered is not extinguished, but ready to blaze forth if properly awakened, into all that genius and fancy can hope; or, if aroused by ill timed or ill directed interference with principles, which through loss of liberty, of empire, of riches, have clung closely round every heart and entwined themselves with every fibre, into vengeance, before which, ordinary means of safety will be vain, and ordinary courage subdued.

But I trust, that as we have hitherto used our power soberly, and on the whole, have made our government beneficial to the inhabitants of India, so we shall continue in the same wise moderation, and conduct the innovations necessary for their permanent improvement and our own security, in such a manner as that the hand of authority be never seen, but in the punishment of crimes, and her voice never heard, but in the dispensing of justice.

Into whatever part of the country you travel, or wherever you may be stationed, you will find much to examine; and if it be your good fortune to see various and distant parts of India, you will find a considerable variety of character, and sufficient difference of customs and of faith,

to interest you; but in order to derive every possible advantage from your change of situation, you should seriously apply yourself to the study of some of the native languages. The Hindostanee is the most widely diffused, though should you be stationed in Bengal, the Bengalee or ancient language of Gaur will be most useful, as it is spoken over a pretty extensive district. However if you wish to travel much, learn Persian, which may be called the French of the East; for you will not find a village where at least one person cannot speak it. Besides, it will gain respect from the natives, who consider a knowledge of various languages as the mark of a superior education, not to mention the great importance it must be of to an officer to understand the language of those whom he is to command. It was not perhaps the least part of the policy of the Romans, to plant their language in every conquest, in order to attach their new subjects; and the emperor Akbar increased the number of schools in Hindostan, and caused the Persian and Hindostanee to be publicly taught, together with the Sanscrit, and encouraged the translation of poems and scientific works from the ancient language of the Bramins into the vernacular tongues, by which means they became more popular. Perhaps if something of the same kind were done by the English,

if translations of their own books were given to them, it would induce them to learn the language more generally, and thus open to them the road to all those improvements of which we hear so much said, but which I fear our countrymen do not go the right way to introduce. I think if I were a powerful person, I should propose a reward to the little Hindû boys who should read or repeat most fluently a tale from Mr. Wilkins's Heetopadesa. I am sure the boy would read English much sooner by giving him the ideas he was accustomed to in his own country, clothed in our language, than by imposing upon him the double difficulty of a new language and new ideas also; and I am equally sure, that when the boy grew up and found that by his knowledge of English, he could carry on his trade without the intervention of an interpreting clerk to make out his English accounts, he would prize the language the more, and be the more anxious that his children should be instructed in it; thus interest would tend to diffuse knowledge if it were once put within the reach of the people.

But I must have already tired you with this long letter, and I dare say we shall have occasion to return to this very important subject in our future correspondence. Mean time adieu, and receive my best wishes.

M. G.

LETTER II.

I THANK YOU for your very kind though very short letter, and in reply to your question about the Sanscrit, I have only to say that I do not think it would be worth your while to begin to study it, unless you had a prospect of a much longer residence in the East, than I trust you look forward to. But that your curiosity respecting it may not be wholly unsatisfied, I shall give you a short account of that venerable tongue, and of some of the languages derived from it, which I have taken from Mr. Colebrooke's interesting essay on the subject.

Were all other monuments swept away from the face of Hindostan, were its inhabitants destroyed, and its name forgotten, the existence of the Sanscrit language would prove that it once contained a race who had reached a high degree of refinement, and who must have been blest with many rare advantages before such a language could have been formed and polished. Amidst the wreck of the nations where it flourished, and superior to the havoc of war and of conquest, it remains a venerable monument of the splendor of other times, as the solid pyramid in the deserts of Egypt attests, that where now the whirlwind drives the overwhelming