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COLLECTED   WORKS 


OF 


THE   RIGHT  HON.   F.  MAX  MULLER 


VI 

CHIPS    FROM  A    GERMAN    WORKSHOP 

II.  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS 


THE  COLLECTED  WORKS 

OF 

THE  RIGHT  HON.  F.  MAX   MULLER. 


Vol.1.     NATURAL  RELIGION:  the  Gifford  Lectures,  i88S.     c,s. 
Vol.11.     PHYSICAL  RELIGION:  the  Gifford  Lectures,  1890.     5^-. 

Vol.    IIL      ANTHROPOLOGICAL       RELIGION:       the     Gifford 

Lectures,  1891.     5.^. 

Vol.  IV.     THEOSOPHY ;    or,  Psychological  Religion  :    the  Gifford 

Lectures,  1.S92.     ^s. 

CHIPS   FROM  A  GERMAN  WORKSHOP.     4  vols. 
\'ol.  V.     Recent  Essays  and  Addresses.     5J. 
Vol.  VL     Biographical  Essays,     ^s. 
Vol.  VIL     Essays  on  Language  and  Literature.     e,s. 
Vol.  VIIL     Essays  on  Mythology  and  Folklore.     55. 

Vol.  TX.     THE    ORIGIN    AND    GROWTH    OP    RELIGION,  as 

illustrated  liy  the  Rtligions  ol  Imlia  :  the  Hibbert  Lectures,  1878.     55. 

Vol.  X.     BIOGRAPHIES    OP  WORDS    AND    THE    HOME    OP 

THE  ARYAS.    5^. 

Vols.  XI,  XII.     THE    SCIENCE    OP    LANGUAGE :    Founded    on 
Lectures  delivered  at  the  Royal  Institution  in  1861  and  1863.    2  vols.  5^-.  each. 

Vol.  XIII.     INDIA:  What  can  it  Teach  Us?    ^s. 

Vol.  XIV.     INTRODUCTION     TO     THE     SCIENCE     OP    RE- 
LIGION.    Four  Lectures,  1870.     5s. 

Vol.  XV.     RAMAK/^/3HiVA  :  his  Life  and  Sayings,     ^s. 

Vol.  XVL     THREE   LECTURES  ON  THE  VEDANTA  PHILO- 
SOPHY, 1894.    5^. 

Vol.  XVII.     LAST  ESSAYS.     First  Series.     Essays  on  Langujige, 
Folk-lore,  &c.    5^-. 

Vol.  XVIII.     LAST    ESSAYS.      Second   Series.       Essays    on    the 
Science  of  Religion.     5J. 

Vol.  XIX.      THE   SIX  SYSTEMS   OP  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

7^-.  6d.  net. 

Vol.  XX.      THE    SILESIAN    HORSEHERD    ('  DAS    PPERDE- 
BURLA'):    Questions  of  the  Hour  Answered,     s^- 


LONGMANS,  GREEN  &  CO. 
LONDON,  NEW  YORK,  AND  BOMBAY. 


WII.HELM    MULI.ER  .S   MONUMENT   AT   DESSAU 


Vol.  II.    Secjia^e  409 


»C9V\C^ 


CHIPS 


GERMAN   WORKSHOI 


BY 

F.    MAX    MULLER,    K.M. 

LATE    FOREIGX   MEMBER   OF  THE   FRENCH    INSTITUTE 


VOL.    II 
BIOGRAPHICAL    ESSAYS 


3 


NEW     IMPRESSION 


LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND    CO. 

39  PATERNOSTER  ROW,  LONDON 
NEW   YORK   AND    liOMBAY 

1904 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTE 


Original  Edition,  Vols.  I  and  II,  Svo,  November,  1867  ; 

Vol.  Ill,  Svo,  November,  1870 ;  Vol.  IV,  8vo,  October,  1875  ; 

New  Edition,  wit6  Additions,  4  Vols.,  Crown  8vo,  1894-5  ; 

PiB-is-ued  in  Collected  Edition  of  Prof.  Max  Miiller's  Works, 
Vol.  I,  July,  1898;  Vol.  II,  August,  1S98,  Reprinted, 
December,  189S,  and  June,  1904;  Vol.  Ill,  September, 
1S9S;  Vol.  IV,  October,  189S. 


n 

PEEFACE. 


THE  Essays  comprised  in  this  volume  are 
chiefly  a  reprint  of  my  Biograpliical  Essays 
which  were  published  in  1884,  and  have  been 
out  of  print  for  several  years.  It  may  be  quite 
true  that  most  of  the  men  whose  life,  or  rather 
whose  work  in  life,  I  have  tried  to  describe,  are 
unknown  to  fame,  but  that  is  the  very  reason 
why  I  thought  they  deserved  a  biographical 
record.  Several  of  my  friends  have  asked  me, 
Who  was  Il^mmohun  Roy,  or  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen  ?  Who  was  Colebrooke,  or  Julius  Mohl  ? 
What  are  they  to  us  ?  What  lessons  can  we 
learn  from  their  lives  ?  They  might  as  well  ask, 
Who  was  Reuchlin,  and  who  was  Erasmus,  and 
what  can  we  learn  from  their  lives  ?  Rammohun 
E/Oy,  who  gave  the  first  impulse  to  a  reform  of 
the  ancient  religion  of  India,  may  hereafter  hold 
a  place  as  the  greatest  benefactor  of  millions 
of  human  beings  inhabiting  that  marvellous 
country.     I  am  quite  aware  that  the  movement 


IV  TREFACE. 

which  he  mitiated,  and  whicli  was  carried  on 
by  Keshub  Chnnder  Sen  and  Protap  Chunder 
Mozumdar,  is  languishing  at  present,  but  it 
possesses  the  vitaUty  of  truth,  and  if  there  is 
ever  to  be  a  honest  reform  of  the  national 
religion  of  India,  and  a  real  approach  to  Chris- 
tianity, it  can  only  be  on  the  lines  laid  down  by 
these  now  half-forgotten  reformers. 

Colebrooke  was,  I  believe,  the  greatest  Oriental 
scholar  that  England  has  ever  produced,  and 
though  his  energies  were  chiefly  devoted  to 
a  literature  cultivated  by  few  and  treated  with 
indifference  by  many,  the  study  of  Sanskrit  has 
inaugurated  a  new  period  in  w4iat  has  been 
called  the  proper  study  of  mankind — the  study 
of  man.  The  comparative  spirit  which  has  re- 
animated the  study  of  languages,  mythologies, 
and  religions,  and  may  be  said  to  pervade  now 
nearly  every  branch  not  only  of  historical,  but 
even  of  natural  science,  took  its  rise  with  the 
rise  of  Sanskrit  scliolarship.  If  there  is  ever 
to  be  a  reform  of  philosophy,  based  on  a  true 
perception  of  the  nature  of  language  as  the 
connate  embodiment  of  thought,  if  there  is  ever 
to  be  a  revival  of  that  eternal  and  universal  reli- 
gion which  underlies  all  the  individual  religions 
of  the  world,  Colebrooke's  name  w^ill  not  be  for- 
gotten as  having  been  the  first  to  bring  together 
solid  and  trustworthy  materials  with  which  the 


PREFACE. 


new  Comparative  Sciences  of  Language,  Mytho- 
logy, and  Religion  had  to  be  built  up. 

Julius  Mohl  as^ain,  thoujj;h  less  distino-uished 
by  original  work,  has  been  a  tower  of  strength 
through  the  beneficial  influence  which  he  exer- 
cised on  the  progress  of  Oriental  research  during 
his  long  residence  in  Paris.  As  the  persistent 
advocate  of  sound  and  critical  scholarship,  and 
the  dreaded  enemy  of  all  j^retenders,  nay,  as  the 
adviser  and  helper  of  many  students,  whether 
young  or  old,  who  had  the  high  objects  of 
Oriental  scholarship  at  heart,  his  influence  was 
felt,  not  only  in  France,  but  in  England  and 
Germany  also,  and  his  name  as  a  trusty  steers- 
man ought  not  to  be  forgotten  either  by  the 
small  crew  whom  he  has  steered  through  many 
breakers  and  safely  guided  through  many  a 
storm,  or  by  the  public  at  large  that  has  bene- 
fitted by  their  labours. 

I  have  added  a  number  of  smaller  memorial 
notices,  mostly  again  of  men  little  known  beyond 
the  circle  of  their  own  fellow-labourers.  It  is 
a  very  sad  duty  to  have  to  speak  at  the  graves 
of  our  friends,  but  it  is  a  duty  which  a  man 
who  lives  beyond  threescore  years  and  ten  can 
hardly  escape.  I  have  not  been  able  to  collect 
all  the  obituary  notices  which  I  have  had  to 
contribute  to  the  Times,  the  Athenaeum,  and 
the  Academy  during  nearly  half  a  century,  but 

b 


yi  PREFACE. 

I  believe  that  every  one  here  reprinted  was 
devoted  to  a  friend  whose  name  well  deserves 
to  be  remembered  in  the  midst  of  the  hurry 
and  forgetfulness  of  our  busy  life.  Much  of  the 
best  work  in  the  world  is  done  by  those  whose 
names  remain  unknown,  who  work  because 
life's  greatest  bliss  is  work,  and  who  require  no 
reward  beyond  the  consciousness  that  they  have 
enlarged  the  knowledge  of  mankind,  and  con- 
tributed their  share  to  the  final  triumph  of 
honesty  and  truth. 

F.  M.  M. 


CONTED^TS. 


Rajah  Eammohun  Roy,  1774-1833  (1883^     . 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  i  838-1 884  (1885) 

Letters  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  F.  M.  M.,  and  Protap 
Chunder  Mozumdar 

Letters  on  Dean  Stanley 

Dayananda  Sarasvat!,   1S27-1883  (1S83)      . 

BuNYiU  Nanjio,  born  1849  (1S84)  .... 

Short  Account  of  his  Life,  written  by  himself 

Kenjiu  Kasawara,  1851-18S3  (18S3)    .... 
Letters  from  Kenjiu  Kasawara   .... 

colebrooke,  1765-1837  (1s72)        

Julius  Mohl,  1800-1S76  (1876) 

Reply  to  Sir  Henry  Eawlinson,  G.C.B. 

BuNSEN,  1791-1860  (1S69)       

Charles  Kingsley,  1820-1875  (1876)     .... 

Wilhelm  Muller,  1794-1S27  (iSGS)      .... 
A  National  Monument  of  Wiluelm  Mcller  (1891) 


PAGE 
I 

49 

88 

12S 

166 

183 
190 

211 
214 

228 
272 
311 
313 
.365 
386 
404 


Vlll 


CONTENTS, 


Short  Memorial  Notices  : — 

I.  Bishop  Patteson  (1871) 
II.  Barthold  Georg  Niebuhr  (1876) 

III.  Friedrich  Wilhelm  Ritsclil  (1877 

IV.  Hermann  Brockhaus  (1S77) 
V.  Anton  Scbiefner  (1878) 

VI.  Theodor  Benfey  (1881) 

VII.  Adalbert  KuLn(iSSO 

VIII.  John  Muir  (1S82) 

IX.  Princess  Alice  (1S83)  . 

X.  Richard  Lepsius  (1884) 

XL  August  Friedrich  Pott  (18S7) 

XII.  African  Spir  (1890)     . 

APPENDIX.     Comparative  View  of  Sanskrit  an 
Languages,  by  T.  H.  Colebkooke  (1S02) 


D  other 


PAGK 

429 

435 
446 

451 
454 
458 
46  a 
468 
471 
475 
486 
490 

499 


BIOGEAPHICAL    ESSAYS. 


RAJAH  RAMMOHUN  ROY. 

(1774-1833.) 

Address  delivered  in  iTie  "Bristol  Museum,  Sepfemher  27,  1SS3, 
the  Fiftieth  Anniversary  of  the  Rajah's  death. 

IT  is  only  fifty  years  ago  that  Rajah  Rammohun 
Roy,  who  had  come  to  Bristol  to  pay  a  visit  to 
Dr.  Carpenter  and  other  friends,  died  here  on  the 
27th  of  September,  1 833.  He  drew  his  last  breath  at 
twenty-five  minutes  past  two  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

On  the  1 8th  of  October  his  body  was  committed  to 
the  earth,  under  the  shadow  of  some  tine  old  elm-trees 
in  the  garden  of  Stapleton  Grove,  where  the  Rajah 
had  been  staying,  since  the  beginning  of  September, 
as  the  guest  of  Miss  Castle,  a  ward  of  Dr.  Carpenter's. 

Lastly,  in  1843,  on  the  29th  of  May,  the  remains 
of  the  Rajah  were  transferred  from  Stapleton  Grove 
to  the  beautiful  cemetery  of  Arno's  Vale.  There,  as 
you  enter,  on  the  right  hand  side,  many  of  those 
whom  I  have  the  honour  to  address  here  to-night, 
have  no  doubt  gazed  and  wondered  at  a  strange 
Oriental  monument,  which  was  erected  over  the  tomb 
of  the  Rajah  by  my  old  friend,  Dvarkanath^  Tagore, 

'  Dvalrakanatha,  like  Dvdrakesa,  is  a  name  of  Krishwa, 
VOL.  II.  B 


2  BIOaKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

•who  was  himself  a  follower  of  the  great  religious 
reformer,  and  soon  after  shared  his  sad  fate  of  dying 
an  exile  in  a  foreign  country.  Let  me  read  you  the 
lines  inscribed  on  the  monument : — 

BENEATH   THIS   STONE 

REST  THE   REMAINS  OF   RAJA   RAMMOHUN   ROY  BAHADOOR, 

A   CONSCIENTIOUS   AND    STEADFAST   BELIEVER   IN   THE 

UNITY   OF   THE   GODHEAD  ; 

HE  CONSECRATED   HIS   LIFE  WITH   ENTIRE  DEVOTION 

TO   THE   WORSHIP    OF   THE   DIVINE    SPIRIT   ALONE. 

To  GREAT  NATURAL  TALENTS  HE  UNITED  A  THOROUGH  MASTERY 
OF  MANY  LANGUAGES,  AND  EARLY  DISTINGUISHED  HIMSELF  AS  ONE 
OF   THE  GREATEST  SCHOLARS  OF   HIS   DAY. 

His   UNWEARIED    LABOURS    TO    PROMOTE    THE     SOCIAL,     MORAL, 

and  physical  condition  of  the  people  of  india,  his  earnest 
endeavours  to  suppress  idolatry  and  the  rite  of  suttee, 
and  his  constant  zealous  advocacy  of  whatever  tended  to 
advance  the  glory  of  god  and  the  welfare  of  man,  live 
in  the  grateful  remembrance  of  his  countrymen. 

This  tablet  records  the  sorrow  and  pride  with  which 
his  memory  is  cherished  by  his  descendants. 

He  WAS  BORN  IN  RADHANAGORE,  IN  BENGAL,  IN  1 774,  AND 
DIED  AT  BRISTOL,   SEPTEMBER   27TH,  1833. 

These  are  the  bare  facts  which  connect  this  ancient 
city  of  Bristol  with  the  memory  of  Rajah  Eammohun 
Roy,  the  great  religious  reformer  of  India.  You 
wished  for  an  interpretation  of  these  facts,  and  I 
only  wish  you  could  have  found  a  more  competent 
and  more  eloquent  interpreter.  But  as  an  old  admirer, 
and  I  feel  proud  to  say,  as  a  sincere  follower  of 
Rammohun  Roy,  so  far  as  he  went  in  his  religious 
reforms,  I  felt  it  almost  impossible  to  decline  the 
kind  invitation  which  was  addressed  to  me  by  my 
friend,  our  Chairman,  in  the  name  of  your  Society, 


EAJAH   EAMMOHUN   ROY.  3 

to  be  present  here  on  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of 
the  death  of  Eajah  Kammohun  Roy,  and  to  say 
a  few  words  on  his  life,  and,  what  is  more  important, 
on  the  work  of  his  life, — on  that  which  has  outlived 
his  life,  and  has  secured  to  him  that  best  of  all  im- 
mortalities,— the  gratitude  of  mankind. 

If  I  tell  you  that  Rammohun's  life-work  was  the 
restoration  of  the  old  religion  of  India,  as  contained 
in  the  Veda,  and  that  a  great  part  of  my  own  life 
has  been  spent  in  making  the  Veda  accessible  to  the 
students  of  Europe,  by  collecting  the  ancient  MSS. 
of  the  Sacred  Writings  of  the  Brahmans,  and  publish- 
ing for  the  first  time  the  text  and  commentary  of  the 
Rig- Veda,  the  oldest  book  of  the  whole  Aryan  race, 
you  will  easily  understand  the  strong  sympathy  I  feel 
for  the  Indian  Reformer,  whose  ashes  rest  among  the 
ashes  of  your  own  forefathers ;  but  I  am  afraid  I  shall 
hardly  convey  to  you  by  these  few  words  a  very  clear 
idea  either  of  what  the  Rajah  tried  to  achieve  as  a 
reformer,  or  what  I  myself  hoped  to  accomplish  as  a 
scholar.  It  wiU  be  necessary  therefore,  before  pro- 
ceeding further,  to  turn  our  eyes  together  to  the  past, 
in  order  to  gain  a  kind  of  historical  background  from 
which  the  religious  reformer  of  India,  to  whose  memory 
we  wish  to  do  honour  to-night,  may  step  forward  as 
you  see  his  stately  figure  advancing  towards  you  in 
that  excellent  picture  which  has  to-night  been  placed 
in  this  hall,  and  which,  I  hope,  may  always  retain  a 
place  of  honour  in  your  Museum  ^ 

1  The  life-size  portrait,  by  B^g-gs  was  bonght  by  Miss  Castle  and 
presented  to  the  Bristol  Museum.  The  Efijah  himself  did  not  like  it, 
possibly  because  he  thought  the  complexion  too  dark.  There  is  also  a 
miniature  by  Newton,  and  a  bust  by  Clarke. 

h  2 


4  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

Great  men,  depend  upon  it,  do  not  come  down  from 
the  sky  like  shooting  stars.  They  come  in  the  fuhiess 
of  time ;  and  if  we  want  to  understand  their  true 
character,  we  must  try  to  understand  that  fukiess  of 
time,  that  is,  the  time  that  lay  behind  and  the  time 
that  lay  before  them.  We  must  know  the  work  that 
others  had  done  before  them,  in  order  to  understand 
the  work  that  they  themselves  were  meant  to  do. 

Kammohun  Roy,  the  originator  of  the  Indian  Re- 
formation, a  reformation  that  is  still  going  on  slowly, 
silently,  but,  for  all  that,  irresistibly,  died  fifty  years 
ago.  Now  fifty  years  may  not  seem  to  some  of  us 
a  very  long  time.  It  is  quite  possible  that  a  few  who 
are  present  here  to-night  may  remember  the  Rajah's 
visit  to  Bristol.  Yet  fifty  years  are  half  a  century,  and 
remember  that,  according  to  the  received  chronology, 
not  more  than  sixty  such  centuries  are  supposed  to 
form  the  canvass  for  the  whole  history  of  the  world, 
or.  at  least,  for  as  much  of  it  as  we  shall  ever  know. 
Remember  that  we  have  accustomed  ourselves  to 
believe  that  only  one  hundred  and  twenty  such  short 
periods  as  have  passed  since  the  death  of  Rammohun 
Roy,  that  is  to  say,  no  more  than  6000  years — a 
stretch  of  time  that  might  almost  be  spanned  by  the 
memory  of  sixty  men — separate  us  from  what  will 
always  remain  the  most  miraculous  of  all  miracles, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  the  most  certain  of  all  facts — 
the  appearance  on  this  earth  of  a  being,  capable  of 
language,  that  is,  of  reason ;  a  being  which,  when  it 
came  to  be  conscious  of  its  dignity,  called  itself  Man, 
or,  in  Sanskrit,  3Ia?m,  which  means  the  measurer,  the 
thinker,  the  discoverer  and  the  giver  of  laws. 

I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  I  myself  believe  that 


BAJAH  KAMMOHUN   ROY.  5 

the  age  of  man  is  six  thousand  years  and  no  more. 
I  only  wish  to  measure  the  time  that  has  elapsed 
since  the  death  of  Rammohun  Roy  with  the  time 
that  is  commonly  believed  to  have  elapsed  since  the 
birth  of  man. 

I  doubt  whether  Astronomy  will  ever  be  able  to 
measure  the  age  of  the  solar  system  in  which  our 
planet  moves  as  a  very  small  star  among  larger  stars, 
all  held  together  by  the  same  central  force. 

I  doubt  whether  Geology  will  ever  be  able  to  fix 
the  time  when,  after  the  long  interval  that  must  have 
followed  on  the  glacial  period,  the  highest  plateaus  of 
the  earth  became  fit  for  human  occupation. 

But  I  feel  perfectly  certain  that  no  one  who  has 
carefully  studied  the  origin,  growth,  and  decay  of  all 
that  we  call  human,  our  thoughts,  our  words,  our 
religions,  our  arts,  our  sciences,  our  Jaws  and  literature, 
can  really  believe,  or  can  make  it  even  intelligible  to 
himself,  that  no  more  than  sixty  centuries,  no  more 
than  one  hundred  and  eighty  generations,  should 
have  passed  since  the  first  fire  was  lighted,  the  first 
fiint  chipped,  the  first  word  uttered. 

Let  us  think  of  our  language  only.  It  is  said  that 
the  New  English  Dictionary,  which  has  been  prepared 
during  the  last  twenty-five  years  by  the  members  of 
the  Philological  Society,  and  the  first  part  of  which, 
edited  by  Dr.  Murray,  will  soon  issue  from  the  Uni- 
versity Press  at  Oxford,  is  to  contain  one  quarter  of 
a  million  of  words.  Every  one  of  these  words  is  a 
work  of  art;  it  is  the  workmanship  of  human 
genius.  And  every  one  of  these  words  had  not 
only  to  be  fashioned,  but  it  had  to  be  accepted ;  it 
had  to   be   recognised   as    the    current   coin   of  the 


6  BIOGKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

realm  b}''  millions  and  millions  of  speakers.  The 
history  of  that  primeval  coinage,  its  dispersion  over 
the  whole  inhabited  world,  the  losses  which  it  suf- 
fered by  wear  and  tear,  the  alloys  which  it  had  to 
admit,  the  ever-increasing  I'apidity  with  which  the 
ever-increasing  wants  of  the  intellectual  Exchange  of 
the  whole  world  were  supplied, — all  this  forms  a 
study  with  which,  to  my  mind,  no  other  study  can. 
vie,  call  it  astronomy,  geology,  or  even  philosophy. 
That  study  certainly  leaves  the  impression  on  every 
unprejudiced  scholar  that,  to  account  for  it  all,  we 
want  rather  the  fabulous  periods  of  Hindu  chronology 
than  the  narrow  limits  of  the  dates  which  have  been 

'„'      deduced  by  media3val  scholars  from  the  Sacred  Books 

\'      of  the  Jews. 

Well,  let  us  consider  now  what  a  lesson  of  history 
is  conveyed  by  the  fact  that  Rammohun  Roy,  when 
he  came  to  England  from  the  far  East,  spoke  a  lan- 
guage, the  Bengali,  which  in  one  sense,  and  in  a  truly 
scientific  sense,  may  be  called  the  same  language  as 
English.  Not  only  the  material  elements,  but  the 
original  formal  elements  too,  are  the  same  in  English 
and  Bengali ;  and  turn  it  as  you  like,  you  cannot 
escape  from  the  conclusion  that  Rammohun  Roy, 
however  strange  his  language  may  have  sounded  to 
his  friends  at  Bristol,  was  not  a  mere  stranger  when 
he  arrived  in  Europe,  but  was  returning,  in  reality, 
to  his  own  intellectual  kith  and  kin.  I  say  i7itel- 
lecltial  kith  and  kin,  because  that  kinship  is  far  more 
important  than  the  mere  kinship  of  blood.  Blood 
may  be  thicker  than  water,  but  language  is  thicker 
than  blood,  at  least  to  beiugs  who,  though  for  a  time 
identifying  themselves  with  their  flesh  and  blood,  are 


EAJAH   EAMMCHUN   ROY.  7 

themselves  something  very  different  from  mere  flesh 
and  blood. 

We  have  now  reached  a  point  from  which  the 
journey  of  Rammohun  Roy  from  India  to  Europe, 
and  his  stay  in  England,  will  appear  to  us  in  an  entirely 
new  light.  The  Science  of  Language,  and,  in  fact, 
every  true  science,  is  like  a  hardy  Alpine  guide  that 
leads  us  from  the  narrow,  though  it  may  be  the  more 
peaceful  and  charming  valleys  of  our  preconceived 
opinions,  to  higher  points,  apparently  less  attractive, 
nay  often  disappointing  for  a  time,  till,  after  hours 
of  patient  and  silent  climbing,  we  look  round,  and 
see  a  new  world  around  us.  A  new  horizon  has 
opened,  our  eyes  see  far  and  wide,  and  as  the  world 
beneath  us  grows  wider  and  larger,  our  own  hearts 
seem  to  grow  wider  and  larger,  and  we  learn  to  em- 
brace the  far  and  distant,  and  all  that  before  seemed 
strange  and  indifferent,  with  a  warmer  recognition 
and  a  deeper  human  sympathy.  We  form  wider  con- 
cepts, we  perceive  higher  truths.  From  that  point  of 
view,  the  Indian  and  the  European  grow  into  one,  the 
Indo-European,  speaking  the  same  speech,  thinking 
the  same  thoughts ;  and  Rammohun  Roy,  the  dark- 
skinned  stranger,  when  landing  on  the  shores  of  these 
distant  isles,  is  recognised  at  once,  and  greeted  as  one 
of  oui'selves,  estranged  from  us  by  no  greater  changes 
than  what  some  thousand  years  may  have  wrought 
in  that  language  which  his  ancestors  and  ours  once 
spoke  together  under  the  same  sky,  it  may  be,  under 
the  same  roof,  and  which  still  lives  on,  however  dis- 
guised, in  his  speech  and  in  our  own,  in  Bengali  and 
in  English. 

And  now  let  us  ask  another  question,  in  order  to 


8  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

understand  and  properly  to  appreciate  the  hidden 
springs  and  the  real  purport  of  Rammohun  Roy's 
visit  to  England.     Why  did  he  come  to  England  ? 

We  shall  see  that  ostensibly  he  came  on  busi- 
ness. He  was  sent  by  the  Emperor  of  Delhi, 
the  Great  Mogul,  to  plead  his  cause  in  one  of  the 
crowded  streets  of  the  city  of  London,  in  Leadenhall- 
etreet,  in  the  gloomy  East-India  House,  before  the 
Court  of  Directors  of  the  now  extinct  East-India 
Company.  But  his  real  business  was  very  difterent. 
The  supreme  and  all-absorbing  interest  of  Rammohun 
Roy's  life  was  religion.  Remember  the  first  lines  on 
his  tombstone,  '  He  was  a  conscientious  and  steadfast 
believer  in  the  Unity  of  the  Godhead,  and  consecrated 
his  life  with  entire  devotion  to  the  worship  of  the 
Divine  Spirit  alone.'  He  was  a  Brahman  by  birth, 
and  though  his  mind  had  been  opened  by  contact 
with  English  society  in  India,  and  had  been  widened, 
purified,  and  liberalised  by  a  conscientious  study  of 
the  Sacred  Books  of  the  great  religions  of  the  world, 
yet  he  remained  a  Brahman  to  the  end.  No  doubt 
he  admired  Christianity  more  than  any  other  religion ; 
I  think  we  may  truly  say  he  admired  it  more  than 
his  own;  yet,  for  all  that,  he  remained  a  Brahman, 
and  was  therefore  in  the  eyes  of  most  of  the  people 
who  received  him  in  England,  a  non-Christian,  or 
a  heathen. 

And  yet  we  have  only  to  ascend  again  to  a  higher 
elevation,  as  we  did  before  under  the  guidance  of  the 
Science  of  Language,  and  we  shall  meet  with  a  new 
guide,  the  Science  of  Religion,  which  will  lead  us 
to  a  still  higher  standpoint,  and  will  open  before 
our  eyes  a  wide  panorama,  where  the  past  history 


RAJAH   RAMMOHUN    ROY.  9 

of  the  religions  of  the  ■world  seems  almost  present 
again,  and  where  we  can  see  the  ancestors  of  that 
so-called  heathen,  worshipping  the  same  gods  and 
the  same  God  whom  some  of  our  own  ancestors  once 
worshipped  in  their  sacred  groves  not  more  than  ten 
centuries  ago.  There  was  a  time  when  the  fathers  of 
the  Aryan  race,  that  noble  race  to  which  we  ourselves 
belong,  which  has  since  been  divided  into  Greeks  and 
Romans,  Celts  and  Slaves  on  one  side,  and  Indians 
and  Persians  on  the  other,  invoked  with  the  same 
names  the  gods  of  the  sky,  and  the  air,  and  the  earth, 
the  gods  whose  real  presence  was  felt  in  the  thunder 
and  the  storm  and  the  rain,  whose  abode  was  looked 
for  in  the  clouds  or  on  the  inaccessible  crests  of  the 
mountains, — but  chiefly  the  God,  who  was  seen  and 
yet  not  seen  in  the  sun,  who  was  revealed  every 
morning  in  the  brightness  of  the  dawn,  and  who 
himself  revealed,  far  away  in  the  golden  East,  that 
infinite  Beyond,  for  which  human  language  has  no 
name,  human  thought  no  form,  but  which  the  eye 
of  faith  perceives,  and  after  fashioning  it  into  endless 
ideal  shapes,  and  endowing  it  with  all  that  is  most 
beautiful  in  poetry,  most  choice  in  art,  most  sublime 
in  philosophy,  calls — God. 

The  names  of  some  of  these  Aryan  gods,  such  as 
the  poor  vocabulaiy  of  man  could  supply,  were  the 
same  among  the  Saxons  whom  Charlemagne  con- 
verted, and  among  the  poets  of  India,  whose  sacred 
songs  have  been  preserved  to  us,  as  by  a  miracle,  in 
the  hymns  of  the  Veda. 

In  this  panorama,  which  a  comparative  study  of 
the  ancient  rehgions  of  mankind  has  enabled  us  to 
construct,  we   can  still  see  the  Aryan  worshippers, 


10  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

breaking  up  from  their  common  centre,  and  dividing 
into  two  branches,  the  North-Western  and  the  South- 
Eastern. 

The  former  marched  towards  the  home  of  the  setting 
sun,  till  they  had  reached  that  small  peninsula  which 
we  now  call  Europe,  and  which  became  the  stage 
of  what  we  are  apt  to  call  the  history  of  the  whole 
world. 

The  latter,  the  South-Eastern  branch,  set  out  to 
discover  the  home  of  the  rising  sun,  tiU  they  reached 
their  earthly  paradise  in  the  valleys  of  the  land  of  the 
Five  Rivers,  and,  further  still,  along  the  shores  of  the 
Ganges  and  the  Jumnah.  Though  these  South-Eastern 
Aryans  are  seldom  mentioned  in  our  Histories  of  the 
world,  we  should  bear  in  mind  that  India  alone  has 
more  inhabitants  at  the  present  moment  than  the 
whole  of  Europe. 

When  these  two  streams  parted,  each  of  them  pre- 
served some  of  the  names  of  their  ancient  common 
gods,  but  each  arrived  in  time  at  the  belief  in  a 
Father  of  all  gods,  in  an  All-father,  in  a  God  of  gods. 
That  faith,  however,  in  the  All-father,  that  mystery 
of  the  One  God  above  all  gods,  was  preserved  by  the 
few  only.  The  North-Western  Aryans  at  large,  call 
them  Greeks,  or  Romans,  or  Celts,  or  Slaves,  or 
Germans,  forgot  the  true  meaning  of  the  ancient 
names,  debased  the  character  of  their  ancient  gods, 
and  forgetful  alike  of  the  All-father  and  of  the  in- 
finite Beyond  in  the  golden  East,  they  became  more 
and  more  absorbed  in  the  cares  and  pleasures  of  what 
was  called  political  and  practical  life.  From  this 
there  was  but  one  escape ;  and  we  see  accordingly 
that  aU  the  North-Western  Aryas  had  sooner  or  later 


KAJAH   KAMMOIIUX    ROY.  11 

to  surrender  the  ancient  and  corrupt  religion  of  their 
Aryan  forefathers,  and  to  embrace  a  new  religion, 
not  of  Aryan,  but  of  Semitic  descent;  a  religion  in 
which  the  unity  of  the  Godhead  had  never  been  for- 
gotten; a  religion  founded,  not  only  on  the  wor- 
ship, but  on  the  love  of  the  All-father;  a  religion 
lastly  which,  in  spite  of  the  most  fearful  corruptions 
which  it  has  suffered,  has  always  preserved  to  those 
who  have  eyes  to  see,  something  of  that  original 
simplicity,  purity,  and  true  divinity  which  it  pos- 
sessed in  the  minds  of  Christ  and  His  disciples. 

Rammohun  Roy,  the  Arya,  the  Indian,  the  Brahman, 
came  to  England  for  the  sake  of  that  new  religion. 
He  had  studied  Christianity  before,  he  had  seen  its 
working  among  the  English  residents  in  India;  but 
he  wished  to  see  a  whole  Christian  country,  and  he 
was  longing  for  free  intercourse  with  some  of  the 
freest  and  most  fearless  thinkers  in  the  Christian 
Church.     And  why  was  that "? 

I  told  you  before  that  Rammohun  Roy  was  an 
Arya,  belonging  to  the  South-Eastern  branch  of  the 
Aryan  race,  and  that  he  spoke  an  Aryan  language, 
the  Bengali.  He  had  been  brought  up  to  worship 
the  old  Aryan  gods,  and  he  lived  among  a  people 
most  of  whom  had  foro-otten  the  orio^inal  intention 
of  their  ancient  gods,  and  had  sunk  into  idolatry  of 
the  darkest  hue.  He  himself,  like  many  of  his  country- 
men, possessed  the  old  mystery  of  the  All-father,  the 
father  of  gods  and  men,  the  Pra/yapati,  the  lord  of 
creatures,  as  he  would  call  him.  Nay,  he  knew  more. 
He  was  a  true  Brahman,  so  called  because  he  knew 
the  Brahman,  the  Supreme  Spirit,  or,  more  correctly, 
the  Highest  Self,  the  One  without  a  second,  the  One 


12  BIOGtEAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

in  all,  the  Self  behind  us  and  the  Self  within  us.  He 
knew  all  this,  at  least  dimly,  and  yet  he  wanted  to 
know  more ;  and  he  came  to  England,  the  first  Brahman 
who  ever  crossed  the  sea,  to  see  whether  Europe, 
whether  Christian  Europe,  would  teach  him  some- 
thing which  he  had  looked  for  in  vain  in  the  Vedas 
and  in  the  Upanishads,  in  the  Bhagavadgit^  and  in 
the  Vedanta-sutras.  He  came  to  England,  and  after 
spending  some  time  in  London,  seeing  the  best  men 
he  could  find,  and  watching  the  outward  manifest- 
ations of  Christianity,  wherever  they  showed  them- 
selves, whether  in  drawing-rooms  or  prisons,  in  Church 
or  Parliament,  in  schools  or  hospitals,  he  at  last  came 
to  Bristol  to  finish  his  search  after  truth,  a  search 
which  only  ended  with  his  last  breath. 

I  have  thus  tried  to  lay  before  you  a  map  of  the 
world, — a  mere  sketch,  it  is  true,  yet  sufficiently 
clear,  I  hope,  to  make  you  see  that  Rammohun  Roy's 
visit  to  England  was  not  merely  a  fortuitous  ad- 
venture, but  that  it  had  historical  antecedents,  that 
it  had  an  historical  character,  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  word.  If  History  is  to  teach  us  anything,  it  must 
teach  us  that  there  is  a  continuity  which  binds  to- 
gether the  present  and  the  past,  the  East  and  the 
West.  And  no  branch  of  history  teaches  that  lesson 
more  powerfully  than  the  history  of  language  and 
the  history  of  religion.  It  is  under  their  guidance 
that  we  recognise  in  Rammohun  Roy's  visit  to  Eng- 
land the  meeting  again  of  the  two  great  branches  of 
the  Aryan  race,  after  they  had  been  separated  so  long 
that  they  had  lost  all  recollection  of  their  common 
origin,  of  their  common  language,  of  their  common 
faith.      In  Rammohun  Roy  you  may  recognise  the 


EAJAH  eImMOHUN   KOY.  13 

best  representative  of  the  South-Eastern  Aryas,  turn- 
ing deliberately  North,  to  shake  hands  once  more 
with  the  most  advanced  outposts  of  the  other  branch 
of  the  Aryan  family,  established  in  these  islands.  It 
is  true  that,  long  before  his  visit  to  England,  England 
had  visited  India,  first  for  the  sake  of  commerce,  then 
for  the  sake  of  self-defence  and  conquest.  But  for 
the  sake  of  intellectual  intercourse,  for  the  sake  of 
comparing  notes,  so  to  say,  with  his  Aryan  brothers, 
Rammohun  Roy  was  the  first  who  came  from  East 
to  West,  the  first  to  join  hands  and  to  complete  that 
world-wide  circle  through  which  henceforth,  like  an 
electric  current,  Oriental  thought  could  run  to  the 
West,  and  Western  thought  return  to  the  East,  making 
us  feel  once  more  that  original  brotherhood  which 
unites  the  whole  Aryan  race,  inspiring  us  with  new 
hopes  for  a  common  faith,  purer  and  simpler  than 
any  of  the  ecclesiastical  religions  of  the  world,  and 
invigorating  us  for  acts  of  nobler  daring  in  the  con- 
quest of  truth  than  any  that  are  inscribed  in  the 
chronicles  of  our  divided  past.  If  England  is  to  be 
the  great  Indo-European  Empire  of  the  future,  Ram- 
mohun  Roy's  name  will  hold  a  prominent  place  among 
the  prophets  and  martyrs  that  saw  her  true  mission, 
and  her  true  greatness  and  glory  in  the  distant  future. 

This  must  sufiice  as  the  historical  backoround.  Let 
us  now  look  at  the  man  who  steps  forward  from  it 
to  do  his  own  work  in  life,  and  to  fight  his  own  battle, 
trying  with  aU  his  might  to  leave  the  world,  and 
more  particularly  his  own  country,  a  little  better 
than  he  found  it. 

There  is  little  to  be  said  about  the  mere  life  of 
Rammohun  Roy,  and  even  the  little  we  know  from 


14  BIOGKAPHICAL    ESSAYS. 

himself  and  from  his  friends  is  far  from  trustworthy. 
There  is  no  taste  for  history  in  India,  still  less  for 
biography.  Home  life  and  family  life  are  shrouded 
by  a  veil  which  no  one  ventures  to  lift,  while  public 
life,  in  which  a  man's  character  shows  itself  in  Eng- 
land, has  as  yet  no  existence  in  the  East.  On  the  other 
hand,  loose  statements,  gossip,  rumour,  legend,  fable, 
myth — call  them  what  you  like — are  marvellously  busy 
in  the  East ;  and  though  Rammohun  Roy  has  been 
dead  for  fifty  years  only,  several  stories  are  told  by 
his  biographers  which  have  clearly  a  mythological 
character. 

What  interests  us  so  much  in  the  biographies  of 
great  men,  their  home-life,  their  early  friendships, 
their  married  life,  all  this  is  wanting  in  Rammohun 
Roy's  biography.  We  shall  hear  something  about  his 
feelings  for  his  mother,  but  of  his  married  life  we 
know  no  more  than  that  he  had  three  wives.  His 
first  wife  died  when  he  was  very  young,  and  his 
father  married  him  to  a  third  wife  while  the  second 
was  living.  His  second  wife  was  the  mother  of  his 
two  sons,  Radhaprasad  and  Ramprasad,  and  all  we 
know  of  her  is  that  she  died  soon  after  his  mother's 
death.  His  eldest  son  died  without  leaving  male 
issue,  while  the  younger  attained  eminence  at  the 
bar,  and  was  elected  the  first  native  Judge  of  the 
High  Court  of  Eort  William,  though  he  died  before 
taking  his  seat. 

The  real  biography  of  Rammohun  Roy  must  be 
read  in  the  work  which  he  did ;  and  in  order  to 
understand  that  work  it  will  be  sufficient  for  us  to 
remember  only  a  few  prominent  events  of  his  life  \ 

*  Miss  Collet,  who  is  collecting  materials  for  a  complete  life  of  the 


RAJAH  RAMMOHUN   ROY.  15 

Rammohun  Roy  was  born  in  Bengal  in  1774,  so 
that  at  the  time  of  his  death  he  was  not  more  than 
fifty-nine  years  of  age.  His  ancestors  on  both  sides 
belonged  to  the  Brahman  caste.  His  paternal  an- 
cestors, however,  had  been  engaged  in  secular  pursuits, 
while  his  maternal  ancestors  adhered  to  a  life  of  reli- 
gious observances  and  devotion.  Rammohun  Roy 
himself  was  educated  for  practical  life,  and,  as  a  boy, 
devoted  much  time  to  the  study  of  Persian  and  Arabic, 
though  the  influence  of  his  mother's  relations  seems 
to  have  induced  him  not  to  nesflect  altoo-ether  the 
study  of  Sanskrit,  in  which  the  main  body  of  Hindu 
literature,  law,  and  religion  is  composed.  His  doubts 
and  misgivings  as  to  his  ancestral  religion  seem  to 
have  been  roused  at  a  very  early  age,  but  the 
statement  that,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  he  composed  in 
Persian  a  treatise  against  the  idolatry  of  all  religions  ^ 
— a  bold  subject  for  a  man  of  sixty,  much  more  for 
a  boy  of  sixteen — rests  on  authority  that  may  be 
doubted  2. 

What  seems  certain  is  that,  owins:  to  some  mis- 
understandings  with  his  father  on  religious  subjects, 
he  left  his  paternal  home  when  he  was  about  sixteen, 
and  travelled  over  a  considerable  part  of  India,  pro- 
ceeding even  beyond  the  frontiers  of  his  country,  if 
report  speaks  true,  and  spending  some  time  in  Tibet. 

That  he    studied   the   lanp-uao^e   and  literature   of 

o       o 

E&jah,  remarks  that  even  the  date  of  his  birth  is  doubtful.  The 
Bajah's  younger  brother  placed  it  in  1772. 

'  The  book  here  referred  to  is  probably  the  one  mentioned  on  p.  34 
as  'Present  to  Monotheista,'  of  which,  as  Miss  Collet  informs  me, 
one  printed  copy  exists  in  the  Adi  Samaj  Library.  It  was  written  after 
his  father's  death. 

*  See  Appendix,  p.  46. 


16  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

Tibet,  and  became  really  acquainted  with  the  Sacred 
Canon  of  the  Buddhists  in  Tibet,  I  doubt  for  various 
reasons;  still  the  impressions  he  received  on  these 
•wanderings  may  have  told  on  his  future  career,  by 
opening  his  eyes  to  the  similarity  of  all  religious 
belief,  hidden  under  a  great  diversity  of  outward  form 
and  ceremonial. 

After  his  father's  death  in  1803  Rammohun  Eoy 
first  returned  to  Murshadabad,  the  capital  of  the 
Soubah  of  Bengal,  at  whose  Court  his  ancestors  had 
found  employment.  He  then  served  for  a  number  of 
years  as  Diwan  (Sheristadar)  in  the  East-India  Com- 
pany's service.  This  was  the  highest  post  to  which 
at  that  time  a  native  could  aspire,  and  a  special  clause 
had  to  be  inserted  in  his  Agreement  that  he  should 
not  be  kept  standing  in  the  presence  of  his  employer. 
At  that  time  Diwan  meant  often  de  facto  magistrate, 
de  facto  collector,  de  facto  judge.  While  holding  that 
office  at  Rungpore  under  Mr.  John  Digby  his  know- 
ledge of  English  was  much  improved,  and  he  succeeded 
at  last  in  writing  and  speaking  it  with  considerable 
accuracy. 

After  having  secured  an  independent  fortune  ^ — ac- 

*  Remarks  have  been  made  on  the  sudden  wealth  which  Edmmohun 
Roy  was  supposed  to  have  accumulated  during  his  Diwanship.  It  is 
stated  that  he  inherited  next  to  nothing  from  his  father,  but  that  does 
not  prove  that  other  ancestral  property  did  not  come  to  him.  Mr. 
Sandford  Arnot  states  that '  the  death  of  relatives  enabled  him  to  retire 
from  active  life.'  Dr.  Carpenter  states  that  his  father  divided  his 
property  amongst  his  sons  two  years  before  his  death,  while  Mr.  Arnot 
declares  that  Rammohun  Roy  was  disinherited  by  his  father.  Certain 
it  is  that  in  an  action  instituted  against  Rilmmohun  Roy  in  the  Calcutta 
Provincial  Court  in  1S23,  by  the  Rajah  of  Burdwan,  Tej  Chand,  for  a 
balance  due  from  his  father  on  a  Kistbundy  bond,  Rammohun  Roy 
stated  that,  so  far  from  inheriting  the  property  of  his  deceased  father, 


EAJAH  KAMMOHUN   EOT.  17 

cording  to  some  amounting  to  10,000  rupees  a  year — 
he  went  in  18 14  to  settle  in  Calcutta.  He  bought  a 
house,  built  in  the  European  style,  and  a  garden,  and 
in  1818  we  first  hear  of  meetings  held  there  by  his 
friends.  We  catch  a  glimpse  of  his  life  at  that  time 
through  Mr.  Arnot,  who  visited  him  at  his  garden- 
house  near  Calcutta,  and  found  him  one  eveniug, 
about  seven  o'clock,  closing  a  dispute  with  one  of 
the  followers  of  Buddha  who  denied  the  existence  of 
a  Deity.  The  Rajah  had  spent  the  whole  day  in  the 
controversy,  without  stopping  for  food,  rest,  or  re- 
freshment, rejoicing  more  in  confuting  one  atheist 
than  in  triumphing  over  a  hundred  idolaters.  The 
credulity  of  the  one  he  despised,  the  scepticism  of  the 
other  he  thought  pernicious,  being  '  deeply  impressed 
with  the  importance  of  religion  to  the  virtue  and 
happiness  of  mankind.' 

Rammohun  Roy,  however,  was  equally  outspoken 
against  his  co-religionists  as  against  Buddhists  and 
unbelievers.  At  first  it  seems  to  have  been  his  con- 
tact with  Mohammedans  which  made  him  a  believer 
in  One  God.  Afterwards,  however,  when  his  early 
hatred  of  everything  English  had  been  changed  into 
a  feeling  of  sincere  respect  ^,  and  when  his  know- 
ledo;e  of  the  Eno;lish  lano-uaffe  enabled  him  to  become 


he  had,  during  his  life-time,  separated  himself  from  him  and  the  rest  of 
his  family  in  consequence  of  his  altered  habits  of  life  and  change  of 
opinions,  and  that,  inheriting  no  part  of  his  father's  property,  he  was 
not  legally  responsible  for  his  father's  debts  (Biogr.  Ace.  p.  197).  His 
brother,  Jugmohun  Roy,  died  in  181 1. 

^  'He  saw  the  selfish,  cruel,  and  almost  insane  errors  of  the  English 
in  governing  India,  but  he  also  saw  that  their  system  of  government 
and  policy  had  redeeming  qualities,  not  to  be  found  in  the  nativd 
government.'     Aduni,  Lecture,  p.  26. 
VOL.  II.  C 


18  BIOGEAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

intimately  acquainted,  not  only  with  some  members  of 
the  Civil  Service,  but  also  with  the  master- works  of 
English  literature,  his  mind  became  more  and  more 
impregnated  and  invigorated  by  European  thought 
and  by  Christian  sentiment. 

The  social  intercourse  between  English  and  Indian 
gentlemen  was  at  that  time  much  more  cordial  than 
it  is  at  present,  and  religious,  social,  and  literary 
questions  were  freely  discussed  on  both  sides.  Re- 
ligion has  always  been  the  principal  subject  of 
thought,  and  a  favourite  subject  for  discussion  with 
the  peop'e  of  India,  and  Rammohun  Roy,  in  answer- 
ing the  questions  or  repelling  the  taunts  of  his 
English  friends,  seems  to  have  felt  no  hesitation  in 
expressing  openly  his  contempt  for  that  idolatrous 
worship  which  by  others  was  taken  to  be  the  true 
and  only  religion  of  the  country. 

He  appealed  to  the  Sacred  Books,  written  in  San- 
skrit, as  bearing  witness  against  the  idolatry  of  the 
priest-ridden  masses. 

At  that  time,  however,  thanks  to  the  labours  of 
such  men  as  Sir  William  Jones,  Wilkins  and  Cole- 
brooke,  Sanskrit  MSS.  were  no  longer  sealed  books, 
and  it  was  easy  to  retort  on  Rammohun  Roy  that  his 
own  Pura/?as,  and  even  the  Mahabharata  and  Rama- 
yaua,  sanctioned  idolatry,  polytheism,  caste,  burning 
Oi  widows,  and  many  other  abominations. 

It  was  then  that  Rammohun  Roy  took  his  stand  on 
the  Veda,  as  the  true  Bible  of  India.  The  Veda,  he 
declared,  sanctioned  no  idolatry,  taught  monotheism, 
ignored  caste,  prohibited  the  burning  of  widows  ;  con- 
tained in  fact  a  religion  as  true,  as  pure,  and  as 
perfect  as  Christianity  itself,  nay,  free  from  some  of 


RAJAH    RAMMOHUN   ROT.  19 

the  blemishes  which  offended  him  and  many  of  his 
countrymen  in  the  teaching  of  the  missionaries. 

This  was  a  bold  assertion,  half  true,  half  false,  as 
we  know  now,  but  an  assertion  which  at  that  time  no 
one  could  venture  to  criticise  or  contradict. 

Although  there  existed  MSS.  of  the  Veda,  these 
MSS,  were  religiousl}'^  guarded.  No  Englishman  was 
allowed  to  see  or  to  touch  them.  Even  at  a  much 
later  time,  when  Professor  Wilson  by  accident  put 
his  hand  on  some  Vedic  MSS.  in  a  native  library,  he 
told  me  that  people  rushed  at  him  with  threatening 
and  ominous  gestures.  Of  course,  the  Veda  had  never 
been  printed  or  published,  and  it  existed  in  fact,  as 
it  had  existed  for  three  thousand  years,  chiefly  in  the 
memory  of  the  priests.  We  can  hardly  form  an  idea 
of  the  power  wielded  by  the  priests,  when  they  were 
the  only  depositaries  of  Vedas  or  Bibles,  and  when 
there  was  no  possible  appeal  from  what  they  laid 
down  as  the  catholic  faith.  In  India  their  position 
was  stronger  even  than  in  Italy,  because  the  priest 
did  not  read  the  Veda  from  MSS.,  but  had  to  learn 
it  entirely  from  oral  tradition,  and  teach  it  again  to 
his  pupils  in  the  same  way.  No  one  therefore  could 
contradict  him  except  those  who  did  not  wish  to  con- 
tradict him. 

Now  it  may  sound  strange,  but  I  feel  convinced 
that  Rammohun  Roy  himself,  when,  in  his  contro- 
versies with  his  English  friends,  he  fortified  himself 
behind  the  rampart  of  the  Veda,  had  no  idea  of  what 
the  Veda  really  was.  Vedic  learning  was  then  at  a 
low  ebb  in  Bengal,  and  Rammohun  Roy  had  never 
passed  through  a  regular  training  in  Sanskrit. 

In  the  West  and  South  of  India  the  comparatively 
c  2 


20  BIOGEAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

pure  form  of  Hinduism  which  Rammohun  Roy  en- 
deavoured to  introduce  into  Bengal  had  never  become 
extinct,  and  one  of  his  native  opponents,  Sanka)'a 
Sastri,  while  fully  admitting  the  facts  contended  for 
by  Rammohun  Roy,  insisted  strongly  on  this,  that  the 
latter  had  no  claim  to  be  considered  the  discoverer  of  a 
doctrine  well  known  to  all  students  of  Sanskrit,  and 
particularly  of  the  Veda^. 

Veda  is  the  name  for  the  oldest  sacred  literature  of 
the  Biahmans.  There  are  really  four  Vedas,  but  the 
most  ancient  and  most  important  is  the  Rig-Veda. 
A  Veda  consists  of  two  portions,  a  poetical  and  a 
prose  portion.  The  poetical  portion  comprises  hymns 
addressed  to  numerous  deities,  deities  of  the  sky,  the 
air,  the  sun,  the  earth,  fire  and  water,  mountains  and 
rivers.  The  prose  portions,  the  so-called  Brahma//as, 
contain  treatises  on  the  various  sacrifices,  mixed  up 
with  a  great  deal  of  relevant  and  irrelevant,  interest- 
ing and  uninteresting  matter. 

The  prose  portions  presuppose  the  hymns,  and  to 
judge  from  the  utter  inability  of  the  authors  of  the 
Brahma«as  to  understand  the  antiquated  language  of 
the  hymns,  these  BrahmaHas  must  be  ascribed  to  a 
much  later  period  than  that  which  gave  birth  to  the 
hymns. 

At  the  end  of  some  of  the  Brahmanas  we  find 
philosophical  treatises,  best  known  by  the  name  of 
Upanishads ■■^  or  Vedanta,  literally,  'End  of  the  Veda.' 
These  contain  the  elements  of  that  Vedanta  philo- 
sophy which  was  reduced  to  a  system  in  the  Vedanta- 

*  W.  Adam,  Lecture  on  Rammohun  Roy,  p.  7. 

'  Translations  of  the  principal  Upanishads  are  contained  in  vols.  i. 
and  XV.  of  the  '  Sacred  Books  of  the  East.' 


RAJAH   RAMMOHUN   ROT.  21 

Sutras,  and  may  still  be  called  the  national  philosophy 
of  India. 

When  Ramraohun  Roj'-  speaks  of  the  Vedas  and  of 
the  monotheism  taught  by  them,  he  almost  invariably 
means  the  Upanishads,  not  the  Brahma^ms,  not  the 
Mantras  or  hymns  of  the  Veda.  Both  the  Brahma)?as 
and  the  hymns  teach  a  polytheistic,  or,  more  accu- 
rately, a  henotheistic,  but  not  a  monotheistic  religion ; 
yet  they  form  the  great  bulk  of  what  is  called 
Veda,  while  the  Upanishads  form  only  a  kind  of 
appendix. 

Eammohun  Roy  had  been  brought  up  in  the  belief 
that  the  Veda  was  the  word  of  God,  that  it  contained 
a  primeval  revelation,  that  it  was  free  from  all  the 
defects  of  human  authorship.  When  therefore  his 
friends  or  the  missionaries  pressed  on  him  the  claims 
of  the  Bible,  as  likewise  an  infallible  book,  he  found 
himself  between  two  infallible  authorities,  and  natu- 
rally preferred  his  own. 

And  here  he  had  a  great  advantage.  While  his 
English  friends  had  simply  to  accept  whatever  he 
told  them  about  the  Veda,  without  being  able  to 
check  his  statements,  he  himself  set  to  work  to  study 
the  Bible  in  the  original.  It  is  extremely  creditable 
to  him  that  he  did  so ;  that  he  actually  learnt  Greek 
and  a  little  Hebrew  in  order  to  form  an  independent 
opinion  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments — very  dif- 
ferent from  many  who  carry  on  heated  controversies 
about  the  Bible,  who  shrink  from  no  terms  of  con- 
demnation against  all  who  differ  from  them,  and  yet 
shrink  from  the  simple  task  of  learning  Greek  and 
Hebrew. 

After  having  studied  the  Old  Testament  with  a 


22  BIOGEAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

Jewish  "Rabbi,  the  New  Testament  with  an  English 
clergyman,  Eammohun  Roy  in  1820  published  his 
celebrated  work,  '  The  Precepts  of  Jesus,  the  guide  to 
peace  and  happiness.'  This  book  consists  chiefly  of 
extracts  from  the  Gospels,  and  in  the  Preface  the 
author  says: — 

'This  simple  code  of  religion  and  morality  is  so 
admirably  calculated  to  elevate  man's  ideas  to  high 
and  liberal  notions  of  One  God,  who  has  equally  sub- 
jected all  living  creatures,  without  distinction  of  caste, 
rank,  or  wealth,  to  change,  disappointment,  pain  and 
death,  and  has  equally  admitted  all  to  be  partakers  of 
the  bountiful  mercies  which  He  has  lavished  over 
nature ;  and  is  also  so  well  fitted  to  regulate  the  con- 
duct of  the  human  race  in  the  discharge  of  their 
various  duties  to  God,  to  themselves,  and  society,  that 
I  cannot  but  hope  the  best  effects  from  its  promulgation 
in  the  present  form.' 

This  publication  brought  upon  him  a  fierce  attack 
and  a  long  controversy,  not  with  the  champions  of 
the  national  religion  of  India,  who  might  have  sus- 
pected him  of  undermining  their  faith,  but  with  the 
Christian  missionaries  of  Serampore.  Instead  of 
welcoming  him,  on  the  principle  that  '  he  that  is 
not  against  us  is  for  us,'  they  blamed  him  for  the 
exercise  of  his  private  judgment,  in  selecting  from  the 
New  Testament  whatever  he  thought  most  likely  to  be 
beneficial  to  his  own  countrymen.  He  left  out,  for 
instance,  most  of  the  so-called  miracles,  because  he 
felt  that  his  countrymen,  who  were  able  without  any 
effort  to  believe  that  a  mere  saint  could  swallow  the 
whole  ocean,  and  many  of  whom  were  convinced  that 
they  had  seen  a  man  throwing  a  rope  into  the  air  and 


r.AJAH   EAMMOnUN   EOY  23 

ascending  by  it  into  the  sky,  were  not  likely  to  be 
much  impressed  by  a  change  of  water  into  wine,  or  by 
the  miracle  of  the  ascension. 

And  as  the  whole  battle  of  his  life  had  been  to 
convince  the  people  of  India  that  there  was,  and  that 
there  could  be,  one  God  only,  not  two,  not  three,  not 
many,  we  can  well  understand  his  anxiety  that  those 
whom  he  wished  to  bring  nearer  unto  Christ,  should 
on  no  account  be  led  to  believe  that  Trinitarianism 
was  part  of  Christ's  own  teaching.  As  then  taught  by 
many  of  the  missionaries  in  India,  the  doctrine  of  the 
three  Persons,  that  is  the  three  aspects  or  manifesta- 
tions of  the  Godhead,  had  been  hardened  into  mere 
Tritheism,  the  very  doctrine  against  which  Rammohun 
Roy  had  been  protesting  from  his  earliest  youth  with 
all  his  might  and  main.  It  is  well  known  that  in 
India  one  of  the  most  damaging  charges  brought 
ao'ainst  modern  Christianity  is  that  it  admits  three 
Gods,  and  it  was  against  Mohammedan  scoffers  quite 
as  much  as  against  Christian  missionaries  that  Ram- 
mohun Roy  argued  in  maintaining  that  Christ  Himself, 
as  we  know  Him  from  the  Gospels,  believed  in  one 
God  only,  that  He  was  in  fact  a  Unitarian,  in  the 
hio-hest  sense  of  that  word.  What  Rammohun  Roy 
wanted  for  India  was  a  Christianity,  purified  of  all 
mere  miracles,  and  relieved  of  all  theological  rust  and 
dust,  whether  it  dated  from  the  first  council  or  from 
the  last. 

That  Christianity  he  was  willing  to  preach,  but  no 
other,  and  in  preaching  that  Christianity  he  might 
still,  he  thought,  remain  a  Brahman,  and  a  follower  of 
the  religion  of  the  Veda.  He  was  engaged  with  two 
missionaries,  WiUiam  Yates  and  William  Adam,  in  a 


24-  EIOGtRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

Bengali  translation  of  the  four  Gospels,  but  this 
undertaking  seems  to  have  failed  ^. 

There  is  an  interesting  story  told  by  Mr.  William 
Adam  in  his  lecture  on  E-ammohun  Roy  which  he 
gave  many  years  ago  in  America,  and  which  has 
lately  been  published  at  Calcutta^.  Dr.  Middleton, 
the  first  Eishop  of  Calcutta,  thought  it  his  duty  to 
endeavour  to  convert  Rammohun  Roy  to  Christianity, 
and  in  doing  so,  he  dwelt  not  only  on  the  truth  and 
excellence  of  his  own  religion,  but  spoke  of  the  honour 
and  repute,  the  influence  and  usefulness  he  would 
acquire  by  becoming  the  Apostle  of  India.  Rammohun 
Roy  expressed  his  bitter  indignation  that  he  should 
have  been  deemed  capable  of  being  influenced  by  any 
consideration  but  the  love  of  truth  and  goodness,  and 
he  never  afterwards  visited  the  Bishop  again.  The 
same  Mr.  W.  Adam,  who  had  gone  to  India  as  a 
Protestant  missionary,  became  a  Unitarian,  chiefly 
through  the  influence  of  Rammohun  Roy.  He  lived 
to  a  considerable  age.  I  had  some  letters  from  him, 
but  was  unfortunately  prevented  from  seeing  him  at 
Beaconsfield,  where  he  died  last  year  (1883). 

Rammohun  Roy's  influence  grew  rapidly.  Some  of 
the  best,  the  most  cultivated,  and  most  enlightened 
among  his  countrymen,  now  j  oined  him  openly.  Meet- 
ings were  held  on  Saturday's  ^  at  his  house,  and  these, 
as  they  became  more  largely  attended,  and  acquired 
greater  regularity,  formed  the  foundation  of  that 
movement  which  is  known  to  you  all  as  the  Brahma- 

*  Lecture  on  Rammohun  Roy,  by  W.  Adam,  p.  9. 

*  Calcutta,  1879,  p.  24. 

'  They  were  hekl  on  Saturdays,  as  Miss  Collet  informs  me,  from 
Nov.  1828  to  Jan.  1830.  After  the  opening  of  the  new  Hall  on  Jan. 
1830,  the  day  was  changed  to  Wednesday. 


eIjah  rammohun  eoy.  25 

Samaj,  at  first  called  also  Brahma  Sabha^.  I  call  it  a 
movement,  because  it  seems  to  me  that,  even  at 
present,  more  that  fifty  years  after  its  first  beginning, 
the  Brahma-Samaj  is  still  a  movement  only,  an 
emotion,  an  aspiration,  or  a  religious  ideal ;  but  not 
a  settlement,  a  sect,  or  a  church.  At  the  weekly 
meetings  of  the  Brahma-Samaj  extracts  were  read 
from  the  Vedas,  discourses  were  delivered,  chiefly  in 
Bengali,  hymns  were  sung,  mostly  composed  by 
Kammohun  Roy  himself.  Great  care,  however,  was 
taken  not  to  wound  national  feeling  more  than  could 
be  helped.  The  Vedas,  for  instance,  were  chanted  by 
Brahmans  only,  from  an  adjoining  room,  where  people 
of  the  lower  castes  were  not  allowed  to  enter. 

Brahma-Samaj  means  '  Society  of  the  believers  in 
Brahman,  the  Supreme  Spirit-.' 

In  opposition  to  it,  the  orthodox  and  conservative 
party  started  the  Dharma-sabha,  the  society  or 
church  of  Dharma,  the  law.  What  was  meant  by 
law  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  one  of  the 
first  acts  of  the  Dharma-sabha  was  to  petition  Govern- 
ment against  the  abolition  of  Suttee,  that  is,  in  favour 
of  the  continuance  of  the  burning  of  widows.  Bam- 
mohun  Roy  had  published,  as  early  as  1818,  a  treatise 
entitled  '  A  Conference  between  an  advocate  for  and 
an  opponent  of  the  practice  of  burning  widows  alive.' 
He  lived  to  witness  the  triumph  of  his  cause,  but  not 
till  his  arrival  in  England,  when  the  last  appeal  of 

*  See  W.  Adam,  Lecture,  p.  8. 

"  I  write  throughout  Brahma-Samaj.  The  varipus  spellings,  Brahmo 
Somaj,  Brahmo  Sumuj,  &c.,  represent  the  various  pronunciations  of  the 
■word.  Brahmo  has  almost  become  a  new  Anglo-Indian  word,  and, 
when  used  by  others,  it  has  sometimes  been  allowed  to  stand.  Bruhma 
is  meant  as  an  adjective,  derived  from  Brahman. 


26  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

the  members  of  the  Dharma-sabha  against  the  aboli- 
tion  of  the  burning  of  widows  was  heard  in  the  Privy 
Council,  and  rejected. 

This  was  in  1831 — not  so  very  long  ago,  after  all. 
It  was  the  year  of  the  Reform  Bill ;  and  a  shudder 
comes  over  one,  if  one  realises  the  fact  that  up  to 
that  time,  in  a  country  governed  by  some  of  the 
greatest  English  statesmen,  women  were  burnt  whole- 
sale, even  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  Cal- 
cutta. The  official  returns  of  the  Bengal  Government 
for  the  year  1823  show  that  the  number  of  widows 
burnt  during  one  year,  in  the  Bengal  Presidency  only, 
amounted  to  S'JS'')  3^°  widows  perished  within  the 
limits  of  the  Calcutta  Court  of  Circuit.  Their  ages 
give  a  still  more  ghastly  reality  to  that  holocaust. 
We  read  that  109  were  old  women  above  sixt}'';  226 
were  from  forty  to  sixty ;  208  were  from  twenty  to 
forty ;  and  32  were  actually  young  girls  under 
twenty  years  of  age !  We  always  say,  '  Such  things 
would  be  impossible  now!'  Let  us  hope  that  the 
future  may  not  say  the  same  of  us.  I  cannot  help 
thinking,  nay  I  cannot  help  hoping,  that  some  pages 
in  'The  Bitter  Cry  of  London'  will  sound  as  ghastly 
to  future  generations  as  widow-burnings  did  to  us. 

Rammohun  Roy,  however,  by  no  means  restricted 
his  activity  to  controversial  publications.  He  built 
schoolhouses,  and  established  schools  in  which  useful 
knowledge  was  gratuitously  taught  through  the 
medium  both  of  the  English  and  native  languages. 
He  gave  ardent  and  most  zealous  support  to  the 
missionaries  of  the  Scotch  Presbyterian  Church  in 
establishing  in  Calcutta  a  seminary  in  which  Chris- 
tian  as  well  as   general   knowledge  was   daily  and 


eIjAH  EAMMOIIUN   ROY.  27 

gratuitously  taught  to  five  or  six  hundred  native 
youths  by  missionary  instructors ;  and,  following  his 
example,  one  of  his  wealthiest  friends  and  adherents 
gave  still  more  liberal  pecuniary  encouragement  to  a 
similar  school  established  by  the  same  missionaries  in 
the  interior  of  the  Jessore  District  in  Bengal  \ 

In  1830  a  Prayer  Hall  was  opened  in  Calcutta  by 
Rammohun  Roy,  in  which  meetings  were  held  every 
Wednesday.  The  foundation  of  the  Brahma-Samaj 
is  dated  from  that  year". 

'  Adam,  Lecture,  p.  18. 

^  The  following  extracts  are  taken  from  the  Trust  Deed  of  that  Institu- 
tion : — '  The  Hall  is  to  be  used  as  a  place  of  public  meeting  of  all  sorts  and 
descriptions  of  people,  without  distinction,  as  shall  behave  and  conduct 
themselves  in  an  orderly,  sober,  religious,  and  devout  manner,  for  the 
worship  and  adoration  of  the  eternal,  unsearchable,  and  immutable 
Eeing  who  is  the  Author  and  Preserver  of  the  Universe  ;  but  not  under 
or  by  any  other  name,  designation,  or  title  peculiarly  used  for  and 
applied  to  any  particular  being  or  beings  by  any  man  or  set  of  men 
whatsoever  ;  and  that  no  graven  image,  statue,  or  sculpture,  carving, 
painting,  picture,  portrait,  or  the  likeness  of  anything  shall  be  admitted 
within  the  said  messuage,  building,  land,  tenements,  hereditaments  and 
premises,  and  that  no  sacrifice,  offering,  or  oblation  of  any  kind  or 
thing  shall  ever  be  permitted  therein  ;  and  that  no  animal  or  living 
creature  shall,  within  or  on  the  said  messuage,  building,  land,  tene- 
ments, hereditaments  and  premises,  be  deprived  of  life  either  for 
religious  purposes  or  food  ;  and  that  no  eating  or  drinking  (except  such 
as  shall  be  necessary  by  any  accident  for  the  preservation  of  life), 
feasting  or  rioting  be  permitted  therein  or  thereon  ;  and  that  in  con- 
ducting the  said  worship  and  adoration,  no  object,  animate  or  inanimate, 
that  has  been,  or  is  or  shall  hereafter  become,  or  be  recognised  as  an 
object  of  worship  by  any  man  or  set  of  men,  shall  be  reviled  or  slight- 
ingly or  contemptuously  spoken  of  or  alluded  to  either  in  preaching  or 
in  the  hymns  or  other  mode  of  worship  that  may  be  delivered  or  used 
in  the  said  messuage  or  building  ;  and  that  no  sermon,  preaching, 
discourse,  prayer,  or  hymns  be  delivered,  made,  or  used  in  such  worship, 
but  such  as  have  a  tendency  to  the  promotion  of  the  contemplation  of 
the  Author  and  Preserver  of  the  Universe,  to  the  promotion  of  charity, 
morality,  piety,  benevolence,  virtue,  and  the  strengthening- of  the  bonds 
of  union  between  men  of  all  religious  persuasions  and  creeds,'  etc. 


28  BIOGEAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

This  was  almost  the  last  public  act  of  Rammohun 
Roy  before  his  departure  for  England.  He  sailed  for 
England  on  the  15th  of  November,  1830,  as  envoy  of 
the  Emperor  of  Delhi,  the  Great  Mogul,  who  had 
bestowed  on  him  the  title  of  Rajah.  He  arrived  at 
Liverpool  on  the  8th  of  April,  1831,  and,  after  a  short 
stay,  proceeded  by  Manchester  to  London.  You  may 
read,  in  most  of  the  biographical  accounts  of  the 
Rajah,  how  he  was  received,  how  he  was  the  lion  of 
the  season,  how  he  was  presented  to  the  King,  called 
on  by  dukes  and  duchesses,  feasted  by  aldermen  and 
the  directors  of  the  East  India  Company ;  how  he 
went  to  Paris,  and  dined  twice  with  the  king,  Louis 
Philippe,  and  elsewhere,  how  in  the  end  his  health 
gave  way,  and  he  returned  to  England  weary  in  body 
and  mind.  We  have  no  time  to  dwell  on  these  items 
of  fashionable  intelligence.  We  have  hardly  time  to 
do  more  than  to  point  out  the  few  really  important 
events  during  his  stay  in  England, — how,  when  at 
Liverpool,  he  was  invited  by  William  Roscoe  to 
shake  hands  with  him  on  his  death-bed ;  how  Wil- 
liam Bentham,  the  utilitarian  philosopher,  who  had 
secluded  himself  from  all  the  world,  was  the  first  to 
call  on  the  Rajah,  of  whom  he  used  to  say,  '  He  has 
cast  off  three  hundred  and  thirty  millions  of  gods,  and 
has  learnt  from  us  to  embrace  reason  in  the  all- 
important  field  of  religion ; '  how  he  knew  Henry 
Brougham,  not  yet  banished  to  the  House  of  Lords ; 
how  he  gave  important  evidence  before  several  Parlia- 
mentary Committees  at  the  time  of  the  renewal  of 
the  Charter  of  the  East  India  Company  ;  how,  lastly, 
as  soon  as  he  could  free  himself,  he  carried  out  his 
long  -  cherished    wish    of    going    to    Bristol,  a    city 


eIjah  e^mmohun  TxOy.  29 

famous  at  that  time  as  the  home  of  Dr.  Carpenter, 
John  Foster,  Dr.  Jerrard,  Dr.  Symonds,  Mr.  Estlin, 
Dr.  Prichard,  and  others — men  known,  not  only  for 
their  learning,  but  for  their  liberal  spirit,  their  wide 
sympathies,  and  their  true  charity  towards  men  of 
the  most  opposite  convictions  in  religion  and  theology. 
Here,  in  the  house  of  Miss  Castle,  at  Stapleton  Grove, 
he  thought  he  would  find  rest  and  repose.  Here  he 
hoped  for  help  in  solving  those  honest  doubts  which 
never  forsake  the  heart  of  an  honest  man.  But  it 
w^as  too  late.  He  was  attacked  by  fever,  and  in  a 
few  days  his  weakened  brain  succumbed.  Dreaming 
of  distant  lands,  of  distant  hopes,  and  distant  friends, 
the  Eastern  philosopher,  the  believer  in  the  religion 
of  the  Veda,  the  sincere  admirer  of  the  religion  of 
Christ,  expired. 

Such  was  Rammohun  Roy,  to  my  mind  a  truly 
great  man,  a  man  who  did  a  truly  great  w^ork,  and 
whose  name,  if  it  is  right  to  prophesy,  will  be  re- 
membered for  ever,  with  some  of  his  fellow-labourers 
and  followers,  as  one  of  the  great  benefactors  of  man- 
kind. 

I  know  that  this  opinion  is  not  shared  by  those 
who  think  that  nothing  great  and  nothing  good  can 
ever  come  out  of  India.  What  difference,  they  say, 
is  there  between  Rammohun  Roy  and  many  of  those 
highly-educated,  polished,  liberal-minded  gentlemen 
from  Bengal  whom  we  often  see  now  in  England, 
who  laugh  at  idols,  are  horrified  at  the  idea  of  burning 
widows,  and  speak  patronisingly  of  the  religion  of 
Christ? 

Surely  the  difference  is  very  great.  We  know  even 
in  England  how  easy  it  noiv  is  to  express  opinions 


30  BIOaRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

and  support  reforms  for  which  men  were  executed 
300  years  ago,  excommunicated  200  years  ago,  exe- 
crated 100  years  ago,  and  called  ugly  names  within 
the  recollection  of  some  of  the  older  members  of  this 
assembly. 

The  German  name  for  prince  is  Filrst,  in  English 
first,  he  who  is  always  to  the  fore,  he  who  courts 
the  place  of  danger,  the  first  place  in  fight,  the  last 
in  flight.  Such  a  Fiirst  was  Rammohun  Roy,  a  true 
prince,  a  real  Rajah,  if  Rajah  also,  like  Rex,  meant 
originally  the  steersman,  the  man  at  the  helm  ^ 

If  however  I  was  wrong  in  calling  Rammohun  Roy 
a  really  great  man,  I  wish  that  those  who  seem  so 
jealous  of  greatness  would  at  least  explain  on  what 
grounds  they  would  bestow  that  ancient  title. 

An  attempt  was  lately  made  in  America  to  find 
out  the  Hundred  Greatest  Men  of  the  world.  The 
process  was  a  very  simple  one.  Greatness  was  settled 
by  a  majority  of  votes.  Lists  of  names  were  printed 
and  sent  round  to  men  of  eminence  in  America  and 
Europe,  and  whoever  received  the  largest  number 
of  votes  was  admitted  as  one  of  the  Hundred  Greatest 
Men.  The  result  was  afterwards  published  in  a 
splendid  series  of  portraits,  each  portrait  followed 
by  a  biography.  It  is  astonishing  to  see  what  names 
were  put  forward,  and  what  names  were  forgotten. 
Of  course  you  see  Napoleon  the  Great,  and  who  could 
doubt  that  in  one  sense,  as  a  clever  soldier,  as  a  bold 
diplomatist,  he  was  great ;  but  read  the  memoirs  of 
his  Court,  and  you  wiU  call  him  the  smallest,  the 
meanest,  the  most  wretched  of  men.  Or  take  another 
case.     Perhaps  the  greatest  revolution  in  Europe  was 

*  See  E.  C.  Clark,  Practical  Jurisprudence,  p.  82. 


KAJAH  eImMOHUN   ROY.  31 

produced  by  the  invention  of  printing.  Would  you 
call  the  inventor  of  printing  a  great  man'?  He  did 
no  more  than  what  any  carpenter  might  do — cutting 
an  engi'aved  block  into  smaller  blocks,  each  contain- 
ing one  letter.  You  may  call  that  clever,  you  may 
even  take  a  patent  for  it ;  but  surely  there  is  nothing 
great  in  it.  In  fact,  that  title  of  Great  Man  has  been 
used  so  recklessly  that  to  most  people  it  conveys  no 
longer  any  meaning  at  all. 

And  yet  I  like  to  call  Rammohun  Roy  a  great  man, 
using  that  word,  not  as  a  cheap,  unmeaning  title,  but 
as  conveyiug  three  essential  elements  of  manly  gi-eat- 
ness,  namely,  unselfishness,  honesty,  and  boldness.  Let 
us  see  whether  Rammohun  Roy  possessed  in  a  high 
degree  these  three  essentials. 

You  know  he  gave  up  idolatry.  This  may  seem 
to  us  a  very  easy  performance ;  but  in  India,  as  well 
as  in  Europe,  nothing  is  more  sacred  to  a  child  than 
the  objects  which  he  sees  his  father  worship,  noching 
dearer  than  the  prayers  which  ho  has  been  taught  by 
his  mother  to  repeat  with  uplifted  hands,  loug  before 
he  could  repeat  anything  else.  There  is  nothing  so 
happy  as  the  creed  of  childhood,  nothing  so  difficult 
to  part  with.  And  do  not  suppose  that  idol-worship 
is  more  easily  surrendered.  Idol  is  an  ugly  name, 
but  it  meant  originally  no  more  than  an  image.  At 
first  the  image  of  a  deity,  like  the  image  of  a  distant 
or  departed  friend,  is  only  gazed  at  with  a  mixture 
of  sadness  and  joy ;  afterwards  something  like  a  real 
presence  is  felt,  and  good  resolutions  are  sometimes 
formed  from  merely  looking  at  the  familiar  features 
of  a  beloved  face.  And  if  at  any  time  those  who 
value  such  an  image  as  their  dearest  treasure,  pour 


32  BIOGKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

out  their  sorrows  before  it,  or  implore  it  to  fulfil  some 
anxious  prayer,  and  if  such  a  prayer  is  fulfilled  once, 
or  twice,  or,  it  may  be,  a  hundred  times  out  of  two 
hundred,  need  we  wonder  that  the  very  image  is 
believed  to  be  endowed  with  miraculous  power,  nay 
that  such  faith  remains  unshaken,  even  if  it  be  de- 
creed that  it  is  better  for  us  that  certain  prayers 
should  not  be  fulfilled  ?  We  must  remember  what 
sacred  images  are  to  millions  of  human  beings  even 
in  Christian  countries,  and  we  shall  then  be  better 
able  to  appreciate  the  unselfishness,  the  honesty,  and 
the  boldness  of  a  boy  of  sixteen  who  could  bring 
himself  to  say,  '  I  will  not  worship  what  my  father 
worships,  I  will  not  pray  as  my  mother  prays  ;  I  will 
look  out  for  a  new  God  and  for  new  prayers,  if  haply 
I  may  find  them.' 

There  was  everything  to  induce  Rammohun  Roy 
to  retain  the  religion  of  his  fathers.  It  was  an  ancient 
religion,  a  national  religion,  and  allowed  an  inde- 
pendent thinker  greater  freedom  than  almost  any 
other  religion.  But  openly  to  condemn  and  reject 
that  religion,  or  at  least  its  present  form,  involved 
more  serious  consequences  in  India  than  almost  any- 
where else.  It  entailed  not  only  censure  and  punish- 
ment, and  the  loss  of  the  love  of  his  parents ;  it  en- 
tailed loss  of  caste,  expulsion  from  society,  loss  of 
property.  All  this  Rammohun  Roy  was  prepared  to 
face ;  and  he  had  to  face  it.  He  was  banished  from 
his  father's  house  once  or  twice ;  he  was  insulted  by 
his  friends ;  his  life  was  threatened,  and  even  in  the 
streets  of  Calcutta  he  had  to  walk  about  armed. 
Later  in  life  his  relations  (his  own  mother)  tried 
to  deprive  him    of  his  caste,  and   indirectly  of  his 


EAJAH   KAMMOHDN   KOY.  33 

property,  and  it  was  a  mere  accident  that  the  law 
decided  in  his  favour. 

And  remember  that  durinor  all  these  strujrorles,  and 
when  he  was  left  almost  alone,  he  did  not  join  an}^ 
other  community  where,  as  a  convert,  he  might  have 
been  received  with  open  arms  and  warm  hearts.  He 
never  became  a  Mohammedan,  he  never  became  a 
Christian,  but  he  remained  to  the  end  a  Brahman,  a 
believer  in  the  Veda,  and  in  the  One  God  who,  as  he 
maintained,  had  been  revealed  in  the  Veda,  and 
especially  in  the  Ved^nta,  long  before  he  revealed 
himself  in  the  Bible  or  in  the  Koran. 

He  wished  to  reform  his  religion,  not  to  reject  it. 
His  mother,  we  are  told,  was  for  a  time  broken- 
hearted about  her  son.  It  was  she  who,  after  the 
death  of  her  eldest  son  (Ramtanu  Hoy),  brought  an 
action  against  Bammohun  Boy  to  disinherit  him  as 
an  apostate  and  infidel^.  But  her  son  had  the  satis- 
faction, later  in  life,  to  hear  from  her  own  loving  lips 
words  which  must  have  consoled  him  for  many  sor- 
rows. '  Son,'  she  said  to  him,  a  year  before  her  death, 
'you  are  right.  But  I  am  a  weak  woman,  and  am 
grown  too  old  to  give  up  those  observances  which  are 
a  comfort  to  me.'  This  was  said  by  her,  before  she 
set  out  on  her  last  pilgrimage  to  Juggernaut,  where 
she  died. 

With  such  self-denying  devotion  did  she  conform 
to  the  rites  of  the  Hindu  religion,  that  she  would  not 
allow  a  female  servant  to  accompany  her  to  Jugger- 
naut, or  any  other  provision  to  be  made  for  her 
comfort  or  support  during  the  journey.  AVhen  at 
Puri,  she  occupied  herself  in  sweeping  the  temple  of 

*  Lecture  on  Rammohun  Roy,  by  W.  Adam,  Calcutta,  1879,  P-  ^• 
VOL.  II.  D 


34  BIOaRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

the  uncouth  idol  I  Her  son  knew  all  this,  and  he  bore 
with  her,  as  she  had  borne  with  him.  Perhaps  he 
knew  that  the  hideous  idol  which  she  worshipped  in 
the  fetid  air  of  his  temple.  Juggernaut,  as  we  call  it, 
was  originally  called  Jagannatha,  which  means  '  Lord 
of  the  World ; '  and  that  He,  the  Lord  of  the  World, 
the  true  Jagannatha,  would  hear  her  prayers,  even 
though  addressed  to  Juggernaut,  the  uncouth  image. 

In  all  these  trials  Rammohun  Roy  had  nothing  to 
support  him  but  his  belief  in  the  Veda,  and  that  very 
still,  that  very  small  voice  within,  which  is  better 
than  the  Veda,  better  than  any  sacred  book.  And  I 
say  again,  a  man  who  is  ready  to  sacrifice  everything 
for  the  voice  of  truth,  who  submits  to  be  called  a 
sceptic,  a  heretic,  an  atheist,  even  by  his  dearest 
friends,  is  an  unselfish,  an  honest,  a  bold  man, — is  a 
great  man,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word. 

There  is  a  quiet  courage,  a  simple  straightforward- 
ness in  all  Rammohun  Roys  acts.  Some  of  his 
friends  have  misunderstood  him,  and  claimed  him  for 
a  Mohammedan,  or  a  Christian.  He  said  himself,  just 
before  he  set  out  for  Europe,  that  on  his  death  each 
sect,  the  Christian,  the  Hindu,  and  the  Mohammedan, 
would  claim  him  as  their  own,  but  that  he  belonged 
to  none  of  them.  His  real  religious  sentiments  are 
embodied  in  a  pamphlet,  written  and  printed  in  his 
life-time,  but,  according  to  his  injunction,  not  pub- 
lished till  after  his  death.  This  work  discloses  his 
belief  in  the  unity  of  the  Deity,  his  infinite  power, 
his  infinite  goodness,  and  in  the  immortality  of  the 
soul  \ 

*  Calcutta  Review,  Dec.  1845,  pp.  387-389.  The  title  of  the  work  as 
there  given  is,  Tuhfatu'l-Muwahhidin,  or  '  Present  to  Monotheists.' 


KAJAH   KAMMOHUN   EOY.  35 

With  such  a  faith  nothing  would  have  been  easier 
for  him  than  to  do  what  so  many  of  his  countrymen, 
even  the  most  enlightened,  are  still  content  to  do, — 
to  remain  silent  on  doctrines  which  do  not  concern 
them ;  to  shrug  their  shoulders  at  miracles  and 
legends ;  and  to  submit  to  observances  which,  though 
distasteful  to  themselves,  may  be  looked  upon  as 
possibly  useful  to  others. 

With  such  an  attitude  towards  religion,  he  might 
hav^e  led  a  happy,  quiet,  respectable,  useful  life,  and 
his  conscience  need  not  have  smitten  him  more  than 
it  seems  to  have  smitten  many  others.  But  he  would 
not.  He  might  part  with  his  old  mother  in  silent 
love  and  pity,  but  towards  the  rest  of  the  world 
he  wished  to  appear  as  what  he  was.  He  would 
not  say  that  he  believed  in  three  gods,  when  he 
believed  in  One  God  only;  he  would  not  call  idols 
symbols  of  the  Godhead ;  he  would  not  have  ritual, 
because  it  helped  the  weak;  he  would  not  allow 
Suttee  because  it  was  a  time-hallowed  custom,  spring- 
ing from  the  true  love  of  a  wife  for  a  dead  husband. 
He  would  have  no  compromising,  no  economising,  no 
playing  with  words,  no  shifting  of  responsibility  from 
his  own  shoulders  to  others.  And  therefore,  what- 
ever narrow-minded  critics  may  say,  I  say  once  more 
that  Rammohun  Roy  was  an  unselfish,  an  honest,  a 
bold  man — a  great  man  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word. 

And  mind,  I  do  not  say  that  the  world  is  poor  in  men 
as  great  as  Rammohun  Roy,  and  I  know  full  well  that 
many  of  them  pass  away  unheeded,  and  leave  behind 
them  no  name,  no  fame,  no  monument.  But  what  is 
that  ?  It  only  shows  that  the  world  is  richer  in  good 
and  great  men  than  we  thought  it  was. 

D  2 


36  BIOaKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

But  why  should  we  grudge  their  greatness  and 
their  fame  to  those  whom  the  world  likes  to  honour  ? 
Go  into  a  great  library  if  you  wish  to  know  the 
meaning  of  the  immortality  of  a  name.  Go  into 
Westminster  Abbey  if  you  wish  to  know  the  value 
of  a  crumbling  monument.  True  immortality  is  the 
immortality  of  the  work  done  by  man,  which  nothing 
can  make  undone,  which  lives,  works  on,  grows  on 
for  ever. 

It  does  good  to  ourselves  to  remember  and  to  honour 
the  names  of  our  ancestors  and  benefactors,  but  to 
them,  depend  upon  it,  the  highest  reward  was  not 
the  hope  of  fame,  but  their  faith  in  themselves,  their 
faith  in  their  work,  their  faith  that  nothing  really 
good  can  ever  perish,  and  that  Right  and  Reason  must 
in  the  end  prevail. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  when  Rammohun  Roy  mut- 
tered his  last  prayer  and  drew  his  last  breath  at 
Stapleton  Grove,  he  knew  that,  happen  what  may, 
his  work  would  live,  and  idolatry  would  die.  That 
was  the  chief  object  of  his  life,  and  small  as  the  re- 
sults which  he  achieved  might  seem  to  others,  he 
knew  full  well  that  all  living  seeds  are  small. 

I  am  more  doubtful  about  his  belief  in  the  divine 
origin  of  the  Veda.  It  seems  to  me  as  if  he  chiefly 
used  his  arguments  in  support  of  the  revealed  cha- 
racter of  the  Veda  as  an  answer  to  his  opponents, 
fighting  them,  so  to  say,  with  their  own  weapons. 
But  however  that  may  be,  it  is  quite  clear  that  this 
very  dogma,  this  little  want  of  honesty  or  thorough- 
ness of  thought,  retarded  more  than  anything  else 
the  natural  growth  of  his  work. 

After  the  Rajah's  death  the  Church  which  he  had 


RAJAH   RAMMOIiUN   EOY.  37 

founded,  the  so-called  Brahma-Samaj,  languished  for 
want  of  new  interests  and  for  want  of  a  real  head. 
During  the  next  seven  or  eight  years,  its  chief  repre- 
sentative was  Pandit  Ram  Chandra  Vidyabagish,  one 
of  Rammohun  Roy's  earliest  disciples ;  while  its  ma- 
terial wants  were  supplied  by  the  generosity  of 
Dvarkanath  Tagore,  the  same  who  erected  the  monu- 
ment to  the  memory  of  Rammohun  Roy  in  the  Arno's 
Vale  Cemetery  at  Bristol,  and  who  himself  lies  buried 
in  Kensal  Green.  I  knew  him  well  while  he  was 
staying  at  Paris,  and  living  there  in  good  royal  style. 
He  was  an  enlightened,  liberal-minded  man,  but  a 
man  of  this  world  rather  than  of  the  next. 

Dvarkanath  Tagore,  however,  became  a  still  greater 
benefactor  of  the  Brahma-Samaj,  though  indirectly, 
through  his  son,  Debendranath  Tagore,  who  is  still 
alive,  though  he  has  for  many  years  left  the  world, 
preferring  to  live  by  himself  in  perfect  sohtude,  and 
devoted  to  meditation,  and  to  the  contemplation  of 
the  Divine  Spirit,  within  and  without.  He,  being  a 
young  man  of  considerable  wealth,  suddenly,  at  the 
age  of  twenty,  saw  the  vanity  of  all  earthly  pleasures, 
and  determined  to  devote  the  rest  of  his  life  to  a 
search  after  truth,  to  a  constant  meditation  on  the 
things  which  are  not  seen,  and  chiefly  to  the  dis- 
covery and  recovery  of  his  own  true  self  in  the  Divine 
Self.  He  started  a  Society  called  the  Truth-teaching 
Society,  the  Tattva-bodhini  Sabha,  which  lasted  from 
1839  to  1859,  while  its  journal,  the  Tattva-bodhini 
Patrika,  still  continues  to  appear. 

He  was  soon  attracted  towards  the  Brahma-Samaj  \ 

'  According  to  Sivanath  SAstri,  'N"ew  Dispensation,'  p.  4,  Deben- 
dranath joined  the  Brahma-Samaj  in  1838;  according  to  a  statement 


38  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

and  his  accession  gave  fresh  life  to  it.  In  1 843  a  new 
covenant  was  introduced,  by  which  each  member  of 
the  Bralima-Samaj  bound  himself  to  give  up  idolatry 
altogether,  and  to  cultivate  daily  prayer,  addressed 
to  the  One  God  whose  attributes  were  now  more 
clearly  defined^. 

But  a  stiU  more  important  step  was  soon  to  follow. 
Debendranath  Tagore's  fervent  soul  was  not  satisfied 
with  the  Veda,  or  with  any  book  that  was  to  tell  him 
once  for  all  what  to  believe,  and  what  not  to  believe. 
Doubts  also  seem  to  have  arisen  in  his  mind  as  to  the 
grounds  on  which  human  beings  could  ever  take  upon 
themselves  the  right  to  ascribe  a  divine  origin,  in  the 
miraculous  sense  of  that  word,  to  any  book  whatso- 
ever. Nor  have  I  the  least  doubt  that  here,  for  the 
first  time,  the  learning  of  the  West  besjan  to  tell  on 

made  by  Debendranath  himself,  he  did  not  really  join  the  society  till 
1841.  The  foundation  of  the  Tattva-bodhinl  Sabha  is  dated  by  some 
in  1S42,  instead  of  1839. 

^  Extracts  from  the  Brahmaic  Covenant  of  the  year  1843  (see  'A 
Brief  History  of  the  Calcutta  BrahmaSamSj '  from  January  1830  to 
December  1867,  Calcutta,  1868,  pp.  8  seq. ;  and  Pandit  Sivauath  Sastri, 
'  New  Dispensation,'  p.  12  : — 

'First  Vow  :  By  loving  God  and  by  performing  the  works  which  He 
loves,  I  will  worship  God  the  Creator,  the  Preserver,  and  the  Destroyer, 
the  Giver  of  salvation,  the  Omniscient,  the  Omnipresent,  the  Blissful, 
the  Good,  the  ForuJess,  the  One  only  without  a  second. 

'  Second  Vow :  I  will  worship  no  created  object  as  the  Creator. 

*  Third  Vow :  Except  the  day  of  sickness  or  tribulation,  every  day,  the 
mind  being  undisturbed,  I  will  engage  it  in  love  and  veneration  of  God. 

'  Fourth  Vow :  I  will  exert  myself  to  perform  righteous  deeds. 

'  Fifth  Vow  :  I  will  be  careful  to  keep  myself  from  vicious  deeds. 

'  Sixth  Vow :  If,  through  the  influence  of  passion,  I  have  committed 
any  vice,  I  will,  wishing  redemption  from  it,  be  careful  not  to  do  it  again. 

'  Seventh  Vow  :  Every  year,  and  on  the  occasion  of  every  happy 
domestic  event,  I  will  bestow  gifts  upon  the  Brahma-Samaj. 

'  Grant  me,  0  God,  power  to  observe  the  duties  of  this  great  faith.' 


EAJAH    TvAMMOHUN   EOY,  39 

the  religion  of  the  East.  The  Vedas,  as  I  remarked 
before,  were  little  studied  in  Bengal,  yet  in  all  con- 
troversies with  Europeans  these  unknown  Vedas  were 
always  quoted  as  the  highest  authority  in  all  matters 
of  faith.  Thus,  when  the  burning  of  widows  was  to 
be  abolished,  the  Brahmans  simply  quoted  a  verse 
from  the  Big-Veda  in  support  of  it.  This,  they 
thought,  was  enough,  and  so  it  was  indeed  in  the 
eyes  of  the  law,  which  had  promised  protection  to  all 
established  religious  practices  of  the  Hindus.  We 
know  now  that  the  lines  quoted  from  the  Rig-Veda 
were  garbled,  and  that,  so  far  from  enjoining  the 
burning  of  widows,  the  Veda  presupposes  the  opposite 
custom. 

I  tried  to  explain  to  you  why  it  was  so  difficult  for 
European  scholars  to  gain  a  knowledge  of  the  Veda. 
All  other  Sanskrit  M^^S.  were  freely  communicated  to 
Englishmen  resident  in  India,  but  not  the  MSS.  of  the 
Veda.  And  even  in  cases  where  such  MSS.  had  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  barbarians,  the  Pandits  declined  to 
translate  them  for  them.  Colebrooke  alone  seems  to 
have  overcome  all  these  difficulties,  and  his  Essays 
'  On  the  Vedas,  or  the  Sacred  Writings  of  the  Hindus,' 
though  published  in  1805,  are  still  extremely  valuable. 

When  Rammohun  Boy  was  in  London,  he  saw  at 
the  British  Museum  a  young  German  scholar.  Fried- 
rich  Bosen,  busily  engaged  in  copying  MSS.  of  the 
Big-Veda.  The  Rajah  was  surprised,  but  he  told 
Bosen  that  he  ought  not  to  waste  his  time  on  the 
Hymns,  but  that  he  should  study  the  text  of  the 
Upanishads. 

Rosen,  however,  knew  better.  He  published  a 
specimen   of  the  Hymns  of  the   Rig-Veda  in  1830, 


40  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

which  gave  European  scholars  the  first  idea  of  what 
these  ancient  hymns  really  were.  Unfortunately  he 
died  soon  after,  and  only  the  first  book  of  the  Rig- 
Veda  was  finished  by  him,  and  published  after  his 
death  in  1838. 

When  Dvarkanath  Tagore  came  to  Paris,  he  found 
me  there  in  1845  copying  the  text  and  commentary  of 
the  Rig- Veda,  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  his 
son  Debendranath  heard  from  his  father  that  Euro- 
pean scholars  had  begun  in  good  earnest  the  study  of 
the  Veda,  and  that  its  halo  of  unapproachable  sanctity 
would  soon  disappear.  Debendranath  Tagore,  not 
knowing  much  of  Vedic  literature,  in  order  to  satisfy 
his  own  mind,  sent  four  young  Brahmans  to  Benares 
about  1845  or  1846,  to  study  the  Vedas  under  some  of 
the  most  learned  theologians  of  that  Indian  seat  of 
learning. 

Interesting  as  the  Vedas  are  to  us,  as  historical 
documents,  for  they  date  from  at  least  1.500  B.C.,  and 
give  us  an  insight  into  the  origin  and  growth  of  re- 
ligion unsurpassed  by  any  other  literature,  no  one  in 
his  senses  would  for  one  moment  claim  for  them  a 
superhuman  origin.  After  the  report  made  by  the 
four  students  after  their  return  from  Benares  to  Cal- 
cutta, Debendranath  Tagore  did  not  hesitate,  and  in 
1850  the  Brahma-Samaj  solemnly  pronounced  the  de- 
thronement of  the  Veda. 

There  is  nothing  analogous  to  this  in  the  whole 
history  of  rehgion,  but  this  bold  step,  far  from  endan- 
gering the  Brahma-Samaj,  really  put  new  life  into  its 
members.  The  Brahma-Samaj  was  now  a  Church 
without  a  Bible,  and  Debendranath  Tagore,  its  leader, 
felt  inspired  with  new  hopes  and  higher  aspirations. 


EAJAH   RAMMOHUN    ROY.  41 

There  was  nothing  now  between  him  and  his  God, 
and  in  this  state  of  mind,  not  of  despair,  but  of  fervent 
faith,  he  revised  the  Brahmaic  Covenant,  and  wrote 
and  published  his  Brdhma-dharma^^  or  the  religion 
of  the  one  true  God.  After  finishing  this  work,  the 
young  Saint  retired  for  a  time  to  the  solitude  of  the 
mountains,  to  be  alone  with  himself  and  with  his  God. 
You  see  here  how  among  all  the  books  which  are 
supposed  to  be  held  sacred  by  the  people  of  India,  it 
was  the  Veda  alone,  not  the  Bhagavata  Pura/^a  or 
any  other  Pura.';a,  that  troubled  the  mind  of  these  re- 
ligious reformers.     For  them  the  Pura;/as  had  no  such 

*  In  the  Brahmadliarma,  published  in  1S50  (third  ed.,  Calcutta,  1869), 
we  find  the  Brahmadharmavi(/a,  Confession  of  Faith,  as  follows  : — 

(i)  Om,  Brahma  va  ekam  idam  agra  asit,  nanyat  kiju/.anaslt,  tad 
idani  sarvam  as;/(/at. 

(2)  Tad  eva  nityam  r/jTanam  anantam  sivam  svatantram  n-'ravayavam 
ekam  evadvitiya»i  sarvavyapi  sarvaniyantrj  sarvasrayawt  sarvavit  sar- 
Tat-aktimad  dharunam  pdrjiam  apratimam  iti. 

(3)  Ekasya  tasyaivopasanaya  paratrikam  aihika?»  ha.  «ubham  bha- 
vati. 

(4)  Tasmin  pritis  tasya  priyakiiyasSdhanam  ia  tadnpSsanam  eva. 

After  that  follows  the  Brahmadharmagrahana,  i.e.  the  covenant  to 
be  signed  by  new  members  : — 

Asmin  Brahmadhavmavl^e  visvasya  Brahmadharmavi^am  gntwimi, 

(1)  God  alone  existed  in  the  beginning,  and  He  created  this  universe. 

(2)  He  is  intelligent,  infinite,  benevolent,  eternal,  governor  of  the 
universe,  all-knowing,  omnipotent,  refuge  of  all,  devoid  of  limbs, 
immutable,  alone,  without  a  second,  all-powerful,  self-existent,  and 
beyond  comparison. 

(3)  By  worshipping  Him  and  Him  alone  we  can  attain  the  highest 
good  in  this  life  and  in  the  next. 

(4)  To  love  Him  and  to  do  the  works  He  loves  constitutes  this 
worship. 

By  declaring  my  belief  in  the  above  combined  four  fundamental 
principles  of  Brahmaism  I  accept  it  as  my  faith.  See  Pandit  Sivandth 
Sastri,  'New  Dispensation,'  p.  12. 


42  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

interest.  They  knew  what  stuff  they  were  made  of. 
They  might  be  useful  for  women  and  children,  they 
might  contain  grains  of  truth  which  every  Brahma 
would  value  ^,  but  their  childish  legends  could  never 
stand  in  the  way  of  men  like  Debendranath  Tagore. 
Does  that  show  that  the  Veda  was  dead  and  forgotten, 
and  that  the  true  religion  of  modern  India  must  be 
studied  in  the  Pura/;as  or  Tantras  ? 

Even  after  the  fall  of  the  Veda,  do  not  suppose  that 
the  religious  reformers  of  India  discarded  it  altogether. 
They  deprived  it  of  its  Divine  Eight,  but  they  seemed 
to  value  it  all  the  more,  and  they  preserved  aU  that 
they  thought  worth  preserving  in  it,  particularly  the 
Upanishads. 

When  challenged  by  the  Rev.  J.  Mullens,  a  mission- 
ary of  the  London  Missionary  Society,  as  to  the  new 
principles  of  the  belief  of  the  Brahmas,  Debendranath 
replied :  '  The  doctrines  of  the  Brahmas,  or  spiritual 
worshippers  of  God,  whom  I  suppose  you  mean  by 
modern  Vedantists,  are  founded  upon  a  broader  and 
more  unexceptionable  basis  than  the  scriptures  of  a 
single  religious  denomination  on  earth.  The  volume 
of  Nature  is  open  to  all,  and  that  volume  contains  a 
revelation  clearly  teaching,  in  strong  and  legible  cha- 
racters, the  great  truths  of  religion  and  morality ;  and 
giving  us  as  much  knowledge  of  our  state  after  death 
as  is  necessary  for  the  attainment  of  future  blessed- 
ness, yet  adapted  to  the  present  state  of  our  mental 
faculties.  Now,  as  the  Hindu  religion  contains  notions 
of  God  and  human  duty  which  coincide  with  that 

'  'TJie  Purans  and  the  Tantras  are  Shastras,  because  they  also  pro- 
claim the  unity  of  God.'  Kammohun  Key,  Bengali  translation  of  the 
Ishopauishad. 


EAJAH   RAMMOHUN    ROY.  43 

revelation,  we  have  availed  ourselves  of  works  which 
are  the  great  depositaries  of  the  national  faith,  and 
which  have  the  advantage  of  national  association  on 
their  side,  for  disseminating  the  principles  of  pure 
religion  among  our  countrymen^.' 

The  time  will  come,  I  hope,  when  scholars  in  India 
will  study  the  Veda,  as  we  study  it  in  Europe,  namely 
as  an  historical  record  of  the  highest  value  in  the  his- 
tory of  religion;  but  even  then  I  trust  that  in  India 
the  Veda  wiU  always  retain  its  peculiar  position  as 
the  oldest  book  which,  for  the  first  time,  told  the  in- 
habitants of  that  country  of  a  world  beyond  this 
world,  of  a  law  beyond  human  laws,  and  of  a  Divine 
Being  in  whom  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being. 

If  we  may  judge  of  Sacred  Books  by  their  fruits, 
then  the  life  of  such  a  man  as  Rammohun  Roy,  who 
professed  to  be  entirely  guided  by  the  Veda,  would 
bear  high  testimony  indeed  to  the  intrinsic  value  of 
that  oldest  among  all  Sacred  Books  of  the  Aryan 
race,  however  crude,  childish,  unscientific  it  may  seem 
to  us. 

StiU  more  interesting,  however,  will  it  be  to  study 
and  examine  the  lives  of  his  disciples  and  followers, 
who  no  longer  looked  upon  the  Veda  or  any  other 
book  as  divinely  or  miraculously  revealed,  and  to 
whom  the  Veda  had  become  simply  a  venerable  book 
by  the  side  of  other  venerable  books,  in  order  to  find 
out  whether  a  kind  of  heavenly  halo  is  reaUy  indis- 
pensable in  order  to  secure  to  Eternal  Truth  an  en- 
trance into  the  heart  and  an  influence  on  the  acts  of 
man ;   or  whether,  as   some   believe.  Truth,  Eternal 

*  'Brief  History  of  the  Calcutta  Brahma-Samaj,'  iS6S,  p,  13. 


44.  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

Truth,  requires  no  credentials,  but  is  to  rule  tlie  world 
in  her  own  right,  nay,  is  to  be  welcomed  all  the  more 
warmly  when  she  appeals  to  the  human  heart,  un- 
adorned by  priestly  hands,  and  clad  only  in  her  own 
simplicity,  beauty,  and  majesty. 

To  Rammohun  Eoy  the  Veda  was  true,  because  it 
was  divine ;  to  his  followers  it  was  divine,  because 
it  was  true.  And  which  of  the  two  showed  the  greater 
faith  ? 

I  have  thus  tried,  and  I  hope  not  quite  in  vain,  to 
enlist  your  sympathy,  your  real  respect  and  love,  for 
that  great  religious  reformer  of  India,  Rammohun 
Roy.  In  India  his  name  has  been  enrolled  in  the 
book  of  the  prophets  ;  and  I  hope  that  in  future  some 
at  least  of  those  who  have  kindly  listened  to  me  to- 
night will  allow  to  this  true  Aryan  nobleman  a  place 
among  those  who  deserve  to  be  called  great  and 
good. 


eIjAH  RAMMOUUN  ROY.  45 

APPENDIX. 

There  is  a  letter,  supposed  to  have  been  -written  by 
Rammohun  Roy  shortly  before  he  left  England  for 
France,  and  addressed  to  Mr.  Gordon  of  Calcutta.  It 
was  first  published  after  the  Rajah's  death  in  the 
Athenaeum,  Oct.  5,  1833,  by  Mr.  Sandford  Arnot,  who 
had  acted  as  the  Rajah's  secretary  during  his  stay 
in  England.  It  was  republished  by  Miss  Mary  Car- 
penter in  'The  Last  Days  of  the  Rajah  Rammohun 
Roy,'  London,  1866,  p.  249.  Although  the  relations 
between  the  Rajah  and  his  secretary  were  not  very 
friendly  towards  the  end  of  the  Rajah's  visit  to 
England,  there  is  nothing  in  that  letter  to  betray 
any  unfriendly  feeling.  Whether  the  Rajah  wrote 
or  dictated  the  whole  of  it  may  be  doubted,  but 
to  reject  the  whole  as  a  fabrication  would  be  going 
much  too  far.  See  letters  from  John  Hare  in  Times, 
Oct.  28,  1833;  from  S.  Arnot,  Nov.  23,  1833;  from 
J.  Hare,  Dec.  11,  1833.  Mr.  Arnot  states  that  after 
the  Rajah's  return  from  Paris,  both  his  mind  and  body 
seemed  to  be  losing  their  tone  and  vigour,  that  his 
manners  were  changed,  and  his  language  became 
violent  and  coarse.  His  friends  at  Bristol,  however, 
perceived  nothing  of  this. 

'My  dear  Friend, 

•  In  conformity  with  the  wish  you  have  frequently 
expressed,  that  I  should  give  you  an  outline  of  my 
life,  I  have  now  the  pleasure  to  give  you  the  following 
very  brief  sketch. 

'  My  ancestors  were  Brahmins  of  a  high  order,  and. 


46  BIOGKAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

from  time  immemorial,  were  devoted  to  the  religious 
duties  of  their  race,  down  to  my  fifth  progenitor,  who 
about  one  hundred  and  forty  years  ago  gave  up 
spiritual  exercises  for  worldly  pursuits  and  aggran- 
disement. His  descendants  ever  since  have  followed 
his  example,  and,  according  to  the  usual  fate  of 
courtiers,  with  various  success,  sometimes  rising  to 
honour  and  sometimes  falling;  sometimes  rieh  and 
sometimes  poor ;  sometimes  excelliug  in  success,  some- 
times miserable  through  disappointment  \ 

'  But  my  maternal  ancestors,  bemg  of  the  sacerdotal 
order  by  profession  as  well  as  by  birth,  and  of  a 
family  than  which  none  holds  a  higher  rank  in  that 
profession,  have  up  to  the  present  day  uniformly 
adhered  to  a  life  of  rehgious  observances  and  devo- 
tion, preferring  peace  and  tranquillity  of  mind  to  the 
excitements  of  ambition  and  all  the  allurements  of 
worldly  grandeur. 

'  In  conformity  with  the  usage  of  my  paternal  race, 
and  the  wish  of  my  father  2,  I  studied  the  Persian  and 
Arabic  languages — these  being  indispensable  to  those 
who  attached  themselves  to  the  courts  of  the  Mo- 
hammedan princes;  and  agreeably  to  the  usage  of 
my  maternal  relations,  1  devoted  myself  to  the  study 
of  the  Sanskrit  and  the  theological  works  written  in 
it,  which  contain  the  body  of  Hindoo  literature,  law, 
and  religion. 

When  about  the  age  of  sixteen  ^,  I  composed  a  manu- 

'  Rammoliun's  grandfather  filled  posts  of  importance  at  the  Court  of 
Murshadabad,  the  capital  of  the  Soubah  of  Bengal.  His  father,  Eam- 
kant  Roy,  left  Murshadabad  and  lived  at  Eadhanagore,  in  the  district 
of  Burdwan,  where  he  had  landed  property,  the  patrimony  of  the  family. 

"  liamkant  Hoy.  *  A,  D.  1 790. 


RAJAH   RAMMOHUN   ROY.  47 

script  calling  in  question  the  validity  of  the  idolatrous 
system  of  the  Hindoos.  This,  together  with  my 
known  sentiments  on  that  subject,  having  produced 
a  coolness  between  me  and  my  immediate  kindred, 
I  proceeded  on  my  travels,  and  passed  through  dif- 
ferent countries,  chiefiy  within,  but  some  beyond,  the 
bounds  of  Hindostan,  with  a  feeling  of  great  aversion 
to  the  establishment  of  the  British  power.  When 
I  had  reached  the  age  of  twenty,  my  father  recalled 
roe,  and  restored  me  to  his  favour ;  after  which  I  first 
saw  and  began  to  associate  with  Europeans,  and  soon 
after  made  myself  tolerably  acquainted  with  their 
laws  and  form  of  government.  Finding  them  generally 
more  intelligent,  more  steady,  and  moderate  in  their 
conduct,  I  gave  up  my  prejudice  against  them,  and 
became  inclined  in  their  favour,  feeling  persuaded 
that  their  rule,  though  a  foreign  yoke,  would  lead 
more  speedily  and  surely  to  the  amehoration  of  the 
native  inhabitants ;  and  I  enjoyed  the  confidence  of 
several  of  them  even  in  their  public  capacity.  My 
continued  controversies  with  the  Brahmins  on  the 
subject  of  their  idolatry  and  superstition,  and  my 
interference  with  their  custom  of  burning  widows 
and  other  pernicious  practices,  revived  and  increased 
their  animosity  against  me ;  and  through  their  in- 
fluence with  my  family,  my  father  was  again  obliged 
to  withdraw  his  countenance  openly,  though  his 
limited  pecuniary  support  was  still  continued  to  me. 

'  After  my  father's  death,  I  opposed  the  advocates 
of  idolatry  with  still  greater  boldness.  Availing  my- 
self of  the  art  of  printing,  I  published  various  works 
and  pamphlets  against  their  errors,  in  the  native  and 
foreign  languages.     This  raised  such  a  feeling  against 


48  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

•  me,  that  I  was  at  last  deserted  by  every  person  except 
two  or  three  Scotch  friends,  to  whom,  and  the  nation 
to  which  they  belong,  I  always  feel  grateful. 

'  The  ground  which  I  took  in  all  my  controversies 
was,  not  that  of  opposition  to  Brahminism,  but  to 
the  perversion  of  it ;  and  I  endeavoured  to  show  that 
the  idolatry  of  the  Brahmins  was  contrary  to  the 
practice  of  their  ancestors,  and  the  principles  of  the 
ancient  books  and  authorities  which  they  profess  to 
revere  and  obey.  Notwithstanding  the  violence  of 
the  opposition  and  the  resistance  to  my  opinions, 
several  highly  respectable  persons,  both  among  my 
own  relations  and  others,  began  to  adopt  the  same 
sentiments. 

'  I  now  felt  a  strong  wish  to  visit  Europe,  and  obtain, 
by  personal  observation,  a  more  thorough  insight  into 
its  manners,  customs,  religion,  and  political  institu- 
tions. I  refrained,  however,  from  carrying  this  inten- 
tion into  effect  until  the  friends  who  coincided  in  my 
sentiments  should  be  increased  in  number  and  strength. 
My  expectations  having  been  at  length  realised,  in 
November,  1830,  I  embarked  for  England,  as  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  East-India  Company's  Charter  was 
expected  to  come  on,  by  which  the  treatment  of  the 
natives  of  India,  and  its  future  government,  would  be 
determined  for  many  years  to  come ;  and  an  appeal 
to  the  King  in  Council,  against  the  abolition  of  the 
practice  of  burning  widows,  was  to  be  heard  before 
the  Privy  Council;  and  His  Majesty  the  Emperor 
of  Delhi  had  likeAvise  commissioned  me  to  bring 
before  the  authorities  in  England  certain  encroach- 
ments on  his  rights  by  the  East-India  Company. 
I  accordingly  arrived  in  England  in  April,  1831.' 


KESHUB  CHUNDEE  SEI. 

(1838-1884.) 

I  HAD  just  said  what  I  wished  to  say  about  Rajah 
Rammohun  Roy,  when  I  received  the  news  of  the 
death  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  his  devoted  follower 
and  successor.  Whereas  I  knew  Rammohun  Roy  in 
the  spirit  only,  I  knew  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  both  in 
the  spirit  and  in  the  flesh.  We  were  true  friends 
through  good  and  evil  days,  and  I  little  expected  that 
he  would  leave  this  busy  world  before  me.  The  time 
to  give  a  full  account  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen"s  life 
and  life-work  has  hardly  come  as  yet.  Many  little 
things  must  be  foro-otten  before  his  true  greatness  can 
be  realised.  But  there  are  certain  impressions  which 
he  has  left  on  our  memories  which,  if  not  recorded 
at  once,  may  fade  away  and  be  lost.  Of  his  life,  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  I  know  little,  and  the 
little  I  know,  I  know  from  his  Indian  friends  only, 
with  whom  all  responsibility  for  dates  and  facts  must 
rest.  But  there  are  some  hidden  phases  of  his  inner 
life  which  I  know  better  perhaps  than  even  his  best 
friends  in  India.  In  his  very  last  letter,  which  he 
wrote  at  Simla  on  the  20th  June,  1883,  he  said :  'Our 
affinity  is  not  only  ethnic,  but  in  the  highest  degree 
spiritual,  which  often  draws  you  into  my  heart  and 
makes  me  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  friendly  intercourse. 
VOL.  II.  E 


50  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

I  forget  tile  distance,  and  feel  we  are  very  near  each 
other.  These  Himalayas  ablaze  with  India's  ancient 
glory  constantly  remind  me  of  j^ou,  and  as  I  read  your 
Lectures  on  '  India,  what  can  it  teach  us  f  in  the 
veranda  of  my  little  house  in  the  morning,  I  feel  so 
intensely  the  presence  of  your  spirit  in  me  that  it 
seems  I  am  not  reading  your  book,  but  talking  to  you 
and  you  are  talking  to  me  in  deep  spirit-intercourse.' 

However,  before  I  can  give  a  few  records  of  our 
spirit-intercourse,  I  must  try  to  give  a  slight  sketch  of 
the  outward  life  of  my  friend,  at  least  so  far  as  it  bears 
on  his  spiritual  growth.  I  have  no  doubt  we  shall 
soon  have  a  long  biography,  telling  us  of  his  ancestors, 
of  his  childhood,  his  youth,  his  manhood,  full  of  dates, 
full  of  facts,  full  of  anecdotes.  I  do  not  wish  to  anti- 
cipate these  chroniclers,  who  so  often  tell  us  the  very 
things  that  ought  to  be  forgotten  ;  and  not  always  the 
things  which  it  is  right  to  remember.  All  I  feel  in- 
clined to  do  is  to  give  some  slight  frame  to  hold  the 
portrait  of  the  man. 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  in  Sanskrit  Ke.^ava  Sandra 
Sena,  died  on  the  8th  of  January,  1884,  at  the  age  of 
46,  having  been  born  on  the  19th  of  November,  1838. 
Though  sprung  from  one  of  the  orthodox  Vaidya 
families  in  Bengal,  European  influences  had  reached 
and  permeated  his  home  for  at  least  two  generations 
before  his  birth.  His  grandfather,  Ram  Comul  Sen, 
is  known  to  Sanskrit  scholars  as  the  friend  of  Horace 
Hayman  Wilson,  and  as  the  author  of  a  useful  Bengali 
Dictionary.  Ram  Comul  Sen  had  four  sons,  the  second 
being  Peary, Mohun  Sen,  for  some  time  Diwan  of  the 
Calcutta  Mint.  This  Peary  Mohun  Sen  had  three  sons, 
and  the  second   of  them  was  Keshub  Chunder  Sen. 


KESHUB   CHUNDER  SEN.  51 

The  grandfather,  Ram  Comul  Sen,  was  evidently  on 
really  intimate  terms  with  Professor  H.  H.  Wilson, 
and  the  latter  often  spoke  of  his  old  friend  in  terms  of 
affection  such  as  one  seldom  hears  now  from  the 
mouths  of  old  Indian  Civil  Servants  when  speaking  of 
their  native  subordinates.  But  Ram  Comul  Sen  re- 
mained through  life  a  thorough  Hindu,  strictly  ortho- 
dox and  minutel}'  conscientious  in  the  discharge  of  his 
religious  duties  ;  nor  was  Wilson  the  man  to  force  his 
own  theological  opinions  on  his  friend,  so  long  as  he 
knew  that  he  could  trust  him  as  an  honest  man.  He, 
being  Director  of  the  Mint,  appointed  Ram  Comul  Sen 
to  the  responsible  office  of  Bullion  Keeper.  He  after- 
wards became  Diwan  of  the  Mint,  Cashier  of  the  Bank, 
and  Native  Secretary  of  the  Asiatic  Society.  In  his 
office  of  Diwan  he  was  succeeded  by  his  son,  Peary 
Mohun  Sen.  The  office  became  almost  hereditary  in 
the  family,  devolving,  after  the  father's  death,  on  a 
younger  brother,  and  after  his  death  on  Babu  Jadunath 
Sen,  a  cousin  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  When  his 
cousin  had  to  resign,  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  was  pre- 
vailed upon  to  officiate  for  a  time  as  Diwan  of  the 
Mint  until  the  Diwauship  was  transferred  to  the  family 
of  the  Dutts  of  Rambagun. 

We  thus  see  how  in  Keshub  Chunder  Sen's  family 
European  enlightenment  and  English  principles  of 
morality  were  united  with  strong  Hindu  patriotism 
and  orthodoxy.  He  was  brought  up  as  a  Bhakta,  that 
is  as  a  boy  who  would  bathe  every  morning,  put  on  a 
silk  dhvoti,  and  have  his  body  anointed  with  sandal- 
wood powder.  When  he  was  ten,  his  father  died,  and 
Keshub  was  brought  up  by  his  uncle,  though  he  had 
also  the  benefit  of  retaining  through  lil'c  the  loving 

E  3 


5.2  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

care  of  a  mother  who  still  survives  him.  She  stood  at 
his  death-bed,  lamenting  that  she,  poor  sinner,  should 
be  left  behind  while  the  dearest  jewel  of  her  heart  was 
being  plucked  away  from  her.  '  Don't  say  so,  dear 
mother,'  he  replied.  '  Where  can  there  be  another 
mother  like  you  ?  All  that  is  good  in  me  I  have  in- 
herited from  you ;  all  that  I  call  my  own  is  yours.' 
So  saying  he  took  the  dust  of  her  feet  and  put  it  upon 
his  head. 

As  a  boy  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  was  admitted  into 
the  Bengali  Patshala  (pa/^//avala),  an  elementary  school, 
from  which  he  proceeded  to  the  Hindu  College,  and 
afterwards  to  the  Hindu  Metropolitan  College  under 
Captain  Richardson.  His  success  at  school  seems  to 
have  been  varying,  his  weak  point  being  throughout 
mathematics.  When  he  joined  the  Presidency  College 
he  does  not  seem  to  have  distinguished  himself,  though 
he  remained  in  the  College  as  an  ex-student,  devoting 
his  attention  to  history,  logic,  psychology,  and  zoology. 
His  favourite  books  were  Shakespeare,  Milton,  and 
Bacon ;  and  so  ardent  had  been  his  devotion  to  his 
studies  that  those  who  knew  him,  after  he  had  left 
the  College  and  when  he  went  to  Bombay  in  1864, 
described  him  as  a  pale,  tall,  and  slender  youth. 

He  developed  at  an  early  time  a  strong  taste  for 
acting.  We  are  told  that  he  acted  Hamlet  in  his 
native  village  (Garifa,  now  Gouripore),  the  part  of 
Laertes  being  taken  by  his  young  friend,  now  his  pro- 
bable successor,  Protap  Chunder  Mozumdar.  He  also 
was  a  clever  juggler,  and  occasionally  performed  in 
that  capacity,  passing  himself  off  as  an  Englishman. 
But  he  soon  began  his  career  of  public  usefulness.  In 
1 855  he  established  an  Evening  School  for  the  children 


KESHUB    CHUNDER   SEN.  53 

of  working  men,  and  this  was  continued  with  great 
success  till  1858. 

In  1H56  he  was  married  to  a  very  3'oung  girl,  the 
marriage  being  celebrated  with  the  usual  pomp.  He 
himself  disapproved  of  all  extravagance,  and  he  tells 
us  how  his  thoughts  began  at  that  time  to  turn  into  a 
new  direction.  '  I  entered  the  world,'  he  says,  '  with 
ascetic  ideas,  and  my  honeymoon  was  spent  amid 
austerities  in  the  house  of  the  Lord.'  This  continued 
for  three  or  four  years,  during  which  time  he  became 
an  ardent  student  of  the  Bible,  helped  by  the  Eev.  T. 
H.  Burne,  Domestic  Chaplain  to  Bishop  Cotton.  If 
any  one  could  have  persuaded  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  to 
become  a  Christian,  it  would  have  been  the  large- 
hearted  Bishop  Cotton.  But  this  was  not  to  be,  and 
we  may  well  believe  that  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  strug- 
gling all  his  life  after  truth,  was  a  more  impressive 
lesson,  to  his  countrj^men  than  he  would  have  been 
if  he  had  been  received  and  kept  within  the  fold  of 
the  English  Church. 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen  soon  became  attracted  by  the 
Brahma-Samaj,  the  Society  founded  by  Bammohun 
Roy,  the  early  history  of  which  I  have  tried  to  describe 
before.  The  exact  date  of  his  joining  that  Society  has 
been  much  discussed.  It  was  supposed  to  be  1859', 
but  in  a  letter  to  Miss  Collet,  dated  Nov.  23,  1872,  he 
wrote,  '  I  became  a  Brahma  in  1857,  Yben  Debendra- 
nath  Tagore  was  in  the  Hills.'  This  was  from  -5'aka 
1778  to  /S'aka  1780,  A. d.  1856-1859,  during  the  time 
of  the  mutiny.     Debendranath  retired  to  the  Hima- 

^  'The  New  Dispensation  and  the  S^dharan  Brahma-Samaj,'  V>y 
Pandit  Sivanath  Sastri,  M.A.,  Madras,  1881,  pp.  6, 15  ;  'Liberal,'  Marcli, 
16,  23,  1SS4. 


54  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

layas  In  1855,  and  after  three  years  of  solitary  con- 
templation returned  to  Calcutta^. 

The  fact  was  not,  however,  much  known  to  the 
public  till  after  Debendranath's  return.  Unfortunately 
the  original  document,  written  in  Bengali  by  his  own 
hand,  in  which  he  declared  that  Brahmaism  was  the 
only  true  religion  in  the  world,  and  avowed  his  faith 
in  the  holy  Brahma  Dharma,  is  lost.  But  the  date  is 
of  less  consequence  than  the  cause  of  his  joining  the 
Brahma-Samaj . 

The  time  had  come  for  him  to  be  formally  initiated 
in  the  mysteries  of  his  ancestral  religion,  but  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen  declined  to  submit  to  any  idolatrous 
rites,  and  it  was  the  persecution  of  his  own  family 
which  at  that  time  drove  him  to  seek  refuge  and  ad- 
vice with  Debendranath  Tagore.  Their  first  meeting 
was  the  beginning  of  a  long  friendship  between  the 
man  of  fifty  and  the  young  disciple  of  twenty,  a 
friendship  which,  though  outwardly  severed  for  a  time, 
lasted  in  their  hearts  till  it  was  severed  at  last  by 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen's  death.  Debendranath  Tagore 
was  a  rich  man,  and  he  enabled  Keshub  Chunder  Sen 
to  maintain  himself  at  Calcutta,  and  to  work  for  the 
cause  they  both  had  at  heart.  We  soon  hear  of  the 
young  convert  at  the  head  of  a  Brahma  school,  which 
was  finally  established  on  the  second  floor  of  the 
Brahma-Samaj.  Here  two  lectures  were  given  every 
week,  one  in  Bengali  by  Debendranath  Tagore,  the 
other  in  English  by  Keshub  Chunder  Sen. 

About  the  same  time  we  find  Keshub  Chunder  Sen 
superintending  the   performance   of  a  Bengali  play, 

^  See  'Faith  and  Progress  of  tlie  Brahma-Samaj,'  by  P.  C.  Mozumdar, 

Calcutta,  1SS2,  p.  192. 


KESHUB   CIIUNDER   SEN.  55 

written  by  TJmesh  Chundra  Mitra,  and  called  Bidhaba 
Bibaha  Natak,  '  The  Marriage  of  the  Widow.'  This 
play  had  a  great  success  at  the  time,  being  intended  to 
influence  public  opinion  in  favour  of  wi< low-marriages. 

In  the  same  year,  Nov.  i,  1859,  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen  was  appointed  to  a  clerkship  in  the  Bank  of 
Bengal,  at  a  salary  of  ^^6  a  year,  which  was  soon 
raised  to  j^6o.  His  appointment  left  him  sufficient 
leisure  to  pursue  his  favourite  studies,  to  write,  and 
even  to  lecture  in  public.  His  first  tract,  which 
appeared  in  i860,  was  called,  'Young  Bengal,  this  is 
for  you.'  In  i860  we  hear  of  his  meeting  Mr.  Dyson 
at  Krishnaghur,  in  a  public  disputation  on  the  merits 
of  Christianity  and  the  Brahma  religion.  In  the  same 
year  he  accompanied  Debendranath  Tagore  and  his 
son  Satyendranath  to  Ceylon. 

In  1 861  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  gave  up  his  post  in 
the  Bank  of  Bengal,  having  now  determined  to  devote 
his  life  to  the  religious  regeneration  of  his  country. 
Speaking  of  that  period  of  his  life,  he  says  ^ :  '  I  do  not 
believe  in  an  absentee  Lord.  God  is  unto  us  all  an 
ever-present  Deity.  As  I  saw  my  God,  I  naturally 
asked  him  where  I  should  go  to  find  means  of  subsist- 
ence and  satisfy  my  hunger  and  thirst.  To  the  Bank? 
To  a  mercantile  office  ?  No.  The  Lord  told  me,  in 
plain  and  unmistakable  language,  to  give  up  secular 
work  altogether.  But  I  said,  "  Lord,  will  not  my 
family  starve,  if  all  means  of  subsistence  are  thus  de- 
liberately cut  oft"?"  "  Talk  not  as  an  infidel,"  was  the 
reply.  I  was  ashamed  of  my  scepticism.  I  was  assured 
that  "all  things  shall  be  added  unto  you.  "  '  He  and 
Debendranath  Tagore  were  at  that  time  like  two  souls 

^  'Lectures  iu  India,'  p.  268. 


56  BIOGKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

and  one  thouo-ht.  Debendranath  Tawre  wished  his 
young  friend  to  assume  the  ministership  of  the  Brahma- 
Samaj,  and  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  who  had  till  then 
been  tolerated  as  a  member  of  a  thoroughly  orthodox 
family,  resolved  to  enter  with  his  wife  the  house  of 
Debeudranath  Tagore,  and  to  dine  with  a  man  looked 
upon  as  a  heretic  and  as  excommunicated.  Upon 
this  he  himself  was  expelled  from  his  family,  and  had 
to  live  under  the  protection  of  his  old  friend,  till  in 
December,  1863,  he  obtained  re-admission  to  his  an- 
cestral house.  In  the  same  month  his  eldest  son  was 
born.  On  the  death  of  his  father  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen  received  his  share  of  the  ancestral  property. 

Being  now  less  hampered  in  his  public  career, 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen  became  more  and  more  recog- 
nised as  the  champion  of  the  Brahma-Samaj.  In  his 
lecture,  delivered  8th  of  April,  1863,  'The  Brahma- 
Samaj  vindicated,'  he  clearly  defined  his  position,  both 
as  against  native  opponents  and  Christian  missionaries. 
An  association,  called  the  Sangat,  or  Sangata-Sabha, 
served  as  a  centre  for  religious  and  moral  discussions 
between  him  and  his  followers.  Rules  were  agreed 
upon,  pledges  were  taken,  and  the  society  became 
more  strictly  organised.  Idolatrous  rites  were  entirely 
put  down. 

The  first  Brahma  marriage,  which  of  course  was 
considered  by  native  opinion  as  no  marriage  at  all, 
was  celebrated  as  early  as  1861,  Debendranath  Tagore 
himself  setting  the  bold  example  of  allowing  his 
daughter  to  be  married  without  the  customary  rites. 
Other  reforms  followed.  The  birth-festivals,  the  naming- 
fcstivals,  initiations,  and  funerals  were  all  conducted 
aceordiuG:  to  Brahmic  rites.     Even  the  sacred  thread 


KESHUB   CHUNDEK   SEN.  57 

was  thrown  off,  and  Debendranath  again  set  the  first 
example.  We  have  no  idea  how  hard  this  surrender 
of  cherished  national  customs  appeared  to  many  of  the 
Brahmas,  and  how  deeply  it  afflicted  those  who  had 
wished  not  to  break  openly  with  their  Brahma  friends. 
Still  nothing  could  restrain  the  ardour  of  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen.  In  1864,  on  the  9th  of  February,  he 
started  for  Lfadras.  It  was  his  first  great  missionary 
enterprise,  and  he  succeeded  in  planting  a  Brahma- 
Samaj  in  the  Madras  Presidency.  From  thence  he 
proceeded  to  Bombay,  where  he  won  many  hearts,  both 
English  and  native,  and  then  returned  to  Calcutta 
with  greater  determination  than  ever  to  carry  out  his 
great  social  and  religious  reform.  Opposition  only 
roused  his  enthusiasm,  friction  only  called  out  brighter 
sparks  of  eloquence.  His  old  friend,  Debendranath 
Tagore,  continued  for  a  long  time  the  friend  and  fellow- 
worker  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen.  We  know  that  he 
gave  up  the  Sacred  Thread,  that  ancient  and  harmless 
religious  symbol  which  even  Rammohun  Roy  would 
never  part  with,  and  which  was  found  on  his  breast 
after  his  death. 

But  at  last  even  Debendranath  became  frightened, 
or  allowed  himself  to  be  frightened  by  his  more 
conservative  friends.  He  and  his  friends  were  pre- 
pared to  give  up  all  that  was  idolatrous  and  pernicious, 
but  they  would  not  part  with  all  their  ancient  na- 
tional customs,  they  would  not  have  their  religion  de- 
nationalised. They  found  all  they  wanted  in  their 
own  ancient  literature,  and  in  the  book  of  nature,  open 
before  their  eyes,  while  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  was 
looking  more  and  more  beyond  the  narrow  frontiers 
of  India,  and  seeking  for  spiritual  food  in  the  Chiistian 


58  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Bible,  and  also,  though  in  a  less  degree,  in  the  Koran 
and  other  sacred  books. 

The  celebration  of  a  marriage  between  persons  of  dif- 
ferent castes  in  August  1 864  produced  a  strong  commo- 
tion. It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen  himself  was  not  of  Brahmanic  descent.  His  ap- 
pointment as  Minister  had  hurt  the  feelings  of  other 
Brahmas  who,  however  much  they  might  strive  to  be 
free  from  prejudice,  could  not  altogether  forget  that  all 
religious  functions  belonged  by  right  to  Brahmans  and 
to  Brahmans  only.  When  therefore  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen  insisted  on  making  the  removal  of  the  Sacred 
Thread  a  sine  grid  non  of  Brahma  fellowship,  they  re- 
belled. Debendranath  Tagore,  who  was  by  age  and 
position  the  recognised  head  of  the  Brahmas,  and  who 
had  lifted  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  to  the  high  office 
which  he  held  as  Minister,  suddenly  dismissed  his 
young  friend  and  his  most  active  companions  from  all 
posts  of  trust  and  influence  in  the  Samaj  ^. 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen  felt  this  deeply,  but  he  was 
not  to  be  discouraged.  The  separation  took  place  in 
February,  1865,  and  as  early  as  the  nth  of  November, 
1 866,  he  and  his  friends  had  founded  a  new  society, 
still  called  the  Brahma-Samaj,  but  the  Brahma-Samaj 
of  India,  while  the  conservative  Samaj  now  went  by 
the  name  of  the  Adi  Brahma-Samaj,  i.e.  the  First  or 
Original  Brahma-Samaj. 

There  was  naturally  more  activity  in  the  new  than 
in  the  old  Church.  Debendranath  Tagore  was  tired 
of  the  world,  and  often  spent  many  years  in  succession 
in  the  recesses  of  the  Himalayan  mountains  in  undis- 
turbed communion  with  God,  while  the  afiairs  of  the 

^  See  the  correspondence  in  the  '  Tattvabodhini  I'atriku,'  No.  264. 


KESHUB   CHUNDEE  SEN.  59 

Samaj  were  managed  by  Rajanarayan  Bose  and  a 
Committee. 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  on  the  contrary,  after  be  bad 
once  come  to  the  front,  never  left  his  place.  He  and 
many  of  his  followers  gave  up  all  secular  employ- 
ment, and  became  preachers,  teachers,  and  missionaries. 
'  From  comfortable  and  easy  circumstances  several 
came  down  to  want  and  poverty,  and  had,  on  many 
occasions,  to  go  without  even  the  bare  necessaries  of 
life.'  They  published  books  of  theistic  texts  from  all 
the  Sacred  Books  of  the  world ;  they  built  a  new 
Brayer  Hall  in  1869,  and  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  by 
his  marvellous  eloquence  not  only  in  Bengali  but  in 
English,  won  thousands  of  hearts  for  his  cause.  New 
journals  were  started,  new  schools  opened,  and  great 
efforts  were  made  to  raise  the  women  of  India,  so  as 
to  make  them  fit  fellow-labourers  in  the  cause  of  re- 
ligious and  social  reform. 

In  doctrine  there  was  little  that  divided  Debendra- 
nath  from  Keshub.  '  The  fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
brotherhood  of  men'  formed  the  common  ground  of 
their  faith  and  their  work.  Their  opinions  also  on  the 
true  character  of  the  Veda  were  the  same.  Both 
had  surrendered  their  faith  in  the  revealed  character 
of  the  Veda,  both  looked  to  other  scriptures  as  well  as 
the  Veda  for  light  and  guidance. 

The  following  is  an  authoritative  summary  of  the 
doctrines  of  the  old  Brahma-Samaj  as  accepted  by 
Debendranath  Tagore.  The  same  doctrines  were  em- 
braced from  the  first  by  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  and 
with  slight  modifications  held  by  him  to  the  last^. 

^  'Brief  History  of  the  Calcutta  Eralima-Samaj  from  1830  to  186;,' 
Calcutta,  1868,  p.  17. 


60  BIOGEAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

I.  The  Book  of  Nature  and  Intuition  form  the  basis 
of  the  Brahmaic  faith. 

II.  Although  the  Brahmas  do  not  consider  any 
book,  written  by  man,  as  the  basis  of  their  religion, 
yet  they  do  accept,  with  respect  and  pleasure,  any 
truth  contained  in  any  book. 

III.  The  Brahmas  believe  that  the  religious  condi- 
tion of  man  is  progressive,  like  the  other  parts  of  his 
condition  in  this  world. 

IV.  They  believe  that  the  fundamental  doctrines  of 
their  religion  are  at  the  basis  of  every  religion  fol- 
lowed by  man. 

V.  They  believe  in  the  existence  of  One  Supreme 
God,  a  God  endowed  with  a  distinct  personality,  moral 
attributes  equal  to  His  nature,  and  intelligence  befit- 
ting the  Governor  of  the  Universe,  and  worship  Him 
— Him  alone.  They  do  not  believe  in  His  incarna- 
tion. 

VI.  They  believe  in  the  immortality  and  progressive 
state  of  the  soul,  and  declare  that  there  is  a  state  of 
conscious  existence  succeeding  life  in  this  world,  and 
supplementary  to  it,  as  respects  the  action  of  the  uni- 
versal moral  government. 

VII.  They  believe  that  repentance  is  the  only  way 
to  atonement  and  salvation.  They  do  not  recognise 
any 'other  mode  of  reconcilement  to  the  offended  but 
loving  Father. 

VIII.  They  pray  for  spiritual  welfare,  and  believe 
in  the  efficacy  of  such  prayers. 

IX.  They  believe  in  the  Providential  care  of  the 
Divine  Father. 


KESHUB    CHUNDER   SEN".  61 

X.  They  avow  that  love  towards  Him,  and  per- 
forming the  works  He  loves,  constitutes  His  worship. 

XI.  They  recognise  the  necessity  of  public  worship, 
but  do  not  believe  that  they  cannot  hold  communion 
with  the  Great  Father  without  resorting  to  any  fixed 
place  at  any  fixed  time.  They  maintain  that  we  can 
adore  Him  at  any  time  and  at  any  place,  provided  that 
time  and  that  place  are  calculated  'to  compose  and 
direct  the  mind  towards  Him. 

XII.  They  do  not  believe  in  pilgrimages,  but  declare 
that  holiness  can  only  be  attained  by  elevating  and 
purifying  the  mind. 

XIII.  They  do  not  perform  any  rites  or  ceremonies, 
or  believe  in  penances  as  instrumental  in  obtaining 
the  grace  of  God.  They  declare  that  moral  righteous- 
ness, the  gaining  of  wisdom,  Divine  contemplation, 
charity,  and  the  cultivation  of  devotional  feelings  are 
their  rites  and  ceremonies.  They  further  say, — Go- 
vern and  regulate  your  feelings,  discharge  your  duties 
to  God  and  to  man,  and  you  will  gain  everlasting 
blessedness.  Purify  your  heart,  cultivate  devotional 
feelings,  and  you  will  see  Him  who  is  unseen. 

XrV.  Theoretically  there  is  no  distinction  of  caste 
among  the  Brahmas.  They  declare  that  we  are  the 
children  of  God,  and  therefore  must  consider  ourselves 
as  brothers  and  sisters. 

If  we  compare  this  Confession  of  Faith  with  the  de- 
claration of  principles  delivered  by  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen  at  the  opening  of  his  own  Church  (Mandira),  on 
August  22,  1869,  we  shall  find  little  diflerence  between 
the  two,  though  in  the  practical  carrying  out  of  their 
doctrines  their  roads  were  diverofinof  more  and  more. 


62  BIOGKAPIIICAL   ESSAYS. 

Keshub  Chunder   Sen  on  that  occasion   read   the 
following  statement  ^ : — 

'  To-day,  by  Divine  Grace,  the  public  worship  of 
God  is  instituted  in  these  premises  for  the  use  of  the 
Brahma  community.  Every  day,  at  least  every  week, 
the  One  only  God  without  a  second,  the  Perfect  and 
Infinite,  the  Creator  of  all,  Omnipresent,  Almighty, 
All-knowing,  All-merciful,  and  All-holy,  shall  be  wor- 
shipped in  these  premises.  No  created  object  shall  be 
worshipped  here.  No  man  or  inferior  being  or  mate- 
rial object  shall  be  worshipped  here,  as  identical  with 
God  or  like  unto  God,  or  as  an  incarnation  of  God; 
and  no  prayer  or  hymn  shall  be  offered  or  chanted 
unto  or  in  the  name  of  any  except  God.  No  carved 
or  painted  image,  no  outward  symbol  which  has  been 
or  may  hereafter  be  used  by  any  sect  for  the  purpose 
of  worship,  or  the  remembrance  of  a  particular  event, 
shall  be  preserved  here.  No  creature  shall  be  sacri- 
ficed here.  Neither  eating,  nor  drinking,  nor  any 
manner  of  mirth  or  amusement  shall  be  allowed  here. 
No  created  being  or  object  that  has  been  or  may  here- 
after be  worshipped  by  any  sect  shall  be  ridiculed  or 
contemned  in  the  course  of  the  Divine  service  to  be 
conducted  here.  No  book  shall  be  acknowledged  or 
revered  as  the  infallible  word  of  God;  yet  no  book 
which  has  been  or  may  hereafter  be  acknowledged  by 
any  sect  to  be  infallible,  shall  be  ridiculed  or  con- 
temned. No  sect  shall  be  vilified,  ridiculed,  or  hated. 
No  prayer,  hymn,  sermon,  or  discourse  to  be  delivered 
or  used  here  shall  countenance  or  encourage  any  manner 
of  idolatry,  sectarianism,  or  sin.  Divine  service  shall 
be  conducted  here  in  such  spirit  and  manner  as  may 

*  '  Briilmia  Year-Book,'  1S76,  p.  11. 


KESHUB   CHUNDER  SEN".  63 

enable  all  men  and  women,  irrespective  of  distinctions 
of  caste,  colour,  and  condition,  to  unite  in  one  family, 
eschew  all  manner  of  error  and  sin,  and  advance  in 
wisdom,  faith,  and  righteousness.  The  congregation 
of  "  The  Brahma  Mandira  of  India  "  shall  worship  God 
in  these  premises  according  to  the  rules  and  principles 
hereinbefore  set  forth.' 

What  were  the  exact  causes  of  the  breach  between 
Debendranath  Tagore  and  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  it  is 
difficult  to  say.  They  were  hardly  doctrinal,  as  any 
one  may  see  who  compares  these  two  confessions. 
They  were  not  personal,  for  the  two  friends,  though 
outwardly  separated,  remained  united  by  mutual  feel- 
ings of  love  and  veneration.  They  were,  so  far  as  we 
can  judge,  such  as  arise  when  practical  measures  have 
to  be  discussed  and  decisions  have  to  be  taken.  Then 
interests  seem  to  clash,  misunderstandings  become  in- 
evitable, misrepresentations  are  resorted  to,  and  news- 
paper gossip  makes  retreat  from  untenable  positions 
very  difficult.  So  far  as  I  can  judge,  Debendranath 
and  his  friends  were  averse  to  unnecessary  innovations, 
and  afraid  of  anything  likely  to  wound  the  national 
feelings  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people.  They  wanted 
before  all  to  retain  the  national  character  of  their  re- 
ligion. 'A  so-called  universal  form,'  they  said, 
'  would  make  our  religion  appear  grotesque  and  ridi- 
culous to  the  nation.'  They  pleaded  for  toleration 
for  Hindu  usages  and  customs  which  appeared  to  them 
innocent.  '  If  a  progressive  Brahma,'  they  argued, 
'requires  a  conservative  one  to  reject  those  portions 
which  the  former  considers  to  be  idolatrous,  but  the 
latter  does  not,  he  denies  liberty  of  conscience  to  a 
fellow-Brahma.' 


64  EIOGEAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

It  may  be  that  Keshub  Chunder  Sen's  devotion  to 
Christ  also,  which  became  more  pronounced  from  year 
to  year,  disquieted  the  minds  of  the  Brahmas.  After 
his  lecture  on  'Jesus  Christ,  Europe  and  Asia,'  de- 
livered in  May,  1866,  many  people,  I  am  told,  both 
native  and  European,  felt  convinced  that  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen  would  openly  embrace  Christianity. 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  however,  was  at  that  time 
absorbed  far  less  in  doctrinal  questions  than  in  prac- 
tical measures  of  progress  and  reform,  To  quote  the 
words  of  his  friend  Protap  Chunder  Mozumdar  ^,  '  The 
great  spiritual  exercises  and  emotional  excitement  be- 
gan, and  the  first  devotional  festival  was  celebrated  in 
November,  1867.  Side  by  side  with  the  spiritual  ex- 
citement the  most  radical  social  reforms  were  com- 
menced, the  Native  Marriage  Act  was  passed,  the 
Indian  Reform  Association  with  its  five  sections  was 
established  in  1870,  and  the  Bharat  Asram  (or  the 
Indian  Hermitage)  was  opened  in  1872.  A  Female 
Normal  School  was  founded  for  training  lady-teachers, 
and  a  temperance  movement  was  supported  by  a 
special  journal. 

Brahma-Samajas  began  to  spring  up  in  different 
parts  of  the  country  as  a  result  of  this  new  agency. 
A  most  active  missionary  organisation  was  constituted, 
and  the  preachers  were  sent  to  travel  from  one 
part  of  the  country  to  the  other.  All  this  culminated 
in  the  missionary  expedition  of  1879.  The  whole 
movement  under  the  influence  of  such  manifold  ac- 
tivities began  to  take  a  new  shape.  New  doctrines 
were  conceived  and  preached.  Yoga  (spiritual  exer- 
cises), Bhakti  (devotion  and  love),  and  Asceticism  were 

*  'Faith  and  Progress,'  p.  39. 


KESHUB   CHUXDER    SEN.  65 

explained  from  a  new  point  of  view.  Great  reverence 
was  felt  for  Christ  and  other  Masters  ;  pilgrimages  to 
saints  and  prophets  were  encouraged  ;  sacraments  and 
ceremonials  were  instituted  ;  and  at  last  the  New  Dis- 
pensation, as  the  highest  development  of  the  Brahma- 
Samaj,  was  proclaimed  in  1880. 

Much  as  I  sympathise  with  Keshub  Chunder  Sen, 
I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  his  movement  Avas  in. 
every  respect  an  advance  beyond  the  point  reached  by 
Debendranath  Tagore.  In  one  sense  it  might  even  be 
called  a  retrogression.  To  those  who  are  acquainted 
with  Hindu  philosopliy  I  could  explain  the  difference 
between  the  two  teachers  very  briefly,  namely  as  a 
change  from  pure  Vedanta  to  Yoga.  Debendranath 
Tagore  had  fully  realised  the  philosophic  poetry  of 
the  Upanisliads  and  the  more  s^'stematic  teaching  of 
the  Vedanta-Sutras.  He  had  found  rest  there,  and 
he  wanted  little  more.  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  saw 
that  lofty  heiglit  of  thought  at  certain  moments  of  his 
life,  but  he  never  reached  it.  And  this,  though  to 
Debendranath  it  must  have  seemed  weakness,  con- 
stituted in  many  respects  Keshub  Cliunder  Sen's  real 
strength.  While  Debendranath  was  absorbed  in  him- 
self, Keshub  laboured  all  his  life,  not  for  himself  onlj-, 
but  for  others.  He  wanted  a  pure  but  popular  religion 
and  philosophy  for  those  who  were  still  in  the  lowest 
stage  of  mythological  faith,  and  this  Debendranath 
could  not  give  them. 

P.  C.  Mozumdar  seems  to  have  felt  the  same,  when 
he  said^:  'The  present  generation  of  Brahmas  were 
intensely  impressed  through  their  Chief  Teacher,  De- 
bendranixth  Tagore,  with  the  supreme  fact  that  God 

'  'Theistic  IJeview  and  Interpreter,'  July,  iSSi,  p.  16. 
VOL.  II.  F 


6G  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

was  an  indwelling  Spirit,  and  an  All-pervading  Soul. 
But  it  must  be  confessed  that  for  purposes  of  personal 
piety,  for  tender  devotions  such  as  may  call  sinners  to 
repentance  and  give  salvation  to  the  sorrow-stricken, 
the  exalted  teaching  of  Debendranath  Tagore,  great  as 
it  was,  was  not  sutiicient.  Our  conceptions  required 
more  fulness  and  definiteness.  Tliough  from  the  lips 
of  the  revered  saint  the  strange  beatitudes  of  his  own 
faith  fell  like  honey,  and  we  drank  it,  and  were  filled 
with  gladness  and  enthusiasm,  yet  God  was  to  us  an 
unknown  God.  .  .  .  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  is  and 
always  has  been  a  man  of  prayer.  He  began  his 
religious  life  by  appealing  to  God  to  show  him  the 
light  of  His  face.  He  alwa3^s  insisted  upon  realising 
the  presence  of  God  before  him,  as  the  idolator,  who 
unmistakeably  saw  his  idol  present  near  his  own  body. 
Thus  one  of  his  characteristic  teachings  is  that  of 
seeing  God.  He  means  of  course  spiritual  perception, 
vivid  realisation  in  faith  of  the  presence  of  the  Supreme 
Spirit.  But  this  process  he  describes  to  be  exceed- 
ingly simple  and  natural.  He  says,  in  one  of  his 
sermons,  that  '  as  it  is  easy  for  the  body  to  see  and 
hear,  so  it  ought  to  be  easy  for  the  soul  to  see  and 
hear.  Hard  struggles  are  not  necessary  for  the  soul 
to  see  God.  Bring  the  soul  to  its  natural  condition, 
and  you  will  succeed.' 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  why  all  this  good  work 
should  have  roused  so  much  opposition,  not  only  among 
those  who  were  opposed  to  all  reforms,  but  among 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen's  own  friends.  No  doubt  in 
some  of  his  utterances  and  in  some  of  his  public  acts 
he  mio;ht  have  seemed  extravaoant.  But  reliijious  re- 
formers  cannot  be  judged  according  to  the  ordinary 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  67 

rules  of  taste.  It  is  sad  indeed  to  have  to  confess  that 
there  is  something  in  human  nature  that  resents  success 
for  its  own  sake.  Keshub  Chunders  Sen's  success  as 
a  preacher  and  as  a  leader  was,  no  doubt,  very  great. 
Drunkards  were  reclaimed,  men  of  abandoned  charac- 
ter were  made  to  feel  the  influence  of  the  Divine 
Name.  Lord  Lawrence  invited  the  young  reformer  to 
Simla,  and  the  house  reserved  for  the  reception  of  dis- 
tinguished native  visitors  was  placed  at  his  disposal. 
We  need  not  ascribe  the  violent  abuse  which  began 
to  be  poured  forth  at  the  same  time  in  the  newspapers 
to  the  worst  of  all  motives,  mere  envy.  We  may 
admit  that  even  envy  arises  sometimes  from  a  sense 
of  justice,  from  a  feeling  that  success  ought  to  be  in  a 
certain  proportion  to  merit.  But  what  surprises  the 
unprejudiced  student  of  that  painful  and  instructive 
chapter  of  history  is  the  unreasonableness  of  the  charges 
brought  against  Keshub  Chunder  Sen.  It  was  his 
lecture  on  '  Great  Men,'  delivered  about  five  months 
af'ter  his  lecture  on  Christ,  which  supplied  the  chief 
indictment  against  him.  While  in  the  eyes  of  his 
orthodox  countrymen  he  was  a  heretic  and  atheist,  he 
was  accused  by  some  of  his  own  followers  of  aspiring 
to  the  honour  due  to  the  Godhead  only,  and  his  most 
intimate  friends  were  found  guilty  of  man-worship. 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  though  feeling  perfectly  guilt- 
less, had  to  defend  himself,  but  in  doing  so,  he  only 
incurred  new  blame  from  his  adversaries,  namely  that 
of  mock-humility.  There  is  no  crime  which  a  partisan 
cannot  defend,  there  is  no  purity  which  a  rival  can- 
not besmirch.  It  is  a  pity  that  men  should  not  know 
this  and  should  bemean  themselves  bv  defendinsr 
themselves  against  chai-ges  of  which  the  grand-jury  of 

F  Z 


68  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

their  own  heart  finds  them  innocent.  These  charges 
were  continued  from  year  to  year,  and  it  may  be  well 
to  give  here  at  least  one  specimen  of  his  defence, 
though  it  dates  from  a  later  time,  from  a  lecture  de- 
livered at  the  Forty-fifth  Anniversary  of  the  Brahma- 
Samaj  (1875).  'To  dwell  in  love,'  he  said  (p.  30),  'is 
to  dwell  in  heaven.  Accept  then  the  gospel  of  love  as 
the  gospel  of  universal  redemption.  ...  I  have  borne 
witness  to  the  truth,  and  if  you,  friends  and  country- 
men, accept  what  I  have  said,  it  will  undoubtedly 
conduce  to  your  spiritual  welfare.  .  .  .  But  I  fear 
I  may  run  some  risk  in  quite  another  direction.  I 
apprehend  I  may  be  accepted  as  a  teacher  by  un- 
thinking thousands  among  my  countrymen.  They 
may  turn  round  to  me,  and  pointing  to  the  scheme  of 
salvation  I  have  set  forth,  say, — We  shall  accept  you 
as  our  teacher,  for  you  profess  to  have  received  from 
Heaven  the  light  of  our  salvation.  This  may  mean  a 
compliment,  and  many  are  its  temptations.  But  to  me 
it  is  repulsive,  and  the  Lord  directs  me  to  repel  the  ofler 
as  a  snare  and  a  danger.  You  know  how  in  India  re- 
hgion  has  degenerated  into  hero-worship.  .  .  .  Look- 
ing upon  this  painful  spectacle,  my  heart  naturally 
shudders  and  recoils  from  the  thought  of  setting  up  a  3 
a  teacher.  I  shrink  back  from  the  awful  respon- 
sibiHties  which  attach  to  the  position  of  a  religiou3 
guide.  Nay,  without  any  hesitation  or  equivocation 
I  can  emphatically  assure  you  I  am  not  a  teacher, 
and  I  will  never  be  a  teacher  unto  my  countrymen. 
...  If  you  believe  in  God,  believe  that  He  has 
not  commissioned  me  to  be  an  infallible  guide  unto 
you.  .  .  .  The  very  creed  my  mouth  has  preached  to- 
day disowns  me,  and  points  to  God  alone  as  the  source 


KESHUB   CHUNDEB    SEN.  69 

of  all  truth.  If  you  exalt  me  as  a  teacher,  and  then 
falling  down  before  me  accept  every  utterance  of  mine 
as  a  divine  message,  you  do  so  at  the  risk  of  debasing 
yourselves  and  jeopardising  your  highest  interests. 
You  will  perhaps  say,  this  is  nothing  but  humility 
and  modesty,  so  common  among  professed  preachers. 
I  say  candidly,  I  claim  neither  humility  nor  honour 
before  my  countrymen.  I  am  not  in  the  least  anxious 
that  you  should  credit  me  with  extraordinary  self- 
abasement  or  self-esteem.  I  simply  state  a  fact. 
.  .  .  All  that  I  contend  for  is  this,  that  whatever 
truth  there  may  be  in  my  teachings  should  be  ac- 
cepted and  followed,  not  for  my  sake,  but  for  the 
sake  of  the  truth  itself.  Let  not  my  name  carry 
the  weight  of  authority.  ...  In  the  economy  of 
Providence,  opposition,  far  from  extinguishing,  sets 
ablaze  the  torch  of  truth  by  shaking  it.  Am  I  afraid 
of  those  who  have  conspired  to  resist  the  progress  of 
the  true  gospel?  Depend  upon  me,  the  Lord  shall 
confound  and  discomfit  them,  and  His  truth  shall  pre- 
vail at  last.  .  .  .  Have  I  not  been  slandered  and 
abused,  for  some  years  past,  in  the  cruelest  manner,  and 
has  not  the  vilest  calumny  been  heaped  upon  the  men 
and  women  who  have  taken  shelter  under  the  present 
dispensation?  Most  scandalous  charges  have  from 
time  to  time  been  brought  against  us,  which,  if  true, 
would  render  us  odious  and  detestable  in  the  estima- 
tion of  all  mankind.  I  repudiate  these  unfounded  and 
false  imputations  with  a  clear  conscience.  Far  be  it 
from  me  to  attempt  a  personal  vindication.  The 
righteousness  of  the  cause  I  advocate  and  the  purity 
and  sincerity  of  my  motives  will  vindicate  themselves 
in  the  course  of  time.' 


70  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

This  language  shows  how  deeply  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen  felt  the  charges  which  envy  and  ignorance  engen- 
dered in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen.  Of  course,  he 
claimed  inspiration,  and  no  artificial,  exceptional,  or 
miraculous,  but  the  real,  natural,  and  only  true  inspi- 
ration which  every  one  knows  who  knows  what  truth 
is,  and  who  has  felt  his  heart  vibrate,  if  onl}'^  once,  in  per- 
fect unison  with  the  voice  of  God.  What  he  meant  by 
inspiration  he  tries  to  explain  again  and  again.  Thus 
in  his  lecture  at  the  Forty-third  Anniversary  of  the 
Brahma-Samaj  (1873),  he  first  of  all  explains  his  con- 
ception of  Prayer.  '  Men,'  he  says  (p.  8),  '  had  always 
to  pray  for  salvation  before  they  received  it.  None 
received  it  who  did  not  ask  for  it.  Ever  since  man 
was  created,  the  whole  spiritual  world  has  been  go- 
verned by  the  immutable  law  of  prayer.  The  law  is, 
Ask,  and  it  shall  be  given  you ;  Seek,  and  ye  shall 
find ;  Knock,  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you.  .  .  . 
We  must  assume  the  attitude  of  prayer  before  God 
reveals  His  light  unto  us.  .  .  .  It  is  absurd  to  think 
that  God  breaks  or  suspends  His  laws  or  keeps  them 
in  abej^ance  every  time  He  responds  to  our  prayers. 
To  grant  a  prayer  is  to  act  in  accordance  with  fixed 
laws,  not  in  opposition  to  them.  .  .  .  Assuredly  God 
does  speak  to  us  in  reply  to  every  word  we  say  unto 
Him.  He  either  rebukes  our  hypocrisy  and  wicked- 
ness or  He  grants  our  requests.  He  either  sends  us 
away  from  His  presence  with  a  warning  and  a  repri- 
mand, or  heaven  rings  with  a  loud  Amen  to  our 
humble  prayers.  .  .  .  Only  those  who  pray  in  the 
right  spirit  hear  a  favourable  response.  Those  who 
truly  ask  receive ;  those  who  truly  seek  find.  The 
law  of  prayer  is  immutable.' 


KESHUB    CHUNDER    SEN.  71 

After  having  thus  explained  prayer  as  a  conforming 
to  the  will  of  God,  he  proceeds  to  explain  what  he 
means  by  Inspiration.  '  Let  us  see  now  what  Inspira- 
tion is.  It  is  the  thrilling  and,  I  may  add,  the  electri- 
fying response  which  God  gives  to  our  prayers.  I 
have  already  told  you  that  prayer  and  inspiration,  are 
two  sides  of  the  same  fact  of  spiritual  life.  Man  asks 
and  God  gives.  The  spirit  of  man  kneels,  and  is 
quickened  by  the  spirit  of  God.  The  cause  and  the 
effect  seem  hardly  distinguishable,  and  in  the  reci- 
procal action  of  the  human  and  the  divine  spirits  there 
is  a  mysterious  unity.  Hardly  has  man  opened  his 
heart  in  prayer,  when  the  tide  of  inspiration  sets  in. 
The  moment  you  put  your  finger  in  contact  with  fire 
you  instantly  feel  a  burning  sensation.  So  with 
prayer  and  the  consequent  inspiration.  The  effect  is 
immediate,  necessary,  and  inevitable.  .  .  .  We  must  not 
regard  inspiration  as  God  speaking  by  fits  and  starts, 
but  as  a  perpetual  breathing  of  His  spirit.  .  .  .  Whether 
we  hear  Him  or  not,  He  speaks  always ;  whether  we 
catch  the  rays  of  His  inspiration  or  not,  He  shines 
eternally,  and  sends  forth  His  light  in  all  directions. 
.  .  .  With  the  profoundest  reverence  be  it  said  that  it 
is  possible  for  man  to  put  on  God.  For  then  self  is 
completely  lost  in  conscious  godliness,  and  you  feel 
that  you  do  nothing  of  yourself,  and  that  all  your 
holy  thoughts,  words,  and  actions  are  only  the  breath- 
ings of  the  Holy  Spirit.  So  the  great  prophets  of 
earlier  times  thought  and  felt.  ...  In  the  highest 
stage  man's  aspiration  and  God's  inspiration  are  con- 
tinually exchanged  with  all  the  ease  and  force  of 
natural  breath.  They  become  in  fact  the  soul's  vital 
breath  without  which  it  cannot  breathe.' 


72  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

But  we  must  not  anticipate.  While  all  this  spiritual 
fermentation  was  going  on,  while  some  members  of  the 
Brahma-Samaj  were  frightened  by  the  fearless  pro- 
gress of  their  young  leader,  and  others  began  to 
clamour  that  even  he  did  not  advance  fast  enough, 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen  himself  suddenly  announced  his 
intention  of  leaving  the  battle-field  for  a  time  and 
paying  a  visit  to  England.  That  resolution  was  carried 
out  almost  as  soon  as  it  was  conceived,  and  in  the  year 
1 870  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  landed  in  England. 

His  stay  in  England  was  a  constant  triumph.  '  He 
had  many  personal  characteristics,'  as  the  Indian 
JJailj/  News  truly  said,  '  which  fitted  him  for  religious 
work.  A  fine  countenance,  a  majestic  presence,  and 
that  rapt  look  which  of  itself  exerts  an  almost  irre- 
sistible fascination  over  impressible  minds,  lent  won- 
derful force  to  a  swift,  kindling,  and  poetical  oratory 
which  married  itself  to  his  highly  spiritual  teaching  as 
perfect  music  unto  noble  words.' 

I  need  not  dwell  here  on  the  successive  events  of 
his  sojourn  in  London  and  his  journej-s  to  the  principal 
towns.  All  this  has  been  well  described  by  Miss 
Collet,  and  many  of  my  readers  must  remember  his 
eloquent  addresses  and  the  deep  impression  which 
they  produced  in  the  widest  spheres.  His  name  has 
become  almost  a  household  word  in  England,  and 
I  have  been  struck,  when  lecturing  in  ditferent  places, 
to  find  that  the  mere  mention  of  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen's  name  elicited  applause  for  which  I  was  hardly 
prepared.  I  made  his  personal  acquaintance  in  London 
at  the  house  of  my  friend.  Dean  Stanley.  He  after- 
wards paid  a  visit  to  me  at  Oxford,  and  our  friend- 
ship, which  then  began,  has  lasted  to  the  end. 


KESHUB   CHUNDEE   SEN.  73 

While  at  Oxford,  I  took  him  to  see  Dr.  Pusey,  and 
I  regret  that  I  did  not  write  down  at  the  time  the 
deeply  interesting  conversation  that  passed  between 
the  two.  I  saw  a  short  account  of  that  meetinp-  in  the 
'  Liberal '  of  June  i,  1 884 :  '  Mr.  Sen  paid  flying  visits  to 
Oxford  and  Cambridge.  At  the  latter  place  he  saw  his 
old  friend,  Mr.  Cowell,  and  had  also  a  friendly  interview 
with  Mr.  F.  Maurice,  whose  broad  and  tolerant  views 
so  well  agreed  with  those  of  his  Eastern  friend.  To 
Oxford  he  went  accompanied  by  Professor  Max  Mliller. 
The  most  remarkable  incident  of  this  visit  was  his  in- 
terview with  Dr.  Pusey.  Mr.  Sen  and  Professor  Max 
Miiller  were  shown  into  a  small  room  upon  the  tables 
and  floors  of  which  were  scattered  heaps  of  books  and 
papers  in  delightful  confusion,  in  the  midst  of  them 
all  being  seated  the  venerable  figure  that  had  stood 
many  storms,  led  many  controversies,  and  gained 
many  trophies.  A  serious  talk  ensued,  in  the  course 
of  which  Professor  Max  Mliller  asked  if  a  man  in  the 
position  of  Mr.  Sen  should  receive  salvation.  Dr. 
Pusey  answered  with  a  smile,  "  Yes,  I  think  he  will." 
This  was  no  small  compliment  and  concession  from 
the  man  who  had  no  word  to  say  in  favour  of  Dr. 
Colenso.' 

I  need  hardly  say  that  the  question  was  not  asked 
quite  so  abruptly.  Dr.  Pusey  was  at  first  reserved  till 
the  conversation  turned  on  prayer.  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen,  while  defending  his  own  position  towards  Chris- 
tianity, burst  out  into  an  eloquent  panegyric  on  prayer, 
which  ended  with  the  words,  '  I  am  always  praying.' 
This  touched  Pusey "s  heart,  and  he  said,  'Then  you 
cannot  be  far  wrong.'  I  hesitate  now  to  write  down 
from  memory  what  followed  afterwards.     I  only  know 


74  EIOaRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

that  I  never  heard  Pusey  speak  with  so  much  of  truly 
poetical  eloquence.  There  was  an  image  of  an  evening 
in  a  village  churchyard  which  he  drew  with  a  few 
graphic  words,  and  which  has  remained  in  my  memory 
ever  since,  though  I  should  not  venture  to  copy  it 
here.  It  was  meant  to  illustrate  the  affection  of  the 
people  for  their  Church,  around  which  they  buried 
what  was  dearest  to  them  in  this  life.  My  rather 
abrupt-sounding  question  was  addressed  to  Dr.  Pusey, 
after  he  had  been  expatiating  on  what  seemed  to  him 
necessary  for  salvation,  in  answer  to  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen,  who  had  maintained  that  on  all  that  was  essen- 
tial in  Christ's  teachiug  he  was  at  one  with  the  best 
of  Euglish  divines.  Dr.  Pusey's  remarks  seemed  to  me 
to  describe  a  form  of  Christianity  which  neither  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen  nor  India  at  large  could  ever  accept, 
nay,  which  I  thought  St.  Paul  himself  would  not  have 
accepted,  and  I  therefore  ventured  to  interpose  the 
question  whether,  at  the  time  of  Christ,  a  man  who 
believed  what  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  believed  would 
or  would  not  have  been  received  as  a  disciple. 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen  came  to  England  to  see  and 
to  learn.  He  saw  the  most  distinguished  statesmen, 
scholars,  and  divines,  and  made  a  real  study  of  all  the 
institutions  intended  for  the  improvement  of  the 
young,  the  succour  of  the  sick,  and  the  punishment  of 
criminals.  '  I  have  come  to  England,'  he  said,  '  to 
study  the  spirit  of  Christian  philanthropy,  of  Christian 
charity,  and  honourable  Christian  self-denial.'  The 
Queen,  knowing  how  great  a  power  for  good  he  wielded 
in  India,  gi-anted  him  a  private  audience,  which  left 
an  indelible  impression  on  his  heart. 

Put  though  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  came  to  learn,  he 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  75 

had  also  to  teach  and  to  preach.  People  of  all  shades 
of  opinion  wished  to  know  what  a  man  like  him,  who 
was  believed  to  be  thoroughly  honest,  really  thought 
of  the  religion  of  Christ.  Some  wished  to  know  why 
he  believed  so  much,  others  why  he  did  not  believe 
all.  The  answers  which  he  gave  to  these  enquiries 
are  extremely  interesting,  but  it  is  difficult  to  sum- 
marise them  by  means  of  extracts.  The  following 
article  from  the  '  Indian  Mirror,'  reprinted  in  '  Essays, 
Theological  and  Ethical,'  Calcutta,  1874,  p.  35,  will 
give,  I  believe,  a  sufficiently  clear  and  complete  idea 
of  his  conception  of  Christ  and  Christianity  and  their 
importance  for  India:  'There  is  an  infinite  diversity 
of  opinions  among  Indian  Theists  respecting  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  ranging  from  intense  hatred  on  the  one 
hand  to  profound  reverence  and  personal  attachment 
on  the  other.  Not  a  few  there  are  who  look  upon 
him  with  almost  the  same  spirit  of  sectarian  antipathy 
and  abhorrence  as  Hindus,  and  even  go  to  the  length 
of  calling  him  an  impostor.  Such  ideas  are  happily 
dying  out.  The  vast  majority  of  our  brethren  of  the 
liberal  school  cherish  respect  and  gratitude  towards 
Christ,  and  some  even  accept  him  as  a  guide  and 
master.  We  have  no  desire  to  enter  into  a  theolo- 
gical controversy  on  this  subject,  but  we  think  it 
necessary  to  say  a  few  words  to  point  out  the  manner 
in  which  we  accept  Christ,  so  as  to  make  him  unto  us 
not  a  source  of  wranglings  and  disputes,  but  of  life, 
strength,  and  righteousness.  We  Theists  must  take  it 
to  be  foreign  to  our  purpose  to  canvass  the  thousand 
theories  which  have  been  propounded  about  him 
and  his  creed  ;  but  surely  it  is  our  interest  and  duty 
to  receive   from   him   that   healthy  moral   influence 


76  BIOaRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

which  he  is  appointed  in  God's  economy  to  exercise 
on  the  world,  to  love  him  and  revere  him  and  follow 
his  teachings  and  example.  We  must  remember  that 
there  is  a  bodily  Christ  and  a  spiritual  Christ,  a  local 
Christ  and  a  universal  Christ,  a  dead  Christ  and  a 
living  Christ.  Orthodox  Christians  may  deal  with 
the  former  and  seek  revelation  and  salvation  in  the 
visible  and  tangible  incidents  of  the  Christ  that  was. 
Eut  our  business  is  with  the  spiritual,  universal,  and 
living  Christ.  What  shall  we  do  with  the  lo(ly%  We 
want  the  spirit.  Not  the  son  of  man,  but  the  son  of 
God  in  Christ  is  needful  for  our  salvation.  In  the 
purely  human  Christ  we  can  hardly  feel  any  interest ; 
but  the  divine  elements  of  his  character  come  home 
to  every  man's  bosom  and  business,  and  are  of  the 
highest  importance  to  our  redemption  as  involving  the 
eternal  and  universal  principles  of  ethics.  By  Christ 
we  mean  not  the  person  bearing  that  name,  not  his 
form  and  flesh,  but  the  spirit  he  embodied, — the  spirit 
of  faith,  love,  righteousness  and  sacrifice  of  which 
he  was  unquestionably  a  noble  impersonation.  We 
always  attach  to  him  this  significance ;  we  look  upon 
him  in  this  light;  we  try  to  imitate  and  follow  him 
as  such.  He  does  not  come  to  us  as  God,  the  Father, 
Ruler,  and  Saviour,  in  human  form ;  he  is  not  an  ad- 
vocate or  intercessor  striving  to  appease  an  angiy 
deity ;  he  does  not  present  himself  to  us  as  an  external 
fact  to  be  believed  on  historical  testimony ;  nor  is  he 
to  us  a  mere  good  man  who  lived  a  pious  life  and  died 
a  noble  death.  Christ  stands  before  us  always  as  an 
incarnation  of  faith  and  loyalty  to  God,  an  example  of 
self-sacrificing  devotion  to  truth  ;  he  is  to  be  accepted 
in  spirit  and   converted  into  an  internal  fact  of  our 


KESIIUE    CHUXDEE    SEN".  11 

life;  he  is  to  live  in  ns  perpetually  as  the  spirit  of 
godliness.  We  do  not  care  to  believe  in  the  outward 
and  dead  Nazarene,  or  make  a  declaration  of  such  be- 
lief in  an  orthodox  style.  But  we  do  care  to  assimilate 
the  spirit  of  Christ  to  our  souls.  We  must  eat  the 
flesh  and  drink  the  blood  of  the  spiritual  Christ,  and 
thus  incorporate  into  our  spiritual  constitution  the 
principles  of  faith  and  sacrifice,  love  and  obedience 
which  he  embodied.  Thus  the  spirit  of  Christ  shall 
constantly  abide  in  us  as  the  living  Christ ;  thus  in- 
stead of  adoring  him  or  praying  to  him,  we  shall  ever 
strive  to  enter  into  deeper  communion  with  his  spirit, 
and  to  advance  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  Infinite 
Father  with  the  spirit  of  that  holy  brother's  faith  and 
love  growinc:  within  us.' 

After  his  return  to  India  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  set  to 
work  to  apply  some  of  the  lessons  which  he  had  learnt 
in  Eogland.  It  was  then  that  he  and  his  followers 
established  their  Boarding  House,  called  the  Bharata 
As-rama,  or  the  Indian  Hermitao-e.  He  oro^anised  the 
Indian  Reform  Association,  with  its  five  branches 
for  Female  Improvement,  Education,  Cheap  Literature, 
Temperance,  and  Charity.  A  Normal  School  for  train- 
ing lady-teachers  began  to  do  useful  work,  and  a 
special  journal  was  started  to  spread  the  principles  of 
temperance.  Industrial  schools,  night  schools,  and 
other  charitable  experiments  followed,  but  in  the  at- 
tempt to  do  so  much  at  once,  failure  and  disappoint- 
ment were  inevitable.  Others  went  even  beyond 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen.  Against  bis  advice,  women 
were  admitted  to  public  seats  in  church  and  at  other 
meetings.  On  the  19th  of  March,  1872,  the  Brahma 
Marriage  Bill  was  passed,  which  legalised  marriages 


78  EIOSr.APHICAL  ESSAYS. 

concluded  according  to  the  simple  Biahma  ritual, 
prohibited  polygamy  among  Brahmas,  and  fixed  the 
minimum  age  of  fourteen  for  the  bride,  and  of  eighteen 
for  the  bridegroom. 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen  was  during  all  that  time  the 
recognised  leader  of  the  Brahma-Samiij  of  India,  but 
the  greater  his  influence  grew,  the  stronger  grew  also 
the  spirit  of  opposition  among  his  followers.  His 
government  seemed  too  despotic  even  to  Oriental 
minds,  and  his  frequent  appeal  to  what  he  called 
Ade,?a  or  Divine  Command  did  not  tend  to  conciliate 
the  feelings  of  his  adversaries.  While  this  discontent 
was  growing  stronger  and  stronger,  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen  suddenly  announced  the  betrothal  of  his  daughter 
to  the  Rajah  of  Cutch  Behar.  This  was  the  spark 
that  made  the  mine  explode.  His  daughter  was  nearly, 
but  not  quite  fourteen,  and  the  young  Rajah  not  yet 
sixteen.  Therefore  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  was  accused 
of  having  broken  the  Brahma  Marriage  Law,  which  he 
himself  had  been  chiefly  instrumental  in  getting  carried, 
and  was  considered  as  no  longer  fit  to  be  Minister  of 
the  Samaj.  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  would  not  listen  to 
any  remonstrances.  He  simply  appealed  to  Ade6a  or 
the  voice  of  conscience  within,  and  when  some  mem- 
bers of  his  congregation  voted  his  deposition,  he  took 
forcible  possession  of  the  pulpit  in  his  own  Mandira, 
nay,  he  called  on  the  police  to  help  him.  This  finished 
the  schism.  Many  of  his  former  adherents  left  him, 
and  founded  on  the  15th  of  May,  1878,  a  new  Samaj, 
called  the  Sadharan  Brahma  Samaj,  or  the  Catholic 


Keshub  Chunder  Sen  seems  to  me  never  to  have  re- 
covered from  this  blow.     An  insidious  disease  was  at 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEX.  79 

the  same  time  undermining  his  health,  making  him 
not  only  initalile,  but  at  times  not  quite  master  of  his 
thoughts.  If  his  friends  had  been  more  forbearing,  if 
they  had  remembered  his  past  services,  and  given  him 
credit  for  those  excellent  intentions  which  he  had  so 
often  proved  by  sacrifices  of  every  kind,  my  impression 
is  that  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  might  have  recovered  his 
health,  his  intellectual  balance,  and  his  power  for  doing 
good.  But  we  are  all  very  exacting  with  men  whom 
we  love  and  honour,  and  our  friend  is  only  another 
instance  of  an  idol,  first  worshipped  and  then  broken. 

We  need  not  dwell  at  great  length  on  this  painful 
chapter  in  Keshub  Chunder  Sen's  life,  as  I  intend  at  the 
end  of  this  article  to  publish  some  of  the  letters  which 
passed  between  us,  and  which  will  contain  his  views 
and  my  own  on  the  most  important  points  at  issue. 

In  the  year  1880  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  began  to 
speak  of  what  he  called  a  New  Dispensation,  by  which 
he  meant  no  doubt  a  special  manifestation  of  Gods 
will.  He  says  himself,  '  When  men  are  hopelessly 
gone  in  the  way  of  misery  and  ruin,  when  a  thick 
gloom  of  sin  settles  upon  society,  when  human  eye- 
sight is  unable  to  discern  the  right  path,  it  is  then 
that  Providence  sends  to  the  world  one  of  those  men 
whose  life  has  been  sold  to  His  almighty  will.' 

This  no  doubt  refers  to  himself,  but  it  is  no  more 
than  what  he  had  expressed  already  in  his  lecture  on 
'  Great  Men.'  I  can  see  no  harm,  nor  any  overweening 
conceit  in  it.  It  is  after  all  our  human  weakness  only 
which  makes  us  look  on  a  special  manifestt.tion  of 
God's  will  as  something  higher  than  a  general  mani- 
festation, as  if  before  a  perfect  Eeing  there  could  be 
any  distinction  between  what  is  special  and  what  is 


80  BIOaKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

general.  To  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  the  more  he  was 
deserted,  the  more  he  felt  himself  alone  with  God,  and 
inclined  to  look  upon  himself  as  the  recipient  of  a 
special  revelation  of  God's  goodness  and  wisdom.  His 
few  remainino;  friends  used  even  stroncfer  lancfuaefe, 
and  spoke  of  him  as  the  Heaven-appointed  Missionary 
of  the  Brahma-Samaj,  and  of  his  utterances  as  infal- 
lible. Keshub  Chunder  Sen  himself  might  protest 
against  this  extravagance  as  strongly  as  he  could, 
the  outcry  against  him  became  only  more  violent,  and 
an  understanding  between  the  two  contending  parties 
became  more  hopeless  every  day.  My  only  hope  for 
conciliation  and  peace  between  them  lay  in  com- 
mon practical  work,  and,  more  especially,  in  the  or- 
ganisation of  a  large  S3stem  of  charity.  This  I  recom- 
mended as  strongly  as  I  could,  as  far  superior  to  new 
ceremonies,  new  doctrines,  new  names.  But  it  was  in 
vain,  at  least  during  Keshub  Chunder  Sen's  life. 

Two  points  only  seemed  to  me  of  real  importance 
in  the  teaching  of  his  last  years,  first,  the  striving 
after  a  universal  religion  and  the  recognition  of  a 
common  substance  in  all  religions ;  secondly,  the  more 
open  recognition  of  the  historical  superiority  of  Chris- 
tianity as  compared  with  more  ancient  forms  of  faith. 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen  rejoiced  in  the  discovery  that, 
from  the  first,  all  religions  were  but  varying  forms  of 
one  great  truth.  This  was  his  pearl  of  gTeat  price. 
To  him  it  changed  the  whole  aspect  of  the  world,  and 
gave  a  new  meaning  to  his  life.  That  the  principle 
of  historical  growth  or  natural  evolution  apj)lied  to 
religion  also,  as  I  had  tried  to  prove  in  my  books 
on  the  Science  of  Religion,  was  to  him  the  solution 
of  keenly  felt  difficulties,  a  real  solace  in  his  own 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  81 

perplexities.  Thus  he  -writes  in  his  Lecture,  '  The  Apo- 
stles of  the  New  Dispensation^ :'  '  Only  science  can  de- 
liver the  world,  and  bring  light  and  order  out  of  the 
chaos  and  darkness  of  multiplied  Churches.  If  there  is 
science  in  all  things,  is  there  no  science  in  the  dispensa- 
tions of  God  ?  Do  these  alone  in  God's  creation  stand 
beyond  the  reign  of  law  and  order  ?  Are  they  the  arbi- 
trary and  erratic  movements  of  chance  1  Are  they  the 
madness  and  delirium  of  nature  ?  .  .  .  Sure  I  am  that 
amid  their  apparent  anomalies  and  contradictions 
there  is  a  logical  unity  of  idea  and  method,  and  an 
unbroken  continuity  of  sequence.  All  these  Dispen- 
sations are  connected  with  each  other  in  the  economy 
of  Providence.  They  are  linked  together  in  one  con- 
tinuous chain,  which  may  be  traced  to  the  earliest 
ages.  They  are  a  concatenated  series  of  ideas,  which 
show  a  systematic  evolution  of  thought  and  develop- 
ment of  religious  life.' 

And  again  (p.  380} :  '  Such  is  the  New  Dispensation. 
It  is  the  harmony  of  all  scriptures  and  prophets  and 
dispensations.  It  is  not  an  isolated  creed,  but  the 
science  which  finds  and  explains  and  harmonises  all 
religions.  It  gives  to  history  a  meaning,  to  the  action 
of  Providence  a  consistency,  to  quarrelling  Churches 
a  common  bond,  and  to  successive  dispensations  a 
continuity.  It  shows  by  a  marvellous  synthesis  how 
the  different  rainbow  colours  are  one  in  the  light 
of  heaven.  The  New  Dispensation  is  the  sweet 
music  of  divers  instruments.  It  is  the  precious 
necklace  in  which  are  strung  together  the  rubies 
and  pearls  of  all  ages  and  climes.  It  is  the  celes- 
tial Court   where   around  enthroned  Divinity  shine 

^  'Lectures  in  India,'  p.  356. 
TOL.  II.  f> 


83  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

the  lights  of  all  heavenly  saints  and  prophets.  It 
is  the  wonderful  solvent  which  fuses  all  dispensa- 
tions into  a  new  chemical  compound.  It  is  the  mighty 
absorbent  which  absorbs  all  that  is  true  and  good  and 
beautiful  in  the  objective  world.' 

I  could  not  entirely  commend  the  fervour  and  the 
eloquent  expression  of  these  lines,  but  I  agree  entirely 
with  the  thought  which  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  has 
tried  to  place  before  us,  and  I  hope  that  in  India 
more  than  anywhere  else,  and  in  the  Brahma-Samaj 
sooner  than  in  any  other  communion,  the  principle  of 
the  historical  evolution  of  all  religious  thought  will 
be  recognised,  and  if  not  raised  into  an  article  of  faith, 
accepted  at  least  as  an  undoubted  fact. 

If,  as  his  opponents  say,  this  is  not  a  new  theory,  so 
much  the  better.  And  if  they  quote  from  the  Bhaga- 
vata  Pura?ia  the  verse,  '  As  the  bee  gathereth  honey 
from  flowers  great  and  small,  so  does  the  really  wise 
man  gather  substantial  truth  from  the  chaff  of  all 
scriptures,  great  and  small,'  I  say  again,  so  much  the 
better.     Truth  does  not  spoil  by  growing  old. 

I  have  hitherto  spoken  chiefly  in  defence  of  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen,  but  I  am  not  so  blinded  by  my  friendship 
for  him  as  to  say  that  in  his  controversies  with  his 
friends  he  always  was  in  the  right.  All  I' say  is  that 
I  have  never  seen  reason  to  doubt  his  good  intentions, 
though  I  have  often  regretted  the  attitude  which  he 
assumed  of  late  years  towards  his  critics. 

If  I  have  sometimes  tried  to  smoothe  down  his  anger, 
this  has  been  done,  not  because  I  thought  that  his  op- 
ponents were  always  in  the  wrong,  but  because  I  have 
long  been  afraid  that  not  only  his  physical,  but  his 
mental  strength  also,  was  in  imminent  danger.     How 


KESHUB   CPIUNDER   SEN.  83 

seldom  we  think  of  that,  and  how  often  we  wish  we 
had  done  so,  when  it  is  too  late ! 

I  have  not  a  word  to  say  against  the  new  Sadharan- 
Samaj,  and  several  of  its  leaders  seem  to  me  to  act  in 
an  excellent  spirit.  I  entirely  agree  with  them  that 
a  Church  should  be  constitutionally  governed,  and  that 
tyranny  of  every  kind  should  be  resisted. 

If  we  call  the  separation  of  the  Brahma-Samaj 
of  India  from  the  old  Adi  Brahma-Samaj,  and  again 
the  separation  of  the  Sadharan-Samaj  from  the 
Brahma-Samaj  of  India,  a  schism,  we  seem  to  con- 
demn them  by  the  very  word  we  use.  But  to 
my  mind  these  three  societies  seem  like  three 
branches  of  one  vigorous  tree,  the  tree  that  was 
planted  by  Eammohun  Roy.  In  different  ways  they 
all  serve  the  same  purpose,  they  are  all  doing,  I  be- 
lieve, unmixed  good,  in  helping  to  realise  the  dream 
of  a  new  religion  for  India,  it  may  be  for  the  whole 
world,  a  religion  free  from  many  corruptions  of  the 
past,  call  them  idolatry,  or  caste,  or  verbal  inspiration, 
or  priestcraft,  and  firmly  founded  on  a  belief  in  the 
One  God,  the  same  in  the  Vedas,  the  same  in  the  Old, 
the  same  in  the  New  Testament,  the  same  in  the 
Koran,  the  same  also  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  have 
no  longer  any  Vedas  or  Upanishads  or  any  Sacred 
Books  whatever  between  themselves  and  their  God. 
The  stream  is  small  as  yet,  but  it  is  a  living  stream. 
It  may  vanish  for  a  time,  it  may  change  its  name  and 
follow  new  paths  of  which  as  yet  we  have  no  idea. 
But  if  there  is  ever  to  be  a  real  religion  in  India,  it 
will,  I  believe,  owe  its  very  life-blood  to  the  largo 
heart  of  Eammohun  Roy  and  his  worthy  disciples, 
Debendranath  Tagore  and  Keshub  Chunder  Sen. 

G  Z 


84  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

I  shall  dwell  no  longer  on  the  declining  years  of 
Keshub  Chimder  Sen.  They  were  years  of  intense 
suffering,  and  full  of  many  disappointments.  His  life 
had  been  an  uninterrupted  warfare,  and  some  thrusts 
had  wounded  him  to  the  very  heart.  Like  an  in- 
valided soldier,  he  fought  on  as  bravely  as  ever,  but 
with  an  effort  too  great  even  for  so  stout  a  heart 
as  his.  His  death  came  at  last  suddenly,  though 
not  unexpectedly.  He  died  on  January  8,  1884,  sur- 
rounded by  his  nearest  relations  and  friends.  His 
most  devoted  fellow-worker,  Protap  Chunder  Mozum- 
dar,  was  unfortunately  absent.  But  his  place  was 
worthily  filled  by  his  old  friend  and  guide,  Deben- 
dranath  Tagore.  His  love  for  Keshub  Chunder  Sen 
had  never  ceased.  They  had  been  torn  asunder  by  a 
torrent,  but  in  their  deepest  foundation  they  had 
ahvays  remained  one.  After  Keshub  Chunder  Sen 
had  been  taken  from  him  by  death,  the  old  man  ad- 
dressed the  following  words  to  some  friends  who  came 
to  condole  with  him  ^ : — 

'  When  I  had  him  near,  I  considered  myself  the 
master  of  all  the  wealth  which  the  kings  of  the  world 
could  command.  When  I  sat  up  with  him,  often  till 
one  or  two  in  the  morning,  conversing  with  my  de- 
parted friend,  I  never  perceived  how  the  time  passed. 
The  union  between  our  souls  is  never  to  be  destroyed. 
Like  the  Durbar  of  earthly  kings,  he  said,  the  King  of 
heaven  has  two  Durbars.  One  is  public,  the  other 
private.  The  sky  and  the  heavens  are  the  public 
Durbar  of  the  heavenly  King,  and  the  spiritual  world 
within  our  hearts  is  the  private  Durbar.  God  reigns 
supreme  in  both.     In  the  spiritual  world  everything 

*  'The  Liberal,'  March  30,  1S84. 


KESHUB   CHUNDER  SEN.  85 

is  spiritual,  and  God  is  revealed  there  in  the  inner- 
most recesses  of  our  spirit.  The  public  are  not  allowed 
to  enter  there.  They  see  their  God  in  the  outward 
Durbar,  as  seated  upon  the  glorious  throne  of  His 
creation,  and  they  are  content  with  worshipping  Him 
from  a  distance.  Hence  the  ancient  Rishis  saw  Him 
in  the  sun  and  other  heavenly  bodies,  and  bowed 
down  before  Him  and  paid  homage.  It  is  very  diffi- 
cult, he  said,  to  acquire  the  privilege  of  entering  God's 
private  Durbar.  Very  great  patience  and  long  watch- 
ing are  required  before  this  can  be  hoped  for.' 

Debendranath  Tagore  was  able  to  come  to  Calcutta 
and  see  his  beloved  disciple  once  more.  A  few  days 
before  the  last  fatal  symptoms  of  his  malady  appeared, 
Keshub  said  to  Debendranath  that  he  had  still  a 
good  deal  to  say  and  to  do.  And  so  he  had  indeed. 
He  was  engaged  in  a  work  which  had  grown  every 
year,  which  had  at  last  quite  absorbed  him,  and  which 
we  know  he  would  never  have  finished,  even  if  he 
had  reached  the  three  score  years  and  ten.  What  he 
aspired  to  was  not  only  the  religious  regeneration  of 
India,  but  the  religious  regeneration  of  the  whole 
world.  What  he  had  experienced  himself  in  his  short 
life,  a  transition  from  the  bondage  of  an  effete  tra- 
ditional religion  to  the  perfect  freedom  of  the  spirit, 
was  not,  he  thought,  an  impossible  task  for  others,  if 
only  he  could  reach  them  and  help  them.  He  had 
often  witnessed  the  irresistible  power  of  his  preaching, 
and  as  he  had  won  hundreds  and  thousands,  he  did  not 
see  why  he  should  not  win  millions. 

But  man  has  to  do  his  appointed  task  within  a 
short  span,  trusting  that  others  will  finish  what  is 
worth  finishing.     Hard  as  it  is  to  say  it,  it  is  true 


86  EioarvAPHicAL  essats. 

nevertheless  tliat  Keshub  Chunder  Sen's  own  special 
work  was  done.  What  remained  to  be  done,  could 
better  be  done  by  others.  He  has  died  young,  but  not 
too  young  for  what  he  was  meant  to  do.  A  slowly 
darkening  evening  would  have  proved  a  disappoint- 
ment to  himself  and  to  his  friends.  He  will  live  more 
really  now  that  he  is  dead,  than  he  would  if  his  life 
had  been  spared  for  many  years.  All  the  suspicion 
and  obloquy  that  hampered  him  from  the  day  he  con- 
sented to  his  daughter's  marriage  with  the  Rajah  of 
Cutch  Behar  have  died  with  him.  What  could  not  be 
forgotten  while  he  lived  was  forgotten  and  forgiven 
by  all  who  gathered  round  his  death-bed.  There  are 
good  and  brave  soldiers  ready  to  step  into  the  gap 
which  he  has  left.  They  know  whither  he  wished  to 
lead  them,  and  thither,  I  trust,  they  will  march,  as 
if  he  himself  were  still  in  their  midst. 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN. 


87 


Important  Dates  in  the  History  of  the 
Brahma-Samaj. 


1772  or  1774 
January,  1828  or  1 830 
8  April,  1 83 1 
27  Sept.  1833 


Pammohun  Roy  born  .         .        . 

Brahma-Samrij  founded  at  Calcutta     . 
Kammohun  Roy  arrived  in  England    .... 

Rrimmohun  Roy  died  ...... 

Debendranath  Tagore  (born  1817)  joined  the  Brahma- 

Samiij 1838  or  1841 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen  born 19  Nov.  1838 

Tattvabodhinl  Sabha  ....      6  Oct.  1839  (or  i842)-59 

New  Brahma  covenant  established       ....  Dec.  1843 

Dvarkanath  Tagore  in  Paris;  meetings  with  M.  M.  .  .  1845 
Scholars  sent  to  Benares  to  study  the  Vedas  ....  1845 
Veda  discarded,  Brahma-dharma  published  ....    1850 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen's  School  at  Colootolah         .         .         .       1855-58 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen  married 1856 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen  joins  Brahma-Samaj 1857 

Play  of  '  Widow  Marriage '  acted  at  Calcutta  .  .  .  .  1 859 
Brahma  School  under  K.  Ch.  Sen  and  Debendranath  .  24  April,  i  S59 
Journey  to  Ceylon  ...••.••.  1 860 
First  Brahma  marriage  without  idolatrous  rites  .  .  26  July,  1861 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen  appointed  Minister  .  .  .13  April,  1S62 
Exclusion  from  family ;  illness;  returns  to  his  house  .         .    Dec,  1862 

Birth  of  his  son  Karuna 19  Dec.  1862 

First  Intermarriage  of  persons  of  different  Castes  .  2  Aug.  1 864 
Brahma  Mission.  Keshub  goes  to  Madras  and  Bombay  .  .  1864 
Secession  of  Progressive  Bruhmas  ....  26  Feb.  1865 
Brahma-Samaj  of  India  established  ....  liNov.  1S66 
Lecture  on  'Jesus  Christ,  Europe  and  Asia'         .         .        5  May,  1866 

Lecture  on 'Great  Men' 28  Sept.  1866 

Brahma- Mandira  of  India,  opened  at  Calcutta     .         .       22  Aug.  1869 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen's  visit  to  England 1870 

Native  Marriage  Act  passed 19  March,  1872 

Protest  against  Cutch  Behar  Marriage  .  .  .  28  Feb.  1878 
Formal  Marriage  of  ]\Iaharajah  of  Cutch  Behar  and 

daughter  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  .         .         .     6  March,  1878 

Establishment  of  Sadharan  Brahma-Samaj  .  .  .  15  May,  1878 
Meeting  in  honour  of  Rammohun  Roy  at  Debendranath 

Tagore's  house 19  Jan.  1879 

New  Dispensation  proclaimed     .....  Jan.  1880 

Real  Marriage  of  Maharajah  of  Cutch  Behar  .  .  20  Oct.  1 880 
Death  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen 8  Jan.  18S4 


88  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 


LETTERS   OF 

KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN,  F.  MAX  MULLER, 
AND   PROTAP  CHUNDER   MOZUMDAR. 

The  following  are  some  of  the  letters  that  passed 
between  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  and  myself  at  the  time 
when  not  only  his  friends  in  India,  but  his  friends  in 
England  also,  were  attacking  him  for  sanctioning  the 
marriage  of  his  daughter  with  the  Maharajah  of  Cutch 
Behar,  and  for  some  of  the  opinions  put  forward  in 
his  lectures.  Extracts  from  most  of  these  letters 
have  been  published  in  India,  but  they  are  here  pub- 
lished for  the  first  time  in  their  complete  form,  and 
with  certain  additions  and  corrections  which  seemed 
necessary. 

The  beginning  of  our  correspondence  was  the  fol- 
lowing article  which  I  published  in  the  Times,  on  the 
24th  of  Nov.  1880:— 

Mr.  Charles  Voysey's  statement  in  the  Times  of 
November  20  that  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  is  at  present 
almost  universally  repudiated  by  Hindu  Theists  will, 
I  know,  surprise  and  pain  many  of  his  old  friends 
and  admirers  in  England  who  during  the  years 
that  have  elapsed  since  his  memorable  visit  here 
have  followed  his  work  in  India  with  an  ever- 
increasing  interest,  though  at  times  not  without  serious 
misgivings.  The  new  schism  in  his  sect,  the  Brahma- 
Samaj  of  India,  which  took  place  in  1878,  has 
been  widely  regretted,  not   so  much   because  every 


KESHUB    CHUNDER   SEN.  89 

schism  is  in  itself  to  be  regretted,  but  because  this 
schism  seemed  almost  entirely  due  to  personal  causes. 
Though  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  case  of  the 
seceders,  as  stated  with  great  knowledge  and  ability 
by  Miss  S.  T>.  Collet,  in  the  Brahmo  Year  Book  for 
1879,  leaves  several  charges  against  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen  unanswered  and  unexplained,  yet  his  friends 
ought  to  remember  how  extremely  difficult  it  is  for  us, 
so  far  removed  from  the  social  and  religious  atmo- 
sphere of  modern  India,  to  form  an  impartial  opinion 
of  all  the  hidden  motives  that  may  have  influenced 
those  who  seceded  from  and  those  who  remained 
faithful  to  the  great  reformer.  The  question  of  mar- 
riage has  been  a  stumbling-block  to  many  reformers, 
and  if  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  has  shown  himself  a  weak 
father  in  allowing  a  betrothal  of  his  daughter  to  the 
Rajah  of  Cutch  Behar,  let  us  not  forget  that  a  man 
may  be  a  weak  father  and  yet  a  great  and  honest  man. 
Many  Brahmas,  though  admitting  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen's  weakness,  have  forgiven  it,  and  he  still  com- 
mands a  large  number  of  devoted  followers.  Mr. 
Charles  Voysey  would  probably  say  that  these  be- 
lievers in  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  have  forfeited  the 
name  of  Theists,  because  this  leader  has  more  and 
more  inclined  to  the  doctrines  of  Christianity.  But 
surely  Christianity  and  Theism  are  not  terms  that  ex- 
clude each  other,  and  every  Christian,  before  being 
anything  else,  must  be  a  Theist  in  the  received  sense 
of  that  word.  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  has  at  no  time 
made  a  secret  of  his  feelinjrs  for  Christ.  His  crreat 
sermon  on  Christ  and  Christianity  was  preached  so 
far  back  as  1870  (see  '  Selected  Essays,'  voL  ii.  p.  82), 
and  in  the  Thelstlc  Quarterly  Ueview  for  January,  1880, 


90  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

p.  58,  his  earliest  profession  of  faith  in  Christ  is  re- 
ferred to  the  year  1866,  while  the  secession  of  the 
so-called  Sadharan  or  Catholic  Brahma-Samaj  took 
place  only  two  years  ago,  its  chief  cause,  so  far  as  we 
can  judge,  being  personal  feelings  aroused  by  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen's  ascendancy,  and  not  any  fundamental 
difference  of  doctrine. 

In  a  new  society  like  the  Bharatavarsha  Brahma- 
SamRj,  or,  as  it  is  now  commonly  called,  the  Brahma- 
Samaj  of  India,  founded  as  it  was  on  the  universality  of 
Theism,  and  supported  by  a  book  containing  extracts 
from  the  Scriptures  of  all  nations,  it  was  but  natural 
that  new  ideas  should  spring  up  from  year  to  year 
and  acquire  more  or  less  prominence.  The  recogni- 
tion of  Christ  as  a  great  prophet  was  but  one  of  these 
ideas,  and  it  was  never  intended  to  exclude  the  duty  of 
showing  reverence  to  the  founders  and  teachers  of  other 
religions.  In  the  outward  life  of  the  Brahma-Samaj 
the  introduction  of  Utsubs  (utsavas  or  religious  festi- 
vals) and  of  Sankirtan  (the  practice  of  enthusiastic  re- 
ligious singing)  produced  some  change  and  commotion ; 
but  there  never  was  any  strong  pressure  used  to  induce 
those  who  did  not  approve  of  them  to  take  part  in 
these  functions.  The  idea  of  the  communion  of  Saints, 
as  preached  by  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  was  hardly 
more  than  a  belief  in  a  spiritual  intercourse  between 
the  departed  and  the  living,  and  his  doctrine  of  inspi- 
ration did  not  go  beyond  the  admission  of  a  Divine 
impulse  imparted  to  the  soul  through  a  devout  seek- 
ing after  the  will  of  God.  The  most  objectionable 
doctrine  put  forward  by  the  liberal  reformer  of  Hin- 
duism was,  no  doubt,  the  Ade.va,  the  claim  of  being 
directed  by  an  inward  voice  which  admitted  no  gain- 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN".  91 

saying.  This,  particularly  when  mixed  up  with 
questions  of  worldly  wisdom,  made  his  position  in- 
compatible with  the  freedom  claimed  by  every  mem- 
ber of  his  Samaj,  and,  more  than  anything  else,  led  to 
the  secession  of  some  of  his  former  friends  and  fol- 
lowers. It  is  the  old  story  over  again.  Nothing  is 
so  difficult  for  a  reformer,  particularly  a  religious 
reformer,  as  not  to  allow  the  incense  offered  by  his 
followers  to  darken  his  mental  vision,  and  not  to  mis- 
take the  Divine  accents  of  truth  for  a  voice  wafted 
from  the  clouds.  In  this  respect,  no  doubt,  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen  has  shared  in  the  weakness  of  older 
prophets ;  but  let  us  not  forget  that  he  possesses  also 
a  large  share  of  their  strength  and  virtue.  One  of 
his  followers  writes  of  him  {Tkeistic  Quarterly  Review, 
October  1879,  p.  6 1): — 

'  Babu  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  is  neither  our  mediator 
nor  indispensable  for  our  acceptance  with  God.  Only 
he  has  done  the  Brahma-Samaj  incalculable  good,  and 
in  common  gratitude  we  acknowledge  his  services  and 
our  obligations  to  him.  But  there  are  men  in  the 
Brahma-Samaj  who,  we  are  sorry  to  say,  can  bear  the 
mention  of  every  other  name  but  his  name,  who  cannot 
bear  to  see  the  least  credit  given  to  him  for  anything. 
And  hence  they  are  fiercely  angry  with  the  Brahmas' 
creed,  and  circulate  all  manner  of  falsehood  in  rela- 
tion to  it.  Them  we  do  not  hope  to  convince,  but  to 
others,  who  want  to  judge  correctly,  we  may  say  that 
we  hold  some  of  our  leaders  in  genuine  love  and 
honour  for  what  they  have  taught  us,  and  we  want 
that  our  gratitude  should  be  shared  in  by  every  Theist, 
here  as  well  as  elsewhere.  To  Babu  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen's  teaching  the  Brahma-Samaj  is  deeply  indebted ; 


93  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

but  it  is  also  indebted  to  others,  and  among  the  latter 
we  may  eminently  mention  Babu  Debendranath 
Tagore,  and  the  founder  of  our  Church,  Rajah  Ram- 
mohun  Roy.' 

Nothing  can  be  more  instructive  to  the  student  of 
religion  than  to  trace  the  origin  and  growth  of  the 
Brahma-Samaj  from  Rammohun  Roy  to  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen.^  Much  may  be  learnt  from  the  old 
conservative  Adi  Brahma-Samaj  ;  much  from  the  re- 
formed branch,  the  Brahma-Samaj  of  India,  under 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen ;  aye,  something  even  from  the 
Arya-Samaj  under  Dayananda  Sarasvati,  the  most 
perverse  interpreter  of  the  Vedas.  I  tried  in  my 
lecture,  delivered  in  Westminster  Abbey,  December  3, 
1873,  to  give  a  sketch,  though  I  am  afraid  a  very 
imperfect  one,  of  the  religious  movement  inaugurated 
by  Rammohun  Roy,  and  carried  on  by  Debendranath 
and  Keshub  Chunder  Sen ;  and  I  see  little  or  nothing 
to  retract  what  I  then  said  about  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen.  The  utterances  of  late  have  shown  signs,  I  am 
sorry  to  say,  of  an  over-wrought  brain  and  an  over- 
sensitive heart.  He  sometimes  seems  to  me  on  the 
verge  of  the  very  madness  of  faith.  But  I  fear  for  his 
health  and  his  head  far  more  than  for  his  heart,  and  I 
should  deeply  regret  if  any  harsh  words  from  those 
who  ought  to  know  best  how  to  make  allowance  for 
the  difficulties  and  dangers  of  all  religious  reformers, 
should  embitter  a  noble  life  akeady  full  of  many 
bitternesses. 

F.  Max  Muller. 
Oxford. 


KESHUB   CIIUNDER   SEN.  93 

I  then  received  the  following  letter  from  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen : — 

Lilt  Cottage, 
72  Upper  Cibcular  Eoad,  Calcutta, 
22  Dec.  1S80. 

My  dear  Sir, 

Allow  me  to  thank  you  most  cordially  for 
having  said  a  good  word  for  us  in  the  '  Times.'  I  have 
read  your  letter  with  very  great  interest,  and  thank- 
fully appreciate  your  heartfelt  sympathy  with  us  in 
our  trials  and  difficulties.  You  can  hardly  imagine 
the  troubles  I  have  had  during  the  last  two  or 
three  years  and  the  grossly  false  and  libellous  charges 
brouo-ht  airainst  me  w^eek  after  week.  Thank  God, 
I  have  endured  these  undeserved  and  cruel  attacks 
quietly  and  calmly,  thinking  it  wrong  to  resent. 
Even  the  Police  was  instigated  by  some  of  my  an- 
tagonists to  inquire  and  ascertain  if  I  was  not  guilty 
of  embezzlement !  And  even  my  good  wife  came  in  for 
a  share  of  wanton  abuse  in  a  vernacular  dramatic 
work  !  All  this  I  say  to  you  privately  because  you 
have  been  good  enough  to  give  us  your  sympathy  as 
a  friend,  and  because  you  have  boldly  come  forward,  as 
few  have  done,  to  assert  publicly  that  personal  feelings 
lie  at  the  bottom  of  the  opposition  movement.  However, 
God's  will  be  done !  I  sincerely  trust  an  impartial 
public  will  in  future  give  a  patient  hearing  to  the 
actual  facts  of  the  case  and  proclaim  a  truer  verdict. 
Surely  I  can  afford  to  wait.  There  is  a  Bengali 
saying — 'Heaven  bears  the  burden  of  all  trusting  ser- 
vants.' I  can  assure  you  God  has  been  very  kind  to 
us  in  our  trials  and  tribulation,  and  all  the  antagon- 
ism and  persecution  we  have  suffered  have  greatly 


94  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

strengthened  us  and  helped  the  progress  and  extension 
of  our  Church.  Our  influence  spreads  on  all  sides, 
and  there  is  far  greater  enthusiasm  among  us  now 
than  in  any  previous  period  in  the  history  of  our 
Church.  I  think  we  owe  it  to  so  kind  a  friend  and 
sympathiser  as  yourself  that  we  should  strengthen 
your  hands  by  putting  you  in  possession  of  facts  and 
thereby  enabling  you  to  maintain  the  position  you 
have  taken.  May  I  ask  you  to  accept  a  few  of  my 
lectures  and  tracts  which  I  have  taken  the  liberty  to 
forward  to  you  by  the  present  mail? 

I  remain,  honoured  Friend, 
Yours  most  sincerely, 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen. 

Should  you  require  information  on  any  particular 
subject,  I  beg  you  will  kindly  let  me  know. 

A  copy  of  the  letter  of  the  Brahma  Missionary 
Conference  is  herewith  enclosed. 

At  the  same  time  I  received  the  following  letter 
from  the  Members  of  the  Brahma  Missionary  Con- 
ference of  the  Brahma-Samaj  : — 

Bbahmo  Missionary  Conference, 
29  Dec.  1880. 

Sir, 

I  am  directed  by  the  Missionary  Conference  of 
the  Brahma-Samaj  of  India  to  convey  to  you  their 
cordial  thanks  for  having  kindly  contradicted  in  the 
Times  some  of  the  unfounded  statements  made  by  Mr. 
Charles  Voysey  and  others  regarding  our  Church. 
We  should  have  passed  over  these  misrepresentations 
in  silence,  believing  and  trusting  that  truth  would 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  95 

triumph  at  last — T^(^^^^  htJ^ — and  that  the  British  na- 
tion, with  its  characteristic  regard  for  truth,  would 
not  readily  allow  itself  to  be  misled  by  interested 
agitators,  but  would  ere  long  discover  the  real  truth 
of  the  matter.  You  will  no  doubt  admit  that  those 
whom  the  Lord  leads  and  protects  have  nothing  to 
fear  from  the  shafts  of  calumny,  and  that  Truth  needs 
no  human  advocate  to  defend  her.  However,  as  you 
have  thought  it  proper  publicly  to  vindicate  the 
Brahma-Samaj  of  India  from  unfounded  charges,  it 
seems  incumbent  upon  us,  while  gratefully  acknow- 
ledging your  kindness,  to  place  before  you  such  facts 
as  may  enable  you  to  verify  your  statements  and 
silence  your  critics. 

In  Mr.  Voysey's  statement  that  'Babu  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen  is  at  present  almost  universally  repu- 
diated by  Hindu  Theists,'  one  sees  at  once  that  the 
wish  is  father  to  the  thought.  No  one  can  deny  that 
the  Bharatavarshya  Brahma  Mandira,  the  Church  of 
which  Mr.  Sen  is  the  Minister,  continues  to  be  as 
largely  attended  now  as  before  the  schism,  and  that 
not  a  single  devout  member  of  his  congregation  has 
left  the  Church.  Nor  is  it  possible  to  gainsay  the 
fact  that  the  congregation  of  our  Mandir  is  far  larger 
than  that  of  any  other  section  of  the  Brahma-Samaj. 
If  the  number  of  persons  who  are  attracted  to  hear  be 
any  index  to  the  personal  influence  of  a  religious 
leader,  you  may  form  some  idea  of  Babu  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen's  growing  influence  from  the  fact  that  in 
the  course  of  our  expeditionary  movement  last  year 
he  addressed,  in  six  weeks,  crowded  assemblies  in 
Calcutta  and  the  Provinces  numbering  upwards  of 
ten  thousand  people.     In  fact,  since  the  organisation 


96  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

of  the  New  Dispensation  our  movement  has  excited 
far  greater  interest  and  sympathy,  and  achieved  much 
greater  success  than  in  any  previous  year.  Another 
evidence  of  even  greater  importance  is  to  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  all  our  missionaries  and  leading  workers 
have  remained  faithful  and  loyal  to  our  leader  through- 
out the  crisis.  The  members  of  the  Missionary  Con- 
ference desire  me  to  say  emphatically  that  though 
they  have  now  and  then  differed  from  him  in  non- 
essential matters,  their  grateful  reverence  for  him  as 
their  Heaven-appointed  leader  and  friend  continues 
unabated.  They  are  his  close  companions,  and  they 
have  had  opportunities  of  examining  closely  the  de- 
tails of  his  daily  life,  some  for  ten,  others  for  twenty 
years,  and  they  have  never  had  reasons  to  suspect 
their  confidence  in  their  trusted  leader  was  mis- 
placed. The  only  missionary  who  has  deserted  our 
Church  since  the  schism  is  the  person  who  charged 
him  twelve  years  ago  with  encouraging  '  man- worship,' 
but  who  subsequently  recanted.  Whatever  our  an- 
tagonists may  say,  the  Brahma-Samaj  of  India  is,  in 
spite  of  the  rupture,  a  growing  power,  and  it  retains 
in  itself  the  entire  devotional  and  spiritual  life  of  the 
community.  It  is  still,  as  it  was  before,  a  mighty 
instrument  in  the  hands  of  Providence  to  teach  the 
Hindu  nation  faith,  love  and  purity,  prayer,  com- 
munion, and  inspiration.  The  seceders  are,  we  may 
say  without  being  uncharitable,  deficient  in  religious 
life,  and  are  given  more  to  outward  social  refinement, 
magnifying  the  things  of  the  flesh  over  things  of  the 
spirit.  Such  men  cannot  stand  against  God's  Church, 
unless  they  establish  their  superiority  on  the  ground 
of  faith  and  godliness.     That  their  secession  is  due 


KESHUB   CHUNDEFv   SEN.  97 

almost  entirely  to  personal  causes  cannot  be  disputed. 
The  rupture  began  some  years  before  the  marriage 
controversy  took  place,  '  its  chief  cause  being,'  as  you 
rightly  observe,  '  personal  feelings  aroused  by  Keshub 
Chunder  Sens  ascendancy,  not  any  fundamental  dif- 
.  ferenees  of  doctrine.'  The  bitterness  was  greatly  aggra- 
vated by  the  marriage  of  the  Minister's  daughter,  chiefly 
l)ecause  the  offer  of  one  of  the  leading  seceders,  the 
chief  editor  of  their  journal,  to  have  his  daughter  mar- 
ried to  the  Maharajah  of  Cutch  Behar  was  declined,  the 
match  not  being  approved  by  the  State  officers  in  Cutch 
Eehar,  who  after  having  seen  both  girls,  gave,  decided 
preference  to  the  Minister's  daughter.  The  disappoint- 
ment thus  caused  fomented  the  jealousies  already 
existing,  till  they  culminated  in  a  schismatic  rupture. 
For  nearly  three  years  we  and  our  leader  have  been 
reviled  and  maligned  in  the  most  reckless  manner,  the 
arguments  used  being  almost  invariably  personal  in- 
vectives against  our  character,  and  not  doctrinal 
criticisms. 

With  reference  to  the  Cutch  Behar  marriage,  I  may 
be  permitted  to  say  that  there  is  nothing  in  it  which 
has  been  disapproved  by  the  most  fastidious  critic 
which  the  Minister  himself  and  his  friends  have 
not  regretted,  and  this  dissent  was  clearly  set  forth  in 
the  official  statement  published  by  the  Brahma-Samaj 
of  India  at  the  time.  The  marriage  itself,  or  rather 
the  match,  we  most  devoutly  believe,  was  providen- 
tial, although  we  freely  admit  there  were  errors  and 
improprieties  in  the  tnodiis  operandi.  The  Lord  directed 
the  choice  and  initiated  the  nuptial  rites.  But  in 
this,  as  in  other  cases,  human  agency  must  be  distin- 
guished from  the  actions  of  Providence.     The  charge 

VOL.  II.  H 


08  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

of  child-marriage  has  long  ago  been  exploded.  For 
the  consummation  of  the  marriage  took  place  only 
the  other  day,  October  20,  in  the  Brahma  Mandira. 
The  proceedings  of  the  ceremony  you  will  find  in  the 
Su7ulai/  Mirror  of  the  24th  of  October. 

The  doctrines  of  Ade-va  (Inspiration)  and  the  Com- , 
munion  of  Saints  have  provoked  warm  controversy 
both  here  and  in  England,  and  also  our  attitude  to- 
wards Christ  and  other  prophets.  It  is  a  matter  of 
regret  and  wonder  that  in  these  matters  a  Christian 
nation  should  misunderstand  our  position  or  miscon- 
strue our  views.  To  rationalists  we  are,  and  must 
continue  to  be,  a  stumbling-block.  But  surely  to  the 
spiritually-minded  the  above  doctrines  are  intelligible. 
It  seems  to  us  that  it  is  not  the  doctrines  themselves, 
but  the  oriental  and  metaphorical  dress  in  which  they 
are  presented,  to  which  exception  has  been  taken. 
Allegories  and  parables  may  not  suit  the  Western 
mind,  but  they  are  the  natural  inheritance  of  all 
Eastern  nations,  and  we  instinctively  indulge  in  the 
poetry  of  religion.  The  mysticism  attributed  to  us  is 
nothing  but  teaching  by  allegory  and  parable,  of 
which  Christ  Jesus  Himself  furnished  a  preeminent 
example.  In  March  last  the  plain  meanings  of  most 
of  the  words  we  use,  divested  of  metaphor,  were  pub- 
lished, a  reference  to  which  will  convince  you  of  the 
truth  of  what  we  say.  One  of  the  main  causes  of 
irritation  is,  as  you  rightly  apprehend,  the  Minister's 
allegiance  to  Christ,  which  has  greatly  annoyed  the 
rationalists  here  and  in  England,  and  especially  Mr. 
Voysey.  This  cannot  be  helped.  We  believe  that  in 
the  Spirit  of  Christ  Asia  and  Europe  shall  be  united 
in  the  fulness  of  time,  and  we  rejoice  to  see  that 


KESHUB   CHUNDEH   SEN.  99 

through  God's  grace  India  is  dra-\ving  near  to  'Him 
crucified.'  If  we  are  deserted  and  persecuted  for  this 
"we  need  not  complain. 

Yours  respectfully, 

WooMA  Nath  Gupta, 

Brahma  Missionary  Conference. 


OFFICIAL  PAPER. 

Marnage  of  the  Maharajah  of  Catch  Behar. 

The  principal  event  of  the  3'ear  was  the  Rajah's 
marriage,  which  was  celebrated  on  the  6th  March, 
1878,  at  the  Raj  Bari  in  Cutch  Behar,  in  the  presence 
of  a  large  assemblage  of  spectators,  both  Native  and 
European.  The  difficulty  of  reconciling  the  Hindu 
and  Bnihma  ceremonial  forms  was,  as  may  be  ima- 
gined, an  arduous  one.  It  was  necessary  to  the  legality 
of  the  marriage  that  the  rites  should  be  Hindu  in  all 
essential  featvres.  After  much  deliberation  and  argu- 
ment, Babu  Keshtib  Chmider  Sen  was  brought  to  see  that 
the  Edjah,  not  being  a  Brahma,  and  the  Bidhnia  Marriage 
Act  not  being  in  force  in  Cutch  Behar,  it  was  absolutely 
essential  that  the  marriage,  if  it  took  place  at  all,  should 
be  a  Hindu  marriage.  Idolatrous  mantras  were,  how- 
ever, excluded,  and  the  name  of  the  Deity  substituted 
wherever  local  custom  had  introduced  that  of  any 
particular  idol.  The  best  proof  of  the  jjerfect  orthodoxy 
of  the  marriage  is  that  the  Brdhmans  consented  to  perform, 
it.  They  are  not  by  any  means  under  our  thumb, 
and  in  one  matter,  the  performance  of  the  Horn  cere- 
mony, which  is,  strictly  speaking,  the  adoration  of 

H  2 


100  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

fire,  tliey  refused  altogether  to  give  way  or  to  dis- 
pense with  the  presence  of  the  bride  and  bride- 
groom. Eabu  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  was  equally 
determined  that  his  daughter  should  not  assist  at  an 
idolatrous  ceremony.  The  matter  was  ultimately 
arranged  by  the  Brahmans  consenting  to  the  removal 
of  the  bride  on  some  pretext  before  they  performed 
the  mystic  ceremony.  As  this  did  not  come  off  till 
3  A.M.,  and  as  the  poor  young  lady  had  been  sitting 
in  an  uncomfortable  attitude  for  about  five  hours,  the 
excuse  for  removing  her  could  not  be  called  a  pre- 
text. The  Rajah  remained  present  during  the  cere- 
mony, but  took  no  part  in  it.  The  marriage  has  nnce 
been  fonriaUij  declared  legal  hy  the  Commissioner,  acting 
Wider  Government  as  the  laio -giving  power,  and  his  decla- 
ration to  that  effect  has  been  filed  among  the  permanent 
records  in  the  archives  of  Catch  Behar.  In  connection 
with  this  event,  I  wish  to  record  my  sense  of  the 
valuable  assistance  rendered  by  Babu  Kali  Komul 
Lahiri,  the  Dwar  Muktear,  an  old  and  faithful  servant 
of  the  Rajah's  family,  not  only  in  his  position  as  prin- 
cipal officer  of  the  household,  but  also  as  a  Brahman, 
in  smoothing  over  difiiculties  which  arose,  and  in 
reconciling  the  adverse  factions  of  Pundits  and  Brah- 
mans. The  Cutch  Behar  Pandit  sent  to  Calcutta  to 
arrange  the  form  of  ceremony  had  not  conducted  the 
negotiation  in  a  very  straightforward  manner,  and 
the  consequence  was  that  I  and  the  Dewan  found  our- 
selves in  a  very  difiicult  position  on  the  very  eve  of 
the  marriage.  In  arranging  these  difiiculties  the 
Dwar  Muktear's  infiuence  was  of  the  greatest  assist- 
ance to  us,  and  enabled  us  to  discriminate  between 
what  orthodoxy  really  demanded  and  what  bigotry 


KESHUB   CHUNDER  SEN.  101 

•was  unwilling  to  give  up. — Adm'rmdratlon  Beport  of 
the  Catch  Behar  Slate^  ly  G.  T.  Ballon,  Esq.,  Bejmli/ 
Commissioner. 


To  these  letters  I  sent  the  following  reply : — 

My  dear  Friend, 

Your  letter  was  a  real  pleasure  to  me.  Though 
I  felt  almost  certain  that  you  would  take  what  I  had 
written  in  the  Times  as  words  coming  from  a  true 
friend,  yet  I  was  glad  to  hear  from  yourself  that  you 
had  not  forgotten  me,  and  that  you  still  counted  me 
among  your  old  and  faithful  friends.  You  may  have 
wondered  that  I  should  never  have  written  to  you 
since  you  left  England  to  return  to  your  own  country 
and  to  your  own  work  among  your  own  people.  I 
have  often  thought  of  you,  and  whenever  my  memory 
went  on  a  long  pilgrimage  to  my  friends  who  are  doing 
good  work  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  I  always 
lingered  before  your  image,  and  wondered  whether 
I  could  and  ought  to  help  you  in  your  struggle, 
as  it  grew  harder  from  year  to  year.  But  as  our  span 
of  life  grows  smaller  and  smaller,  work  seems  to  grow 
thicker  and  thicker.  If  we  want  to  do  an;yi:hing,  to 
finish  anything  at  least  up  to  a  certain  point,  we  must 
learn  to  let  many  things  take  their  own  course.  We 
must  learn  to  trust :  and  I  can  assure  you  that  ever 
since  I  saw  you  face  to  face,  ever  since  I  listened  to 
you  pleading  your  cause  so  powerfully  before  our 
great  theologian.  Dr.  Pusey,  and  afterwards  heard  you 
unfolding  to  me  your  brightest  hopes  for  the  future  of 
India,  I  have  always  trusted  you.  That  does  not 
mean  that  I  have  always  approved  of  all  that  you 


102  BIOaKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

have  -WTltten  and  done.  Far  from  it.  But  -with  re- 
gard to  most  of  the  matters  which  have  been  discussed 
between  you  and  your  opponents,  what  right  had  I  to 
condemn  the  steps  which  you  thought  it  right  to  take, 
or,  at  all  events,  to  put  my  judgment  against  yours  ? 
I  do  not  call  that  trusting  our  friends,  if  we  want 
them  always  to  think  and  speak  and  act  exactly  as 
we  ourselves  would  think  and  speak  and  act.  Trust- 
ing our  friends  means  to  give  them  credit  for  good  and 
honest  intentions,  even  when  we  differ  from  them  and 
they  from  us.  It  is  easy  to  trust  in  a  Divine  Pro- 
vidence if  all  goes  well  with  us ;  but  to  trust  when 
all  goes  against  us,  that  is  real  trust.  It  is  the 
same  with  our  faith  in  men.  I  know  that  your 
one  object  in  life  is  to  do  good  to  your  country- 
men, to  help  them  to  amend  certain  defects  in  their 
social  life  and  to  purify  their  religious  ideas,  and  I 
shall  never  believe  that  a  man  who  has  devoted  his 
life  to  so  noble  a  purpose  can  be  guilty  of  the  charges 
brought  against  you.  I  never  shall  think  you  infal- 
lible in  your  judgments,  but  whatever  may  happen,  I 
trust,  aye  I  know,  that  you  will  always  remain  true 
to  your  own  noble  self. 

After  your  great  success  both  in  India  and  in  Eng- 
land I  was  quite  prepared  that  a  reaction  would  set 
in.  Success  is  apt  to  produce  a  certain  languor  and 
conceit  in  ourselves,  while  in  others  it  is  sure  to 
arouse  envy,  the  worst  poison  that  grows  in  the 
human  heart.  The  Buddhists  say  truly  that  a  man 
has  '  left  the  path  of  envy  '  when  he  begins  to  lead  a 
new  life ;  but  it  is  marvellous  to  observe  how  few  even 
among  the  best  men  are  quite  above  that  wretched 
feeling.     Besides,  many  of  those  who  applauded  you 


KESHUB    CIIUNDER   SEN.  ]03 

and  patronised  you  before  you  had  achieved  your  best 
successes  did  so  because  it  was  the  fashion.  They 
had  no  idea  of  the  real  nature  of  the  work  you  had 
taken  in  hand,  but  they  liked  to  pat  you  on  the  back 
and  give  you  advice  and  warn  you  against  dangers 
and  all  that.  You  see  you  were  only  a  native — and 
is  not  every  European  far  wiser  than  a  Hindu  1 
How  I  hate  that  conceit.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
it  is  general,  but  it  exists ;  and  what  is  the  worst,  it 
exists  in  influential  quarters.  Men  who  have  been  in 
India,  men  who  write  on  India,  men  who  profess  to 
have  studied  the  language  and  literature  of  India 
speak  even  of  the  most  learned,  the  best  and  wisest  of 
your  countrymen,  of  men  in  knowledge,  manners,  and 
character  infinitely  their  superiors,  as  of  so  many 
ignorant  and  naughty  children.  Have  we  not  conquered 
India,  they  seem  to  say,  do  we  not  govern  India,  and 
should  we  not  know  much  better  than  Rammohun  Roy, 
or  Debendranath  Tagore,  or  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  what 
is  the  right  course  which  Indian  social  and  religious 
reformers  ought  to  follow  ?  I  know  of  men  who  could 
not  construe  a  line  of  Sanskrit,  and  who  speak 
and  write  of  3'our  ancient  literature,  religion,  and 
philosophy  as  if  they  knew  a  great  deal  more  than 
any  of  your  best  /Srotriyas.  How  often  you  must 
have  smiled  on  reading  such  books !  The  idea  that 
anything  could  come  from  the  East  equal  to  European 
thought,  or  even  superior,  never  enters  the  mind  of 
these  writers,  and  hence  their  utter  inability  to  un- 
derstand and  appreciate  what  is  really  valuable  in 
Oriental  literature.  There  is  no  problem  of  philosophy 
and  religion  that  has  not  been  a  subject  of  deep  and 
anxious    thought  among   vour   ancient    and   modern 


104  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

thinkers.  We  in  the  West  have  done  some  good 
work  too,  and  I  do  not  write  to  depreciate  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  Hellenic  and  Teutonic  mind.  But  I 
know  that  on  some  of  the  highest  problems  of  human 
thought  the  East  has  shed  more  light  than  the  West, 
and  by  and  by,  depend  on  it,  the  West  will  have  to 
acknowledge  it.  There  is  a  very  able  article  in  the 
last  number  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  (Jan.  1881),  on 
Dr.  Caird's  '  Philosophy  of  Religion.'  Dr.  Caird  is  a 
representative  man  in  England,  and  more  familiar 
than  most  Englishmen  with  the  solid  work  of  modern 
German  philosophers.  And  what  is  the  last  result  at 
which  Dr.  Caird  arrives,  and  of  which  even  the 
Kdhiburgh  jReview  approves?  Almost  literally  the 
same  as  the  doctrine  of  the  Upanishads !  Dr.  Caird 
writes :  '  It  is  just  in  this  renunciation  of  self  that 
I  truly  gain  myself;  for  whilst  in  one  sense  we  give 
up  self  to  live  the  universal  and  absolute  life  of 
reason,  yet  that  to  which  we  thus  surrender  ourselves 
is  in  reality  our  truer  self.'  And  again  :  '  The  know- 
ledge and  love  of  God  is  the  giving  up  of  all  thoughts 
and  feelings  that  belong  to  me  as  a  mere  individual 
self,  and  the  identification  of  my  thoughts  and  being 
with  that  which  is  above  me,  yet  in  me  — the  universal 
or  absolute  self,  which  is  not  mine  or  yours,  but  in 
which  all  intelligent  beings  alike  find  the  realisation 
and  perfection  of  their  nature '  (p.  257).  I  need  not 
tell  you  or  any  one  who  knows  the  Upanishads  how 
powerfully  the  same  doctrine,  the  doctrine  of  the  Atma 
and  Paramatma,  was  put  forth  by  your  old  Rishis 
more  than  two  thousand  years  ago. 

Many  years  ago  I  ventured  to  show  that  the  five- 
membered  syllogism  of  the  Indian  Nyaya  philosophy  is 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  105 

the  best  form  that  can  be  given  to  the  syllogism  of  in- 
ductive logic.  But  European  logicians  cannot  get  over 
the  idea  that  there  is  no  logic  like  that  of  our  school- 
men, and  that  every  deviation  from  it  is  a  mistake. 

The  same  conceit  runs  through  almost  all  that  is 
written  on  India.  India  may  be  patronised,  some 
works  of  Indian  poets  and  philosophers  may  be  called 
clever  and  curious,  but  to  recognise  in  anything  the 
superiority  of  Indian  thought,  or  the  wisdom  of  Indian 
native  opinion,  that  is  out  of  the  question, 

I  do  not  write  this  in  order  to  flatter  you,  but  in 
order  to  warn  you  against  being  disheartened  by 
foreign  criticism.  Few  people  in  Europe,  very  few, 
understand  the  object  of  your  work,  or  have  any  idea 
of  the  dangers  and  difficulties  which  you  have  to  en- 
counter. You  should  look  upon  praise  and  blame  as 
we  do  upon  sunshine  and  rain.  It  comes  and  goes, 
we  know  not  why.  But  there  is  one  thing  that  serves 
as  a  parasol  against  conceit,  and  as  an  umbrella 
against  despair,  and  that  is  a  clear  conception  of  the 
true  purpose  of  our  life.  Let  me  quote  once  more 
from  Buddha  (Dhammapada,  227-228)  :  '  This  is  an  old 
saying,  this  is  not  only  of  to-day :  they  blame  him 
who  sits  silent,  they  blame  him  who  speaks  much, 
they  also  blame  him  who  says  little ;  there  is  no 
one  on  earth  who  is  not  blamed.  There  never  was, 
there  never  will  be,  nor  is  there  now,  a  man  who  is 
always  blamed,  or  a  man  who  is  always  praised.' 

I  can  quite  feel  with  you  and  understand  that  you 
should  be  disheartened  by  the  defection  of  some  of 
your  friends,  but  you  should  not  allow  this  to  turn 
you  away  for  one  moment  from  the  path  that  lies 
straight  before  you.     I  am  particularly  sorry  that  so 


106  BIOaEAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

true  and  intelligent  a  friend  as  Miss  Collet  should 
have  turned  against  you,  but  I  have  little  doubt  she 
will  in  time  forget  the  things  that  are  behind,  and 
look  forward  to  the  great  work  that  is  still  before  you. 
She  judges  you,  I  think,  unfairly,  because  she  forgets 
that  you  are  a  Hindu  and  a  Brahma,  and  not  at  the 
same  time  an  Englishman  and  a  Christian,  in  her  sense 
of  the  word.  She  expects  too  much  from  you,  and  that 
shows  after  all  how  she  respects  and  honours  you. 

If  the  number  of  your  followers  in  India  has  de- 
creased, as  she  maintains,  though  you  deny  it,  that 
would  influence  very  little  my  feelings  for  you  and 
my  hopes  for  your  cause.  I  do  not  believe  in  num- 
bers ;  and  all  through  life  I  have  but  seldom  found 
myself  in  a  majority.  If  such  men  as  Mozumdar 
remain  true  to  you,  that  is  better  than  a  legion :  but 
better  than  all  is  that  you  should  remain  true  to 
yourself.  People  may  call  the  separation  of  the  Adi 
Samaj,  the  Brahma  Samaj  of  India,  and  the  Sadharan 
Brahma  Samaj  a  schism  :  to  my  mind  they  are  three 
strong  branches  of  one  powerful  stem.  They  all  have 
the  same  root,  and  they  all,  I  trust,  will  yet  bear 
rich  fruit. 

I  cannot  wi-Ite  more  to-day,  but  there  are  several 
points  on  which  I  hope  to  write,  whenever  I  find  a 
little  leisure.  You  have  written  to  me  as  a  friend, 
and  I  have  an  severed  you  as  a  friend,  with  perfect 
frankness.  I  shall  always  do  that,  and  hope  you  will 
do  the  same. 

I  have  received  the  copy  of  a  letter  in  which  the 
Brahma  Missionary  Conference  points  out  a  number 
of  misstatements  made  by in  a  lecture  de- 
livered before  the  Pioyal  Asiatic  Society  ;  also  a  letter 


KESHFB   CHUNDER   SEN.  107 

addressed  to  me  by  the  same  Conference.  I  did  not 
feel  at  liberty  to  publish  these  letters.  Please  to  con- 
vey to  the  Conference  my  best  thanks  and  the  expres- 
sion of  my  fullest  sympathy. 

I  remain,  my  dear  Friend, 

Yours  very  truly, 

F.  Max  Muller. 

P.S. — I  was  much  interested  in  the  publications 
you  sent  me.  As  you  kindly  offer  me  your  assist- 
ance, might  I  ask  you  to  send  me  the  first  number  of 
the  Thnstic  Qi'aHerli/  Beview.  Any  information  on 
Kammohun  Roy  -would  be  very  welcome,  but  I  must 
tell  you  that  I  find  it  difficult  now  to  read  Bengali. 


Some  of  the  letters  that  passed  between  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen  and  myself  are  lost,  because  at  the  time 
I  did  not  consider  them  of  importance.  I  only  kept 
rough  copies  of  my  own  letters,  and  cannot  now  fix 
'■iheir  exact  dates.  The  next  letter  which  I  wrote  to 
him  treated  chiefly  of  the  Cutch  Behar  marriage. 

My  dear  Friend, 

I  am  truly  sorry  that  the  first  subject  on  which 
I  feel  I  must  write  to  you  should  be  the  marriage  of 
your  daughter  with  the  Maharajah  of  Cutch  Behar.  It 
has,  however,  been  made  the  battlefield  between  your 
friends  and  your  enemies,  and  as  I  have  often  declared 
that,  if  placed  in  your  position,  I  should  probably 
have  acted  as  you  have  done,  I  feel  that  I  owe  it  to 
myself  as  well  as  to  you  to  explain  what  I  feel  on  the 
subject. 

I  may  say  at  once,  1  wish  that  this  difficulty  had 


108  BIOSKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

never  arisen.  For  a  difficulty  it  was,  and  you  must 
have  felt  it  so.  You  were  placed  in  a  conflict  of 
duties,  the  duties  of  a  father  and  the  duties  of  a  public 
man,  and  out  of  such  a  conflict  it  is  almost  impossible 
to  emerge  without  a  Avound. 

Now  let  me  tell  you  first  where  I  differed  from  you. 
I  think  when  we  find  ourselves  in  such  a  difficult}',  we 
ought  to  take  our  friends  into  our  confidence,  and  place 
the  reasons  which  make  us  incline  towards  the  right  or 
towards  the  left  unreservedly  before  them.  You,  so 
far  as  I  remember,  remained  silent  for  a  long  time,  and 
at  last  appealed  to  the  inner  voice,  the  Ade-va,  which 
told  you  that  you  had  acted  rightly  and  for  the  best. 

I  know  myself  full  well  how  hard  it  is  to  have  to 
defend  oneself  against  suspicions  that  ought  never  to 
have  arisen,  and  to  repel  charges  that  ought  never  to 
have  been  brought.  But  the  world  likes  to  hear  a 
man  defend  himself,  if  only  for  the  pleasure  of  pro- 
nouncing a  verdict  of  Not  Guilty,  and  I  think  our 
friends  have  a  certain  right  to  hear  what  we  say  to 
ourselves.  To  appeal  simply  to  Ade.s-a  is  not  respect- 
ful, and  the  voice  of  Ade*a,  however  pure  it  may  be 
when  it  enters  into  our  ears,  is  never  quite  so  pure 
when  it  passes  out  of  our  mouth.  That  still  small 
voice  is  meant  to  be  still :  it  is  meant  for  us,  and  for 
us  only,  not  for  the  loud  contests  of  the  world.  I 
believe  if  you  had  asked  your  friends  whether  3'ou 
should  sacrifice  the  happiness  of  your  daughter,  or 
agree  to  a  mari'iage  which  both  you  and  they  con- 
sider objectionable,  but  which  till  a  few  years  ago  was 
considered  perfectly  legitimate,  and  which  even  now 
hardly  one  in  a  million  of  your  own  countrymen 
would  disapprove,  they  would  probably,  particularly 


KESHUB    CHUNDEK   SEN".  109 

if  they  had  known  all  the  more  private  circumstances 
of  the  case,  on  which  I  need  not  enlarge,  have  given 
you  a  bill  of  indemnity. 

But  after  having  said  so  much  against  you,  I  must 
say  that  many  of  your  friends  seem  to  me  to  have 
acted  towards  you  in  a  most  unfriendly,  nay,  un- 
reasonable manner.  They  seem  to  me  to  have  entirely 
forgotten  that  you  were  born  in  India,  and  not  in  Eng- 
land, and  that  there  is  no  subject  on  which  different 
nations  entertain  such  different  ideas  as  on  marriage. 

I  have  no  reason  to  doubt  that  you  still  consider 
early  marriages  objectionable,  and  that  you  decidedly 
prefer  your  own  Brahma  rite  of  celebrating  marriage 
to  any  other  ceremonial.  But  when,  on  medical 
advice,  you  have  fixed  the  minimum  of  the  marriage- 
able age  of  women  in  India  at  fourteen,  then  surely 
the  case  of  your  daughter,  who  was  only  a  few  months 
under  fourteen  when  she  was  formally  married,  and 
sixteen  when  she  was  really  married,  might  have 
been  passed  unnoticed.  I  know  the  atmosphere  in 
which  you  live.  I  know  how  from  the  earliest  days 
it  was  considered  in  India  the  duty  of  a  father  to  find 
a  proper  husband  for  his  daughter.  Manu  says  so,  all 
your  old  lawyers  and  poets  say  so  ;  and  however  good 
a  reformer  you  may  be,  I  can  quite  understand  your 
feeling  the  disgrace  which  in  India  it  is  supposed  to 
be  if  a  father  leaves  a  daughter  unmarried ;  or  at  all 
events  your  hesitating  to  sacrifice  the  happiness  of 
your  daughter  to  your  own  convictions  on  social  re- 
form. Manu,  who  allows  hardly  any  freedom  to  a 
woman  at  any  time  of  her  hfe,  allows  her  to  choose 
a  husband  for  herself,  if,  three  years  after  she  has 
attained  a  marriageable  age,  her  parents  have  failed  to 


110  BIOaEAPHICAL   E3SAYS. 

do  SO  (Manu,  ix.  90).  Other  law-givers  (Vish??u,  xxiv. 
40)  allow  her  still  greater  freedom.  I  do  not  suppose 
you  would  be  frightened  by  your  old  Smrxtikaras  into 
doing  something  actually  wrong,  yet  I  can  well  under- 
stand that  you  should  continue  to  feel  their  indirect 
pressure.  And  when  it  is  considered  how  difficult  it 
is  to  find  a  proper  husband  for  a  daughter,  educated 
as  yours  had  been,  and  how  desirable,  not  only  from  a 
worldl}^  point  of  view,  her  marriage  with  the  young 
Rajah  of  Cutch  Behar  must  have  appeared  to  you, 
then  to  demand  that  you  should  have  deprived  your 
dauffhter  of  a  freedom  of  choice  that  even  Manu  would 
have  allowed  her,  seems  to  me  going  very  far.  Even  in 
Europe  great  concessions  are  often  made  with  regard 
to  marriages  objectionable  from  some,  desirable  from 
other  points  of  view.  I  shall  not  press  the  point  that 
this  is  particularly  the  case  in  royal  and  princely 
families,  where  often  great  interests  are  at  stake,  and 
where  the  choice  of  husbands  and  wives  is  limited. 
In  Eugland,  for  an  uncle  to  marry  his  niece  would  be 
considered  intolerable ;  in  Roman  Catholic  countries 
dispensation  is  granted  to  such  unions.  In  England, 
marriage  with  a  deceased  wife's  sister  is  iUegal,  in 
the  English  colonies  it  is  allowed.  The  lowest 
savases  consider  marria2;es  between  members  of  the 
same  clan  quite  shocking,  and  that  prejudice  remains 
even  after  they  have  been  converted  to  Christianity ; 
while  certain  missionaries  tolerate  even  polygamy  in 
their  converts  rather  than  allow  them  to  cast  off 
their  old  wives.  In  all  this,  I  do  not  plead  for  laxit}', 
Init  only  for  a  recognition  of  peculiar  difficulties,  and 
for  that  kind  of  forbearance  which  English  society 
has  of  late  shown  in  much  more  extreme  cases. 


KESHUB   CHUNDER  SEN.  Ill 

To  call  the  marriage  of  your  daughter  a  Child- 
marriage  is  utterly  unfair,  and  it  is  hardly  less  so  to 
say  that  you  gave  your  consent  to  idolatrous  marriage 
rites  being  performed.  I  have  read  nearly  everything 
that  has  been  written  and  published  on  that  marriage, 
and  I  believe  you  did  all  that  it  was  possible  for  you 
to  do  to  avoid  giving  offence  to  your  friends  without 
endangering  the  legality  of  tKe  marriage.  Protestants 
object  to  mixed  marriages  with  Roman  Catholics,  but 
if  they  assent  to  a  mixed  marriage,  they  must  submit 
to  the  performance  of  certain  superstitious  rites,  with- 
out which  the  marriage  would  not  be  legal.  Besides, 
there  are  in  every  country  old  marriage  customs 
which,  no  doubt,  date  from  heathen  times,  but  which 
no  one  calls  idolatrous.  If  we  like  to  use  hard  words, 
it  would  be  easy  to  show  up  plenty  of  idolatry  in 
Europe.  If  you  had  joined  a  Christian  community, 
then  I  should  fully  admit  that,  so  far  as  you  yourself 
are  concei'ned,  you  could  have  been  married  according 
to  the  Christian  ceremonial  only  :  but  even  then  you 
could  not  have  forced  your  daughter,  if  according  to 
native  law  she  is  of  age  and  free  to  choose,  to  follow 
your  example.  As  you  are  and  mean  to  be  a  Hindu, 
though  a  believer  in  Christ,  I  cannot  see  what  right 
your  Christian  friends  have  to  blame  you  for  allowing 
your  daughter  to  marry  a  countryman  of  hers  with 
whom  in  a  native  state,  she  could  be  legally  married 
according  to  the  ancient  customs  of  his  own  country 
only. 

I  am  glad,  of  course,  that  you  succeeded  in  carrying 
your  bill  for  legalising  Br.ahma  marriages,  but  I  can 
quite  understand  that  in  the  eyes  of  many  of  your 
friends  such  a  marriage  is  much  the  same  as  what  a 


112  BIOGKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

marriage  before  a  Registrar  is  in  the  eyes  of  many 
Englishmen.  It  therefore  comes  to  this,  you  must 
either  prohibit  all  mixed  marriages  between  Brahmas 
and  Hindus,  which  would  be  acting  more  intolerantly 
than  the  Pope,  or  you  must  allow  some  of  the  ancient 
marriage  customs,  when  one  of  the  contracting  parties 
is  not  a  Brahma.  And  here  again  to  call  every  ancient 
custom,  every  de.vadharnia  or  kuladharma,  idolatry  is 
utterly  unfair.  At  all  events  there  are  much  more 
dangerous  idols  in  Europe  as  well  as  in  India  than 
the  old  stone  images  in  the  palace  of  Behar. 

The  difficulty  which  you  had  to  solve  has  had  to  be 
solved  again  and  again,  whenever  new  religions  or 
new  sects  have  sprung  up.  Zealots  have  always  de- 
nounced marriage  between  members  of  different  re- 
ligions, nay  even  of  different  sects.  But  what  did 
St.  Paul  say  ?  '  The  unbelieving  husband,'  he  says, 
'  is  sanctified  by  the  wife,  and  the  unbelieving  wife  is 
sanctified  by  the  husband ;  else  were  your  children 
unclean  (illegitimate),  but  now  are  tliey  holy.'  And 
again :  '  For  what  knowest  thou,  O  wife,  whether  thou 
shalt  save  thy  husband?  or  how  knowest  thou,  0 
man,  whether  thou  shalt  save  thy  wife  V  (i  Corinth, 
vii.  14,  16).  Whoever  knows  the  history  of  religion, 
knows  what  excellent  missionaries  wives  have  made, 
and  I  trust  the  time  may  come  when  those  who  now 
blame  you  will  give  you  credit  for  pure  motives,  and 
praise  you  for  your  foresight  and  your  trust. 

With  sincere  wishes  for  the  welfare  of  your  daughter 
and  your  son-in-law,  I  remain,  my  dear  friend, 

Yours  very  truly, 

F.  Max  MiJLLEK. 


KESHUB   CHUNDER  SEX.  113 


Lilt  Cottage, 
7a  Upper  Circular  Road,  Calcdtta, 
2  May,  1 881. 

My  deae  Friend, 

For  your  most  welcome  epistles  and  the  genuine 
assurances  of  kindness  and  sympathy  they  contain,  I 
must  give  you  my  heartfelt  thanks.  In  writing  to 
me  you  need  not  conceal  your  real  feelings.  Dis- 
criminating criticism  cannot  pain  me.  Even  the  re- 
proaches of  a  true  friend  are  acceptable,  and  must 
prove  beneficial.  I  have  read  your  letters  with  the 
deepest  interest,  and  I  only  wish  I  could  sit  with  you 
under  one  of  those  shady  trees  in  Oxford  which  I  saw 
during  my  short  visit,  and  talk  over  the  many  im- 
portant subjects  referred  to  therein,  for  hours  together. 
My  heart  is  full.  What  shall  I  write,  what  can  I 
write  on  those  various  subjects  within  the  short  com- 
pass of  a  letter?  Regarding  the  Cutch  Behar  mar- 
riage I  have  yet  a  great  deal  to  say.  I  thank  you  for 
the  sympathetic  view  you  have  taken  of  it.  In  cer- 
tain minor  matters  only  you  have  taken  exception 
to  the  course  I  adopted,  and  I  have  no  right  to 
quarrel,  for  you  argue  as  a  friend,  and  your  remon- 
strance is  only  friendly  counsel  and  warning.  I 
confess  I  was  silent  when  the  battle  was  raging.  My 
patience  was  repulsive  and  disgusting.  My  reticence 
was  suspicious,  and  led  to  misrepresentation  and  re- 
viling. It  has  always  been  my  habit  secretly  to  refer 
to  my  God  in  all  matters  of  importance  in  my  life 
and  to  mature  my  plans  under  His  guidance,  and  to 
make  them  known  when  I  was  almost  certain  of  suc- 
cess.    There  were  a  hundred  doubts  and  uncertainties 

VOL.  IL  I 


114  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

in  connection  with  this  marriage  proposal,  and  every 
moment  it  seemed  lilcely  to  break  down.  The  whole 
thing  seemed  most  improbable  till  it  was  a  fait 
accompli.  Even  two  hours  before  the  marriage  was 
actually  solemnised,  no  one  could  make  himself  certain 
about  the  affair :  on  the  contrary,  there  were  new 
difficulties  springing  up  which  seemed  insuperable. 
Hence  my  disposition  to  maintain  silence.  I  was 
waiting  to  find  firm  ground  upon  which  to  stand  and 
take  counsel  of  friends  in  regard  to  details,  but  the 
time  never  came,  the  marriage  question — '  to  be  or 
not  to  be ' — being  itself  an  uncertainty  till  the  last 
moment.  The  Ade*a  in  the  present  case  was  far  from 
exceptional.  I  do  not  claim  and  never  claimed  super- 
natural inspiration.  My  Ade.^a  is  a  command  of  con- 
science or  a  providential  interposition.  In  plain 
language.  I  should  say  this  marriage  is  providential ; 
and  in  this  respect  it  is  like  other  important  incidents 
in  my  life — my  renunciation  of  secular  work,  my  vow 
of  asceticism,  my  vegetarian  habits,  my  declaration  of 
faith  in  the  New  Dispensation,  &c.  A  man  who 
trusts  God  and  prays  daily  must  feel  that  all  the 
events  in  his  life,  and  even  his  daily  meals,  are  or- 
dered by  Providence.  I  saw  the  finger  of  God  in  all 
the  arranofements,  struQ-o-les,  and  trials  in  connection 
with  the  marriage.  It  was  very  like  a  political  mar- 
riage, such  as  you  speak  of.  A  whole  kingdom  was 
to  be  reformed,  and  all  my  individual  interests  were 
absorbed  in  the  vastness  of  God's  saving  economy,  or 
in  what  people  would  call  public  good.  The  Lord  re- 
quired my  daughter  for  Cutch  Behar,  and  I  surren- 
dered her.  The  trials  and  difficulties  I  have  o-one 
through  are  also,  I  believe,  providential.     They  have 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SET^.  115 

educated  and  disciplined  and  trained  me,  and  I  owe  a 
great  deal,  and  my  Church  owes  a  great  deal,  to  my 
antagonists.  The  great  result  of  all  this  agitation  is 
the  New  Dispensation.  I  thank  God  for  it.  It  is  a 
wonder,  a  marvel.  Pray  read  all  about  it,  and  judge 
for  yourself  whether  the  Holy  Spirit  is  not  moving 
India  in  the  direction  of  true  and  universal  Chris- 
tianity. I  remember  the  very  interesting  conversation 
we  had  at  the  Westminster  Deanery,  in  the  course  of 
which  you,  and  also,  I  believe,  the  excellent  Dean, 
suggested  that  the  future  Church  of  India  should  be 
altogether  Oriental,  only  it  should  honour  Christ.  You 
see  how  this  is  being  practically  carried  out.  Do  not 
think  our  Christ  is  denationalising  us.  We  are  more 
popular  now  than  in  any  previous  period  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Brahma-Samaj.  Nor  is  our  Hinduism 
setting  us  in  an  attitude  of  hostility  towards  Christ 
or  Western  science.  I  beg  you  will  read  the  'New 
Dispensation '  paper  carefully  and  let  me  know  what 
you  think  of  the  movement.  It  is  the  religion  of 
'  Comparative  Theology.'  W"e  are  giving  effect  to  the 
'  Science  of  Religion,'  of  which  you  are  the  most  dis- 
tinguished leader.  It  is  the  great  movement  of  the 
day  in  India.     Marvellous  is  this  Light  of  Heaven ! 

With  profound  respect, 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

Keshub  Chundee  Sen» 


12 


116  BIOaRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Lilt  Cottage, 

72  Upper  Cikcclar  Road,  Calcutta, 

16  May,  1 88 1. 

My  dear  Friend, 

Your  last  letter  reached  me  a  few  days  after  I 
had  posted  mine.  What  a  gratifying  coincidence ! 
In  both  letters  there  is  an  allusion  to  our  common 
friend  the  Dean  of  Westminster.  It  is  indeed  a  great 
pleasure  to  be  assured  of  the  unabated  kindness  and 
continued  friendship  of  one  whom  I  so  sincerely 
esteem  and  whose  views  and  opinions  I  so  greatly 

value.     I  have  not  yet  seen  the  answer  of . 

The  manner  in  which  he  has  treated  us  from  the 
very  beginning  of  the  controversy  is  so  utterly  un- 
worthy of  him,  and  is  marked  with  such  vacillation, 
wavering,  and  duplicity,  that  I  can  have  no  mis- 
givings in  accepting  your  verdict.  In  the  meantime 
allow  me  to  thank  you  warmly  for  your  kind  permis- 
sion to  publish  your  letters,  and  the  emphatic  assur- 
ance you  have  given  me  of  your  unreserved  and 
cordial  sympathy  in  the  cause  we  have  at  heart. 
Your  letters  cannot  but  strengthen  our  cause  greatly. 

It  seems  rather  strange  that • ,  who  professes  to 

be  a  devout  Christian,  should  withhold  his  regard  and 
sympathy  from  that  section  of  the  Brahma  community 
which  is  most  allied  to  Jesus  and  makes  the  nearest 
approach  to  the  rehgion  founded  by  Him.  As  for  his 
arguments,  they  have  been  smashed  times  beyond 
number.  In  his  private  letters  to  me  he  professes 
friendship,  and  I  have  simply  warned  him  in  the 
most  kindly  spirit  to  ascertain  facts  before  rushing 
into  print. 

I  forgot  to  ask  in  mv  last  hurried  note  whether 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  117 

some  attempt  should  not  be  made  to  promote  the 
circulation  of  the  'New  Dispensation'  in  England, 
especially  among  the  clergy  and  the  leading  laymen 
of  the  Broad  Church  party.  The  British  public  ought 
to  know  how  the  most  advanced  t}^e  of  Hinduism  in 
India  is  trying  to  absorb  and  assimilate  the  Chris- 
tianity of  Christ,  and  how  it  is  establishing  and 
spreading  under  the  name  of  the  New  Dispensation  a 
new  Hinduism  which  combines  Yoga  and  Bhakli,  and 
also  a  new  Christianity  which  blends  together  Apo- 
stolical faith  and  modern  civilisation  and  science. 
The  article  on  '  New  Sacramental  Ceremony '  in  the 
first  number  of  the  paper  seems  to  have  created  great 
interest  among  the  Christian  community  in  India, 
and  has  been  variously  commented  upon.  I  should 
also  invite  your  attention  to  '  Christ  in  Socrates,'  in 
No.  8.  Such  articles  cannot  fail  to  interest  the  Broad 
and  liberal  school  in  England,  and  by  an  interchange 
of  sentiments  we  may  hasten  the  spiritual  union  of 
the  East  and  the  West  in  Christ.  There  are  also 
hundreds,  I  believe,  in  Germany  who  have  cast  off 
orthodoxy  and  can  look  with  favour  upon  Theism 
such  as  we  inculcate  and  preach  under  the  New  Dis- 
pensation. Could  you  tell  me  the  name  of  any  liberal 
Christian  on  the  Continent  who  could  help  us  in 
securing  readers  in  Germany  and  other  countries,  and, 
if  possible,  review  the  paper  and  the  movement  it 
represents  in  some  continental  Magazine  ? 

Trusting  you  will  kindly  remember  me  to  the  Dean 
of  Westminster, 

Yours  very  truly, 

Keshub  Ch under  Sen. 


118  biographical  essays. 

My  dear  Friend, 

The  most  difficult  subject  of  all  on  which  I  feel 
that  a  perfect  understanding  between  you  and  me  is 
absolutely  necessary  is  the  true  character  of  Christ. 
It  may  seem  strange  that  a  son  of  India,  one  who  calls 
himself  a  believer  in  Brahman,  and  who  therefore,  in 
strict  theological  phraseology,  would  be  called  a  Non- 
Christian,  should  have  given  offence  to  men  who  call 
themselves  Christians  by  what  seems  to  them  lan- 
euasre  of  excessive  veneration  for  Christ.  Yet  so  it  is  : 
and  I  shall  try  to  explain  to  you  why  it  is  so,  and 
why,  in  the  case  of  some  of  your  critics  at  least,  the 
objections  to  your  deeply  impassioned  utterances 
about  Christ  arise  from  good  and  honest  motives. 

You  know  that  nothing  is  more  difficult  than  to 
draw  a  sharp  line  between  the  Divine  and  the  Human. 
At  first  nothing  seems  easier,  and  in  many  of  the  old 
religions  we  should  have  been  told  that  these  two 
terms  exclude  each  other,  like  right  and  left ;  that 
what  is  human  is  not  divine,  and  what  is  divine  is 
not  human.  One  of  the  most  wide-spread  names  for 
the  Gods  was  Immortals  (am>v'ta,  aixliporot,  immortales), 
while  men  were  emphatically  called  Mortals  (marta, 
jSpoTOi,  mortales). 

I  cannot  enter  here  into  the  origin  and  the  growth 
of  the  words  for  Deity  in  the  ancient  languages  and 
religions  of  mankind.  I  have  tried  to  show  elsewhere, 
in  my  HiUjert  Lectures  which  I  sent  you,  how  such  a 
word  as  (leva,  for  instance,  came  into  being  among  our 
common  ancestors,  how  it  expressed  at  first  one  only 
of  the  many  attributes  of  deity,  that  of  light,  but  how 
it  grew  and  expanded  its  meaning  from  one  stage  to 


KESHUB    CIIUNDER  SEX.  119 

another  in  the  religious  growth  of  our  common  ances- 
tors ;  and  how  we  Christians  in  Europe  are  still  using 
the  same  word  (deva,  deus)  which  was  applied  to 
Agni  and  Indra  in  the  earliest  hymns  of  the  Rig-Veda. 
To  give  a  definition  of  such  a  word  as  (leva.  God,  and 
its  various  modifications  in  the  different  Aryan  lan- 
guages, that  should  be  applicable  to  them  by  whom- 
soever they  may  be  used,  is  of  course  impossible. 
That  word  has  signified  everything  that  man  has  ever 
thought  to  be  divine.  Its  meaning  has  changed,  as 
we  have  changed ;  and  as  long  as  the  human  mind 
goes  on  growing,  that  word  also  will  grow,  whether 
for  better  or  for  worse. 

What  applies  to  the  names  for  God  in  the  Aryan 
languages,  holds  good  also  with  regard  to  the  divine 
names  used  by  the  Semitic  races,  and  particularly  by 
that  Semitic  race  which  interests  us  most,  the  Jewish. 
The  conception  of  God,  as  you  see  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, varied  very  considerably  at  different  times  in 
the  history  of  the  Jews.  It  reached  its  highest 
spiritual  elevation  in  the  utterances  of  some  of  the 
prophets,  and  it  sank  down  to  mere  idol-worship  even 
with  the  wisest  of  their  kings.  The  history  of  the 
Jewish  religion  has  been  so  often  and  so  fully  written 
that  here  too  I  may  refer  you  to  other  books,  and 
simply  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that,  at  the  time 
when  Christianity  arose,  the  Jewish  conception  of 
Jehovah  was  one  of  a  God  who  had  created  the  world, 
who  ruled  the  world,  but  who,  though  he  might  be  in- 
voked as  a  friend  and  even  as  a  father,  was  yet,  in 
his  essence,  entirely  different  from  man  and  the  works 
of  his  hand.  God  was  immortal ;  man  was  mortal :  to 
claim  immortality  for  man  seemed  almost  incompatible 


120  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

with  the  awe  and  reverence  which  the  Jews  felt  for 
their  immortal  God.  In  fact  the  distance  between 
God  and  man  was  perhaps  never  conceived  as  greater 
than  it  was  by  the  people  among  whom  Christ  ap- 
peared ;  and  yet  they  were  the  very  people  whom 
Christ  came  to  teach  that  '  I  and  my  Father  are  one.' 

People  who  have  carefully  read  the  sacred  books  of 
other  religions,  and  have  found  there  almost  ever}'^ 
doctrine  which  they  had  considered  as  peculiarly 
Christian,  have  sometimes  asked  me,  What  then  dis- 
tinguishes Christianity  from  other  religions'?  My 
answer  is,  that  historically  the  distinguishing  feature 
of  Christianity  lies  in  the  new  conception  of  the  rela- 
tion between  God  and  man.  Here  we  see  the  pen- 
dulum of  religious  thought  swinging  back  completely 
from  left  to  right,  from  the  Jewish  to  the  Christian 
conception  of  God.  Though  some  of  the  Jewish  pro- 
phets had  preached  Jehovah  as  a  father,  and  had 
dared  even  to  speak  of  men  as  gods,  the  stream  of 
popular  religion  was  running  in  a  very  different  chan- 
nel. To  a  Jew,  at  the  time  of  the  advent  of  Christ, 
the  very  expression  of  Son  of  God  was  blasphemy. 
It  was  different  with  Greeks  and  Romans.  Their  idea 
of  Deity  had  never  been  so  supramundane  as  that  of 
the  Jews,  and  they  had  therefore  less  difficulty  in  ac- 
cepting heroes  and  demigods,  or  even  human  beings, 
raised  to  a  level  with  their  gods.  But  taking  the 
Jewish  idea  of  Jehovah  as  it  was  preached  in  the 
synagogues,  we  can  perfectly  well  understand  why 
the  orthodox  Jews  should  have  shouted,  '  "VVe  have  a 
law,  and  by  our  law  he  ought  to  die,  because  he  made 
himself  the  Son  of  God '  (John  xix.  7). 

Here  then  is  the  vital  difference  between  Judaism 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  121 

and  Paganism  too  on  one  side,  and  Christianity  on  the 
other  ;  here  is  the  thought  which  in  the  history  of  the 
world  stamps  Christianity  as  a  new  religion.  Christ 
taught  many  things  which  other  religious  teachers 
had  taught  before,  but  Christ  taught  a  new,  his  own 
conception,  and  more  than  conception,  his  new  in- 
tuition and  realisation  of  God.  Closely  connected  with 
this  was  his  new  conception,  and  more  than  concep- 
tion— the  new  birth  of  man.  These  two  concepts  of 
God  and  man  are  so  inseparable  that  it  is  impossible 
to  modify  one  without  modifying  the  other.  If,  as  I 
know  many  do  who  call  themselves  Christians,  we 
leave  the  conception  of  Jehovah  as  we  find  it  among 
the  Jews,  and  then  represent  Christ  as  the  son  of  God, 
it  is  surely  blasphemy  even  now.  It  carries  us  back 
into  Greek  paganism,  and  it  has  actually  produced  in 
Christian  countries  forms  of  thought,  and  forms  of 
worship  paid,  not  only  to  the  Son  of  God,  but  to  the 
Mother  of  God  (^OturuKu^)  which  must  appear  to  you 
pure  idolatry. 

Christianity  is  Christianity  by  this  one  fundamental 
truth,  that  as  God  is  the  father  of  man,  so  truly,  and 
not  poetically  or  metaphorically  only,  man  is  the  son 
of  God,  participating  in  God's  very  essence  and  nature, 
though  separated  from  God  by  self  and  sin.  This 
oneness  of  nature  [oixoovaia)  between  the  Divine  and 
the  Human  does  not  lower  the  concept  of  God  by 
bringing  it  nearer  to  the  level  of  humanity;  on  the 
contrary,  it  raises  the  old  concept  of  man  and  brings  it 
nearer  to  its  true  ideal.  No  doubt  you  would  find  even 
at  the  present  day  many  theologians  to  whom  what  I 
have  just  written  to  you  would  sound  very  strange  ; 
but   that   only   shows   how   little   true  Christianity 


123  BIOGHlArHICAL   ESSAYS. 

has  as  yet  leavened  the  thoughts  of  men — how  many 
who  call  themselves  Christians  are  really  Jews,  nay, 
how  many  have  not  yet  worked  themselves  free 
from  the  pagan  concepts  of  deity.  You  have  no  doubt 
observed  among  your  English  friends  in  India  how 
easily  those  who  call  themselves  Trinitarians  fall  into 
a  worship  of  three  gods,  and  how  often  those  who  call 
themselves  Unitarians  are  no  better  than  Jews  in 
their  conception  of  deity.  The  true  relation  between 
God  and  man  had  been  dimly  foreseen  by  many  pro- 
phets and  poets,  but  Christ  was  the  first  to  proclaim 
that  relation  in  clear  and  simple  language.  He  called 
himself  the  son  of  God,  and  he  was  the  first-born  son 
of  God  in  the  fullest  sense  of  that  word.  But  he 
never  made  himself  equal  with  the  Father  in  whom 
he  lived  and  moved  and  had  his  being.  He  was  man 
in  the  new  and  true  sense  of  the  word,  and  in  the  new 
and  true  sense  of  the  word  he  was  God.  If  you  ask 
me  whether  I  am  a  Trinitarian,  I  say  No ;  if  you  ask 
me  whether  I  am  a  Unitarian,  I  say  No.  And  why  ? 
Because  I  believe  in  Christ  as  the  son  of  God.  To  my 
mind  man  is  nothing  if  he  does  not  participate  in  the 
Divine  ;  and  it  seems  to  me  that  the  Jews,  with  their 
conception  of  Jehovah,  were  perfectly  consistent  in 
not  believing  in  a  son  of  God,  or  even  in  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul.  To  you,  brought  up  in  the  schools 
of  Indian  thought,  the  participation  in  the  Divine 
must  be  quite  familiar.  Your  sages  have  expressed  it 
in  philosophical  phraseology  by  the  'Pratjjag-dtmd,  the 
Self  that  lies  behind  us,  or  the  Paramdtmd,  the  Highest 
Self.  But  we  want  something  else,  something  more 
human,  more  homely  and  yet  more  holy,  to  express 
the  same  thought  in  religious  language,  in  language 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  123 

that  should  be  intelligible  to  the  wise  and  the  foolish, 
the  old  and  the  young ;  and  that  expression  has  been 
found  by  Christ  by  calling  himself  and  all  who  believe 
in  him  the  sons  of  God. 

After  these  remarks  you  will  better  be  able  to  un- 
derstand the  danger  of  speaking  of  Christ  in  language 
which  carries  us  back  to  the  panegyrics  addressed  by 
pagan  poets  to  their  gods  and  idols.  If  you  speak  of 
Christ  as  not  perfectly  human,  in  his  own  sense  of 
the  word,  you  make  a  new  idol  of  him,  and  you 
utterly  destroy  the  very  soul  of  his  religion.  Other 
prophets  have  tried  to  reveal  to  us  what  God  is : 
Christ  has  revealed  to  us  what  ]\Ian  is,  and  that  is  the 
greatest  of  all  revelations  which  all  who  call  them- 
selves Christians  must  try  to  preserve  in  its  original 
purity.  You  may  say,  We  know  so  little  of  Christ 
and  his  original  teaching,  and  what  we  know  of  him 
is  what  his  disciples,  all  of  them  Jews,  believed  of  him. 
There  is  some  truth  in  this,  and  to  some  it  may  seem 
a  great  loss.  But  it  had  its  advantages  also.  Out  of 
the  scattered  stones  of  the  temple  which  we  find  in 
the  Gospels,  we  have  each  of  us  to  build  up  our  own 
Christ ;  and  you  know  how  different  the  ideal  and  real 
Christs  have  been  which  different  theologians  have 
built  up  for  themselves.  We  must  each  of  us  discover 
our  own  Christ.  The  Apostles  had  to  do  the  same. 
They  had  to  discover  Christ,  and  they  often  found  it 
very  hard  to  do  so.  And  while  they  saw  in  him  that 
perfection  which  changes  or  rather  restores  human 
nature  to  its  divine  original,  you  know  how  others, 
who  had  the  same  opportunities  of  judging,  believed 
that  Christ  was  possessed  of  a  devil.  It  was  then  as 
it  is  now,  and  as  it  always  will  be.     The  same  person 


124  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

whom  some  of  us  love  and  revere  as  almost  perfect, 
whose  motives  we  never  doubt,  whose  words  we  never 
question,  is  represented  by  others  as  possessed  by  all 
the  devils  of  selfishness,  falseness,  and  cruelty,  I  quite 
admit  that  there  are  statements  in  the  Gospels  that 
lend  themselves  to  very  different  interpretations :  for 
how  otherwise  could  we  have  such  different  Lives  of 
Christ  1  But  there  is  one  point  on  which  there  can  be 
no  doubt,  and  that  is  the  extreme  humility  of  Christ. 
Christ  himself  objected  to  any  approach  to  exaggerated 
language  on  the  part  of  his  friends  and  disciples.  He 
knew  both  the  small  value  of  superlative  language, 
and  the  dangers  to  which  it  might  lead.  What  would 
seem  to  us  less  liable  to  the  charge  of  exaggeration 
than  to  call  Christ  Good  MasteA  Yet  we  read  in  the 
Gospel  of  St.  Mark  (x.  i8)  that  when  a  rich  man  came 
and  kneeled  to  him,  and  asked  him,  '  Good  Master, 
what  shall  I  do  that  I  may  inherit  eternal  life?' 
Jesus  said  unto  him,  '  Why  callest  thou  me  good  ? 
There  is  none  good  but  one,  that  is  God.'  Try  to 
realise  to  yourself  one  who  could  say  that,  who  could 
turn  away  reproachfully  and  sorrowfully  from  praise 
that  sounds  to  us  so  simple  and  moderate  as  '  Good 
Master.'  What  would  he  have  said  to  the  outpourings 
of  high-sounding,  yet  often  unmeaning  praise  that  is 
sung  in  our  churches !  You  are  perhaps  more  accus- 
tomed to  ecstatic  poetry;  but  much  as  I  admire 
Oiiental  poetry,  I  think  its  profuse  display  of  hyper- 
bolic imagery  is  one  of  its  weakest  points.  If  you 
once  allow  that  extravagance  of  language,  panegyric 
will  soon  outbid  panegyric,  and  in  the  end  you  will 
have  sounds,  but  no  thoughts.  Do  we  not  turn  away 
with  shame  from  the  language  used  in  Eastern,  and 


KESHUB   CHUNDER  SEN.  125 

alas  even  in  European  Courts,  and  yet  we  dare  to 
bring  the  same  base  coin  into  the  sanctuary  of  God  ? 
Do  we  not  know  how  every  manly  soul  turns  away 
with  loathing  from  the  garbage  of  adulation,  hungry 
for  one  dry  morsel  of  honest  truth  ?  A  true  friend 
does  not  tell  his  dearest  friend  one  half  of  what  he 
feels  for  him,  and  that  very  reticence  is  the  true  test 
of  true  love.  Let  it  be  so  also  between  us  and  Christ. 
You  know  how  easy  it  is  to  repeat  the  '  Thousand 
Names  of  Vis/^«u  ' — and  you  also  know  by  whom  they 
are  repeated  most  frequently  and  most  loudly.  Surely 
you  will  understand  then  why  others  should  shrink 
from  such  high-flown  and,  for  that  very  reason,  so 
often  empty  or  unrealised  language,  and  stand  almost 
silent  before  the  face  of  Christ,  feeling  that  in  his 
presence  words  are  hardly  wanted,  and  that  one  kind 
word,  or  still  better  one  kind  deed  for  Christ's  sake,  is 
better  than  sacrifice,  and  praise,  and  long  prayer. 

Forgive  me  for  having  thus  pointed  out  to  you  what 
seems  to  me  a  real  danger  in  all  religions,  and  more 
particularly  in  those  of  the  East,  and  believe  me, 

Ever  yours  very  sincerely, 

F.  M.  M. 


Lilt  Cottage, 

72  TJPPEB  Circular  Koad,  Calcutta, 

9  July,  18S1. 

My  dear  Friend, 

There  is  hardly  a  syllable  in  your  last  epistle 
which  I  should  hesitate  to  endorse.  You  have  said 
exactly  what  I  should  have  said,  only  in  a  more 
learned   and   philosophical  style,  such  as  one  would 


126  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

expect  from  you.  So  far  as  your  intellectual  estimate 
of  Christ  is  concerned  I  do  not  think  there  is  much 
difference  between  us.  I  too  regard  him  as  the  Son 
of  God,  and  would  never  give  him  higher  honour.  I 
see  in  him  not  merely  an  ethical  teacher,  nor  a  mere 
saint  of  unexampled  devotion  and  unblemished  cha- 
racter, but  '  a  greater  than  Socrates,'  inasmuch  as  he 
was  the  Son  of  God.  I  have  often  said,  as  my  pub- 
lished lectures  and  sermons  will  show,  that  the  dis- 
tinctive feature  of  Christ's  doctrine  and  life  was  his 
divine  sonship.  I  stand,  as  you  do,  between  the  or- 
thodox Trinitarians  on  the  one  hand  and  the  rational- 
istic Unitarians  on  the  other.  M}^  position  is  that  of 
a  Uni-trinitarian.  My  explanation  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  you  will  find  in  my  lecture  on  '  Great 
Men'  and  in  the  later  numbers  of  the  'New  Dispen- 
sation.' I  am  so  glad  and  thankful  that  the  Spirit  of 
God  has  helped  me  to  work  my  way  through  Hin- 
duism to  the  point  where  an  enlightened  Christianity 
has  brought  you.  I  have  always  disclaimed  the 
Christian  name,  and  will  not  identify  myself  with  the 
Christian  Church,  for  I  set  my  face  completely  against 
the  popuhir  doctrine  of  Christ's  divinity.  Yet  I  re- 
cognise divinity  in  some  form  in  Christ,  in  the  sense 
in  which  the  Son  partakes  of  the  Father's  divine  na- 
ture. We  in  India  look  upon  the  son  as  the  father 
born  again.  The  wife  is  called  .^^aya,  for  in  her  the 
father  is  born  in  the  shape  of  the  son.  Hence  the 
Hindu,  while  regarding  the  father  and  the  son  as  dis- 
tinct and  separate  persons,  connects  them  in  thought 
by  some  kind  of  identity.  This  identity  does  not 
merge  the  son  in  the  father,  does  not  by  pure  fiction 
exalt  the  son  to  the  position  of  the  father,  but  leaving 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  127 

the  absolute  difference  of  relationship  intact,  main- 
tains nevertheless  a  unity  or  likeness  of  nature.  The 
son  is  made  in  the  image  of  his  father,  and  he  par- 
takes of  the  father's  nature.  Looking  upon  Christ's 
relation  to  God  in  this  light  we  can  readily  compre- 
hend the  divinity  of  Jesus  as  contradistinguished  from 
his  '  Deity.'  True  sonship,  such  as  it  was  in  Christ, 
must  be  divine.  The  Father  was  in  him  and  he  was 
in  the  Father.  If  this  be  your  position,  as  it  is  mine, 
I  do  not  see  any  material  diflerence  between  us  con- 
cerning Christ's  sonship  or  his  divine  nature  as  mani- 
fested in  true  manhood.  If  intellectually  there  is  no 
divergence,  is  there  any  difference  in  emotion  or  de- 
votion 1  You  speak  of  prayer  and  praise.  'Long 
prayer '  to  Christ  or  any  other  prophet  I  thoroughly 
interdict.  It  is  contrary  to  our  doctrine.  We 
pray  only  to  God  for  our  salvation.  In  regard  to 
saints  we  can  only  hold  '  communion.'  We  go  on 
'  pilgrimage  '  to  the  saints  in  heaven,  and  hold  loving 
and  reverent  communion  in  the  recesses  of  the  heart. 
If  we  do  not  worship  or  pray  unto  prophets,  we  cer- 
tainly love  them  fervently  and  praise  them  with  in- 
tense reverence.  Perhaps  it  is  to  this  that  you  take 
exception.  And  well  you  may.  In  spirit  Ave  agree  ; 
we  disagree  in  forms.  The  forms  of  one  nation  are 
apt  to  be  repulsive  and  even  shocking  to  another. 
Our  Oriental  nature  is  our  apology  for  the '  impassioned 
utterances,'  the  '  language  of  excessive  veneration,' 
'  high-flown  language,'  &c.  you  speak  of.  How  can 
I,  my  friend,  destroy  my  Asiatic  nature,  how  can 
I  discard  the  language  of  poetry  and  emotion  and  in- 
spiration which  is  my  life  and  nature  ?  To  adopt  anj' 
other  language  would  cost  me  much  effort,  would  be 


128  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

artificial,  mechanical,  unnatural,  and,  I  may  add, 
hypocritical.  I  must  speak  exactly  as  I  feel ;  and 
you  know  my  devotion  is,  as  a  rule,  always  extem- 
poraneous. Our  tears  during  prayer,  our  fervent  and 
constant  apostrophising,  our  ascetic  habits,  our  very 
forms  of  devotion  in  which  we  speak  of  God  as  One 
whom  we  see  and  hear,  may  be  disagreeable  to  Euro- 
pean eyes  and  ears,  but  so  long  as  they  are  natural 
and  national,  and  not  affected  or  borrowed,  we  need 
not  be  afraid  of  serious  consequences.  There  is  cer- 
tainly great  danger  in  unreal  show  and  Pharisaic 
sanctimoniousness  and  superstitious  mysticism,  but 
when  the  doctrine  is  pure  and  the  heart  speaks  natur- 
ally and  spontaneously,  from  impulse  and  inspiration, 
the  poetry  of  religion,  for  it  is  nothing  more,  can  do 
no  harm,  but  will  only  kindle  enthusiasm  and  sweeten 
faith.  In  these  'apostolical'  days  in  which  we  live 
you  must  make  some  allowance  for  warmth  of  feeling, 
which  will  perhaps  die  away  with  the  present  genera- 
tion. Accept,  my  dear  friend,  my  solemn  assurance 
that  the  danger  before  us  is  not  superstition,  but  dry- 
ness and  scepticism,  and  that  they  are  moved  by  the 
Spirit  of  God  who  indulge  in  the  sweet  poetry  of 
living  and  real  faith.  It  is  such  a  pleasure  to  read 
your  letters.  Please  write  to  me  again  and  again,  and 
believe  me, 

Yours  ever  very  sincerely, 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen. 


When  Stanley,  the  Dean  of  Westminster,  died  (July, 
1881),  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  was  anxious  to  know 
more   about  him.     Stanley  had  been  to  the  end  a 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  129 

staunch  friend  of  Kesliub  Chunder  Son.  As  -was  usual 
with  him,  the  attacks  on  the  Indian  Reformer  had 
only  served  to  strengthen  Stanley's  sympathy  for 
him,  and  he  had  several  times  asked  me  whether  and 
how  he  could  help  him.  When  I  began  to  write  down 
some  of  my  recollections  of  the  Dean,  which  I  thought 
might  be  of  interest  and  possibly  of  use  to  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen,  they  soon  grew  be}- ond  the  limits  of  a 
letter,  and  I  could  only  send  him  a  few  of  my 
notes  from  time  to  time.  Some  were  written  soon 
after  the  Dean's  death,  others  later.  Some  have  been 
published  already,  others  are  not  quite  fit  for  publica- 
tion yet. 

My  dear  Friend, 

You  know  by  this  time  that  we  have  lost  Stan- 
ley— a  true  friend  to  me,  a  true  friend  to  you,  a  true 
friend  to  many  others.  He  had  many  friends  who 
loved  him,  but  the  number  of  those  whom  he  loved 
was  greater  still.  Most  men  wait  till  they  are  loved 
and  then  love  in  return.  His  whole  disposition  to- 
wards the  world  was  one  of  welcome.  His  heart  was 
ever  ready  to  believe  the  best  of  every  one.  His  arms 
were  always  open  to  receive  you.  He  was  one  of 
those  who  liked  to  shake  hands  with  both  hands.  So 
it  ought  to  be;  so,  one  would  think,  it  would  be 
naturally.  Why  should  man  not  welcome  man'^ 
Alas,  the  heart  that  has  been  deceived,  and  deceived 
more  than  once,  knoAvs  tlie  answer.  It  is  so  bitter  to 
trust  and  to  find  one's  trust  met  by  envy,  cunning, 
ill-will.  .  .  .  Stanley  too  must  have  had  his  bitter 
experiences,  but  his  arms  were  open  to  the  last.  He 
did  not  sum  up  the  experience  of  his  life  like  a  famous 
VOL.  ir.  K 


130  BIOGRAPHICAL    ESSAYS. 

statesman  lately  deceased, — '  Friend  is  the  synonym  of 
traitor ' ! 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Stanley  had  many  enemies. 
No  one  was  so  thoroughly  hated,  and,  I  believe,  is  so 
still.     And  how  can  it  be  otherwise  ? 

He  was  a  truth-loving,  honest,  and  outspoken  man, 
and  the  world  would  be  very  different  from  what  it  is, 
if  such  a  man  had  not  been  hated.  He  was  not  like 
other  people,  and  that  is  what  other  people  are  Jeast 
inclined  to  forgive. 

And  how  was  he  different  from  other  people,  you 
may  ask.  I  believe,  first  of  all,  because  he  always 
looked  upon  this  world  in  its  true  light,  not  as  a  home, 
but  as  a  journey.  Hence  he  was  never  entirely  ab- 
sorbed in  the  contests  and  controversies  of  the  day. 
He  had  his  opinions  and  convictions,  religious  and 
political,  but  his  horizon  was  too  wide  ever  to  lose 
himself  altogether  in  our  small  lanes  and  valleys. 
With  other  men  every  little  question  becomes  what 
they  call  a  question  of  life  and  death ;  the  thought  of 
the  possibility  of  error,  or  of  surrender,  never  enters 
their  mind.  They  fight  without  looking  or  listening. 
They  raise  dust  and  smoke  till  they  caimot  see  through 
the  clouds  which  they  themselves  have  raised.  Stan- 
ley was  always  willing  to  listen,  and  even,  while  hold- 
ing determinately  to  his  own  opinions,  he  could  at 
least  imagine  that  he  might  be  wrong,  and  part  from 
his  opponents  with  a  few  kind  words,  as  if  saying, 
'  Let  us  wait,  the  time  will  come  when  we  shall  both 
know  better.' 

Stanley  had  one  great  advantage  in  starting  in  life, 
an  advantage  which  is  not  sufficiently  appreciated  by 
those  who  possess  it,  because  it  is  rightly  considered 


KESHUB  CHUNDER   SEN.  131 

very  honourable  if  those  who  do  not  possess  it  sur- 
mount the  difficulties  of  life  without  ever  forfeiting 
their  self-respect.  Stanley  belonged  to  a  good  family, 
and  was  always  pecuniarily  independent.  He  never 
knew  the  temptations  of  a  poor  struggling  man,  who 
has  often  to  choose  between  sacrifieino:  the  chances  of 
obtaining  a  position  of  usefulness  and  influence  in  the 
world,  to  which  he  has  a  good  right,  and  making 
certain  concessions  which,  however  small,  colour  his 
character  through  life.  A  man  who  has  once  been 
silent  when  he  ought  to  have  spoken,  or  who  has  ever 
spoken  when  he  ought  to  have  been  silent,  will  never 
be  the  same  again,  not  perhaps  in  the  eyes  of  the 
world  which  calls  speech  silver  and  silence  gold,  but 
in  his  own  eyes,  if  he  has  eyes  to  see.  And  these 
temptations  are  great,  so  great  that  we  ought  to  be 
very  lenient  in  judging  a  poor  man  who  may  see 
actual  want,  loss  of  influence,  loss  of  usefulness  on 
one  side,  while  one  small  concession  to  the  world 
would  lead  him  to  the  bench  of  Judges  or  Bishops,  or 
any  other  place  for  which  he  is  the  fittest  man, 

Stanley  had  his  ambition,  he  knew  what  he  had  a 
right  to  expect,  aye  to  demand  ;  but  he  could  aflbrd 
to  wait.  He  had  not  to  push  and  to  urge  his  claims 
himself  or  through  others,  and  he  thus  remained  a  free 
man  through  life.  He  was  content  to  be  a  College 
Tutor,  a  Canon  of  Canterbury,  a  Professor  at  Oxford, 
and  at  last  a  Dean  of  Westminster.  He  was  content, 
nay  he  was  proud  of  his  position.  Yet,  if  he  had 
been  a  worldly  and  what  is  called  a  prudent  man,  he 
might  have  been  a  Bishop  and  an  Archbishop  long 
before  others. 

When  I  first  knew  him  as  a  young  Tutor  at  Uni- 
K  a 


132  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

versity  College,  I  was  often  struck  by  his  boldness  as 
compared  with  the  prudence  of  other  friends  of  mine. 
I  did  not  know  then  that  he  was  a  man  who  could 
afibrd  to  walk  straight  forward,  without  looking  right 
or  left,  and  I  honoured  him  all  the  more  for  what 
seemed  to  me  the  highest  chivalry  of  truth.  Not  that 
I  honour  him  less,  now  that  I  know  how  strong  and 
impregnable  his  position  was,  for,  after  all,  wealth 
does  not  always  produce  independence  of  thought  and 
word  and  deed.  Only  I  do  not  perhaps  place  him  now 
quite  so  high  above  all  his  contemporaries  as  I  did  when 
I  was  first  drawn  into  the  peculiar  life  of  Oxford,  and 
began  to  watch  the  bold  or  timid  steps  in  the  careers 
of  men  who  have  since  risen  to  eminence.  There  is  one 
expression  in  English  which  I  have  always  liked  very 
much.  'He  has  an  independence,'  that  is,  he  has  suf- 
ficient to  live  without  caring  for  frowns  or  favours. 

There  was  another  feature  in  Stanley's  character 
which  from  the  first  attracted  me  strongly  towards 
him.  Not  being  a  scheming  or  diplomatising  man 
himself,  he  did  not  look  upon  others  as  if  they  were 
always  driving  at  something.  One  could  speak  to 
him  unreservedly,  almost  thoughtlessly.  One  knew 
he  believed  all  one  said.  He  would  forgive  even  a 
stupid,  silly,  or  selfish  remark,  and  interpret  every 
man  according  to  the  best  meaning  of  which  he  would 
admit.  There  was  in  him  a  serene  transparency,  and 
one  felt  that  in  speaking  with  him  there  was  no 
necessity  for  weighing  every  word,  or  calculating  its 
effect,  or  guarding  against  every  possible  misinterpre- 
tation. It  was  a  treat  to  speak  with  him  and  to  find 
that  he  really  took  one  for  better  than  one  was — it 
made  one  bettei*.     It  is  one  of  the  greatest  miseries  of 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  133 

our  artificial  life  to  have  always  to  be  on  the  guard 
against  possible  misunderstandings.  You  must  have 
felt  that  when  you  had  to  clothe  your  Eastern  thoughts 
in  Western  words.  I  have  felt  it  myself  very  often 
when  trying  to  translate  my  German  thoughts  into 
English  idiom.  There  are  little  niceties  of  expression 
which  it  is  difficult  to  learn  later  in  life.  Many  times 
I  know  I  have  been  misunderstood  and  have  offended 
people  simply  from  a  certain  carelessness  of  expression. 
If  one  has  to  look  out  for  the  right  word  and  does  not 
find  it  at  once,  one  often  blurts  out  the  next  best. 
One  sees  at  once,  even  without  the  gift  of  thought- 
reading,  that  there  is  a  peculiar  taste  about  that  word 
which  is  not  quite  palatable  to  one's  friend.  One 
might  stop  and  explain,  but  that  often  makes  matters 
worse,  and  so  one  leaves  it  and  goes  on,  trusting  to 
one's  friend's  good-nature.  With  Stanley  I  never  had 
that  feeling,  even  when  I  was  a  mere  beginner  and 
bungler  in  English,  I  knew  always  that  he  would  un- 
derstand what  I  really  meant.  After  all,  we  are  all 
stammerers.  Even  the  most  eloquent  express  but 
half  of  what  they  feel  and  mean.  We  must  all  trust 
to  a  Lector  Benevolns,  and  that  is  what  Stanley  was 
at  all  times  and  with  all  men. 

Another  feature  which  was  most  strongly  marked 
in  Stanley's  character  was  his  indignation  at  any  in- 
justice or  even  unfairness  committed  against  a  man 
who,  whether  from  weakness  or  other  circumstances, 
was  unable  to  defend  himself.  Again  and  again  have 
I  seen  Stanley  rushing  into  the  fray  when  he  sus- 
pected want  of  fair  play.  Again  and  again  have  I 
seen  him  assisting  men  for  whom  he  had  really  no 
sympathy,  nay  defending  others  whom  he  naturally 


134  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

shrank  from,  simply  because  they  were  ill-treated  by 
the  mob,  whatever  that  mob  might  be.  This  kind  of 
chivalry  may  be  carried  too  far,  but  nothing  after  all 
is  so  amiable  and  so  attractive  as  this  Quixotic  cha- 
racter. The  world  would  be  intolerable  if  it  were  not 
for  a  few  such  true  knights.  He  was  opposed  to  the 
publication  of  '  Essays  and  Reviews,'  but  when  they 
were  published  and  attacked,  as  they  were,  with  clubs 
and  tomahawks,  Stanley  fought  more  valiantly  than 
any  of  the  Seven,  and  it  was  said  at  the  time,  perhaps 
truly,  that  he  then  forfeited  his  chance  of  a  mitre. 
Stanley  never  went  so  far  as  Colenso.  He  did  not 
even  see  the  value  of  Colenso's  criticism.  He  knew 
what  ancient  history  meant,  and  to  his  mind  many  of 
the  contradictions,  worked  out  so  laboriously  by  the 
brave  Bishop,  were  really  confirmations  of  the  his- 
torical genuineness  of  the  Old  Testament.  They  were 
what  a  true  historian,  who  knows  the  conditions  under 
which  the  earliest  literary  documents  are  composed, 
collected,  and  preserved,  would  expect.  The  absence 
of  such  contradictions  would  have  seemed  to  him 
suspicious.  But  whatever  Stanley's  own  views  and 
feelings  might  be,  when  the  Bishops  and  their  friends 
tried  to  crush  argument  by  authority,  he  stood  forth, 
undismayed  by  clamour  and  threats,  and  to  the  last  re- 
mained true  to  Colenso,  though  equally  true,  as  we 
know,  to  his  Old  Testament,  as  a  real  work  of  anti- 
quity, possessing  all  those  characteristics  which  an 
ancient  history  ought  to  possess,  and  none  of  those  of 
a  short-hand  report  in  our  modern  newspapers.  You 
owe  some  of  his  sympathy  to  the  violent  attacks  that 
were  made  on  you,  and  I  can  trace  the  origin  of  his 
friendship  for  me  to  a  similar  cause. 


KESIIUB   CIIUNDER   SEN.  135 

Stanley's  character  as  a  theologian,  and  as  a  politi- 
cian too,  in  fact  the  whole  tone  of  his  mind,  was  what 
I  must  call  historical.  Learn,  how  things  have  be- 
come what  they  are,  and  you  will  understand  them, 
approve  of  them,  or  at  all  events  bear  with  them  for  a 
while,  till  they  can  become  or  can  be  made  to  become 
something  better.  This  is  the  key-note  in  every  one 
of  Stanley's  books  from  the  first  to  the  last,  and  he  did 
not  wait  for  Evolutionism  to  teach  him  that  lesson^. 

It  has  sometimes  been  said  that  Stanley  was  not 
quite  outspoken,  that  he  did  not  say  all  he  knew,  that 
he  submitted  to  many  things  which  he  could  not  have 
approved  in  his  heart.  Is  there  one  man  of  whom  the 
same  might  not  be  said  1  We  all  know  a  great  deal 
more,  or  are  working  up  to  know  a  great  deal  more 
than  we  are  prepared  to  say  and  publish  to  the  world. 
What  a  man  like  Stanley  puts  forward,  he  must  be 
prepared  to  defend  against  the  whole  world  ;  and  if  he 
feels  that  he  is  unable  to  do  that,  he  would  rightly 
shrink  from  a  step  that  might  defeat  the  very  object 
he  had  in  view.  On  many  points  our  knowledge  may 
be  sufficient  to  satisfy  ourselves,  but  far  from  sufficient 
to  satisfy  others,  and  to  silence  all  possible  objections. 

Again,  do  we  not  all  submit  to  many  things  which 
we  do  not  approve  1  One  man  may  be  a  republican, 
and  yet  submit  to  a  monarchical  government ;  and  an- 
other may  be  an  imperialist,  and  yet  submit  to  a  re- 
publican government.  Stanley  certainly  did  not  ap- 
prove of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  but  he  signed  them 
as  an  historical  document,  knowing  their  origin  and 

*  Some  of  what  I  had  written  here  on  this  side  of  Stanley's  character, 
has  been  published  in  an  article,  '  Forgotten  Bibles,'  in  the  'Nineteenth 
Century,'  June,  1S84,  pp.  1017,  seq 


136  BIOaEAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

their  historical  purpose,  and  accepting  them  as  a  com- 
promise between  the  different  parties  that  have  formed 
the  Church  of  England. 

How  could  we  have  any  religion,  how  could  we 
have  any  Church,  without  a  compromise  ?  It  is  dif- 
ferent in  philosophy.  There  every  man  may  go  his 
own  way,  and  speak  his  own  language.  But  it  is  the 
very  nature  of  religion  to  be  a  compromise,  a  compro- 
mise between  the  young  and  the  old,  the  wise  and  the 
foolish,  all  of  whom  are  to  use  the  same  language, 
though  they  must  use  it  each  in  his  own  way.  Now 
Stanley  was  a  man  of  such  strong  human  sympathies, 
and  so  ready  to  enter  into  the  thoughts  and  feelings 
of  others,  that  he  would  have  been  the  last  man  to 
disturb  the  religious  peace  of  anybody.  Who  would 
like  to  wake  a  child  from  its  peaceful  slumber  ?  We 
stand  by  its  cradle  and  watch  the  little  rosebud,  and 
hardly  draw  our  breath  for  fear  of  breaking  in  upon 
its  perfect  bliss.  All  we  can  do  is  to  be  near,  so  that, 
when  the  child  awakes,  it  should  not  be  frightened  at 
finding  itself  quite  alone.  Stanley  knew  that,  so  far 
as  mere  happiness  is  concerned,  nothing  is  happier  than 
the  faith  of  childhood,  nothing  more  blessed  than  the 
continuance  of  that  faith  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave. 

In  meeting  friends  who  had  that  faith,  Stanley 
could  enter  into  their  feelings  with  all  the  truth  and 
warmth  of  a  man  who  liked  nothing  better  than  to  be 
a  child  once  more.  Is  that  dishonesty  %  As  well  j^ou 
might  call  it  dishonest  to  say  that  the  sun  rises,  in- 
stead of  saying  that  the  earth  sets. 

But  with  men  who  were  no  longer  children,  he  was 
a  man,  and  an  honest  man.  He  knew  that  the  time 
comes  when,  whether  we  like  it  or  not,  the  child  must 


KESHUB    CIlUNDEll   SEN.  137 

wake,  •when  the  man  must  face  the  world  such  as  it 
is,  not  such  as  he  would  wish  it  to  be. 

A  dear  friend  of  Stanley's,  a  high  dignitary  in  the 
Church,  asked  me  soon  after  his  death,  '  Tell  me,  did 
Stanley  believe  in  miracles'?'  I  said,  'Certainly  not,' 
and  he  seemed  quite  relieved,  and  repeated  again  and 
again,  '  Certainly  not,  certainly  not.'  And  yet  this 
might  give  you  a  false  idea  of  Stanley.  He  certainly 
did  not  believe  in  miracles  as  they  are  believed  in  by 
many,  as  irregularities  committed  on  purpose.  He 
was  not  troubled  by  miracles.  He  knew,  as  every 
historian  knows,  or  by  this  time  ought  to  know,  that 
there  is  no  religion  without  miracles,  and  yet  that 
the  founders  of  the  three  hiijhest  reli<2;ions  have  unani- 
mously  condemned  miracles.  Your  ancient  native 
religion  is  full  of  miracles,  and  it  would  be  quite  as 
true  to  call  them  psychologically  inevitable  as  to  call 
them  physically  impossible.  But  Stanley  knew  that 
certain  minds  cannot  believe  anything  unless  they 
first  believe  in  miracles.  To  these  men  of  little  faith 
miriacles  are  everything,  and  if  their  faith  in  miracles 
were  undermined,  their  faith  in  everything  else  would 
crumble  to  pieces.  This  may  seem  strange  to  you,  for 
I  am  sure  you  did  not  believe  in  Christ  because  He 
could  change  water  into  wine,  or  cast  out  devils,  or 
heal  the  sick,  or  feed  the  hungry,  or  calm  the  storm, 
or  walk  on  the  water.  A  man  may  be  believed  to  have 
done  all  that  and  much  more,  as  in  the  case  of  some  of 
your  ancient  Rishis,  and  yet  you  would  not  believe  his 
doctrines  unless  they  could  command  a  very  different 
sanction.  To  you,  all  the  facts,  whether  historical  or 
legendary,  in  the  life  of  Chiist  must  seem  entirely  out- 
side the  temple  of  Christian  truth  ;  and  the  question 


BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 


whether  the  miracles  were  accurately  reported  by  con- 
temporary witnesses  would  probably  affect  you  as  little 
as  it  affects  millions  of  Christians,  who  either  cannot 
read  or  have  no  time  for  reading.  Let  us  only  see  clearly 
that  facts  can  never  be  believed,  unless  we  do  violence 
to  the  true  sense  of  that  word.  Facts  may  be  either 
doubted  or  not,  either  accepted  or  not,  either  rejected 
or  not,  but  they  cannot  be  believed  as  we  believe  the 
existence  of  God,  the  sonship  of  Christ,  the  immorta- 
lity of  the  soul,  or  the  holiness  of  truth.  If  you  read 
the  words  which  Christ  addressed  to  Thomas  (St. 
John  XX.  29),  '  Blessed  are  they  that  have  not  seen, 
and  yet  have  believed,'  you  will  see  that  they  have  a 
much  deeper  meaning  than  is  commonly  supposed,  and 
that  Christ  himself  placed  a  faith  without  sight  high 
above  a  faith  with  sight. 

There  is  hardly  a  miracle  in  the  New  Testament 
which  to  a  man  who  knows  the  language  of  other  re- 
ligions is  startling.  Buddha  was  called  the  great 
physician,  and  we  have  no  reason  to  doubt  that  Christ 
too  was  a  true  physician,  and  could  heal,  not  only 
spiritual,  but  also  physical  diseases.  Which  of  the 
two  gifts  Christ  himself  placed  highest,  we  may  learn 
from  his  own  words,  when  he  sends  his  message  to 
John  the  Baptist,  saying  '  that  the  blind  see,  the  lame 
walk,  the  lepers  are  cleansed,  the  deaf  hear,  the  dead 
are  raised— and  to  the  poor  the  gospel  is  preached.' 

But  you  may  say  that,  although  most  miracles  per- 
formed by  Christ  offer  no  difficulties  to  an  historical 
mind,  such  as  Stanley's  was,  there  are  two  miracles 
performed,  not  by,  but  as  it  were  for  Christ,  which 
must  have  been  a  stumbling-block  to  an  honest  mind, 
such  as  Stanley's  was,  namely  the  miraculous  birth, 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  139 

and  "what  may  be  called  the  miraculous  death  of 
Christ.  I  cannot  tell  for  certain  what  Stanley  thought 
on  these  two  subjects,  though  some  of  his  remarks  on 
a  sermon  preached  in  Westminster  Abbey  by  our 
common  friend  Kingsley  leave  little  doubt  in  my 
mind  that  he  looked  for  true  divinity  elsewhere  than 
in  the  cradle  and  in  the  grave.  But  to  your  mind 
these  two  miracles  ought  to  be  the  least  perplexing. 
You  know  that  whenever  the  founder  of  a  religion 
has  been  raised  to  a  superhuman  or  divine  rank,  the 
human  mind  rebels  against  an  ordinary  birth  and  an 
ordinary  death.  It  is  extremely  curious  to  observe 
how  on  this  point  human  ingenuity  tries  to  outbid 
divine  wisdom.  The  highest  wisdom,  whether  we  call 
it  God  or  Nature,  conceived  one  kind  of  birth  as 
the  best  for  man.  Man  invented  what  he  thought  a 
more  becoming  birth  for  God.  The  intention  was 
good,  no  doubt,  but  it  was,  to  say  the  least,  uncalled 
for.  Is  there  anything  more  wonderful  than  the  or- 
dinary birth  of  a  child'?  is  there  anything  more 
holy?  anything  that  can  more  truly  be  called  a 
miracle  ?  Or  does  a  miracle  cease  to  be  a  miracle 
because  it  happens  every  day  ?  Does  the  marvellous 
become  common  because  it  happens  every  minute'? 
Depend  upon  it,  no  miraculous  birth  will  ever  outbid 
the  miraculousness  of  the  plain  birth  of  a  child. 
'  What  God  hath  cleansed,  that  call  not  thou  common.' 
And  as  to  Christ's  real  resurrection,  is  it  credible 
that,  when  we  are  told  again  and  again  that  Christ 
came  to  bring  life  and  immortality  to  light,  the 
simple  words  that  Christ  rose  from  the  dead  should 
have  been  taken  in  a  carnal,  not  in  a  spiritual  sense  ? 
How  would  a  carnal  resurrection  and  ascension  benefit 


140  EIOGKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

US  ?  Does  heaven  still  mean  the  clouds  as  it  did  in 
the  Veda?  Did  St.  Paul  really  mean  that  unless 
Christ's  body  had  been  carried  through  the  clouds,  his 
faith  in  Christ  would  be  in  vain  ?  It  would  be  fearful 
to  think  so.  St.  Paul  did  not  even  say,  '  If  Christ  is 
not  raised,  the  dead  rise  not,'  but  '  If  the  dead  rise 
not,  then  is  not  Christ  raised.'  Of  this  I  am  perfectly 
certain,  that  if  you  had  said  to  Stanley,  '  Am  I  a 
Christian  if  I  believe  only  in  the  spiritual  resurrection 
of  Christ? '  he  would  have  said '  Yes,  and  all  the  more, 
if  you  do  not  believe  that  his  body  was  taken  up  to 
the  clouds.'  I  often  regret  that  the  Jews  buried,  and 
did  not  burn  their  dead,  for  in  that  case  the  Christian 
idea  of  the  resurrection  would  have  remained  far  more 
spiritual,  and  the  conception  of  immortality  would 
have  become  less  material. 

One  can  hardly  realise  what  Christianity  would  be 
if  such  men  as  Stanley  ever  became  its  true  repre- 
sentatives. We  should  not  want  Missionaries  then. 
Instead  of  a  few  converts  here  and  there  being  pressed 
to  come  in,  millions  would  press  to  come  in,  and  many 
likeyourselfwouldsay,  We  have  long  been  Christians. 
If  you  had  lived  in  the  first  century,  you  would  have 
been  a  disciple  of  Christ,  whereas  now  you  say  truly, 
because  I  am  a  disciple  of  Christ,  therefore  I  cannot 
be  a  Christian.  However,  we  must  not  despair.  I 
well  remember  your  parting  words  in  Oxford,  '  And 
if  fifty  years  hence  people  should  find  out  that  I  have 
been  doing  the  work  of  Christ,  what  harm  is  there  ? ' 
There  are  many  in  Europe  who  must  be  content  to 
say  the  same,  and  Christ's  best  disciples  are  found, 
I  believe,  among  those  whom  so-called  believers  call 
unbelievers. 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  141 

If  what  I  write  to  you  can  do  any  good  in  India, 
remember  that  I  never  have  any  secrets.    If  my  views 
are  wrong,  they  can  be  corrected ;  if  they  are  right, 
the  more  I  am  abused  for  them,  the  better. 
Yours  very  truly, 

F.  Max  Duller. 

Oxford, 
7  May,  1S82. 

My  dear  Frtexd, 

I  have  long  wished  to  wi'ite  to  you  again,  and  to 
congratulate  you  on  the  cessation  of  the  war.  I  am 
so  glad  that  you  have  left  the  battle-field  for  better 
fields  of  usefulness.  You  have  a  far  too  important 
work  to  do,  to  waste  your  time  in  personal  contro- 
versy. Go  on  preaching,  teaching,  and  doing  as  much 
good  as  you  can  ;  that  is  the  best  answer  to  all  obloquy. 
You  know  I  do  not  flatter  you.  I  have  openly  told 
you  when  I  differed  from  you,  but  I  have  far  too 
high  an  idea  of  the  work  which  you  are  meant  to  do 
on  earth  to  ask  any  further  explanations  from  you  on 
matters  where  after  all  you  may  be  right  and  I  wi'ong. 
No,  no,  we  must  learn  to  trust  each  other  even  when 
we  do  not  always  understand  each  other.  You  are  an 
Eastern,  I  am  a  Western.  There  is  One  who  knows 
who  is  right  and  who  is  wi'ong,  and  that  is  the  Purusha 
within  us. 

I  have  still  many  things  to  tell  you  about  our  friend 
Stanley.  I  miss  him  very  much.  He  always  re- 
mained true  to  you.  After  he  had  once  trusted  a  man, 
he  seldom  dropped  him  again.  His  troubles  often  re- 
minded me  of  your  troubles.  He  always  complained 
that  he  had  achieved  so  little — that  he  had  lost  all 


142  BIOaRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

influence  in  the  Church.  He  little  knew  how  much 
he  had  achieved,  how  great  his  influence  really  was. 
His  death  revealed  his  greatness.  I  feel  sure  we  ought 
not  to  thiQk  so  much  about  visible  success,  we  ought 
not  to  be  disheartened  at  apparent  failure  even.  All 
we  can  do  is  to  move  on  straight,  and  not  to  mind  if 
our  straight  line  seems  crooked  to  the  crooked.  Even 
if  you  were  to  do  nothing  more,  you  ought  to  feel 
that  you  have  done  a  great  and  good  work,  which 
will  never  be  undone  again.  That  ought  to  cheer 
you,  and  make  you  go  on  with  your  work  cheerfully. 
I  am  going  to  Cambridge  next  week,  having  been  in- 
vited by  the  University  to  give  some  Lectures  on 
India.  I  have  chosen  for  my  subject,  '  What  can  India 
teach  nsV     I  hope  you  will  approve. 

Believe  me,  yours  very  sincerely, 

F.  Max  Muller. 


Lilt  Cottage, 

73  Upper  Cikcolar  Eoad,  Calcutta, 

5  August,  1883. 

My  dear  Friend, 

I  had  hoped  to  write  to  you  from  the  Himalayas, 
where  I  went  for  a  brief  sojourn  for  the  benefit  of  my 
health,  shortly  after  the  receipt  of  your  very  kind  and 
cheering  message.  These  stupendous  and  lofty  heights 
are  dear  and  sacred  to  us  Indians,  as  reminders  of  the 
departed  glory  of  our  fatherland,  and  as  a  source  of 
living  inspiration  amid  the  grovelling  cares  of  the 
world.  Nor  are  they  less  dear  and  sacred  to  you, 
whose  heart  is  so  thoroughly  Eastern  and  Indian. 
Perhaps   you    honour   our   country   and    its   ancient 


KESHUB    CHUNDER   SEN.  143 

literature  more  than  we  natives  of  the  soil  do.  And 
I  am  sure  a  letter  from  the  Himalayas  you  would 
have  hailed  with  peculiar  interest  and  joy.  Ill-health, 
however,  prevented  my  writing  to  you  from  there ; 
and  though  I  have  since  my  return  often  wished  to 
w^-ite,  I  have  as  often  failed.  The  fact  is  I  have  been 
suffering  from  extreme  nervous  debility  and  other 
complaints  since  our  last  anniversary  festival  in 
January,  and  even  now  I  am  not  equal  to  my  work. 

You  are  quite  right  in  denouncing  fruitless  contro- 
versies and  personal  wranglings.  In  our  Church  es- 
pecially these  are  altogether  out  of  place.  Our  work 
at  present  is  not  destruction,  but  reconstruction.  We 
have  had  enough  of  the  former  during  the  earlier 
periods  of  the  Brahma-Samaj  history.  There  was  a 
time  when  an  aggressive  warfare  had  to  be  kept  up, 
and  we  had  to  put  down  idolatry  and  caste  with 
iconoclastic  fury.  But  the  New  Dispensation  is  a 
work  of  construction.  It  fulfils,  does  not  destroy ;  it 
builds,  does  not  demolish.  Our  entire  literature  bears 
testimony  to  this  positive  and  pacific  policy  of  our 
Church.  If  you  know  the  leading  principles  of  my 
life  and  character,  you  will  no  doubt  admit  that  I  am 
pledged  to  reconciliation  and  harmony.  If  I  live  for 
any  purpose  it  is  for  this,  that  I  will  preach  the  union 
of  Eastern  and  Western  Theism,  the  reconciliation  of 
Europe  and  Asia.  The  idea  may  seem  absurd  to  many 
in  the  present  age.  It  may  provoke  ridicule  and 
angry  reviling.  But  posterity  will  prove  a  better 
judge.  My  honoured  friend,  you  need  not  be  told  that 
a  man  must  stick  to  the  high  ideal  of  his  life  regard- 
less of  consequences,  and  remain  true  to  the  light 
within  in  spite  of  obloquy  and  persecution.     God  has 


144  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

given  me  too  a  work  to  do,  and  my  tastes  and  ideas, 
impulses  and  aspirations  have  been  moulded  and  shaped 
accordingly.  One  half  of  my  heart  is  in  sympathy 
with  Europe,  and  the  other  half  with  Asia.  I  cannot 
therefore  bear  the  thought  of  their  separation.  If 
one  branch  of  the  Lord  s  family  has  taken  one  idea 
from  Him,  and  another  branch  another  idea,  why 
should  they  quarrel  ?  Are  we  not  both  the  Lord's  ? 
To  take  only  Asiatic  thought  or  European  faith  is  a 
half -measure.  It  is  the  adoption  of  a  fraction  of  divine 
life.  That  Asia  and  Europe,  the  East  and  the  West, 
will  always  continue  in  a  state  of  mutual  separation, 
divorce,  and  disunion  is  against  nature  and  nature  s 
God.  Let  us  seek  the  perfection  of  the  individual  and 
the  race  in  the  union  of  Eastern  and  Western  types  of 
thought  and  character.  I  trust  and  pray  that  all 
scholars  and  thinkers  and  philanthropists  in  different 
parts  of  the  world  will  try  to  bring  about  this  inter- 
national reconciliation.  Let  there  be  no  more  wrang- 
ling, no  more  sectarian  antagonism.  Let  the  angel  of 
peace  and  love  reign.  What  you  say  of  that  noble 
soul,  Dean  Stanley,  is  truly  refreshing  and  encourag- 
ing. Yes,  he  has  done  a  great  deal,  and  the  influence 
he  has  left  behind  will  do  infinitely  more  to  widen 
and  deepen  the  Church  in  Europe,  and  vastly  help  to 
brinof  about  the  reconciliation  of  the  Eastern  and  the 
Western  Churches.  May  his  soul  rest  in  peace  in  the 
bosom  of  God ! 

Believe  me, 

Yours  most  sincerely, 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen. 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  145 

Tara  View,  Simla, 
20  Juhj,  1883. 

My  dear  Friend, 

The  papers  report  the  death  of  your  good  mother. 
Allow  me  to  send  you  a  line  of  condolence  from  the 
distant  Himalaya.  As  a  Hindu  I  feel  the  deepest 
sj'mpathy  in  your  grief.  For  who  on  earth  so  good 
as  the  mother  ?  We  in  India  regard  our  parents,  and 
especially  the  mother,  as  'sakshat  pratyakshadevata^,' 
and  we  have  no  doubt  you  have  the  same  Ai'yan 
feeling  and  instinct  in  you.  A  mother's  love  who  can 
repay  %  A  mother's  memory  no  loyal  son  can  forget. 
Alive  or  dead,  we  honour  and  revere  her  spirit,  not 
merely  on  account  of  our  earthly  obligations,  but  be- 
cause motherly  tenderness  represents  so  truly  and  so 
beautifully  the  lovingkindness  of  the  Supreme  Mother. 
May  the  soul  of  your  dear  mother  rest  in  peace  in  the 
world  above ! 

I  am  sorry  I  cannot  write  to  you  so  often  as  I  could 
wish.  But  of  this  I  can  assure  you  that  you  are  often 
present  in  my  thoughts.  The  affinity  is  not  only 
ethnic,  but  in  the  highest  degree  spiritual,  which  often 
draws  you  into  my  heart  and  makes  me  enjoy  the 
pleasures  of  friendly  intercourse.  I  forget  the  dis- 
tance, and  feel  we  are  very  near  each  other.  These 
Himalayas  ablaze  with  India's  ancient  glory  constantly 
remind  me  of  you,  and  as  I  read  your  Lectures  on 
'  India,  what  can  it  teach  us  V  in  the  veranda  of  my 
little  house  in  the  morning,  I  feel  so  intensely  the 
presence  of  your  spirit  in  me  that  it  seems  I  am 
not  reading  your  book,  but  talking  to  you  and  you 
are  talking  to  me  in  deep  spirit-intercourse.  How 
ardently  you  love  India  that  book  has  made  clear. 

'  'A  present  visible  deity.' 
VOL.  ir.  L 


146  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Surely  you  honour  our  '  fatherland '  more  than  any  of 
my  own  countrymen,  and  the  glowing  terms  in  which 
you  speak  of  India,  her  people,  her  religion,  and  her 
ancient  greatness  put  to  shame  the  enthusiasm  of  even 
the  most  warm-hearted  patriot  among  us.  And  what 
you  write  in  your  book  I  see  with  my  own  eyes  and 
realise  in  my  own  heart  on  these  Himalayan  heights. 
Every  word  you  say  of  the  Rishis,  their  faith  and  de- 
votion, is  so  true.  Their  transcendental  spirituality, 
their  unearthly  asceticism,  as  distinguished  from  the 
busy  life  of  the  West,  you  justly  appreciate  and  ad- 
mire. Alas !  these  blessed  Rishis  are  dead  and  gone. 
On  the  plains  of  Bengal,  where  I  live,  I  miss  them :  I 
see  an  entirely  different  generation,  by  no  means  loyal 
to  their  venerable  forefathers.  But  I  do  not  miss 
them  here.  On  these  hills  the  ancient  Rishis  seem 
yet  to  live  and  move.  I  feel  that  they  are  with  me 
and  in  me.  Everything  recalls  these  saintly  spirits 
to  my  mind,  and  I  see  before  me  not  the  agnostic's 
godless  earth  and  sky,  but  the  ancient  Aryan  devotee's 
Surya,  Vayu,  Varu;/a,  and  Indra.  How  I  wish  to 
see  you  in  this  my  humble  hermitage,  and  talk  toge- 
ther about  the  deeper  mysteries  of  Rishi  life  in  the 
very  abode  of  the  ancient  Rishis,  the  Himalaya !  You 
say  I  follow  the  Pdta  of  the  Vedic  Rishis.  I  wish  I 
could  always  do  so :  in  fact  this  is  the  great  ambition 
of  my  life.  These  twenty-five  years  the  Holy  Ghost 
has  been  to  me  not  only  my  teacher  and  guide,  but 
also  my  guardian  and  protector.  He  has  given  me 
the  bread  of  inspiration  ;  and  to  His  directions  too  I 
owe  my  daily  bread.  I  never  knew  any  Guru  or 
priest,  but  in  all  matters  affecting  the  higher  life 
I  have  always  sought  and  found  light  in  the  direct 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  147 

counsels  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Nor  could  I  ever  count 
upon  a  definite  income  for  my  large  family,  and  yet 
through  darkness  and  uncertainty  the  Holy  Ghost  has 
led  me  on,  feeding  me,  my  wife  and  ten  children,  and 
even  giving  us  the  comforts  of  life.  From  how  many 
perils,  dangers,  and  temptations  has  He  delivered  me ! 
How  many  times  has  He  shown  me  the  light  of 
heaven !  or  I  would  have  perished.  To  so  good  a 
Spirit  I  look  as  to  a  personal  Friend  and  a  daily 
Companion,  and  I  have  made  up  my  mind  never  to 
turn  away  from  Him  to  whom  I  owe  all  that  I  prize 
in  my  temporal  and  my  spiritual  life.  The  applause 
of  man  pleases  me  not,  if  the  Monitor  within  rebukes 
me.  And  when  the  world  stands  against  me,  as  it 
often  does,  my  Comforter  comforts  me  as  no  man  can. 
When  everything  fails,  I  find  joy  and  strength  in  the 
cheering  voice  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  May  I  always 
prove  faithful  to  Him  ! 

Not  long  ago  the  Editor  of  the  Coni'mporarij  Hcr.'ieio 
wi'ote  to  me  a  kind  note  asking  me  to  contribute  an 
article  on  some  Indian  subject.  I  promised  to  accede 
to  his  request,  but  wanted  time  as  I  was  unwell. 
Since  writing  to  him  I  got  worse  and  worse,  and  I 
have  not  yet  found  time  or  energy  sufficient  for  the 
task.  I  hope  to  redeem  my  promise  so  soon  as  health 
permits.  It  is  a  wasting  disease  from  which  I  am 
suffering,  and  it  brings  on  terrible  weakness  and  ex- 
haustion at  times.  If  convenient  I  beg  you  will  do 
me  the  favour  to  write  a  line  to  the  Editor  requesting 
his  indulgence  and  forbearance. 

Yours  most  sincerely, 

Keshub  Chundee  Sen, 

I.  2 


148  BIOGEAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

LETTERS  FROM  PROTAP  CHUNDER 
MOZUMDAR. 

Peace  Cottage,  73  Upper  Circular  Eoad,  Calcutta, 
14  Feh.  1881. 

My  dear  Sir, 

Perhaps  you  do  not  remember  me.  I  had  the 
great  pleasure  of  spending  an  afternoon  with  you  in 
autumn,  1874.  Since  my  return  home  I  have  always 
thought  of  writing  to  you  ;  but  with  the  Hindu's 
indecision  I  have  always  hesitated.  Yet  I  always  felt 
most  gratefully  that  your  interest  in  the  Brahma- 
Samaj,  of  which  I  have  been  a  worker  nearly  for  the 
last  twenty  years,  was  unabated.  When  you  put  me 
into  the  train  at  the  railway  station  you  said,  '  Send 
me  every  information,  every  paper,  every  scrap ;  you 
will  not  find  me  speaking  always,  but  when  the  time 
comes — here  I  am  ! '  The  time  has  come,  and  you 
have  spoken.  But,  alas  !  we  have  not  kept  you  well 
furnished  with  facts  about  our  movement.  You  have 
watched  the  agitation  on  the  Cutch  Behar  marriacre. 
That  agitation  began  from  deeper  causes,  and  ended 
in  deeper  opposition  than  a  mere  protest  against  the 
marriage.  Keshub  Chunder  Sen's  genius  is  too 
Western  for  his  own  countrymen,  and  too  Eastern  for 
yours.  His  mind  is  so  independent  and  original,  so 
far  above  conventional  proprieties  of  every  sort,  that 
long  before  the  marriage  he  had  begun  to  make 
enemies  both  inside  and  outside  the  Brahma  Samaj. 
They  were  seeking  for  an  opportunity  to  crush  him, 
they  found  it  in  the  marriage,  they  used  it  to  an 
extent  of  uumercifulness  of  which  you  can  form  no 
idea.  But  Keshub  is  one  of  those  men  who  cannot 
be  crushed.     His  spiritual  vitality,  his  moral  vigour 


KESHUB    CHUXDER   SEN.  149 

are  simply  immortal.  Among  his  opponents  those 
perhaps  have  done  him  most  harm  who  were  his 
friends.  Miss  Collet,  the  compiler  of  the  Brahmo 
Year  Book,  has  tried  to  do  him  the  most  lasting  harm. 
This  lady's  idolisation  of  Keshub  was  as  singular,  as 
her  present  violent  and  unreasoning  antipathy.  Not  a 
little  there  was  in  the  Cutch  Behar  marriage  to  which 
an  honest  man  might  take  objection.  Some  of  the 
forms  and  figures  subsequently  used  by  our  friend 
might  also  startle  any  European,  perhaps  even  a 
Hindu.  For  my  own  part  I  am  not  an  advocate  of 
sensational  figures  of  speech.  But  I  know  how  abso- 
lutely beyond  sober  speech  is  every  impulse  of  deep 
and  genuine  spirituality.  Are  not  the  original  per- 
ceptions of  genius  obscure  to  the  finest  intellects'? 
Deliberate  obscurity  is  dishonesty.  It  may  be  a  foible 
in  which  great  souls  have  occasionally  indulged  ;  but 
to  a  man  labouring  in  the  awful  and  agonising  solitude 
of  genius  perhaps  it  may  be  found  restful  to  indulge 
in  expressions  which  he  alone  can  fully  fathom. 

But  I  maintain  a  man  of  real  and  acknowledged 
power  is  entitled  to  some  amount  of  public  trust.  If 
every  act  and  every  expression  of  his  that  is  not 
understood  were  put  down  to  the  score  of  moral  cor- 
ruptness, all  forms  of  organisation  would  soon  cease 
to  exist.  And  this  is  what  Keshub's  opponents  both 
in  England  and  India  have  done.  In  not  treating 
him  with  the  charity  to  which  much  inferior  men  are 
entitled,  they  have  driven  him  deeper  and  deeper  into 
his  exceedingly  sensitive  individuality,  till  he  has 
altogether  ceased  to  be  understood.  Hardheartedness 
produces  its  worst  effects  upon  the  intellect.  And 
these  people  have  lost  the  sense  by  which  very  plain 


150  BIOGRAPHICAL    ESSAYS. 

■words  and  actions  can  be  properly  construed.  Except 
to  friends,  to  persons  disposed  to  treat  you  charitably 
and  justly,  it  is  often  wrong  to  offer  any  explanation 
at  all.  Explanations  require  so  often  to  be  explained 
that  one  turns  from  the  whole  task  in  despair,  I 
wonder  if  there  can  be  any  justice,  in  the  proper 
sense  of  that  word,  apart  from  charity.  You,  sir, 
have  shown  him  that  charity,  and  hence,  even  in  the 
absence  of  such  facts  as  you  ought  to  have  received, 
you  have  been  more  just  to  him  than  many  others, 
who  knew  more,  have  been  able  to  be.  The  Cutch  Behar 
marriage  is  now  a  thing  of  the  past.  I  believe  before 
long  Keshub  will  have  to  publish  more  facts  to  clear 
his  own  conduct  in  regard  to  that  affair.  He  has  not 
done  so  because  he  shrank  from  exposing  the  conduct 
of  some  hiffh  officials  of  the  Bengal  Government. 

The  Brahma-Samaj  has  come  to  occupy  a  position 
which  may  be  considered  apart  from  its  relations  to 
the  Cutch  Behar  marriage.  This  doctrine  of  the  New 
Dispensation  promises  to  excite  great  hostility.  I  will 
by  next  mail  post  the  Theistic  Review  in  which  some 
of  our  leading  ideas  on  the  subject  are  explained. 
The  New  Dispensation  seems  to  me  to  be  nothing  more 
than  the  spiritual  counterpart  of  your  idea  of  a  Science 
of  Comparative  Theology.  What  you  are  doing  as  a 
philosopher  and  a  philologist  we  are  trying  to  do  as 
men  of  devotion  and  faith.  It  is  the  same  universal 
recognition  of  all  truths,  and  all  prophets.  It  is  the 
same  war  against  exclusiveness  and  bigotry.  I  grant 
we  are  doing  it  in  a  Hindu  style,  perhaps  in  a  Bengali 
style.  But  there  is  no  question  that  the  future 
religion  of  the  world  must  acknowledge  the  reign  of 
law,  order,  harmony,  and  development  in  the  religious 


KESHUB    CHUNDER   SEN.  151 

records  of  mankind.  The  Fatherhood  of  God  is  a 
meaningless  abstraction  unless  the  unity  of  truth  in 
all  lands  and  nations  is  admitted.  And  the  Brother- 
hood of  man  is  impossible,  if  there  is  no  recognition  of 
the  services  which  the  great  peoples  of  the  earth  have 
rendered  unto  each  other.  I  must  not  take  up  more 
of  3'our  time.  It  will  be  nothing  short  of  delight  if  I 
can  ever  hear  from  you  in  reply.  I  and  my  friends 
look  upon  you  as  an  interpreter,  as  a  mediator 
between  ourselves  and  Europe.  And  I  have  no  doubt 
you  reciprocate  the  cordiality  and  confidence  with 
which  the  Brahma-Samaj  regards  you.  With  very 
warm  and  kind  regards, 

I  remain,  dear  Sir, 

Yours  very  faithfully, 
Prof.  Max  Miiller.  P.  C.  Mozumdar. 

Simla, 
20  August,  1 88 1. 

My  dear  Sir, 

Simla,  as  you  know,  is  in  the  midst  of  the 
Himalayas.  It  is  the  summer  seat  of  the  Government 
of  India,  and  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  Punjab 
also  comes  here,  because  it  is  within  the  province  he 
rules,  and  also  because  he  has  to  consult  with  the 
head  of  the  Supreme  Government  on  questions  relating 
to  the  many  frontier  difficulties  that  have  started  up 
since  the  unfortunate  Afghan  war.  Being  in  con- 
tinued bad  health  for  some  time,  I  have  been  here  for 
a  change  for  the  last  three  months.  It  was  here  I 
received  your  kind  and  valuable  present  of  the  trans- 
lation of  the  Dhammapada,  for  which  allow  me  to 
offer  you  my  very  hearty  thanks.  It  was  here  also  I 
got  your  card  desiring  me  to  send  you  certain  Bengali 


152  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

books,  which  I  hope  have  by  this  time  reached  you. 
I  presume  you  have  now  commenced  to  write  the  life 
of  Rajah  Rammohun  Roy,  as  you  wished.  It  is  my 
sincere  desire  that  you  get  a  perfect  insight  into  the 
internal  workings  of  the  Brahma-Samaj  of  the  present 
day  which  is  so  essentially  different  from  the  institu- 
tion which  the  Rajah  founded  in  1830.  There  is  no 
doubt  the  Rajah  meant  it  to  be  a  monotheistic  church, 
though  he  gave  it  a  purely  Vedantic  character.  As 
you  know  very  well,  this  monotheism  was  developed 
and  formulated  by  Devendranath  Tagore.  He  has 
alwaj/S  kept  strictly  true  to  the  ancient  cult  of  the 
authors  of  the  Upanishads,  to  the  rigid  and  deliberate 
exclusion  of  those  Christian  influences  which  Ram- 
mohun Roy  carefully  sought  and  cultivated.  It  is 
certain,  however,  that  he  was  the  first  to  introduce 
into  the  Samaj  genuine  piety  and  spirituality.  Into 
the  constitution  of  this  piety  a  good  deal  of  the  mysti- 
cism of  Hafiz  and  the  idealism  of  Victor  Cousin 
entered.  I  remember  how  intensely  fond  Devendra- 
nath was  of  chanting  the  Gazels  of  the  Persian  Sufis, 
and  reading  the  works  of  Cousin,  Kant,  and  Fichte. 
So  if  any  Christian  influence  can  be  said  to  have 
entered  into  his  system  it  was  indirectly  through  these 
thinkers.  But  for  the  Bible,  for  the  character  of  Jesus 
and  of  His  disciples,  the  Pradhan  Achary  a  of  the  Brahma- 
Samaj  has  always  had  an  unfeigned  dislike.  Indeed 
from  this  point  of  view  the  teachings  of  Devendra- 
nath Tagore  are  understood  without  much  difiiculty. 

With  the  advent  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  the  princi- 
ples of  the  Brahma-Samaj  assumed  the  form  of  a  reli- 
<j'ion,  and  that  institution  took  the  character  of  a  Chnrch. 
Keshub   cannot   be  considered  as  a    well-read  man. 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  153 

Even  his  quotations  from  the  Bible,  which  are  pretty 
frequent,  are  made  at  random,  and  got  up  for  the 
occasions  on  which  they  are  meant  to  give  point  and 
emphasis  to  his  own  sentiments.  But  he  deserves  the 
credit  of  uprearing  the  whole  structure  of  Brahma 
doctrines  by  the  unaided  efforts  of  his  religious  genius. 
If  he  has  been  aided  by  anything,  he  has  been  aided 
only  by  his  singular  devotions,  which  are  long,  deep,  and 
sweet.  Doctrinally  his  teachings  may  be  said  generally 
to  have  embraced  the  following  subjects: — Existence 
and  attributes  of  God  as  a  personality  ;  Providence, 
general  and  special;  the  soul  of  man  as  an  immortal 
spirit ;  Conscience  ;  Prayer ;  Inspiration  ;  our  relations 
to  Christ ;  to  Sakya,  Chaitanya,  &c. ;  the  Brahma- 
Samaj  as  a  revealed  dispensation  of  God,  including 
all  previous  dispensations,  and  setting  forth  the  religion 
of  the  future.  His  spiritual  precepts  may  be  said  to 
have  generally  embraced  the  following  subjects: — 
Upasana,  worship ;  Yoga,  asceticism;  Bhakti,  devotion  ; 
Vairagya,  passionlessness  ;  Sadhana,  which  I  would 
translate  as  self-discipline.  He  has  besides  said  a 
good  deal  on  domestic,  social,  and  apostolical  organ- 
isation. Now  his  doctrinal  and  other  precepts  have 
been  so  amplified  and  complicated  by  frequent  refer- 
ences to  and  applications  of  Hindu  Puranic  con- 
ceptions, as  well  as  Christian  dogmas  and  observances, 
that  they  have  swelled  to  an  enormous  extent,  until 
to  many  the  primitive  simplicity  of  their  theistic 
character  has  been  all  but  lost.  And  while  some  ac- 
cuse him  of  relapsing  into  Hindu  idolatry  and  Pan- 
theism, others  charge  him  with  merging  into  Christian 
orthodoxy.  I  cannot  say  these  misconceptions  are 
unnatural,  and  they  have  been  aggi-avated  by  certain 


154  BIOaKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

rhetorical  peculiarities  and  personal  incidents,  prin- 
cipal among  which  is  the  Cutch  Behar  marriage.  His 
interpretations  of  Hindu  and  Christian  ideas  may  or 
may  not  be  right,  but  I  believe  no  slur  can  be  cast 
upon  the  soundness  of  his  theistic  teaching.  It  has 
long  been  my  desire  to  explain  some  of  his  principles 
from  a  simple  and  rational  theistic  ground.  But  I 
sometimes  feel  that  I  should  wait  for  a  further  de- 
velopment of  his  views.  In  this  endeavour  I  should 
greatly  prize  the  benefit  of  your  ideas  and  suggestions. 
Keshub  is  continually  becoming  more  and  more  meta- 
physical and  mystical.  Sometimes  I  am  afraid  he 
may  completely  elude  popular  understanding,  and  that 
is  why  I  am  the  more  anxious  to  explain  him.  Re- 
cently he  has  very  much  given  himself  up  to  sym- 
bolism. There  has  been  a  good  deal  of  flags,  flowers, 
fires,  and  sacraments  of  all  kinds.  Of  course  misun- 
derstanding is  in  consequence  on  the  increase.  Yet 
Keshub's  uncommon  penetration,  sagacity,  and  com- 
mon sense  are  as  clear  and  strong  as  ever.  The  sug- 
gestions of  a  friendly  critic  like  you  will  be  most 
welcome  at  this  juncture,  the  more  especially  as  the 
diS'erent  parties  in  the  Brahma-Samaj  seem  to  have 
lost  all  mutual  respect  and  confidence.  Devendranath 
Tagore  has  retired  into  the  hills.  The  other  day  I 
received  a  most  significant  letter  from  him.  I  will 
translate  it,  and  publish  it  some  day.  In  the  mean- 
while permit  me  to  send  my  little  Theistic  Revieio 
and  Interpreter.  Hoping  to  have  the  pleasure  of 
hearing  from  you  some  day, 

I  remain, 

Very  sincerely  yours. 
Prof.  Max  Mlillcr.  P.  C.  Mozumdar. 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  155 i 

Oxford, 
3  August,  i88r. 

My  dear  Mr.  Protap  Chunder  Mozumdar, 

If  I  have  not  ■written  to  you  before,  you  may 
believe  me  that  it  was  time  and  leisure  only  that  were 
wanting,  and  that  I  have  often  longed  for  a  quiet  hour 
to  thank  you  for  your  letters,  and  to  exchange  some 
thoughts  with  you  on  subjects  very  near  to  your  heart 
and  to  mine.  I  have  many  kind  friends  in  different 
parts  of  the  world,  and  I  must  tell  them  all  what  I 
told  you  when  we  parted  at  Oxford,  'If  you  realli/ 
want  me,  I  shall  always  be  ready.'  But  the  day  has 
only  eight  or  ten  hours  of  work  in  it,  and  often  not 
even  that ;  and  there  is  much  still  left  to  do,  which  I 
feel  I  ought  to  do.  Yet.  as  I  watch  the  sun  of  my 
life  going  down,  I  feel  I  shall  never  be  able  to  do  even 
half  of  what  I  wished  to  do  in  this  life.  I  must  therefore 
ask  you  and  my  other  friends  to  have  patience  with  me. 
I  have  watched  your  struggles  in  India  for  many 
years,  and  I  have  often  pleaded  your  cause  in  Eng- 
land with  friends  who  were  frightened  by  what  they 
heard  about  Keshub  Chunder  Sen.  Yet  I  trusted 
in  you  and  in  the  goodness  of  your  cause,  and  re- 
mained silent,  at  least  in  public.  But  when  I  saw 
our  friend  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  pressed  on  all  sides, 
attacked  not  only  by  his  natural  enemies,  but  by  his 
natural  friends,  I  thought  I  ought  to  come  to  his  suc- 
cour, or  at  all  events  to  show  him  that  some  of  his 
friends  were  able  to  make  allowance  for  his  difficul- 
ties, and  though  they  might  differ  from  him,  had  not 
lost  their  confidence  in  him.  That  Cutch  Behar  mar- 
riage was  a  misfortune,  but  what  has  it  to  do  with  the 


]56  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

great  work  that  Keshub  Cbunder  Sen  has  been  carry- 
ing on  ?  Suppose  even  he  was  to  be  blamed,  can  no 
one  be  allowed  to  carry  on  a  great  religious  reform, 
unless  be  is  himself  entirely  blameless  ?  Nothing  I 
admire  more  in  the  writers  of  our  Gospels  than  the 
open  way  in  which  they  sometimes  speak  of  the 
failings  of  the  Apostles.  In  their  eyes  nothing  could 
have  been  more  grievous  than  St.  Peter's  denial  of 
Christ.  Yet  they  make  no  secret  of  it,  and  without 
any  public  confession,  recantation  or  penance,  Peter, 
after  he  has  wept  bitterly,  is  as  great  an  Apostle  as 
all  the  others,  nay  even  greater.  Surely  these  are 
passing  clouds  only,  and  what  we  ought  to  look  to  is 
the  bright  sky  behind. 

At  the  present  moment  many  of  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen's  old  friends  in  England,  and  some  particularly  of 
his  most  generous  and  liberal-minded  friends,  are  in 
despair  about  some  of  the  outward  religious  cere- 
monies which  he  has  sanctioned.  His  asceticism,  his 
shaving  his  hair,  his  carrying  a  flag  and  singing  in 
the  streets,  his  pilgrimages — all  are  considered  quite 
shocking!  To  tell  you  the  truth,  I  am  not  fond  of 
such  things  ;  but  every  religion  is  a  compromise,  must 
and  always  will  be  a  compromise,  between  men  and 
children  ;  and  there  is  no  religion  in  which  men  like 
you  and  me,  who  care  for  better  things,  have  not 
often  to  say  that  they  are  not  fond  of  '  such  things,' 
yet  have  to  bear  with  them.  Think  of  our  ritualists 
at  home.  Silly  children,  naughty  children,  if  you 
like;  but,  for  all  that,  many  of  them  very  good  boys. 
There  is  no  real  harm  in  shaving  one's  hair.  A  man 
must  either  shave  his  hair  or  let  it  grow,  and  who 
shall  say  which  of  the  two  is  best  ?  Buddha  was  called 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  157 

a  'shaveling'  (vaunrh),  because  in  order  to  abolish  all 
outward  signs  of  caste  or  rank,  he  cut  oft'  his  hail". 
But  there  is  an  old  Sanskrit  verse  which  says : — 

Pawiavimsatitattvagrnoyatratatra-  '  Whether  a  man  wear  matted 

«raine  vaset,  hair,   or  a  top-knot,  or  shave  his 

Gaii,  muwdi,  sikhl  vapi  mu/jyate  hair,  if  he  knows  the  twenty-five 

iiatra  samsayah.  truths,  he  will  be  saved.' 

As  to  leading  an  ascetic  life,  what  harm  is  there  in 
that  ?  India  is  the  very  country  for  leading  an  ascetic 
life,  and  a  man  does  not  there  banish  himself  from 
society  by  it,  as  he  would  do  in  Europe.  Pilgrimages 
too,  singing  in  the  open  air  and  carrying  flags,  seem 
all  so  natural  to  those  who  know  the  true  Indian  life 
— not  the  life  of  Calcutta  or  Bombay — that  I  cannot 
see  why  people  in  England  should  be  so  shocked  by 
Avhat  they  call  Keshub  Chunder  Sen's  vagaries.  Be- 
cause he  carries  a  flag,  which  was  the  recognised 
custom  among  ancient  religious  leaders,  he  is  ac- 
cused of  worshipping  a  flag.  I  am  sure  he  does  not 
pay  half  the  worship  to  his  flag  which  every  English 
soldier  does  to  his.  It  often  becomes  to  him  a  real 
fetish ;  and  yet  a  soldier  when  he  dies  for  his  flag,  is 
honoured  by  the  very  people  who  now  cry  out  against 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  because  he  honours  his  flag,  as 
a  symbol  of  his  cause. 

If  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  insisted  on  other  people 
doing  exactly  as  he  does,  the  case  would  be  different. 
But  he  does  not,  and  whatever  you  and  I  and  others 
may  feel  about  the  importance  of  '  such  things,' 
there  never  has  been  and  there  never  will  be  a  re- 
ligion '  without  a  flag.'  I  wish  it  were  not  so  ;  you 
probably  wish  it  were  not  so ;  but  man  cannot  live  ou 
oxygen — he  requires  bread. 


158  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

These,  however,  were  not  the  matters  I  wished  to 
speak  about,  when  writing  to  you.  Not  the  play- 
things of  religion,  but  the  very  life  and  marrow  of 
religion  I  wanted  to  discuss  with  you,  chiefly  with 
reference  to  that  excellent  article  of  yours,  published 
in  the  T/ieistic  QuarferlT/  Review,  October,  1879.  Of  all 
the  reviews  which  my  Ilihbert  Lectures  have  elicited,  I 
liked  yours  the  best,  because  it  went  to  the  very  core 
of  the  matter  which  I  undertook  to  treat.  Now  there 
are  many  people  who  are  quite  as  much  shocked  at 
our  going  to  the  very  core  of  religion,  as  others  are 
with  our  playing  with  the  playthings  of  religion  ; 
and  if  we  were  to  count  hands,  not  heads,  what  a 
small  minority  we  should  be !  I  sometimes  wonder 
that  we  are  allowed  to  speak  and  to  live  at  all,  for  the 
great  mass  of  good  and  honest  people  in  the  world 
consider  every  one  who,  what  they  call,  shakes  their 
faith,  (what  we  should  call,  strengthens  our  faith),  as 
an  enemy  to  society,  as  a  danger  to  their  haj^piness 
here  and  hereafter,  as  a  man  to  be  silenced  by  any 
means.  Where  would  your  small  flock  be,  if  every- 
body in  India  were  allowed  to  do  with  you  what  he 
thinks  right  1  Remember  what  the  majority  against 
you  consists  of.  First,  all  children  up  to  fifteen  years 
of  age ;  secondly,  all  w^omen,  with  few  exceptions  ; 
thirdly,  most  old  and  infirm  people  ;  lastly,  all  unedu- 
cated, all  timid,  and  all  downright  dishonest  people. 
If  you  count  up  all  these,  I  doubt  whether  you  can  reckon 
on  one  in  a  hundred  to  stand  up  openly  for  you,  while 
the  other  ninety-nine  would  all  combine  against  you. 

And  mind,  with  the  exception  of  the  last  class  of 
'  downright  dishonest  people,'  who  from  motives  of 
prudence  or  selfishness  either  do  not  say  what  they 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  159 

do  believe,  or  do  say  what  they  do  not  believe, 
■we  have  no  right  to  complain  of  our  antagonists. 
They  have  a  right  to  be  what  they  are,  and  many 
of  them  are  sorely  troubled  by  our  supposed  an- 
tagonism to  them  and  to  the  views  which  they 
hold  with  regard  to  religion.  Now  we  know  from 
our  own  experience  that  we  too  were  sorely  troubled 
in  our  youth,  and  in  our  later  years  also,  when  we 
found  that  many  things  dear,  aye  sacred  to  us,  had 
to  be  surrendered  to  a  truer  voice  and  a  higher  will. 
Then  what  I  feel  and  what  I  say  is,  that  if  we  want 
the  majority  to  bear  with  us, — a  most  minute  mino- 
rity,— we  ought  to  bear  with  them,  and  understand 
that  what  are  to  us  but  outward  things,  playthings, 
nothings,  may  be  to  them  the  only  comfort  the}'  can  find 
in  this  world.  One  thing  I  know,  that  some  of  these 
so-called  ascetics,  or  ritualists,  or  bigotted  and  narrow- 
minded  people  lead  the  most  devoted,  unselfish,  pure 
and  noble  lives  ;  and  every  tree  which  can  bear  such 
fruit — whether  it  be  the  religion  of  Jews  or  Christians, 
or  Mohammedans  or  Brahmans,  or  Parsis  or  Buddhists — 
cannot  be  so  entirely  rotten  to  the  core  as  many  of  our 
friends,  in  Europe  as  well  as  in  India,  will  have  it. 

But  now,  after  having  pleaded  the  cause  of  those 
happy  people  who  know  nothing  and  want  nothing 
but  faith  and  good  works,  let  me  stand  up  also  for 
those  whose  deepest  religion  makes  it  impossible  for 
them  to  be  satisfied  with  that  kind  of  outward  re- 
ligion, whether  they  are  Jews  or  Christians,  or  Mo- 
hammedans or  Brahmans,  or  Parsis  or  Buddhists. 
They  seem  to  me  to  have  as  much  right  on  their  side 
as  the  others  on  theirs,  and  if  you  think  that  I  have 
made  '  too  great  concessions  to  the  rampant  scientists 


ICO  BIOaRAPHICAL    ESSAYS. 

of  the  time,'  you  place  me  in  a  position  which  I  could 
not  accept.  We  have  no  concessions  to  make  to  ram- 
pant scientists.  They  have  as  much  right  on  their 
side,  if  they  are  but  honest,  as  anybody  else,  and  the 
fact  that  they  are  again  a  very  small  minority,  decides 
nothing  as  to  the  truth  or  untruth  of  their  opinions. 
Depend  on  it,  tliere  are  as  good  people  among  these 
rampant  scientists  as  among  the  most  devout  ascetics. 
You  have  seen  better  tiaan  anybody  else  that  the 
problem  which  I  wished  to  discuss  in  my  Hihbert 
Lectures,  and  to  illustrate  through  the  history  of  re- 
ligion in  India,  was  the  possibUUy  of  reliyion  in  the 
light  of  modern  science.  I  might  define  my  object 
even  more  accurately  by  saying  that  it  was  a  re- 
consideration of  the  problem,  left  unsolved  by  Kant  in 
his  Critique  of  Fare  Reason,  after  a  full  analysis  of  the 
powers  of  our  knowledge  and  the  limits  of  their 
application,  '  Can  we  have  any  knowledge  of  the 
Transcendent  or  Supernatural?'  In  Europe  all  true 
philosophy  must  reckon  with  Kant.  Though  his 
greatest  work,  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  was  pub- 
lished just  one  hundred  years  ago,  no  step  in  advance 
has  been  made  since  with  regard  to  determining  the 
limits,  i.e.  the  true  powers,  of  human  knowledge. 
Other  fields  of  philosophy  have  been  cultivated  with 
great  success  by  other  observers  and  thinkers,  but 
the  problem  of  all  problems.  How  do  we  know? 
stands  to-day  exactly  as  Kant  left  it.  No  one  has 
been  able  to  show  that  Kant  was  wrong  when  he 
showed  that  what  we  call  knowledge  has  for  its 
material  nothing  but  what  is  supplied  by  the  senses. 
It  is  we  who  digest  that  material,  it  is  we  who 
change  impressions  into  percepts,  percepts  into  con- 


KESHUB   CHUNDER   SEN.  161 

cepts,  and  concepts  into  ideals ;  but  even  in  our  most 
abstract  concepts  the  material  is  always  sensuous, 
just  as  our  very  life-blood  is  made  up  of  the  food 
which  comes  to  us  from  without. 

Why  should  we  shrink  from  that?  Why  should 
we  despise  sensuous  knowledge  ?  Is  it  not  the  most 
wonderful  thing  we  know  that  we  should  be  able  to  see 
and  hear  and  feel  ?  We  may  understand,  i.  e.  be  able 
to  account  for  our  concepts,  because  they  are  more  or 
less  our  own  work ;  but  our  percepts  pass  all  under- 
standing. They  are  the  true  miracle,  the  truest 
revelation.  But  men  are  not  satisfied  with  the  true 
miracles  of  nature  and  the  true  revelation  of  God ; 
they  must  have  little  miracles  of  their  own,  and  they 
place  those  miracles  of  man  far  above  the  miracles 
of  God.  So  it  is  with  our  knowledge.  Instead  of 
seeing  the  light  of  God  in  every  ray  of  light,  hearing 
His  voice  in  every  note  of  music,  and  feeling  His 
presence  in  the  touch  of  every  loving  hand,  our  wise 
philosophers  turn  round  and  say  that  what  they  want 
is  what  cannot  be  seen  and  cannot  be  heard  and  can- 
not be  touched,  and  that  until  they  have  that,  their 
knowledge  is  not  worth  having. 

Now  on  this  point  Kant,  too,  seems  to  me  to  be 
under  the  influence  of  the  old  philosophical  prejudices. 
He  thinks  that  the  knowledge  supplied  to  us  by  the 
senses  is  finite  only,  and  that  there  is  no  sensuous 
foundation  for  our  ideas  of  the  Infinite  or  the  Un- 
conditioned. He  does  not  indeed  surrender  these 
ideas,  but  he  tries  to  justify  them  on  practical  and 
moral  grounds,  not  on  the  grounds  on  which  he 
ju&tifies  all  other  knowledge,  namely  perception. 

My    chief  object   in    my  Hibbert  Lectures  was  to 

VOL.  II.  M 


162  BI03EAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

show  that  we  have  a  perfect  right  to  make  one  step 
beyond  Kant,  namely,  to  show  that  our  senses  bring 
us  into  actual  contact  with  the  Infinite,  and  that  in 
that  sensation  of  the  Infinite  lies  the  living  germ  of 
all  religion.  Of  course,  I  do  not  mean  that  this 
perception  gives  us  a  knowledge  of  the  Infinite  as  it 
is  in  itself.  This  can  be  said  of  our  perception  of 
the  Infinite  as  little  as  of  our  perception  of  the  Finite. 
Kant  shows  again  and  again  that  our  perception  can 
never  give  us  a  knowledge  of  things  in  themselves 
(this  is  really  a  contradtctio  in  adjecto),  but  that  all 
our  knowledge  applies  to  the  pressure  or  impressions 
on  our  senses  only. 

But  though  we  cannot  know  things  finite,  as  they 
are  in  themselves,  we  know  at  all  events  that  they 
are.  And  this  is  what  applies  to  our  perception  of 
the  Infinite  also.  We  do  not  know  through  our 
senses  what  it  is,  but  we  know  through  our  very 
senses  that  it  is.  We  feel  the  pressure  of  the  Infinite 
in  the  Finite,  and  unless  we  had  that  feeling,  we 
should  have  no  true  and  safe  foundation  for  what- 
ever we  may  afterwards  believe  of  the  Infinite. 

Some  critics  of  mine  have  urged  that  what  I  here 
call  the  Infinite  is  not  the  Infinite,  but  the  Indefinite 
only.  Of  course  it  is,  and  it  was  my  chief  object  to 
show  that  it  is.  We  can  know  the  Infinite  as  the 
Indefinite  only,  or  as  the  partially  defined.  We  try  to 
define  it  and  to  know  it  more  and  more,  but  we 
never  finish  it.  The  whole  history  of  religion  repre- 
sents in  fact  the  continuous  progress  of  the  human 
definition  of  the  Infinite,  but  however  far  that  defini- 
tion may  advance,  it  will  never  exhaust  the  Infinite. 
Could  we  define  it  all,  it  would  cease  to  be  the  In- 


KESHUB    CHUNDEK   SEN.  163 

finite,  it  would  cease  to  be  the  Unknown,  it  would 
cease  to  be  the  Inconceivable  or  the  Divine. 

But  how,  I  have  been  asked,  are  we  able  to  define 
the  Infinite  even  in  this  indefinite  way  ?  My  answer 
is,  Look  at  the  history  of  mankind.  From  the  very 
beginning  of  history  to  the  present  day  man  has  been 
engaged  in  defining  the  Infinite.  He  has  ascribed  to 
it  whatever  was  known  to  him  as  the  best  from  time 
to  time,  and  has  named  it  accordingly.  And  as  he 
advanced  in  his  knowledge  of  what  is  good  and  best, 
he  has  rejected  the  old  names  and  invented  new  ones. 
That  process  of  naming  the  Infinite  was  the  process 
of  defining  it,  at  first  aflai'matively,  then  negatively — 
saying  at  least  what  the  Infinite  is  not,  when  human 
reason  discovered  more  and  more  her  inability  of 
sajdng  what  the  Infinite  is.  If  these  names,  from 
first  to  last,  are  not  names  of  the  Infinite,  of  what  are 
they  the  names  ?  Of  the  Indefinite  ?  There  is  no  In- 
definite per  se,  but  only  in  relation  to  us.  Of  the 
Finite?  Certainly  not,  for  even  the  lowest  names  of 
the  lowest  religion  exclude  the  idea  of  the  Finite. 
Then  what  remains'?  They  are  names  of  what  we 
mean  by  the  Infinite,  the  Unknown ;  and  if  we  are 
told  that  this  Infinite  or  this  Unknown  is  mere  as- 
sumption, let  it  be  so,  so  long  as  it  is  the  only 
possible  assumption,  the  only  possible  name.  You 
ask  me  (p.  50)  how  vdth  this  view  of  the  Infinite  I 
can  say  that  '  the  outward  eye,  the  mere  organ,  ap- 
prehends the  Infinite,  because  the  Infinite  has  neither 
form  nor  dimension '  ?  When  I  used  the  expression 
'  to  apprehend  the  Infinite,'  I  surely  explained  what 
I  meant  by  it.  Yes,  I  maintain — and  I  do  so  as 
going  beyond    Kant's   philosophy — that    the   eye  is 

M  2 


164  BIOaiiAPIIICAL   ESSAYS. 

brought  in  actual  contact  with  the  Infinite,  and  that 
what  we  feel  through  the  pressure  on  all  our  senses 
is  the  presence  of  the  Infinite.  Our  senses,  if  I  may 
say  so,  feel  nothing  but  the  Infinite,  and  out  of  that 
plenitude  they  apprehend  the  Finite.  To  apprehend 
the  Finite  is  the  same  as  to  define  the  Infinite,  whether 
in  space  or  time  or  under  any  other  conditions  of 
sensuous  perception.  You  speak  of  '  the  outward  eye, 
the  mere  organ.'  Is  there  an  outward  eye  and  a  mere 
organ  %  Is  not  the  simplest  perception  of  a  ray  of  light 
the  most  wonderful  act  of  knowledge,  which '  the  mere 
organ '  is  as  little  able  to  explain  as  the  whole  appa- 
ratus of  all  our  so-called  faculties  of  knowledge.  Yes, 
to  me  the  first  ray  of  light  perceived  is  the  perception 
of  the  Infinite,  a  revelation  more  wonderful  than  any 
that  followed  afterwards.  We  may  afterwards  define 
the  light,  we  may  count  the  vibrations  that  produce 
different  forms  or  colours  of  light,  we  may  analyse  the 
nerves  that  convey  the  vibrations  to  the  nerve- 
centres  in  the  brain,  and  yet  with  all  that  we  want 
to-day,  as  much  as  the  ancient  prophets  thousands  of 
years  ago,  some  Will,  some  Infinite  Being,  saying  and 
willing.  Let  there  be  light ! 

You  say  that  you  agree  with  me  so  far  as  to  think 
that  sensuous  perceptions  siuigest  the  Infinite  (p.  ^'^). 
I  do  not  quarrel  about  words,  and  am  quite  willing 
to  accept  that  mode  of  expression.  But  if  the  senses 
can  suggest  the  Infinite,  why  then  do  you  want,  as 
you  say,  another  special  faculty  in  the  soul  to  ap- 
prehend the  Infinite?  If  the  senses  can  suggest  the 
Infinite,  then  let  what  we  call  the  understanding  or 
reason  or  faith  more  fully  develop  that  suggestion ; 
but  the  important  step  is  the  first  suggestion.     I  do 


KESHUB   CHUNDER  SE>7.  165 

not  object  to  a  division  of  the  faculties  of  the  soul 
for  the  purpose  of  scientific  treatment.  But  as  the 
live  senses  are  only  five  modifications  of  perception, 
so,  in  its  true  essence,  all  the  so-called  faculties  of  the 
boul  are  but  difi'erent  modifications  or  dejn'ees  of 
cognition.  Sensuous  knowledge  is  the  first  know- 
ledge, and  therefore  often  considered  as  the  lowest. 
But  as,  without  it,  no  knowledge  whatever  is  possible 
to  human  beings,  surely  we  are  wrong  in  degrading 
it,  and  in  not  recognising  that,  as  the  beautiful 
flower  is  impossible  without  the  ugly  root,  so  the 
highest  flights  of  speculations  would  be  impossible 
without  what  you  call  'the  mere  material  organ  of 
the  eye.' 

Then,  you  ask.  Why,  if  faith  is  but  a  development 
of  that  faculty  of  knowledge  the  fii'st  manifestations 
of  which  appear  in  sensuous  knowledge,  have  not 
the  animals  arrived  at  the  same  development?  Why 
has  no  animal  faith  in  the  Infinite  ?  My  answer  is. 
Every  being  is  not  what  it  is,  but  what  it  can  become. 
There  are  stages  in  the  growth  of  the  animal  and  of 
the  man  where  both  seem  alike :  there  are  stasres 
where  the  animal  seems  even  more  perfect  than  the 
man.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  animal  stops  at 
a  certain  stage  and  cannot  get  beyond,  while  man 
grows  on  to  reach  his  full  development.  When  we 
see  a  baby  and  a  young  monkey,  we  have  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  the  one  will  develop  into  a  speaking 
and  thinking  animal,  the  other  not.  But  so  it  is, 
and  we  must  simply  accept  the  facts.  It  is  language 
that  marks  the  line  which  no  animal  can  cross, 
it  is  language  that  enables  man  to  develop  his  per- 
cepts   into   concepts,   and   his    concepts   into   ideals. 


166  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

The  highest  of  these  ideals  is  the  Infinite  recognised 
through  the  Finite,  as,  at  first,  the  Finite  was  recog- 
nised through  the  Infinite.  I  have  always  held,  and 
I  still  hold,  even  against  the  greatest  of  all  modern 
philosophers,  that  the  material  out  of  which  this  ideal 
is  constructed  is,  in  the  first  instance,  supplied  by  the 
senses,  that  it  is  not  a  mere  postulate  of  reason  or 
aspiration  of  faith,  but  shares  with  all  our  other 
knowledge  the  same  firm  foundation,  namely  the 
evidence  of  the  senses. 

So  you  see  my  letter  has  grown  into  a  long  epistle, 
and  if  you  like  you  may  publish  it  in  the  same 
Journal  in  which  your  review  of  my  Hihhirt  Lectures 
appeared.  Your  friends  will  then  see,  as  I  hope  you 
may  see  yourself,  that  though  we  may  differ  in  the 
wording  of  our  thoughts,  our  thoughts  spring  from 
the  same  source,  and  tend  in  their  various  ways  to- 
wards the  same  distant  goal. 

Yours  very  truly, 

F.  Max  Mulleb. 


DAYANANDA   SARASTAlt. 

(1827-1883.) 

THE  Indian  newspapers  contain  the  announcement 
of  the  death  of  Dayananda  Sarasvati.  Most 
English  readers,  even  some  old  Indians,  will  ask, 
Who  was  Dayananda  Sarasvati? — a  question  that 
betrays  as  great  a  want  of  familiarity  with  the  social 
and  religious  life  of  India  as  if  among  us  any  one 
were  to  ask,  Who  was  Dr.  Pusey  ?  Dayananda  Saras- 
vati was  the  founder  and  leader  of  the  Arya-Samaj, 
one  of  the  most  influential  of  the  modern  sects  in 
India.  He  was  a  curious  mixture,  in  some  respects 
not  unlike  Dr.  Pusey.  He  was  a  scholar,  to  begin 
with,  deeply  read  in  the  theological  literature  of  his 
country.  Up  to  a  certain  point  he  was  a  reformer, 
and  was  in  consequence  exposed  to  much  obloquy 
and  persecution  during  his  life,  so  much  so  that  it  is 
hinted  in  the  papers  that  his  death  was  due  to  poison 
administered  by  his  enemies.  He  was  opposed  to 
many  of  the  abuses  that  had  crept  in,  as  he  well 
knew,  during  the  later  periods  of  the  religious  growth 
of  India,  and  of  which,  as  is  known  now,  no  trace  can 
be  found  in  the  ancient  sacred  books  of  the  Brahmans, 
the  Vedas.  He  was  opposed  to  idol  worship,  he  re- 
pudiated caste,  and  advocated  female  education  and 
widow  marriage,  at  least  under  certain  conditions. 
In  his  public  disputations  with  the  most  learned 
Pandits  at  Benares  and  elsewhere,  he  was  generally 


168  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

supposed  to  have  been  victorious,  though  often  the 
aid  of  the  police  had  to  be  called  in  to  protect  him 
from  the  blows  of  his  conquered  foes.  He  took  his 
stand  on  the  Vedas.  Whatever  was  not  to  be  found 
in  the  Vedas  he  declared  to  be  false  or  useless  ;  w^hat- 
ever  was  found  in  the  Vedas  was  to  him  beyond  the 
reach  of  controversy.  Like  all  the  ancient  theologians 
of  India,  he  looked  upon  the  Vedas  as  divine  revela- 
tion. That  idea  seems  to  have  taken  such  complete 
possession  of  his  mind  that  no  argument  could  ever 
touch  it. 

It  is  here  where  Dayananda  Sarasvatt's  movement 
took  a  totally  different  direction  from  that  of  Ram- 
mohun  Roy.  Rammohun  Roy  also  and  his  followers 
held  for  a  time  to  the  revealed  character  of  the  Vedas, 
and  in  all  their  early  controversies  with  Christian 
missionaries  they  maintained  that  there  was  no  argu- 
ment in  favour  of  the  divine  inspiration  of  the  Bible 
which  did  not  apply  with  the  same  or  even  greater 
force  to  the  Vedas.  As  the  Vedas  at  that  time  were 
almost  inaccessible,  it  was  difficult  for  the  missionaries 
to  attack  such  a  position.  But  when  at  a  later  time  it 
became  known  that  the  text  of  the  Vedas,  and  even 
their  ancient  commentaries,  were  being  studied  in 
Europe,  and  were  at  last  actually  printed  in  England, 
the  friends  of  Rammohun  Roy,  honest  and  fearless  as 
they  have  always  proved  themselves  to  be,  sent  some 
young  scholars  to  Benares  to  study  the  Vedas  and  to 
report  on  their  contents.  As  soon  as  their  report 
was  received,  Debendranath  Tagore,  the  head  of  the 
Brahma-Samaj,  saw  at  once  that,  venerable  as  the 
Vedas  might  be  as  relics  of  a  former  age,  they  con- 
tained so  much  that  was  childish,  erroneous,  and  im- 


DAYANANDA    SAEASVATI.  160 

possible  as  to  make  their  descent  from  a  divine  source 
utterly  untenable.  Even  he  could  hardly  be  expected 
to  perceive  the  real  interest  of  the  Vedas,  and  their 
perfectly  unique  character  in  the  literature  of  the 
world,  as  throwing  light  on  a  period  in  the  growth  of 
religion  of  which  we  tind  no  traces  anywhere  else. 

But  Dayananda,  owing  chiefly  to  his  ignorance  of 
English,  and,  in  consequence,  his  lack  of  acquaintance 
with  other  sacred  books,  and  his  total  ignorance  of 
the  results  obtained  by  a  comparative  study  of  re- 
ligions, saw  no  alternative  between  either  complete 
surrender  of  all  religion  or  an  unwavering  belief  in 
every  word  and  letter  of  the  Vedas.  To  those  who  know 
the  Vedas  such  a  position  would  seem  hardly  compa- 
tible with  honesty,  but,  to  judge  from  Dayananda's 
writings,  we  cannot  say  that  he  was  consciously  dis- 
honest. The  fundamental  idea  of  his  religion  was  reve- 
lation.  That  revelation  had  come  to  him  in  the  Vedas. 
He  knew  the  Vedas  by  heart ;  his  whole  mind  was 
saturated  with  them.  He  published  bulky  commenta- 
ries on  two  of  them,  the  Rig-Veda  and  Ya^ur-Veda. 
One  might  almost  say  that  he  was  possessed  by  the 
Vedas.  He  considered  the  Vedas  not  only  as  divinely 
inspired,  or  rather  expired,  but  as  prehistoric  or  pre- 
human. Indian  casuists  do  not  understand  how  Chris- 
tian divines  can  be  satisfied  with  maintaining-  the 
divine  origin  of  their  revelation,  because  they  hold  that, 
though  a  revelation  may  be  divine  in  its  origin,  it  is 
liable  to  every  kind  of  accident  if  the  recipient  is 
merely  human.  To  obviate  this  difficulty,  they  admit 
a  number  of  intermediate  beings,  neither  quite  divine 
nor  quite  human,  through  whom  the  truth,  as  breathed 
forth  from  God,  was  safely  handed  down  to  human 


170  BIOGRAPHICAL    ESSAYS. 

beings.  If  any  historical  or  geographical  names  occur 
in  the  Vedas,  they  are  all  explained  away,  because,  if 
taken  in  their  natural  sense,  they  would  impart  to 
the  Vedas  an  historical  or  temporal  taint.  In  fact, 
the  very  character  which  we  in  Europe  most  ap- 
preciate in  the  Vedas — namely,  the  historical — would 
be  scouted  by  the  orthodox  theologians  of  India,  most 
of  aU  by  Dayananda  Sarasvati.  In  his  commentary 
on  the  Rig-Veda,  written  in  Sanskrit,  he  has  often 
been  very  hard  on  me  and  my  own  interpretation  of 
Vedic  hymns,  though  I  am  told  that  he  never  travelled 
without  my  edition  of  the  Rig-Veda.  He  could  not 
understand  why  I  should  care  for  the  Veda  at  all, 
if  I  did  not  consider  it  as  divinely  revealed.  While 
I  valued  most  whatever  indicated  human  sentiment 
in  the  Vedic  hymns,  whatever  gave  evidence  of  his- 
torical growth,  or  reflected  geographical  surround- 
ings, he  was  bent  on  hearing  in  it  nothing  but  the 
voice  of  Brahman.  To  him  not  only  was  everything 
contained  in  the  Vedas  perfect  truth,  but  he  went 
a  step  further,  and  by  the  most  incredible  interpreta- 
tions succeeded  in  persuading  himself  and  others  that 
everything  worth  knowing,  even  the  most  recent  inven- 
tions of  modern  science,  were  alluded  to  in  the  Vedas. 
Steam-engines,  railways,  and  steam-boats,  all  were 
shown  to  have  been  known,  at  least  in  their  germs,  to 
the  poets  of  the  Vedas,  for  Veda,  he  argued,  means 
Divine  Knowledge,  and  how  could  anything  have  been 
hid  from  that  ?  Such  views  may  seem  strange  to  us, 
though,  after  all,  it  is  not  so  very  long  ago  that  an 
historical  and  critical  interpretation  of  the  Bible 
would  have  roused  the  same  opposition  in  England  as 
my  own  free  and  independent  interpretation  of  the 


DAYANANDA   SAEASVAT!.  171 

Rig-Veda  has   roused   in   the   breast   of  Dayananda 
Sarasvati. 

There  is  a  curious  autobiographical  sketch  of  his 
life,  which  was  published  some  time  ago  in  an  Indian 
jourDal.  Some  doubts,  however,  have  been  thrown 
on  the  correctness  of  the  English  rendering  of  that 
paper,  and  we  may  hope  that  Dayananda's  pupil, 
Pandit  Shyamaji  Kr/shi/avarma,  now  a  B.A.  of  Balliol 
College,  will  soon  give  us  a  more  perfect  account  of 
that  remarkable  man. 

In  the  mean  time  an  abstract  of  what  Dayananda 
has  told  us  himself  of  his  life  ^  may  be  interesting,  as 
introducing  us  into  an  intellectual  and  reliorious  at- 
mosphere  of  which  even  those  who  live  in  India  and 
are  in  frequent  contact  with  the  Hindus  know  very 
little. 

Dayananda  writes :  '  I  was  born  in  a  family  of 
Udichya  (Northern)  Brahmaus,  in  a  town  belonging 
to  the  Rajah  of  Morvi,  in  the  province  of  Kathiawar. 
If  I  refrain  from  naming  my  parents,  it  is  because  my 
duty  forbids  me.  If  my  relations  knew  of  me,  they 
would  call  me  back,  and  then,  once  more  face  to  face 
with  them,  I  should  have  to  remain  with  them,  attend 
to  their  wants,  and  touch  money.  Thus  the  holy 
work  of  the  reform  to  which  I  have  dedicated  my  life 
would  be  jeopardised, 

'  I  was  hardly  five  years  of  age  when  I  began  to 
study  the  Devanagari  alphabet.  According  to  the 
custom  of  my  family  and  caste,  I  was  made  to  learn 
by  rote  a  large  number  of  mantras  or  hymns  with 

*  Dayananda  Sarasvatl's  autobiography,  translated  from  Hindi  into 
English,  and  published  in  the  '  Theosophist.'  I  have  to  thank  the 
editor  of  that  journal  for  her  kindness  iu  sending  it  to  me. 


172  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

commentaries.  I  was  but  eight  when  I  was  invested 
with  the  sacred  Brahmanic  thread,  and  taught  the 
Gayatri  hymn,  the  Sandhya  (morning  and  evening) 
ceremony,  and  the  Ya^ur-veda-saiJ*hita,  beginning 
with  the  Rudradhyaya^.  As  my  father  belonged  to 
the  <Siva-sect,  I  was  early  taught  to  worship  the  un- 
couth piece  of  clay  representing  Siva,,  known  as  the 
Parthiva  Linga.  My  mother,  fearing  for  my  health, 
opposed  my  observing  the  daily  fasts  enjoined  on  the 
worshippers  of  >Siva,  and  as  my  father  sternly  insisted 
on  them,  frequent  quarrels  arose  between  my  parents. 
Meanwhile  I  studied  Sanskrit  grammar,  learnt  the 
Vedas  by  heart,  and  accompanied  my  father  in  his 
visits  to  the  shrines  and  temples  of  Siwa.  My  father 
looked  upon  the  worship  of  Siva,  as  the  most  divine  of 
all  religions.  Before  I  was  fourteen  I  had  learnt  by 
heart  the  whole  of  the  Ya^ur-veda-sa»ihita,  parts  of 
the  other  Vedas,  and  of  the  AS'abdarupavali  (an  elemen- 
tary Sanskrit  grammar),  so  that  my  education  was 
considered  as  finished. 

'  My  father  being  a  banker  and  Jamadar  (Town  re- 
venue collector  and  magistrate)  we  lived  comfortably. 
My  difficulties  began  when  my  father  insisted  on  ini- 
tiating me  in  the  worship  of  the  Parthiva  Linga.  As 
a  preparation  for  this  solemn  act  I  was  made  to  fast, 
and  I  had  then  to  follow  my  father  for  a  night's  vigil 
in  the  temple  of  <S'iva.  The  vigil  is  divided  into  four 
parts  or  praharas,  consisting  of  three  hours  each. 
When  I  had  watched  six  hours  I  observed  about  mid- 
night that  the  Pujaris,  the  temple-servants,  and  some 
of  the  devotees,  after  having  left  the  inner  temple,  had 
fallen    asleep.    Knowing  that  this  would  destroy  all 

'  See  Catalogus  Cod.  Manuscr.  Sanscrit.  Bibl.  Bodl.  vol.  i.  p.  74''. 


DAYAnANDA   SARASVATi.  173 

the  good  effects  of  the  service,  I  kept  awake  myself, 
when  I  observed  that  even  my  father  had  fallen  asleep. 
While  I  was  thus  left  alone  I  began  to  meditate.  Is 
it  possible,  I  asked  myself,  that  this  idol  I  see  be- 
striding his  bull  before  me,  and  who,  according  to  all  ac- 
counts, walks  about,  eats,  sleeps,  drinks,  holds  a  trident 
in  his  hand,  beats  the  drum,  and  can  pronounce  curses 
on  men,  can  be  the  great  Deity,  the  Mahadeva,  the 
Supreme  Being  ■?  Unable  to  resist  such  thoughts  any 
longer  I  roused  my  father,  asking  him  to  tell  me 
whether  this  hideous  idol  was  the  great  god  of  the  scrip- 
tures. "  Why  do  you  ask?"  said  my  father.  "  Because," 
I  answered,  "  I  feel  it  impossible  to  reconcile  the  idea 
of  an  omnipotent  living  God  with  this  idol,  which 
allows  the  mice  to  run  over  his  body  and  thus  suffers 
himself  to  be  polluted  without  the  slightest  protest." 
Then  my  father  tried  to  explain  to  me  that  this 
stone  image  of  the  Mahadeva,  having  been  consecrated 
by  the  holy  Brahmans,  became,  in  consequence,  the 
god  himself,  adding  that  as  >S'iva  cannot  be  perceived 
personally  in  this  Kali-yuga,  we  have  the  idol  in  which 
the  Mahadeva  is  imagined  by  his  votaries.  I  was  not 
satisfied  in  my  mind,  but  feeling  faint  with  hunger 
and  fatigue,  I  begged  to  be  allowed  to  go  home. 
Though  warned  by  my  father  not  to  break  my  fast,  I 
could  not  help  eating  the  food  which  my  mother  gave 
me,  and  then  fell  asleep. 

'  When  my  father  returned  he  tried  to  impress  me 
with  the  enormity  of  the  sin  I  had  committed  in 
breaking  my  fast.  But  my  faith  in  the  idol  was  gone, 
and  all  I  could  do  was  to  try  to  conceal  my  lack  of 
faith,  and  devote  all  my  time  to  study.  I  studied  at 
that  time  the  Nighau^u  and  Nirukta  (Vedic  glossaries), 


174  BIOaEAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

the  Purvamimaoisa  (Vedic  philosophy),  and  the  Karma- 
kanda,  or  the  Vedic  ritual. 

'  There  were  besides  me  in  our  family  two  younger 
sisters  and  two  bi-others,  the  youngest  of  them  being 
born  when  I  was  sixteen.  On  one  memorable  night 
one  of  my  sisters,  a  girl  of  fourteen,  died  quite  sud- 
denly. It  was  my  first  bereavement,  and  the  shock 
to  my  heart  was  very  great.  While  friends  and  rela- 
tions were  sobbing  and  lamenting  around  me,  I  stood 
like  one  petrified,  and  plunged  in  a  profound  dream. 
"  Not  one  of  the  beings  that  ever  lived  in  this  world 
could  escape  the  cold  hand  of  death,"  I  thought ;  "  I 
too  may  be  snatched  away  at  any  time,  and  die. 
Whither  then  shall  I  turn  to  alleviate  this  human 
misery  ?  Where  shall  I  find  the  assurance  of,  and 
means  of  attaining  Moksha,  the  final  bliss?"  It  was 
then  and  there  that  I  came  to  the  determination  that 
I  wou'd  find  it,  cost  whatever  it  might,  and  thus  save 
myseK  from  the  untold  miseries  of  the  dying  moments 
of  an  unbeliever.  I  now  broke  for  ever  with  the 
mummeries  of  fasting  and  penance,  but  I  kept  my 
innermost  thoughts  a  secret  from  everybody.  Soon 
after,  an  uncle,  a  very  learned  man,  who  had  shown 
me  great  kindness,  died  also,  his  death  leaving  me 
with  a  still  profounder  conviction  that  there  was  no- 
thing stable,  nothing  worth  living  for  in  this  world. 

'  At  this  time  my  parents  wished  to  betroth  me.  The 
idea  of  married  life  had  always  been  repulsive  to  me, 
and  with  great  difficulty  I  persuaded  my  father  to 
postpone  my  betrothal  till  the  end  of  the  j'-ear. 
Though  I  wished  to  go  to  Benares  to  carry  on  my 
study  of  Sanskrit,  I  was  not  allowed  to  do  so,  but  was 
sent  to  an  old  priest,  a  learned  Pandit,  who  resided 


DAYANANDA   SARASVAT!.  175 

about  six  miles  from  our  town.  There  T  remained  for 
some  time,  till  I  was  summoned  home  to  find  everything 
ready  for  my  marriage.  I  was  then  twenty-one,  and 
as  1  saw  no  other  escape,  I  resolved  to  place  an  eternal 
bar  between  myself  and  marriage. 

'  Soon  after  I  secretly  left  my  home,  and  succeeded 
in  escaping  from  a  party  of  horsemen  whom  my  father 
had  sent  after  me.  While  travelling  on  foot,  I  was 
robbed  by  a  party  of  begging  Brahmans  of  all  I  pos- 
sessed, being  told  by  them  that  the  more  I  gave  away 
in  charities,  the  more  my  self-denial  would  benefit  me 
in  the  next  life.  After  some  time  I  arrived  at  the 
town  of  Sayla,  where  I  knew  of  a  learned  scholar 
named  Lala  Bhagat,  and  with  another  Brahma/('arin, 
I  determined  to  join  his  order. 

'  On  my  initiation  I  received  the  name  of  /S'uddha 
A'aitanya  (pure  thought),  and  had  to  wear  a  reddish-yel- 
low garment.  In  this  new  attire  I  went  to  the  small 
principality  of  Kouthagangad,  near  Ahmadabad,  where 
to  my  misfortune  I  met  with  a  Bairagi  (Vairagin, 
hermit),  well  acquainted  with  my  family.  Having  found 
out  that  I  was  on  my  way  to  a  Mella  (religious  fair)  held 
at  Sidhpur,  he  informed  my  father ;  and  while  I  was 
staying  in  the  temple  of  Mahadeva  at  Nilakau2J//a  with 
Daradi  Svami  and  other  students,  I  was  suddenly 
confronted  by  my  father.  In  spite  of  aU  my  entreaties 
he  handed  me  over  as  a  prisoner  to  some  Sepoys  whom 
he  had  brought  with  him  on  purpose.  However,  I 
succeeded  in  escaping  once  more,  and  making  my  way 
back  to  Ahmadabad,  I  proceeded  to  Baroda.  There  I 
settled  for  some  time,  and  at  Chetan  Math  (a  temple) 
held  several  discourses  with  Brahmananda  and  a  num- 
ber of  Brahma/i-arins  and  Sannyasins,  on  the  Vedanta 


176  BIOGKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

philosophy.  From  Brahmananda  I  learnt  clearl}'  that 
I  am  Brahman,  the  giva,  (soul)  and  Brahman  being  one. 

'I  then  repaired  to  Benares  and  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  some  of  the  best  scholars  there,  particularly 
that  of  Sa.^-Aidananda  Paramaha/>/sa.  On  his  advice 
I  afterwards  proceeded  to  Chanoda  Kanyali  on  the 
banks  of  the  Narbada  (Narmada),  and  met  there  for  the 
first  time  with  real  Dikshitas,  initiated  in  the  Yoga- 
philosophy.  I  was  placed  under  the  tuition  of  Para- 
mananda  Paramaha)>jsa,  studying  such  books  as  the 
Vedanta-sara,  Vedanta-paribhasha  ^,  &c.  I  then  felt 
anxious  to  be  initiated  in  the  order  of  the  Dikshitas 
and  to  become  a  Sannyasin,  and  though  I  was  very 
young,  I  was  with  some  difficulty  consecrated,  and 
received  the  staff  of  the  Sannyasin.  My  name  was 
then  changed  into  Dayananda  Sarasvati. 

'  After  some  time  I  left  Chanoda  and  proceeded  to 
Vyasasrama  to  study  Yoga,  ascetic  philosophy,  under 
Yogananda.  I  then  spent  some  more  time  in  prac- 
tising Yoga,  but  in  order  to  acquire  the  highest  per- 
fection in  Yoga  I  had  to  return  to  the  neighbourhood 
of  Ahmadabad,  where  two  Yogins  imparted  to  me  the 
final  secrets  of  Yoga-vidj^a.  I  then  travelled  to  the 
mountain  of  Abu  in  Rajputan,  to  acquire  some  new 
modes  of  Yoga,  and  in  1855  joined  a  great  meeting  at 
Hardwares  where  many  sages  and  philosophers  meet 
for  the  study  and  practice  of  Yoga^. 

'  These  are  not  Yoga  books,  but  very  elementary  treatises  on  Yeddnta 
philosophy. 

*  Every  twelfth  year,  when  the  planet  Jupiter  is  in  Aquarius,  a  great 
feast  takes  place  at  Hardwar,  called  Kumbha-meld.  About  300,000 
people  are  said  to  attend  the  festival.  See  Hunter,  •  Imperial  Gazeteer,' 
8.  V.  Hardwar. 

'  This  practice  of  Yoga  is  described  in  the  Yoga-sCltras.      !Much  of  it 


DAY  AN  AND  A  SAKASVAT!.  177 

'  At  Tidoe,  where  I  spent  some  time,  I  was  horrified 
at  meeting  with  meat-eating  Brahmans,  still  more 
at  reading  some  of  their  sacred  books,  the  Tantras, 
which  sanction  every  kind  of  immorality. 

'  I  then  proceeded  to  >S'rinagar,  and  taking  up  my 
abode  at  a  temple  on  Kedar  Ghat^,  I  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  an  excellent  Sadhu,  called  Gangagiri, 
with  whom  I  studied  and  discussed  philosophical 
books.  After  two  months  I,  in  company  with  other 
ascetics,  travelled  further  to  Rudra  Prayaga.  till  we 
reached  the  shrine  of  Agast^-a  Muni,  Still  further 
north  is  *Sivapura,  where  I  spent  four  months  of  the 
cold  season,  returning  afterwards  alone  to  Kedar 
Ghat,  and  to  Gupta  Kasi  (hidden  Benares)  ^.' 

After  this  follows  a  description  of  various  journeys 
to  the  north,  where  in  the  recesses  of  the  Himalaya 
mountains  Dayananda  hoped  to  find  the  sages  who 
are  called  Mahatmas,  and  are  supposed  to  be  in  pos- 
session of  the  highest  wisdom.  These  journeys  are 
described  very  graphically,  but  their  details  have 
been  called  in  question,  and  may  therefore  be  passed 
over.  That  there  are  hermits  living  in  the  Himalaya 
forests,  that  some  of  them  are  extremely  learned,  and 
that  others  are  able  to  perform  extraordinary  acts 
of  austerity,  is  well  known.  But  equally  well  known 
are  the  books  which  they  study,  and  the  acts  of  Yoga 
which  they  perform,  and  there  is  really  no  kind  of 
mystery  about  them.  They  themselves  would  be  the 
last  to  claim  any  mysterious  knowledge  beyond  what 

consists  in  abstemiousness  and  regulation  and  suspension  of  breath. 
From  this  arises  tranquillity  of  mind,  supernatural  knowledge,  and 
different  states  of  ecstasy  called  Samadhi. 

^  Was  not  this  meant  for  Kedarnath  ? 

'  A  sacred  spot  where  the  old  town  of  K^si  is  supposed  to  lie  buried. 
VOL.  II,  N 


178  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

the  -S'astras  supply.  Nor  are  such  Mahatmas  to  be 
found  in  the  Himalayan  recesses  only.  India  is  full 
of  men  who  seek  retirement,  dwell  in  a  small  cell  or 
cave,  sleep  on  the  skin  of  a  tiger  or  stag,  abstain  from 
flesh,  iish,  and  wine,  never  touch  salt,  and  live  en- 
tirely on  fruits  and  roots  ^. 

It  is  a  pity  that  the  rest  of  Dayananda's  auto- 
biography has  never  been  published.  It  breaks  off 
with  his  various  travels,  and  is  full  of  accounts  of  his 
intense  sufferings  and  strange  adventures.  He  seems 
in  the  end  to  have  lived  on  rice  and  milk,  finally  on 
milk  only,  but  he  indulged  for  a  time  in  the  use  of 
bhang,  hemp,  which  put  him  into  a  state  of  reverie 
from  which  he  found  it  difficult  to  rouse  himself. 
Here  and  there  we  catch  a  curious  glimpse  of  the  re- 
ligious feelings  of  the  people.  '  One  day,'  he  writes, 
'  when  recovering  from  such  a  day-dream,  I  took 
shelter  on  the  verandah  opposite  the  chief  entrance  to 
the  temple,  where  stood  the  huge  statue  of  the  Bull- 
god,  Nandi.  Placing  my  clothes  and  books  on  its 
back  I  sat  and  meditated,  when  suddenly,  happening 
to  throw  a  look  inside  the  statue,  which  was  empty, 
I  saw  a  man  concealed  inside.  I  extended  my  hand 
towards  him.  and  must  have  terrified  him,  as,  jump- 
ing out  of  his  hiding-place,  he  took  to  his  heels  in  the 
direction  of  the  village.  Then  I  crept  into  the  statue 
in  my  turn  and  slept  there  for  the  rest  of  the  night. 
In  the  morning  an  old  woman  came  and  Avorshipped 
the  Bull-god  with  myself  inside.  Later  on  she  re- 
turned with  offerings  of  Gur  (molasses)  and  a  pot  of 
Dahi  (curd  milk),  which, making  obeisance  to  me,  whom 
she  evidently  mistook  for  the  god  himself,  she  offered 
*  See  N.  C.  Paul,  in  the  Theosophist,  Feb.  1882,  p.  133. 


DAYiXANDA   SARASYAT!.  179 

and  desired  me  to  accept  and  eat.  I  did  not  disabuse 
her,  but,  being  hungry,  ate  it  all.  The  curd  being 
very  sour  proved  a  good  antidote  for  the  bhang,  and 
dispelled  all  signs  of  intoxication,  which  relieved  me 
very  much.  I  then  continued  my  journey  towards  the 
hills  and  that  place  where  the  Narmada  takes  its  rise.' 

We  should  like  very  much  to  have  a  trustworthy 
account  of  Dayananda's  studies  from  1 856,  when  we 
leave  him  in  his  autobiography,  to  1880,  when  we 
find  him  again  at  Mirut  (Theosophist,  Dec.  1880).  In 
18S1  we  read  of  his  public  disputations  in  every  part 
of  India  (Theosophist,  March  1 8 1  t  ).  At  a  large  con- 
vocation at  Calcutta,  about  300  Pandits  from  Gauc/a, 
Navadipa,  and  Ka.yi  discussed  the  orthodoxy  of  his 
opinions.  Dayananda  Sarasvati  had  somewhat  modi- 
fied his  opinions  as  to  the  divine  character  of  the 
Veda.  He  now  held  that,  of  the  whole  Vedic  litera- 
ture, the  Mantras  or  hymns  only  should  be  considered 
as  divinely  inspired.  The  Brahma/ms  seemed  to  him 
to  contain  too  many  things  which  were  clearly  of 
human  origin,  and  in  order  to  be  consistent  he  admitted 
of  the  Upanishads  also  those  only  as  of  superhuman 
origin  w^hich  formed  part  of  the  Sawhitas. 

Such  opinions  and  others  of  a  similar  character  were 
considered  dangerous,  and  at  the  meeting  in  question 
the  following  resolutions  were  carried  against  him : — 

(i)  That  the  Brahmajms  are  as  valid  and  authorita- 
tive as  the  Mantras,  and  that  the  other  Srarztis  or 
law-books  are  as  valid  and  authoritative  as  Manu. 

(2)  That  the  worship  of  Vish«u,  /Siva,  Durga,  and 
other  Hindu  deities,  the  performance  of  the  /Sraddha 
ceremonies  after  a  death,  and  bathing  in  the  Ganges, 
are  sanctioned  by  the  Mstras, 

N  2 


180  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

(3)  That  in  the  first  hymn  of  the  Rig-Veda,  ad- 
dressed to  Agni,  the  primary  meaning  of  Agni  is  fii'e, 
and  its  secondary  meaning  is  God. 

(4)  That  sacrifices  are  performed  to  secure  salva- 
tion. 

But  although  the  decisions  were  adverse  to  Daya- 
nanda,  the  writer  of  the  report  adds :  '  The  mass  of 
young  Hindus  are  not  Sanskrit  scholars,  and  it  is  no 
wonder  that  they  should  be  won  over  by  hundreds 
to  Dayananda's  views,  enforced  as  they  are  by  an 
oratorical  power  of  the  highest  order  and  a  determined 
will-force  that  breaks  down  all  opposition.' 

In  his  later  years  he  was  not  only  a  teacher  and 
lecturer,  but  devoted  his  time  to  the  publication  of 
Sanskrit  texts  also.  He  published  the  hymns  of  the 
Rig-Veda  and  Yayur-Veda,  with  a  commentary  of  his 
own,  the  strange  character  of  which  has  been  touched 
upon  before.  He  also  published  controversial  papers, 
all  showing  the  same  curious  mixture  of  orthodoxy 
and  free-thought.  He  believed  to  the  end  in  the  in- 
spiration of  the  Veda,  though  not  of  the  whole  of  the 
Veda,  but  of  certain  portions  only.  These  portions 
he  thought  he  was  competent  to  select  himself,  but  by 
what  authority,  he  could  not  tell. 

He  died  at  the  age  of  fifty-nine,  at  Ajmere,  at  6  p.m. 
on  Tuesda}^,  the  3otli  of  October  last.  There  was  a 
large  funeral  procession,  the  followers  of  Dayananda 
chanting  hymns  from  the  Vedas.  The  body  was 
burned  on  a  large  pile.  Two  maunds  of  sandal- wood, 
eight  maunds  of  common  fuel,  four  maunds  of  ghee 
(clarified  butter),  and  two  and  a  half  seers  of  camphor 
were  used  for  the  cremation. 

Whether  Dayananda's  sect  will  last  is  difficult  to  say. 


DAYAXAXDA   SAEASYATL  181 

The  life-blood  of  what  there  is  of  national  religion 
in  India  still  flows  from  the  Veda.  As  in  ancient 
times  every  new  sect,  every  new  system  of  philosophy 
was  tested  by  the  simple  question,  Do  you  believe  in 
the  superhuman  (apaurusheya)  origin  of  the  Veda? 
so  all  the  modern  religious  and  philosophical  move- 
ments, if  they  profess  to  be  orthodox,  are  weighed 
in  the  same  balance.  The  Brahma-Samaj ,  after  its 
surrender  of  the  Veda,  became  ipso  facto  heterodox. 
The  Arya-Samaj,  though  looked  upon  with  suspicion, 
remains  orthodox,  at  least  so  long  as  it  upholds  with 
Dayananda  Saras  vati  the  divine  character  of  the  Veda. 

Those  who  are  ignorant  of  what  is  going  on  beneath 
the  mere  surface,  have  often  declared  that  the  Vedas 
have  ceased  to  be  the  Sacred  Books  of  India,  that 
they  have  been  supplanted  by  Pura^as  and  Tantras, 
and  that  they  are  hardly  understood  now  by  any 
native  scholar.  The  last  assertion  may  be  true  in 
a  certain  sense,  but  for  all  the  rest,  those  who  know 
anything  of  the  real  issues  of  religion  in  India  know, 
or  ought  to  know,  that  they  depend  to-day,  as  three 
thousand  years  ago,  on  the  Veda. 

The  leader  of  the  orthodox  Arya-Samaj,  Dayananda 
Saras  vati,  the  determined  champion  of  the  literal  in- 
spiration of  the  Veda,  was  hardly  dead  before  his  fol- 
lowers flocked  together  from  all  parts  of  India  to  carry 
on  their  Vedic  Propaganda^.  A  meeting  was  held 
on  November  8  with  a  view  of  establishing  an  Anolo- 
Vedic  College.  Between  seven  and  eight  thousand 
rupees,  or,  according  to  another  statement,  38,282 
rupees,  were  subscribed  by  those  present.  An  ad- 
mirer of  Dayananda,  living  at  Amritsir,  promised  ten 
^  See  'Kew  Disi^ensation,'  Nov.  25,  1SS3, 


182  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

thousand  rupees,  and  the  Ferozepore  Arya-Samaj  col- 
lected two  thousand  rupees.  This  Vedic  College  has  for 
its  object  the  revival  of  the  knowledge  of  the  ancient 
scriptures  of  the  Hindus,  and  is  to  work  by  the  side 
of,  and  in  friendly  accord  with,  Syed  Ahmed  Khan's 
Mohammedan  College  at  Aligarh,  and  the  numerous 
Christian  Missionary  Societies  now  established  in 
India.  The  edition  of  the  Yayur-veda-saw/hita,  text, 
commentary,  and  translation,  is  to  be  continued  from 
the  manuscript  left  by  Dayananda.  Of  the  Rig-veda- 
sawzhita  the  manuscript,  as  prepared  by  him,  extends 
to  the  seventh  Ma?^^/ala  only. 

India  is  in  a  process  of  religious  fermentation,  and 
new  ceUs  are  constantly  thrown  out,  while  old  ones 
burst  and  disappear.  For  a  time  this  kind  of  liberal 
orthodoxy  started  by  Dayananda  may  last ;  but  the 
mere  contact  with  Western  thought,  and  more  par- 
ticularly with  Western  scholarship,  will  most  likely 
extinguish  it.  It  is  different  with  the  Brahma-Samaj, 
under  Debendranath  Tagore  and  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen.  They  do  not  fear  the  West ;  on  the  contrary, 
they  welcome  it;  and  though  that  movement,  too, 
may  change  its  name  and  character,  there  is  every 
prospect  that  it  will  in  the  end  lead  to  a  complete 
regeneration  in  the  religious  life  of  India. 

POSTSCBIPT,  January  1894.  From  what  has  come  to  liglit  after 
Dayananda  Sarasvatl's  death,  I  am  afraid  that  he  was  not  so  simple- 
minded  and  straightforward  in  his  work  as  a  reformer  as  I  imagined. 
Tlie  very  facts  of  his  autobiographical  sketch  have  been  questioned, 
thoucrh  in  the  main  they  may  have  been  correct.  At  all  events  the 
spirit  which  manifests  itself  among  his  followers  who  are  numerous,  is 
not  the  tolerant  and  enlightened  spirit  that  found  expression  m  the 
teachin'T  of  Kaminohun  Roy,  and  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  and  their 
attempt  to  make  the  old  bones  of  the  Vedic  religion  live  again  cannot 
meet  with  the  approval  of  the  true  religious  reformers  of  India.  It  is 
not  unlikely  that  his  intercourse  with  Mad.  BlavatsUy,  which  ended  in 
a  rupture,  gave  him  a  wrong  idea  of  Cliristiauity  and  made  him  a 
determined  opponent  of  that  religion. 


BUNYIU  l^ANJIO'. 

(Born  1849.) 

MB.  Bunyiu  Nanjio,  a  young  Buddhist  priest  from 
Japan,  on  whom  the  University  of  Oxford  has 
just  conferred  the  degree  of  M.A.  honoris  caitsa,  has 
been  residing  at  Oxford  since  February  1879.  He  had 
distinguished  himself  as  a  student  in  his  monastery 
at  Kioto  by  his  knowledge  of  Chinese,  which  he 
speaks  and  writes  like  his  native  language.  Some 
of  his  poems  in  Chinese  are  highly  spoken  of.  He 
was  selected  therefore  with  one  of  his  fellow-students, 
Kenjiu  Kasawara,  to  proceed  to  England  in  order  to 
learn  English,  and  afterwards  to  devote  himself  to 
the  study  of  Sanskrit.  Both  were  priests,  belonging 
to  the  Shin-shiu.  a  sect  claiming  more  than  ten 
millions  of  the  thirty-two  millions  of  Buddhists  in- 
habiting Japan.  It  is  the  most  liberal  sect  of 
Buddhism.  It  traces  its  origin  back  to  a  Chinese 
priest,  Hwui-yuen,  who,  in  a.d.  381,  founded  a  new 
monastery  in  China,  in  which  the  Buddha  Amitabha 
(Infinite  Light)  and  his  two  great  apostles,  Avalokite- 
5vara  and  Mahasthamaprapta,  were  worshipped.  This 
new  school  was  then  called  the  '  White  Lotus  School,' 
and  has  since  spread  far  and  wide.  Some  of  the 
friars  belonmns:  to  it  were  sent  to  India  to  collect 
Sanskrit  MSS.,  and  several  of  these,  containing  sacred 
texts  of  Buddhism,  particularly  descriptions  of  Su- 
khavati,  or  the  Land  of  Bliss,  in  which  the  believers 

>  Seethe  Times,  March,  18S4. 


184  EIOGKAPrilCAL   ESSAYS. 

in  the  Buddha  Araitaljha  hope  to  be  born  again,  were 
translated  from  Sanskrit  into  Chinese.  They  form 
to  the  present  day  the  sacred  books  of  the  White 
Lotus  sect  in  China,  Tibet,  and  Japan. 

The  fundamental  doctrines  of  that  sect  may  be 
traced  back  to  the  famous  Patriarch  Nagar^una,  who 
is  supposed  to  have  lived  about  the  beginning  of 
the  Christian  era.  The  Shin-shiu  differ  from  other 
Buddhist  sects  by  preaching  a  simple  faith  in  the 
Buddha  of  Infinite  Light  as  the  shortest  and  safest 
road  to  salvation.  'There  are  innumerable  gates,' 
Nagar^una  says,  'of  the  Law  of  Buddha,  just  as  there 
are  many  paths  in  the  world,  either  difficult  or  easy. 
To  travel  by  land  on  foot  is  painful,  but  to  cross  the 
water  by  ship  is  pleasant.  It  is  the  same  with  the 
paths  of  the  disciples.  Some  practise  diligently  re- 
ligious austerities  with  pain  and  suffering,  others  are 
able  to  attain  the  state  of  "  Never  returning  again," 
by  easy  practice,  by  faith  in  Buddha  Amitabha.' 

After  this  doctrine  of  the  White  Lotus  school  had 
reached  Japan  in  the  seventh  century,  it  branched  off 
into  different  sects.  The  Shin-shiu,  to  which  Mr.  Bunyiu 
Nanjio  belongs,  dates  from  A.  D.  1 1 74.  It  was  founded  by 
Gen-ku  (Honen),  and  became  powerful  and  influential 
under  his  famous  successor,  Shin-ran  (died  1262  A.D.), 
who  gave  to  it  the  name  of  Shin-shiu  or  '  True  Sect.' 

The  Sacred  Books  of  the  Buddhists  in  Japan  are 
all,  or  nearly  all,  Chinese  translations  of  Sanskrit 
originals.  Many  of  these  translations,  however,  are 
known  to  be  very  imperfect,  either  because  the 
Chinese  translators  misapprehended  the  peculiar 
Sanskrit  of  the  originals,  or  because  the  Indian  trans- 
lators were  not  able  to  express  themselves  correctly 


BUXYIU   NANJIO.  185 

in  Chinese.  Hence  the  same  texts  had  often  to  be 
translated  again  and  again,  and  of  one  of  the  principal 
sacred  texts  used  in  Japan,  the  Sukhavati-vyuha, 
'the  Description  of  the  Land  of  Bliss,'  there  are  no 
less  than  twelve  Chinese  translations.  These  trans- 
lations differ  from  each  other,  each  succeediDor  one 
claiming  to  be  more  correct  than  its  predecessors. 

In  former  days  Japan  possessed  some  Sanskrit 
scholars  who,  whenever  a  theological  difficulty  arose, 
could  consult  the  original  Sanskrit  texts.  But  of 
late  the  study  of  Sanskrit  has  become  completely 
extinct  in  that  country  as  well  as  in  China,  and  it 
was  in  order  to  revive  it  in  their  island  that  these 
young  priests,  Bunyiu  Nanjio  and  Kenjiu  Kasawara, 
were  sent  to  Europe.  After  spending  some  years  in 
London  learning  English,  they  came  to  me  at  Oxford 
with  letters  from  the  Japanese  Minister  and  the  late 
Dean  of  Westminster,  and  explained  to  me  their  wish 
to  learn  Sanskrit,  and  more  particularly  that  peculiar 
Sanskrit  and  its  various  dialects  in  which  the  works 
forming  the  Buddhist  Canon  are  composed.  I  promised 
to  help  them  as  much  as  I  could,  and  advised  them, 
first  of  all,  to  learn  the  ordinary  Sanskrit  in  which  such 
books  as  the  Hitopade.sa  and  AS'akuntala  are  written. 
This  they  did  with  the  help  of  a  very  able  young  San- 
skrit scholar,  Mr.  A.  Macdonell  of  Corpus  Christi  College. 
After  they  had  acquired  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  the 
grammar,  they  came  to  me  during  the  last  four  years, 
two  or  three  times  every  week,  reading  the  more 
difficult  Sanskrit  authors,  and  particular!}^  Buddhist 
texts,  most  of  which  exist  as  yet  in  MSS.  only,  and 
are  written  in  various  dialects  as  spoken  in  India  at 
the  time  of  the  rise  and  spreading  of  Buddhism. 


186  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

These  MSS.  were  brought  to  England  by  Mr.  B.  H. 
Hodgson,  a  marvellous  man,  whose  name  is  known  in 
every  country  of  Europe  as  one  of  the  greatest  dis- 
coverers and  benefactors  in  Oriental  scholarship,  and 
not  in  Oriental  scholarship  only,  but  in  zoology, 
botany,  and  ethnology  likewise,  but  is  almost  un- 
known in  England,  and  not  to  be  found  even  in  the 
last  edition  of  '  Men  of  the  Time.'  He  may,  however, 
console  himself  in  his  happy  old  age  (his  article  on 
the  Languages  of  Nepal  was  published  in  1828)  with 
the  conviction  that  he  is  one  of  the  few  Oriental 
scholars  who  are  not  Men  of  the  Time  only. 

Unfortunately  the  number  and  bulk  of  the  Sanskrit 
MSS.,  constituting  the  Sacred  Canon  of  the  Buddhists, 
is  enormous.  Burnouf  in  his  great  work,  which  he 
modestly  called  an  Introduction  to  the  History  of 
Buddhism,  had  made  ample  use  of  Mr.  Hodgson's 
MSS.,  and  my  two  pupils  set  to  work  determinately 
to  copy  what  seemed  most  valuable  in  the  libraries 
at  Oxford,  Cambridge,  London,  and  Paris.  Though 
these  Sanskrit  originals  exist  as  yet,  with  few  ex- 
ceptions, in  MS.  only,  the  Chinese  translations  of  the 
enormous  Canon  of  the  Sacred  Books  of  the  Buddhists 
have  been  published  several  times  both  in  China  and 
Japan,  though  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  single 
scholar  during  a  lifetime  could  ever  read  the  whole 
of  them.  In  some  of  the  Buddhist  temples  the 
volumes  forming  the  Sacred  Canon  stand  arranged 
on  an  enormous  revolving  book-case,  like  those  which 
have  lately  been  introduced  from  America  into  this 
country,  and  by  giving  it  a  push  and  making  it 
revolve  a  man  who  enters  the  temple  is  supposed  to 
acquire  the  merit  of  having  perused  the  whole  Canon. 


BUNYITJ   NANJIO.  187 

Mr.  Bunyiu  Nanjio,  among  other  useful  works  which 
he  did  during  his  stay  at  Oxford,  compiled  a  complete 
catalogue  of  the  gigantic  Canon,  called  the  Tripi^aka 
or  the  Three  Baskets.  It  contains  1663  separate 
works,  some  small,  some  immense.  In  each  case  the 
original  Sanskrit  title  has  been  restored,  the  date  of 
the  translations,  and  indirectly  the  minimum  dates 
of  the  originals  also,  have  been  fixed.  This  has  led  to 
a  discovery  which,  as  I  tried  to  show  in  my  Lectures, 
India,  what  can  it  teach  us?  has  revolutionised  nearly 
the  whole  of  the  history  of  Sanskrit  literature.  We 
know  now  that  between  the  Vedic  and  the  later  Renais- 
sance literature  there  lies  a  period  of  Buddhist  litera- 
ture, both  sacred  and  profane,  extending  from  about 
the  first  century  before  to  the  fifth  century  after 
C'hrist.  Whoever  wishes  to  study  the  growth  of  the 
Sanskrit  language  historically,  must  in  future  begin 
with  the  Veda,  then  work  his  way  through  the  Tripi- 
f aka,  and  finish  with  Manu,  >S'akuntala,  and  other  works 
of  the  Renaissance  period. 

The  Catalogue  prepared  by  Mr.  Bunyiu  Nanjio  at 
the  request  of  the  Secretary  of  State  for  India,  and 
printed  at  the  Oxford  University  Press,  is  a  work  of 
permanent  utility,  a  magnum  opus,  and  has  been  wel- 
comed in  every  country  where  Sanskrit  is  studied. 

Besides  this  work,  which  took  a  great  deal  of  time, 
Mr.  Bunyiu  Nanjio  and  his  friend  Kenjiu  Kasawara 
have  prepared  several  Sanskrit  texts  for  publication, 
which  we  may  hope  will  in  time  appear  at  Kioto  in 
Japan.  Unfortunately,  Mr.  Kenjiu  Kasawara,  who 
returned  to  Japan  last  year,  died  there  soon  after  his 
ariival.  Mr.  Bunyiu  Nanjio,  who  has  been  suddenly 
summoned  to  return  to  his  monastery  at  Kioto,  hopes 


18S  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

to  establish  a  Sanskrit  Printing  Press,  unless  the 
Chinese  system  of  wood-engraving  should  prove  more 
advantageous  even  for  publishing  large  Sanskrit 
texts.  Some  of  the  shorter  and  more  popular  sacred 
texts  have  been  published  abeady  by  Mr.  Bunyiu 
Nanjio  and  myself  in  the  Anecdota  Oxoniensia,  such 
as  the  Va7ray(-/.7/edika,  the  Diamond-Cutter,  the  Su- 
khavati-vyuha,  the  Description  of  the  Land  of  Bliss. 
There  is  every  reason  to  expect  that  his  return  to  his  na- 
tive country  vt^ill  lead  to  a  revival  of  Sanskrit  scholarship, 
perhaps  to  a '  Revised  Version,'  and  certainly  to  a  more 
critical  and  truly  historical  study  of  Buddhism  in  the 
numerous  monasteries,  colleges,  and  temples  of  Japan. 

Mr.  Bunyiu  Nanjio  has  gained  the  respect  and 
friendship  of  all  who  knew  him  in  England,  and,  if 
his  life  be  spared,  he  may  still  exercise  a  most  bene- 
ficial influence  at  home.  He  is  a  sincere  Buddhist,  and, 
as  such,  a  sincere  admirer  of  true  Christianity.  I  shall 
miss  him  very  much.  But  instead  of  singing  the  praises 
of  my  own  pupil  and  friend,  I  prefer  to  give  a  few 
extracts  from  a  letter  written  by  a  missionary  who  had 
made  the  acquaintance  of  these  two  Japanese  students 
at  Oxford,  and  who  wrote  to  me  from  Formosa  to 
express  his  grief  on  reading  the  obituary  notice  of 
Kasawara  which  I  had  sent  to  the  Times. 

'  My  intercourse  with  Kasawara,'  he  writes,  '  did 
not  extend  beyond  half  a  year,  but  even  in  so  short  a 
time  his  pure  character  and  gentle  disposition  drew 
me  to  him  with  an  affection  which  I  could  hardly 
deem  possible  between  men  whose  experience  and 
faith  differed  so  widely. 

'I  found  him  and  his  friend,  Bunyiu  Nanjio,  ex- 
tremel}^  sensitive  to  everything  that  had  the  shadow  of 


BUNTIU  NANJIO.  189 

immorality  on  it.  They  were  not  Llind  to  some  things 
of  this  kind  among  a  class  of  students  at  Oxford,  and 
theii-  hatred  to  everything  of  the  kind  was  very  keen. 

'  We  often  conversed  on  religious  matters,  but  they 
evidently  disliked  controversy,  and  would  rather  admit 
Christ  to  an  equal  place  with  Buddha  than  quarrel 
with  a  Christian  friend.  I  remember  that  one  day 
I  said  to  them,  when  dining  with  me  in  my  room  in 
Oxford,  "Is  it  not  strange  to  see  us  three  together 
here — you  two  about  to  go  forth  as  missionaries  of 
Buddhism,  and  I  as  a  missionary  of  Christianity  ? " 
I  remember  well  how  Kasawara  smiled  and  said, 
"  Yes,  but  the  two  religions  have  much  in  common — 
they  are  very  similar,"  They  were  evidently  grieved 
that  I  could  not  look  so  complacently  on  the  differ- 
ence between  us. 

'AVhen  taking  leave  of  them,  I  well  remember 
their  little  presents,  their  kind  wishes  for  a  good 
journey  to  China,  and  for  success  in  what  they  always 
called  "  my  holy  work."  ' 

I  have  little  doubt  that  we  shall  hear  more 
of  Mr.  Bunyiu  Nanjio  after  his  return  to  Japan,  and 
that  he  will  reflect  honour  not  only  on  his  native 
country  and  his  own  monastery,  but  also  on  the  Uni- 
versity that  has  so  generously  adopted  him  among 
its  honorary  members. 

I  asked  my  friend  Bunyiu  Nanjio  before  he  left 
England  to  write  down  the  principal  events  of  his 
life,  and  as  I  believe  that  what  he  has  written  for 
me  will  be  interesting  to  others  also,  allowing  them 
an  insight  into  the  workings  of  a  singularly  good  and 
amiable  mind,  I  subjoin  them  here,  with  but  few 
alterations  and  omissions. 


190  EIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

A   SHORT   ACCOUNT   OF   THE  LIFE   OF 
BUNYIU  NANJIO,  BY   HIMSELF. 

(1849-1884.) 

I  was  born  on  the  i2tli  day  of  the  5th  Lunar 
month  of  the  2nd  year  of  the  Kayei  period,  1849  a.d., 
in  a  town  called  Ogaki,  in  the  province  of  Mino, 
Japan.  My  father  was  a  priest  of  the  Shinshiu,  who 
died  in  Kioto  on  the  19th  October,  1883.  He  had 
four  sons  and  a  daughter ;  I  was  the  thii'd  of  his  sons. 
My  great-grandfather,  Tani  Monjunby  name,  mj^gi'and- 
father  Gijun,  and  my  father  Yeijun  were  in  succession 
the  possessors  of  a  small  temple,  called  Sei-un-^i. 
This  temple  now  belongs  to  my  eldest  brother  Riojun, 
who  will  be  succeeded  by  his  eldest  son,  Kiojun. 
In  our  sect,  the  Shinshiu,  the  priesthood  is  here- 
ditary, and  each  priestly  family  possesses  a  temple, 
which  generally  belongs  to  the  eldest  son.  The 
younger  sons  are  often  adopted  by  other  priestly 
families  which  have  no  sons.  The  same  custom 
prevails  widely  among  the  laity  also.  My  elder 
brother,  myself,  and  my  younger  brother  were  all 
adopted  by  three  different  priestly  families. 

^ly  mother  is  the  eldest  daughter  of  a  priest  of  the 
Shinshiu  sect.  My  father  was  a  good  Chinese  scholar 
and  poet,  and  so  is  my  eldest  brother.  My  know- 
ledge of  Chinese  I  owe  almost  enth-ely  to  their  kind 
instruction  at  home  from  my  first  childhood  to  my 
fifteenth  year.  After  that  I  read  many  Chinese  books 
by  myself,  and  also  began  to  lecture  on  the  Chinese 
classics  and  historical  works,  as  far  as  I  could  under- 
stand them. 


BUNYIU   NANJIO.  191 

The  follo-wing  dates  of  some  events  in  my  life  are 
present  to  my  memory  : — 

In  my  sixth  year,  1854,  I  could  recite  the  'Thirty 
Verses '  composed  by  Shinran,  the  founder  of  the 
Shinshiu  sect  (who  died  in  1262  a.d.),  and  likewise 
Kumara^iva's  Chinese  translation  of  the  Smaller 
Sukhavativyuha.  These  are  the  first  books  which 
the  boys  of  the  Shinshiu  priests  have  to  learn  to  read 
and  recite. 

In  my  seventh  year,  1855,  I  could  read  two  more 
Chinese  versions  of  the  longer  Sutras,  one  of  them 
being  that  of  the  Larger  Sukhavativyuha.  In  the 
same  year  I  began  to  go  to  the  private  school  which 
belonged  to  a  learned  Chinese  scholar  named  Hishida 
Seiji.  He  was  called  by  the  people  at  large  '  Sen- 
sei '  (lit.  '  before-born '  or  '  elder  '),  i.  e.  Master,  without 
mentioning  even  his  family  name.  I  read  w^ith  him 
the  Chinese  classics,  the  Four  Books  beginning  with 
the  Dai-gaku,  or  the  '  Great  Learning.' 

In  my  eighth  and  ninth  years,  1856-57,  I  finished 
the  reading  of  the  Four  Books  of  the  Chinese  classics, 
i.e.  I  had  learnt  how  to  pronounce  all  the  Chinese 
characters  in  those  books  according  to  the  Japanese 
way.  I  did  not  understand  the  meaning  of  the  books 
yet.  In  these  years  I  received  two  prizes  for  my 
reading  of  Chinese  in  the  school. 

In  my  tenth,  eleventh  and  twelfth  years,  1858-60, 
I  finished  the  reading  of  the  Five  Kings  of  the 
Chinese  classics,  which  I  learnt  mostly  at  home.  I 
began  to  compose  Chinese  poems,  and  attend  to  the 
lectures  of  my  father  and  eldest  brother  on  the 
Chinese  classics,  on  history  and  literature. 

In  my  thirteenth  year,  1861,  my  father  opened  a 


192  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

private  school,  in  which  I  was  an  assistant,  for  teach- 
ing younger  boys  to  read  Chinese. 

In  my  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  years,  1862-63,  I 
began  to  lecture  on  the  history  of  China  and  Japan, 
as  contained  in  Chinese  writings. 

In  my  sixteenth  year,  1864, 1  was  ordered  to  preach 
sermons,  or  rather  to  recite  some  old  sermons  from 
memory.  This  was  the  first  step  in  my  becoming  a 
preacher. 

In  my  seventeenth  year,  1865,  I  accompanied  a 
good  preacher  to  several  places  and  had  to  preach 
sermons  before  he  did.  This  was  very  useful,  as  I 
could  both  preach  myself  and  listen  to  the  other 
preacher  every  day. 

In  my  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  years,  1866-67, 
there  began  a  great  change  in  the  social  condition  of 
Japan,  as  the  Military  Government  of  the  Tokugawa 
family  had  no  longer  the  power  to  control  the  whole 
country  as  it  had  done  since  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  As  my  native  town,  Ogaki,  was 
then  the  seat  of  a  Daimio  or  feudal  lord,  the  priests 
of  the  Shinshiu  sect  under  his  dominion  were  ordered 
to  form  a  priestly  army.  I  was  at  once  selected  to 
become  a  priestly  soldier,  and  after  a  short  time  I 
was  made  an  assistant  of  the  teachers  of  the  army. 
I  had  to  teach  the  recruits  how  to  stand  and  how  to 
run,  how  to  form  square  or  line,  and  how  to  discharge 
their  cuns.  This  lasted  about  fifteen  months.  The 
priestly  army  was  disbanded  towards  the  end  of 
1867,  at  the  very  outbreak  of  the  Great  Revolution, 
which  was  accomplished  in  1868.  I  narrowly  escaped 
being  sent  to  fight  at  the  battle  at  Kioto,  but  was 
soon  released.    One  benefit  I  derived  from  my  military 


BUNYIU   NANJIO.  103 

career  was  that  I  became  a  very  good  walker  and 
a  strong  man,  free  from  all  illness. 

Thus  ended  the  first  period  of  my  life. 

In  my  twentieth  year,  1868,  I  went  to  Kioto  and 
entered  the  Theological  College  of  the  Eastern  Hong- 
wanri.  There  I  took  the  first  or  lower  decree  in 
the  summer  term.  I  chiefly  studied  the  principles 
of  different  schools  of  Buddhism. 

In  my  twenty-first  year,  1869,  I  was  still  in  the 
College,  where  I  was  elected  a  leader  of  the  students 
of  the  first  degree.  But  I  left  the  College  after  the 
summer  term,  and  went  back  to  my  native  town. 
There  I  began  to  lecture  on  the  Chinese  classics  and 
on  history  and  literature  to  the  young  soldiers  who 
had  just  returned  from  the  civil  war  in  the  north- 
eastern provinces.  This  tuition  lasted  till  the  end  of 
1870.  I  had  daily  about  fifty  or  more  hearers,  with 
whom  I  spent  the  whole  day,  often  even  till  mid- 
night. Any  other  books  I  wished  to  study  I  could 
only  read  after  midnight  till  the  morning.  Some 
nights  I  did  not  sleep  at  all.  This  practice  of  lecturing 
gave  me  a  good  memory  of  the  Chinese  characters 
at  least. 

In  my  twenty-second  year,  1870,  I  preached  a 
sermon  every  morning  at  the  temple  which  belonged 
to  my  father.  Through  this  practice  of  preaching  during 
a  whole  year  I  gained  a  great  deal  of  experience.  I 
always  took  as  my  text  one  of  the  verses  which  had 
been  sung  in  the  morning-service  immediately  before 
my  sermon.  I  sometimes  found  it  very  hard  to  make 
the  congregation  satisfied  with  my  explanations,  but 
generally  I  believe  I  was  understood  by  the  people. 
In  the  same  year  I  continued  my  study  of  Chinese 

VOL.  Ti.  o 


194  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

with  some  of  my  friends  among  the  young  priests  of 
the  Shin-shiu. 

In  my  twenty-third  year,  1871, 1  was  adopted  by  a 
learned  priest,  Nanjio  Zhingo  by  name,  who  was  then  a 
Professor  at  the  Theological  College  in  Kioto  already 
alluded  to.  His  family  lived  at  a  village  in  the  moun- 
tains, called  Kanegasu,  in  the  Nanjio  district  of  the 
province  of  Yechizen.  He  is  still  the  possessor  of  a 
temple  in  that  village  called  Oku-nen-zhi,  to  which  he 
succeeded  as  the  eldest  son  of  a  learned  priest,  Rioo, 
who  was  also  a  Professor  at  the  same  College.  My 
adoptive  father  is  now  one  of  the  two  principal  Pro- 
fessors at  the  Theological  College  of  the  Eastern 
Hongwan^i  in  Kioto,  and  Lecturer  to  the  heir  of  the 
head-priest  of  the  temple,  viz.  the  Eastern  Hong- 
wan-:i.  My  adoptive  mother  is  the  youngest  daughter 
of  a  priest  of  the  Shin-shiu.  My  parents  by  adop- 
tion are  now  living  in  Kioto,  and  my  father  has 
entrusted  the  charge  of  his  temple  to  another  young 
priest  ^. 

*  All  the  monasteries  of  tbe  Buddhist  sects  in  Japan,  except  those 
of  the  Shin-shiu,  are  alike,  i.  e.  each  of  them  consists  of  a  head-priest 
and  one  or  more  disciples  or  inferior  priests,  without  family,  as  the 
name  of  monastery  implies.  But  the  Shin-shiu  is  peculiar,  and  while 
the  appearance  of  its  monasteries,  viz.  the  building,  the  temple-bell,  &c., 
is  the  same  as  with  other  sects,  the  head-priest  and  his  family  live 
alone  in  the  building.  Therefore  in  our  principal  monastery,  the 
Eastern  Hongwanzi,  there  dwells  the  family  of  our  head-priest  only. 
He  is  the  head  of  our  subdivision,  called  the  T6-ha,  or  the  Eastern 
party  or  sect,  of  the  Shin-shiu. 

When  we  call  ourselves  the  priests  of  the  Eastern  Hongwanzi,  we 
only  mean  that  we  are  the  disciples  or  subject-priests  of  the  head- 
priest  of  our  sect  who  dwells  in  the  said  monastery.  My  friend 
Kanematsu  is  the  adopted  son  of  the  present  head-priest  of  the 
monastery  Saiho«i,  so  that  I  speak  of  it  as  his  monastery. 

Mr.  Kasawara,  Ota,  and   I,    are    not   the    resident   priests    of  the 


BUNYIU   NANJIO.  195 

In  1 87 1  I  was  ordained  and  took  the  second  or 
higher  degree  at  my  College  in  Kioto.  I  then  became 
a  lecturer  at  a  school  for  young  priests  in  that 
city.  In  the  same  year  I  lectured  on  both  the 
Buddhist  and  Confucianist  books  in  my  adopted  pro- 
vince Yey(-izen.  I  preached  many  hundreds  of  sermons 
at  different  places  in  the  same  province.  Each  sermon 
lasted  generally  half  an  hour. 

In  my  24th  year,  1872,  I  was  appointed  an  official 
priest  in  the  Church  Government  of  the  Eastern 
Hongwand,  and  was  the  chief  compiler  of  the 
Monthly  Report,  a  paper  which  has  continued  to  the 
present  day.  In  this  office  I  became  the  fellow- 
labourer  of  Kenjiu  Kasawara,  who  has  ever  since 
remained  one  of  my  truest  and  most  helpful  friends. 

In  my  25th  year,  1873,  I  went  to  the  province  of 
Ye/tizen,  following  the  Head-Priest  of  the  Eastern 
Hongwand.  to  Tokio.  In  the  same  year  I  became 
a  preacher  of  our  sect,  but  was  obliged  to  go  home  in 
the  winter,  on  account  of  my  adopted  mother's  illness. 

In  my  26th  year,  1874, 1  lived  with  my  poor  sick 
mother  in  the  province  of  YeA^'izen,  and  according  to 
her  wish  was  married  to  the  eldest  dausfhter  of  a 
priest  of  the  Shin-shiu.  I  lectured  and  preached  at 
several  places  in  that  province  during  this  year. 

In  my  27th  year,  1875,  I  returned  to  the  Church 
Government  of  the  Eastern  Hongwanci  in  Kioto, 
and  became  a  preacher  of  the  tenth  degree,  receiving 


Eastern  Hongwansi,  but  only  the  disciples  or  subject-priests  of  the 
head-priest  of  that  monastery.  Mr.  Kasawara  is  the  son  of  the  head- 
priest  of  the  Yerinzi,  in  the  province  YeMiu,  in  which  monastery 
he  was  born ;  and  I  am  the  adopted  son  of  that  of  Okumensi,  in 
YeAizen. 

o  a 


]9G  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

my  appointment  from  the  Minister  of  Religion  in  the 
Imperial  Government. 

Thus  ended  the  second  period  of  my  life. 

In  my  28th  year,  1876,  I  and  my  friend  Kenjiu 
Kasawara  were  selected  to  be  sent  to  Europe  to  study 
Sanskrit.  The  members  of  the  Church  Government 
of  the  Eastern  Hongwand  wished  that  the  study  of 
Sanskrit,  the  language  in  which  the  sacred  writings 
of  Buddhism  were  originally  composed,  should  be 
revived  in  Japan,  and  as  they  had  heard  that  that 
language  was  taught  in  the  Universities  of  England, 
we  were  ordered  to  go  to  England  rather  than  to 
India.  The  order  was  formally  conveyed  to  us  by 
the  Heir  of  the  Head-Priest  of  the  Eastern  Hong- 
wanri,  who  saw  us  off  at  Yokohama.  We  left 
Yokohama  with  a  Japanese  friend,  Mr.  Narinori 
Okoshi,  on  the  13th  June,  and  arrived  in  London  on 
the  nth  August,  1876.  At  that  time  neither  of  us 
knew  any  English.  We  therefore  stayed  at  first  in 
some  English  families,  but  our  progress  in  learning 
English  was  very  slow.  During  our  stay  in  London, 
Kasawara  learnt  a  little  of  Latin  and  French,  and  I 
began  to  study  Greek.  We  also  lectured  several 
times  at  the  Meetings  of  the  Society  of  Japanese 
Students  in  England,  which  are  held  twice  every 
month.  One  of  the  addresses  which  I  had  delivered 
at  that  Society  in  Japanese  was  translated  into 
English,  and  was  read  by  my  friend,  Mr.  Arthur 
Di6sy,  at  a  Meeting  of  the  Liberal  Social  Union,  held 
on  the  28th  January  at  St.  George's  Hall,  Langham 
Place,  london. 

In  February,  1879,  I  went  to  Oxford,  and  paid  my 
first  visit  to  Professor  Max  Muller,  carrying  with  me 


BUNYIU   NANJIO.  197 

a  letter  of  introduction  from  the  late  Dean  Stanley. 
He  at  once  allowed  me  to  become  one  of  his  pupils, 
and  he  showed  me  in  his  library  a  copy  of  a  Sanskrit- 
Chinese-Japanese  vocabulary,  with  which  he  had  long 
been  occupied,  and  which  was  afterwards  mentioned 
by  him  in  his  writings  \  I  told  him  about  the  exist- 
ence of  some  Sanskrit  texts  in  Japan,  and  I  was  able 
afterwards  to  get  sent  to  me  from  home  at  least  five 
texts,  besides  several  Dhara//is.  The  five  texts  are — 
1.  Sukhavati-vyuha,  2.  Va^ra/i-^'Aedika,  3.  the  shorter 
Pra(/y7aparamita-h//daya-sutra,  4.  the  fuller  text  of 
the  same  Sutra,  and  5.  Samantabhadra.(-ari-pra-<i- 
dhana. 

According  to  Professor  Max  Miiller's  direction  I 
began  to  study  the  elements  of  Sanskrit  with  l^li". 
Macdonell.  So  did  Kasawara,  who  came  to  Oxford 
in  October,  1879.  We  also  continued  our  study  of 
English  with  Mr.  Linstead,  and  afterwards  with  Mr. 
Westmacott. 

In  the  end  of  1879,  I  brought  to  Professor  Max 
Muller  a  copy  of  the  text  of  the  Smaller  Sukhavati- 
vyuha,  sent  from  Japan,  and  the  Professor  showed 
me  in  return  a  MS.  of  the  text  of  the  Larger  Sukha- 
vati-vyuha belonging  to  the  Bodleian  Library.  This 
discovery  was  an  almost  inexpressible  joy,  not  only 
to  me  and  my  friend  Kasawara,  but  also  to  the  priests 
and  lay-people  of  the  Pure-Land  School  in  Ckina  and 
Japan.  I  and  Kasawara  copied  the  text,  and  we  col- 
lated our  copy  with  four  other  MSS.  The  result  of  this 
work  was  the  edition  of  the  Larger  and  Smaller  Sukha- 
vati-vyuha in  the  "  Anecdota  Oxoniensia,'  Aryan  Series, 
Vol.  I,  Part  ii,  1H83,  by  Professor  Max  Muller  and 

'  '  Selected  Ebsajs,'  vol,  ii.  p.  338. 


198  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

myself.  In  Part  I  of  the  same  series,  the  Professor 
edited  the  text  of  the  Va^raA^A'Aedika,  from  a  MS.  sent 
from  Japan,  in  1881.  He  will  publish  in  Part  III  the 
text  of  the  Pra7>7aparamita-hr?daya-sutra  and  Ushja- 
sha-vir/aya-dharaia,  from  the  ancient  palm-leaves  still 
in  existence  in  Japan,  together  with  the  fuller  text 
of  the  Hr/daya-sutra.  I  hope  myself  to  publish  the 
Sanskrit  text  of  the  Samantabhadra/iari-pra>?idhana, 
with  an  English  translation  of  one  of  its  Chinese 
versions.  We  shall  then  have  printed  texts  of  all 
our  sacred  books,  and  we  may  hope  that  Professor 
Max  Miiller  will  soon  publish  the  English  translations 
of  them  which  he  dictated  to  us. 

From  1880  to  1884,  I  and  my  friend  Kasawara 
have  constantly  attended  Professor  Max  Miiller's 
private  lectures,  and  read  under  his  instruction  the 
Sanskrit  text  of  the  Larger  and  Smaller  Sukhavati- 
vyuha,  Va'/raA'AV/edika,  Lalita-vistara,  Saddharmapu?;- 
(/arika,  Sankhya-karika,  and  several  other  books. 

In  my  32nd  year,  1880,  I  began  to  examine  the 
Chinese  translation  of  the  Buddhist  Tripi/aka  at  the 
India  Office  Library.  The  result  of  this  examination 
was  the  publication  of  '  A  Catalogue  of  the  Chinese 
Translation  of  the  Buddhist  Tripi^aka,  the  Sacred 
Canon  of  the  Buddhists  in  China  and  Japan,  com- 
piled by  order  of  the  Secretary  of  State  for  India  by 
Bunyiu  Nanjio,'  printed  at  the  Clarendon  Press, 
Oxford,  1883.  The  following  notice  in  the  Saturday 
ReviexD  will  show  the  nature  of  the  work : — 

'  This  Catalogue  has  been  printed  at  the  Clarendon 
Press  with  the  new  Chinese  types  cast  from  the 
matrices  lately  acquired  in  China  through  Professor 
Le^we.     The  work  was  undertaken  at  the  request  of 


BUNYIU   NANJIO.  199 

the  Secretary  of  State  for  India,  and  is  to  serve,  in 
the  first  instance,  as  a  guide  to  the  large  collection  of 
the  Sacred  Books  of  Buddhism  which  the  Japanese 
Government  presented  to  the  India  Office  in  1875. 
This  collection  comprises  the  whole  of  the  Sacred 
Canon  of  the  Buddhists,  translated  into  Chinese,  and 
published  in  Japan,  and  consists  of  no  less  than  1662 
separate  works.  All  these  works,  with  few  exceptions, 
were  originally  written  in  Sanskrit,  but  in  many  cases 
the  Sanskrit  orifjinals  are  now  lost.  After  Buddhism 
had  been  introduced  and  recognised  in  China  in  the 
lirst  century  of  our  era,  the  sacred  texts  were  trans- 
lated from  Sanskrit  into  Chinese  under  imperial 
auspices,  and  in  later  times  collected,  catalogued,  and 
published.  The  first  collection  dates  from  the  year 
518  A.D.,  the  oldest  catalogue  still  in  existence  was 
made  in  520  a.  d.,  and  the  editio  princejjs  of  the  whole 
Sacred  Canon  was  published  in  972  A.  D.  When 
Japan  had  been  converted  to  Buddhism  in  the  sixth 
century,  the  Chinese  Canon  was  adopted  there,  and 
several  editions  of  the  whole  collection  have  since 
been  published  in  that  island.  One  which  is  now 
being  brought  out  in  Japan,  by  subscription,  may  be 
seen  in  the  Bodleian  Library. 

'  Mr.  Bunyiu  Nanjio  was  entrusted  with  the  compi- 
lation of  this  Catalogue  by  the  Secretary  of  State  for 
India,  and  has  performed  his  task  with  great  diligence, 
showing:  an  accurate  knowledge  of  Chinese  and  Sans- 
krit.  The  Sanskrit  of  the  Buddhist  texts  is  very  ancient, 
and  differs  widely  from  the  later  Sanskrit  of  Manu  or 
Kalidasa.  Most  of  these  texts  are  known  as  yet  in  MSS. 
only,  which  were  brought  to  Europe  many  years  ago  by 
Mr.  Hodgson,  the  East  India  Company's  Resident  in 


200  EIOaRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Nepal.  Mr.  Bunyiu  Nanjio  has  not  only  prepared 
a  complete  catalogue  of  this  enormous  Canon,  but  he 
has  restored  most  of  the  original  titles  in  Sanskrit, 
a  task  of  great  difficulty,  though  considerably  facili- 
tated by  Stanislas  Julien's  classical  work,  Methode 
pour  decluffrer  les  notns  Sanserifs  dans  ies  livres 
Cliinois.  He  has  also  fixed  the  dates  of  most  of  the 
Chinese  translations,  and  thereby  rendered  a  lasting 
service  to  all  students  of  Sanskrit,  by  enabling  them 
to  fix  certain  land-marks  in  the  history  of  Indian 
literature.  In  this  respect  his  Catalogue  will  form  a 
new  starting-point  in  the  study  of  Indian  history  and 
Indian  literature.' 

In  my  33rd  year,  1881,  I  compiled  a  small  'Cata- 
logue of  Japanese  and  Chinese  Books  and  MSS.  lately 
added  to  the  Bodleian  Library.'  This  was  published 
at  the  Clarendon  Press  in  the  same  year. 

In  September  of  that  year,  I  and  Kasawara  ac- 
companied Professor  Max  Miiller,  who  had  been  sent 
to  represent  the  University  of  Oxford  at  the  Fifth 
Orientalists  Congress  at  Berlin.  After  that  we  went 
to  Paris  with  Professor  Max  Miiller,  and  copied  at 
the  Bibliotkhque  Natlonale  the  whole  of  the  Maha- 
vyutpatti,  a  useful  Sanskrit-Tibetan-Chinese-Mongo- 
lian vocabulary,  consisting  of  about  10,000  Buddhist 
technical  terms  and  proper  names.  Besides  this,  I 
copied  the  text  of  the  Buddha/iaritakavya  by  Asva- 
ghosha,  and  afterwards  collated  my  copy  with  a  MS. 
at  the  University  Library,  Cambridge.  I  copied  also 
the  fii"st  half  of  the  Suvar/mprabhasa,  and  completed 
it  from  another  MS.  last  year.  Kasawara  made  ex- 
tracts from  the  Lankavatara.  Kasawara  and  I  stayed 
in  Paris  for  six  weeks,  and  worked  very  hard.     It 


BUNYIU   NANJIO.  201 

■was  at  that  time  that  Kasawara's  health  bea'an  to 
fail.  After  our  return  to  Oxford  Professor  Max  Miiller, 
who  had  been  at  work  for  some  time  on  the  Dhar- 
masangi-aha,  a  collection  of  Buddhist  technical  terms, 
handed  over  his  materials  to  Kasawara,  and  advised 
him  to  prepare  an  edition  of  it.  Kasawara  did  this  in 
1882,  before  his  departure  from  Oxford  for  Japan  ^ ;  and 
he  also  copied  the  whole  MS.  of  the  Abhidharma-kosa- 
vyakhya. 

In  my  34th  year,  1882,  I  became  a  member  of  the 
Royal  Asiatic  Society  in  London.  I  discovered  a 
palm-leaf  MS.  of  the  Saddharmapu/u/arika  at  the 
British  Museum,  and  partly  copied,  partly  collated 
it.  I  and  Kasawara  copied  the  whole  text  of  the 
same  Sutra  from  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society's  MS.,  and 
we  collated  our  copy  with  two  complete  MSS.  and  one 
incomplete  MS.  at  the  University  Library,  Cambridge. 

In  August,  1882,  Mr.  Riogon  Kanao,  a  Japanese 
priest  of  the  Shin-shiu,  came  to  Oxford  from  Japan. 

In  September,  Kasawara,  who  had  been  suffering 
much,  was  advised  by  his  doctor  to  leave  Oxford  for 
Japan. 

In  December,  Mr.  Rioho  Sug^,  another  Japanese 
priest  of  the  same  sect,  came  to  Oxford  fi-om  Japan. 

In  my  35th  year,  1883,  being  now  left  alone  at 
Oxford,  I  copied  the  Suvary/aprabhasa  and  Lanka- 
vatara.  During  this  year  the  printing  of  my  Cata- 
logue of  the  Chinese  Tripi'aka  took  up  much  of  my 
time,  and  I  worked  hard  with  Professor  Max  MliUer 

*  The  materials  collected  by  Kasawara  have  since  been  published  by 
me  in  the  Anecdota  O.ionunda,  1SS5,  with  the  assistance  of  the  late 
L>r.  Wenzel.  I  thought  this  would  be  the  best  and  most  lasting  monu- 
ment of  n.y  departed  jtupil. 


203  EIOGEArUICAL    ESSAYS. 

at  the  edition  of  the  Sukhavati-vyiiha.  A  copy  of  my 
Catalogue  was  presented  to  the  Emperors  of  China 
and  Japan,  to  the  King  of  Siam,  and  also  to  many 
scholars  and  learned  societies  in  Europe  and  Asia. 

During  the  years  1880  to  1883,  I  made  literal 
English  translations  of  several  Chinese  versioDS 
of  the  Buddhist  works,  such  as  the  Larger  and 
Smaller  Sukhavati-vyuha,  the  Amitayur-dhyana-sutra, 
a  few  chapters  of  the  Lalita-vistara,  and  many  others. 
I  also  translated  the  Chinese  verses  by  Shinran,  the 
founder  of  the  Shin-shiu  sect  in  Japan. 

On  the  16th  day  of  July,  1883,  Kenjiu  Kasawara 
died,  in  his  32nd  year,  in  Tokio.  This  sad  news 
reached  me  in  September. 

On  the  1 9th  October,  my  real  father  died  in  his 
67th  year  in  Kioto.  This  sad  news  reached  me  in 
December. 

In  my  36th  year,  1884,  I  collated  my  copy  of  the 
Saddharmapunrfarika  with  the  MS.  lent  to  me  by 
Mr.  Watters,  the  British  Consul  at  Formosa.  This 
collation  was  finished  in  January  last. 

On  the  28th  Feb.  last,  I  received  a  letter  from  my 
adoptive  father  telling  me  that  I  should  return  to 
Japan  this  spring,  as  my  adoptive  mother  was  seri- 
ously ill  and  might  not  recover  from  her  illness. 
My  real  mother  also  was  anxious  to  have  me  back 
as  soon  as  possible,  and  insisted  on  my  leaving 
England.  Lastly,  the  Head-Priest  of  the  Eastern 
Hongwan^i,  after  Kasawara's  death,  had  expressed 
his  decided  wish  that  I  should  return  to  Japan  with- 
out delay. 

Nothing  remains  for  me  but  to  obey.  I  should 
have  wished  to  continue  my  study  of  Sanskrit  till 


BUNYIU   NANJIO.  203 

the  end  of  1885,  and  I  had  formerly  received  leave 
to  do  so.  I  also  wished  to  spend  some  time  in  India 
before  returning  to  Japan,  and  then  hoped  to  join 
Kasawara  at  home.     How  changeable  this  world  is ! 

I  shall  now  leave  Oxford,  and  be  again  at  Yoka- 
hama  next  May,  if  there  is  no  more  change.  In  June 
next  I  hope  to  be  with  my  relations  and  friends  at 
home,  after  an  absence  of  full  eight  j^ears. 

Thus  the  third  period  of  my  life  as  a  student  in 
a  foreign  country  will  be  ended.  For  this  most 
eventful  and  not  the  least  fruitful  period  of  my  life 
I  am  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  Professor  Max 
MuUer,  and  to  the  generous  instruction  and  help 
which  I  have  constantly  received  from  him  during 
the  last  five  years  in  Oxford.  Since  my  arrival  in 
England  in  August,  1876,  I  have  received  much  kind- 
ness from  other  friends  also,  to  whom  I  return  my 
best  thanks. 

In  conclusion,  I  hope  to  be  allowed  to  tell  an 
anecdote  concerning  myself.  From  my  earliest  child- 
hood, my  mother  has  always  told  me  that  on  my 
birthday  there  was  a  meeting  of  many  friends  of  my 
father's,  who  were  scholars  and  poets.  When  they 
were  informed  that  my  mother  had  given  birth  to 
a  boy,  they  all  said  this  boy  would  become  fond  of 
literary  work,  as  he  was  born  on  the  day  of  a  great 
literary  meeting.  My  mother  always  concluded  this 
story  with  the  following  words :  '  Thus  your  father's 
Mends  are  all  expecting  you  to  become  a  scholar, 
and  you  must  be  diligent  therefore  in  your  study.' 
These  tender  words  of  my  mother  have  always  been 
before  my  mind  since  my  childhood,  and  though 
I  cannot  tell  whether  I  shall  ever  become  such  a 


204  EIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

scholar  as  my  fathers  friends  expected  from  my 
birthday,  I  wish  at  least  to  do  my  best  so  long  as 
ray  life  lasts  and  my  health  is  not  entirely  broken. 
I  shall  try  to  follow  the  good  words  of  a  learned 
Chinese  Buddhist  priest,  who  says,  -^  ^  ^  -^  ^ 
i-ho-fu-i-shin,  i.  e.  '  (I  do  my  best)  for  the  sake  of  the 
Law,  but  not  for  my  own  sake  ^' 

I  shall  be  thirty-five  years  old  on  the  12th  day 
of  May  next. 

BuNYiu  Nanjio, 

of  the  Eastern  Hongwaiui, 
Kioto,  Japan. 

12  March,  1884: 

OXFOBU. 

'  See  No.  1530  of  my  Catalogue  of  the  Chinese  Tripiteka. 


BUNYIU   NAN'JIO.  205 

A  CHINESE  POEM  BY  BUNYIU  NANJIO. 

(8)        (7)         (6)        (5)         (4)         (.1)  (')  (0 

IS  g  H#  ii  la  M  a  ic 

M  ^  m  m  #  tsi  w  A  ^ 

it  *^   f^   i.  ^  ii  %  *  'S 

^    **    'C>  #  K;  ;'(. 


m  '^  ik  m  "f  ^  in  ^  m 
m  *  ;i'H  m  m  &  M  w 

Translation. 

(i)  «I,  a  man  of  the  East,  do  not  yet  try  to  travel  through 
the  five  (ancient)  parts  of  India, 

(2)  But  have  only  a  few  Sanskrit  books  and  clothes  for  my 

journey; 

(3)  There  is  a  tree  of  knowledge',  which  I  think  of  and  long 

for  even  from  the  distance  of  10,000  li ; 

(4)  There  is  a  forest  of  the  "  firm  "  trees^  where  the  footprint 

of  a  traveller  (such  as  Hiouenthsang^)  might  have 
vanished  a  thousand  years  since. 

(5)  Fate  was  so  bad,  that  the  (Japanese)  prince  died  in  a 

remote  country  region ; 

(6)  Time  was    so    different   (from   ours),   that   the   eminent 

priest  grew  old  in  his  own  country  : 

(7)  Now  my  stay  and  study  here  are  already  above  my  desert ; 

(8)  So,  I  hope,  that  the  tale  of  a  snake  will  not  join  with  the 

head  of  a  dragon.* 

'  The  famous  Bodhi  tree  in  Ind^a  iinrler  which  .Sikyamnni  obtained 
Buddhahood  or  perfect  enlightenment. 

^  The  5ala  trees  under  which  Buddha  obtained  Nirv.lwa,  i.  e.  died. 
Both  are  famous  places  of  pilgrimage. 

^  The  famous  Chinese  pilgrim  who  travelled  in  India  between  629 
and  ^-45. 


206  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 


NOTES  ON  THE  POEM. 

The  two  parallel  lines  (i.e.  the  fifth  and  sixth)  mention 
two  Japanese  priests,  who  intended  to  go  to  India,  but  without 
success.  The  one  (in  the  fifth  line)  was  called  Shinnyo 
Shinno,  or  the  Prince  Shinnyo.  He  was  the  third  son  of 
the  fifty-first  Mikado  (lit.  '  honourable  (mi),  gate  (kado) ; ' 
cf.  the  Porte  with  the  Turks),  Heizei  Teuno  (reigned  a.  d. 
806-809)  ;  and  the  fourth  of  the  ten  great  disciples  of  Kukai, 
better  known  by  his  posthumous  title  Kobo  Daislii  (died 
A. D.  835).  He,  'in  order  to  perfect  his  knowledge  of 
Buddhist  literature,  undertook  a  journey,  not  only  to 
China,  but  to  India,  but  died  before  he  reached  that 
country.' — '  Selected  Essays,'  vol.  ii.  p.  342.  An  account 
concerning  his  life  is  given  in  the  Hon^'io-k6-s6-den,  i.  e. 
'  Memoirs  of  the  eminent  Japanese  Priests,'  book  67.  fol. 
8  b. 

The  other  priest  (in  the  sixth  line)  was  Hotan  by  name. 
He  is  very  well  known  among  the  Japanese  priests.  I 
have  heard  that,  about  two  centuries  ago,  Hotan  ardently 
wished  to  go  to  India  to  learn  Sanskrit  there.  With  this 
object  he  sent  a  written  petition  to  the  military  government 
in  Yedo  (the  present  Tokio,  or  the  '  Eastern  capital '  of 
Japan),  because  this  government  was  then  so  powerful  that 
all  the  administration  of  public  affairs  was  in  its  hand. 
But  his  desire  was  not  gratified,  because  at  that  time  *  cross- 
ing the  ocean'  (i.e.  a  journey  for  a  foreign  country)  was 
strictly  prohibited  in  our  country. 

Hotan  was  an  extraordinary  man.  He  was  formerly  a 
priest  of  the  Tendai  sect  or  school.  He  used  to  live  at  a 
post-town  called  Otsu,  in  the  province  of  Omi,  on  the  Biwa 


BUNYIU   NANJIO.  207 

lake,  and  studied  there  very  hard.  One  day,  during  a 
thunder-storm,  there  came  a  young  woman  who  asked  him 
to  allow  her  to  take  shelter  in  his  house.  Hotan  answered 
her  from  the  inside  of  the  door  without  seeing  her  face. 
But  he  was  already  unable  to  restrain  his  passion,  having 
heard  the  amiable  voice  of  the  woman.  Then  he  at  once 
threw  a  handful  of  inflammable  powder  on  his  body  and  set 
it  on  fire.  He  cried  out  loudly  and  fell  down.  The  young 
woman  was  very  much  frightened,  opened  the  door,  and 
found  him  almost  breathless.  She  hastily  sprinkled  some 
cold  water  on  him  and  put  out  the  fire.  She  nursed  him 
carefully  till  he  came  to  himself  again.  Then  he  told  her 
all  the  circumstances  of  his  action.  When  she  got  home 
she  told  her  parents  what  had  happened.  They  admired 
him  very  much,  and  gave  him  a  certain  sum  of  money,  by 
which  he  was  entirely  free  from  poverty. 

While  he  was  studying  on  the  Hiyei  mountain  (where 
the  principal  temple  was  built  in  A.  D.  788,  and  is  still  in 
existence,  though  it  has  been  restored  several  times  since), 
Hotan  once  attended  a  course  of  lectures  of  his  teacher  on 
a  certain  book.  On  the  first  day  of  the  course,  hearers 
were  crowded  in  the  lecture-hall ;  but  their  number  de- 
creased every  day.  At  length  there  was  not  a  single 
hearer  except  Hotan.  Then  the  teacher  wanted  to  stop 
his  lecture,  but  Hotan  said  to  him,  '  Will  you  wait  till  to- 
morrow 1  I  shall  be  able  to  bring  some  hearers  here.'  Early 
on  the  next  morning  he  brought  with  him  numerous  earthen 
images  of  priests,  and  placed  them  in  the  lecture-hall  here 
and  there.  Having  done  this  he  sat  down  in  the  middle  of 
these  images  and  waited  for  the  lecturer.  No  sooner  did 
the  teacher  see  this  arrangement,  than  he  blamed  his  pupil 
severely  for  performing  such  a  childish  trick.  Then  Hotan 
answered  him,  saying,  '  All  the  priests  who  live  in  the 
monasteries  on  this  mountain  (formerly  3000  in  number) 
are  Like  these   earthen  images ;    so  that  there  is  almost  no 


203  BIOGRAPHICAL    ESSAYS. 

difference  between  the  former  days,  when  they  were  crowded 
here,  and  the  present.  During  all  the  time  there  has  been 
only  one  good  listener,  and  that  was  I.'  By  this  answer  the 
teacher  was  very  much  moved,  and  went  on  with  his  lectures 
till  the  end  of  the  course. 

At  this  time  there  seemed  to  exist  in  Japan  only  one 
copy,  either  MS.  or  wood-cut  book,  of  the  two  famous 
Chinese  commentaries  on  Hiouenthsang's  translation  of  the 
Abhidharmakoshasastra  (which  translation  was  made  about 
A.  D.  650).  One  of  these  commentaries  was  written  by 
Phukwang  (Fuko,  in  Japanese),  a  disciple  of  the  translator ; 
and  the  other  by  Fapao  (Hoho,  in  Japanese),  a  rival  of  the 
former  commentator :  each  in  thirty  books  or  thin  volumes. 
The  copy  of  these  commentaries  was  then  preserved  in  an 
old  library  belonging  to  a  temple  at  Nara  (formerly  also 
called  Nanto,  or  the  'southern  capital,'  because  this  place 
was  used  as  the  imperial  capital  of  Japan  from  A.  D.  71° 
till  861,  and  is  situated  on  the  south  of  Kioto,  or  Saikio, 
i.  e.  the  '  western  capital '  of  Japan).  The  copy  was  so 
valued  that  no  one  was  allowed  even  to  look  at  it.  But 
Hotan  desired  not  only  to  read  the  commentaries,  but  also 
to  copy  them.  He  therefore  gave  money  to  the  keeper  of 
the  library,  entered  secretly,  and  was  engaged  in  copying 
the  rare  copy  day  and  night. 

Some  say  that  there  is  a  poem  composed  by  Hotan  and 
written  in  his  copy  of  these  commentaries.  In  this  poem 
he  says  that  he  was  so  busy  in  making  his  copy  that  he 
knew  nothing  of  worldly  matters.  He  could  only  tell  that 
it  was  a  new  year  when  he  heard  108  sounds  of  temple- 
bells.  (This  number  is  still  struck  at  the  dawn  of  New 
Year's  Day  in  certain  temples  in  Japan.  My  father's  temple 
is  one  of  these  in  which  this  number  is  observed.) 

Some  also  say,  that  when  the  paper  which  he  brought 
into  the  library  for  his  copy  was  all  used  up,  Hotan  did 
not  venture  to  go  out  to  fetch  more,  lest  he  should  be  dis- 


BUNYIU   NAXJIO.  209 

covered  and  prevented  from  continuing  his  work.  For  tLis 
reason  he  took  his  long  white  robe  off  and  used  it  instead  of 
paper,  writing  on  it  from  the  collar  and  sleeves  to  the  skirt, 
without  leaving  any  part  uncovered. 

By  such  patience  he  copied  the  whole  of  the  two  large 
commentaries,  and  afterwards  published  them.  All  who 
study  the  Abhidharmakoshasastra  in  Japan  have  ever  since 
been  under  deep  obligation  to  him. 

However,  Hotan  afterwards  changed  his  mind  and  be- 
came a  priest  of  the  Kegon  school  (i.  e.  the  school  which  was 
founded  by  a  Chinese  priest  depending  on  the  Kegongio  or 
the  Buddhavata7/isakavaipulyasutra,  which  school  no  longer 
exists  iu  Japan).  He  then  constantly  criticised  and  refuted 
the  tenets  of  his  own  and  other  schools,  and  wrote  many 
books.  Some  peojile,  therefore,  do  not  consider  him  a  safe 
authority. 

There  is  a  work  entitled  Mio-do-satsu,  or  the  '  Document 
for  leading  (others),'  written  by  him.  In  this  he  refutes  the 
j^rinciples  of  the  Shin-shiu,  or  the  '  true  sect.'  Soon  after 
this  work  was  published,  there  was  a  lecturer  (i.  e,  the  head 
of  the  college)  of  the  Shin-shiu,  A'iku  by  name,  who  wrote 
a  book  entitled  Sesshio-hen,  or  the  '  Book  for  breaking  or 
stopping  a  rush  (of  the  other),'  in  Avhich  he  answered  him. 
Hotan  then  produced  his  second  work  on  the '  same  subject, 
under  the  title  of  Eaifu,  or  the  '  Axe  of  Thunder.'  Then 
Alku  wrote  the  Shio-ro-hi,  or  the  '  Laughing  at  the  arms 
of  a  praying  maniac,'  and  ridiculed  him. 

Among  the  numerous  works  of  Hotan,  however,  there 
is  a  very  useful  one  (in  eight  books)  entitled  In-mio-niu- 
shio-ri-ron-sho-zui-geu-ki,  or  the  '  Eecord  of  the  auspicious 
source  of  the  commentary  on  the  Nyayaprave«T,ti'irakasastra 
(No.  1 216).  It  is  a  commentary  on  the  famous  Chinese  com- 
mentary, on  that  treatise  on  Logic,  by  Kweiki  (Kiki,  iu 
Japanese),  the  principal  disciple  of  Hiouenthsang,  who  trans- 
lated the  Sanskrit  treatise  about  A.  d.  650. 
VOL.  II.  P 


210  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

The  above  account  concerning  the  life  of  Hotan  has  a 
somewhat  legendary  aspect.  I  am  not  quite  sure  whether 
the  whole  of  it  is  true  or  not.  But  I  have  written  down 
all  that  I  have  hitherto  heard  of  him,  or  have  seen  in  his 
works. 


BuNYiu  Nanjio. 


Oxford, 
12  March,  i88i. 


KENJIU  KASAWARA'. 

(1851-1883.) 

THE  last  mail  from  Japan  brought  me  the  news  of 
the  death  of  my  young  friend  and  pupil,  Kenjiu 
Kasawara,  and  though  his  name  is  little  known  in 
England,  his  death  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  pass 
unnoticed.  Does  not  Mr.  Ruskin  say  quite  truly 
that  the  lives  we  need  to  have  written  for  us  are  of 
the  people  whom  the  world  has  not  thought  of — far 
less  heard  of — who  are  yet  doing  the  most  of  its 
work,  and  of  whom  we  may  learn  how  it  can  best  be 
done  ?  The  life  of  my  Buddhist  friend  was  one  of  the 
many  devoted,  yet  unfulfilled  lives,  which  make  us 
wonder  and  giieve,  as  Ave  wonder  and  grieve  when 
we  see  the  young  fruit  trees  in  our  garden,  which 
were  covered  with  bright  blossoms,  stripped  by  a 
sudden  frost  of  all  their  beauty  and  promise. 

Kenjiu  Kasawara  was  a  young  Buddhist  priest 
who,  with  his  friend  Eunyiu  Nanjio,  was  sent  by  his 
monastery  in  the  year  1876  from  Japan  to  England, 
to  learn  English  in  London,  and  afterwards  to  study 
Sanskrit  at  Oxford.  They  both  came  to  me  in  1879, 
and  in  spite  of  many  difficulties  they  had  to  en- 
counter they  succeeded,  by  dint  of  hard  and  honest 
work,  in  mastering  that  language,  or  at  least  so 
much  of  it  as  was  necessary  for  enabling  them  to 

*  See  'Times,'  Sept.  22,  1833  5  and '  Pali  Text  Society's  Journal,'  1S83. 

P  2 


^13  BTOaRAPniCA.L   ESSAYS. 

read  the  canonical  books  of  Buddhism  in  the  original 
— that  is,  in  Sanskrit.  At  first  they  could  hardly 
explain  to  me  what  their  real  object  was  in  coming 
all  the  way  from  Japan  to  Oxford,  and  their  progress 
was  so  slow  that  I  sometimes  despaired  of  their  suc- 
cess. But  they  themselves  did  not,  and  at  last  they 
had  their  reward.  Kasawara's  life  at  Oxford  was 
very  monotonous.  He  allowed  himself  no  pleasures 
of  any  kind,  and  took  little  exercise ;  he  did  not 
smoke,  or  drink,  or  read  novels  or  newspapers.  He 
worked  on,  day  after  day,  often  for  weeks  seeing  no 
one  and  talking  to  no  one  but  to  me  and  his  fellow- 
worker,  Mr.  Bunyiu  Nanjio.  He  spoke  and  wi'ote 
English  correctly,  he  learnt  some  Latin,  also  a  little 
French,  and  studied  some  of  the  classical  English 
books  on  history  and  philosophy.  He  might  have 
been  a  most  useful  man  after  his  return  to  Japan,  for 
he  was  not  only  able  to  appreciate  all  that  was  good  in 
European  civilisation,  but  retained  a  certain  national 
pride,  and  would  never  have  become  a  mere  imitator 
of  the  West.  His  manners  were  perfect — they  were 
the  natural  manners  of  an  unselfish  man.  As  to  his 
character,  all  I  can  say  is  that,  though  I  watched  him 
for  a  long  time,  I  never  found  any  guile  in  him,  and 
I  doubt  whether,  during  the  last  four  years,  Oxford 
possessed  a  purer  and  nobler  soul  among  her  many 
students  than  this  poor  Buddhist  priest.  Buddhism 
may,  indeed,  be  proud  of  such  a  man.  During  the  last 
year  of  his  stay  at  Oxford  I  observed  signs  of  depres- 
sion in  him,  though  he  never  complained.  I  persuaded 
him  to  see  a  doctor,  and  the  doctor  at  once  declared 
that  my  young  friend  was  in  an  advanced  stage  of 
consumption,  and  advised  him  to  go  home.     He  never 


KEXJIU   KASAWAr.A.  213 

flinclied,  and  I  still  hear  the  quiet  tone  in  which  he 
said,  '  Yes,  many  of  my  countrymen  die  of  con- 
sumption.' However,  he  was  well  enough  to  travel 
and  to  spend  some  time  in  Ceylon,  seeing  some  of  the 
learned  Buddhist  priests  there  and  discussing  with 
them  the  differences  which  so  widely  separate  Southern 
from  Northern  Buddhism.  But  after  his  return  to 
Japan  his  illness  made  rapid  strides.  He  sent  me 
several  dear  letters,  complaining  of  nothing  but  his 
inability  to  work.  His  control  over  his  feelings  was 
most  remarkable.  When  he  took  leave  of  me,  his 
sallow  face  remained  as  calm  as  ever,  and  I  could 
hardly  read  what  passed  within.  But  I  know  that 
after  he  had  left,  he  paced  for  a  long  time  up  and 
down  the  road,  looking  again  and  again  at  my  house, 
where,  as  he  told  me,  he  had  passed  the  happiest  hours 
of  his  life.  Yet  we  had  done  so  little  for  him.  Once 
onl}^,  in  his  last  letter,  he  complained  of  his  loneli- 
ness in  his  own  country.  '  To  a  sick  man,'  he  wrote, 
'  very  few  remain  as  friends.'  Soon  after  writing 
this  he  died,  and  the  funeral  ceremonies  were  per- 
formed at  Tokio  on  the  1 8th  of  July. 

He  has  left  some  manuscripts  behind,  which  I  hope 
I  shall  be  able  to  prepare  for  publication,  particularly 
the  •  Dharmasahgraha,'  a  glossary  of  Buddhist  techni- 
cal terms,  ascribed  to  Nagarr/una  ^  But  it  is  hard  to 
think  of  the  years  of  work  which  are  to  bear  no  fruit ; 
still  harder  to  feel  how  much  p-ood  that  one  crood 
and  enlightened  Buddhist  priest  might  have  done 
among  the  thirty-two  millions  of  Buddhists  in  Japan. 
Have,  pia  anima  !  I  well  remember  how  last  year 
we   watched    together   a   glorious    sunset    from    the 

^  Published  since  in  'AnecJota  Oxoniensia,'  1SS3. 


214  EIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Malvern  Hills,  and  how,  when  the  Western  sky  was 
like  a  golden  curtain,  covering  we  knew  not  what, 
he  said  to  me,  '  That  is  what  we  call  the  Eastern  gate 
of  our  Sukh^vati,  the  Land  of  Bliss.'  He  looked 
forward  to  it,  and  he  trusted  he  should  meet  there  all 
who  had  loved  him,  and  whom  he  had  loved,  and  that 
he  should  gaze  on  the  Buddha  Amitabha — i.e.  'In- 
finite Light.' 

OxFOKU,  Sept.  20,  1883. 

LETTERS  FROM  KENJIU  KASAWAEA. 

Llantbissant  Hodse,  Kingston  Road,  Oxford, 
26  Juli/,  1882. 

My  dear  Sir, 

I  am  in  receipt  of  your  letter.  I  cannot  ade- 
quately express  my  thanks  for  your  ever  unfailing 
kindness.  It  grieves  me  very  much  that  I  am  unable 
to  pursue  my  studies  here  as  long  as  I  hoped  and 
was  allowed  to  do.  To  lose  but  one  year  is  a  great 
loss  to  me,  whose  object  it  was  to  acquire  a  know- 
ledge of  that  branch  of  literature  which  is  vitaUy 
important  for  the  religion  I  belong  to,  and  which 
cannot  better  be  obtained  than  through  your  in- 
struction. I  have  passed  two  valuable  years  and  a 
hall"  with  you.  It  has  been  no  small  patience  on 
your  part  to  watch  all  the  time  so  slow  a  progress  as 
I  made  in  learning  Sanskrit.  I  am  well  aware  that 
my  age — besides  my  inability — is  passed  for  acquir- 
ing a  new  language,  for  which  no  previous  know- 
ledge, if  I  had  any,  can  help.  Moreover,  my  course 
of  study  has  been  more  or  less  hindered  through  the 
want  of  good  texts.     Time  alone,  therefore,  may  have 


KENJIU   KASAWARA.  215 

enabled  me  to  be  successful.  There  was  a  brief  time 
for  me  yet  to  pass  in  Oxford,  and  that  time  is  now 
to  be  cut  short. 

But  we  cannot  fight  against  Nature.  Is  it  not,  on 
the  other  hand,  a  great  boon  of  Nature  that  I,  who 
am  naturally  weak,  should  have  passed  so  long  in 
England  without  much  bodily  suffering  ?  If  this  mis- 
chievous disease  had  befallen  me  but  a  year  and  a 
half  earlier,  all  my  object  might  have  been  rendered 
almost  useless.  I  must  be  satisfied  with  things  as 
they  are.  It  remains,  therefore,  that  I  should  con- 
tinue what  I  have  begun  with  the  utmost  zeal  in  my 
native  land,  and  try  by  all  means  to  make  what  I 
have  gained  acceptable  to  my  friends  in  Japan,  and 
to  fulfil  the  hopes  you  kindly  express  in  your  letter. 
Believe  me.  Sir, 

I  am  your  obliged  pupil, 

K.    K  AS  A  WAR  A. 

P.S.   I  am  going  up  to  London  to-morrow  by  the 
4  o'clock  train,  p.m. 

Hotel  Eichepance, 

14  EuE  Eichepance,  Pabis, 

14  Sept.  1882. 

My  DEAR  Sir, 

Last  Saturday  morning  I  left  Oxford  by  the 
9  o'clock  train  for  London,  and  took  lodgings  in 
Lancaster  Road,  Notting  Hill.  After  three  days'  stay, 
I  left  London  on  Tuesday  last  by  the  8.15  a.m.  train 
from  Charing  Cross.  My  voyage  was  via  Folkestone 
and  Boulogne.  The  sea  was  calm ;  and  the  voyage 
would  have  been  more  pleasant  if  it  had  not  rained 
so  miserably  all  the  while.  The  sky,  however,  gradu- 
ally cleared  up  towards  Paris.     I  arrived  in  that  city 


216  EIOGKAPHICAL   ESSA.YS, 

a  few  minutes  after  five  o'clock.  I  was  met  hj  two 
of  my  countrymen  at  the  Gare  du  Nord,  for  I  had 
written  to  one  of  them  about  my  coming  here.  They 
are  merchants,  both  being  men  from  a  town  (in 
Japan)  about  ten  miles  from  my  native  place.  They 
are  staying  in  the  same  hotel  where  I  am  now. 

The  sights  of  Paris  are  quite  familiar  to  me,  as  if 
I  had  been  here  but  yesterday.  It  is  exactly  one 
3'ear  since  you,  my  friend  Nanjio,  and  I  came  here 
last  time.  Time  flies,  and  so  do  our  lives.  I  am 
leaving  here  to-morrow  morning  for  Marseilles,  but 
I  intend  to  stay  a  few  hours  at  Lyon,  to  see  Mr. 
Ymaizoumi  there.  I  shall  have  three  Japanese  com- 
panions on  board  the  steamer  Iraouaddy,  a  curious 
mixture  of  a  noble,  a  soldier,  a  merchant,  and  myself 
a  priest. 

Yesterday  I  went  to  the  Societe  Asiatique,  but  I 
found  no  one  there.  A  girl  came  up  to  me  and  shook 
her  head.  Then  I  went  to  a  bookseller's  shop  (which 
you  know)  in  the  neighbourhood  to  make  inquiries. 
People  in  the  shop  told  me  that  the  Society  is  only 
open  on  Saturday.  I  was  puzzled,  for  I  could  not 
stay  here  till  Saturday.  Then  I  carried  your  manu- 
script to  the  Japanese  Legation,  intending  to  entrust 
it  to  our  Minister.  But  on  my  going  there  I  learnt 
he  would  leave  Paris  last  night  for  Vienna.  There  I 
saw  Mr.  Oyama,  an  attach^  whom  I  know  well  since 
last  year,  and  he  was  quite  willing  to  take  care  of  the 
manuscript  for  me. 

I  cannot  adequately  express  my  thanks  for  your 
instruction,  your  liberality,  and  the  kindness  of  you 
and  your  family  during  my  long  stay  in  Oxford. 
These   quiet    three  years   will   ever  remain    in   my 


KEXJIU  KASAWAEA.  217 

memory  as  the  most  important  epoch  in  my  life.  It 
is  needless  to  say  I  felt  very  unhappj^  when  I  said 
farewell  to  you  all.  I  lingered  at  your  gate,  and 
looked  eagerly  in  the  dark  at  your  house,  on  the 
threshold  of  which  I  had  stepped  so  often  and  so 
happily.  I  shall  never  again  hear  j^our  living  voice, 
I  shall  never  again  see  the  lovely  city  of  Oxford,  but 
I  shall  communicate  with  you  as  often  as  possible, 
and  shall  always  be  delighted  when  I  hear  from  you. 

I  am,  Sir, 

Your  most  obliged  pupil, 

K.  KasawaPvA. 


23  Sept.  18S2. 
In  the  afternoon. 

My  dear  Sir, 

I  wrote  a  letter  to  you  from  Paris,  and  I  hope 
it  has  reached  you  in  time.  I  left  that  city  on  the 
15th  in  the  morning,  and  arrived  at  Marseilles  early 
the  next  day.  In  this  place  I  had  sufficient  time 
to  walk  about  and  to  take  a  drive  on  the  coast  round 
the  town;  but  early  on  the  following  day  I,  with 
three  other  Japanese,  embarked  on  board  the  steamer 
Iraouaddy,  which  left  the  coast  a  little  after  10 
o'clock  a.m. 

I  feel  almost  recovered  from  my  recent  weakness 
since  my  arrival  at  Marseilles,  and  am  enjoying  the 
voyage  very  much.  There  are  about  tifty  passengers  in 
the  first  class,  forty  in  the  second,  and  thirty  in  the  third. 
The  first  and  second  class  passengers  share  in  common 
a  spacious  portion  on  the  deck,  where  we  sit  on 
chairs,  hold  conversation,  or  walk  to  and  fro ;  where 


218  BIOGHlAPHrCAL  ESSAYS. 

some  sing  and  some  play  on  the  piano.  Food  is  good 
and  ample,  consisting  of  coffee  or  tea  with  '  petit 
pain'  in  the  morning,  '  ddjeuner  a  la  fourchette'  at  9, 
dinner  at  5,  and  tea  with  biscuits  at  8  o'clock  in  the 
evening.  I  get  up  before  6  o'clock,  and  generally  take 
a  sea-water  bath,  either  hot  or  cold,  every  morning. 

I  got  an  English  newspaper  (of  Saturday  last)  at 
Naples  in  which  I  read,  '  The  war  is  over  in  Egypt.' 
This  morning  I  had  a  walk  in  Port  Said,  where  all 
was  quiet. 

From  each  port  above  mentioned  I  wrote  a  letter 
to  Mr.  B.  Nanjio.  Now  I  am  writing  this  to  you 
while  the  steamer  is  passing  the  canal,  which  we 
entered  at  1 1  o'clock.  The  heat  is  becoming  intense 
day  after  day. 

There  is  nothing  important  to  describe  except 
some  trifling  incidents  in  our  society  of  mixed  nation- 
alities, confined  within  the  small  space  the  boat  can 
afford. 

This  letter  is  to  be  posted  from  Suez,  and  I  shall 
write  you  another  from  Ceylon. 

I  present  my  best  compliments  to  your  family. 

I  am,  Sir, 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

K.  Kasawara. 


Colombo,  Ceylon, 
22  Oct.  1882. 

My  dear  Sir, 

I  arrived  in  Ceylon  on  the  8th  last,  and  re- 
mained there  during  a  fortnight.  As  my  intention 
was  to  see  some  old  temples  and  ruins  there,  I  spent  the 


KENJIU  KASAWARA,  219 

greater  part  of  these  days  in  travelling  about.  I  visited 
Kandy,  a  town  about  seventy-two  miles  from  Colombo. 
There  is  a  temple  in  which  one  of  Buddha's  teeth 
is  kept,  but,  owing  to  the  recent  death  of  the  keeper, 
I  could  not  see  it.  At  a  distance  of  about  sixteen 
miles  from  Kandy  there  is  a  small  town  named 
Matale,  and  there  I  visited  a  rock-temple  called  Ala 
Vihara,  in  which  it  is  said  the  Pi/akas  were  first 
committed  to  wi-iting.  The  railway  does  not  extend 
any  farther  than  this  place.  In  going  to  Anmadha- 
pura,  I  was  obliged  to  take  the  bull-coach  which 
regularly  leaves  Matale  once  a  day  for  Anuradhapura. 
It  is  a  sort  of  omnibus,  but  too  small  even  for  one 
person,  as  he  has  to  pass  a  night  in  it.  The  distance 
between  those  places  is  only  sixtj'-  miles,  but  the  coach 
takes  seventeen  hours  in  reaching  the  end  of  the  journey. 
During  this  journey,  a  traveller  like  myself  finds  no 
place  to  get  food.  But  Anuradhapura  is  a  place 
worth  visiting.  It  is  full  of  ruins  of  grand  buildings. 
I  saw  there  that  old  Bo-tree  which  Fa-hian  saw  one 
thousand  four  hundred  years  ago.  I  remained  there 
two  days,  sufficient  for  seeing  all  the  Buddhist  remains. 
Although  I  found  now  only  three  priests  near  the  ruins 
of  the  Mahavihara,  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Vihara 
had,  at  the  time  of  the  Chinese  pilgrim,  some  600 
inmates,  as  the  enormous  sizes  of  the  granite  alms- 
vessels,  for  instance,  clearly  show  us  that  there  were 
once  great  multitudes  of  priests  in  those  Viharas,  who 
partook  of  their  contents. 

On  my  return  from  this  journey  I  remained  at 
Colombo  only  two  or  three  days.  I  often  saw  the  high 
priest  Sumangala,  who  was  passing  the  vassa  (Lent) 
in  a  place  near  Colombo.     He  was  teaching  about 


220  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

sixty  of  his  pupils  there.  He  speaks,  as  I  was  told, 
both  Sanskrit  and  Pali.  I  presented  him  with  a  copy 
of  the  Va^ra^-^V/edika,  and  he  read  it,  at  the  same  time 
rendering  it  into  English.  While  reading  it,  he  said, 
'  It  is  not  one  of  the  Holy  Books ;  it  is  not  written 
in  pure  Sanskrit.'  He  and  some  other  Buddhists 
earnestly  advised  me  to  stop  in  the  island  to  learn 
Pali.  I  saw  other  priests,  but  Sumangala  seems  to 
be  the  most  renowned  there. 

There  is  one  Colonel  Oleott,  an  American,  who 
professes  himself  to  be  a  Buddhist.  In  India  and 
in  Ceylon  he  has  formed  a  great  many  branches  of 
the  Theosophical  Society  of  which  he  is  the  founder. 
I  do  not  know  his  real  motives,  but,  at  all  events, 
he  has  roused  the  Buddhists  of  the  island  from  their 
slumber.  He  is  working  hard,  and  preaching  almost 
daily  in  different  places.  But  I  had  no  chance  of 
seeing  him  during  my  stay  here,  although  he  was 
willing  to  see  me,  as  he  expressed  it  in  his  letter 
from  some  distant  place  to  one  of  his  friends  at 
Colombo. 

After  all,  I  was  much  pleased  with  this  my  stay 
in  Ceylon,  and  I  think  I  learned  some  things  there 
which  otherwise  I  could  not  learn  in  Japan.  Some 
Buddhists  at  Colombo  showed  me  kindness  and 
civility,  and  promised  to  keep  up  communication 
with  me  hereafter. 

The  steamer  Sindh,  of  the  Messageries  Maritimes 
Company,  arrived  in  the  harbour  yesterday,  two  days 
earlier  than  it  was  expected.  I  hastily  embarked  on 
board  the  steamer.  The  ship  is  still  in  the  harbour, 
but,  as  I  do  not  find  anybody  who  would  go  to  shore 
and  post  this  letter  for  me.  I  shall  forward  it  from 


KENJIU   KASAWARA.  221 

tlie  next  station,  that  is,  from  Singapore.     The  ship 
will  leave  here  very  soon. 

I  remain,  Sir, 

Yours  very  faithfully, 

K.  Kasawaea. 

ToKio,  Japan, 

My  dear  Sir,  25  2\vy.  18S2. 

After  twenty-six  clays'  voyage  since  I  left 
Ceylon,  I  safely  arrived  at  Yokohama  at  seven  o'clock 
in  the  evening  on  the  17th  last.  As  I  wrote  to  you 
before,  at  the  time  when  I  was  in  Ceylon,  I  thought  I 
was  nearly  recovered  from  my  disease.  But  this  was 
an  illusion.  After  the  Sindh  arrived  at  Singapore 
the  weather  became  very  changeable,  and  after  we 
left  Hong-kong  the  wind  was  so  strong  that  the 
steamer  could  not  resist  it,  and  three  times  was 
obliged  to  take  refuge  in  some  small  Chinese  har- 
bours. All  the  while  I  felt  myself  weak,  although  by 
that  time  I  had  become  quite  a  good  sailor.  The  cough 
Avas  often  troublesome,  which  proved  to  be  the  returning 
symptom  of  my  former  condition.  There  were  two  or 
three  unnaturally  warm  days,  which  made  me  very  ill. 

After  two  days'  stay  at  Yokohama,  where  I  had 
something  to  do  with  my  luggage,  I  came  to  Tokio. 
Li  Tokio  I  find  one  old  friend  now  remaining,  who  is 
a  priest  of  our  sect  (and  who  had  chiefly  taken  charge 
of  sending  money  to  Nanjio  and  me  while  in  Europe). 
Even  he  has  now  no  longer  any  connexion  with  the 
affairs  of  Higashi  Hong-wan-n.  He  however  kindly 
came  to  the  railway  station  to  meet  me  when  I 
arrived  in  Tokio.  Next  morning  (21st)  I  went  to 
consult  Mr.  Ikeda,  one  of  the  Imperial  physicians, 


222  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

and  he  carefully  examined  my  chest  and  back.  He 
was  of  opinion  that  my  condition  has  lately  been 
aggravated,  and  that  I  should  avoid  the  coming  winter 
in  some  warmer  place.  I  thought  I  might  go  to  Kobe, 
which  was  at  once  healthy  and  near  Kioto.  But  he 
said  Kioto  was  worse ;  and  that  he  should  rather  re- 
commend me,  had  I  not  returned  from  those  regions, 
to  go  to  Ceylon  or  Saigon,  as  Japan  was  hardly  a 
better  place  than  England  with  regard  to  cold  weather. 
He  said,  as  I  was  here,  I  might  go  to  Atami,  a  place 
far  better  than  Kobe,  only  twenty-seven  Japanese  or 
about  fifty  English  miles  from  Tokio,  where  I  might 
remain  till  next  March,  but  without  doing  any  work. 
I  had  been  quite  prepared  for  hearing  such  words  of 
the  doctor,  otherwise  alarming.  I  therefore  deter- 
mined to  hurry  to  Atami.  I  need  not  say  that  it  has 
been  an  unpleasant  thing  to  me  to  return  home  on 
account  of  my  illness,  but  I  should  have  been  consoled 
if  I  had  found  a  brighter  state  of  things  at  home  on  my 
arrival.  I  expected  to  see  Ishikawa  Shuntai  in  Tokio 
(who  was  my  teacher  and  advised  us  to  go  to  Europe), 
but  to  my  great  disappointment  he  too  has  taken  part 
in  the  recent  quarrels,  and  is  now  in  extreme  difficul- 
ties. I  am  writing  a  long  letter  to  Mr.  B.  Nanjio,  and 
shall  inform  him  of  these  things  at  length. 

My  dim  recollection  of  the  mazy  streets  of  Tokio 
does  not  enable  me  to  find  places  I  want  to  go  to.  In 
fact  I  know  Tokio  less  than  London.  Besides,  I  am 
forbidden  to  go  out  except  from  ii  to  4  o'clock,  nor 
does  anything  attract  me.  I  have  taken  my  lodgings 
in  one  of  our  paper  houses.  The  room  I  use  is  roofed 
very  low,  where  a  small  man  like  me  seems  like  a 
giant.     Three  sides  of  the  room  are  sheltered  with 


KENJIU   KASAWARA.  U23 

sliding  paper  screens,  and  the  other  side  is  divided 
into  two  portions.  One  is  made  a  covert,  and  the 
other  a  niche  in  which  an  image  on  paper  is  hung, 
and  a  porcelain  pot  placed,  with  flowers  in  it.  As  I 
have  passed  one  fifth  part  of  my  life  in  Europe,  my 
habits  have  been  Europeanised.  What  is  most  incon- 
venient at  present  is,  to  sit  down  on  my  calves,  as  our 
rooms  are  not  furnished  with  tables  and  chairs.  I  am 
almost  unable  to  write  and  read  at  a  Japanese  desk  nine 
inches  high.  It  is  highly  injurious  to  lung  diseases. 
I  have  not  yet  put  on  a  Japanese  dress.  As  you 
know,  Tokio  is  not  my  home.  I  must  have  complete 
suits  of  Japanese  clothes  newly  made,  top  split  socks, 
girdle,  clogs,  etc.  If  I  send  to  my  home  for  those 
things,  they  will  not  come  to  me  in  less  than  thirty  days. 

I  have  seen  very  few  people  here.  Some  of  the 
young  students  who  are  priests  by  birth,  and  are 
studying  English  in  Tokio  at  the  expense  of  the 
monastery  at  Hong-wan-H,  have  sometimes  come  to 
see  me.  It  is  somewhat  strange  that  most  of  them 
are  destined  to  study  philosophy.  Every  one  of 
them  speaks  of  Mill  and  Spencer,  as  if  there  were 
not  more  sensible  men  in  the  world.  I  cannot  say 
anything  as  yet  of  the  prospect  of  the  study  of 
Sanskrit  here,  and  those  young  philosophers  do  not 
at  present  seem  to  have  any  desire  for  learning- 
Sanskrit.  We  must  endeavour  to  break  the  earth 
for  our  cultivation,  but  this  is  a  land  of  frequent 
earthquakes  and  destructions. 

I  shall  write  to  you  something  more  very  soon. 
I  am,  Sir, 

Your  obedient  pupil, 

Kenjiu  KasawaPvA. 


224  BIOGRAnilCAL   ESSAYS. 


Atami,  Japajt. 

7  Dec.  1882. 

My  dear  Sie, 

I  have  made  inquiries  about  the  old  palm-leaves 
and  the  destiny  of  the  copy  of  the  Kathavatthupakar- 
ana-atthakatha,  presented  by  you  to  the  Higashi 
Honof-wan-d.  throuo-h  our  Minister  Iwakura. 

As  to  the  former,  you  have  I  suppose  been  in- 
formed of  the  matter  before,  viz.  that  it  was  pri- 
vately granted  by  the  Minister  to  photograph  the 
palm-leaves  (which  formerly  belonged  to  the  Horiuji 
monastery).  The  reason  why  it  was  delayed  is  this. 
The  old  leaf  is  now,  as  you  know,  among  the  im- 
perial treasures  at  Nara,  which  no  one  has  access 
to  but  by  imperial  order.  It  was  intended,  as 
I  am  told,  to  bring  them  to  Tokio,  and  some 
months  ago  an  officer  was  actually  despatched  for 
Nai'a.  The  officer,  however,  resigned  his  office  before 
he  left  Tokio,  and  his  resignation  was  granted  while 
he  w^as  en  route.  This  altered  everything.  He  went 
to  Kioto  on  some  other  business  without  staying  at 
Kara.  I  do  not  know  whether  this  matter  is  con- 
sidered to  be  not  a  very  pressing  business,  but 
it  is  certain  that  no  officer  has  since  been  despatched 
for  the  purpose.  Unless  the  palm-leaves  are  brought 
to  Tokio,  there  w^ill  bo  no  chance  of  their  being 
photographed ;  for  those  treasures  are  sealed  up  at 
Nara,  and  no  keeper  is  there  who  is  free  to  open 
them.  I  do  not  say  I  understand  the  matter  very 
well.  But  Susuki  and  Ota,  the  latter  of  whom  you 
know  by  name,  both  tell  me  the  same.  Ota,  being 
a  mere  young   student,  has    no    intimate    access  to 


KENJIU   KASAWARA.  225 

Iwakura,  but  the  former,  I  am  sure,  is  able  to  beg 
of  the  Minister  anything  about  the  matter.  I  urged 
him  not  to  neglect  to  make  further  inquiries.  The 
matter  being  in  such  a  state,  delay  seems  inevitable. 
Although  I  shall  urge  my  friend  to  seek  every  means 
to  accelerate  its  progress,  I  am  afraid  you  cannot 
delay  your  publication  so  long. 

I  have  written  letters  to  some  of  my  old  friends, 
but  none  of  them,  even  by  this  time,  has  written  any 
answer.  I  do  not  know  what  they  think  of  me,  but 
my  illness  and  my  withdrawing  to  Atami  have  put 
me  into  oblivion. 

I  came  to  Atami  on  the  4th  last.  It  is  only  about 
fifty  English  miles  from  Tokio,  and  famous  for 
its  hot  springs.  The  place  has  come  to  particular 
notice  since  foreigners  began  to  praise  its  healthiness 
as  well  as  its  waters.  This  is  one  of  our  few  places 
which  know  the  faces  of  ministers  and  foreign 
ambassadors.  It  has  the  advantage  of  its  position, 
forming  a  little  bay,  surrounded  by  considerably  high 
hills,  embracing  the  warmth  of  the  sun  in  the  south- 
east. But  the  road  to  this  place  was  very  bad  till  some 
four  or  five  months  ago,  and  only  since  that  time 
small  vehicles  drawn  b}^  men  can  pass  carrying  inva- 
lids. The  hills  around  are  not  so  easy  to  climb  as  at 
Malvern,  the  footpaths  being  stony  and  neck- 
breaking.  This  naturally  stops  us  from  going  astray, 
and  we  are  confined  in  this  small  village,  where  there 
is  nothing  to  see  and  nothing  to  amuse  us.  But 
I  like  this  nook  of  the  earth  very  well  as  my  present 
asylum. 

I  am  not  able  to  work  much,  and  am  forbidden  to 
do   so,   but   as   I   have  no   one  to   speak   to  in  my 

VOL.  II.  Q 


226  BIOaRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

room,  I  naturally  have  recourse  to  my  books.  By  the 
way,  my  store  of  books,  which  I  call  my  honeycomb, 
arrived  safely  from  England  in  Tokio,  but  now  the 
books  no  longer  follow  me  so  easily  wherever  I  go. 

I  presume  you  and  all  your  family  are  quite  well. 
Please  remember  me  to  Mrs.  Max  Miiller  and  the  rest. 
My  parents  are  well,  and  very  glad  of  my  safe  arrival, 
and,  though  they  and  I  both  regret  that  I  cannot  go 
to  see  them  at  present,  yet  they  are  quite  satisfied 
with  my  being  here.  They  well  know  that  their 
place  is  too  cold  for  me,  and  they  cannot  attempt  to 
come  to  me.  To  them  this  part  of  Japan  may  still 
seem,  as  it  seemed  to  me  when  I  was  a  boy,  as  strange 
a  land  as  Turkey  or  Egypt  may  seem  to  you,  and  the 
difficulty  of  travelling  even  now  is  actually  greater. 
They  are  extremely  thankful  to  you  for  your  great 
kindness  to  me  during  my  stay  in  Oxford. 

I  hope  that  the  Japanese  gentlemen  in  Oxford  are 
in  good  health,  and  continue  their  important  studies. 
I  am,  Sir, 

Your  obedient  pupil, 

K.  Kasawara. 


Otanikioko,  Tokio, 
14  June,  1883. 

My  dear  Sir, 

Since  I  wrote  my  last  letter  to  you  two  months 
have  passed,  but  I  am  sorry  to  say  I  have  nothing  to 
tell  you  that  is  new  and  bright. 

I  have  passed  these  six  weeks,  and  especially  these 
few  last  days,  in  very  bad  health.  A  bad  cough  is  the 
principal  symptom,  but  now  my  bodily  strength  too 
is  failing.     Tokio  is  not  my  home.     I  have  remained 


KENJIU  KASAWARA.  227 

here  in  suspense,  neither  having  been  able  to  set  out 
for  home,  nor  having  been  able  to  find  a  comfortable 
abode  here.  No  one  looks  after  me  :  to  a  sick  man 
very  few  remain  as  friends.  Now  the  best  way  for 
me  is  to  surrender  myself  entii'ely  to  medical  treat- 
ment. Dr.  Baeby,  a  German  in  the  service  of  the  Go- 
vernment Hospital  at  Tokio,  is  now  very  famous.  I  am 
using  the  medicine  prescribed  by  him  for  me.  I  have 
resolved  to  go  into  the  hospital  from  to-morrow. 
This  will  be  to  my  satisfaction,  as  I  shall  have  better 
accommodation  and  good  medical  treatment. 

I  received  the  Athenceum,  in  which  a  review  of  your 
Cambridge  Lectures  is  found.  I  thank  you  very  much, 
and  read  the  review  with  pleasure.  This  reminded 
me  of  our  pleasant  Cambridge  tour  last  year,  and  my 
last  efforts  in  copying.  How  different  are  things 
around  me  this  year  ! 

Your  kindness  did  not  stop  there.  You  also  made 
an  application  that  the  physicians  attached  to  the 
English  Legation  here  should  attend  me.  But  I  had 
been  under  the  treatment  of  Dr.  Baeby,  so  that  I  have 
gone  on  with  him.  I  hope  you  will  pardon  this  care- 
less writing,  as  I  am  weak,  and  require  to  sit  quiet. 

I  am.  Sir, 

Your  humble  pupil, 

Kexjiu  Kasawara. 


Q2 


COLEBROOKE'. 

(1765-1837.) 

^PHE  name  and  fame  of  Henry  Thomas  Colebrooke 
■*-  are  better  known  in  India,  France,  Germany, 
Italy — nay,  even  in  Russia — than  in  his  own  country. 
He  was  born  in  London  on  the  15th  of  June,  1765; 
he  died  in  London  on  the  loth  of  March,  1837  ;  and  if 
now,  after  waiting  for  thirty-six  years,  his  only  sur- 
viving son,  Sir  Edward  Colebrooke,  has  at  last  given 
us  a  more  complete  account  of  his  father's  life,  the 
impulse  has  come  chiefly  from  Colebrooke's  admirers 
abroad,  who  wished  to  know  what  the  man  had  been 
whose  works  they  knew  so  well.  If  Colebrooke  had 
simply  been  a  distinguished,  even  a  highly  distin- 
guished, servant  of  the  East  India  Company,  we  could 
well  understand  that,  where  the  historian  has  so  many 
eminent  services  to  record,  those  of  Henry  Thomas 
Colebrooke  should  have  been  allowed  to  pass  almost 
unnoticed.  The  history  of  British  India  has  still  to 
be  written,  and  it  will  be  no  easy  task  to  write  it. 
Eacaulay's  Lives  of  Clive  and  Warren  Hastings  are 
but  two  specimens  to  show  how  it  ought  to  be,  and 
yet  how  it  cannot  be,  written.  There  is  in  the  annals 
of  the  conquest  and  administrative  tenure  of  India  so 
much  of  the  bold  generalship  of  raw  recruits,  the  states- 
manship of  common  clerks,  and  the  heroic  devotion  of 

'  '  Miscellaneous  Essays.'     By  Henry  Thomas  Colebrooke.    With  a 
Life  of  the  Author  by  his  Son.     In  three  volumes.     London  :   1S72. 


COLEBKOOKE.  229 

mere  adventurers,  that  even  the  largest  canvas  of  the 
historian  must  dwarf  the  stature  of  heroes ;  and  cha- 
racters which,  in  the  history  of  Greece  or  England, 
would  stand  out  in  bold  relief,  must  vanish  unnoticed 
in  the  crowd. 

The  substance  of  the  present  memoir  appeared  in 
the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society  soon  after 
Mr.  Colebrooke's  death.  It  consisted  originally  of 
a  brief  notice  of  his  public  and  literary  career,  inter- 
spersed with  extracts  from  his  letters  to  his  family 
during  the  first  twenty  years  of  his  residence  in  India. 
Being  asked  a  few  years  since  to  allow  this  notice  to 
appear  in  a  new  edition  of  the  '  Miscellaneous  Essays,' 
Sir  Edward  thought  it  incumbent  on  him  to  render  it 
more  worthy  of  his  father's  reputation.  The  letters 
in  the  present  volume  are,  for  the  most  part,  given  in 
full ;  and  some  additional  correspondence  is  included 
in  it,  besides  a  few  papers  of  literary  interest,  and  a 
journal  kept  by  him  during  his  residence  at  Nagpur, 
which  was  left  incomplete.  Two  addresses  delivered  to 
the  Royal  Asiatic  and  Astronomical  Societies,  and  the 
narrative  of  a  journey  to  and  from  the  capital  of  Berar, 
are  added  as  an  appendix  and  complete  the  volume. 

Although,  as  we  shall  see,  the  career  of  Mr.  Cole- 
brooke,  as  a  servant  of  the  East  India  Company,  was 
highly  distinguished,  and  in  its  vicissitudes,  as  here 
told  by  his  son,  both  interesting  and  instructive,  yet 
his  most  lasting  fame  will  not  be  that  of  the  able  ad- 
ministrator, the  learned  lawyer,  the  thoughtful  finan- 
cier and  politician,  but  that  of  the  founder  and  father 
of  true  Sanskrit  scholarship  in  Europe.  In  that  cha- 
racter Colebrooke  has  secured  his  place  in  the  history 
of  the  world,  a  place  which  neither  envy  nor  ignorance 


230  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

can  ever  take  from  him.  Had  he  lived  in  Germany, 
we  should  long  ago  have  seen  his  statue  in  his  native 
place,  his  name  written  in  letters  of  gold  on  the  walls 
of  academies  ;  we  should  have  heard  of  Colebrooke 
jubilees  and  Colebrooke  scholarships.  In  England,  if 
any  notice  is  taken  of  the  discovery  of  Sanskrit — a 
discovery  in  many  respects  equally  important,  in  some 
even  more  important,  than  the  revival  of  Greek 
scholarship  in  the  fifteenth  century — we  may  possibly 
hear  the  popular  name  of  Sir  William  Jones  and  his 
classical  translation  of  /S'akuntala  ;  but  of  the  infinitely 
more  important  achievements  of  Colebrooke,  not  one 
word.  The  fact  is,  the  time  has  not  yet  come  when 
the  full  importance  of  Sanskrit  philology  can  be  ap- 
preciated by  the  public  at  large.  It  was  the  same 
with  Greek  philology.  When  Greek  began  to  be 
studied  by  some  of  the  leading  spirits  in  Europe,  the 
subject  seemed  at  first  one  of  purely  literary  curiosity. 
When  its  claims  were  pressed  on  the  public,  they 
were  met  by  opposition,  and  even  ridicule  ;  and  those 
who  knew  least  of  Greek  were  most  eloquent  in  their 
denunciations.  Even  when  its  study  had  become 
more  general,  and  been  introduced  at  universities  and 
schools,  it  remained  in  the  eyes  of  many  a  mere  accom- 
plishment— its  true  value  for  higher  than  scholastic 
purposes  being  scarcely  suspected.  At  present  we 
know  that  the  revival  of  Greek  scholarship  affected 
the  deepest  interests  of  humanity,  that  it  was  in  reality 
a  revival  of  that  consciousness  which  links  large  por- 
tions of  mankind  together,  connects  the  living  with 
the  dead,  and  thus  secures  to  each  generation  the  full 
intellectual  inheritance  of  our  race.  Without  that 
historical   consciousness,  the   life   of  man  would  be 


COLEBROOKE.  231 

ephemeral  and  vain.  The  more  we  can  see  backward, 
and  place  ourselves  in  real  sympathy  with  the  past, 
the  more  truly  do  we  make  the  life  of  former  genera- 
tions our  own,  and  are  able  to  fulfil  our  own  appointed 
duty  in  carrying  on  the  work  which  was  begun  cen- 
turies aofo  in  Athens  and  at  Rome.  But  while  the 
unbroken  traditions  of  tlie  Roman  world,  and  the  re- 
vival of  Greek  culture  among  us,  restored  to  us  the 
intellectual  patrimony  of  Greece  and  Rome  only,  and 
made  the  Teutonic  race  in  a  certain  sense  Greek  and 
Roman,  the  discovery  of  Sanskrit  will  have  a  much 
larger  influence.  Like  a  new  intellectual  spring,  it 
is  meant  to  revive  the  broken  fibres  that  once  united 
the  South-Eastern  with  the  North-Western  branches 
of  the  Aryan  family;  and  thus  to  re-estabhsh  the 
spiritual  brotherhood,  not  only  of  the  Teutonic,  Greek, 
and  Roman,  but  likewise  of  the  Slavonic,  Celtic,  In- 
dian, and  Persian  branches.  It  is  to  make  the  mind 
of  man  wider,  his  heart  larger,  his  sympathies  world- 
embracing  ;  it  is  to  make  us  truly  huvfianiores,  richer 
and  prouder  in  the  full  perception  of  what  humanity 
has  been,  and  what  it  is  meant  to  be.  This  is  the  real 
object  of  the  more  comprehensive  studies  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  though  the  full  appreciation  of 
this  their  true  import  may  be  reserved  to  the  future, 
no  one  who  follows  the  intellectual  progress  of  man- 
kind attentively  can  fail  to  see  that,  even  now,  the 
comparative  study  of  languages,  mythologies,  and  re- 
ligions has  widened  our  horizon ;  that  much  which 
was  lost  has  been  regained  ;  and  that  a  new  world,  if 
it  has  not  yet  been  occupied,  is  certainly  in  sight.  It 
is  curious  to  observe  that  those  to  whom  we  chiefly 
owe  the  discovery  of  Sanskrit  were  as  little  conscious 


232  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

of  the  real  importance  of  their  discovery  as  Columbus 
was  when  he  landed  at  St.  Salvador.  What  Mr.  Cole- 
brooke  did,  was  done  from  a  sense  of  duty,  rather 
than  from  literary  curiosity ;  but  there  was  also  a 
tinge  of  enthusiasm  in  his  character,  like  that  which 
carries  a  traveller  to  the  wastes  of  Africa  or  the  ice-bound 
regions  of  the  Pole.  Whenever  there  was  work  ready 
for  him,  he  was  ready  for  the  work.  But  he  had  no 
theories  to  substantiate,  no  pre-conceived  objects  to 
attain.  Sobriety  and  thoroughness  are  the  distin- 
guishing features  of  all  his  works.  There  is  in  them 
no  trace  of  haste  or  carelessness  ;  but  neither  is  there 
evidence  of  any  extraordinary  effort,  or  minute  pro- 
fessional scholarship.  In  the  same  business-like  spirit 
in  which  he  collected  the  revenue  of  his  province,  he 
collected  his  knowledge  of  Sanskrit  literature ;  with 
the  same  judicial  impartiality  with  which  he  delivered 
his  judgments,  he  delivered  the  results  at  which  he 
had  arrived  after  his  extensive  and  careful  reading  ; 
and  with  the  same  sense  of  confidence  with  which  he 
quietly  waited  for  the  effects  of  his  political  and  financial 
measures,  in  spite  of  the  apathy  or  the  opposition  with 
which  they  were  met  at  first,  he  left  his  written  works 
to  the  judgment  of  posterity,  never  wasting  his  time 
in  the  repeated  assertion  of  his  opinions,  or  in  useless 
controversy,  though  he  was  by  no  means  insensible  to 
his  own  literary  reputation.  The  biography  of  such 
a  man  deserves  a  careful  study;  and  we  think  that 
Sir  Edward  Colebrooke  has  fulfilled  more  than  a 
purely  filial  duty  in  giving  to  the  world  a  full  ac- 
count of  the  private,  public,  and  literary  life  of  his 
great  father. 

Colebrooke    was    the    son   of  a   wealthy   London 


COLEBROOKE.  233 

banker,  Sir  George  Colebrooke,  a  Member  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  a  man  in  his  time  of  some  political  import- 
ance. Having  proved  himself  a  successful  advocate 
of  the  old  privileges  of  the  East  India  Company,  he 
was  invited  to  join  the  Court  of  Directors,  and  be- 
came in  1769  chairman  of  the  Company.  His  chair- 
manship was  distinguished  in  history  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  Warren  Hastings  to  the  highest  office  in 
India,  and  there  are  in  existence  letters  from  that  il- 
lustrious man  to  Sir  George,  written  in  the  crisis  of  his 
Indian  Administration,  which  show  the  intimate  and 
confidential  relations  subsisting  between  them.  But 
when,  in  later  years,  Sir  George  Colebrooke  became 
involved  in  pecuniary  difficulties,  and  Indian  appoint- 
ments were  successively  obtained  for  his  two  sons, 
James  Edward  and  Henry  Thomas,  it  does  not  ap- 
pear that  Warren  Hastings  took  any  active  steps  to 
advance  them,  beyond  appointing  the  elder  brother 
to  an  office  of  some  importance  on  his  secretariat. 
Henry,  the  younger  brother,  had  been  educated  at 
home,  and  at  the  age  of  fifteen  he  had  laid  a  solid 
foundation  in  Latin,  Greek,  French,  and  particularly 
in  mathematics.  As  he  never  seems  to  have  been 
urged  on,  he  learned  what  he  learned  quietly  and 
thoroughly,  trying  from  the  fu'st  to  satisfy  himself 
rather  than  others.  Thus  a  love  of  knowledge  for  its 
own  sake  remained  firmly  engrained  in  his  mind 
through  life,  and  explains  much  of  what  would  other- 
wise remain  inexplicable  in  his  literary  career. 

At  the  age  of  eighteen  he  started  for  India,  and 
arrived  at  Madras  in  1783,  having  narrowly  escaped 
capture  by  French  cruisers.  The  times  were  anxious 
times  for  India,  and  full  of  interest  to  an  observer  of 


234  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

political  events.  In  his  very  first  letter  from  India 
Colebrooke  thus  sketches  the  political  situation: — 

'The  state  of  affairs  in  India  seems  to  bear  a  far 
more  favourable  aspect  than  for  a  long  time  past. 
The  peace  with  the  Mahrattas  and  the  death  of 
Hyder  Ally,  the  intended  invasion  of  Tippoo's  country 
by  the  Mahrattas,  sufficiently  removed  all  alarm  from 
the  country  powers ;  but  there  are  likewise  accounts 
arrived,  and  which  seem  to  be  credited,  of  the  defeat 
of  Tippoo  by  Colonel  Matthews,  who  commands  on 
the  other  coast.' 

From  Madras  Colebrooke  proceeded,  in  178^,  to 
Calcutta,  where  he  met  his  elder  brother,  already 
established  in  the  service.  His  own  start  in  official 
life  was  delayed,  and  took  place  under  circumstances 
by  no  means  auspicious.  The  tone,  both  in  political 
and  private  life,  was  at  that  time  at  its  lowest  ebb 
in  India.  Drinking,  gambling,  and  extravagance  of 
all  kinds  were  tolerated  even  in  the  best  society,  and 
Colebrooke  could  not  entirely  escape  the  evil  effects 
of  the  moral  atmosphere  in  which  he  had  to  live.  It 
is  all  the  more  remarkable  that  his  taste  for  work 
never  deserted  him,  and  '  that  he  would  retire  to  his 
midnight  Sanskrit  studies  unaffected  by  the  excite- 
ment of  the  gambling-table.'  It  was  not  till  1786 — 
a  year  after  Warren  Hastings  had  left  India — that  he 
received  his  first  official  appointment,  as  Assistant 
Collector  of  Revenue  in  Tirhut.  His  father  seems 
to  have  advised  him  from  the  first  to  be  assiduous 
in  acquiring  the  vernacular  languages,  and  we  find 
him  at  an  early  period  of  his  Indian  career  thus 
writing  on  this  subject: — 

'  The  one.  and  that  the  most  necessary,  Moors  (now 


COLEBROOKE.  235 

called  Hindustani),  by  not  being  written,  bars  all 
close  application ;  the  other,  Persian,  is  too  dry  to 
entice,  and  is  so  seldom  of  any  use,  that  I  seek  its 
acquisition  very  leisurely.' 

He  asked  his  father  in  turn  to  send  him  the  Greek 
and  Latin  classics,  evidently  intending  to  carry  on 
his  old  favourite  studies,  rather  than  begin  a  new 
career  as  an  Oriental  scholar.  For  a  time  he  seemed, 
indeed,  deeply  disappointed  with  his  life  in  India, 
and  his  prospects  were  anything  but  encouraging. 
But  although  he  seriously  thought  of  throwing  up 
his  position  and  returning  to  England,  he  was  busy 
nevertheless  in  elaborating  a  scheme  for  the  better 
regulation  of  the  Indian  service.  His  chief  idea  was, 
that  the  three  functions  of  the  civil  service — the  com- 
mercial, the  revenue,  and  the  diplomatic — should  be 
separated ;  that  each  branch  should  be  presided  over 
by  an  independent  board,  and  that  those  who  had 
qualified  themselves  for  one  branch  should  not  be 
needlessly  transferred  to  another.  Curiously  enough, 
he  lived  to  prove  by  his  own  example  the  applica- 
bility of  the  old  system,  being  himself  transferred 
from  the  revenue  department  to  a  judgeship,  then 
employed  on  an  important  diplomatic  mission,  and 
lastly  raised  to  a  seat  in  Council,  and  acquitting 
himself  well  in  each  of  these  different  employments. 
After  a  time  his  discontent  seems  to  have  vanished. 
He  quietly  settled  down  to  his  work  in  collecting  the 
revenue  of  Tirhut;  and  his  official  duties  soon  be- 
came so  absorbing,  that  he  found  little  time  for  pro- 
jecting reforms  of  the  Indian  Civil  Service. 

Soon  also  his  Oriental  studies  gave  him  a  new 
interest  in  the  country  and  the  people.     The   first 


236  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

allusions  to  Oriental  literature  occur  in  a  letter  dated 
Patna,  December  lo,  1786.  It  is  addressed  to  his 
father,  who  had  desired  some  information  concerning 
the  religion  of  the  Hindus.  Colebrooke's  own  in- 
terest in  Sanskrit  literature  was  from  the  first 
scientific  rather  than  literary.  His  love  of  mathe- 
matics and  astronomy  made  him  anxious  to  find  out 
what  the  Brahmans  had  achieved  in  these  branches 
of  knowledge.  It  is  surprising  to  see  how  correct  is 
the  first  communication  which  he  sends  to  his  father 
on  the  four  modes  of  reckoning  time  adopted  by 
Hindu  astronomers,  and  which  he  seems  chiefly  to 
have  drawn  from  Persian  sources.  The  passage 
(pp.  23-26)  is  too  long  to  be  given  here,  but  we 
recommend  it  to  the  careful  attention  of  Sanskrit 
scholars,  who  will  find  it  more  accurate  than  what 
has  but  lately  been  written  on  the  same  subject. 
Colebrooke  treated,  again,  of  the  different  measures  of 
time  in  his  essay  '  On  Indian  Weights  and  Measures,' 
published  in  the  'Asiatic  Researches,'  1798;  and  in 
stating  the  rule  for  finding  the  planets  which  preside 
over  the  day,  called  Hord,  he  was  the  first  to  point 
out  the  palpable  coincidence  between  that  expression 
and  our  name  for  the  twenty-fourth  part  of  the  day. 
In  one  of  the  notes  to  his  Dissertation  on  the  Algebra 
of  the  Hindus  he  showed  that  this  and  other  astro- 
logical terms  were  evidently  borrowed  by  the  Hindus 
from  the  Greeks,  or  other  external  sources ;  and  in  a 
manuscript  note  published  for  the  first  time  by  Sir  E. 
Colebrooke,  we  find  him  following  up  the  same  sub- 
ject, and  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  word 
Hord  occurs  in  the  Sanskrit  vocabulary — the  Medini- 
Kosha — and  bears  there,  among  other  significations, 


COLEBROOKE.  237 

that  of  the  rising  of  a  sign  of  the  zodiac,  or  half  a 
sisrn.  This,  as  he  remarks,  is  in  diurnal  motion  one 
hour,  thus  confirming  the  connexion  between  the 
Indian  and  European  significations  of  the  word. 

While  he  thus  felt  attracted  towards  the  study  of 
Oriental  literature  by  his  own  scientific  interests,  it 
seems  that  Sanskrit  literature  and  poetry  by  them- 
selves had  no  charms  for  him.  On  the  contrary,  he 
declares  himself  repelled  by  the  false  taste  of  Oriental 
writers ;  and  he  speaks  very  slightingly  of  '  the 
amateurs  who  do  not  seek  the  acquisition  of  useful 
knowledge,  but  would  only  wish  to  attract  notice, 
without  the  labour  of  deserving  it,  which  is  readily 
accomplished  by  an  ode  from  the  Persian,  an  apologue 
from  the  Sanskrit,  or  a  song  from  some  unheard-of 
dialect  of  Hinduee,  of  which  the  amateur  favours  the 
public  with  a  free  translation,  without  understanding 
the  original,  as  you  will  immediately  be  convinced, 
if  you  peruse  that  repository  of  nonsense,  the  Asiatic 
Miscellany.'  He  makes  one  exception,  however,  in 
favour  of  Wilkins.  '  I  have  never  yet  seen  any  book,' 
he  writes,  '  which  can  be  depended  on  for  information 
concerning  the  real  opinions  of  the  Hindus,  except 
Wilkins's  Bliagvat  Geeta.  That  gentleman  was  San- 
skrit-mad, and  has  more  materials  and  more  general 
knowledge  respecting  the  Hindus  than  any  other 
foreigner  ever  acquired  since  the  days  of  Pythagoras.' 
Arabic,  too,  did  not  then  find  much  more  favour  in 
his  eyes  than  Sanskrit.  '  Thus  much,'  he  writes, 
'  I  am  induced  to  believe,  that  the  Arabic  language  is 
of  more  difficult  acquisition  than  Latin,  or  even  than 
Greek ;  and,  although  it  may  be  concise  and  nervous, 
it  will  not  reward  the  labour  of  the  student,  since,  in 


238  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

the  works  of  science,  he  can  find  nothing  new,  and,  in 
those  of  literature,  he  could  not  avoid  feeling  his 
judgment  offended  by  the  false  taste  in  which  they 
are  written,  and  his  imagination  being  heated  by  the 
glow  of  their  imagery.  A  few  dry  facts  might,  how- 
ever, reward  the  literary  drudge ' 

It  may  be  doubted,  indeed,  whether  Colebrooke 
would  ever  have  overcome  these  prejudices,  had  it 
not  been  for  his  father's  exhortations.  In  1789,  Cole- 
brook  was  transferred  from  Tirhut  to  Purneah ;  and 
such  was  his  interest  in  his  new  and  more  responsible 
office,  that,  according  to  his  own  expression,  he  felt 
for  the  report,  which  he  had  to  write,  all  the  solicitude 
of  a  young  author.  Engrossed  in  his  work,  the  ten 
years'  settlement  of  some  of  the  districts  of  his  new 
collectorship,  he  writes  to  his  father  in  July  1790 : — 

'  The  religion,  manners,  natural  history,  traditions, 
and  arts  of  this  country  may,  certainly,  furnish  sub- 
jects on  which  my  communications  might,  perhaps,  be 
not  uninteresting ;  but  to  offer  anything  deserving  of 
attention  would  require  a  season  of  leisure  to  collect 
and  digest  information.  Engaged  in  a  public  and 
busy  scene,  my  mind  is  wholly  engrossed  by  the  cares 
and  duties  of  my  station ;  in  vain  I  seek,  for  re- 
laxation's sake,  to  direct  my  thoughts  to  other 
subjects ;  matters  of  business  constantly  recur.  It 
is  for  this  cause  that  I  have  occasionally  apologised 
for  a  dearth  of  subjects,  having  no  occurrences  to 
relate,  and  the  matters  which  occupy  my  attention 
being  uninteresting  as  a  subject  of  correspondence.' 

When,  after  a  time,  the  hope  of  distinguishing 
himself  impelled  Colebrooke  to  new  exertions,  and 
he  determined  to  become  an  author,  the  subject  which 


COLEBROOKE.  239 

he  chose  was  not  antiquarian  or  philosophical,  but 
purely  practical. 

'Translations,'  he  writes,  in  1790,  'are  for  those 
who  rather  need  to  fill  their  purses  than  gratify  their 
ambition.  For  original  compositions  on  Oriental 
history  and  sciences  is  required  more  reading  in 
the  literature  of  the  East  than  I  possess,  or  am  likely 
to  attain.  My  subject  should  be  connected  with  those 
matters  to  which  my  attention  is  professionally  led. 
One  subject  is,  I  believe,  yet  untouched — the  agri- 
culture of  Bengal.  On  this  I  have  been  curious  of 
information  ;  and,  having  obtained  some,  I  am  now 
pursuing  inquiries  with  some  degree  of  regularity. 
I  wish  for  your  opinion,  whether  it  would  be  worth 
while  to  reduce  into  form  the  information  which  may 
be  obtained  on  a  subject  necessarily  dry,  and  which 
(curious,  perhaps),  is,  certainly,  useless  to  English 
readers.' 

Among  the  subjects  of  which  he  wishes  to  treat 
in  this  work  we  find  some  of  antiquarian  interest, 
e.  g.  what  castes  of  Hindus  are  altogether  forbid 
cultivating,  and  what  castes  have  religious  prejudices 
against  the  culture  of  particular  articles.  Others  are 
purely  technical ;  for  instance,  the  question  of  the 
succession  and  mixture  of  crops.  He  states  that  the 
Hindus  have  some  traditional  maxims  on  the  succes- 
sion of  crops  to  which  they  rigidly  adhere ;  and  with 
regard  to  mixture,  he  observes  that  two,  three,  or  even 
four  difierent  articles  are  sown  in  the  same  field,  and 
gathered  successively,  as  they  ripen  ;  that  they  are 
sometimes  all  sown  on  the  same  day,  sometimes  at 
different  periods,  etc. 

His  letters  now  become  more  and  more  interesting, 


240  BIOaKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

and  they  generally  contain  some  fragments  which 
show  us  how  the  sphere  of  his  inquiries  became  more 
and  more  extended.  We  find  (p.  39)  observations  on 
the  Psylli  of  Egypt  and  the  Snake-charmers  of  India, 
on  the  Sikhs  (p.  45),  on  Human  Sacrifices  in  India 
(p.  46).  The  spirit  of  inquiry  which  had  been  kindled 
by  Sir  W.  Jones,  more  particularly  since  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Asiatic  Society  of  Bengal  in  1784,  had 
evidently  reached  Colebrooke.  It  is  difficult  to  fix 
the  exact  date  when  he  began  the  study  of  Sanskrit. 
He  seems  to  have  taken  it  up  and  left  it  again  in 
despair  several  times.  In  1793  ^^  ^^^  removed  from 
Purneah  to  Nattore.  From  that  place  he  sent  to  his 
father  the  fii-st  volumes  of  the  '  Asiatic  Researches,' 
published  by  the  members  of  the  Asiatic  Society.  He 
drew  his  father's  attention  to  some  articles  in  them, 
which  would  seem  to  prove  that  the  ancient  Hindus 
possessed  a  knowledge  of  Egypt  and  of  the  Jews,  but 
he  adds : — 

'  No  historical  light  can  be  expected  from  Sanskrit 
literature  ;  but  it  may,  nevertheless,  be  curious,  if  not 
useful,  to  publish  such  of  their  legends  as  seem  to 
resemble  others  known  to  European  mythology.' 

The  fii'st  glimmering  of  comparative  mythology  in 

1793! 
Again  he  writes  in  1793  : — 

'In  my  Sanskrit  studies,  I  do  not  confine  myself 
now  to  particular  subjects,  but  skim  the  surface  of 
all  their  sciences.  I  will  subjoin,  for  your  amuse- 
ment, some  remarks  on  subjects  treated  in  the  "  Re- 
searches." ' 

What  the  results  of  that  skimming  were,  and  how 
far    more   philosophical    his   appreciation   of  Hindu 


COLEBEOOKE.  241 

literature  had  then  become,  may  be  seen  from  the 
end  of  the  same  letter,  written  from  Rajshahi,  De- 
cember 6,  1793 : — 

'  Upon  the  whole,  whatever  may  be  the  true  an- 
tiquity of  this  nation,  whether  their  mythology  be 
a  corruption  of  the  pure  deism  we  find  in  their 
books,  or  their  deism  a  refinement  from  gross  idolatry ; 
whether  their  religious  and  moral  precepts  have  been 
engrafted  on  the  elegant  philosophy  of  the  Nyaya 
and  Mimansa,  or  this  philosophy  been  refined  on  the 
plainer  text  of  the  Veda ;  the  Hindu  is  the  most 
ancient  nation  of  which  we  have  valuable  remains, 
and  has  been  surpassed  by  none  in  refinement  and 
civilisation ;  though  the  utmost  pitch  of  refinement 
to  which  it  ever  arrived  preceded,  in  time,  the  dawn 
of  civilisation  in  any  other  nation  of  which  we  have 
even  the  name  in  history.  The  further  our  literary 
inquuies  are  extended  here,  the  more  vast  and  stu- 
pendous is  the  scene  which  opens  to  us ;  at  the  same 
time  that  the  true  and  false,  the  sublime  and  the 
puerile,  wisdom  and  absurdity,  are  so  intermixed, 
that,  at  every  step,  we  have  to  smile  at  folly,  while 
we  admire  and  acknowledge  the  philosophical  truth, 
though  couched  in  obscure  allegory  and  puerile  fable.' 

In  1794,  Colebrooke  presented  to  the  Asiatic  Society 
his  first  paper,  '  On  the  Duties  of  a  Faithful  Hindu 
Widow,'  and  he  told  his  father  at  the  same  time,  that 
he  meant  to  pursue  his  Sanskrit  inquiries  diligently, 
and  in  a  spirit  which  seems  to  have  guided  all  his 
work  through  life : 

'The  only  caution,'  he  says,  'which  occurs  to  me 
is,  not  to  hazard  in  publication  anything  crude  or 
imperfect,  which  would  injure  my  reputation  as  a 
VOL.  II.  E 


242  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

man  of  letters ;  to  avoid  this,  the  precaution  may 
be  taken  of  submitting  my  manuscripts  to  private 
perusal.' 

Colebrooke  might  indeed  from  that  time  have  be- 
come altogether  devoted  to  the  study  of  Sanskrit, 
had  not  his  political  feelings  been  strongly  roused  by 
the  new  Charter  of  the  East  India  Company,  which, 
instead  of  sanctioning  reforms  long  demanded  by 
political  economists,  confirmed  nearly  all  the  old 
privileges  of  their  trade.  Colebrooke  was  a  free- 
trader by  conviction,  and  because  he  had  at  heart 
the  interests  both  of  India  and  of  England.  It  is 
quite  gratifying  to  find  a  man,  generally  so  cold  and 
prudent  as  Colebrooke,  warm  with  indignation  at 
the  folly  and  injustice  of  the  policy  carried  out  by 
England  with  regard  to  her  Indian  subjects.  He 
knew  very  well  that  it  was  personally  dangerous  for 
a  covenanted  servant  to  discuss  and  attack  the  privi- 
leges of  the  Company,  but  he  felt  that  he  ought  to 
think  and  act,  not  merely  as  the  servant  of  a  com- 
mercial company,  but  as  the  servant  of  the  British 
Government.  He  wished,  even  at  that  early  time, 
that  India  should  become  an  integral  portion  of  the 
British  Empire,  and  cease  to  be,  as  soon  as  possible, 
a  mere  appendage,  yielding  a  large  commercial 
revenue.  He  was  encouraged  in  these  views  by 
Mr.  Anthony  Lambert,  and  the  two  friends  at  last 
decided  to  embody  their  views  in  a  work,  which 
they  privately  printed,  under  the  title  of  '  Remarks 
on  the  Present  State  of  the  Husbandry  and  Com- 
merce of  Bengal.'  Colebrooke,  as  we  know,  had  paid 
considerable  attention  to  the  subject  of  husbandry, 
and  he  now  contributed  much  of  the  material  which 


COLEBEOOKE.  243 

he  had  collected  for  a  purely  didactic  work,  to  this 
controversial  and  political  treatise.  He  is  likewise 
responsible,  and  he  never  tried  to  shirk  that  re- 
sponsibility, for  most  of  the  advanced  financial 
theories  which  it  contains.  The  volume  was  sent 
to  England,  and  submitted  to  the  Prime  Minister 
of  the  day  and  several  other  persons  of  influence. 
It  seems  to  have  produced  an  impression  in  the 
quarters  most  concerned,  but  it  was  considered  pru- 
dent to  stop  its  further  circulation  on  account  of  the 
dangerous  free-trade  principles,  which  it  supported 
with  powerful  arguments.  Colebrooke  had  left  the 
discretion  of  publishing  the  work  in  England  to  his 
friends,  and  he  cheerfully  submitted  to  their  decision. 
He  himself,  however,  never  ceased  to  advocate  the 
most  liberal  financial  opinions,  and  being  considered 
by  those  in  power  in  Leadenhall  Street  as  a  dangerous 
young  man,  it  has  sometimes  been  supposed  that  his 
advancement  in  India  was  slower  than  it  would  other- 
wise have  been. 

A  man  of  Colebrooke's  power,  however,  was  too 
useful  to  the  Indian  Government  to  be  passed  over 
altogether,  and  though  his  career  was  neither  rapid 
nor  brilliant,  it  was  nevertheless  most  successful. 
Just  at  the  time  when  Sir  W.  Jones  had  suddenly 
died,  Colebrooke  was  removed  from  the  revenue  to 
the  judicial  branch  of  the  Indian  service,  and  there 
was  no  man  in  India,  except  Colebrooke,  who  could 
carry  on  the  work  which  Sir  W.  Jones  had  left  un- 
finished, viz.  '  the  Digest  of  Hindu  and  Mohammedan 
Laws.'  At  the  instance  of  Warren  Hastings,  a  clause 
had  been  inserted  in  the  Act  of  1772,  providing  that 
'  Maulavies  and  Pundits  should  attend  the  Courts,  to 

K   2 


244  BIOGiRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

expound  the  law  and  assist  in  passing  the  decrees.' 
In  all  suits  regarding  inheritance,  marriage,  caste, 
and  religious  usages  and  institutions,  the  ancient 
laws  of  the  Hindus  were  to  be  followed,  and  for  that 
purpose  a  body  of  laws  from  their  own  books  had 
to  be  compiled.  Under  the  direction  of  Warren 
Hastings,  nine  Brahmans  had  been  commissioned  to 
draw  up  a  code,  which  appeared  in  1776,  under  the 
title  of  '  Code  of  Gentoo  Laws  ^.'  It  had  been  ori- 
ginally compiled  in  Sanskrit,  then  translated  into 
Persian,  and  from  that  into  English.  As  that  code, 
however,  was  very  imperfect,  Sir  W.  Jones  had  urged 
on  the  Government  the  necessity  of  a  more  complete 
and  authentic  compilation.  Texts  were  to  be  col- 
lected, after  the  model  of  Justinian's  Pandects,  from 
law-books  of  approved  authority,  and  to  be  digested 
according  to  a  scientific  analysis,  with  references  to 
original  authors.  The  task  of  arranging  the  text- 
books and  compiling  the  new  code  fell  chiefly  to 
a  learned  Pandit,  Jagannatha,  and  the  task  of  trans- 
lating it  was  now,  after  the  death  of  Sir  W.  Jones, 
undertaken  by  Colebrooke.  This  task  was  no  easy 
one,  and  could  hardly  be  carried  out  without  the 
help  of  really  learned  pandits.  Fortunately  Cole- 
brooke was  removed  at  the  time  when  he  undertook 
this  work  to  Mirzapur,  close  to  Benares,  the  seat  of 
Brahmanical  learning,  in  the  north  of  India,  and  the 
seat  of  a  Hindu  College.  Here  Colebrooke  found  not 
only  rich  collections  of  Sanskrit  MSS.,  but  likewise 
a  number  of  law  pandits,  who  could  solve  many  of 

'  The  word  Gentoo,  which  was  commonlj'  applied  in  the  last  centurj' 
to  the  Hindus,  is  according  to  Wils^on  derived  from  the  Portuguese 
word  f/aitio,  gentile  or  heathen.  The  word  cutitc,  too,  comes  from  the 
same  source. 


COLEBROOKE.  245 

the  difficulties  which  he  had  to  encounter  in  the  trans- 
lation of  Jagannatha's  Digest.  After  two  years  of 
incessant  labour,  we  find  Colebrooke  on  January  3, 
1797,  announcing  the  completion  of  his  task,  which 
at  once  established  his  position  as  the  best  Sanskrit 
scholar  of  the  day.  Oriental  studies  were  at  that 
time  in  the  ascendant  in  India.  A  dictionary  was 
being  compiled,  and  several  grammars  were  in  prepa- 
ration. Types  also  had  been  cut,  and  for  the  first 
time  Sanskrit  texts  issued  from  the  press  in  Devana- 
gari  letters.  Native  scholars,  too,  began  to  feel  a 
pride  in  the  revival  of  their  ancient  literature.  The 
Brahmans,  as  Colebrooke  writes,  were  by  no  means 
averse  to  instruct  strangers ;  they  did  not  even 
conceal  from  him  the  most  sacred  texts  of  the  Veda. 
Colebrooke's  '  Essays  on  the  Religious  Ceremonies  of 
the  Hindus,'  which  appeared  in  the  fifth  volume  of 
the  '  Asiatic  Researches  •*  in  the  same  year  as  his 
translation  of  the  'Digest,'  show  very  clearly  that 
he  had  found  excellent  instructors,  and  had  been 
initiated  in  the  most  sacred  literature  of  the  Brah- 
mans. An  important  paper  on  the  Hindu  schools  of 
law  seems  to  date  from  the  same  period,  and  shows 
a  familiarity,  not  only  with  the  legal  authorities  of 
India,  but  with  the  whole  structure  of  the  traditional 
and  sacred  literature  of  the  Brahmans,  which  but  few 
Sanskrit  scholars  could  lay  claim  to  even  at  the 
present  day.  In  the  fifth  volume  of  the  'Asiatic 
Researches '  appeared  also  his  essay  '  On  Indian 
Weights  and  Measures. '  and  his  '  Enumeration  of 
Indian  Classes.'  A  short,  but  thoughtful  memoran- 
dum on  the  Origin  of  Caste,  written  during  that 
period,  and  printed  for  the  fii'st  time  in  his  'Life,' 


246  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

will  be  read  with  interest  by  all  who  are  acquainted 
with  the  different  views  of  living  scholars  on  this 
important  subject. 

Colebrooke's  idea  was  that  the  institution  of  caste 
was  not  artificial  or  conventional,  but  that  it  began 
with  the  simple  division  of  freemen  and  slaves,  which 
we  find  among  all  ancient  nations.  This  division,  as 
he  supposes,  existed  among  the  Hindus  before  they 
settled  in  India.  It  became  positive  law  after  their 
emigration  from  the  northern  mountains  into  India, 
and  was  there  adapted  to  the  new  state  of  the  Hindus, 
settled  among  the  aborigines.  The  class  of  slaves  or 
^udras  consisted  of  those  who  came  into  India  in 
that  degraded  state,  and  those  of  the  aborigines  who 
submitted  and  were  spared.  Menial  offices  and  me- 
chanical labour  were  deemed  unworthy  of  freemen 
in  other  countries  besides  India,  and  it  cannot  there- 
fore appear  strange  that  the  class  of  the  /S'udras 
comprehended  in  India  both  servants  and  mechanics, 
both  Hindus  and  emancipated  aborigines.  The  class 
of  freemen  included  originally  the  priest,  the  soldier, 
the  merchant,  and  the  husbandman.  It  was  divided 
into  three  orders,  the  Brahraa»as,  Kshatriyas,  and 
Vaisyas,  the  last  comprehending  merchants  and  hus- 
bandmen indiscriminately,  being  the  yeomen  of  the 
country  and  the  citizens  of  the  town.  According  to 
Colebrooke's  opinion,  the  Kshatriyas  consisted  ori- 
ginally of  kings  and  their  descendants.  It  was  the 
order  of  princes,  rather  than  of  mere  soldiers.  The 
Brahma>jas  comprehended  no  more  than  the  de- 
scendants of  a  few  religious  men  who,  by  superior 
knowledge  and  the  austerity  of  their  lives,  had  gained 
an  ascendency  over   the   people.     Neither   of  these 


COLEBROOKE.  247 

orders  was  originally  very  numerous,  and  their  pro- 
minence gave  no  offence  to  the  far  more  powerful 
body  of  the  citizens  and  yeomen. 

When  legislators  began  to  give  their  sanction  to 
this  social  system,  their  chief  object  seems  to  have 
been  to  guard  against  too  great  a  confusion  of  the 
four  orders — the  two  orders  of  nobility,  the  sacerdotal 
and  the  princely,  and  the  two  orders  of  the  people, 
the  citizens  and  the  slaves,  by  either  prohibiting 
intermarriage,  or  by  degrading  the  offspring  of 
alliances  between  members  of  different  orders.  If 
men  of  superior  married  women  of  inferior,  but 
next  adjoining,  rank,  the  offspring  of  their  marriage 
sank  to  the  rank  of  their  mothers,  or  obtained  a  posi- 
tion intermediate  between  the  two.  The  children  of 
such  marriages  were  distinguished  by  separate  titles. 
Thus,  the  son  of  a  Brahma//a  by  a  Kshatriya  woman 
was  called  Murdhabhishikta,  which  implies  royalty. 
They  formed  a  distinct  tribe  of  princes  or  military 
nobility,  and  were  by  some  reckoned  superior  to  the 
Kshatriya.  The  son  of  a  Brahma>ja  by  a  Vai'jya 
woman  was  a  Vaidya  or  Ambash^Aa ;  the  offspring 
of  a  Kshatriya  by  a  Vaisya  was  a  Mahishya,  forming 
two  tribes  of  respectable  citizens.  But  if  a  greater 
disproportion  of  rank  existed  between  the  parents — 
if,  for  instance,  a  Brahma)/a  married  a  >Sudra,  the 
offspring  of  their  marriage,  the  Nishada,  suffered 
greater  social  penalties ;  he  became  impure,  notwith- 
standing the  nobility  of  his  father.  Marriages,  again, 
between  women  of  superior  with  men  of  inferior  rank 
were  considered  more  objectionable  than  marriages  of 
men  of  superior  with  women  of  inferior  rank,  a  senti- 
ment which  continues  to  the  present  day. 


248  BIOGfEAPHTCAL   ESSAYS. 

What  is  peculiar  to  the  social  system,  as  sanctioned 
by  Hindu  legislators,  and  gives  it  its  artificial  character, 
is  their  attempt  to  provide  by  minute  regulations  for 
the  rank  to  be  assigned  to  new  tribes,  and  to  point 
out  professions  suitable  to  that  rank.  The  tribes  had 
each  an  internal  government,  and  professions  naturally 
formed  themselves  into  companies.  From  this  source, 
while  the  corporations  imitated  the  regulations  of 
tribes,  a  multitude  of  new  and  arbitrary  tribes  sprang 
up,  the  origin  of  which,  as  assigned  by  Manu  and 
other  legislators,  was  probably,  as  Colebrooke  admits, 
more  or  less  fanciful. 

In  his  'Remarks  on  the  Husbandry  and  Internal 
Commerce  of  Bengal,'  the  subject  of  caste  in  its  bear- 
ing on  the  social  improvement  of  the  Indian  nation 
was  likewise  treated  by  Colebrooke.  In  reply  to  the 
erroneous  views  then  prevalent  as  to  the  supposed 
barriers  which  caste  placed  against  the  free  develop- 
ment of  the  Hindus,  he  writes  : — 

'  An  erroneous  doctrine  has  been  started,  as  if  the 
great  population  of  these  provinces  could  not  avail  to 
effect  improvements,  notwithstanding  opportunities 
afforded  by  an  increased  demand  for  particular  manu- 
factures or  for  raw  produce  :  because,  "  professions  are 
hereditary  among  the  Hindus ;  the  offspring  of  men 
of  one  calling  do  not  intrude  into  any  other ;  profes- 
sions are  confined  to  hereditary  descent ;  and  the 
produce  of  any  particular  manufacture  cannot  be 
extended  according  to  the  increase  of  the  demand,  but 
must  depend  upon  the  population  of  the  caste,  or  tribe, 
which  works  on  that  manufacture :  or,  in  other  words, 
if  the  demand  for  any  article  should  exceed  the  ability 
of  the  number  of  workmen  who  produce  it,  the  de- 


COLEBROOKE.  249 

ficiency  cannot  be  supplied  by  calling  in  assistance 
from  other  tribes." 

'  In  opposition  to  this  unfounded  opinion,  it  is 
necessary  that  we  not  only  show,  as  has  been  already 
done,  that  the  population  is  actually  sufficient  for 
great  improvement,  but  we  must  also  prove,  that 
professions  are  not  separated  by  an  impassable  line, 
and  that  the  population  affords  a  sufficient  number 
whose  religious  prejudices  permit,  and  whose  inclina- 
tion leads  them  to  engage  in,  those  occupations 
through  which  the  desired  improvement  may  be 
effected. 

'The  Muselmans,  to  whom  the  argument  above 
quoted  cannot  in  any  manner  be  applied,  bear  no 
inconsiderable  proportion  to  the  whole  population. 
Other  descriptions  of  people,  not  governed  by  Hindu 
institutions,  are  found  among  the  inhabitants  of  these 
provinces :  in  regard  to  these,  also,  the  objection  is 
irrelevant.  The  Hindus  themselves,  to  whom  the 
doctrine  which  we  combat  is  meant  to  be  applied, 
cannot  exceed  nine-tenths  of  the  population ;  pro- 
bably, they  do  not  bear  so  great  a  proportion  to  the 
other  tribes.  They  are,  as  is  well  known,  divided 
into  four  grand  classes ;  but  the  first  three  of  them 
are  much  less  numerous  than  the  ^Sudra.  The  aggre- 
gate of  Bra,hma>/a,  Kshatriya,  and  Vai.^ya  may  amount, 
at  the  most,  to  a  fifth  of  the  population ;  and  even 
these  are  not  absolutely  lestiicted  to  their  own  ap- 
pointed occupations.  Commerce  and  agriculture  are 
universally  permitted ;  and,  under  the  designation  of 
servants  of  the  other  three  tribes,  the  >S'udras  seem  to 
be  allowed  to  prosecute  any  manufacture. 

'  In  this  tribe  are  included  not  only  the  true  -S'iidras, 


250  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

but  also  the  several  castes  whose  origin  is  ascribed 
to  the  promiscuous  intercourse  of  the  four  classes. 
To  these,  also,  their  several  occupations  were  as- 
signed; but  neither  are  they  restricted,  by  rigorous 
injunctions,  to  their  own  appointed  occupations.  For 
any  person  unable  to  procure  a  subsistence  by  the 
exercise  of  his  own  profession  may  earn  a  livelihood 
in  the  callinsr  of  a  subordinate  caste,  within  certain 
limits  in  the  scale  of  relative  precedence  assigned 
to  each;  and  no  forfeiture  is  now  incurred  by  his 
intruding  into  a  superior  profession.  It  was,  indeed, 
the  duty  of  the  Hindu  magistrate  to  restrain  the 
encroachments  of  inferior  tribes  on  the  occupations  of 
superior  castes ;  but,  under  a  foreign  government, 
this  restraint  has  no  existence. 

'In  practice,  little  attention  is  paid  to  the  limitations 
to  which  we  have  here  alluded :  daily  observation 
shows  even  Brahmanas  exercising  the  menial  profes- 
sion of  a  Sudra.  We  are  aware  that  every  caste 
forms  itself  into  clubs,  or  lodges,  consisting  of  the 
several  individuals  of  that  caste  residing  within  a 
small  distance ;  and  that  these  clubs,  or  lodges, 
govern  themselves  by  particular  rules  and  customs, 
or  by  laws.  But,  though  some  restrictions  and  limi- 
tations, not  founded  on  religious  prejudices,  are  found 
among  their  by-laws,  it  may  be  received,  as  a  general 
maxim,  that  the  occupation  appointed  for  each  tribe  is 
entitled  merely  to  a  preference.  Every  profession, 
with  few  exceptions,  is  open  to  every  description  of 
persons;  and  the  discouragement  arising  from  reli- 
gious prejudices  is  not  greater  than  what  exists  in 
Great  Britain  from  the  effects  of  municipal  and 
corporation  laws.     In  Bengal,  the  numbers  of  people 


COLEBROOKE.  251 

actually  willing  to  apply  to  any  particular  occupation 
are  sufficient  for  the  unlimited  extension  of  any 
manufacture. 

'  If  these  facts  and  observations  be  not  considered 
as  a  conclusive  refutation  of  the  unfounded  assertion 
made  on  this  subject,  we  must  appeal  to  the  ex- 
perience of  every  gentleman  who  may  have  resided 
in  the  provinces  of  Bengal,  whether  a  change  of 
occupation  and  profession  does  not  frequently  and 
indetinitely  occur?  whether  Brahmanas  are  not 
employed  in  the  most  servile  offices?  and  whether 
the  Sudra  is  not  seen  elevated  to  situations  of 
respectability  and  importance?  In  short,  whether 
the  assertion  above  quoted  be  not  altogether  destitute 
of  foundation?' 

It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  studies  so  auspici- 
ously begun  were  suddenly  interrupted  by  a  diplo- 
matic mission,  which  called  Colebrooke  away  from 
Mirzapur,  and  retained  him  from  1 798-1801  at 
Nagpur,  the  capital  of  Berar.  Colebrooke  himself 
had  by  this  time  discovered  that,  however  distin- 
guished his  public  career  might  be,  his  lasting  fame 
must  depend  on  his  Sanskrit  studies.  We  find  him 
even  at  Nagpur  continuing  his  literary  work,  par- 
ticularly the  compilation  and  translation  of  a  Sup- 
plementary Digest.  He  also  prepared,  as  far  as  this 
was  possible  in  the  midst  of  diplomatic  avocations, 
some  of  his  most  important  contributions  to  the 
'Asiatic  Researches,'  one  on  Sanskrit  Prosody,  which 
did  not  appear  till  1808,  and  was  then  styled  an 
'Essay  on  Sanskrit  and  Prakrit  Poetry;'  one  on  the 
Vedas,  another  on  Indian  Theogonies  (not  published), 
and  a  critical  treatise   on  Indian   plants.     At  last, 


252  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

in  May  1801,  he  left  Nagpur  to  return  to  his  post 
at  Mirzapur.  Shortly  afterwards  he  was  summoned 
to  Calcutta,  and  appointed  a  member  of  the  newly 
constituted  Court  of  Appeal.  He  at  the  same  time 
accepted  the  honorary  post  of  Professor  of  Sanskrit 
at  the  college  recently  established  at  Fort  William, 
without,  however,  taking  an  active  part  in  the 
teaching  of  pupils.  He  seems  to  have  been  a 
director  of  studies  rather  than  an  actual  professor, 
but  he  rendered  valuable  service  as  examiner  in 
Sanskrit,  Bengali,  Hindustani,  and  Persian.  In  1801 
appeared  his  essay  on  the  Sanskrit  and  Prakrit 
languages,  which  shows  how  well  he  had  qualified 
himself  to  act  as  professor  of  Sanskrit,  and  how  well, 
in  addition  to  the  legal  and  sacred  literature  of  the 
Brahmans,  he  had  mastered  the  belles  lettres  of  India 
also,  which  at  first,  as  we  saw,  had  rather  repelled 
him  by  their  extravagance  and  want  of  taste. 

And  here  we  have  to  take  note  of  a  fact  which  has 
never  been  mentioned  in  the  history  of  the  science  of 
language,  viz.  that  Colebrooke  at  that  early  time 
devoted  considerable  attention  to  the  study  of  Com- 
parative Philology.  To  judge  from  his  papers,  which 
have  never  been  published,  but  which  are  still  in  the 
possession  of  Sir  E.  Colebrooke,  the  range  of  his  com- 
parisons was  very  wide,  and  embraced  not  only 
Sanskrit,  Greek,  and  Latin  with  their  derivatives, 
but  also  the  Germanic  and  Slavonic  languages. 

The  principal  work,  however,  of  this  period  of  his 
life  was  his  Sanskrit  Grammar.  Though  it  was  never 
finished,  it  will  always  keep  its  place,  like  a  classical 
torso,  more  admired  in  its  unfinished  state  than  other 
works  which   stand   by   its    side,  finished,  yet   less 


COLEBROOKE.  253 

perfect.  Sir  E.  Colebrooke  has  endeavoured  to  convey 
to  the  general  reader  some  idea  of  the  difficulties 
"which  had  to  be  overcome  by  those  who,  for  the 
fii'st  time,  approached  the  study  of  the  native  gram- 
marians, particularly  of  Pa^<ini.  But  this  grammatical 
literature,  the  3,996  grammatical  .^tl^rrt.?  or  rules,  which 
determine  every  possible  form  of  the  Sanskrit  language 
in  a  manner  unthought  of  by  the  grammarians  of  any 
other  country,  the  glosses  and  commentaries,  one  piled 
upon  the  other,  which  are  indispensable  for  a  suc- 
cessful unravelling  of  Pa^dni' s  artful  web,  which  start 
every  objection,  reasonable  or  unreasonable,  that  can 
be  imasrined,  either  a2:ainst  Pacini  himself  or  ao-ainst 
his  interpreters,  which  establish  general  principles, 
register  every  exception,  and  defend  all  forms  ap- 
parently anomalous  of  the  ancient  Vedic  language, — 
all  this  together  is  so  comjDletely  sui  generis,  that 
those  only  who  have  themselves  followed  Colebrooke's 
footsteps  can  appreciate  the  boldness  of  the  fii'st 
adventurer,  and  the  perseverance  of  the  first  explorer 
of  that  grammatical  labyrinth.  Colebrooke's  own 
Grammar  of  the  Sanskrit  language,  founded  on  the 
works  of  native  gi'ammarians,  has  sometimes  been 
accused  of  obscurity,  nor  can  it  be  denied  that  for 
those  who  wish  to  acquire  the  elements  of  the  lan- 
guage it  is  almost  useless.  But  those  who  know 
the  materials  which  Colebrooke  worked  up  in  his 
Grammar,  will  readily  give  him  credit  for  what  he 
has  done  in  bringing  the  indi<jesta  moles  which  he 
found  before  him  into  something  like  order.  He 
made  the  first  step,  and  a  very  considerable  step  it 
was,  in  translating  the  strange  phraseology  of  San- 
skrit  srammarians   into    something    at    least    intel- 


254  BIOGEAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

ligible  to  European  scholars.  How  it  could  have 
been  imagined  that  their  extraordinary  gi'ammatical 
phraseology  was  borrowed  by  the  Hindus  from  the 
Greeks,  or  that  its  formation  was  influenced  by  the 
grammatical  schools  established  among  the  Greeks 
in  Bactria,  is  difficult  to  understand,  if  one  possesses 
but  the  slightest  acquaintance  with  the  character  of 
either  system,  or  with  their  respective  historical 
developments.  It  would  be  far  more  accurate  to 
say  that  the  Indian  and  Greek  systems  of  gi'ammar 
represent  two  opposite  poles,  exhibiting  the  two 
starting-points  from  which  alone  the  grammar  of  a 
lano-uage  can  be  attacked — viz.  the  theoretical  and 

o        o 

the  empirical.  Greek  grammar  begins  with  philo- 
sophy, and  forces  language  into  the  categories  estab- 
lished by  logic.  Indian  grammar  begins  with  a  mere 
collection  of  facts,  systematises  them  mechanically, 
and  thus  leads  in  the  end  to  a  system  which,  though 
marvellous  for  its  completeness  and  perfection,  is 
nevertheless,  from  a  higher  point  of  view,  a  mere 
triumph  of  scholastic  pedantry. 

Colebrooke's  gi-ammar,  even  in  its  unfinished  state, 
Avill  always  be  the  best  introduction  to  a  study  of 
the  native  grammarians — a  study  indispensable  to 
every  sound  Sanskrit  scholar.  In  accuracy  of  state- 
ment it  still  holds  the  first  place  among  European 
gi'ammars,  and  it  is  only  to  be  regretted  that  the 
references  to  Pa»ini  and  other  grammatical  authorities, 
which  existed  in  Colebrooke's  manuscript,  should  have 
been  left  out  when  it  came  to  be  printed.  The  modern 
school  of  Sanskrit  students  has  entirely  reverted  to 
Colebrooke's  views  on  the  importance  of  a  study  of 
the  native  grammarians.     It  is  no  longer  considered 


COLEBROOKE.  255 

sufficient  to  know  the  correct  forms  of  Sanskrit  de- 
clension or  conjugation:  if  challenged,  we  must  be 
prepared  to  substantiate  their  correctness  by  giving 
chapter  and  verse  from  Pa«ini,  the  fountain-head  of 
Indian  grammar.  If  Sir  E.  Colebrooke  says  that 
'Bopp  also  drew  deeply  from  the  fountain-head  of 
Indian  grammar  in  his  subsequent  labours,'  he  has 
been  misinformed.  Bopp  may  have  changed  his 
opinion  that  'the  student  might  arrive  at  a  critical 
knowledge  of  Sanskrit  by  an  attentive  study  of  Foster 
and  Wilkins,  without  referring  to  native  authorities ; ' 
but  he  himself  never  went  beyond,  nor  is  there  any 
evidence  in  his  published  works  that  he  himself  tried 
to  work  his  way  through  the  intricacies  of  Pai/ini. 

In  addition  to  his  grammatical  studies,  Colebrooke 
was  engaged  in  several  other  subjects.  He  worked 
at  the  'Supplement  to  the  Digest  of  Laws,'  which 
assumed  very  large  proportions ;  he  devoted  some  of 
his  time  to  the  deciphering  of  ancient  inscriptions,  in 
the  hope  of  finding  some  fixed  points  in  the  history 
of  India ;  he  undertook  to  supply  the  Oriental  syno- 
nymes  for  Roxburgh's '  Flora  Indica' — a  most  laborious 
task,  requiring  a  knowledge  of  botany  as  well  as  an 
intimate  acquaintance  with  Oriental  languages.  In 
1804  and  1805,  while  preparing  his  classical  essay  on 
the  Vedas  for  the  press,  we  find  him  approaching 
the  study  of  the  religion  of  Buddha.  In  all  these 
varied  researches,  it  is  most  interesting  to  observe 
the  difference  between  him  and  all  the  other  contri- 
butors to  the  '  Asiatic  Researches'  at  that  time.  They 
were  all  carried  away  by  theories  or  enthusiasm ; 
they  were  all  betrayed  into  assertions  or  conjectures 
which  often  proved  unfounded.    Colebrooke  alone,  the 


256  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

most  hard-working  and  most  comprehensive  student, 
never  allows  one  word  to  escape  his  pen  for  which 
he  has  not  his  authority ;  and  when  he  speaks  of 
the  treatises  of  Wilford,  he  readily  admits  that 
they  contain  curious  matter,  but,  as  he  expresses 
himself,  '  very  little  conviction.'  When  speaking  of 
his  own  work,  as,  for  instance,  what  he  had  written 
on  the  Vedas,  he  says :  '  1  imagine  my  treatise  on  the 
Vedas  will  be  thought  curious ;  but,  like  the  rest  of 
my  publications,  little  interesting  to  the  general 
reader.' 

In  1805,  Colebrooke  became  President  of  the  Court 
of  Appeal — a  high  and,  as  it  would  seem,  lucrative 
post,  which  made  him  unwilling  to  aspire  to  any 
other  appointment.  His  leisure,  though  more  limited 
than  before,  was  devoted,  as  formerly,  to  his  favourite 
studies;  and  in  1807  he  accepted  the  presidency  of 
the  Asiatic  Society — a  post  never  before  or  after  filled 
so  worthily.  He  not  only  contributed  himself  several 
articles  to  the  '  Asiatic  Researches,'  published  by  the 
Society,  viz.  '  On  the  Sect  of  Jina,'  '  On  the  Indian 
and  Arabic  Divisions  of  the  Zodiack,'  and  '  On  the 
Frankincense  of  the  Ancients  ; '  but  he  encouraged 
also  many  useful  literary  undertakings,  and  threw 
out,  among  other  things,  an  idea  which  has  but  lately 
been  carried  out,  viz.  a  Catalogue  raisonne  of  all  that 
is  extant  in  Asiatic  literature.  His  own  studies  be- 
came more  and  more  concentrated  on  the  most  ancient 
literature  of  India,  the  Vedas,  and  the  question  of 
their  real  antiquity  led  him  again  to  a  more  exhaustive 
examination  of  the  astronomical  literature  of  the 
Brahmans.  In  all  these  researches,  which  were 
necessarily    of    a    somewhat    conjectural    character, 


COLEBROOKE.  257 

Colebrooke  was  guided  by  his  usual  caution.  In- 
stead of  attempting,  for  instance,  a  free  and  more 
or  less  divinatory  translation  of  the  hymns  of  the 
Rig- Veda,  he  began  with  the  tedious  but  inevitable 
work  of  exploring  the  native  commentaries.  No  one 
who  has  not  seen  his  MSS.,  now  preserved  at  the 
India  Office,  and  the  marginal  notes  with  which  the 
folios  of  Saya??a's  commentary  are  covered,  can  form 
any  idea  of  the  conscientiousness^  with  which  he 
collected  the  materials  for  his  essay.  He  was  by  no 
means  a  blind  follower  of  Saya»a,  or  a  believer  in 
the  infallibility  of  traditional  interpretation.  The 
question  on  which  so  much  useless  ingenuity  has 
since  been  expended,  whether  in  translating  the  Veda 
we  should  be  guided  by  native  authorities  or  by  the 
rules  of  critical  scholarship,  must  have  seemed  to  him, 
as  to  every  sensible  person,  answered  as  soon  as  it 
was  asked.  He  answered  it  by  setting  to  work 
patiently,  in  order  to  find  out,  first,  all  that  could 
be  learnt  from  native  scholars,  and  afterwards  to 
form  his  own  opinion.  His  experience  as  a  practical 
man,  his  judicial  frame  of  mind,  his  freedom  from 
literary  vanity,  kept  him,  here  as  elsewhere,  from 
falling  into  the  pits  of  learned  pedantry.  It  will 
seem  almost  incredible  to  later  generations  that 
German  and  English  scholars  should  have  wasted 
so  much  of  their  time  in  trying  to  prove,  either  that 
we  should  take  no  notice  whatever  of  the  traditional 
interpretation  of  the  Veda,  or  that,  in  following  it, 
we  should  entirely  surrender  our  right  of  private 
judgment.  Yet  that  is  the  controversy  which  has 
occupied  of  late  years  some  of  our  best  Sanskrit 
scholars,  M'hich  has  filled  our  journals  with  articles 
VOL.  II.  s 


258  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

as  full  of  learning  as  of  acrimony,  and  has  actxially 
divided  the  students  of  the  history  of  ancient  religion 
into  two  hostile  camps.  Colebrooke  knew  that  he 
had  more  useful  work  before  him  than  to  discuss  the 
infallibility  of  fallible  interpreters — a  question  handled 
with  greater  ingenuity  by  the  Maimansaka  philoso- 
phers than  by  any  living  casuists.  He  wished  to 
leave  substantial  work  behind  him ;  and  though  he 
claimed  no  freedom  from  error  for  himself,  yet  he  felt 
conscious  of  having  done  all  his  work  carefully  and 
honestly,  and  was  willing  to  leave  it,  such  as  it  was,  to 
the  judgment  of  his  contemporaries  and  of  posterity. 

Once  only  during  the  whole  of  his  life  did  he 
allow  himself  to  be  drawn  into  a  literary  contro- 
versy; and  here,  too,  he  must  have  felt  what  most 
men  feel  in  the  end,  that  it  would  have  been  better 
if  he  had  not  engaged  in  it.  The  subject  of  the  con- 
troversy was  the  antiquity  and  originality  of  Hindu 
astronomy.  Much  had  been  written  for  and  against 
it  by  various  writers,  but  by  most  of  them  without 
a  full  command  of  the  necessary  evidence.  Cole- 
brooke himself  maintained  a  doubtful  attitude.  He 
began,  as  usual,  with  a  careful  study  of  the  sources 
at  that  time  available,  with  translations  of  Sanskrit 
treatises,  with  astronomical  calculations  and  verifica- 
tions ;  but,  being  unable  to  satisfy  himself,  he  ab- 
stained from  giving  a  definite  opinion.  Bentley,  who 
had  pubhshed  a  paper  in  which  the  antiquity  and 
originality  of  Hindu  astronomy  were  totally  denied, 
was  probably  aware  that  Colebroke  was  not  con- 
vinced by  his  arguments.  When,  therefore,  an  ad- 
verse criticism  of  his  views  appeared  in  the  first 
number  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  Bentley  jumped 


COLEBKOOKE.  259 

at  the  conclusion  that  it  was  written  or  inspired  by 
Colebrooke.  Hence  arose  his  animosity,  which  lasted 
for  many  years,  and  vented  itself  from  time  to  time 
in  virulent  abuse  of  Colebrooke,  whom  Bentley  accused 
not  only  of  unintentional  error,  but  of  wilful  misrepre- 
sentation and  unfair  suppression  of  the  truth.  Cole- 
brooke ought  to  have  known  that  in  the  republic  of 
letters  scholars  are  sometimes  brought  into  strancfe 
company.  Eeing  what  he  was,  he  need  not — nay,  he 
ought  not — to  have  noticed  such  literary  rowdyism. 
But  as  the  point  at  issue  was  of  deep  interest  to  him, 
and  as  he  himself  had  a  much  higher  opinion  of 
Bentley's  real  merits  than  his  reviewer,  he  at  last 
vouchsafed  an  answer  in  the  '  Asiatic  Journal '  of 
March,  1826.  With  regard  to  Bentley's  personalities, 
he  says:  'I  never  spoke  nor  wrote  of  Mr.  Bentley 
with  disrespect,  and  I  gave  no  provocation  for  the 
tone  of  his  attack  on  me.'  As  to  the  question  itself, 
he  sums  up  his  position  with  simplicity  and  dignity. 
'  I  have  been  no  favourer,'  he  writes,  '  no  advocate  of 
Indian  astronomy.  I  have  endeavoured  to  lay  before 
the  public,  in  an  intelligible  form,  the  fruits  of  my 
researches  concerning  it.  I  have  repeatedly  noticed 
its  imperfections,  and  have  been  ready  to  admit  that 
it  has  been  no  scanty  borrower  as  to  theory.' 

Colebrooke's  stay  in  India  was  a  long  one.  He 
arrived  there  in  1782,  when  only  seventeen  years  of 
age,  and  he  left  it  in  1815,  at  the  age  of  fifty.  During 
all  this  time  we  see  him  uninterruptedly  engaged  in 
his  official  work,  and  devoting  all  his  leisure  to  literary 
labour.  The  results  which  we  have  noticed  so  far, 
were  already  astonishing,  and  quite  sufficient  to  form 
a  solid  basis  of  his  literary  fame.     But  we  have  by 

s  2 


2  GO  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

no  means  exhausted  the  roll  of  his  works.  We  saw 
that  a  '  Supplement  to  the  Digest  of  Laws '  occupied 
him  for  several  years.  In  it  he  proposed  to  recast  the 
whole  title  of  inheritance,  so  imperfectly  treated  in 
the  '  Digest '  which  he  translated,  and  supplement  it 
with  a  series  of  compilations  on  the  several  heads  of 
Criminal  Law,  Pleading,  and  Evidence,  as  treated  by 
Indian  jurists.  In  a  letter  to  Sir  T.  Strange  he  speaks 
of  the  Sanskrit  text  as  complete,  and  of  the  translation 
as  considerably  advanced;  but  it  was  not  till  1810 
that  he  published,  as  a  first  instalment,  his  translation 
of  two  important  treatises  on  inheritance,  representing 
the  views  of  different  schools  on  this  subject.  Much 
of  the  material  which  he  collected  with  a  view  of  im- 
proving the  administration  of  law  in  India,  and  bring- 
ing it  into  harmony  with  the  legal  traditions  of  the 
country,  remained  unpublished,  partly  because  his 
labours  were  anticipated  by  timely  reforms,  partly 
because  his  official  duties  became  too  onerous  to  allow 
him  to  finish  his  work  in  a  manner  satisfactory  to 
himself. 

But  although  the  bent  of  Colebrooke's  mind  was 
originally  scientific,  and  the  philological  researches 
which  have  conferred  the  greatest  lustre  on  his  name 
grew  insensibly  beneath  his  pen,  the  services  he 
rendered  to  Indian  jurisprudence  would  deserve  the 
highest  praise  and  gratitude,  if  he  had  no  other  title 
to  fame.  Among  his  earlier  studies  he  had  applied 
himself  to  the  Roman  law  with  a  zeal  uncommon 
among  Englishmen  of  his  standing,  and  he  has  left 
behind  him  a  treatise  on  the  Roman  Law  of  Contracts. 
When  he  directed  the  same  powers  of  investigation 
to  the  sources  of  Indian  law  he  found  everything  in 


COLEBROOKE.  261 

confusion.  The  texts  and  glosses  were  various  and 
confused.  The  local  customs  which  abound  in  India 
had  not  been  discriminated.  Printing  was  of  course 
unknown ;  and  as  no  supreme  judicial  intelligence  and 
authority  existed  to  give  unity  to  the  whole  system, 
nothing  could  be  more  perplexing  than  the  state  of 
the  law.  From  this  chaos  Colebrooke  brought  forth 
order  and  light.  The  publication  of  the  '  Daya-bhaga,' 
as  the  cardinal  exposition  of  the  law  of  inheritance, 
which  is  the  basis  of  Hindu  society,  laid  the  foundation 
of  no  less  an  undertaking  than  the  revival  of  Hindu 
jurisprudence,  which  had  been  overlaid  by  the  Moham- 
medan conquest.  On  this  foundation  a  superstructure 
has  now  been  raised  by  the  combined  efforts  of  Indian 
and  English  lawyers  :  but  the  authority  which  is  to 
this  day  most  frequently  invoked  as  one  of  conclusive 
weight  and  learning  is  that  of  Colebrooke.  By  the 
collection  and  revision  of  the  ancient  texts  which 
would  probably  have  been  lost  without  his  inter- 
vention, he  became  in  some  degree  the  legislator  of 
India. 

In  1807  he  was  promoted  to  a  seat  in  Council 
— the  highest  honour  to  which  a  civilian,  at  the  end 
of  his  career,  could  aspire.  The  five  years'  tenure  of 
his  office  coincided  very  nearly  with  Lord  Minto's 
Governor-Generalship  of  India.  During  these  five 
years  the  scholar  became  more  and  more  merged  in 
the  statesman.  His  marriage  also  took  place  at  the 
same  time,  which  was  destined  to  be  happy,  but  short. 
Two  months  after  his  wife's  death  he  sailed  for  Eng- 
land, determined  to  devote  the  rest  of  his  life  to  the 
studies  which  had  become  dear  to  him,  and  which,  as 
he  now  felt  himself,  were  to  secure  to  him  the  honour- 


263  BIOGEAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

able  place  of  the  father  and  founder  of  true  Sanskrit 
scholarship  in  Europe.  Though  his  earliest  tastes 
still  attracted  him  strongly  towards  physical  science, 
and  though,  after  his  return  to  England,  he  devoted 
more  time  than  in  India  to  astronomical,  botanical, 
chemical,  and  geological  researches,  yet,  as  an  author, 
he  remained  true  to  his  vocation  as  a  Sanskrit  scholar, 
and  he  added  some  of  the  most  important  works  to 
the  long  list  of  his  Oriental  publications.  How  high 
an  estimate  he  enjoyed  among  the  students  of  physical 
science  is  best  shown  by  his  election  as  President 
of  the  Astronomical  Society,  after  the  death  of  Sir 
William  Herschel  in  1822.  Some  of  his  published 
contributions  to  the  scientific  journals,  chiefly  on  geo- 
logical subjects,  are  said  to  be  highly  speculative,  which 
is  certainly  not  the  character  of  his  Oriental  works. 
Nay,  judging  from  the  tenour  of  the  works  which  he 
devoted  to  scholarship,  we  should  think  that  every- 
thing he  wrote  on  other  subjects  would  deserve  the 
most  careful  and  unprejudiced  attention,  before  it 
was  allowed  to  be  forgotten  ;  and  we  should  be 
glad  to  see  a  complete  edition  of  all  his  writings, 
which  have  a  character  at  once  so  varied  and  so 
profound. 

We  have  still  to  mention  some  of  his  more  im- 
portant Oriental  publications,  which  he  either  began  or 
finished  after  his  return  to  England.  The  first  is  his 
'Alffebra,  with  Arithmetic  and  Mensuration,  from  the 
Sanskrit  of  Brahmagupta  and  Bhaskara,  preceded  by 
a  Dissertation  on  the  State  of  the  Sciences  as  known 
to  the  Hindus,'  London,  18 17.  It  is  still  the  standard 
work  on  the  subject,  and  likely  to  remain  so,  as  an 
intimate  knowledge  of  mathematics  is   but   seldom 


COLEBROOKE.  263 

combined  with  so  complete  a  mastery  of  Sanskrit  as 
Colebrooke  possessed.  He  had  been  preceded  by  the 
labours  of  Burrow  and  E.  Strachey ;  but  it  is  entirely 
due  to  him  that  mathematicians  are  now  enabled  to 
form  a  clear  idea  of  the  progress  which  the  Indians 
had  made  in  this  branch  of  knowledge,  especially  as 
regards  indeterminate  analysis.  It  became  henceforth 
firmly  established  that  the  '  Arabian  Algebra  had  real 
points  of  resemblance  to  that  of  the  Indians,  and  not 
to  that  of  the  Greeks;  that  the  Diophantine  analysis 
was  only  slightly  cultivated  by  the  Arabs  ;  and  that, 
finally,  the  Indian  was  more  scientific  and  profound 
than  either.'  Some  of  the.  links  in  his  argument, 
which  Colebrooke  himself  designated  as  weak,  have 
since  been  subjected  to  renewed  criticism  ;  but  it  is 
interesting  to  observe  how  here,  too,  hardly  anything 
really  new  has  been  added  by  subsequent  scholars. 
The  questions  of  the  antiquity  of  Hindu  mathematics, 
of  its  indigenous  or  foreiirn  origin,  as  well  as  the 
dates  to  be  assigned  to  the  principal  Sanskrit  writers, 
such  as  Bhaskara,  Brahmagupta,  Aryabha^^a,  etc.,  are 
very  much  in  the  same  state  as  he  left  them.  And 
although  some  living  scholars  have  tried  to  follow  in 
his  footsteps,  as  far  as  learning  is  concerned,  they  have 
never  approached  him  in  those  qualities  which  are 
more  essential  to  the  discovery  of  truth  than  mere 
reading,  viz.  caution,  fairness,  and  modesty. 

Two  events  remain  still  to  be  noticed  before  we 
close  the  narrative  of  the  quiet  and  useful  years  which 
Colebrooke  spent  in  England.  In  1 8 1 8  he  presented 
his  extremely  valuable  collection  of  Sanskrit  MSS.  to 
the  East  India  Company,  and  thus  founded  a  treasury 
from  which  every  student  of  Sanskrit  has  since  drawn 


264  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

his  best  supplies.  It  may  be  truly  said,  that  without 
the  free  access  to  this  collection — granted  to  every 
scholar,  English  or  foreign — few  of  the  really  im- 
portant publications  of  Sanskrit  texts,  which  have 
appeared  during  the  last  fifty  years,  would  have  been 
possible ;  so  that  in  this  sense  also,  Colebrooke  deserves 
the  title  of  the  founder  of  Sanskrit  scholarship  in 
Europe. 

The  last  service  which  he  rendered  to  Oriental 
literature  was  the  foundation  of  the  Royal  Asiatic 
Society.  He  had  spent  a  year  at  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  in  order  to  superintend  some  landed  property 
which  he  had  acquired  there ;  and  after  his  return  to 
London  in  1822,  he  succeeded  in  creating  a  society 
which  should  do  in  England  the  work  which  the 
Asiatic  Society  of  Bengal,  founded  in  1784  at  Calcutta 
by  Sir  W.  Jones,  had  done  in  India.  Though  he 
declined  to  become  the  first  president,  he  became  the 
director  of  the  new  society.  His  object  was  not  only 
to  stimulate  Oriental  scholars  living  in  England  to 
greater  exertions,  but  likewise  to  excite  in  the  Eng- 
lish public  a  more  general  interest  in  Oriental  studies. 
There  was  at  that  time  far  more  interest  shown  in 
France  and  Germany  for  the  literature  of  the  East 
than  in  England,  though  England  alone  possessed  an 
Eastern  Empire.  Thus  we  find  Colebrooke  writing  in 
one  of  his  letters  to  Professor  Wilson : — 

'  Schlegel,  in  what  he  said  of  some  of  us  (English 
Orientalists)  and  of  our  labours,  did  not  purpose  to  be 
uncandid,  nor  to  undervalue  what  has  been  done.  In 
your  summary  of  what  he  said  you  set  it  to  the  right 
account.  I  am  not  personally  acquainted  with  him, 
though  in  correspondence.     I  do  think,  with  him,  that 


COLEBROOKE.  265 

as  much  has  not  been  done  by  the  English  as  might 
have  been  expected  from  us.  Excepting  you  and 
me,  and  two  or  three  more,  who  is  there  that  has 
done  anything?  In  England  nobody  cares  about 
Oriental  literature,  or  is  likely  to  give  the  least 
attention  to  it.' 

And  again  : — 

'  I  rejoice  to  learn  that  your  great  work  on  the  In- 
dian drama  may  be  soon  expected  by  us.  I  anticipate 
much  gratification  from  a  perusal.  Careless  and  in- 
different as  our  countrymen  are,  I  think,  nevertheless, 
you  and  I  may  derive  some  complacent  feelings  from 
the  reflection  that,  following  the  footsteps  of  Sir  W. 
Jones,  we  have,  with  so  little  aid  of  collaborators,  and 
so  little  encouragement,  opened  nearly  every  avenue, 
and  left  it  to  foreigners,  who  are  taking  up  the  clue 
we  have  furnished,  to  complete  the  outline  of  what  we 
have  sketched.  It  is  some  gratification  to  national 
pride  that  the  opportunity  which  the  English  have 
enjoyed  has  not  been  wholly  unemployed.' 

Colebrooke's  last  contributions  to  Oriental  learning, 
which  appeared  in  the  '  Transactions '  of  the  newly- 
founded  Royal  Asiatic  Society,  consist  chiefly  in  his 
masterly  treatises  on  Hindu  philosophy.  In  1823  he 
read  his  paper  on  the  Sankhya  system;  in  1824  his 
paper  on  the  Nyaya  and  Vaiseshika  systems;  in  1826 
his  papers  on  the  Mimansa;  and,  in  1827,  his  two 
papers  on  Indian  Sectaries  and  on  the  Vedanta. 
These  papers,  too,  still  retain  their  value,  unimpaired 
by  later  researches.  They  are  dry,  and  to  those  not 
acquainted  with  the  subject  they  may  fail  to  give 
a  living  picture  of  the  philosophical  struggles  of  the 
Indian  mind.     But  the  statements  which  they  contain 


266  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

can,  with  very  few  exceptions,  still  be  quoted  as 
authoritative,  while  those  who  have  worked  their 
way  through  the  same  materials  which  he  used  for 
the  compilation  of  his  essays,  feel  most  struck  by  the 
conciseness  with  which  he  was  able  to  give  the  results 
of  his  extensive  reading  in  this,  the  most  abstruse 
domain  of  Sanskrit  literature.  The  publication  of 
these  papers  on  the  schools  of  Indian  metaphysics, 
which  anticipated  with  entire  fidelity  the  materialism 
and  idealism  of  Greece  and  of  modern  thought,  en- 
abled Yictor  Cousin  to  introduce  a  brilliant  survey  of 
the  philosophy  of  India  into  his  Lectures  on  the  His- 
tory of  Philosophy,  first  delivered,  we  think,  in  1828. 
Cousin  knew  and  thought  of  Colebrooke  exclusively 
as  a  metaphysician.  He  probably  cared  nothing  for 
his  other  labours.  But  as  a  metaphysician  he  placed 
him  in  the  first  rank,  and  never  spoke  of  him  without 
an  expression  of  veneration,  very  unusual  from  the 
eloquent  but  somewhat  imperious  lips  of  the  French 
philosopher. 

The  last  years  of  Colebrooke's  life  were  full  of 
suffering,  both  bodily  and  mental.  He  died,  after  a 
lingering  illness,  on  March  10,  1837. 

To  many  even  among  those  who  follow  the  progress 
of  Oriental  scholarship  with  interest  and  attention,  the 
estimate  which  we  have  given  of  Colebrooke's  merits 
may  seem  too  high ;  but  we  doubt  whether  from  the 
inner  circle  of  Sanskrit  scholars,  any  dissentient  voice 
will  be  raised  against  our  awarding  to  him  the  first 
place  among  Sanskritists,  both  dead  and  living.  The 
number  of  Sanskrit  scholars  has  by  this  time  become 
considerable,  and  there  is  hardly  a  country  in  Europe 
which  may  not  be  proud  of  some  distinguished  names. 


COLEBROOKE.  267 

In  India,  too,  a  new  and  most  useful  school  of  Sanskrit 
students  is  rising,  who  are  doing  excellent  work  in 
bringing  to  light  the  forgotten  treasures  of  their 
country's  literature.  But  here  we  must,  first  of  all, 
distinguish  between  two  classes  of  scholars.  There 
are  those  who  have  learnt  enough  of  Sanskrit  to  be 
able  to  read  texts  that  have  been  published  and  trans- 
lated, who  can  discuss  their  merits  and  defects,  correct 
some  mistakes,  and  even  produce  new  and  more  cor- 
rect editions.  There  are  others  who  venture  on  new 
ground,  who  devote  themselves  to  the  study  of  MSS., 
and  who  by  editions  of  new  texts,  by  translations  of 
works  hitherto  untranslated,  or  by  essays  on  branches 
of  literature  not  yet  explored,  really  add  to  the  store 
of  our  knowledge.  If  we  speak  of  Colebrooke  as 
facile  princeps  among  Sanskrit  scholars,  we  are 
thinking  of  real  scholars  only,  and  we  thus  reduce  the 
number  of  those  who  could  compete  with  him  to  a 
much  smaller  compass. 

Secondly,  we  must  distinguish  between  those  who 
came  before  Colebrooke  and  those  who  came  after 
him,  and  who  built  on  his  foundations.  That  among 
the  latter  class  there  are  some  scholars  who  have 
carried  on  the  work  begun  by  Colebrooke  beyond  the 
point  where  he  left  it,  is  no  more  than  natural.  It 
would  be  disgraceful  if  it  were  otherwise,  if  we  had 
not  penetrated  further  into  the  intricacies  of  Panini,  if 
we  had  not  a  more  complete  knowledge  of  the  Indian 
systems  of  philosophy,  if  we  had  not  discovered  in 
the  literature  of  the  Vedic  period  treasures  of  which 
Colebrooke  had  no  idea,  if  we  had  not  improved  the 
standards  of  criticism  which  are  to  guide  us  in  the 
critical  restoration  of  Sanskrit  texts.    But  in  all  these 


268  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

branches  of  Sanskrit  scholarship  those  who  have  done 
the  best  work  are  exactly  those  who  speak  most 
highly  of  Colebrooke's  labours.  They  are  proud  to 
call  themselves  his  disciples.  They  would  decline  to 
be  considered  his  rivals. 

There  remains,  therefore,  in  reality,  only  one  who 
could  be  considered  a  rival  of  Colebrooke,  and  whose 
name  is  certainly  more  widely  known  than  his,  viz. 
Sir  William  Jones.  It  is  by  no  means  necessary  to 
be  unjust  to  him  in  order  to  be  just  to  Colebrooke. 
First  of  all,  he  came  before  Colebrooke,  and  had  to 
scale  some  of  the  most  forbidding  outworks  of  San- 
skrit scholarship.  Secondly,  Sir  William  Jones  died 
young,  Colebrooke  lived  to  a  good  old  age.  Were 
we  speaking  only  of  the  two  men,  and  their  personal 
qualities,  we  should  readily  admit  that  in  some  respects 
Sir  W.  Jones  stood  higher  than  Colebrooke.  He  was 
evidently  a  man  possessed  of  great  originality,  of 
a  highly  cultivated  taste,  and  of  an  exceptional 
power  of  assimilating  the  exotic  beauty  of  Eastern 
poetry.  We  may  go  even  further,  and  frankly  admit 
that,  possibly,  without  the  impulse  given  to  Oriental 
scholarship  through  Sir  William  Jones's  influence 
and  example,  we  should  never  have  counted  Cole- 
brooke's name  among  the  professors  of  Sanskrit. 
But  we  are  here  speaking  not  of  the  men,  but  of 
the  works  which  they  left  behind ;  and  here  the  dif- 
ference between  the  two  is  enormous.  The  fact  is, 
that  Colebrooke  was  gifted  with  the  critical  conscience 
of  a  scholar,  Sir  W .  Jones  was  not.  Sir  W.  Jones  could 
not  wish  for  higher  testi)nony  in  his  favour  than  that 
of  Colebrooke  himself.  Immediately  after  his  death, 
Colebrooke  wrote  to  his  father,  June,  1794: — 


COLEBROOKE.  269 

*  Since  I  wrote  to  you  the  world  has  sustained  an 
irreparable  loss  in  the  death  of  Sir  W.  Jones.  As 
a  judge,  as  a  constitutional  lawyer,  and  for  his  amiable 
qualities  in  private  life,  he  must  have  been  lost  with 
heartfelt  regret.  But  his  loss  as  a  literary  character 
will  be  felt  in  a  wider  circle.  It  was  his  intention 
shortly  to  have  returned  to  Europe,  where  the  most 
valuable  works  might  have  been  expected  from  his 
pen.  His  premature  death  leaves  the  results  of  his 
researches  unarranged,  and  must  lose  to  the  world 
much  that  was  only  committed  to  memory,  and  much 
of  which  the  notes  must  be  unintelligible  to  those 
into  whose  hands  his  papers  fall.  It  must  be  long 
before  he  is  replaced  in  the  same  career  of  literature, 
if  he  ever  is  so.  None  of  those  who  are  now  engaged 
in  Oriental  researches  are  so  fully  informed  in  the 
classical  languages  of  the  East ;  and  I  fear  that,  in 
the  progress  of  their  inquiries,  none  will  be  found 
to  have  such  comprehensive  views.' 

And  again : — 

'  You  ask  how  we  are  to  supply  his  place  ?  Indeed, 
but  ill.  Our  president  and  future  presidents  may 
preside  with  dignity  and  propriety :  but  who  can 
supply  his  place  in  diligent  and  ingenious  researches  1 
Not  even  the  combined  efforts  of  the  whole  Society ; 
and  the  field  is  large,  and  few  the  cultivators.' 

Still  later  in  life,  when  a  reaction  had  set  in,  and 
the  indiscriminate  admiration  of  Sir  W.  Jones  had 
given  way  to  an  equally  indiscriminate  depreciation 
of  his  merits,  Colebrooke,  who  was  then  the  most 
competent  judge,  writes  to  his  father: — 

*As  for  the  other  point  you  mention,  the  use  of 
a  translation  by  Wilkins,  without  acknowledgmentj 


270  BIOGKAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

I  can  bear  testimony  that  Sir  W.  Jones's  own  labours 
in  Manu  sufficed  without  the  aid  of  a  translation. 
He  had  carried  an  interlineary  Latin  version  through 
all  the  difficult  chapters;  he  had  read  the  original 
three  times  through,  and  he  had  carefully  studied 
the  commentaries.  This  I  know,  because  it  appears 
clearly  so  from  the  copies  of  Manu  and  his  commen- 
tators which  Sir  William  used,  and  which  I  have 
seen.  I  must  think  that  he  paid  a  sufficient  com- 
pliment to  Wilkins,  when  he  said,  that  without  his 
aid  he  should  never  have  learned  Sanskrit.  I  observe 
with  regret  a  growing  disposition,  here  and  in  England, 
to  depreciate  Sir  W.  Jones's  merits.  It  has  not 
hitherto  shown  itself  beyond  private  circles  and  con- 
versation. Should  the  same  disposition  be  manifested 
in  print,  I  shall  think  myself  bound  to  bear  public 
testimony  to  his  attainments  in  Sanskrit.' 

Such  candid  appreciation  of  the  merits  of  Sir  W. 
Jones,  conveyed  in  a  private  letter,  and  coming  from 
the  pen  of  the  only  person  then  competent  to  judge 
both  of  the  strong  and  the  weak  points  in  the  scholar- 
ship of  Sir  William  Jones,  ought  to  caution  us  against 
any  inconsiderate  judgment.  Yet  we  do  not  hesitate 
to  declare  that,  as  Sanskiit  scholars,  Sir  William  Jones 
and  Colebrooke  cannot  be  compared.  Sir  William 
had  explored  a  few  fields  only,  Colebrooke  had  sur- 
veyed almost  the  whole  domain  of  Sanskrit  literature. 
Sir  William  was  able  to  read  fragments  of  epic  poetry, 
a  play,  and  the  laws  of  Manu.  But  the  really  difficult 
works,  the  grammatical  treatises  and  commentaries, 
the  philosophical  systems,  and,  before  all,  the  immense 
literature  of  the  Vedic  period,  were  never  seriously 
approached  by  him.     Sir  William  Jones  reminds  us 


COLEBROOKE.  271 

sometimes  of  the  dashing  and  impatient  general  who 
tries  to  take  every  fortress  by  bombardment  or  by 
storm,  while  Colebrooke  never  trusts  to  anything 
but  a  regular  siege.  They  will  both  retain  places 
of  honour  in  our  literary  Walhallas.  But  ask  any 
librarian,  and  he  will  admit  that  at  the  present  day 
the  collected  works  of  Sir  W.  Jones  are  hardly  ever 
consulted  by  Sanskrit  scholars,  while  Colebrooke's 
essays  are  even  now  passing  through  a  new  edition, 
and  we  hope  Sir  Edward  Colebrooke  will  one  day 
give  the  world  a  complete  edition  of  his  father's 
works. 


JULIUS  MOHL. 

(1800-1876.) 

WHEN,  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  1876,  the 
French  papers  announced  the  death  of  Julius 
Mohl,  a  member  of  the  French  Institute,  and  professor 
of  Persian  at  the  College  de  France,  it  was  felt  by 
Oriental  scholars  in  France,  England,  Germany,  and 
Italy,  that  not  only  had  they  lost  a  man  on  whose 
kind  sympathy,  prudent  advice,  and  ready  help  they 
could  always  rely,  but  that  some  centre  of  life,  some 
warm-beating  heart  was  gone,  from  which  Oriental 
studies,  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word,  had  been 
constantly  receiving  fresh  impulses  and  drawing  active 
support. 

The  French,  better  than  any  other  nation,  know 
how  to  do  honour  to  their  illustrious  dead,  and  when 
the  duty  of  writing  Mohl's  necrologe,  or  bidding 
a  last  farewell  to  their  confrere,  was  intrusted  to 
such  men  as  Laboulaye,  Maury,  Renan,  Regnier,  Br^al, 
and  others,  we  may  well  believe  that  all  that  could 
be  said  of  Mohl's  life  and  literary  work  was  said  at 
the  time,  and  well  said. 

The  mere  story  of  his  life  is  soon  told.  It  was 
what  the  world  would  call  the  uneventful  life  of 
a  true  scholar.  Nor  is  there  anything  new  that  we 
could  add  to  that  simple  story,  as  it  was  told  at  the 


JULIUS   xMOHL.  273 

time  of  his  death  by  his  friends  and  biographers. 
His  more  special  merits,  too,  as  editor  and  translator 
of  the  great  epic  poem  of  Persia,  the  '  Shah  Nameh ' 
of  Firdusi,  have  lately  been  so  fully  dwelt  on  by 
Persian  scholars  both  in  France  and  England,  that 
little  could  be  added  to  place  his  literary  achieve- 
ments in  a  new  and  brighter  light.  Since  his  death, 
his  widow  has  rendered  one  great  service  to  her 
husband's  memory  by  publishing  his  translation  of 
the  '  Shah  Nameh,'  or  the  '  Livre  des  Rois,'  in  a  more 
accessible  form  ^.  But  there  still  remains  another 
duty  to  be  performed  to  Mohl's  memory,  and  that 
is  a  reprint  of  his  annual  reports  on  Oriental  scholar- 
ship, delivered  before  the  Asiatic  Society  of  Paris, 
and  now  scattered  about  in  the  volumes  of  the 
Journal  Asiatique^.  It  is  in  these  reports  that  we 
seem  to  read  Mohl's  real  life;  and  whoever  wishes 
to  study  the  history  of  Oriental  learning  in  Europe, 
from  1840  to  1867,  'the  heroic  age  of  Eastern  studies,' 
as  M.  Renan  justly  calls  it,  could  not  consult  better 
archives  than  those  contained  in  the  'Rapports  An- 
nuels  faits  a  la  Socidt^  Asiatique,  par  M.  J.  Mohl.' 

Before  entering  more  fully  on  the  importance  of 
those  reports,  it  may  be  useful  to  give,  as  shortly  as 
possible,  the  main  outlines  of  Mohl's  life,  drawn  partly 
from  the  biographical  notices  published  at  the  time 

^  '  Le  Livre  des  Rois,  par  Abou'lkasim  Firdousi,  traduit  et  commente 
par  Jules  Mohl,  publie  par  Madame  Molil.  Paris;  Imprimerie  Ka- 
tionale,  1878.'     7  vols.  8vo. 

^  These  annual  reports  have  since  been  collected  and  published  by  his 
widow,  Madame  Mohl,  under  the  title  of '  Vingt-Sept  Ans  d'Histoire 
des  Etudes  Orientales,  Eapports  faits  h,  la  Soci^te  Asiatique  de  Paris 
de  1840  a  1867  par  Jules  Mohl.  Ouvrage  publi*^  par  sa  veuve  :  2  vols. 
Paris,  1879-1880.' 

VOL,  II.  T 


274  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

of  his  death,  partly  from  private  papers  kindly  com- 
mimieated  to  me  by  his  widow  and  other  members 
of  his  family. 

Julius  Mohlwas  born  at  Stuttgart  the  23rd  October, 
1800,  His  father  was  a  high  official  in  the  civil  ser- 
vice of  the  kingdom  of  Wurtemberg,  and  his  three 
brothers  all  rose  to  eminence  in  their  respective 
branches  of  study — Robert,  the  eldest,  as  a  jurist  and 
liberal  politician;  Moritz,  as  a  national  economist; 
Hugo,  as  a  botanist.  The  education  of  these  four 
boys  was  carried  on,  as  is  generally  the  case  in 
German  families,  as  much  at  home  as  at  school,  for 
the  German  system  of  sending  boys  to  a  gymnasium, 
which  is  a  Government  day-school,  throws  a  great 
deal  of  responsibility  and  actual  work  on  the  father 
and  mother  at  home.  As  is  generally  the  case  with 
distinguished  men,  we  hear  that  in  the  case  of  Mohl, 
too,  his  mother  was  a  lady  of  a  highly-cultivated 
mind,  combinino;  a  great  charm  of  manner  with  force 
and  originality  of  character,  and  devoting  herself 
quite  as  much  to  the  training  of  her  children  as  to 
the  humbler  cares  of  her  household.  Julius  showed 
early  signs  of  love  of  knowledge,  though  we  may  hope 
that  his  rising  every  day  at  four  o'clock  in  the 
morning  to  read  books,  when  a  mere  child,  may  be 
a  slight  exaggeration,  such  as  often  creep  into  the 
Evangelia  iu/antice  of  men  who  have  risen  to  great 
distinction  in  after-life.  Be  that  as  it  may,  Julius 
Mohl  finished  his  school  career  at  eighteen,  and  went 
to  Tubingen  to  study  theology.  He  was  a  contem- 
porary there  of  Christian  Baur,  who  afterwards  be- 
came the  founder  of  the  new  critical  school  of  theo- 
logy, commonly  called  the  T'lil  'ingen  school ;   and  he 


JULIUS  MOHL.  275 

seems  also  to  have  made  at  that  time  the  acquaintance 
of  David  Strauss.  Becoming  dissatisfied  with  the 
narrow  and  purely  theological  treatment  of  Chris- 
tianity, Hebrew  proved  to  him,  what  it  has  proved 
to  many  scholars,  a  rail  to  slide  from  ecclesiastical 
to  Oriental  studies.  Though  in  1822  he  was  actually 
appointed  to  a  small  living,  Julius  Mohl  felt  more 
and  more  attracted  by  Eastern  studies,  and  resolved 
in  1823  to  go  to  Paris,  where  alone  at  that  time  there 
existed  in  the  College  de  France  a  school  of  Oriental 
learning.  He  attended  at  first  the  lectures  of  De 
Sacy  on  Arabic  and  Persian,  and  of  Abel  Rdmusat 
on  Chinese.  He  did  not  at  once,  as  is  so  much  the 
fashion  now,  devote  himself  to  one  special  language, 
but  tried  to  become  an  Oriental  scholar  in  the  true 
sense  of  the  word.  He  wished  to  become  acquainted, 
as  he  expressed  it  himself  at  the  time,  '  with  the  ideas 
that  have  ruled  mankind,'  particularly  in  the  earliest 
ages  of  Eastern  history.  He  seems  soon  to  have  en- 
deared himself  to  several  of  the  leading  Oriental 
scholars  at  Paris,  and  the  society  in  which  they 
moved,  the  charm  of  their  manner  and  conversation, 
the  largeness  of  their  views,  seem  to  have  produced 
a  deep  impression  on  the  mind  of  the  young  scholar, 
just  escaped  from  the  narrow  chambers  of  the  Tu- 
bingen seminary  and  the  traditional  teaching  of  its 
learned  professors.  After  all,  there  is  no  society  more 
delightful  than  good  French  society;  nor  should  it 
be  forgotten  that  much  of  its  ease,  its  lightness  and 
brightness,  is  due,  not  only  to  perfect  manners,  but 
to  deeper  causes,  a  general  kindliness  of  heart,  and 
a  much  smaller  admixture  of  selfishness  and  self- 
righteousness   than   is  found   elsewhere.     Alexander 

T  a 


27G  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

von  Humboldt  was  at  that  time  in  Paris,  and  the 
friendly  relations  which  commenced  thus  early  be- 
tween him  and  Mohl  remained  unaltered  through 
life.  Cuviers  house  also  was  open  to  young  Mohl. 
In  1826  the  Wurtemberer  Government,  wishing  to 
secure  the  services  of  the  promising  young  Orientalist, 
gave  him  a  professorship  of  Oriental  languages  at 
Tubingen,  allowing  him  at  the  same  time  to  continue 
his  studies  at  Paris.  In  1830  and  1831  Mohl  went 
to  England,  and  here  gained  the  friendship  of  several 
Oriental  scholars,  some  of  them  servants  of  the  old 
East  India  Company.  He  then  seems  to  have  con- 
ceived the  plan  of  passing  some  years  in  India ;  and 
when  he  failed  in  this,  he  returned  to  Paris,  which 
had  already  become  his  second  home. 

At  Paris  he  continued  for  some  time  his  Chinese 
studies,  and  produced  as  their  fruit  his  edition  of  a 
Latin  translation  of  two  of  the  canonical  books,  the 
•Shi-king'  and  'Y-king'  (1830,  1837,  and  1839). 
These  translations  had  been  made  by  two  Jesuits, 
Lacharme  and  Rdgis,  in  the  first  half  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, but  had  never  been  published. 

At  the  same  time,  Persian  became  more  and  more 
his  specialite.  So  early  as  1826  the  French  Govern- 
ment entrusted  the  young  German  student  with  an 
edition  and  translation  of  the  '  Shah  Nameh,'  the 
famous  epic  poem  of  Eirdusi.  The  poem  was  to  form 
part  of  the  '  Collection  Orientale,'  a  publication  under- 
taken by  Government,  and  carried  out  in  so  mag- 
nificent and  needlessly  extravagant  a  style  that  it 
altogether  failed  in  the  object  for  which  it  was  in- 
tended, viz.,  to  bring  to  light  the  treasures  of  Eastern 
literature.     To   Mohl   this   undertaking    became   the 


JULIUS   MOHL.  277 

work  of  his  life  ;  nay,  it  was  not  quite  finished  at 
the  time  of  his  death.  In  preparation  for  his  great 
work  he  published  in  1829,  with  Olshausen,  'Frag- 
ments Relatifs  a  la  Religion  de  Zoroastre/  The 
printing  of  the  first  volume  of  the  Persian  epic  began 
in  the  year  1833,  and  in  the  same  year  he  resigned 
his  professorship  at  Tubingen,  where  he  had  never 
lectured,  and  determined  to  settle  at  Paris.  The  first 
volume  of  the  'Shah  Nameh'  appeared  in  1838,  the 
second  in  1842,  the  third  in  1846,  the  fourth  in  1855, 
the  fifth  in  1866,  the  sixth  in  1868.  The  last  and 
concluding  volume  was  left  unfinished  at  his  death, 
some  portions  of  it  having  been  destroyed  at  the 
time  of  the  French  Commune.  His  former  pupil,  and 
worthy  successor  at  the  College  de  France,  M.  Barbier 
de  Meynard,  undertook  to  finish  the  work  of  his 
friend  and  master ;  and  we  have  it  now  before  us  in 
two  forms — in  the  edition  de  luxe,  which  the  French 
Government  uses  for  presents  to  people  the  least 
likely  to  make  any  use  of  it,  and  the  reprint  of 
the  French  translation  only,  in  seven  small  octavo 
volumes,  published  at  the  expense  of  his  widow,  and 
likely  to  find  its  way  into  every  library  which  pre- 
tends to  contain  the  master-works  of  poetry  in  the 
principal  languages  of  the  world. 

It  would  require  an  article  by  itself  to  show  the 
importance  of  the  '  Shah  Nameh '  as  one  of  the  six 
or  seven  great  national  epics  of  the  world,  still  more 
to  explain  the  light  which  Firdusi's  poetry  throws 
on  the  intricate  problem  of  the  transition  of  mytho- 
logy into  heroic  poetry  and  actual  history.  Nowhere 
can  that  transition  be  watched  to  greater  advantage. 
No  Persian  on  reading  the  exploits  of  Feridun  would 


278  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

ever  doubt  that  he  was  reading  the  history  of  one  of 
the  ancient  kings  of  his  country,  nor  would  it  be 
easier  to  convince  him  that  the  great  Feridun  was 
originally  a  purely  mythological  conception,  than  to 
convince  an  ancient  Greek  or  a  Greek  scholar  of  to- 
day that  Helena  was  a  mere  goddess,  long  before  she 
became  the  wife  of  Menelaos,  or  that  the  siege  of 
Troy  was  the  reflection  of  a  much  more  ancient 
siege.  In  Persia,  fortunately,  we  can  transcend  the 
limits  of  epic  poetry,  and  trace  the  names  of  some  of 
the  principal  heroes  of  the  '  Shah  Nameh '  in  the  cor- 
ruptions which  the  names  of  the  old  deities  of  the 
Zend-avesta  underwent  in  Pehlevi  and  Parsi.  Feri- 
dun, as  Eugene  Burnouf  was  the  first  to  prove,  occurs 
in  Pehlevi  as  Fredun,  and  that  Fredun  is  a  corrup- 
tion of  the  Zend  Thraetaona,  corresponding  to  a 
Sanskrit  form,  Traitana,  a  patronymic  of  the  Vedic 
god  Trita.  The  tyrant,  Zohak,  of  the  epic  poem  is 
likewise,  as  Burnouf  was  again  the  first  to  point  out, 
the  same  as  the  Ashi  dahaka  of  the  Zend-avesta, 
whom  even  Firdusi  still  knows  as  Ash  dahak,  while 
the  true  explanation  of  his  nature  and  real  origin 
can  only  be  found  in  the  Ahi,  the  serpent  of  Vedic 
mythology.  We  can  see  in  Persia,  step  by  step,  the 
growth  of  mythology,  of  legend,  and  at  last  of  his- 
tory, while  in  other  countries  we  generally  have  the 
second  or  third  stages  only,  and  must  frequently 
depend  on  the  etymology  of  the  names  of  half-his- 
torical, half-legendary  heroes,  or  appeal  to  the  cha- 
racter of  their  exploits,  in  order  to  show  that  an 
Odysseus,  no  less  than  a  William  Tell,  was  evolved 
from  '  the  inner  consciousness,'  and  was  never  seen, 
whether  in  Ithaca  or  Switzerland,  in  flesh  and  blood. 


JULIUS   MOHL.  279 

Some  of  these  questions,  particularly  the  character  of 
the  materials  collected  and  used  by  Firdusi  when 
composing  his  epic,  are  fully  treated  in  the  prefaces 
to  the  ditferent  volumes  of  Mohl's  edition  of  the 
'  Shah  Nameh,'  and  they  deserve  to  be  carefully 
considered  by  every  student  of  comparative  myth- 
ology. 

By  accepting  the  task  of  editing  and  translating 
the  '  Shah  Nameh,'  for  the  French  Government,  Mohl 
must  have  seen  that  he  would  have  to  spend  the  best 
years  of  his  life  in  France. 

It  has  sometimes  been  a  matter  of  surprise  why 
Mohl  should  have  declined  to  return  to  the  university 
of  Tubingen,  which  was  so  anxious  to  receive  him  back, 
and  should  have  preferred  to  live  and  work  at  Paris. 
He  himself,  when  asked  in  later  life,  found  it  difficult 
to  give  an  answer.  But  first  of  all  it  should  be  re- 
membered  that  in  1830  men  were  still  far  more 
cosmopolitan  than  after  1848,  and  that  Paris  was 
then  the  most  cosmopolitan  city  in  the  world. 

We  may  quote  on  this  point  the  opinion  of  M.  Renan 
in  his  '  E-apport  sur  les  travaux  du  Conseil  de  la 
Socidt^  Asiatique,'  in  1876: — 

'  Le  meilleur  fruit,'  he  says,  '  du  grand  et  libe'ral 
esprit  qui  rdgna  en  Europe  depuis  la  tin  des  orages  de 
la  Revolution  et  de  1' Empire  jusqu  a  la  funeste  annde 
qui  a  ddchaine^  de  nouveau  le  typhon  de  la  haine  et 
du  mal,  fut  la  facilite  avec  laquelle  I'homme  voue  a 
une  ceuvre  sociale  consentait  a  transporter  ses  apti- 
tudes et  le  libre  exercice  de  son  activity  dans  un 
pays  different  du  sien.  II  resultait  de  la  des  echanges 
excellentes  de  dons  opposes,  des  mt^langes  feconds 
pour   le  progres  de  la  civilisation.     Et  comme  une 


280  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

pensde  vraiment  haute  pr^sidait  a  ces  changemonts 
de  patrie,  le  pays  le  plus  hospitaller  dtait  celui  qui  en 
bdnt^ficiait  le  plus.' 

Secondly,  friendships,  and  more  than  friendships, 
seem  to  have  had  much  to  do  with  his  unwillingness 
to  leave  Paris.  Such  men  as  De  Sacy,  Rdmusat, 
Fauriel,  Fresnel,  Saint-Martin,  Ampere,  Eugene  Bur- 
nouf,  were  not  easy  to  find  at  Tubingen.  Nor  was 
there,  in  the  then  prevailing  state  of  Government,  any 
place  in  Germany  where  a  young  professor  would 
have  found  such  a  sphere  of  usefulness  and  inde- 
pendence as  Mohl  had  at  Paris.  He  was  able  to  live 
there  on  easy  and  pleasant  terms,  not  only  with  the 
greatest  scholars  of  the  day,  but  also  with  such  men 
as  Guizot,  Villemain,  Cousin,  Thiers,  and  others,  all 
of  them  at  a  later  time  his  colleagues  as  members  of 
the  Institute,  and  at  the  same  time  Ministers  of  State, 
ready  to  listen  to  his  counsels,  and  willing  to  carry 
out  any  plans  that  he  or  his  friends  might  submit 
to  them  for  the  furtherance  of  Oriental  studies.  Nor 
must  it  be  forgotten  that  his  being  a  foreigner  was  at 
that  time  a  recommendation  rather  than  an  impedi- 
ment in  his  cai-eer  at  Paris.  Mohl  was  not  only  wel- 
come to  do  the  work  or  take  a  place  for  which  no 
Frenchman  happened  to  care,  but  the  highest  and 
most  honourable  appointments  were  given  to  him  in 
no  grudging  spirit.  In  1844  he  was  elected  a  mem- 
ber of  the  French  Institute ;  in  1 847  he  received  the 
chair  of  Persian  at  the  College  de  France ;  and  in 
185a  he  was  appointed  Inspector  of  the  Oriental 
Department  at  the  Imperial  Press.  While  these  ap- 
pointments gave  him  an  independent  and  honoured 
position  among  his  French  colleagues,  he  was  able  to 


JULIUS   MOHL.  281 

devote  a  considerable  portion  of  his  leisure  to  the 
Societe  Asiatique,  of  which  he  was  first  the  assistant 
secretary,  then  the  secretary,  and  finally  the  presi- 
dent. That  society  was  in  fact  his  pet  child  through 
good  and  evil  days,  and  it  was  through  that  society 
that  Mohl  rendered  the  most  valuable  and  most  per- 
manent services  to  Oriental  scholarship. 

The  best  record  of  these  services  is  to  be  found 
in  the  Annual  Reports  delivered  by  him  regularly 
every  year  from  i(S4o  to  1867.  It  is  but  seldom 
that  he  tells  us  what  share  he  himself  has  had  in  en- 
couraging, guiding,  and  supporting  the  work  of  other 
scholars.  Still  we  can  recognise  his  hand  in  several 
of  the  most  brilliant  discoveries  of  those  days.  He 
generally  begins  his  annual  address  by  giving  an  ac- 
count of  the  work  done  by  the  members  of  the 
Asiatic  Society  during  the  year.  He  dwells  on  the 
losses  sustained  by  the  death  of  some  of  its  promi- 
nent associates,  and  some  of  his  biographical  notices 
are  perfect  gems.  We  need  only  mention  his  necro- 
loges  of  James  Prinsep,  Gesenius,  Csoma  Korosi, 
Schlegel,  Burnouf,  Lee,  Fresnel,  Hammer  Purgstall, 
Wilson,  and  W^oepke.  After  enumerating  the  prin- 
cipal papers  published  during  the  year  in  the  Journal 
of  the  Asiatic  Society,  and  dwelling  on  the  larger 
literary  undertakings,  which  the  society  had  either 
recommended  for  Government  support  or  supported 
out  of  its  own  resources,  Mohl  passes  in  review  all 
Oriental  publications,  whether  in  French,  English, 
German,  Italian,  or  some  even  of  the  Eastern  lan- 
guages, which  seemed  to  him  to  constitute  a  real 
addition  to  the  stock  of  Oriental  learning  in  Europe. 
Scholars  whose   works  are  recorded  in   those  pages 


28.2  BIOaKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

may  well  look  upon  such  record  as  the  Greek  cities 
looked  upon  the  honour  of  being  mentioned  in 
Homers  catalogue.  There  is  perhaps  more  praise 
than  blame  in  Mohl's  judgments,  yet  to  those  who 
have  ears  to  hear,  it  is  easy  to  perceive  where  he 
looks  upon  any  publication  as  a  real  and  permanent 
conquest  of  new  territory,  or  as  mere  skirmishing 
and  reconnoitring  in  search  of  literary  glory.  It 
would  be  impossible,  of  course,  to  give  anything  like 
an  adequate  account  of  the  work  performed  by  Mohl 
in  his  annual  censorship  in  every  branch  of  Oriental 
learning.  But  we  think  it  due  to  his  memory  to 
show,  at  least  in  one  case,  how  he  suggested  and 
silently  directed  discoveries,  the  credit  of  which  he 
was  himself  the  first  to  ascribe  and  to  leave  un- 
diminished to  others. 

One  of  the  most  brilliant  and  truly  light-bringing 
discoveries  of  our  age  has  no  doubt  been  the  un- 
earthing of  the  palaces  of  Babylon  and  Nineveh,  and 
still  more,  the  deciphering  of  the  wedge-shaped  in- 
scriptions with  which  the  walls  of  those  ancient 
palaces  were  covered. 

If  one  asked  any  educated  Englishman,  supposing 
he  cared  at  all  about  Oriental  antiquities,  who  it  was 
that  discovered  the  bulls  at  Nineveh,  he  would 
answer,  Sir  Austen  Layard.  And  if  he  were  asked 
who  first  deciphered  the  cuneiform  inscriptions,  he 
would  say.  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson.  Yet  both  these 
statements  are  utterly  and  entirely  wrong,  and  we 
have  the  less  hesitation  in  saying  so,  because  Sir 
Austen  Layard's  merits  in  bringing  the  Nineveh  bulls 
and  many  other  antiquities  to  light,  and  Sir  Henry 
Rawlinson's  merits  in  copying  and  translating  some 


JULIUS   MOIIL.  283 

of  the  most  important  cuneiform  inscriptions,  are  so 
great  that  they  are  the  very  last  pei-sons  who  would 
wish  to  see  themselves  bedecked  with  feathers  not 
their  own  ^  Long  before  Sir  Austen  Layard  ever 
thought  of  Nineveh,  and  before  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson 
published  any  of  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  of  Be- 
histun,  we  find  M.  Mohl  pointing  out  to  his  French 
friends  the  importance  of  the  discoveries  that  might 
be  made  on  the  historic  soil  of  Mesopotamia.  He 
was  then  already  carrying  on  an  active  correspond- 
ence with  Schultz,  the  unfortunate  traveller,  who 
had  been  sent  to  Armenia  to  copy  the  arrow-headed 
inscriptions  which  were  known  to  exist  in  the  old 
castle  of  Van.  In  the  very  first  of  his  reports,  of  the 
year  1840,  Mohl  had  to  announce  the  death  of 
Schultz,  who  was  murdered  while  engaged  in  copying 
these  inscriptions.  It  was  Mohl  who  rescued  his 
papers  from  oblivion,  and  who  urged  the  French 
Government  to  publish  the  most  important  materials 
collected  bj'  his  unfortunate  friend.  He  tells  us  at  the 
same  time,  in  the  same  report  of  1 840,  what  had  been 
hitherto  achieved  in  the  deciphering  of  the  cuneiform 
alphabet.  After  Grotefend  had  proved  that  these 
bundles  of  wedges  with  which  the  walls  of  the 
ancient  palaces  of  Persepolis  were  covered,  were 
really  meant  for  inscriptions,  consisted,  in  fact,  of 
consonants  and  vowels,  and  exhibited  clearly  at  the 
beginning  of  certain  inscriptions  the  names  and  titles 
of  Darius  and  Xerxes,  kings  of  kings,  kings  of  Persia, 
little  progress  had  been  made  till  the  year  1836,  in 
which  Burnouf  and  Lassen  published,  almost  con- 
temporaneously, their  Memoirs  on  the  Cuneiform  In- 
scriptions, then  accessible  from  the  copies  made  by 

*  See  Note  on  p.  3S4, 


281  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Niebuhr  during  his  Persian  travels,  and  by  Schulfcz. 
The  results  at  which  they  arrived  were  almost  identi- 
cal; but  the  first  idea  which  proved  so  effective  in 
unlocking  the  remaining  secrets  of  those  ancient 
documents,  i.  e.  the  looking  in  them,  not  only  for  the 
proper  names  of  kings  such  as  Cyrus,  Darius,  and 
Xerxes,  but  also  for  geographical  names,  more  par- 
ticularly the  names  of  the  provinces  of  the  Empire  of 
Darius,  seems  to  have  come  from  Burnouf.  By  the 
labours  of  these  two  pioneers,  the  whole  alphabet  of 
the  Persian  cuneiform  inscriptions  had  been  recovered : 
there  remained  only  a  few  doubtful  letters,  some  of 
which  were  cleared  up  soon  after  by  Beer  at  Leipzig, 
and  by  Jacquet  at  Paris,  One  letter  only,  the  m,  re- 
mained to  be  determined  by  Eawlinson,  while  the 
discovery  of  inherent  vowels  was  due,  at  a  still  later 
date,  to  Hincks  and  Oppert. 

What  was  at  that  time  most  sorely  wanted  was  a 
new  supply  of  trustworthy  copies.  The  inscriptions 
of  Hamadan  were  furnished  in  Schultz's  papers. 
Rich  completed  those  of  Persepolis.  Tlie  great  de- 
sideratum was  an  accurate  copy  of  the  trilingual  in- 
scriptions of  Behistun.  Schultz,  who  was  to  have 
copied  it,  had  been  murdered.  It  was  known,  how- 
ever, that  Colonel  Rawlinson  was  in  possession  of  a 
copy  of  at  least  three  out  of  its  four  columns,  and 
Mohl,  so  early  as  1840,  expressed  a  hope  that  this 
copy  would  be  published  immediately,  to  satisfy  the 
impatience  of  all  Oriental  scholars. 

Though  this  hope  was  not  then  realised,  we  find 
Mohl  indefatigable  in  urging  on  his  friends  in  Paris 
and  elsewhere  the  necessity  of  collecting  new  ma- 
terials.    In   his   report   of  the   year    1843,   he    calls 


JULIUS   MOHL.  285 

attention  to  the  first  publication  of  Oriental  cylinders 
by  A.  Cullimore,  and  to  a  similar  collection  then 
preparing  under  the  auspices  of  M.  Lajard,  a  French 
scholar,  best  known  by  his  vast  researches  on  the 
worship  of  Mitlira,  and  not  to  be  confounded  with 
Austen  Henry  Layard,  who  will  appear  later  on  the 
stage.  In  the  same  year  Mohl  announces  a  more  im- 
portant fact.  M.  Botta,  then  French  Consul  at  Mosul, 
had  carried  on  excavations  at  Nineveh,  encouraged  to 
do  so  by  M.  Mohl.  M.  Maury,  as  President  of  the 
Acad(^mie  des  Inscriptions  et  Belles-lettres,  tells  us: 
'Cest  surtout  dapres  ses  indications  que  Botta  re- 
trouvait  les  restes  des  palais  des  rois  de  Ninive.' 
Botta's  first  attempts  were  rewarded  by  the  wonder- 
ful discovery  of  Assyrian  bas-reliefs  and  inscriptions. 
Mohl,  on  communicating  M.  Botta's  letters  to  the 
Asiatic  Society  of  Paris,  says,  'These  are  the  only 
specimens  of  Assyrian  sculpture  which  have  hitherto 
come  to  light,  and  the  excavations  of  M.  Botta  will 
add  an  entirely  new  chapter  to  the  history  of  ancient 
art.'  The  French  Government,  justly  proud  of  the 
discoveries  of  its  consul,  lost  no  time  in  securing  the 
treasures  he  had  found.  Mohl  did  all  he  could  to 
persuade  the  French  authorities  to  give  Botta  the  aid 
he  required  in  order  to  continue  his  explorations,  and 
he  impressed  on  the  members  of  the  Asiatic  Society 
the  duty  of  publishing  as  many  of  the  newly-dis- 
covered inscriptions  as  their  means  would  allow. 
He  felt,  in  fact,  very  sanguine  at  that  time,  that 
after  the  progress  which  Burnouf  and  Lassen  had 
made  in  deciphering  the  first  class  of  these  inscrip- 
tions, namely,  the  Persian — the  two  other  classes, 
the  so-called   Median   and  Babylonian,  would   soon 


286  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

have  to  surrender  their  secrets  likewise.  They  were 
all  written  with  the  same  wedge-shaped  letters,  and 
though  it  was  easy  to  see  that  the  number  of  in- 
dependent signs,  or  groups  of  wedges,  was  far  larger 
in  the  Median  than  in  the  Persian,  and  again  far 
larger  in  the  Babylonian  than  in  the  Median  in- 
scriptions, yet  as  there  existed  trilingual  documents, 
and  as  it  was  known  in  particular  that  the  great 
inscription  of  Behistun  was  repeated  three  times,  on 
three  different  tablets,  in  three  different  alphabets, 
and  in  three  different  languages,  it  seemed  but  natural 
that  after  the  Persian  edict  had  been  deciphered,  the 
Median  and  Babylonian  could  offer  no  very  formid- 
able resistance.  In  this  expectation  M.  Mohl  and  his 
friends,  as  we  shall  see,  were  sadly  disappointed. 
Still,  every  year  brought  some  new  light,  and  in 
every  one  of  his  annual  addresses  M.  Mohl  reports 
progress  with  unflagging  enthusiasm. 

In  1844  he  says  : — 

'It  was  reserved  for  a  member  of  your  society, 
M.  Botta,  to  lift  a  corner  of  that  veil  with  which 
time  had  covered  the  history  of  Mesopotamia.  Last 
year  he  wrote  to  you  that  he  had  found  at  Khorsa- 
bad,  at  about  five  leagues'  distance  from  Nineveh,  the 
ruins  of  a  building  covered  with  sculptures  and  in- 
scriptions. The  excavations  which  he  has  carried  on 
since  have  only  added  to  the  importance  of  his  dis- 
coveries. Everything  at  present  seems  to  show,  that 
these  ruins  are  truly  Assyrian ;  but  much  more 
abundant  materials  will  soon  be  forthcoming.  The 
French  Government  has  sent  M.  Flandin  to  make 
drawings  on  the  spot.  M.  Botta  himself  has  bought 
the  whole  village  beneath  which  the  ruins  arc  found, 


JULIUS   MOHL.  287 

and  the  Louvre  will  soon  possess  a  splendid  museum 
of  Assyrian  antiquities.' 

But  while  thus  telling  the  world  of  the  wonders  re- 
vealed from  year  to  year  in  the  Assyrian  Herculaneum 
and  Pompeii,  Mohl  never  ceased  to  point  out  the  duty 
incumbent  on  Oriental  scholarship  in  Europe  of  de- 
ciphering the  three  cuneiform  alphabets,  and  reading 
the  three  ancient  languages  in  which  the  old  kings  of 
Babylon,  Nineveh,  Media,  and  Persia  had  recorded 
their  achievements  for  the  benefit  of  future  genera- 
tions. He  dwells  again  and  again  on  the  labours  of 
Mr.  Rawlinson,  the  fortunate  Consul-General  at  Bag- 
dad, who  was  in  possession  of  the  great  trilingual 
Behistun  inscription,  and  therefore  was  supposed  to 
hold  in  his  hand  the  key  that  would  unlock,  not  only 
the  remainins:  secrets  of  the  Persian,  but  likewise  the 
as  yet  only  guessed  at  contents  of  the  Median  and 
Eabylonian  tablets.  Yet  that  inscription  was  still 
withheld,  and  such  was  the  impatience  of  the  learned 
public  in  Europe  for  new  materials  and  new  light, 
that  the  small  kingdom  of  Denmark  sent  Westergaard 
to  Persia,  to  copy  cuneiform  inscriptions,  and  to  study 
the  ancient  language  of  the  Zend-avesta,  which,  as 
Burnouf  had  shown,  supplied  in  realit}^  the  most  ad- 
vanced trench  from  which  the  language  of  the  Persian 
mountain  records  of  Cyrus,  Darius,  and  Xerxes  could 
be  attacked.  A  large  number  of  the  Assyrian  inscrip- 
tions copied  by  Flandin  and  Coste  were  published  in 
1844,  at  the  expense  of  the  French  Government. 
Many  hands  were  at  work,  if  not  to  decipher  these  in- 
scriptions, at  least  to  draw  up  lists  of  all  the  letters, 
which,  in  the  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  alphabet, 
amounted  to  several  hundreds  instead  of  the  thirty- 


28S  EIOaRAPHTCAL   ESSAYS, 

three  consonants  and  vowels  of  the  Persian ;  to  find 
out,  in  various  transcripts  of  tlie  same  inscription, 
what  letters  could  be  replaced  by  other  letters,  which 
signs  were  ideographic,  which  syllabic,  which  phonetic ; 
in  fact  to  carry  out  some  kind  of  preliminary  sifting, 
and  to  establish  a  certain  order  in  what  seemed  at  first 
a  mere  chaos  of  arrows  and  wedges.  A  real  assault, 
it  was  felt,  would  be  premature  until  the  Behistun  in- 
scription became  pvhlici  juris.  It  was  known  then 
that  Colonel  Rawlinson  had  copied  as  much  as  four 
hundred  and  fifty  lines  of  Persian  text,  containing 
probably  ten  times  as  many  words  as  all  the  other 
Persian  inscriptions  put  together.  Coste  and  Flandin 
had  been  on  the  spot,  and  had  prepared  careful  draw- 
ings of  the  sculptures  of  Behistun,  representing  Darius 
with  his  captive  kings  before  him,  protected  by  Aura- 
mazda,  the  god  of  the  Avesta,  called  Ahuramazda  in 
Zend,  and  Ormazd  in  modern  Persian.  But  the  most 
important  part  of  the  monument,  the  inscriptions,  they 
had  left  uncopied. 

The  next  year,  1845,  brings  us  news  of  the  unearth- 
ing of  the  first  complete  palace.  M.  Botta  had  then 
two  hundred  workmen  at  his  disposal,  consisting 
chiefly  of  those  unfortunate  Nestorians  who  had 
escaped  being  massacred  by  the  Kurds.  Two  thousand 
iiietres  of  wall  covered  with  inscriptions  and  bas-reliefs 
were  laid  open,  one  hundred  and  thirty  bas-reliefs 
were  copied  by  M.  Flandin,  two  hundred  inscriptions 
were  carefully  transcribed  by  M.  Botta.  The  most 
striking  specimens  of  the  Assyrian  sculptures  had 
been  shipped  off  on  the  Tigris,  and  had  actually 
arrived  at  Bagdad,  ready  to  be  taken  to  Paris.  There 
were  only  the  two  gigantic  bulls,  and  two  statues  of 


JULIUS  MOHL.  289 

men  throttling  lions  in  their  arms  still  waiting  to  be 
packed  with  care.  M.  Botta  was  expected  back  at 
Paris,  and  his  whole  museum  was  to  follow  as  soon  as 
the  shallow  Tigris  would  allow  it. 

The  best  account  of  what  had  been  achieved  in  re- 
covering the  antiquities  of  Mesopotamia  up  to  the 
year  1845  may  be  found  in  '  Lettres  de  M.  Botta  sur 
ses  ddcouvertes  a  Khorsabad  pres  de  Ninive,  publi^es 
par  M.  Mohl,  Paris,  1845.'  We  have  only  to  add  that 
Westergaard  was  then  publishing  his  first  essay  on 
the  Median  inscriptions,  and  that  Colonel  Rawlinson's 
papers  containing  the  Persian  text  of  the  Behistun 
inscriptions  complete,  about  one-third  of  the  Median 
and  one-tenth  of  the  Babylonian  tablets,  were  in  the 
hands  of  Mr.  Norris,  the  indefatigable  secretary  of  the 
Royal  Asiatic  Society  in  London. 

In  1846  Mr.  Lay ard  appears  on  the  stage.  Attracted 
by  the  fame  of  Botta's  discoveries,  he  set  to  work  dig- 
ging at  Nineveh  with  that  pluck,  that  energy,  and  at 
the  same  time  that  discriminating  judgment  which  he 
has  since  shown  on  other  occasions.  There  was 
enough,  and  more  than  enough,  to  disinter  for  both 
France  and  England  ;  yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
England,  leaving  its  representatives  far  greater  free- 
dom of  action  than  France,  obtained  in  the  end  far 
greater  results,  owing  chiefly  to  the  energy  and  un- 
daunted perseverance  of  such  men  as  Kawlinson, 
Layard,  and  Loftus.  Cargoes  of  antiquities  soon 
arrived  in  London.  One  was  unfortunately  wrecked 
on  its  way  from  Bombay.  In  France  the  Government 
seemed  satisfied  with  the  collection  sent  home  by 
Botta,  and  spent  large  sums  on  publishing  the  descrip- 
tion of  his  discoveries  in  so  extravagant  a  style  that 

VOL.  IL  u 


290  BIOaRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

again  its  very  object  was  defeated.  This  is  a  point  on 
which  Mohl  speaks  out  in  almost  every  one  of  his  reports. 
Doing  full  justice  to  the  French  Chambers,  and  their 
liberal  grants  for  sending  out  learned  expeditions  and 
publishing  their  results,  he  shows  that  the  sumptuous 
way  in  which  these  works  are  got  up,  and  the  enor- 
mous price  at  which  they  are  sold,  keep  them  alto- 
gether from  those  in  whose  hands  alone  they  would 
be  most  useful.  He  shows  how  much  more  sensible 
and  practical  the  English  system  is  of  leaving  the  pub- 
lication of  such  works  to  private  enterprise,  and  he 
tells  the  Government  that  while  Mr.  Layard's  works 
on  Nineveh  are  read  in  thousands  of  copies,  yielding 
at  the  same  time  a  good  profit  both  to  author  and 
publisher,  M.  Botta  s  '  Monuments  de  Ninive,'  pub- 
lished at  an  enormous  expense  by  Government  (Paris, 
1 848),  was  so  dear  that  the  two  men  who  would  have 
made  the  best  use  of  it,  Mr.  Rawlinson  and  Mr.  Layard, 
were  unable  to  buy  it.  Here  was  indeed  a  reductio 
ad  absurdum,  but  like  other  reductios  of  the  same 
kind,  it  seems  only  to  have  confirmed  the  Government 
in  its  perverse  course. 

In  1848  M.  Mohl  is  able  to  announce  that  Rawlin- 
son's  paper  on  the  Behistun  inscription  has  been  pub- 
lished at  last  in  the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic 
Society  for  1847.  Though  at  that  time  there  were  no 
more  discoveries  to  be  made  in  deciphering  the  alpha- 
bet of  the  Persian  cuneiform  inscriptions,  yet  the  pub- 
lication and  translation  of  so  large  a  document  marked 
a  new  epoch  in  the  study  of  Persian  antiquities.  How 
well  the  alphabet  was  known  at  that  time  was  best 
shown  by  the  fact  that  Mr.  Norris,  then  secretary  of 
the  Asiatic  Society  in  London,  was  able  to  point  out 


JULIUS  MonL.  291 

mistakes  in  the  copies  of  the  Behistun  inscription  sent 
home  by  Colonel  Rawlinson,  with  the  same  certainty 
as  a  Latin  scholar  would  correct  clerical  blunders  in 
a  Latin  inscription.  Mohl,  though  fully  recognising 
the  principle  that  priority  of  publication  constitutes 
priority  of  discovery,  does  the  fullest  justice  to  Raw- 
linson's  industry  and  perseverance,  and  to  the  real 
genius  with  which  he  had  performed  his  own  peculiar 
task. 

After  Rawlinson's  Memoir  was  published,  the  Per- 
sian cuneiform  inscriptions  were  disposed  of;  their 
ancient  texts  could  thenceforth  be  read  with  nearly 
the  same  certainty  as  an  ancient  Greek  or  Latin  in- 
scription. The  question  now  was,  what  could  be  done 
for  the  Median  and  Assyrian  inscriptions?  Wester- 
gaard  had  proved  that  the  language  of  the  second  class 
of  the  so-called  Median  inscriptions  was  Scythian  or 
Turanian.  With  regard  to  the  third  class,  the  inscrip- 
tions found  at  Babylon  and  Nineveh,  all  scholars  who 
were  then  at  work  on  them,  such  as  Grotefend, 
Lowenstern,  Lougperier,  De  Saulcy,  Hincks,  were 
agreed  that  they  were  written  in  a  Semitic  dialect. 
The  inscriptions  of  Van  only  gave  rise  to  doubts,  and 
Hincks,  in  a  paper  '  On  the  Inscriptions  at  Van,' 
suspected  that  they  were  composed  in  an  Aryan  lan- 
guage. 

The  difficulties,  however,  of  reading  either  the  Median 
or  the  Assyrian  inscriptions,  even  after  the  Behistun 
texts  had  been  published,  were  far  greater  than  had 
been  expected.  First  of  all,  the  Median  and  Baby- 
lonian transcripts  at  Behistun  were  imperfect.  Se- 
condly, they  were  written  in  an  alphabet  that  was  not 
only,  like  the  Egyptian,  at  the  same  time  ideographic, 

U  2 


293  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

syllabic,  and  phonetic,  but,  what  was  much  worse, 
employed  the  same  sign  to  express  different  powers, 
and  different  signs  to  express  one  and  th.3  same  power. 
We  enter  in  fact  into  the  long  controversy  of  the 
Polyphony  and  Homophony  of  the  Babylonian  alpha- 
bet, a  problem  which  made  several  scholars  give  up 
the  whole  matter  as  hopeless,  which  roused  a  general 
scepticism  among  Oriental  scholars,  and  still  more 
among  the  public  at  large,  and  which  even  now,  after 
twenty  years  of  continued  research,  continues  a  con- 
stant stumblingblock  to  Assyrian  and  Babylonian 
scholarship. 

Mohl  was  fully  aware  of  all  these  difficulties,  but  he 
goes  on  year  after  year  announcing  new  triumphs,  and 
exhorting  to  new  victories.  In  1 849,  the  French  Go- 
vernment withdrew  its  patronage  from  the  field  of 
excavation.  M.  Botta  was  removed  from  Mosul  to 
Jerusalem,  and  the  rich  mine  which  he  had  opened 
was  left  to  be  worked  by  Mr.  Layard.  At  home  the 
chief  advance  made  in  deciphering  was  in  the  Median 
line.  Colonel  Rawlinson  had  succeeded  in  copying 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  Median  text  at  Eehistun,  and 
promised  to  send  his  copies  home ;  M.  de  Saulcy  gave 
the  results  of  his  own  independent  studies,  on  the 
Median  inscriptions,  so  far  as  they  were  then  known, 
in  several  papers  contributed  to  the  Journal  Asiatiqiie. 

In  1 85 1 ,  we  receive  the  first  account  of  Mr.  Layard's 
splendid  discoveries  at  Koyunjik,  and  somewhat  later 
at  Babylon.  This  Koyunjik  proved  the  richest  field 
of  Assyrian  discovery.  There  are  within  the  precincts 
at  Nineveh  two  artificial  hillocks,  the  one  called  the 
Koyunjik,  the  other  the  Nabbi  Yunus.  It  was  the 
former  which  yielded  its  treasures  to  European  exca- 


JULIUS  MOHL,  293^ 

vators,  while  the  latter,  being  supposed  to  contain  the 
bones  of  the  prophet  Jonah,  and  protected  by  a  mosque, 
was  considered  too  sacred  to  be  surrendered  to  them. 
The  Pasha  of  Mosul,  however,  though  forbidding  the 
infidels  to  disturb  the  peace  of  the  prophet  Jonah,  had 
no  scruples  in  digging  himself,  and  his  labours  were  soon 
rewarded  by  two  bulls,  nineteen  feet  high,  which  were 
not  exactly  what  he  was  looking  for.  (Rapport,  1 856, 
p.  49.)  At  the  same  time  Mr.  Loftus  was  sent  to  the 
Lower  Euphrates  to  explore  the  ruins  of  Warka  and 
Senkereh,  while  another  expedition  to  Susah  was  in 
contemplation  at  the  expense  of  the  English  Govern- 
ment. 

At  home  the  linguistic  excavations  were  carried  on 
quietly  by  Botta,  De  Saulcy,  Eawlinson,  Norris,  and 
especially  by  the  Rev.  E.  Hincks,  who  at  that  time 
was  the  most  advanced  pioneer,  and  the  first  to  lay 
the  solid  foundation  for  a  grammatical  stud}^  of  the 
Assyrian  language.  His  labours,  scattered  about  in 
different  journals,  are  now  in  danger  of  being  almost 
forgotten;  and  it  would  be  but  a  just  tribute  to  his 
memory  if  the  Irish  Academy  or  some  of  his  surviving 
friends  and  admirers  were  to  publish  a  collected  edi- 
tion of  his  numerous  though  not  voluminous  contri- 
butions to  the  study  of  the  cuneiform  inscriptions. 

In  1853,  Mohl  reports  with  great  satisfaction  that 
M.  Place,  the  successor  of  M.  Botta  as  French  consul 
at  Mosul,  has  been  du-ectcd  to  continue  excavations. 
His  labours  at  Khorsabad  were  soon  rewarded  by 
most  valuable  results.  '  He  found  new  halls,  subter- 
ranean vaults,  long  passages  in  enamelled  bricks, 
Assyrian  statues,  the  cellar  of  the  castle  containing 
vessels  still  filled  with  dried-up  liquors,  bas-reliefs, 


294  BIOGEAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

inscriptions,  articles  in  ivory  and  metal,  and,  quite 
recently,  a  depot  of  iron  and  steel  instruments,  and  a 
gate  of  the  town  or  the  palace  in  splendid  preserva- 
tion, covered  in  by  a  vault  supported  on  both  sides  by 
bulls,  and  built  in  enamelled  and  ornamental  bricks.' 
In  spite  of  these  splendid  discoveries,  which,  as  M. 
Mohl  said,  would  at  last  bring  the  Assyrian  Museum 
at  the  Louvre  up  to  the  level  of  the  British  Museum, 
the  French  Government,  it  was  feared,  would  again 
stop  M.  Place,  as  they  had  stopped  M.  Botta,  in  the 
midst  of  his  campaign.  M.  Mohl  did  all  he  could  to 
plead  the  cause  of  Assyrian  discovery  before  the 
Soci^t^  Asiatique,  before  the  Institute,  before  the 
Ministers,  and  it  was  again  chiefly  due  to  his  never- 
ceasing  intercessions  that  his  friend  M.  Fresnel,  who 
had  been  for  years  devoting  himself  to  the  collection 
of  Himyaritic  inscriptions  in  the  south  of  Arabia,  was 
sent  out  with  MM.  Oppert  and  Thomas,  at  the  head  of 
a  well-equipped  scientific  expedition,  destined  to  ex- 
plore the  ruins  in  the  basin  of  the  Lower  Euphrates. 
When  the  disturbed  state  of  the  country  frustrated 
the  original  intention  of  Fresnel's  expedition,  he  and 
his  companions  concentrated  their  work  on  Babylon. 
At  about  the  same  time  Mr.  Loftus  was  hard  at  work 
at  Susah,  and  had  discovered  there  a  palace  like  those 
of  Persepolis,  and  inscriptions  in  the  Persian  cuneiform 
characters  of  the  time  of  Artaxerxes.  Mr.  Layard  had 
published  an  account  of  his  wonderful  discoveries  at 
Koyunjik,  and  had  explored  a  large  portion  of  Lower 
Mesopotamia,  the  ruins  of  Arban,  Van,  Babylon,  Niffar, 
and  Kalah  Sherghat.  At  home,  Rawlinson's  Memoir 
on  the  Baljylonian  text  of  the  Behistun  inscription 
had  been  published  in  the  fourteenth  volume  of  the 


JULIUS  MOHL.  295 

Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society  (1851),  and  in 
the  first  number  of  the  fifteenth  volume  of  the  same 
Journal  (i  853).  Mr.  Norris,  in  publishing  for  the  first 
time  the  Median  transcript  of  the  same  document,  had 
confirmed  Westergaard's  opinion  that  its  language 
was  Turanian,  without  determining,  however,  whether 
it  was  more  closely  allied  to  the  Turkish  or  to  the 
Finnish  branch  of  that  extensive  family,  or  rather 
class,  of  speech. 

In  the  next  year,  1 854,  while  Mr.  Loftus  was  con- 
tinuing his  work  at  Warka  and  Senkereh  in  Lower 
Mesopotamia,  while  Mr.  Rassan  was  hard  at  work  for 
England  at  Koyunjik,  M.  Mohl  has  to  announce  that 
the  French  Government  has  really  stopped  the  exca- 
vations undertaken  with  so  much  success  at  Khorsabad 
by  M,  Place.  The  next  year  brings  sadder  tidings 
still.  That  precious  cargo,  containing  the  harvest  of 
the  combined  labours  of  M.  Place  at  Khorsabad  and 
M.  Fresnel  at  Babylon,  was  completely  wrecked  at 
Basra  on  its  voyage  home.  Fresnel,  who  for  years 
had  held  his  own  against  the  Government,  who  had 
declined  to  be  recalled,  and  was  meditating  at  Bagdad 
the  establishment  of  an  archaeological  school,  on  the 
model  of  the  French  school  at  Athens,  died  in  1855, 
and  with  his  death  the  excavations  in  the  East  at  the 
expense  of  the  French  Government  came  to  an  end. 
While  Loftus  was  still  collecting  fresh  materials  among 
the  ruins  of  Mugheir,  Abu  Shahrein,  Tel  Sifr,  Sen- 
kereh, Warka,  and  Niffar ;  while  Rawlinson  was 
looking  for  new  treasures  at  Babylon,  nothing  re- 
mained to  the  French  expedition,  now  entrusted  to 
M.  Jules  Oppert,  but  to  save  what  could  be  saved,  and 
to  return  home.     With  Fresnel's  death  M.  Mohl's  in- 


296  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

terest  in  the  antiquities  of  Mesopotamia  seems  to  flag. 
In  spite  of  his  constant  efforts,  the  enterprises  which 
he  had  encouraged  and  directed  had  not  led  to  the  re- 
sults which  he  anticipated.  Even  the  deciphering  of 
the  Babylonian  and  Assyrian  inscriptions  had  some- 
what disappointed  him.  In  speaking  almost  for  the 
last  time  of  the  subject,  in  drawing  attention  to  the 
'  Rapport  adressd  a  S.  E.  le  Ministre  de  I'instruction 
publique,  par  M.  Jules  Oppert:  Paris,  1856  (tir^  des 
Archives  des  missions),'  he  expresses  a  hope  that  the 
difficulties  created  by  the  polyphonous  and  homopho- 
nous  character  of  the  Assyro-Eabylonian  alphabet 
may  be  overcome  ;  but  with  regard  to  the  theory  then 
started  for  the  first  time  by  M.  Oppert,  that  the  cunei- 
form alphabet  was  originally  invented  by  people 
speaking  a  Scythian  language,  and  afterwards  adapted 
as  well  as  might  be  by  the  Babylonians  to  their  own 
Semitic  speech,  he  says  : — 

'II  faut  rdserver  son  jugement,  attendre  le  d^- 
veloppement  des  preuves,  et,  si  elles  sont  concluantes, 
reformer  nos  idees  prdcongues.  II  est  impossible  qu'une 
d^couverte  immense,  comme  celle  de  Ninive,  et  cette 
restauration  subite  de  langues  et  presque  de  litt^ra- 
tures  perdues  depuis  des  milliers  d'anndes,  ne  rdvelent 
des  faits  qui  s'accordent  mal  avec  des  opinions  for- 
nixes sur  I'ancienne  histoire  de  I'Asie  d'apres  des  don- 
ndes  imparfaites.  II  est  probable,  au  reste,  que  I'his- 
toire  ancienne,  telle  que  Ton  a  construite  d'aprfes  la 
Bible  et  les  auteurs  grecs,  sera  plutot  enrichie  que 
changXe  par  les  resultats  des  Etudes  assyriennes ;  car 
nous  voyons  que  tout  ce  que  nous  avons  appris  sur 
I'Egypte,  rinde,  et  la  Perse,  n'a  fait  que  grandir  I'au- 
toritX  d'Herodote.     C'est  un  cadre  qui  se  remplit,  mais 


JULIUS  MOHL.  297 

qui  ne  change  pas  dans  ses  parties  essentielles.  On 
nest  qu'au  commencement  de  ces  dtudes,  et  la  route 
est  longue  et  ardue  ;  mais  les  progres  sont  tres-rdels  et 
deviendront  plus  rapides  a  mesure  que  les  matdriaux 
seront  plus  accessibles.' 

We  can  give  this  one  instance  only,  to  show  how 
conscientiously  Mohl  performed  his  work  as  the  re- 
cognised contemporaneous  historian  of  Oriental  learn- 
ing, and  how  much  may  be  learnt  from  his  pages  that 
is  apt  to  be  forgotten  in  the  hurry  of  our  life.  No 
doubt  Persia  was  always  nearest  to  his  heart,  and 
hence  his  warm  interest  in  these  cuneiform  researches, 
which,  resting  chiefly  on  the  decipherment  of  the 
edicts  of  the  ancient  kings  of  Persia,  such  as  Cyrus, 
Darius,  and  Xerxes,  threw  a  new  light  on  the  history 
of  the  Persian  language,  both  before  and  after  their 
time.  Hence,  also,  his  sincere  admiration  for  Bur- 
nouf  s  labours  for  the  recovery  of  the  sacred  writings 
of  Zoroaster,  and  the  full  appreciation  of  Burnouf  s 
philological  method  as  the  only  one  that  could  lead  to 
trustworthy  results  in  the  interpretation  of  the  A  vesta 
as  well  as  of  the  Veda.  But  though  these  personal 
predilections  had  their  iniluence,  we  shall  find  in 
reading  his  annual  reports  that  he  treated  every  other 
subject,  too,  with  almost  the  same  accuracy  and 
thoroughness  of  appreciation.  Every  really  important 
publication,  whether  in  Arabic,  Hebrew,  Syriac,  Ar- 
menian, Sanskrit,  or  Chinese,  is  carefully  chronicled — 
nay,  we  meet  again  and  again  with  paragraphs  which 
form  short  but  complete  treatises  on  the  history  and 
the  true  value  of  whole  branches  of  Oriental  literature. 

Whoever  wishes  to  know  how  we  came  possessed 
of  the  Himyaritic  inscriptions,  and  what  their  bearing 


298  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

is  on  the  history  of  the  Semitic  languages,  should  read 
Mohl's  account  of  Fresnel's  and  Arnaud's  wanderings 
on  the  coast  of  Yemen,  chiefly  suggested  and  encouraged 
by  Mohl  himself.  (See  Rapports  for  1840,  1844,  1845, 
1846,1856.) 

The  practicability  of  substituting  the  Roman  letters 
for  the  numerous  alphabets  of  Oriental  languages  is 
discussed  by  Mohl  in  1841,  and  again  in  1865.  In 
answer  to  those  who  twitted  the  English  Government 
with  the  slow  progress  they  had  been  able  to  make  in 
persuading  the  natives  to  write  Hindustani  with 
Roman  letters,  while  the  Mohammedans  had  suc- 
ceeded in  a  very  short  time  in  making  the  Persians 
adopt  the  Arabic  alphabet,  he  drily  remarked  that 
the  Mohammedans  punished  all  who  continued  to 
write  Persian  with  the  old  Pehlevi,  and  not  with 
Arabic  letters,  with  death  (p.  25).  Though  Mohl  does 
not  give  his  authority  for  this  statement,  we  have  no 
doubt  he  could  have  given  chapter  and  verse  for  it. 

The  discovery  of  the  Syriac  and  Coptic  MSS.  by 
Tattam  in  1842,  and  subsequently  by  Pacho,  the  first 
specimens  of  these  new  treasures  such  as  the  three 
undoubtedly  genuine  letters  of  Ignatius  published  by 
Cureton,  and  lastly  the  excellent  catalogue  of  the 
whole  collection  by  Wright, — all  this  is  described  in  a 
masterly  way  in  the  Report  for  the  years  1846,  1847, 
1848,  1864. 

Students  of  Arabic  will  find  an  accurate  account  of 
all  important  publications,  particularly  some  instruc- 
tive chapters  on  the  life  of  Mohammed,  doing  full 
justice  to  Sprenger's  treatment  of  the  prophet  on  one 
side,  and  to  Sir  W.  Muir's  very  different  treatment  on 
the  other.     The  gradual  formation  and  sifting  too  of 


JULIUS  MOHL.  299 

the  traditions  concerning  Mohammed  and  the  growth 
of  his  new  religion  will  interest  many  readers,  as  con- 
taining significant  and  useful  hints  on  similar  phases 
in  the  history  of  other  religions.  Full  justice  is  ren- 
dered to  Lane's  Arabic  Lexicon,  but  not  without  an 
expression  of  regret  that  it  should  have  been  re- 
stricted to  the  so-called  classical  language  only. 

The  reports  on  Chinese  literature  are  very  complete, 
Chinese  having  been  for  a  long  time  one  of  Mohl's 
favourite  occupations.  When  Stanislas  Julien  pub- 
lished his  translation  of  the  travels  of  Buddhist 
pilgrims  from  China  to  India,  he  nowhere  found  a 
more  appreciative,  yet  discriminating  critic  than  in 
Mohl. 

In  all  the  subjects  hitherto  mentioned  Mohl  was 
perfectly  at  home.  The  languages  were  familiar,  the 
literatures  a  subject  of  constant  interest  to  him.  But 
even  in  other  branches  of  Eastern  learning,  in  San- 
skrit, for  instance,  and  Indian  literature  in  general, 
few  could  have  more  surely  distinguished  the  im- 
portant from  the  unimportant,  few  could  have  better 
pointed  out  the  duty  which  Sanskrit  scholarship 
owed  to  the  learned  world  at  large,  than  Mohl. 
Beginning  with  his  first  report,  in  1840,  he  calls  the 
attention  of  Sanskrit  scholars  to  the  Veda.  Hie 
Bliodos,  hie  salta!  he  seems  to  say  whenever  his 
survey  brings  him  to  the  frontiers  of  India.  He 
welcomes  with  real  joy  every  attempt  at  filling  the 
gap  in  our  knowledge  of  Sanskrit  literature,  which 
scholars  such  as  Sir  W.  Jones,  Colebrooke,  Mill,  and 
Wilson  had  indicated  rather  than  filled.  He  shows 
how  Indian  literature  must  for  ever  remain  a  baseless 
fabric  unless  its  truly  historical  foundation,  the  Veda, 


300  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

can  be  recovered.  As  early  as  1840  he  tells  us  that 
the  old  East  India  Company  had  ordered  the  text  of 
the  four  Vedas  to  be  published  by  the  learned  Brah- 
mans  of  the  College  at  Calcutta  after  the  best  MSS. 
of  Benares.  'C'est  une  grande  et  magnifique  entre- 
prise,'  he  says,  'qui  fera  honneur  au  gouvernement 
anglais,  et  qui  livrera  aux  Etudes  des  savants  de  tons 
les  pays  un  monument  littdraire  dont  il  est  difficile 
d'dvaluer  Timportance  pour  I'histoire  de  la  civilisa- 
tion.' It  is  well  known,  however,  that  neither 
learned  Brahmans  nor  trustworthy  MSS.  were  forth- 
coming in  India.  Brahmans  who  were  able  were 
unwilling,  those  who  were  willing  were  unable,  to 
produce  an  edition  of  the  text  and  the  commen- 
taries of  the  Veda ;  and  European  scholarship  had  at 
last  to  undertake  the  work,  and  give  to  the  Brahmans 
the  first  complete  edition  of  their  own  sacred  books. 

Mohl  tells  us  at  the  same  time  that  during  several 
years  the  French  Government  had  then  been  buying 
MSS.  of  the  Veda  and  its  commentaries  in  India,  and 
that  several  boxes  of  them  had  already  arrived  at 
Paris.  This  was  chiefly  due  to  Burnouf,  who,  besides 
Rosen,  was  at  that  time  probably  the  only  Sanskrit 
scholar  who  had  gone  beyond  Colebrooke,  and  pene- 
trated furthest  into  the  outworks  of  Vedic  scholarship, 
and  to  the  enlightened  patronage  of  M.  Guizot.  Even 
so  late  as  1869  M.  Guizot,  in  announcing  to  the  writer 
of  this  article  his  election  as  a  foreign  member  of  the 
French  Institute,  remarked:  'Je  ne  suis  pas  un  juge 
competent  de  vos  travaux  sur  les  Vedas,  mais  je  me 
felicite  d'avoir  un  pen  contribue  a  vous  fournir  les 
mat^riaux,  et  je  vous  remercie  d  en  avou-  gard^  le 
souvenir.' 


JULIUS  MOHL.  801 

Hardly  a  year  passes  in  which  Mohl  does  not  give 
us  some  new  information  on  the  gradual  advances 
made  by  Sanskrit  scholars  in  their  attempts  to  master 
the  difficulties  of  the  Veda ;  and  in  his  simple  and 
clear  treatment  of  the  importance  of  the  native  tra- 
ditional literature  on  one  side,  and  the  freedom  of 
European  scholarship  on  the  other,  we  see  again  the 
maturity  of  his  mind  and  the  impartiality  of  his 
judgment,  in  strong  contrast  with  the  wranglings  of 
one-sided  pleaders. 

But  deeply  impressed  as  Mohl  was  with  the  im- 
portance of  Vedic  studies,  other  branches  of  Indian 
literature  were  not  passed  over  by  him  in  silence. 
Troyer's  edition  of  the  Rayatarangini,  the  history  of 
the  Kings  of  Kashmir,  Prinsep's  discovery  of  the  Pali 
alphabet,  Gorresio's  magnificent  edition  of  the  Rama- 
ya«a,  Foucaux's  translation  of  the  Tibetan  version  of 
the  Life  of  Buddha,  Lassen's  Indian  Antiquities, 
Boehtlingk  and  Roth's  as  well  as  Goldstucker's  San- 
skrit Dictionaries,  Woepke's  original  researches  on 
Indian  numerals  and  mathematics,  Neve's  and  Weber's 
works,  all  receive  their  recognition ;  all  are  repre- 
sented to  us  as  marking  definite  stages  in  the  slow 
but  safe  advance  of  the  small  and  valiant  army  of 
Oriental  scholars. 

It  is  not  easy  to  form  an  idea  of  the  work  entailed 
on  a  really  conscientious  scholar  who  undertakes  to 
write  such  annual  reports.  Those  only  who  have 
tried  to  do  it  know  how  much  time  is  required  in 
collecting  the  mere  materials,  how  much  care  in 
determining  what  amount  of  recognition,  of  praise  or 
blame,  is  due  to  each  work.  Though  each  of  these 
annual  reports   fills   only  from   fifty  to   a  hundred 


302  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

pages,  a  considerable  portion  of  Mohl's  leisure  must 
have  been  consumed  in  their  preparation. 

Other  societies  have  published  similar  reports,  but 
seldom  with  such  regularity  as  the  Soci^t^  Asiatique 
during  Mohls  secretaryship — never  with  that  due 
proportion  which  Mohl  knew  how  to  preserve  in 
the  general  plan  of  his  annual  review.  If  such 
reports  become  too  complete,  they  degenerate  into 
mere  catalogues ;  if  they  are  too  minute  and  searching, 
they  grow  into  treatises  on  a  few  leading  publications. 
There  have  been  annual  rapports  published  by  those 
who  succeeded  Mohl  as  secretaries  of  the  Asiatic 
Society  of  Paris.  These  rapports  are  written,  no 
doubt,  in  more  classical  French,  and  are  full  of  most 
valuable  materials.  But  they  have  gradually  become 
less  and  less  comprehensive,  and  are  now  restricted  to 
a  survey  of  the  work  done  during  each  year  by  the 
Oriental  scholars  of  France  only. 

Still  greater,  perhaps,  was  the  difficulty  of  main- 
taining throughout  that  judicial  position  which  Mohl 
took  in  his  reports  from  beginning  to  end.  Of  himself 
we  hear  little — almost  nothing.  It  is  only  by  acci- 
dent that  we  find  out  how  much  was  due  to  him 
personally  in  several  of  the  greatest  undertakings 
patronised  by  the  French  Government.  In  some 
cases  he  seems  to  carry  that  modesty  too  far.  The 
French,  we  know,  are  very  sensitive  on  this  point. 
They  dislike  the  pronoun  '  I '.  Yet  there  is  danger  of 
good  taste  sinking  into  mannerism  even  here.  When 
speaking  of  his  edition  of  the  '  Shah  Nameh,^  it  would 
have  sounded  more  simple  and  natural,  even  in 
French,  if  Mohl  had  said,  '  A  new  volume  of  my 
edition   of  the   "  Shah    Nameh "   has  been   finished,' 


JULIUS  MOHL.  303 

instead  of  telling  his  friends,  as  he  always  does,  that 
'  a  member  of  their  Society  has  finished  a  new  volume 
of  the  "  Shah  Nameh." '  However,  as  a  German 
writing  in  French,  Mohl  no  doubt  felt  himself  bound 
to  observe  French  etiquette  even  more  carefully  than 
a  Frenchman,  and  if  he  erred,  he  erred,  at  all  events, 
on  the  safe  side. 

"What  is,  however,  even  more  creditable  to  him  is  the 
reserve  with  which  he  speaks  of  his  personal  friends. 
Mohl  could  not  have  been  the  scholar  he  was,  without 
having  both  strong  sympathies  and  strong  antipathies 
with  regard  to  other  scholars  or  would-be  scholars, 
whether  in  France  or  elsewhere.  But  it  would  re- 
quire a  very  delicate  ear  to  discover  any  trace  of 
these  personal  feelings  in  his  ofiicial  reports.  When 
delivering  these  annual  addresses  he  speaks  with  a 
full  consciousness  of  his  responsibility,  He  seems  to 
feel  that  the  honour  of  the  Soci^td  Asiatique  is  in  his 
keeping.  He  never  abuses  the  trust  committed  to 
him,  he  never  allows  himself  an  unfair  advantage. 
When  reading  again  through  his  reports  from  the 
year  1840  to  the  year  1867,  we  meet  with  few  lines 
which  he  would  now  wish  to  see  unwritten,  though 
time  has  laid  its  disenchanting  hand  on  many  hopes 
and  many  schemes  in  the  field  of  Oriental  scholarship. 
No  doubt  Mohl  disappointed  many,  either  by  his 
silence  or  by  his  measured  praise.  He  made  himself, 
we  believe,  more  enemies  than  friends  by  his  faithful 
stewardship  ;  but  he  retained  through  life,  in  spite  of 
many  disappointments,  an  unshaken  trust  in  truth. 

It  is  delightful  to  see  the  unanimous  testimony 
borne  to  Mohl's  uprightness  by  his  colleagues  at  the 
French  Institute.     His  position  at  Paris  was  by  no 


304  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

means  an  easy  one.  True,  he  had  old  and  faithful 
friends,  but  he  had  also — and  how  could  it  be  other- 
wise ? — enviers  and  enemies.  He  was  loved  by  some, 
liked  by  many,  respected  by  all,  even  by  those  who 
neither  liked  nor  loved  him.  Men,  so  hiofh-minded 
as  Maury,  Renan,  Regnier,  and  others  might  truly 
say  that  they  had  almost  forgotten  that  Mohl  was 
not  a  Frenchman.  In  his  last  farewell  Alfred  Maury 
exclaimed:  'Adieu,  Jules  Mohl;  nous  te  saluons  a  ta 
derniere  demeure,  non  seulement  comme  un  confrere, 
mais  comme  un  compatriote.  La  science,  au  reste, 
n'a  pas  de  nationality ;  ou,  pour  mieux  dire,  elle  est 
de  toutes  les  nationalitds ;  elle  travaille  a  les  rap- 
procher,  a  les  unir,  et  cette  conciliation  nous  aimions 
a  la  rencontrer  en  toi.' 

But  it  would  hardly  be  fair  to  expect  the  same 
elevation  of  thought  and  feeling  from  smaller  minds, 
least  of  all  from  those  whose  pretensions  Mohl  had 
occasionally  to  check,  or  whose  interests  he  had  some- 
times to  cross.  Mohl,  though  he  seems  to  have  been 
a  welcome  guest  at  several  courts,  had  never  learnt  to 
be  a  courtier.  Life  to  him  was  not  worth  having,  if 
it  required  any  economising  with  truth.  All  his 
friends  agree  that  there  was  a  certain  brusqueness 
in  him,  which  he  could  never  overcome  to  the  end  of 
his  life,  and  which  they  kindly  ascribed  to  his 
German  blood.  M.  Barbier  de  Meynard  says  of 
him : — 

'L'amour  du  vrai,  I'horreur  du  charlatanisme  et  de 
I'intrigue  donnaient  a  son  abord  ce  je  ne  sais  quoi  de 
reserve  et  de  brusque  qui  ne  permettait  pas  d'apprecier 
du  premier  coup  d'oeil  tout  ce  quil  y  avait  en  lui  de 
bontd  naturelle  et  de  chaleureuse  sympathie.' 


JULIUS  MOHL.  305 

That  brusqueness,  however,  was  not  merely  a 
national  peculiarity;  it  had  a  deeper  source,  it 
arose  from  his  sense  of  the  sacredness  of  science. 
The  profanum  vulgus  never  forgave  him  for  that. 

M.  Laboulaye  says  of  him  with  perfect  truth  : — 

'  Mohl  avait  au  plus  haut  degrd  le  sentiment  de  la 
responsabilit^  qui  pesait  sur  nous ;  pour  lui,  la  science 
^tait  une  religion,  et  il  voulait  ^carter  du  temple  tous 
les  profanes.' 

M.  Renan  speaks  in  the  strongest  language  of  the 
influence  which  Mohl  exercised  in  all  elections, 
whether  at  the  Institute,  the  College  de  France,  or 
elsewhere,  simply  because  it  was  known  that  to  him 
science.'  was  sacred,  and  no  personal  feelings  would 
ever  sway  his  vote  : — 

'  Le  grand  titre  de  M.  Mohl  a  la  reconnaissance  des 
savants  est  cependant,  avant  tout,  I'influence  qu'il  a 
exercee.  II  sut  pr^sider  a  nos  Etudes  avec  une  soli- 
dite  de  jugement  et  un  esprit  philosophique  qui  seuls 
peuvent  donner  de  la  valeur  a  des  travaux  dpars  et 
sans  lien  apparent.  Ce  lien,  il  le  crdait  par  sa  judi- 
cieuse  et  savante  critique ;  son  autorite  aidait  les  amis 
de  la  vdrit^  a  distinguer  le  me^rite  serieux  des  succes 
faciles  qu'on  trouve  sou  vent  aupres  du  public  en  flat- 
tant  ses  gouts  superficiels.  Par  la  M.  Mohl  a  occupe 
dans  nos  etudes  une  place  de  premier  ordre ;  le  vide 
qu'il  a  laiss^  ne  sera  pas  de  sitot  rempli.  Ami  du 
vrai  et  du  solide  en  toutes  choses,  il  ne  faisait  aucun 
part  a  la  vanity,  a  I'envie  de  briller.  Sa  direction  a 
^t^  aussi  efficace  qu'dclairee.  M.  Mohl  dtait  pour  nous 
tous  une  des  raisons  que  nous  avions  de  vivre  et  de 
bien  faire.' 

How  true  it  is  to  say  of  such  men  as  Mohl,  '  They 

VOL.  IL  X 


306  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

make  us  live  and  do  well.'  They  keep  us  from 
makino;  concessions,  from  takinof  what  is  called  an 
easier  view  of  life,  from  making  to  ourselves  friends 
by  the  mammon  of  unrighteous  praise.  That  his 
friends  at  Paris  should  have  allowed  him  to  maintain 
that  independent  position  through  life,  that  they 
should  have  yielded  to  his  silent  influence,  that  they 
should  not  have  resented  his  occasional  reproofs,  re- 
flects the  highest  credit  on  the  French  character.  No 
doubt,  it  was  but  human  nature  that  Frenchmen  who 
found  themselves  opposed  by  Mohl  should  sometimes, 
when  all  other  arguments  had  failed,  be  heard  to 
murmur  grumblingly.  Ah,  cet  Allemand!  Frenchmen 
would  not  be  Frenchmen,  Englishmen  would  not  be 
Englishmen,  Germans  would  not  be  Germans,  if  they 
did  not  think  that  on  some  point  or  other  they  were 
better  judges  than  anybody  else.  There  were  the  dii 
minorum  gentium  in  Paris  too,  who  shrugged  their 
shoulders  when  Mohl's  Rapport  was  out,  and  thought 
it  very  hard  that  the  censorship  of  Oriental  studies 
in  France  should  have  fallen  into  the  hands  of  cet 
Allemand.  But  when  we  read  these  annual  Reports 
now,  after  the  lapse  of  many  years,  and  compare  them 
with  the  reports  or  presidential  addresses  of  other 
academies  or  learned  societies,  we  shall  be  better  able 
to  understand  the  influence  which  their  high  judicial 
and  moral  tone  exercised  at  the  time.  Nowhere  do 
we  see  any  traces  of  communiqnes,  but  thinly  veiled 
by  the  honoured  name  of  a  president  or  secretary. 
Nowhere  is  there  a  sign  of  his  yielding  to  that  great 
temptation  of  saying  a  kind  word  of  our  friends,  or 
passing  a  slur  on  our  or  their  opponents.  It  was 
because   every  one   felt    that   the    Secretary  of   the 


JULIUS   MOHL.  BOy 

Soci^td  Asiatique  was  a  man  of  honour,  most  sen- 
sitive and  jealous  for  the  good  name  of  his  Society, 
and  still  more  for  the  honour  of  science,  that  his  ad- 
dresses were  listened  to  and  his  judgments  accepted 
by  the  whole  world.  It  was  because  in  other  cases 
that  charge  has  been  committed  to  men  of  less  sensitive 
minds  and  less  clean  hands,  to  men  who  look  upon 
scientific  studies  as  a  mere  amusement  or  a  road  to 
social  distinction,  that  the  honour  of  this  or  that 
learned  society  has  been  tarnished  and  sacrificed  to 
the  petty  ambitions  and  the  impotent  jealousies  of  a 
small  clique.  When  we  read  through  the  long  list  of 
Mohl's  'Rapports'  without  meeting  with  one  single 
line  that  could  be  traced  to  personal  favour  or  personal 
spite,  one  word  of  blame  or  praise  that  would  make 
the  members  of  the  Society  Asiatique  regret  having 
entrusted  their  honour  to  their  German  assistant- 
secretary,  secretary,  and  president,  we  shall  be  better 
able  to  understand  what  M.  Renan  meant  when  say- 
ing of  Mohl,  '  II  etait  une  des  raisons  qae  nous  avions 
de  vivre  et  de  bien  faire.' 

But  we  should  carry  away  a  very  false  impression 
of  Mohl  if  we  thought  of  him  only  as  the  stern  censor. 
Among  his  more  intimate  friends  Mohl  was  full  of 
kindliness  and  humour,  though  later  in  life  there  was 
a  cloud  of  melancholy  that  threw  a  shadow  over  the 
twinkle  of  his  bright  and  piercing  eyes.  Mohl  spoke 
three  languages, — German,  French,  and  English, — and 
it  might  be  said  of  him  what  was  said  of  Ennius.  that 
he  had  three  hearts,  or  rather  that  he  had  a  large 
heart,  large  enough  to  appreciate  and  love  all  that 
was  good  and  noble  in  the  German,  the  French,  and 
the  English  character ;  strong  enough  to  despise  and 

X  2 


308  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

shun  all  that  was  bad  and  mean,  whether  German, 
French,  or  English.  He  was  German  by  nature, 
French  by  taste,  English  by  love,  and  he  had  true 
friends  in  every  one  of  these  countries.  He  had  learnt 
more  particularly  from  his  own  personal  experience 
how  the  French  and  German  characters  might  supple- 
ment each  other  in  their  strong  and  weak  points ; 
and  during  the  whole  of  his  life  he  looked  forward  to 
a  future  when  these  two  nations  should  better  under- 
stand and  appreciate  each  other ;  should  forget  their 
vulgar  military  rivalry,  and  work  together  for  the 
highest  achievements  in  literature  and  art.  There 
was  a  time  when  that  dream  seemed  more  than  half- 
realised,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  silent 
but  never-ceasing  influence  of  such  men  as  Mohl  did 
much  towards  the  realisation  of  such  a  dream.  During 
Louis  Philippe's  reign  the  spirit  of  German  science 
might  be  felt  in  the  best  works  of  French  scholarship, 
literature,  and  art.  There  was  a  Revue  Germanique 
published  in  Paris,  intended  to  show  to  the  more 
fastidious  French  public  that  there  was  solid  gold  to 
be  found  in  the  crude  ore  of  German'  science,  while  in 
Germany  the  name  of  Humboldt  alone  is  sufficient  to 
show  how  German  science  had  begun  to  be  quickened 
by  French  esprit.  These  happy  days  came  to  an  end 
almost  from  the  beginning  of  the  Napoleonic  regime. 
If  there  was  a  place  where  Louis  Napoleon  was  hated 
with  an  unwavering  hatred,  it  was  the  Institut  de 
France.  One  might  have  written  over  its  portals, 
'No  Bonapartist  need  apply.'  When  Leverrier  was 
forced  upon  the  Institut,  Biot,  the  veteran  astronomer, 
was  heard  to  say  in  a  bluff  voice,  '  Qui  est  cet  honwie 
la?'  and  when  told  that  it  was  Leverrier,  he  muttered 


JULIUS  MOHL.  809 

to  his  friends,  ^ Tai  connu  Laplace;  je  ne  connais  pas 
Leverrier.'  When  about  the  same  time  Napoleon  in- 
sisted on  having  the  name  of  the  Institut  tie  France 
changed  into  Institut  Imperial  de  France,  Villemain 
was  chosen  to  draw  up  an  historical  memoir,  showing 
how  under  the  most  glorious  kings  of  France,  during 
the  Republic,  and  during  the  reign  of  the  (jreat 
Napoleon,  the  Institut  had  always  been  called  simply 
Institut  de  France ;  and  if  a  change  was  now  required, 
the  lyiinister  was  requested  to  send  his  architect  to 
erase  the  golden  letters  placed  on  the  fagade  of  the 
Palais  de  V Institut  by  the  architect  of  Richelieu. 

Nor  was  there  among  the  Memhres  de  V Institut  one 
who  saw  and  dreaded  the  fatal  influence  of  the  Napo- 
leonic rule  more  than  the  one  German  member  of  that 
illustrious  assembly,  Mohl.  No  political  successes, 
no  outward  splendour,  no  offers  of  patronage  to  litera- 
ture and  science,  could  dazzle  his  eyes.  His  con- 
viction remained  unshaken  from  first  to  last,  that  the 
system  of  government  introduced  by  Louis  Napoleon 
and  his  court  must  ruin  France,  and  through  the  ruin 
of  France  ruin  the  peaceful  development  of  the  whole 
of  Europe.  He  lived  to  see  his  prophecies  come  tiue. 
The  last  years  of  his  life  were  passed  in  deepest  sorrow 
at  the  utter  destruction  of  the  fairest  dream  of  his 
youth,  the  union  and  fi-iendship  of  France  and  Ger- 
many, as  the  champions  of  the  intellectual  freedom  of 
the  future.  His  friends  in  Paris,  though  their  ranks 
had  been  thinned  by  death,  remained  loyal  to  him, 
and  to  the  honour  of  French  men  of  science  it  should 
always  be  remembered  that  even  in  those  darkest 
daj's,  when  all  that  was  German  was  detested  in 
France,  Mohl  was  able  to  occupy  his   chair  at  the 


310  BIOGEAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Institute  without  one  single  member  of  the  Academy 
forgetting  the  respect  they  owed  to  him,  to  them- 
selves, and  to  the  noble  traditions  of  the  place  in 
which  they  were  assembled.  It  was  he  who  wished 
to  retire  and  to  withdraw  himself  from  society ;  and 
though  he  patiently  and  silently  continued  his  useful 
work,  no  one  who  knew  his  happy  countenance  before 
the  days  of  1848  would  have  known  him  again  after 
the  days  of  1871.  His  house,  however,  continued 
what  it  had  been  for  many  years,  a  kind  of  free 
port,  open  to  all  who  came  to  Paris  to  see  what  was 
most  worth  seeing  there.  During  the  days  of  the 
Empire  it  happened  sometimes  that  Royal  visitors, 
staying  at  the  Tuileries,  came  to  the  Rue  du  Bac  to 
make  the  acquaintance  of  men  whom  neither  the 
Empress  could  tempt  nor  the  Emperor  command. 
When  the  storms  of  the  Commune  had  subsided,  the 
old  free  port  was  open  again,  and  many  of  his  English 
friends  will  long  preserve  the  recollection  of  pleasant 
hours  spent  with  him  during  the  last  years  of  his  life, 
though  chiefly  talking  over  old  days  and  mourning 
over  old  friends.  What  the  charm  of  his  society  was, 
all  his  friends  know.  No  one  has  a  better  right  to 
bear  his  testimony  than  he  with  whose  words  we  shall 
close  this  tribute  of  respect  and  gratitude :  ^Sa  maison, 
grace  au  tact  et  d  la  profonde  connaissance  de  la 
societe  franqaise  que  possede  Mme.  Mohl,  continuait 
les  meilleures  traditions  d'un  monde  i^lein  d'esprit  et 
de  charme,  qui  n'est  plus  qu'un  souvenir.  Tous  les 
strangers  de  distinction  s'y  rencontraient ;  toutes  les 
opinions  s'y  donnaient  la  main.' 


JULIUS    MUHL.  311 


NOTE. 


I  WROTE  on  pp.  282,  283,  in  my  article  on  Julius  Mohl :  '  If  one  asked 
any  educated  Englishman,  supposing  he  cared  at  all  about  Oriental 
antiquities,  who  it  was  that  discovered  the  bulls  at  Nineveh,  he  would 
answer.  Sir  Austen  Layard.  And  if  he  were  asked  who  fir^t  deciphered 
the  cuiieiforin  inscriptions,  he  would  say,  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson.  Yet 
both  these  statements  are  utterly  and  entirely  wrong,  and  we  have  the 
less  hesitation  in  saying  so,  because  Sir  Austen  Layard's  merits  in 
bringing  the  Nineveh  bulls  and  many  other  antiquities  to  light,  and 
Sir  Henry  Rawlinson's  merits  in  copying  and  translating  some  of  the 
most  important  cuneiform  inscriptions,  are  so  great  that  they  are  the 
very  last  persons  who  would  wish  to  see  themselves  bedecked  with 
feathers  not  their  own.'  This  sentence  has  led  to  a  lamentable  contro- 
versy between  Sir  H.  Rawlinson  and  myself.  I  ask  any  one  in  his  right 
senses,  what  is  the  true  meaning  of  the  above  sentence  ?  Could  it  have 
been  meant  to  iniply  that  these  two  eminent  men  themselves  had  ever 
claimed  any  merit  which  was  not  their  own  ?  Was  it  not  clearly  meant  to 
imply  that  their  real  merits  were  so  preeminently  great  that  they  would 
justly  feel  offended  at  having  the  discoveries  of  other  scholars  placed  to 
their  account?  Sir  Austen  Layard  never  was  in  doubt  as  to  what  I 
meant,  nor  anybody  else  to  whom  I  have  shown  my  article.  But  Sir 
Henry  Rawlinson,  who  had  formoily  spoken  so  frankly,  nay,  so  modestly 
of  his  own  share  in  the  first  decipherment  of  the  Persian  cuneiform 
letters,  was  so  blinded  by  what  I  can  only  call  overweening  pride,  that 
he  would  not  see  the  real  drift  of  my  remarks,  but  sent  off  a  most 
offensive  letter  to  the  Athenaeum  which  no  one  in  future  will  regTet 
more  than  he  himself.  In  it  he  did  not  contradict  my  statements,  but 
rather  his  own  former  statements.  He  totally  misrepresented  my 
article  on  Julius  Mohl,  which  was  simply  meant  to  give  an  abstract  of 
the  annual  reports  of  Prof.  Julius  Mohl  in  his  now  famous  Rappoits 
fails  a  la  Societe  Asiadque  de  Paris  de  1840  a  1S67.  He  had 
evidently  forgotten  what  he  had  written  in  his  better  days  in  1846 
'that   the    only   identifications    (of   Persian    cuneiform   letters)    which 


312  BIOGRAPHICAL    ESSAYS. 

he  presumed  were  essentially  different  from  those  which  are  universally 
received  at  present  are  f  and  in.'  He  naturally  said  nothing  about 
the  rearrangement  of  the  nasals.  How  does  that  differ  from  what 
I  had  said,  '  One  letter  only,  the  m,  remained  to  be  determined  by 
Eawlinson.'  For  even  the  letter  t'  had  been  read  as  tli  by  Grotefend, 
as  t ,  th,  or  dh  by  Lassen,  and  in  the  end  turned  out  to  be  not  t'  at  all, 
but  t  before  u.  That  the  discovery  of  the  inherent  vowels  was  first  made 
and  first  announced  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hincks,  Sir  H.  Eawlinson  himself 
seems  no  longer  inclined  to  deny,  for  priority  of  discovery  is  always 
settled  by  priority  of  publication.  Readers  who  take  an  interest  in  the 
true  liistory  of  the  decipherment  of  the  cuneiform  alphabet  will  find 
all  the  facts  in  my  letters  to  tlie  Athenaeum,  Nov.  15  and  Nov.  29,  1S84. 
Sir  H.  Eawlinson  expressed  a  hope  that  I  would  alter  what  I  have 
written.  I  am  not  able  to  alter  a  single  word,  and  he  would  be  soi-ry 
if  I  did.  I  doubt  whetlier  there  is  anybody  in  England  or  abroad  who 
has  bestowed  more  unstinted  praise  on  his  real  discoveries,  and  who  has 
never  said  an  unkind  word  of  him.  Nor  have  I  altered  what  I  had 
written  of  Sir  H.  Rawlinson's  splendid  work,  both  as  an  explorer  and 
as  a  decipherer.  I  have  never  joined  his  detractors,  and  even  now, 
though  I  regret  his  unworthy  behaviour  on  several  occasions  during  the 
last  years,  my  appreciation  of  the  work  done  by  him  will  remain  the 
same  as  ever.     0,  si  tacuisgcs! 


BUNSEN'. 

(1791-1860.) 

OURS  is,  no  doubt,  a  forgetful  age.  Every  day 
brings  new  events  rushing  in  upon  us  from  all 
parts  of  the  world,  and  the  hours  of  real  rest,  when 
we  might  ponder  over  the  past,  recall  pleasant  days, 
gaze  again  on  the  faces  of  those  who  are  no  more,  are 
few  indeed.  Men  and  women  disappear  from  this  busy 
stage,  and  though  for  a  time  they  had  been  the  ra- 
diating centres  of  social,  political,  or  literary  life, 
their  places  are  soon  taken  by  others — '  the  place 
thereof  shall  know  them  no  more.'  Few  only  appear 
again  after  a  time,  claiming  once  more  our  attention, 
through  the  memoirs  of  their  lives,  and  then  either 
flitting  away  for  ever  among  the  shades  of  the  de- 
parted, or  assuming  afresh  a  power  of  life,  a  place  in 
history,  and  an  influence  on  the  future  often  more 
powerful  even  than  that  which  they  exercised  on  the 
world  while  living  in  it.  To  call  the  great  and  good 
thus  back  from  the  grave  is  no  easy  task ;  it  requires 
not  only  the  power  of  a  vates  socer,  but  the  heart  of 
a  loving  friend.  Few  men  live  great  and  good  lives, 
still  fewer  can  write  them ;    nay,  often,  when  they 

*  '  A  Memoir  of  Baron  Bunsen,  by  his  widow,  Baroness  Bunsen.' 
2  vols.  8vo.     Longmans,  iS68. 

'  Christian  Carl  Josias  Freiherr  von  Bunsen.  Aus  seinen  Brief  en 
and  nach  eigener  Erinnerunggeschildert,  von  seiner  Wittwe.  Deutsche 
Ausgabe,  durch  neue  Mittheilungen  vermehrt  von  Friedrich  Nippold.' 
Leipzig,  1868. 


314  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

have  been  lived  and  have  been  written,  the  world 
passes  by  unheeding,  as  crowds  will  pass  without  a 
glance  by  the  portraits  of  a  Titian  or  a  Van  Dyke. 
Now  and  then,  however,  a  biography  takes  root,  and 
then  acts  as  a  lesson  as  no  other  lesson  can  act.  Such 
biographies  have  all  the  importance  of  an  Ecce  Homo, 
showing  to  the  world  what  man  can  be,  and  perma- 
nently raising  the  ideal  of  human  life.  It  was  so  in 
England  with  the  life  of  Dr.  Arnold ;  it  was  so  more 
lately  with  the  life  of  Prince  Albert ;  it  will  be  the 
same  with  the  life  of  Bunsen. 

It  seems  but  yesterday  that  Bunsen  left  England ; 
yet  it  was  in  1854  that  his  house  in  Carlton-terrace 
ceased  to  be  the  refreshing  oasis  in  London  life  which 
many  still  remember,  and  that  the  powerful,  thought- 
ful, beautiful,  loving  face  of  the  Prussian  Ambassador 
was  seen  for  the  last  time  in  London  society.  Bunsen 
then  retired  from  public  life,  and  after  spending  six 
more  years  in  literary  work,  struggling  with  death, 
yet  revelling  in  life,  he  died  at  Bonn  on  the  28th  of 
November,  i860.  His  widow  has  devoted  the  years 
of  her  solitude  to  the  noble  work  of  collecting  the 
materials  for  a  biography  of  her  husband,  and  we 
have  now  in  two  large  volumes  all  that  could  be 
collected,  or,  at  least,  all  that  could  be  conveniently 
published,  of  the  sayings  and  doings  of  Bunsen,  the 
scholar,  the  statesman,  and,  above  all,  the  philosopher 
and  the  Christian.  Tln'oughout  the  two  volumes 
the  outward  events  are  sketched  by  the  hand  of  the 
Baroness  Bunsen  ;  but  there  runs,  as  between  wooded 
hills,  the  main  stream  of  Bunsen's  mind,  the  outpour- 
ings of  his  heart,  which  were  given  so  freely  and  fully 
in  his  letters  to  his  friends.     When  such  materials 


BUNSEN.  315 

exist  there  can  be  no  more  satisfactory  kind  of  bio- 
graphy than  that  of  introducing  the  man  himself, 
speaking  unreservedly  to  his  most  intimate  friends 
on  the  great  events  of  his  life.  This  is  an  auto- 
biography, in  fact,  free  from  all  drawbacks.  Here 
and  there  that  process,  it  is  true,  entails  a  greater 
fulness  of  detail  than  is  acceptable  to  ordinary 
readers,  however  highly  Bunsen^'s  own  friends  may 
value  every  line  of  his  familiar  letters.  But  general 
readers  may  easily  pass  over  letters  addressed  to 
different  persons,  or  treating  of  subjects  less  inter- 
esting to  themselves,  without  losing  the  thread  of 
the  story  of  the  whole  life;  while  it  is  sometimes  of 
great  interest  to  see  the  same  subject  discussed  by 
Bunsen  in  letters  addressed  to  different  people.  One 
serious  difficulty  in  these  letters  is  that  they  are 
nearly  all  translations  from  the  German,  and  in  the 
process  of  translation  some  of  the  original  charm  is 
inevitably  lost.  The  translations  are  very  faithful, 
and  they  do  not  sacrifice  the  peculiar  turn  of  German 
thought  to  the  requirements  of  strictly  idiomatic 
English.  Even  the  narrative  itself  betrays  occasion- 
ally the  German  atmosphere  in  which  it  was  written, 
but  the  whole  book  brings  back  all  the  more  vividly 
to  those  who  knew  Bunsen  the  language  and  the 
very  expressions  of  his  English  conversation.  The 
two  volumes  are  too  bulky,  and  one's  arms  ache 
while  holding  them ;  yet  one  is  loth  to  put  them 
down,  and  there  will  be  few  readers  who  do  not 
regret  that  more  could  not  have  been  told  us  of 
Bunsen's  life. 

All  really  great  and  honest  men  may  be  said  to 
live  three  lives : — there  is  one  life  which  is  seen  and 


316  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

accepted  by  the  world  at  large,  a  man's  outward  life ; 
there  is  a  second  life  which  is  seen  by  a  man's  most 
intimate  friends,  his  household  life;  and  there  is  a 
third  life,  seen  only  by  the  man  himself  and  by  Him 
who  searcheth  the  heart,  which  may  be  called  the 
inner  or  heavenly  life.  Most  biographers  are  and 
must  be  satisfied  with  giving  the  two  former  aspects 
of  their  hero's  life — the  version  of  the  world  and 
that  of  his  friends.  Both  are  important,  both  con- 
tain some  truth,  though  neither  of  them  the  whole 
truth.  But  tliere  is  a  third  life,  a  life  led  in  com- 
munion with  God,  a  life  of  aspiration  rather  than  of 
fulfilment, — that  life  which  we  see,  for  instance,  in 
St.  Paul,  when  he  says,  '  The  good  that  I  would, 
I  do  not :  but  the  evil  which  I  would  not,  that  I  do,' 
It  is  but  seldom  that  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  those 
deep  springs  of  human  character  which  cannot  rise  to 
the  surface  even  in  the  most  confidential  intercourse, 
which  in  everyday  life  are  hidden  from  a  man's  own 
sight,  but  which  break  fortli  when  he  is  alone  with 
his  God  in  secret  prayer — aye,  in  prayers  without 
words.  Here  lies  the  charm  of  Bunsen's  life.  Not 
only  do  we  see  the  man,  the  father,  the  husband, 
the  brother  that  stands  behind  the  Ambassador,  but 
we  see  behind  the  man  his  angel  beholding  the  face 
of  his  Father  which  is  in  heaven.  His  prayers,  poured 
forth  in  the  critical  moments  of  his  life,  have  been 
preserved  to  us,  and  they  show  us  what  the  world 
ought  to  know,  that  our  greatest  men  can  also  be 
our  best  men,  and  that  freedom  of  thought  is  not 
incompatible  with  sincere  religion.  Those  who  knew 
Bunsen  well  know  how  that  deep,  religious  under- 
current of  his  soul  was  constantly  bubbling  up  and 


BUNSEN.  317 

breaking  forth  in  his  conversations,  startling  even 
the  mere  worldling  by  an  earnestness  that  frightened 
away  every  smile.  It  was  said  of  him  that  he  could 
drive  out  devils,  and  he  certainly  could  with  his 
solemn,  yet  loving,  voice  soften  hearts  that  would 
yield  to  no  other  appeal,  and  see  with  one  look 
through  that  mask  which  man  wears  but  too  often 
in  the  masquerade  of  the  world.  Hence  his  numerous 
and  enduring  friendships,  of  which  these  volumes 
contain  so  many  sacred  relics.  Hence  that  confidence 
reposed  in  him  by  men  and  women  who  had  once 
been  brought  in  contact  with  him.  To  those  who 
can  see  with  their  eyes  only,  and  not  with  their 
hearts,  it  may  seem  strange  that  Sir  Robert  Peel, 
shortly  before  his  death,  should  liave  uttered  the 
name  of  Bunsen.  To  those  who  know  that  England 
once  had  Prime  Ministers  who  were  found  praying 
on  their  knees  before  they  delivered  their  greatest 
speeches,  Sir  Robert  Peel's  recollection,  or,  it  may 
be,  desire  of  Bunsen  in  the  last  moments  of  his  life 
has  nothing  strange.  Bunsens  life  was  no  ordinary 
life,  and  the  memoirs  of  that  life  are  more  than  an 
ordinary  book.  That  book  will  tell  in  England 
and  in  Germany  far  more  than  in  the  Middle  Ages 
the  life  of  a  new  Saint ;  nor  are  there  many  Saints 
whose  real  life,  if  sifted  as  the  life  of  Bunsen  has 
been,  would  bear  comparison  with  that  noble  cha- 
racter of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Bunsen  was  born  in  1791  at  Corbach,  a  small  town 
in  the  small  principality  of  Waldeck.  His  father  was 
poor,  but  a  man  of  independent  spirit,  of  moral  recti- 
tude, and  of  deep  religious  convictions.  Bunsen,  the 
son  of  his  old  age,  distinguished  himself  at  school. 


318  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

and  was  sent  to  the  University  of  Marburg  at  the  age 
of  seventeen.  All  he  had  then  to  depend  on  was  an 
Exhibition  of  about  £"]  a  year,  and  a  sum  of  ^''15, 
which  his  father  had  saved  for  him  to  start  him  in 
life.  This  may  seem  a  small  sum,  but  if  we  want  to 
know  how  much  of  paternal  love  and  self-denial  it 
represented  we  ought  to  read  an  entry  in  his  father's 
diary :  '  Account  of  cash  receipts,  by  God's  mercy  ob- 
tained for  transcribing  law  documents  between  1793 
and  1 8 14 — sum  total  3020  thalers  23  groschen,'  that  is 
to  say,  about  .^22  per  annum.  Did  any  English  Duke 
ever  give  his  son  a  more  generous  allowance — more 
than  two- thirds  of  his  own  annual  income?  Bunsen 
began  by  studying  divinity,  and  actually  preached  a 
sermon  at  Marburg,  in  the  church  of  St.  Elizabeth. 
Students  in  divinity  are  required  in  Germany  to  preach 
sermons  as  part  of  their  regular  theological  training, 
and  before  they  are  actually  ordained.  Marburg  was 
not  then  a  very  efficient  University,  and,  not  finding 
there  what  he  wanted,  Bunsen  after  a  year  went  to 
Gottingen,  chiefly  attracted  by  the  fame  of  Heyne. 
He  soon  devoted  himself  entirely  to  classical  studies, 
and  in  order  to  support  himself — for  ^7  per  annum 
will  not  support  even  a  German  student — he  accepted 
the  appointment  of  assistant  teacher  of  Greek  and 
Hebrew  at  the  Gottingen  gymnasium,  and  also  be- 
came private  tutor  to  a  young  American,  Mr.  Astor, 
the  son  of  the  rich  American  merchant.  He  was  thus 
learning  and  teaching  at  the  same  time,  and  he  ac- 
quired by  his  daily  intercourse  with  his  pupil  a  prac- 
tical knowledge  of  the  English  language.  While  at 
Gottingen  he  carried  off,  in  181 2,  a  prize  for  an  Essay 
on  '  The  Athenian  Law  of  Inheritance,'  which  attracted 


BUNSEN.  319 

more  than  usual  attention,  and  ma}^  in  fact,  be  looked 
upon  as  one  of  the  first  attempts  at  Comparative 
Jurisprudence,     In  1813  he  writes  from  Gottingen: — 

'Poor  and  Jonely  did  I  arrive  in  this  place.  Heyne 
received  me,  guided  me,  bore  with  me,  encouraged 
me,  showed  me  in  himself  the  example  of  a  high  and 
noble  energy  and  indefatigable  activity  in  a  calling 
which  was  not  that  to  which  his  merit  entitled  him  ; 
he  might  have  superintended  and  administered  and  . 
maintained  an  entire  kingdom,' 

The  following  passage  from  the  same  letter  deserves 
to  be  quoted  as  coming  from  the  pen  of  a  young  man 
of  twenty-two : — 

'  Learning  annihilates  itself,  and  the  most  perfect 
is  the  first  submerged;  for  the  next  age. scales  with 
ease  the  height  which  cost  the  preceding  the  full 
vigour  of  life.' 

After  leaving  the  University  Bunsen  travelled  in 
Germany  with  young  Astor,  and  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  Frederic  Schlegel  at  Vienna,  of  Jacobi,  Schell- 
ing,  and  Thiersch  at  Munich,  He  was  all  that  time 
continuing  his  own  philological  studies,  and  we  see 
him  at  Munich  attending  lectures  on  Criminal  Law, 
and  making  his  first  beginning  in  the  study  of  Persian, 
When  on  the  point  of  starting  for  Paris  with  his 
American  pupil,  the  news  of  the  glorious  battle  of 
Leipsic  (October,  1813)  disturbed  their  plans,  and  he 
resolved  to  settle  again  at  Gottingen  till  peace  should 
have  been  concluded.  Here,  while  superintending 
the  studies  of  Mr,  Astor,  he  plunged  into  reading  of 
the  most  varied  character.     He  writes  (p.  5^)  • — 

'  I  remain  fii-m  and  strive  after  my  earliest  purpose 
in  life,  more  felt,  perhaps,  than  already  discerned, — 


320  BIOaRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

viz.  to  bring  over  into  my  own  knowledge  and  into 
my  own  Fatherland  the  language  and  the  spirit  of 
the  solemn  and  distant  East.  I  would  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  this  object  even  quit  Europe,  in  order 
to  draw  out  of  the  ancient  well  that  which  I  find  not 
elsewhere.' 

This  is  the  first  indication  of  an  important  element 
in  Bunsen's  early  life,  his  longing  for  the  East,  and 
his  all  but  prophetic  anticipation  of  the  great  results 
which  a  study  of  the  ancient  language  of  India  would 
one  day  yield,  and  the  light  it  would  shed  on  the 
darkest  pages  in  the  ancient  history  of  Greece,  Italy, 
and  Germany.  The  study  of  the  Athenian  law  of 
inheritance  seems  first  to  have  drawn  his  attention  to 
the  ancient  codes  of  Indian  law,  and  he  was  deeply 
impressed  by  the  discovery  that  the  peculiar  system 
of  inheritance  which  in  Greece  existed  only  in  the 
petrified  form  of  a  primitive  custom,  sanctioned  by 
law,  disclosed  in  the  laws  of  Manu  its  original  pur- 
port and  natural  meaning.  This  one  spark  excited 
in  Bunsen^'s  mind  that  constant  yearning  after  a 
knowledge  of  Eastern  and  more  particularly  of  Indian 
literature,  which  very  nearly  drove  him  to  India  in 
the  same  adventurous  spirit  as  Anquetil  Duperron 
and  Czoma  de  Koros.  We  are  now  familiar  with  the 
great  results  that  have  been  obtained  by  a  study  of 
the  ancient  languages  and  religion  of  the  East,  but 
in  1 813  neither  Bopp  nor  Grimm  had  begun  to  pub- 
lish, and  Frederic  Schlegel  was  the  only  one  who  in 
his  little  pamphlet,  '  On  the  Language  and  the 
Wisdom  of  the  Indians'  (1808),  had  ventured  to 
assert  a  real  intellectual  relationship  between  Europe 
and  India.     One  of  Bunsen's  earliest  friends,  Wolrad 


BUNSEN.  321 

Schumacher,  related  that  even  at  school  Bunsen's 
mind  was  turned  towards  India.  '  Sometimes  he 
would  let  fall  a  word  about  India,  which  was  unac- 
countable to  me,  as  at  that  time  I  connected  only 
a  geographical  conception  with  that  name'  (p.  17). 

"While  thus  eno;aged  in  his  studies  at  Gottino-en.  and 
working  in  company  with  such  friends  as  Brandis 
the  historian  of  Greek  philosophy,  Lachmann  the 
editor  of  the  New  Testament,  Liicke  the  theologian, 
Ernst  Schulze  the  poet,  and  others,  Bunsen  felb  the 
influence  of  the  great  events  that  brought  about  the 
regeneration  of  Germany,  nor  was  he  the  man  to  stand 
aloof,  absorbed  in  literary  work,  while  others  were 
busy  doing  mischief  difficult  to  remedy.  The  Princes 
of  Germany  and  their  friends,  though  grateful  to  the 
people  for  having  at  last  shaken  off  with  fearful  sacri- 
fices the  foreign  yoke  of  Napoleon,  were  most  anxious 
to  maintain  for  their  own  benefit  that  convenient 
system  of  police  government  which  for  so  long  had 
kept  the  whole  of  Germany  under  French  control. 
'  It  is  but  too  certain,'  Bunsen  writes,  '  that  either  for 
want  of  goodwill  or  of  intelligence  our  Sovereigns  will 
not  grant  us  freedom  such  as  we  deserve.  .  .  .  And  I 
fear  that,  as  before,  the  much-enduring  German  will 
become  an  object  of  contempt  to  all  nations  who  know 
how  to  value  national  spirit.'  His  first  political 
essays  belong  to  that  period.  Up  to  August,  18 14, 
Bunsen  continued  to  act  as  private  tutor  to  Mr.  Astor, 
though  we  see  him  at  the  same  time,  with  his  insati- 
able thirst  after  knowledge,  attending  courses  of  lec- 
tures on  astronomy,  mineralogy,  and  other  subjects 
apparently  so  foreign  to  the  main  current  of  his  mind. 
When  Mr.  Astor  left  him  to  return  to  America,  Bunsen 
VOL.  II.  Y 


322  BIOGfRA-PHlCAL   ESSAYS. 

went  to  Holland  to  see  a  sister  to  whom  he  was 
deeply  attached,  and  who  seems  to  have  shared  with 
him  the  same  religious  convictions  which  in  youth, 
manhood,  and  old  age  formed  the  foundation  of  Bun- 
sen's  life.  Some  of  Bunsen's  detractors  have  accused 
him  of  professing  Christian  piety  in  circles  where 
such  professions  were  sure  to  be  well  received.  Let 
them  read  now  the  annals  of  his  early  life,  and  they 
will  find  to  their  shame  how  boldly  the  same  Bunsen 
professed  his  religious  convictions  among  the  students 
and  professors  of  Gottingen,  who  either  scoffed  at 
Christianity  or  only  tolerated  it  as  a  kind  of  harm- 
less superstition.  We  shall  only  quote  one  in- 
stance : — 

'  Bunsen,  when  a  young  student  at  Gottingen,  once 
suddenly  quitted  a  lecture  in  indignation  at  the  un- 
worthy manner  in  which  the  most  sacred  subjects 
were  treated  by  one  of  the  professors.  The  professor 
paused  at  the  interruption,  and  hazarded  the  remark 
that  "  some  one  belonijincj  to  the  Old  Testament  had 
possibly  slipped  in  unrecognised."  That  called  forth 
a  burst  of  laughter  from  the  entire  audience,  all  being 
as  well  aware  as  the  lecturer  himself  who  it  was  that 
had  mortified  him.' 

During  his  stay  in  Holland  Bunsen  not  only 
studied  the  language  and  literature  of  that  country, 
but  his  mind  was  also  much  occupied  in  observing 
the  national  and  religious  character  of  this  small 
but  interesting  branch  of  the  Teutonic  race.  He 
writes  : — 

'  In  all  things  the  German,  or,  if  you  will,  the 
Teutonic,  character  is  worked  out  into  form  in  a  man- 
ner mure  decidedly  national  than  anywhere  else.  .  .  . 


BUNSEN.  323 

This  journey  has  yet  more  confirmed  my  decision 
to  become  acquainted  with  the  entire  Germanic  race, 
and  then  to  proceed  with  the  development  of  my 
governing  ideas — (i.  e.  the  study  of  Eastern  languages 
in  elucidation  of  Western  thought).  For  this  purpose 
I  am  about  to  travel  with  Brandis  to  Copenhagen  to 
learn  Danish,  and,  above  all,  Icelandic' 

And  so  he  did.  The  young  student,  as  yet  without 
any  prospects  in  life,  threw  up  his  position  at  Gottin- 
gen,  declined  to  waste  his  energies  as  a  schoolmaster, 
and  started,  we  hardly  know  how,  on  his  journey  to 
Denmark.  There,  in  company  with  Brandis,  he  lived 
and  worked  hard  at  Danish,  and  then  attacked  the 
study  of  the  ancient  Icelandic  language  and  literature 
with  a  fervour  and  with  a  purpose  that  shrank  fi'om 
no  difficulty.     He  writes  (p.  79) : — 

'  The  object  of  my  research  requires  the  acquisition 
of  the  whole  treasures  of  language,  in  order  to  com- 
plete my  favourite  linguistic  theories,  and  to  inquire 
into  the  poetry  and  religious  conceptions  of  German- 
Scandinavian  heathenism,  and  their  historical  con- 
nexion with  the  East.' 

When  his  work  in  Denmark  was  finished,  and 
when  he  had  collected  materials,  some  of  which,  as 
his  copy  taken  of  the  '  Voluspa,'  a  poem  of  the  Edda, 
were  not  published  till  forty  years  later,  he  started 
with  Brandis  for  Berlin.  'Prussia,'  he  writes  on  the 
10th  of  October,  1815,  'is  tlte  true  Germany.'  Thither 
he  felt  drawn,  as  well  as  Brandis,  and  thither  he 
invited  his  friends,  though,  it  must  be  confessed,  with- 
out suggesting  to  them  any  settled  plan  of  how  to 
earn  then-  daily  bread.  He  writes  as  if  he  had  been 
even  then  at  the  head  of  affairs  in  Berlin,  though  he 

Y  a 


324  BIOaRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

was  only  the  friend  of  a  friend  of  Niebuhr's,  Niebuhr 
himself  being  by  no  means  all  powerful  in  Prussia, 
even  in  1815.  This  hopefulness  was  a  trait  in 
Bunsen's  character  that  remained  through  life.  A 
plan  was  no  sooner  suggested  to  him  and  approved 
by  him  than  he  took  it  for  granted  that  all  obstacles 
must  vanish ;  and  many  a  time  did  all  obstacles  vanish 
before  the  joyous  confidence  of  that  magician,  a  fact 
that  should  be  remembered  by  those  who  used  to 
blame  him  as  sanguine  and  visionary.  One  of  his 
friends,  Liicke,  writes  to  Ernst  Schulze,  the  poet,  whom 
Bunsen  had  invited  to  Denmark,  and  afterwards  to 
Berlin : — 

'  In  the  enclosed  richly-filled  letter  you  will  recog- 
nise Bunsen's  power  and  splendour  of  mind,  and  you 
will  also  not  fail  to  perceive  his  thoughtlessness  in 
making  projects.  He  and  Brandis  are  a  pair  of  most 
amiable  speculators,  full  of  affection;  but  one  must 
meet  them  with  the  ne  quid  niuiis.^ 

However,  Bunsen  in  his  flight  was  not  to  be  scared 
by  any  warning  or  checked  by  calculating  the  chances 
of  success  or  failure.  With  Brandis  he  went  to  Berlin, 
spent  the  glorious  winter  from  1815  to  1816  in  the 
society  of  men  like  Niebuhr  and  Schleiermacher,  and 
became  more  and  more  determined  in  his  own  plan 
of  life,  which  was  to  study  Oriental  languages  in 
Paris,  London,  or  Calcutta,  and  then  to  settle  at 
Berlin  as  Professor  of  Universal  History.  A  full 
statement  of  his  literary  labours,  both  for  the  past 
and  for  the  future,  was  drawn  up  by  him,  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  Niebuhr,  and  it  will  be  read  even  now 
with  interest  by  those  who  knew  Bunsen  when  he 
tried  to  take  up  forty  years  later  the  threads  that 


BUNSEN.  S25 

had  slipped  from  his  hand  at  the  age  of  four-and- 
twenty. 

Instead  of  being  sent  to  study  at  Paris  and  London 
by  the  Prussian  Government,  as  he  seems  to  have 
wished,  he  was  suddenly  called  to  Paris  by  his  old 
pupil,  Mr.  Astor,  who,  after  two  years'  absence,  had 
returned  to  Europe,  and  was  anxious  to  renew  his 
relations  with  Bunsen.  Bunsen's  object  in  accepting 
Astor's  invitation  to  Paris  was  to  study  Persian,  and 
great  was  his  disappointment  when,  on  arriving 
there,  Mr.  Astor  wished  him  at  once  to  start  for  Italy. 
This  was  too  much  for  Bunsen,  to  be  turned  back 
just  as  he  was  going  to  quench  his  thirst  for  Oriental 
literature  in  the  lectures  of  Sylvestre  de  Sacy.  A 
compromise  was  effected.  Bunsen  remained  for  three 
months  in  Paris,  and  promised  then  to  join  his  friend 
and  pupil  in  Italy,  How  he  worked  at  Persian  and 
Arabic  during  the  interval  must  be  read  in  his  own 
letters : — 

'  I  write  from  six  in  the  morning  till  four  in  the 
afternoon,  only  in  the  course  of  that  time  having  a 
walk  in  the  garden  of  the  Luxembourg,  where  I  also 
often  study ;  from  four  to  six  I  dine  and  walk ;  from 
six  to  seven  sleep ;  from  seven  to  eleven  work  again. 
I  have  overtaken  in  study  some  of  the  French  students 
who  had  begun  a  year  ago.  God  be  thanked  for  this 
help!  Before  I  go  to  bed  I  read  a  chapter  in  the 
New  Testament,  in  the  morning  on  rising  one  in 
the  Old  Testament ;  yesterday  I  began  the  Psalms  from 
the  first.' 

As  soon  as  he  felt  that  he  could  continue  his  study 
of  Persian  without  the  aid  of  a  master,  he  left  Paris. 
Though    immersed    in   work,   he  had   made   several 


326  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

acquaintances,  among  others  that  of  Alexander  von 
Humboldt,  '  who  intends  in  a  few  years  to  visit  Asia, 
where  I  may  hope  to  meet  him.  He  has  been 
beyond  measure  kind  to  me,  and  from  him  I  shall 
receive  the  best  recommendations  for  Italy  and 
England,  as  well  as  from  his  brother,  now  Prussian 
Minister  in  London.  Lastly,  the  winter  in  Rome 
may  become  to  me,  by  the  presence  of  Niebuhr,  more 
instructive  and  fruitful  than  in  any  other  place. 
Thus  has  God  ordained  all  things  for  me  for  the  best, 
according  to  His  will,  not  mine,  and  far  better  than  I 
deserve.' 

These  were  the  feelings  with  which  the  young 
scholar,  then  twenty-four  years  of  age,  started  for 
Italy,  as  yet  without  any  position,  without  having 
published  a  single  work,  without  knowing,  as  we 
may  suppose,  where  to  rest  his  head.  And  yet  he 
was  full,  not  only  of  hope,  but  of  gratitude,  and 
he  little  dreamt  that  before  seven  years  had  passed 
he  would  bo  in  Niebuhr's  place,  and  before  twenty- 
five  years  had  passed  in  the  place  of  William  von 
Humboldt,  the  Prussian  Ambassador  at  the  Court  of 
St.  James. 

The  immediate  future,  in  fact,  had  some  severe 
disappointments  in  store  for  him.  When  he  arrived 
at  Florence  to  meet  Mr.  Astor,  the  young  American 
had  received  peremptory  orders  to  return  to  New 
York,  and  as  Bunsen  declined  to  follow  him,  he  found 
himself  really  stranded  at  Florence,  and  all  his  plans 
thoroughly  upset.  Yet,  though  at  that  very  time  full 
of  care  and  anxiety  about  his  nearest  relations,  who 
looked  to  him  for  support  when  he  could  hardly 
support  himself,  his  God-trusting  spirit  did  not  break 


BUN SEN.  327 

down.  He  remained  at  Florence,  continuing  his  Per- 
sian studies,  and  making  a  living  by  private  tuition. 
A  Mr.  Cathcart  seems  to  have  been  his  favourite  pupil, 
and  through  him  new  prospects  of  eventually  pro- 
ceeding to  India  seemed  to  open.  But,  at  the  same 
time,  Bunsen  began  to  feel  that  the  circumstances  of 
his  life  became  critical.  '  I  feel,'  he  says,  '  that  I  am 
on  the  point  of  securing  or  losing  the  fruit  of  my 
labours  for  life.'  Rome  and  Niebuhr  seemed  the  only 
haven  in  sight,  and  thither  Bunsen  now  began  to  steer 
nis  frail  bark.  He  arrived  in  Rome  on  the  14th  of 
November,  18 16.  Niebuhr,  who  was  Prussian  Minis- 
ter, received  him  with  great  kindness,  and  entered 
heartily  into  the  literary  plans  of  his  young  friend. 
Brandis,  Niebuhr's  secretary,  renewed  in  common  with 
his  old  friend  his  study  of  Greek  philosophy.  A  native 
teacher  of  Arabic  was  engaged  to  help  Bunsen  in  his 
Oriental  studies.  The  necessary  supplies  seem  to  have 
come  partly  from  Mr.  Astor,  partly  from  private 
lessons  for  which  Bunsen  had  to  make  time  in  the 
midst  of  his  varied  occupations.  Plato,  Fir du si,  the 
Koran,  Dante,  Isaiah,  the  Edda  are  mentioned  by 
himself  as  his  daily  study. 

From  an  English  point  of  view  that  young  man 
at  Rome,  without  a  status,  without  a  settled  prospect 
in  life,  would  have  seemed  an  amiable  dreamer, 
destined  to  wake  suddenly,  and  not  very  pleasantly, 
to  the  stern  realities  of  life.  If  anything  seemed 
unlikely,  it  was  that  an  English  gentleman,  a  man 
of  good  birth  and  of  independent  fortune,  should 
give  his  daughter  to  this  poor  young  German  at 
Rome.  Yet  this  was  the  very  thing  which  a  kind 
Providence,  that  Providence  in  which  Bunsen  trusted 


328  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

amid  all  his  troubles  and  difficulties,  brought  to  pass. 
Bunsen  became  acquainted  with  Mr.  Waddington, 
and  was  allowed  to  read  German  with  his  daughters. 
In  the  most  honourable  manner  he  broke  off  his 
visits  when  he  became  aware  of  his  feelings  for  Miss 
Waddington.     He  writes  to  his  sister : — 

'  Having,  at  first,  believed  myself  quite  safe  (the 
more  so  as  I  cannot  think  of  marrying  without  im- 
pairing my  whole  scheme  of  mental  development — 
and,  least  of  all,  could  I  think  of  pretending  to  a  girl 
of  fortune),  I  thought  there  was  no  danger.' 

A  little  later  he  writes  to  Mrs.  Waddington  to  ex- 
plain to  her  the  reason  for  his  discontinuing  his  visits. 
But  the  mother— and,  to  judge  from  her  letters,  a 
high-minded  mother  she  must  have  been — accepted 
Bunsen  on  trust ;  he  was  allowed  to  return  to  the 
house,  and  on  the  ist  of  July,  1817,  the  young  German 
student,  then  twenty-five  years  of  age,  was  married  at 
Rome  to  Miss  Waddington.  What  a  truly  important 
event  this  was  for  Bunsen,  even  those  who  had  not 
the  privilege  of  knowing  the  partner  of  his  life  may 
learn  from  the  work  before  us.  Though  little  is  said 
in  these  memoirs  of  his  wife,  the  mother  of  his  children, 
the  partner  of  his  joys  and  sorrows,  it  is  easy  to  see 
how  Bunsen's  whole  mode  of  life  became  possible  only 
by  the  unceasing  devotion  of  an  ardent  soul  and 
a  clear  head  consecrated  to  one  object — to  love  and 
to  cherish,  for  better  for  worse,  for  richer  for  poorer, 
in  sickness  and  in  health,  till  death  us  do  part— ay, 
and  even  after  death  !  With  such  a  wife  the  soul  of 
Bunsen  could  soar  on  its  wings,  the  small  cares  of  life 
were  removed,  an  independence  was  secured,  and, 
though  the  Indian  plans  had  to  be  surrendered,  the 


BUNSEN.  329 

highest  ambition  of  Bunsen's  life,  a  professorship  in  a 
German  University,  seemed  now  easy  of  attainment. 
We  should  have  liked  a  few  more  pages  describing 
the  joyous  life  of  tho  young  couple  in  the  heyday  of 
their  life ;  we  could  have  wished  that  he  had  not  de- 
clined the  wish  of  his  mother-in-law,  to  have  his 
bust  made  by  Thorwaldsen,  at  a  time  when  he  must 
have  been  a  model  of  manly  beauty.  But  if  we 
know  less  than  we  could  wish  of  what  Bunsen 
then  was  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  we  are  allowed 
an  insight  into  that  heavenly  life  which  underlay 
all  the  outward  happiness  of  that  time,  and  which 
shows  him  to  us  as  but  one  eye  could  then  have  seen 
him.  A  few  weeks  after  his  marriage  he  writes  in  his 
journal : — 

'  Eternal,  omnipresent  God !  enlighten  me  with 
Thy  Holy  Spirit,  and  fill  me  with  Thy  heavenly 
light !  What  in  childhood  I  felt  and  yearned  after, 
what  throughout  the  years  of  youth  grew  clearer 
and  clearer  before  my  soul, — I  will  now  venture  to 
hold  fast,  to  examine,  to  represent  the  revelation  of 
Thee  in  man's  energies  and  efforts ;  Thy  firm  path 
through  the  stream  of  ages  I  long  to  trace  and 
recognise,  as  far  as  may  be  permitted  to  me  even  in 
this  bodj'-  of  earth.  The  song  of  praise  to  Thee  from 
the  whole  of  humanity,  in  times  far  and  near, — the 
pains  and  lamentations  of  men,  and  their  consola- 
tions in  Thee, — I  wish  to  take  in,  clear  and  un- 
hindered. Do  Thou  send  me  Thy  Spirit  of  Truth, 
that  I  may  behold  things  earthly  as  they  are,  with- 
out veil  and  without  mask,  without  human  trappings 
and  empty  adornment,  and  that  in  the  silent  peace 
of  truth  I  may  feel  and  recognise  Thee.     Let  me  not 


330  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

falter,  nor  slide  away  from  the  great  end  of  knowing 
Thee.  Let  not  the  joys,  or  honours,  or  vanities  of 
the  world  enfeeble  and  darken  my  spirit;  let  me 
ever  feel  that  I  can  only  perceive  and  know  Thee  in 
so  far  as  mine  is  a  living  soul,  and  lives,  and  moves, 
and  has  its  being  in  Thee.' 

Here  we  see  Bunsen  as  the  world  did  not  see  him, 
and  we  may  observe  how  then,  as  ever,  his  literary 
work  was  to  him  hallowed  by  the  objects  for  which 
it  was  intended.  '  The  firm  path  of  God  through  the 
stream  of  ages '  is  but  another  title  for  one  of  his  last 
works,  '  God  in  History,'  planned  with  such  youthful 
ardour,  and  finished  under  the  lengthening  shadow  of 
death. 

The  happiness  of  Bunsen's  life  at  Rome  may  easily 
be  imaQ;ined.  Thouirh  anxious  to  beoin  his  work 
at  a  German  University,  he  stipulated  for  three  more 
years  of  freedom  and  preparation.  Who  could  have 
made  the  sacrifice  of  the  bright  spring  of  life,  of  the 
unclouded  daj's  of  happiness  at  Rome  with  wife  and 
children,  and  with  such  friends  as  Niebuhr  and 
Brandish  Yet  this  stay  at  Rome  was  fraught  with 
fatal  consequences.  It  led  the  straight  current  of 
Bunsen's  life,  which  lay  so  clear  before  him,  into  a 
new  bed,  at  first  very  tempting,  for  a  time  smooth 
and  sunny,  but  alas!  ending  in  waste  of  energy  for 
which  no  outward  splendour  could  atone.  The  first 
false  step  seemed  very  natural  and  harmless.  When 
Brandis  went  to  Germany  to  begin  his  professorial 
work,  Bunsen  took  his  place  as  Niebuhr's  secretary 
at  Rome.  He  was  determined,  then,  that  nothing 
should  induce  him  to  remain  in  the  diplomatic  career 
(P-  ^  3°)'  ^^^  ^^^^  current  of  that  mill-stream  was  too 


BUNSEN.  331 

stroncT  even  for  Bunsen.  How  he  remained  as  Secre- 
tary  of  Legation,  1818;  how  the  King  of  Prussia. 
Frederick  WiUiam  III,  came  to  visit  Rome,  and  took 
a  fancy  to  the  young  diplomatist,  who  could  speak 
to  him  with  a  modesty  and  frankness  little  known 
at  Courts ;  how,  when  Niebuhr  exchanged  his  em- 
bassy for  a  professorial  chair  at  Bonn,  Bunsen  re- 
mained as  Chargd  d' Affaires  ;  how  he  went  to  Berlin, 
1837-8,  and  gained  the  hearts  of  the  old  King  and 
of  everybody  else ;  how  he  returned  to  Rome  and 
was  fascinated  by  the  young  Crown  Prince  of  Prussia, 
afterwards  Frederick  William  IV,  whom  he  had  to 
conduct  through  the  antiquities  and  the  modern  life 
of  the  world  city;  how  he  became  Prussian  Minister, 
the  friend  of  popes  and  cardinals,  the  centre  of  the 
best  and  most  brilliant  society;  how,  when  the  ditn- 
culties  began  between  Prussia  and  the  Papal  Govern- 
ment, chiefly  with  regard  to  mixed  marriages,  Bunsen 
tried  to  mediate,  and  was  at  last  disowned  by  both 
parties  in  1838 — all  this  may  now  be  read  in  the 
open  memoirs  of  his  life.  His  letters  during  these 
twenty  years  are  numerous  and  full,  particularly 
those  addressed  to  his  sister,  to  whom  he  was  deeply 
attached.  They  are  the  most  touching  and  elevating 
record  of  a  life  spent  in  important  official  business, 
in  interesting  social  intercourse,  in  literary  and  anti- 
quarian researches,  in  the  enjoyment  of  art  and 
nature,  and  in  the  blessedness  of  a  prosperous  family 
life,  and  throughout  in  an  unbroken  communion  with 
God.  There  is  hardly  a  letter  without  an  expression 
of  that  religion  in  common  life,  that  constant  con- 
sciousness of  a  Divine  Presence,  which  made  his  life 
a  life  in  God.     To  many  readers  this  free  outpouring 


332  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

of  a  God-loving  soul  will  seem  to  approach  too  near 
to  that  abuse  of  religious  phraseology  which  is  a  sign 
of  superficial  rather  than  of  deep-rooted  piety.  But, 
though  through  life  a  sworn  enemy  of  every  kind  of 
cant,  Bunsen  never  would  surrender  the  privilege  of 
speaking  the  language  of  a  Christian,  because  that 
language  had  been  profaned  by  the  thoughtless  repe- 
tition of  shallow  pietists. 

Bunsen  has  frequently  been  accused  of  pietism, 
particular!}'-  in  Germany,  by  men  who  could  not  dis- 
tinguish between  pietism  and  piety,  just  as  in  Eng- 
land he  was  attacked  as  a  freethinker  by  men  who 
never  knew  the  freedom  of  the  children  of  God. 
'  Christianity  is  ours,  not  theirs,'  he  would  frequently 
say  of  those  who  made  religion  a  mere  profession, 
and  imagined  they  knew  Christ  because  they  held  a 
crozier  and  wore  a  mitre.  We  can  now  watch  the 
deep  emotions  and  firm  convictions  of  that  true- 
hearted  man,  in  letters  of  undoubted  sincerity,  ad- 
dressed to  his  sister  and  his  friends,  and  we  can  only 
wonder  with  what  feelings  they  have  been  perused 
by  those  who  in  England  questioned  his  Christianity 
or  who  in  Germany  suspected  his  honesty. 

From  the  time  of  his  first  meeting  with  tlie  King 
of  Prussia  at  Rome,  and  still  more,  after  his  stay  at 
Berlin  in  1827,  Bunsen's  chief  interest  with  regard 
to  Prussia  centred  in  ecclesiastical  matters.  The 
KincT,  after  effectino;  the  union  of  the  Lutheran  and 
Calvinistic  branches  of  the  Protestant  Church,  was 
deeply  interested  in  drawing  up  a  new  Liturgy  for 
his  own  national,  or,  as  it  was  called.  Evangelical 
Church.  The  introduction  of  his  liturgy,  or  Agenda, 
particularly  as  it  was  carried  out,  like  everything  else 


BUNSEN.  333 

in  Prussia,  by  Royal  decree,  met  with  considerable 
resistance.  Bunsen,  who  had  been  led  independently 
to  the  study  of  ancient  liturgies,  and  who  had  de- 
voted much  of  his  time  at  Rome  to  the  collection  of 
ancient  hymns  and  hymn  tunes,  could  speak  to  the 
King  on  these  favourite  topics  from  the  fulness  of  his 
heart.  The  King  listened  to  him,  even  when  Bunsen 
ventured  to  express  his  dissent  from  some  of  the 
Royal  proposals,  and  when  he,  the  young  attach^, 
deprecated  any  authoritative  interference  with  the 
freedom  of  the  Church.  In  Prussia  the  whole  move- 
ment was  unpopular,  and  Bunsen,  though  he  worked 
hard  to  render  it  less  so,  was  held  responsible  for 
much  which  he  himself  had  disapproved.  Of  all 
these  turbulent  transactions  there  remains  but  one 
bright  and  precious  relic,  Bunsen's  '  Hymn  and 
Prayer-book.' 

The  Prussian  Legation  on  the  Capitol  was  during 
Bunsen's  day  not  only  the  meeting-place  of  all  dis- 
tinguished Germans,  but,  in  the  absence  of  an  English 
Embassy,  it  also  became  the  recognised  centre  of  the 
most  interesting  portion  of  English  society  at  Rome. 
Among  the  Germans,  whose  presence  told  on  Bunsen's 
life,  either  by  a  continued  friendship  or  by  common 
interests  and  pursuits,  we  meet  the  names  of  Ludwig, 
King  of  Bavaria,  Baron  von  Stein,  the  great  Prussian 
statesman,  Radowitz,  the  less  fortunate  predecessor 
of  Bismarck,  Schnorr,  Overbeck,  and  Mendelssohn. 
Among  Englishmen,  whose  friendship  with  Bunsen 
dates  from  the  Capitol,  we  find  Thirl  wall,  Philip 
Pusey,  Arnold,  and  Julius  Hare.  The  names  of 
Thorwaldsen,  too,  of  Leopardi,  Lord  Hastings,  Cham- 
pollion.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Chateaubriand  occur  again 


334  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

and  again  in  the  memoirs  of  that  Roman  life  which 
teems  with  interesting  events  and  anecdotes.  The 
only  literary  production  of  that  eventful  period  are 
Bunsen's  part  in  Platner's  '  Description  of  Rome,'  and 
the  'Hymn  and  Prayer-book.'  But  much  material 
for  later  publications  had  been  amassed  in  the  mean- 
time. The  study  of  the  Old  Testament  had  been 
prosecuted  at  all  times,  and  in  1824  the  first  be- 
ginning was  made  by  Bunsen  in  the  study  of  hiero- 
glyphics, afterwards  continued  with  Champollion,  and 
later  with  Lepsius.  The  Archaeological  Institute  and 
the  German  Hospital,  both  on  the  Capitol,  were  the 
two  permanent  bequests  that  Bunsen  left  behind 
when  he  shook  ofi"  the  dust  of  his  feet,  and  left 
Rome  on  the  29th  of  April,  1838,  in  search  of  a 
new  Capitol. 

At  Berlin,  Bunsen  was  then  in  disgrace.  He  had 
not  actually  been  dismissed  the  service,  but  he  was 
prohibited  from  going  to  Berlin  to  justify  himself, 
and  he  was  ordered  to  proceed  to  England  on  leave 
of  absence.  To  England,  therefore,  Bunsen  now  di- 
rected his  steps  with  his  wife  and  children,  and  there, 
at  least,  he  was  certain  of  a  warm  welcome,  both 
from  his  wife's  relations  and  from  his  own  very 
numerous  friends.  When  we  read  throuo-h  the  letters 
of  that  period,  we  hardly  miss  the  name  of  a  single 
man  illustrious  at  that  time  in  England.  As  if  to 
make  up  for  the  injustice  done  to  him  in  Italy,  and 
for  the  ingratitude  of  his  country,  people  of  all  classes 
and  of  the  most  opposite  views  vied  in  doing  him 
honour.  Rest  he  certainly  found  none,  while  travel- 
ling about  from  one  town  to  another,  and  staying  at 
friends'  houses,  attending  meetings,  making  speeches, 


BUNSEN.  335 

"writing  articles,  and,  as  usual,  amassing  new  in- 
formation wherever  he  could  find  it.  He  worked  at 
Egyptian  with  Lepsius  ;  at  Welsh  while  staying  with 
Lady  Hall ;  at  Ethnology  with  Dr.  Prichard.  He 
had  to  draw  up  two  State  papers — one  on  the  Papal 
aggression,  the  other  on  the  law  of  divorce.  He 
plunged,  of  course,  at  once  into  all  the  ecclesiastical 
and  theological  questions  that  were  then  agitating 
peoples  minds  in  England,  and  devoted  his  few  really 
quiet  hours  to  the  preparation  of  his  own  'Life  of 
Christ.'  With  Lord  Ashley  he  attended  Bible  meet- 
ings, with  Mrs.  Fry  he  explored  the  prisons,  with 
Philip  Pusey  he  attended  agricultural  assemblies,  and 
he  spent  night  after  night  as  an  admiring  listener  in 
the  House  of  Commons.  He  was  presented  to  the 
Queen  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  was  made  a 
D.C.L.  at  Oxford,  discussed  the  future  with  J.  H. 
Newman,  the  past  with  Buckland,  Sedgwick,  and 
Whewell.  Lord  Palmers  ton  and  Lord  John  E-ussell 
invited  him  to  political  conferences ;  Maurice  and 
Keble  listened  to  his  fervent  addresses ;  Dr.  Arnold 
consulted  the  friend  of  Niebuhr  on  his  own  '  History 
of  Rome,'  and  tried  to  convert  him  to  more  liberal 
opinions  with  regard  to  Church  reform.  Dr.  Holland, 
Mrs.  Austin,  Puskin,  Carlyle,  Macaulay,  Gaisford, 
Dr.  Hawkins,  and  many  more,  all  greeted  him,  all 
tried  to  do  him  honour,  and  many  of  them  became 
attached  to  him  for  life.  The  architectural  monu- 
ments of  England,  its  castles,  parks,  and  ruins, 
passed  quickly  through  his  field  of  vision  during 
that  short  stay.  But  he  soon  calls  out :  '  I  care  not 
now  for  all  the  ruins  of  England ;  it  is  her  life  that 
I  like.' 


336  BIOaRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Most  touching  is  his  admiration,  his  real  love  of 
Gladstone.  Thirty  years  have  since  passed,  and  the 
world  at  large  has  found  out  by  this  time  what  Eng- 
land possesses  in  him.  But  it  was  not  so  in  1838, 
and  few  men  at  that  early  time  could  have  read 
Gladstone's  heart  and  mind  so  truly  as  Bunsen. 
Here  are  a  few  of  his  remarks  : — 

'Last  night,  when  I  came  home  from  the  Duke, 
Gladstone's  book  was  on  my  table,  the  second  edition 
having  come  out  at  seven  o'clock.  It  is  the  book  of 
the  time,  a  great  event — the  first  book  since  Burke 
that  goes  to  the  bottom  of  the  vital  question ;  far 
above  his  party  and  his  time.  I  sat  up  till  after 
midnight ;  and  this  morning  I  continued  until  I  had 
read  the  whole,  and  almost  every  sheet  bears  my 
marginal  glosses,  destined  for  the  Prince,  to  whom  I 
have  sent  the  book  with  all  despatch.  Gladstone  is 
the  first  man  in  England  as  to  intellectual  powers, 
and  he  has  heard  higher  tones  than  any  one  else  in 
this  island.' 

And  again  (p.  493) : — 

'  Gladstone  is  by  far  the  first  living  intellectual 
power  on  that  side.  He  has  left  his  schoolmasters 
far  behind  him,  but  we  must  not  wonder  if  he  still 
walks  in  their  trammels  ;  his  genius  will  soon  free 
itself  entirely,  and  fly  towards  heaven  with  its  own 
wings.  ...  I  wonder  Gladstone  should  not  have  the 
feeling  that  he  is  moving  on  an  inclined  plane,  or 
sitting  down  among  ruins,  as  if  he  were  settled  in  a 
well-stored  house.' 

Of  Newman,  whom  he  had  met  at  Oxford,  Bunsen 
says : — 

'  This  mornino:  I  have  had  two  hours  at  breakfast 


BUNSEN.  337 

with  Newman.  O !  it  is  sad, — he  and  his  friends  are 
truly  intellectual  people,  but  they  have  lost  their 
ground,  going  exactly  my  way,  but  stopping  short  in 
the  middle.  It  is  too  late.  There  has  been  an 
amicable  change  of  ideas  and  a  Christian  under- 
standing. Yesterday  he  preached  a  beautiful  sermon. 
A  new  period  of  life  begins  for  me  ;  may  God's  blessing- 
be  upon  it ! ' 

Oxford  made  a  deep  impression  on  Eunsen's  mind. 
He  writes : — 

'  I  am  luxuriating  in  the  delights  of  Oxford.  There 
has  never  been  enough  said  of  this  Queen  of  all 
cities.' 

But  what  as  a  German  he  admired  and  envied 
most  was,  after  all,  the  House  of  Commons : — 

'  I  wish  you  could  form  an  idea  of  what  I  felt.  I 
saw  for  the  first  time  man,  the  member  of  a  true 
Germanic  State,  in  his  highest,  his  proper  place,  de- 
fending the  highest  interests  of  humanity  with  the 
wonderful  power  of  speech-wrestling,  but  with  the 
arm  of  the  spirit,  boldly  grasping  at  or  tenaciously 
holding  fast  power,  in  the  presence  of  his  fellow- 
citizens,  submitting  to  the  public  conscience  the  judg- 
ment of  his  cause  and  of  his  own  uprightness.  I  saw 
before  me  the  empire  of  the  world  governed,  and  the 
rest  of  the  world  controlled  and  judged,  by  this 
assembly.  I  had  the  feeling  that,  had  I  been  born  in 
England,  I  would  rather  be  dead  than  not  sit  among 
and  speak  among  them.  I  thought  of  my  own 
country  and  was  thankful  that  I  could  thank  God 
for  being  a  German  and  being  myself.  But  I  felt, 
also,  that  we  are  all  childi-en  on  this  field  in  com- 
parison with  the  English  ;  how  much  they,  with  their 
VOL.  II.  z 


338  BIOaBAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

discipline  of  mind,  body,  and  heart,  can  effect  even 
with  but  moderate  genius,  and  even  with  talent 
alone !  I  drank  in  every  word  from  the  lips  of  the 
speakers,  even  those  I  disliked.' 

More  than  a  year  was  thus  spent  in  England  in  the 
very  fulness  of  life.  '  My  stay  in  England  in  t  838-39,' 
he  writes  at  a  later  time,  the  22nd  of  September, 
1841,  '  was  the  poetry  of  my  existence  as  a  man ;  this 
is  the  prose  of  it.  There  was  a  dew  upon  those 
fifteen  months,  which  the  sun  has  dried  up,  and 
which  nothing  can  restore.'  Yet  even  then  Eunsen 
could  not  have  been  free  from  anxieties  for  the  future. 
He  had  a  large  family  growing  up,  and  he  was  now 
again,  at  the  age  of  forty-seven,  without  any  definite 
prospects  in  life.  In  spite,  however,  of  the  intrigues 
of  his  enemies,  the  personal  feelings  of  the  King  and 
the  Crown  Prince  prevailed  at  last,  and  he  was 
appointed  in  July,  1839,  as  Prussian  Minister  in 
Switzerland,  his  secret  and  confidential  instructions 
beino;  'to  do  nothins;.'  These  instructions  were  care- 
fully  observed  by  Bunsen,  as  far  as  politics  were 
concerned.  He  passed  two  years  of  rest  at  the 
Hubel,  near  Berne,  with  his  family,  devoted  to  his 
books,  receiving  visits  from  his  friends,  and  watching 
from  a  distance  the  coming  events  in  Prussia. 

In  1840  the  old  King  died,  and  it  was  generally 
expected  that  Bunsen  would  at  once  receive  an  in- 
fluential position  at  Berlin.  Not  till  April,  1841, 
however,  was  he  summoned  to  the  Court,  although,  to 
judge  from  the  correspondence  between  him  and  the 
new  King,  Frederick  William  IV,  few  men  could  have 
enjoyed  a  larger  share  of  royal  confidence  and  love 
than  Bunsen.     The  king  was  hungering  and  thirsting 


BUNSEN.  339 

after  Bunsen,  yet  Bunsen  was  not  invited  to  Berlin. 
The  fact  is  that  the  young  king  had  many  friends, 
and  those  friends  were  not  the  friends  of  Bunsen. 
They  were  satisfied  with  his  honorary  exile  in  Switzer- 
land, and  thought  him  best  employed  at  a  distance  in 
doing  nothing.  The  king,  too,  who  knew  Bunsen's 
character  from  former  years,  must  have  known  that 
Berlin  was  not  large  enough  for  him,  and  he  therefore 
left  him  in  his  Swiss  retirement  till  an  employment 
worthy  of  him  could  be  found.  This  was  to  go  on 
a  special  mission  to  England  with  a  view  of  estab- 
lishing, in  common  with  the  Church  of  England, 
a  Protestant  Bishopric  at  Jerusalem.  In  Jerusalem 
the  king  hoped  that  the  two  principal  Protestant 
Churches  of  Europe  would,  across  the  grave  of  the 
Redeemer,  reach  to  each  other  the  right  hand  of 
fellowship.  Bunsen  entered  into  this  plan  with  all 
the  energy  of  his  mind  and  heart.  It  was  a  work 
thoroughly  congenial  to  himself,  and  if  it  required 
diplomatic  skill,  certainly  no  one  could  have  achieved 
it  more  expeditiously  and  successfully  than  Bunsen. 
He  was  then  a  persona  grata  with  Bishops  and  Arch- 
bishops, and  Lord  Ashley — not  yet  Lord  Shaftesbury 
— gave  him  all  the  support  his  party  could  command. 
English  influence  was  then  so  powerful  at  Constanti- 
nople that  all  difficulties  due  to  Turkish  bigotry  were 
quickly  removed.  At  the  end  of  Juno,  1841,  he 
arrived  in  London ;  on  the  6th  of  August  he  wi-ote, 
'All  is  settled ;'  and  on  the  7th  of  November  the  new 
Bishop  of  Jerusalem  was  consecrated.  Seldom  was  a 
more  important  and  more  complicated  transaction 
settled  in  so  short  a  time.  Had  the  discussions  been 
prolonged,  had  time  been  given  to  the  leaders  of  the 

z  z 


340  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Romanising  party  to  recover  from  their  surprise,  the 
Bill  that  had  to  be  passed  through  both  Houses  would 
certainly  have  been  defeated.  People  have  hardly 
yet  understood  the  real  bearing  of  that  measure,  nor 
appreciated  the  germ  which  it  may  still  contain  for 
the  future  of  the  Reformed  Church,  One  man  only 
seems  to  have  seen  clearly  what  a  blow  this  first 
attempt  at  a  union  between  the  Protestant  Churches 
of  England  and  Germany  was  to  his  own  plans,  and 
to  the  plans  of  his  friends  ;  and  we  know  now,  from 
Newman's  'Apologia,'  that  the  Bishopric  of  Jerusalem 
drove  him  to  the  Church  of  Rome.  This  may  have 
been  for  the  time  a  great  loss  to  the  Church  of 
England ;  it  marked,  at  all  events,  a  great  crisis  in 
her  history. 

In  spite,  however,  of  his  great  and  unexpected 
success,  there  are  traces  of  weariness  in  Bunsen's 
letters  of  that  time,  which  show  that  he  was  longing 
for  more  congenial  work.  '  Oh,  how  I  hate  and 
detest  diplomatic  life ! '  he  wrote  to  his  wife ;  '  and 
how  little  true  intellectuality  is  there  in  the  high 
society  here  as  soon  as  you  cease  to  speak  of  English 
national  subjects  and  interests ;  and  the  eternal 
hurricanes,  whirling,  urging,  rushing,  in  this  monster 
of  a  town!  Even  with  j^ou  and  the  children  life 
would  become  oppressive  under  the  diplomatic  burden. 
I  can  pray  for  our  country  life,  but  I  cannot  pray 
for  a  London  life,  although  I  dare  not  pray  against 
it,  if  it  must  be.' 

Bunsen's  observations  of  character  amidst  the  dis- 
tractions of  his  London  season  are  very  interesting 
and  striking,  particularly  at  this  distance  of  time. 
He  writes: — 


BUNSEN.  341 

'Mr.  Gladstone  has  been  invited  to  become  one  of 
the  trustees  of  the  Jerusalem  Fund.  He  is  beset  with 
scruples ;  his  heart  is  with  us,  but  his  mind  is  en- 
tangled in  a  narrow  system.  He  awaits  salvation 
from  another  code,  and  by  wholly  different  ways 
from  myself.  Yesterday  morning  I  had  a  letter  from 
him  of  twenty-four  pages,  to  which  I  replied  early 
this  morning  by  eight. 

'  The  Bishop  of  London  constantly  rises  in  my  esti- 
mation. He  has  replied  admirably  to  Mr.  Gladstone, 
closing  with  the  words, "  My  dear  Sir,  my  intention  is 
not  to  limit  and  restrict  the  Church  of  Christ,  but  to 
enlarge  it." ' 

A  letter  from  Sir  Robert  Peel,  too,  must  here  be 
quoted  in  full : — 

*  Whitehall, 
October  lo,  1841. 

'  My  dear  Mr.  Bunsen, — My  note  merely  conveyed 
a  request  that  you  would  be  good  enough  to  meet  Mr. 
Cornelius  at  dinner  on  Friday  last. 

'I  assure  you  that  I  have  been  amply  repaid  for 
any  attention  I  may  have  shown  to  that  distinguished 
artist,  in  the  personal  satisfaction  I  have  had  in  the 
opportunity  of  making  his  acquaintance.  He  is  one 
of  a  noble  people  distinguished  in  every  art  of  war 
and  peace.  The  union  and  patriotism  of  that  people, 
spread  over  the  centre  of  Europe,  will  contribute  the 
surest  guarantee  for  the  peace  of  the  world,  and  the 
most  powerful  check  upon  the  spread  of  all  pernicious 
doctrines  injurious  to  the  cause  of  religion  and  order, 
and  that  liberty  which  respects  the  rights  of  others. 

'  My  earnest  hope  is  that  every  member  of  this 
illustrious  race,  while  he  may  cherish  the  particular 


342  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

country  of  his  birth  as  he  does  his  home,  will  extend 
his  devotion  beyond  its  narrow  limits,  and  exult  in 
the  name  of  a  German,  and  recognise  the  claim  of 
Germany  to  the  love  and  affection  and  patriotic  exer- 
tions of  all  her  sons. 

'  I  hope  I  judge  the  feelings  of  every  German  by 
those  which  were  excited  in  my  own  breast  (in  the 
breast  of  a  foreigner  and  a  stranger)  by  a  simple 
ballad,  that  seemed,  however,  to  concentrate  the  will 
of  a  mighty  people,  and  said  emphatically, 

"They  shall  not  have  the  Ehine." 

'  They  will  not  have  it — and  the  Rhine  will  be  pro- 
tected by  a  song,  if  the  sentiments  which  that  song 
embodies  pervade,  as  I  hope  and  trust  they  do,  every 
German  heart. 

'  You  will  begin  to  think  that  I  am  a  good  German 
myself — and  so  I  am,  if  hearty  wishes  for  the  union 
and  welfare  of  the  German  race  can  constitute  one. 

'  Believe  me,  most  faithfully  yours, 

'  Robert  Peel.' 

"When  Bunsen  was  on  the  point  of  leaving  London 
he  received  the  unexpected  and  unsolicited  appoint- 
ment of  Prussian  Envoy  in  England,  an  appointment 
which  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  decline,  and 
which  again  postponed  for  twelve  years  his  cherished 
plans  of  an  otium  cum  dignitate.  What  the  world 
at  large  would  have  called  the  most  fortunate  event 
in  Bunsen's  life  proved  indeed  a  real  misfortune.  It 
deprived  Bunsen  of  the  last  chance  of  fully  realising 
the  literary  plans  of  his  youth,  and  it  deprived  the 


BUNSEN.  343 

world  of  services  that  no  one  could  have  rendered  so 
well  in  the  cause  of  freedom  of  thought,  of  practical 
religion,  and  in  teaching  the  weighty  lessons  of  anti- 
quity to  the  youth  of  the  future.  It  made  him  waste 
his  precious  hours  in  work  that  any  Prussian  baron 
could  have  done  as  well,  if  not  better,  and  did  not  set 
him  free  until  his  bodily  strength  was  undermined, 
and  the  joyful  temper  of  his  mind  saddened  by  sad 
experiences. 

Nothing  could  have  been  more  brilliant  than  the 
beginning  of  Bunsen's  diplomatic  career  in  England. 
First  came  the  visit  of  the  King  of  Prussia,  whom 
the  Queen  had  invited  to  be  godfather  to  the  Prince 
of  Wales.  Soon  after  the  Prince  of  Prussia  came 
to  England  under  the  guidance  of  Bunsen.  Then 
followed  the  return  visit  of  the  Queen  at  Stolzenfels, 
on  the  Rhine.  All  this,  no  doubt,  took  up  much  of 
Bunsen's  time,  but  it  gave  him  also  the  pleasantest 
introduction  to  the  highest  society  of  England ;  for, 
as  Baroness  Bunsen  shrewdly  remarks,  '  there  is 
nothing  like  standing  within  the  Bude-light  of 
Royalty  to  make  one  conspicuous,  and  sharpen  per- 
ceptions and  recollections.'  (II.  p.  8.)  Bunsen  com- 
plained, no  doubt,  now  and  then,  about  excessive 
official  work,  yet  he  seemed  on  the  whole  reconciled 
to  his  position,  and  up  to  the  year  1H47  we  hear  of  no 
attempts  to  escape  from  diplomatic  bondage.  In  a 
letter  to  Mrs.  Fry  he  says : — 

*I  can  assure  you  I  never  passed  a  more  quiet  and 
truly  satisfactory  evening  in  London  than  the  last,  in 
the  Queen's  house,  in  the  midst  of  the  excitement  of 
the  season.  I  think  this  is  a  circumstance  for  which 
one  ought  to  be  thankful ;  and  it  has  much  reminded 


344  BIOGKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

me  of  hours  that  I  have  spent  at  Berlin  and  Sana 
Souci  with  the  King  and  the  Queen  and  the  Princess 
William,  and,  I  am  thankful  to  add,  with  the  Princess 
of  Prussia,  mother  of  the  future  Kinff.  It  is  a  strikinir 
and  consoling  and  instructive  proof  that  what  is  called 
the  world,  the  great  world,  is  not  necessarily  worldly 
in  itself,  but  only  by  that  inward  worldliness  which, 
as  rebellion  against  the  spirit,  creeps  into  the  cottage 
as  well  as  into  the  palace,  and  against  which  no  out- 
ward form  is  any  protection.  Forms  and  rules  may 
prevent  the  outbreak  of  wrong,  but  cannot  regenerate 
right,  and  may  quench  the  spirit  and  poison  inward 
truth.  The  Queen  gives  hours  daily  to  the  labour  of 
examining  into  the  claims  of  the  numberless  petition^ 
addressed  to  her,  among  other  duties  to  which  her 
time  of  privacy  is  devoted.' 

The  Queen's  name  and  that  of  Prince  Albert  occur 
often  in  these  memoirs,  and  a  few  of  Bunsen's  remai-ks 
and  observations  may  be  of  interest,  though  they 
contain  little  that  can  now  be  new  to  the  readers  of 
the  '  Life  of  the  Prince  Consort '  and  of  the  '  Queen's 
Journal.' 

First,  a  graphic  description,  from  the  hand  of 
Baroness  Bunsen,  of  the  Queen  opening  Parliament 
in  I 842 : — 

'  Last,  the  procession  of  the  Queen's  entry,  and  her- 
self, looking  worthy  and  fit  to  be  the  converging  point 
of  so  many  rays  of  grandeur.  It  is  self-evident  that 
she  is  not  tall,  but  were  she  ever  so  tall  she  could  not 
have  more  grace  and  dignity,  a  head  better  set,  a 
throat  more  royally  and  classically  arching;  and  one 
advantage  there  is  in  her  not  being  taller,  that  when 
she  casts  a  glance  it  is  of  necessity  upwards  and  not 


EUNSEN-.  345 

downwards,  and  thus  the  effect  of  the  eyes  is  not 
thrown  away — the  beam  and  effluence  not  lost.  The 
composure  with  which  she  filled  the  throne,  while 
awaiting  the  Commons,  was  a  test  of  character — no 
fidget  and  no  apathy.  Then,  her  voice  and  enun- 
ciation could  not  be  more  perfect.  In  short,  it  could 
not  be  said  that  she  did  well,  but  she  was  the  Queen — 
she  was,  and  felt  herself  to  be,  the  acknowledged  chief 
among  grand  and  national  realities.'     (Vol.  II.  p.  lo.) 

The  next  is  an  account  of  the  Queen  at  Windsor 
Castle  on  receiving  the  Princess  of  Prussia,  in  1 846  : — 

'  The  Queen  looked  well  and  rayonnante,  with  that 
expression  that  she  always  has  when  thoroughly 
pleased  with  all  that  occupies  her  mind,  which  you 
know  I  always  observe  with  delight,  as  fraught  with 
that  truth  and  reality  which  so  essentially  belong  to 
her  character,  and  so  strongly  distinguish  her  coun- 
tenance, in  all  its  changes,  from  the  fixed  mask  only 
too  common  in  the  Royal  rank  of  society.'     (Vol.  II. 

After  having  spent  some  days  at  Windsor  Castle, 
Bunsen  writes  in  1 846  : — 

'The  Queen  often  spoke  with  me  about  education, 
and  in  particular  of  religious  instiuction.  Her  views 
are  very  serious,  but  at  the  same  time  liberal  and 
comprehensive.  She  (as  well  as  Prince  Albert)  hates 
all  formalism.  The  Queen  reads  a  great  deal,  and 
has  done  my  book  on  'The  Church  of  the  Future' 
the  honour  to  read  it  so  attentively,  that  the  other 
day,  when  at  Cashiobury,  seeing  the  book  on  the 
table;  she  looked  out  passages  which  she  had  approved 
in  order  to  read  them  aloud  to  the  Queen-Dowager.' 
(Vol.  II.  p.  121.) 


346  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

And  once  more : — 

'  The  Queen  is  a  wife  and  a  mother  as  happy  as  the 
happiest  in  her  dominions,  and  no  one  can  be  more 
careful  of  her  charges.  She  often  speaks  to  me  of  the 
great  task  before  her  and  the  Prince  in  the  education 
of  the  Royal  children,  and  particularly  of  the  Prince 
of  Wales  and  the  Princess  Royal.' 

Before  the  troubles  of  1847  and  1848,  Bunsen  was 
enabled  to  spend  part  of  his  time  in  the  country, 
away  from  the  turmoil  of  London,  and  much  of  his 
literary  work  dates  from  that  time.  After  his  '  Church 
of  the  Future,'  the  discovery  of  the  genuine  epistles 
of  Ignatius  by  the  late  Dr.  Cureton  led  Bunsen  back 
to  the  study  of  the  earliest  literature  of  the  Christian 
Church,  and  the  results  of  these  researches  were  pub- 
lished in  his  'Ignatius.'  Lepsius'  stay  in  England 
and  his  expedition  to  Egypt  induced  Bunsen  to  put 
his  own  materials  in  order  and  to  give  to  the  world 
his  long-matured  views  on  'The  Place  of  Egypt  in 
Universal  History.'  The  later  volumes  of  this  work 
led  him  into  philological  studies  of  a  more  general 
character,  and  at  the  meeting  of  the  British  Associ- 
ation at  Oxford,  in  1847,  he  read  before  the  brilliantly- 
attended  ethnological  section  his  paper  '  On  the  results 
of  the  recent  Egyptian  researches  in  reference  to 
Asiatic  and  African  Ethnology,  and  the  Classification 
of  Languages,'  published  in  the  'Transactions'  of  the 
Association,  and  separately  under  the  title,  'Three 
Linguistic  Dissertations,  by  Chevalier  Bunsen,  Dr. 
Charles  Meyer,  and  Dr.  Max  MUller.'  'Those  three 
days  at  Oxford,'  he  writes,  'were  a  time  of  great 
distinction  to  me,  both  in  my  public  and  private 
capacity.'     Everything    important   in   literature   and 


BUNSEN.  347 

art  attracted  not  only  his  notice,  but  his  warmest 
interest ;  and  no  one  who  wanted  encouragement, 
advice,  or  help  in  literary  or  historical  researches, 
knocked  in  vain  at  Bunsen's  door.  His  table  at 
breakfast  and  dinner  was  filled  by  ambassadors  and 
professors,  by  bishops  and  missionaries,  by  dukes  and 
poor  scholars,  and  his  evening  parties  offered  a  kind 
of  neutral  ground,  where  people  could  meet  who  could 
have  met  nowhere  else,  and  where  English  prejudices 
had  no  jurisdiction.  That  Bunsen,  holding  the  posi- 
tion which  he  held  in  society,  but  still  more  being 
what  he  was  apart  from  his  social  position,  should 
have  made  his  presence  felt  in  England,  was  not  to 
be  wondered  at.  He  would  speak  out  whenever  he 
felt  strongly,  but  he  was  the  last  man  to  meddle  or  to 
intrigue.  He  had  no  time  even  if  he  had  had  taste 
for  it.  But  there  were  men  in  England  who  could 
never  forgive  him  for  the  Jerusalem  Bishopric,  and 
who  resorted  to  the  usual  tactics  for  making  a  man 
unpopular.  A  cry  was  soon  raised  against  his  supposed 
influence  at  Court,  and  doubts  were  thrown  out  as  to 
his  orthodoxy.  Every  Liberal  bishop  that  was  ap- 
pointed was  said  to  have  been  appointed  through 
Bunsen.  Dr.  Hampden  was  declared  to  have  been 
his  nominee — the  fact  being  that  Bunsen  did  not  even 
know  of  him  before  he  had  been  made  a  bishop.  As 
his  practical  Christianity  could  not  well  be  questioned, 
he  was  accused  of  holding  heretical  opinions,  because 
his  chronology  differed  from  that  of  Jewish  Rabbis 
and  Bishop  Usher.  It  is  extraordinary  how  little 
Bunsen  himself  cared  about  these  attacks,  though 
they  caused  acute  suffering  to  his  family.  He  was 
not  surprised  that  he  should  be  hated  by  those  whose 


348  BIOaKAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

theological  opinions  he  considered  unsound,  and  whose 
ecclesiastical  politics  he  had  openly  declared  to  be 
fraught  with  danger  to  the  most  sacred  interests  of 
the  Church.  Besides,  he  was  the  personal  friend  of 
such  men  as  Arnold,  Hare,  Thirlwall,  Maurice,  Stanley, 
and  Jowett.  He  had  even  a  kind  word  to  say  for 
Fronde's  'Nemesis  of  Faith.'  He  could  sympathise, 
no  doubt,  with  all  that  was  good  and  honest,  whether 
among  the  High  Church  or  Low  Church  party,  and 
many  of  his  personal  friends  belonged  to  the  one  as 
well  as  to  the  other ;  but  he  could  also  thunder  forth 
with  no  uncertain  sound  against  everything  that 
seemed  to  him  hypocritical,  pharasaical,  unchristian. 
Thus  he  writes  (H.  p.  8i) : — 

'I  apprehend  having  given  the  ill-disposed  a  pretext 
for  considering  me  a  semi-Pelagian,  a  contemner  of 
the  Sacraments,  or  denier  of  the  Son,  a  perverter  of 
the  doctrine  of  justification,  and  therefore  a  crypto- 
Catholic  theosophist,  heretic,  and  enthusiast,  deserving 
of  all  condemnation.  I  have  written  it  because  I  felt 
compelled  in  conscience  to  do  so.' 

Again  (II.  p.  87): — 

'  In  my  letter  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  I  have  maintained 
the  lawfulness  and  the  apostolic  character  of  the 
German  Protestant  Church.  You  will  find  the  style 
changed  in  this  work,  bolder  and  more  free.' 

Attacks,  indeed,  became  frequent  and  more  and 
more  bitter,  but  Bunsen  seldom  took  any  notice  of 
them.     He  writes : — 

'  Hare  is  full  of  wrath  at  an  attack  made  upon  me  in 
the  "  Christian  Remembrancer  " — in  a  very  Jesuitical 
way  insinuating  that  I  ought  not  to  have  so  much 
influence  allowed  me.     Another  article  execrates  the 


BUNSEN.  349 

Bishopric  of  Jerusalem  as  an  abomination.  This  zeal 
savours  more  of  hatred  than  of  charity.' 

But  though  Bunsen  felt  far  too  firmly  grounded  in 
his  own  Christian  faith  to  be  shaken  by  such  attacks 
upon  himself,  he  too  could  be  roused  to  wrath  and 
indignation  when  the  poisoned  arrows  of  theological 
Fijians  were  shot  against  his  friends.  When  speaking 
of  the  attacks  on  Arnold,  he  writes : — 

'  Truth  is  nothing  in  this  generation  except  a  means, 
in  the  best  case,  to  something  good  ;  but  never,  like 
virtue,  considered  as  good,  as  the  good — the  object  in 
itself.  X  dreams  away  in  twilight.  Y  is  sliding  into 
Puseyism.  Z  (the  Evangelicals)  go  on  thrashing  the 
old  straw.  I  wish  it  were  otherwise  ;  but  I  love  Eng- 
land, with  all  her  faults.  I  write  to  you,  now  only  to 
you,  all  I  think.  All  the  errors  and  blunders  which 
make  the  Puseyites  a  stumbling-block  to  so  many — 
the  rock  on  which  they  split  is  no  other  than  what 
Rome  split  upon — self-righteousness,  out  of  want  of 
understanding  justification  by  faith,  and  hovering 
about  the  unholy  and  blasphemous  idea  of  atoning  for 
our  sins,  because  they  feel  not,  understand  not,  indeed 
believe  not,  tlie  Atonement,  and  therefore  enjoy  not  the 
glorious  privileges  of  the  children  of  God — the  blessed 
duty  of  the  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving  through  Him  who 
atoned  for  them.  Therefore  no  sacrifice — therefore 
no  Christian  priesthood — no  Church.  By  our  fathers 
these  ideas  were  fundamentally  acknowledged;  they 
were  in  abeyance  in  the  worship  of  the  Church,  but 
not  on  the  domestic  altar  and  in  the  hymns  of  the 
spirit.  With  the  Puseyites,  as  with  the  Romanists, 
these  ideas  are  cut  off"  at  the  roots.  O  when  will  the 
Word  of  God  be  brought  up  against  them  ?     What  a 


350  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

state  this  country  is  in !  The  land  of  liberty  rushing 
into  the  worst  slavery,  the  veriest  thraldom ! ' 

To  many  people  it  might  have  seemed  as  if  Bunsen 
during  all  this  time  was  so  much  absorbed  in  English 
interests,  political,  theological,  and  social,  that  he 
had  ceased  to  care  for  what  was  passing  in  his  own 
country.  His  letters,  however,  tell  a  different  tale.  His 
voluminous  correspondence  with  the  King  of  Prussia, 
though  not  yet  published,  will  one  day  bear  witness 
to  Bunsen's  devotion  to  his  country,  and  his  enthu- 
siastic attachment  to  the  house  of  Hohenzollern.  From 
year  to  year  he  was  urging  on  the  King  and  his  ad- 
visers the  wisdom  of  liberal  concessions,  and  the  abso- 
lute necessity  of  action.  He  was  working  at  plans 
for  constitutional  reforms,  he  went  to  Berlin  to  rouse 
the  King,  to  shame  his  Ministers,  to  insist  in  season 
and  out  of  season  on  the  duty  of  acting  before  it  was 
too  late.  His  faith  in  the  King  is  most  touching. 
When  he  goes  to  Berlin  in  1 844,  he  sees  everywhere 
how  unpopular  the  King  is,  how  even  his  best  inten- 
tions are  misunderstood  and  misrepresented.  Yet  he 
goes  on  working  and  hoping,  and  he  sacrifices  his 
own  popularity  rather  than  oppose  openly  the  suicidal 
policy  that  might  have  ruined  Prussia,  if  Prussia 
could  have  been  ruined.  Thus  he  writes  in  August, 
1845  :— 

'  To  act  as  a  statesman  at  the  helm,  in  the  Father- 
land, I  consider  not  to  be  in  the  least  my  calling ;  what 
I  believe  to  be  my  calling  is  to  be  mounted  high  be- 
fore the  mast,  to  observe  what  land,  what  breakers, 
what  signs  of  coming  storm,  there  may  be,  and  then 
to  announce  them  to  the  wise  and  practical  steersman. 
It  is  the  same  to  me  whether  my  own  nation  shall 


BUNSEN.  351 

know  in  my  lifetime  or  after  my  death,  how  faithfully 
I  have  taken  to  heart  its  weal  and  woe,  be  it  in 
Church  or  State,  and  borne  it  on  my  heart  as  my 
nearest  interest,  as  long  as  life  lasted.  I  give  up  the 
point  of  making  myself  understood  in  the  present 
generation.  Here  (in  London)  I  consider  myself  to 
be  upon  the  right  spot.  I  seek  to  preserve  peace  and 
unity,  and  to  remove  dissatisfaction,  wherever  it  is 
possible.' 

Nothing,  however,  was  done.  Year  after  year  was 
thrown  away,  like  a  Sibylline  leaf,  and  the  penalty 
for  the  opportunities  that  had  been  lost  became 
heavier  and  heavier.  The  King,  particularly  when 
he  was  under  the  influences  of  Bunsen's  good  genius, 
was  ready  for  any  sacrifice.  'The  commotion,'  he 
exclaimed,  in  1 845,  '  can  only  be  met  and  overcome 
by  freedom^  absolute  freedom.'  But  when  Bunsen 
wanted  measures,  not  words,  the  King  himself  seemed 
powerless.  Surrounded  as  he  was  by  men  of  the 
most  opposite  characters  and  interests,  and  quite 
capable  of  gauging  them  all — for  his  intellect  was  of 
no  common  stamp — he  could  agree  with  all  of  them 
to  a  certain  point,  but  could  never  bring  himself  to  go 
the  whole  length  with  any  one  of  them.  Bunsen 
writes  from  Berlin  : — '  My  stay  will  certainly  not  be 
a  long  one  ;  the  Kings  heart  is  like  that  of  a  brother 
towards  me,  but  our  ways  diverge.  The  die  is  cast, 
and  he  reads  in  my  countenance  that  I  deplore  the 
throw.     He  too  fulfils  his  fate,  and  we  with  him.' 

When,  at  last,  in  1847,  a  Constitution  was  granted 
by  the  King,  it  was  too  late.  Sir  Robert  Peel  seems 
to  have  been  hopeful,  and  in  a  letter  of  twenty-two 
pages  to  Bunsen  be  expressed   an    oi)inion  that  the 


352  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Prussian  Government  might  still  be  able  to  maintain 
the  Constitution,  if  only  sincere  in  desiring  its  due 
development,  and  prepared  in  mind  for  that  develop- 
ment. To  the  King,  however,  and  to  the  party  at 
Court,  the  Constitution,  if  not  actually  hateful,  was 
a  mere  plaything,  and  the  idea  of  surrendering  one 
particle  of  his  independence  never  entered  the  King's 
mind.  Besides,  1848  was  at  the  door,  and  Bunsen 
certainly  saw  the  coming  storm  from  a  distance, 
though  he  could  not  succeed  in  opening  the  eyes  of 
those  who  stood  at  the  helm  in  Prussia.  Shortly  be- 
fore the  hurricane  broke  loose,  Bunsen  had  once  more 
determined  to  throw  up  his  official  position,  and  retire 
to  Bonn.  But  with  1848  all  these  hopes  and  plans 
were  scattered  to  the  winds,  Bunsen's  life  became 
more  restless  than  ever,  and  his  health  was  gradually 
giving  way  under  the  constant  tension  of  his  mind. 
'  I  feel,'  he  writes  in  1848,  to  Archdeacon  Hare,  'that 
I  have  entered  into  a  new  period  of  life.  I  have  given 
up  all  private  concerns,  all  studies  and  researches  of 
my  own,  and  live  entirely  for  the  present  political 
emergencies  of  my  country,  to  stand  or  to  fall  by  and 
with  it.' 

With  his  love  for  England  he  deeply  felt  the  want 
of  sympathy  on  the  part  of  England  for  Prussia  in 
her  struggle  to  unite  and  regenerate  the  whole  of 
Germany.  '  It  is  quite  entertaining,'  he  writes  with 
a  touch  of  irony  very  unusual  in  his  letters,  '  to  see 
the  stiff  unbelief  of  the  English  in  the  future  of  Ger- 
many. Lord  John  is  merely  uninformed.  Peel  has 
somewhat  staerccered  the  mind  of  the  excellent  Prince 
by  his  unbelief;  yet  he  has  a  statesmanlike  good- will 
towards   the    Germanic    nations,  and    even    for   the 


EUNSEN.  353 

German    nation.     Aberdeen   is   the    greatest   sinner. 
He  believes  in  God  and  the  Emperor  Nicholas !'     The 
Schleswig-Holstein  question   embittered   his   feelings 
still  more,  and  in  absence  of  all  determined  convictions 
at  Berlin,  the  want  of  moral  courage  and  political 
faith  among  those  in  whose  hands  the  destinies  of 
Germany  had  been  placed,  roused  him  to  wrath  and 
fury,  though  he  could  never  be  driven  to  despair  of 
the  future  of  Prussia.     For  a  time,  indeed,  he  seemed 
to  hesitate  betweeai  Frankfort,  then  the  seat  of  the 
German  Parliament,  and  Berlin ;  and  he  would  have 
accepted  the  Premiership  at  Frankfort  if  his  friend 
Baron  Stockmar  had  accepted  the  Ministry  of  Foreign 
Affairs.     But  very  soon  he  perceived  that,  however 
paralyzed  for  the  moment,  Prussia  was  the  only  pos- 
sible centre  of  life  for  a  regeneration  of  Germany; 
that  Prussia   could  not  be  merged  in  Germany,  but 
that  Germany  had  to  be  resuscitated  and  reinvigorated 
through    Prussia.     His    patriotic  nominalism,    if  we 
may  so  call  his  youthful  dreams  of  a  united  Germany, 
had  to  yield  to  the  force  of  that  political  realism 
which  sacrifices  names  to  things,  poetry  to  prose,  the 
ideal  to  the  possible.     What  made  his  decision  easier 
than  it  would  otherwise  have  been  to  a  heart  so  full 
of  enthusiasm  was  his  personal  attachment   to   the 
King  and  to  the  Prince  of  Prussia.     For  a  time,  in- 
deed, though  for  a  short  time  only,  Bunsen,  after  his 
interview  with  the  King  in  January,  1849,  believed 
that  his  hopes  might  still  be  realised,  and  he  seems 
actually  to  have  had  the  King's  promise  that  he  would 
accept  the  Crown  of  a  United  Germany,  without  Aus- 
tria.    But  as  soon  as  Bunsen  had  left  Berlin  new  in- 
fluences began  to  work  on  the  King's  brain,  and  when 
VOL.  II,  A  a 


354  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Bunsen  returned,  full  of  hope,  he  was  told  by  the  King 
himself  that  he  had  never  repented  in  such  a  degree 
of  any  step  as  that  which  Bunsen  had  advised  him  to 
take  ;  that  the  course  entered  upon  was  a  wrong 
to  Austria  ;  that  he  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
such  an  abominable  line  of  politics,  but  would  leave 
that  to  the  Ministry  at  Frankfort.  Whenever  the 
personal  question  should  be  addressed  to  him,  then 
would  he  reply  as  one  of  the  HohenzoUern,  and  thus 
live  and  die  as  an  honest  man.  Bunsen,  though 
moui-ning  over  the  disappointed  hopes  that  had  once 
centred  in  Frederick  William  IV,  and  freely  express- 
ing the  divergence  of  opinion  that  separated  him  from 
his  Sovereign,  remained  throughout  a  faithful  servant 
and  a  loyal  friend.  His  buoyant  spirit,  confident  that 
nothing  could  ruin  Prussia,  was  looking  forward  to 
the  future,  undismayed  by  the  unbroken  succession 
of  blunders  and  failures  of  Prussian  statesmen — nay, 
enjoying  with  a  prophetic  fervour,  at  the  time  of  the 
deepest  degradation  of  Prussia  at  Olmiitz,  the  final 
and  inevitable  triumph  of  that  cause  which  counted 
among  its  heroes  and  martja's  such  names  as  Stein, 
Gneisenau,  Niebuhr,  Arndt,  and,  we  may  now  add, 
Bunsen. 

After  the  reaction  of  1849  Bunsen's  political  in- 
fluence ceased  altogether,  and  as  Minister  in  England 
he  had  almost  always  to  carry  out  instructions  of 
which  he  disapproved.  More  and  more  he  longed 
for  rest  and  freedom,  for  '  leisure  for  reflection  on 
the  Divine  which  subsists  in  things  human,  and  for 
writing,  if  God  enables  me  to  do  so.  I  live  as  one 
lamed ;  the  pinions  that  might  have  furthered  my 
progress  are  bound, — yet  not  broken.'     Yet  he  would 


BUNSEN.  355 

not  give  up  his  place  as  long  as  his  enemies  at  Berlin 
did  all  they  could  to  oust  him.  He  would  not  be 
beaten  by  them,  nor  did  he  altogether  despair  of 
better  days.  His  opinion  of  the  Prince  of  Prussia 
(the  present  King)  had  been  raised  very  high  since 
he  had  come  to  know  him  more  intimately,  and  he 
expected  much  in  the  hour  of  need  from  his  soldier- 
like decision  and  sense  of  honour.  The  negotiations 
about  the  Schles wig-Hols tein  question  soon  roused 
again  all  his  German  sympathies,  and  he  exerted 
himself  to  the  utmost  to  defend  the  just  cause  of  the 
Schleswig-Holsteiners,  which  had  been  so  shamefully 
misrepresented  by  unscrupulous  partisans.  The  his- 
tory of  these  negotiations  cannot  yet  be  written,  but 
it  will  some  day  surprise  the  student  of  history  when 
he  finds  out  in  what  way  public  opinion  in  England 
was  dosed  and  stupified  on  that  simple  question.  He 
found  himself  isolated  and  opposed  by  nearly  all  his 
English  friends.  One  statesman  only,  but  the  greatest 
of  English  statesmen,  saw  clearly  where  the  right 
and  where  the  wrong  was,  but  even  he  could  only 
dare  to  be  silent.  On  the  31st  of  July,  1H50,  Bunsen 
writes  : — 

'  Palmerston  had  yielded,  when  in  a  scrape,  first  to 
Russia,  then  to  France  ;  the  prize  has  been  the  pro- 
tocol, the  victim,  Germany.  They  shall  never  have 
my  signature  to  such  a  piece  of  iniquity  and  folly.' 

However,  on  the  8th  of  May,  1852,  Bunsen  had  to 
sign  that  very  piece  of  iniquity.  It  was  done,  ma- 
chinelike, at  the  King's  command ;  yet,  if  Bunsen  had 
followed  his  own  better  judgment,  he  would  not  have 
signed,  but  sent  in  his  resignation.  '  The  fu'st  cannon- 
shot  in  Europe,'  he  used  to  sa}^  '  will  tear  this  Prag- 
A  a  a 


356  BIOGEAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

matic  Sanction  to  tatters ;'  and  so  it  was,  but  alas ! 
he  did  not  live  to  see  the  Nemesis  of  that  iniquity. 
One  thing,  however,  is  certain,  that  the  humiliation 
inflicted  on  Prussia  by  that  protocol  was  never  for- 
gotten by  one  brave  soldier,  who,  though  not  allowed 
at  that  time  to  draw  his  royal  sword,  has  ever  since 
been  working  at  the  reform  of  Prussia's  army,  till 
on  the  field  of  Sadowa  the  disgrace  of  the  London 
protocol  and  the  disgrace  of  Olmiitz  were  wiped  out 
together,  and  German  questions  can  no  longer  be  set- 
tled by  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe,  '  with  or  without 
the  consent  of  Prussia.' 

Bunsen  remained  in  England  two  years  longer, 
full  of  literary  work,  delighted  by  the  success  of 
Prince  Albert's  Great  Exhibition,  entering  heartily 
into  all  that  interested  and  agitated  English  society, 
but  nevertheless  carrying  in  his  breast  a  heavy  heart. 
Prussia  and  Germany  were  not  what  he  wished  them 
to  be.  At  last  the  complications  that  led  to  the 
Crimean  War  held  out  to  his  mind  a  last  prospect 
of  rescuing  Prussia  from  her  Russian  thraldom.  If 
Prussia  could  have  been  brought  over  to  join  Eno-- 
land  and  France,  the  unity  of  Northern  Germany 
might  have  been  her  reward,  as  the  unity  of  Italy 
was  the  reward  of  Cavour's  alliance  with  the  Western 
Powers.  Bunsen  used  all  his  influence  to  bring  this 
about,  but  he  used  it  in  vain,  and  in  April,  1854,  he 
succumbed  and  his  resignation  was  accepted. 

Now,  at  last,  Bunsen  was  free.     He  writes  to  a  son  : — 

'  You  know  how  I  struggled,  almost  desperately,  to 

retire  from  public  employment  in   1850.     Now  the 

cord  is  broken,  and  the  bird  is  free.     The  Lord  bo 

praised ! ' 


BUNSEN.  357 

But  sixty-two  years  of  his  life  were  gone.  The  foun- 
dations of  hterary  work  which  he  had  laid  as  a  young 
man  were  difficult  to  recover,  and  if  anything  was 
to  be  finished  it  had  to  be  finished  in  haste.  Bunsen 
retired  to  Heidelberg,  hoping  there  to  realise  the  ideal 
of  his  fife,  and  realising  it,  too,  in  a  certain  degree — 
i.  e.  as  long  as  he  was  able  to  forget  his  sixty-two 
3^ears,  his  shaken  health,  and  his  blasted  hopes.  His 
new  edition  of  '  Hippolytus,'  under  the  title  of  '  Chris- 
tianity and  Mankind,'  had  been  finished  in  seven 
volumes  before  he  left  Eno-land.  At  Heidelberg  his 
principal  work  was  the  new  translation  of  the  Bible, 
and  his  '  Life  of  Christ,'  an  enormous  undertaking, 
enough  to  fill  a  man's  life,  yet  with  Bunsen  by  no 
means  the  only  work  to  which  he  devoted  his  remain- 
ing powers.  Egyptian  studies  continued  to  interest 
him  while  superintending  the  Enghsh  translation  of 
his  '  Egypt.'  His  anger  at  the  machinations  of  the 
Jesuits  in  Church  and  State  would  rouse  him  sud- 
denly to  address  the  German  nation  in  his  '  Signs  of 
the  Times.'  And  the  prayer  of  his  early  youth,  '  to 
be  allowed  to  recognise  and  trace  the  firm  path  of  God 
through  the  stream  of  ages,'  was  fulfilled  in  his  last 
work,  *  God  in  History.'  There  were  many  blessings 
in  his  life  at  Heidelberg,  and  no  one  could  have  ac- 
knowledged them  more  gratefully  than  Bunsen.  '  Yet; 
he  writes, — 

'I  miss  John  Bull,  the  sea,  The  Times  in  the  morn- 
ing, and,  besides,  some  dozens  of  fellow-creatures.  The 
learned  class  has  greatly  sunk  in  Germany,  more 
than  I  supposed;  all  behindhand.  .  .  .  Nothing 
appears  of  any  importance  ;  the  most  wretched  trifles 
are  cried  up.' 


358  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Though  he  had  bid  adieu  to  politics,  yet  he  could 
not  keep  entirely  aloof.  The  Prince  of  Prussia  and 
the  noble  Princess  of  Prussia  consulted  him  frequently, 
and  even  from  Berlin  baits  were  held  out  from  time 
to  time  to  catch  the  escaped  eagle.  Indeed,  once 
again  Bunsen  was  enticed  by  the  voice  of  the  charmer, 
and  a  pressing  invitation  of  the  King  brought  him 
to  Berlin  to  preside  at  the  meeting  of  the  Evangelical 
Alliance  in  September,  1857.  His  hopes  revived  once 
more,  and  his  plans  of  a  liberal  policy  in  Church  and 
State  were  once  more  pressed  on  the  King — in  vain, 
as  every  one  knew  beforehand,  except  Bunsen  alone, 
with  his  loving,  trusting  heart.  However,  Bunsen's 
hopes,  too,  were  soon  to  be  destroyed,  and  he  parted 
from  the  King,  the  broken  idol  of  all  his  youthful 
dreams— not  in  anger,  but  in  love,  '  as  I  wish  and 
pray  to  depart  from  this  earth,  on  the  calm,  still 
evening  of  a  long,  beautiful  summer's  day.'  This  was 
written  on  the  ist  of  October,  on  the  3rd  the  King's 
mind  gave  way,  though  his  bodily  suffering  lasted 
longer  than  that  of  Bunsen.  Little  more  is  to  be  said 
of  the  last  years  of  Bunsen's  life.  The  difficulty  of 
breathing  from  which  he  suffered  became  often  very 
distressing,  and  he  was  obliged  to  seek  relief  by  travel 
in  Switzerland,  or  by  spending  the  winter  at  Cannes. 
He  recovered  from  time  to  time,  so  as  to  be  able  to 
work  hard  at  the  'Bible-work,'  and  even  to  make 
short  excursions  to  Paris  or  Berlin.  In  the  last  year 
of  his  life  he  executed  the  plan  that  had  passed  before 
his  mind  as  the  fairest  dream  of  his  youth — he  took  a 
house  at  Bonn,  and  he  was  not  without  hope  that  he 
might  still,  like  Niebuhr,  lecture  in  the  University, 
and  give  to  the  young  men  the  fruits  of  his  studies 


BUNSEN.  359 

and  the  advice  founded  on  the  experience  of  his  life. 
This,  however,  was  not  to  be,  and  all  who  watched 
him  with  loving  eyes  knew  but  too  well  that  it  could 
not  be.  The  last  chapter  of  his  life  is  painful  beyond 
expression  as  a  chronicle  of  his  bodily  sufferings,  but 
it  is  cheerful  also  beyond  expression  as  the  record  of 
a  triumph  over  death  in  hope,  in  faith — nay,  one  might 
almost  say,  in  sight — such  as  has  seldom  been  wit- 
nessed by  human  eyes.  He  died  on  the  28th  of  No- 
vember, 1 86c,  and  was  buried  on  the  ist  of  December 
in  the  same  churchyard  at  Bonn  where  rests  the  body 
of  his  friend  and  teacher,  Niebuhr. 

Thoughts  crowd  in  thick  upon  us  when  we  gaze  at 
that  monument,  and  feel  again  the  presence  of  that 
spirit  as  we  so  often  felt  it  in  the  hours  of  sweet 
counsel.  When  we  think  of  the  literary  works  in 
which,  later  in  life  and  almost  in  the  presence  of 
death,  he  hurriedly  gathered  up  the  results  of  his 
studies  and  meditations,  we  feel,  as  he  felt  himself 
when  only  twenty-two  years  of  age,  that  '  learning- 
annihilates  itself,  and  the  most  perfect  is  the  first 
submerged,  for  the  next  age  scales  with  ease  the 
height  which  cost  the  preceding  the  full  vigour  of 
life.'  It  has  been  so,  and  always  will  be  so.  Bunsen's 
work,  particularly  in  Egyptian  philology  and  in  the 
philosophy  of  language,  was  to  a  great  extent  the 
work  of  a  pioneer,  and  it  will  be  easy  for  others  to 
advance  on  the  roads  which  he  has  opened,  and  to 
approach  nearer  to  the  goal  which  he  has  pointed  out. 
Some  of  his  works,  however,  will  hold  their  place  in 
the  history  of  scholarship,  and  particularly  of  theo- 
logical scholarship.  The  question  of  the  genuineness 
of  the  original   epistles   of  Ignatius    can   hardly  be 


360  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

opened  again  after  Bunsen's  treatise,  and  his  discovery 
that  the  book  on  '  All  the  Heresies,'  ascribed  to  Origen, 
could  not  be  the  work  of  that  writer,  and  that  most 
probably  it  was  the  work  of  Hippolytus,  will  always 
mark  an  epoch  in  the  study  of  early  Christian  litera- 
ture. Either  of  those  works  would  have  been  enough 
to  make  the  reputation  of  a  German  professor,  or  to 
found  the  fortune  of  an  English  bishop.  Let  it  be  re- 
membered that  they  were  the  outcome  of  the  leisure 
hours  of  a  hard-worked  Prussian  diplomatist,  who, 
during  the  London  season,  could  get  up  at  five  in  the 
morning,  light  his  own  fire,  and  thus  secure  four  hours 
of  undisturbed  work  before  breakfast. 

Another  reason  why  some  of  Bunsen's  works  will 
prove  more  mortal  than  others  is  their  comprehensive 
character.  Bunsen  never  worked  for  work's  sake, 
but  always  for  some  higher  purpose.  Special  re- 
searches with  him  were  a  means,  a  ladder  to  be 
thrown  away  as  soon  as  he  had  reached  his  point. 
The  thought  of  exhibiting  his  ladders  never  entered 
his  mind.  Occasionally,  however,  Bunsen  would 
take  a  jump,  and  being  bent  on  general  results,  he 
would  sometimes  neglect  the  objections  that  were 
urged  against  him.  It  has  been  easy,  even  during 
his  lifetime,  to  point  out  weak  points  in  his  argu- 
ments, and  scholars  who  have  spent  the  whole  of 
their  lives  on  one  Greek  classic  have  found  no  diffi- 
culty in  showing  to  the  world  that  they  know  more 
of  that  particular  author  than  Bunsen.  But  even 
those  who  fully  appreciate  the  real  importance  of 
Bunsen's  labours — labours  that  were  more  like  a 
shower  of  rain  fertilising  large  acres  than  like  the 
artificial  irrigation  which  supports   one  greenhouse 


BUNSEN.  361 

plant — Avill  be  the  first  to  mourn  over  the  precious 
time  that  was  lost  to  the  world  by  Bunsen's  official 
avocations.     If  he  could  do  what  he  did  in  his  few 
hours  of  rest,  what  would  he  have  achieved  if  he 
had  carried  out  the  original  plan  of  his  life!    It  is 
almost  incredible  that  a  man  with  his  clear  percep- 
tion of  his   calling  in  life   so  fully  expressed  in  his 
earliest  letters,  should  have  allowed   himself  to   be 
drawn  away  by  the  siren  voice  of  diplomatic   life. 
His  success,  no  doubt,  was  great  at  first,  and   the 
kindness  shown  him  by  men  like  Niebuhr,  the  King, 
and  the  Crown  Prince  of  Prussia  was  enough  to  turn 
a  head  that  sat  on  the  strongest  shoulders.     It  should 
be  remembered,  too,  that  in  Germany  the  diplomatic 
service  has  always  had  far  greater  charms  than  in 
England,  and  that  the  higher  members  of  that  service 
enjoy  often  the  same  political  influence  as  members 
of  the  Cabinet.     If  we  read  of  the  brilliant  reception 
accorded  to  the   young  diplomatist  during   his  first 
stay  at  Berlin,  the  favours  showered  upon  him  by 
the   old   King,   the   friendship   offered    him    by   the 
Crown  Prince,  his  future  Kiug,  the  hopes  of  useful- 
ness in  his  own  heart,  and  the  encouragement  given 
him  by  all  his  friends,  we  shall  be  less  surprised  at 
his  preferring,  in  the  days  of  his  youth,  the  brilliant 
career  of  a  diplomatist  to  the  obscure  lot  of  a  pro- 
fessor.    And   yet  what   Would   Bunsen   have   given 
later  in  hfe  if  he  had  remained  true  to  his  first  love ! 
Ao-ain  and  ajjain  his  better  self  bursts  forth  in  com- 
plaints  about  a  wasted  life,  and  again  and  again  he 
is  carried  along  against  his  will.    During  his  first  stay 
in  England  he  writes  (November  t8,  1S38): — 

'I  care  no  more  about  my  external  position  than 


36.2  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

about  the  mountains  in  the  moon ;  I  know  God's  will 
will  be  done,  in  spite  of  them  all,  and  to  my  greatest 
benefit.  What  that  is  He  alone  knows.  Only  one 
thing  I  think  I  see  clearly.  My  whole  life  is  without 
sense  and  lasting  use,  if  I  squander  it  in  affairs  of 
the  day,  brilliant  and  important  as  they  may  be,' 

The  longer  he  remained  in  that  enchanted  garden 
the  more  difficult  it  became  to  find  a  way  out,  even 
after  he  had  discovered  by  sad  experience  how  little 
he  was  fitted  for  Court  life  or  even  for  public  life  in 
Prussia.  When  he  first  appeared  at  the  Court  of 
Berlin  he  carried  everything  by  storm ;  but  that  very 
triumph  was  never  forgiven  him,  and  his  enemies 
were  bent  on  '  showing  this  young  doctor  his  proper 
place.'  Bunsen  had  no  idea  how  he  was  envied,  for 
the  lesson  that  success  breeds  envy  is  one  that  men 
of  real  modesty  seldom  learn  until  it  is  too  late.  And 
he  was  hated  not  only  by  chamberlains,  but,  as  he 
discovered  with  deepest  grief,  even  by  those  whom 
he  considered  his  truest  friends,  who  had  been  work- 
ing in  secret  conclave  to  undermine  his  influence  with 
his  Royal  friend  and  master.  Whenever  he  returned 
to  Berlin,  later  in  life,  he  could  not  breathe  freely  in 
the  vitiated  air  of  the  Court,  and  the  wings  of  his 
soul  hung  down  lamed,  if  not  broken.  Bunsen  was 
not  a  courtier.  Away  from  Berlin,  among  the  ruins 
of  Rome,  and  in  the  fresh  air  of  English  life,  he  could 
speak  to  Kings  and  Princes  as  few  men  have  spoken 
to  them,  and  pour  out  his  inmost  convictions  before 
those  whom  he  revered  and  loved.  But  at  Berlin, 
though  he  might  have  learnt  to  bow  and  to  smile  and 
to  use  Byzantine  phraseology,  his  voice  faltered  and 
was  drowned  by  nois}^  declaim ers ;  the  diamond  was 


BtJNSEN.  363 

buried  under  a  heap  of  beads,  and  his  rays  could  not 
shine  forth  where  there  was  no  heavenly  sunlight  to 
call  them  out.  King  Frederick  William  IV.  was  no 
ordinary  King:  that  one  can  see  even  from  the 
scanty  extracts  from  his  letters  given  in  '  Bunsen's  Me- 
moirs.' Nor  was  his  love  of  Bunsen  a  mere  passing 
whim.  He  loved  the  man,  and  those  who  knew 
the  refreshing  and  satisfying  influence  of  Bunsen's 
society  will  easily  understand  what  the  King  meant 
when  he  said,  '  I  am  hungry  and  thirsty  for  Bunsen.' 
But  what  constitution  can  resist  the  daily  doses  of 
hyperbolical  flattery  that  are  poured  into  the  ears  of 
Royalty,  and  how  can  we  wonder  that  at  last  a 
modest  expression  of  genuine  respect  does  sound  like 
rudeness  to  Royal  ears,  and  to  speak  the  truth  be- 
comes synonymous  with  insolence  1  In  the  trickeries 
and  mimicries  of  Court  life  Bunsen  was  no  adept, 
and  nothing  was  easier  than  to  outbid  him  in  the 
price  that  is  paid  for  Royal  favours. 

But  if  much  has  thus  been  lost  of  a  life  far  too 
precious  to  be  squandered  among  Royal  servants  and 
messengers,  this  prophet  among  the  Sauls  has  taught 
the  world  some  lessons  which  he  could  not  have 
taught  in  the  lecture-room  of  a  German  University. 
People  who  would  scarcely  have  listened  to  the 
arguments  of  a  German  professor  sat  humbly  at  the 
feet  of  an  ambassador  and  of  a  man  of  the  world. 
That  a  professor  should  be  learned  and  that  a  bishop 
should  be  orthodox  was  a  matter  of  course,  but  that 
an  ambassador  should  hold  forth  on  hieroglyphics 
and  the  antiquity  of  man  rather  than  on  the 
chronique  scandaleuse  of  Paris ;  that  a  Prussian 
statesman  should  spend  his  mornings  on  the  Ignatian 


364  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Epistles  rather  than  in  writing  gossiping  letters  to 
ladies  in  waiting  at  Berlin  and  Potsdam ;  that  this 
learned  man,  'who  ought  to  know,'  should  profess 
the  simple  faith  of  a  child  and  the  boldest  freedom 
of  a  philosopher,  was  enough  to  startle  society,  both 
high  and  low.  How  Bunsen  inspired  those  who 
knew  him  with  confidence,  how  he  was  consulted, 
and  how  he  was  loved  may  be  seen  from  some  of 
the  letters  addressed  to  him,  though  few  only  of 
such  letters  have  been  published  in  his  '  Memoirs.' 
That  his  influence  was  great  in  England  we  know 
from  the  concurrent  testimony  both  of  his  enemies 
and  his  friends,  and  the  seeds  that  he  has  sown  in 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  men  have  borne  fruit,  and 
will  still  bear  richer  fruit,  both  in  England  and  in 
Germany.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  how  excellent 
a  use  he  made  of  his  personal  influence  in  helping 
young  men  who  wanted  advice  and  encouragement. 
His  sympathy,  his  condescension,  his  faith  when 
brought  in  contact  with  men  of  promise,  were  extra- 
ordinary: they  were  not  shaken,  though  they  have 
been  abused  more  than  once.  In  all  who  loved 
Bunsen  his  spirit  will  live  on,  imperceptibly,  it  may 
be,  to  themselves,  imperceptibly  to  the  world,  but 
not  the  less  really.  It  is  not  the  chief  duty  of 
friends  to  honour  the  departed  by  idle  grief,  but  to  re- 
member their  designs,  and  to  carry  out  their  mandates. 
(Tac.  Ann.  11.  71.) 


CHAELES    KINGSLEY". 

(Translated  from  German.) 
(1820-1875.) 

«i^F  the  dead  nothing  but  what  is  good'  is  an  old 
\^  and  beautiful  saying,  of  more  profound  truth 
than  is  commonly  supposed.  Though  at  first  sight  it 
may  seem  to  convey  no  more  than  that  it  is  un- 
chivalrous  to  speak  evil  of  those  who  can  no  longer 
defend  themselves,  it  discloses  a  far  deeper  meaning 
if  we  look  at  it  more  intently.  Let  us  remember  that 
of  most  people  we  know,  as  of  the  moon,  one  side 
onlj'-,  the  side  which  they  present  to  us  as  we  pass 
them  by  in  the  throng  of  life.  We  may  try  to  com- 
plete and  correct  our  own  impressions  by  the  favour- 
able or  unfavourable  impressions  which  the  same 
people  have  left  on  others.  But  most  of  these  too 
judge  by  outward  appearance  only,  and  how  little  is 
that  compared  with  what  lies  hidden  in  the  soul  of 
man,  which  never  rises  to  the  surface,  nay  which  in  our 
society,  as  it  now  is,  never  can  rise  to  the  surface. 
And  what  is  stranger  still,  most  people  are  inclined  to 
believe  evil  rather  than  good  report.  Even  if  we 
hear  nothing  but  good  of  a  man,  we  often  hesitate  in 
our  judgment,  as  if  we  could  not  believe  that  any  one 

1  Charles  Kingsley,  hia  Letters  and  Memories  of  Life.     Edited  by 
his  Wife. 


366  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

could  be  so  good,  so  much  better  than  we  ourselves. 
We  wish  to  be  cautious,  we  wish  to  wait  and  see,  for 
after  all  we  do  not  even  trust  ourselves,  but  only  hope 
that  we  may  be  as  good  as  we  seem  to  be.  Thus  life 
passes  away ;  and  during  the  whole  of  it  we  probably 
give  our  perfect  trust,  our  full  love  to  five  or  six 
people  only.  Of  these  we  never  believe  anything 
evil,  whatever  the  evil  world  may  say  of  them.  And 
happy  the  man  who  out  of  the  small  number  of  those 
whom  he  called  his  own,  has  never  lost  one !  Happy 
the  man  who  never  had  cause  to  rue  the  bestowal  of 
his  unbounded  confidence ! 

Very  often  such  disappointments  and  losses  are 
our  own  fault.  We  can  all  understand  our  own 
faults,  and  explain  them  and  thereby  more  or  less 
excuse  them ;  but  with  regard  to  the  faults  of 
others  we  seldom  practise  the  same  advocacy.  If 
we  see  the  smallest  spot  on  the  surface,  we  quickly 
conclude  that  the  whole  fruit  must  be  rotten  to  the 
core  ;  and  yet  how  often  are  these  spots  but  traces  of 
the  heat  of  the  day  on  the  bloom  of  the  peach,  while 
the  flesh  is  sound,  the  sap  fresh,  and  the  flavour  of  the 
whole  fruit  pure  and  delicious  ! 

Such  thoughts  often  pass  through  the  mind  when 
we  are  standing  by  the  grave  of  a  friend,  or  when 
we  read  the  biography  of  a  man  whom  we  have 
known  well,  or  whom  we  have  often  met  on  our  way 
through  life.  We  can  then  hardly  believe  that  our 
eyes  have  been  so  blind,  and  it  is  only  when  it  is 
too  late  that  we  learn  that  there  may  be  on  earth 
angels  without  wings.  When  we  examine  a  life-like 
portrait  or  read  a  beautiful  biography,  the  good 
points  often  seem  too  prominent,  the  weak  ones  too 


CHARLES   KINGSLEY.  367 

much  veiled ;  but  by  the  side  of  a  closing  grave  we 
suddenly  learn  the  art  how  to  discover  w^hat  is  good, 
and  how  to  understand  what  is  bad,  in  man.  At  the 
grave  the  old  human  love  breaks  through  at  last. 
The  scales  fall  from  our  eyes,  and  we  need  not  ask 
what  scales  they  are  that  so  often  prevent  us  seeing 
what  is  ffood  and  beautiful  in  man.  Certain  it  is 
that,  as  our  life  is  at  present,  we  really  do  not  know 
men  truly  till  they  have  joined  the  company  of 
saints. 

Such  thoughts  were  rising  again  in  my  mind  when 
reading  the  Biography  of  my  old,  lately  departed  friend, 
Charles  Kingsley.  In  England  this  work  seems  to 
have  produced  this  spring  the  same  wide  and  deep 
impression  which  was  made  some  years  ago  by  the 
Life  of  Prince  Albert  and  the  Life  of  Bunseu.  In 
a  few  months  five  large  editions  were  sold.  Our 
newspapers  and  journals  are  full  of  it,  and  though 
during  the  season  and  during  the  session  the  Eastern 
Question  threw  every  other  question  into  the  back- 
ground, the  Life  of  Charles  Kingsley  has  held  its  own, 
and  has  become  what  is  called  in  England  '  the  book 
of  the  season.' 

What  hard  judgments  had  been  uttered  of  these 
three  men,  Prince  Albert,  Bunsen,  and  Charles  Kings- 
ley,  during  their  life-time !  There  was  a  certain 
similarity  between  tiiem  all,  and  they  were  well 
acquainted  with  each  other.  It  would  really  be  a 
useful  undertaking  to  make  a  selection  from  all  the 
attacks  which  appeared  against  these  three  men  in 
the  newspapers  and  journals,  and  preserve  them  for 
posterity  as  an  appendix  to  their  biographies.  It 
might  be  of  use  to  coming  generations.     I  do  not 


368  BIOGKAPHICAL   ESSA.YS. 

mean  to  say  that  all  these  attacks  proceeded  from 
malice,  hatred,  and  ill-will.  On  the  contrary,  some  of 
them,  I  know,  come  from  men  who  were  as  good  as 
those  whom  they  attacked.  But  this  very  fact,  that 
good  men  may  misunderstand,  hate,  and  persecute 
good  men,  would  be  the  best  lesson  to  posterity.  No 
one  would  venture  to  say  that  these  three  men,  whom 
I  have  here  mentioned  together,  were  entirely  free 
from  weaknesses  and  faults.  But  what  is  strange  is 
that,  during  their  life-time,  we  heard  constantly  of 
their  weaknesses  and  faults,  while  all  that  is  good 
and  beautiful  and  noble  in  them  was  taken  as  a 
matter  of  course.  Only  when  death  has  lifted  the 
veil  from  our  eyes,  do  we  begin  to  see  clearly,  and 
recognise,  when  it  is  too  late,  the  pure,  and  beautiful, 
and  noble  image  of  man,  aye,  the  long-despised  master- 
work  of  a  divine  art. 

Among  Kingsley's  works,  Hypatia  is  probably  the 
one  most  widely  known  and  appreciated,  not  only  in 
England,  but  in  Germany,  France,  and  Italy  also. 
Though  a  mere  novel,  it  represents  the  struggle 
of  the  old  Greek  world  with  the  new  powers  of 
Christendom  with  truly  dramatic  art.  What  Bunsen 
thought  of  Hypatia  may  be  seen  from  what  he  wrote 
in  a  preface  to  the  German  translation  of  it :  '  I  do 
not  hesitate  to  recognise  these  two  works,  Hypatia 
and  the  Saint's  Tragedy,  as  the  two  most  important 
and  most  perfect  creations  of  his  genius.  It  is  in 
them  that  I  find  the  justification  of  a  hope  which 
I  here  venture  to  express,  namely,  that  Kingsley 
should  continue  Shakespeare's  historical  plays.  For 
many  years  I  have  freely  confessed  that  Kingsley 
seems  to  me  the  genius  called  upon  in  our  century  to 


CHARLEa  KINGSLEY.  369 

place  by  the  side  of  the  greatest  modern  dramatic  Epos, 
beginning  with  King  John  and  ending  with  Henry 
VIII,  a  second  series  of  national  plays,  beginning 
with  Edward  VI  and  ending  with  the  landing  of 
William  of  Orange.  It  is  the  only  phase  in  European 
history  which  combines  all  vital  elements  of  dramatic 
poetry,  and  which  we  might  watch  on  the  stage 
without  overpowering  pain.  The  tragedy  of  Saint 
Elizabeth  shows  that  Kingsley  not  only  knows  how 
to  write  a  novel,  but  that  he  has  mastered  the  more 
severe  rules  of  the  drama  also,  while  his  Hypatia 
proves  that  he  can  discover  in  the  history  of  the  past 
all  that  is  truly  human  and  eternal,  and  place  it  full 
of  life  before  our  eyes.  All  his  works  testify  to  his 
ability  to  catch  the  fresh  tone  of  the  life  of  the 
people,  and  to  make  broad  humour  a  powerful  ingre- 
dient for  dramatic  efiect.  And  why  should  he  not  do 
it?  There  is  a  time  when  the  poet,  the  true  prophet 
of  our  time,  must  forget  the  unpoetical  events  of  the 
day,  which  seem  important  only  because  they  are  so 
near,  and  say  to  himself.  Let  the  dead  bury  their 
dead!  Kingsley  it  seems  to  me  has  arrived  at  that 
point,  and  he  ought  to  decide.' 

In  England  Kingsley  has  been  loved  and  revered 
for  many  years  as  a  writer  and  a  poet.  But  he  has 
been  much  more  than  that.  He  formed  part  and  parcel 
of  the  people ;  nay,  one  might  say  he  formed  part  of 
the  English  conscience.  He  was  one  of  the  men  of 
whom  one  thought  at  once,  whenever  a  social,  or  a 
religious,  or  a  great  political  question  stirred  the 
people.  If  there  are  in  England  the  'Upper  Ten 
Thousand'  who  are  the  leaders  of  what  is  called 
society,   there   are    also    the   '  Upper   Hundred,'   the 

VOL.  II.  B  b 


370  BIOGKAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

leaders  of  public  opinion,  whose  judgment  on  the 
great  questions  of  the  day  is  really  asked  for  and 
cared  for  by  the  people  at  large.  A  man  belongs  to 
these  Centumviri,  not  because  he  is  a  minister,  a 
member  of  parliament,  a  bishop,  a  professor,  or  a 
millionaire,  but  because  he  is  believed  to  be  true, 
honest,  clear-sighted,  free  from  prejudice,  unselfish,  and 
independent  of  party.  They  are  the  true  salt  of  the 
English  people.  Kingsley  was  one  of  these  Hundred  ; 
nay,  English  papers  went  so  far  as  to  call  him  one  of 
the  Twelve  who  during  the  last  generation  have  most 
powerfully  impressed  and  guided  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  the  English  nation.  This  does  not  mean 
that  his  judgment  was  always  trusted  or  his  advice 
always  followed.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  often 
called  a  dreamer ;  yet  people  wished  to  know  what  he 
would  feel,  think,  and  say  about  matters  which  lay 
within  the  sphere  of  his  interests,  because  they  knew 
that  he  would  always  say  what  he  felt  and  thought. 
His  correspondence  now  shows  how  many  telegraphic 
wires,  not  only  from  England,  but  from  the  English 
Colonies  and  from  America,  ended  in  the  quiet  rectory 
at  Eversley,  and  how  many  electric  pulsations  radiated 
from  the  large  heart  which  beat  in  the  breast  of  a 
simple  and  thoroughly  honest  country  clergyman. 
People  abroad  have  no  idea  of  the  minute  organisa- 
tion of  public  feeling  in  England.  If  newspapers 
represent  the  muscles  of  the  social  body,  the  personal 
relations  between  men  of  mark  and  the  thousands 
who  look  up  to  them,  form  the  nervous  system  from 
which  alone  the  muscles  receive  life  and  vigour. 

This  close  intellectual  organisation  is  favoured  in 
England   by  many  circumstances.     The   number   of 


CHABLES   KINGSLEY.  371 

Public  Schools  is  limited.  Of  Universities  there  are,  or 
there  were  till  lately,  two  only.  Most  men  of  note  are 
acquainted  with  each  other  from  school  or  from  univer- 
sity, and  whoever  has  gained  the  trust  and  love  of  his 
friends  at  Eton  or  Oxford,  retains  it  mostly  through  life. 
Besides,  though  everything  in  England  is  on  a  grand 
scale,  there  is  also  something  which  in  Germany 
would  be  called  Klein-stddtiach.  Almost  everybody 
knows  everybody,  and  the  great  families,  and  clans, 
and  counties  hold  so  closely  together  that  whenever 
two  Englishmen  meet  abroad  they  soon  find  out  that 
they  are  either  distantly  related  or  have  at  least 
some  friends  in  common.  Add  to  this  the  innumer- 
able societies,  clubs,  charitable  institutions,  political 
associations,  and  last,  not  least,  the  central  hearth 
in  London,  Parliament,  where  everybody  appears 
from  time  to  time,  if  only  to  have  a  warm  shaking  of 
hands  with  old  friends  and  acquaintances,  and  you 
will  understand  that  England  hangs  more  closely 
together  and  knows  itself  better  than  any  other 
country  in  Europe.  As  a  natural  result  of  all  this, 
there  is  a  very  sharp  control.  A  man  who  has  once 
attracted  public  attention  is  not  easily  lost  sight  of. 
Each  man  feels  this,  and  this  produces  a  sense  of 
responsibility,  or,  what  the  French  caU,  solidarity, 
which  forms  the  safest  foundation  of  a  political 
organisation.  True,  Kingsley  was  only  a  writer  and 
country-clergyman,  but  from  his  earliest  appearance 
we  see  that  he  is  conscious  of  belonging  to  a  great 
people.  He  knew  he  could  not  hide  himself,  but 
that  his  convictions  must  out,  however  offensive  they 
might  sound  to  that  class  of  society  in  which  he 
moved,  nay,  however   opposed   they  might   seem   to 

B  b  2 


372  BIOGKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

be  to  the  interests  of  the  clergy  to  which  he  himself 
was  proud  to  belong. 

Kingsley  came  of  a  good,  old  family,  and  moved 
in  the  best  society.  But  when  in  the  year  1849 
the  socialistic  agitation  of  the  working  men  frightened 
not  only  the  thoughtless,  but  even  the  thoughtful 
statesmen  of  England,  he  wrote  his  novel,  Alton 
Locke,  Tailor,  and  declared  himself  openly  a  Char- 
tist, in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word.  He  was 
then  known  everywhere  under  the  name  of  Parson 
Lot,  much  criticised,  abused,  and  even  threatened, 
but  never  troubled  for  one  moment  in  his  con- 
viction that  Chartism  had  its  justification,  and 
that  it  was  the  duty  of  every  true  statesman  and 
patriot  to  recognise  the  good  elements  in  socialism, 
and  with  their  help  to  keep  down  its  dangerous 
elements.  Much  as  he  was  blamed  for  the  part  he 
took,  all,  even  those  whom  Kingsley  attacked  most 
fiercely,  felt  that  his  action  was  entirely  unselfish,  and 
that  by  his  advocacy  of  the  extreme  views  of  the 
working  classes  he  forfeited  all  chance  of  Church  pre- 
ferment. He  sacrificed  not  only  his  time,  but  his 
money  also  (of  which  he  had  very  little  at  the  time), 
in  order  to  help  in  improving  the  condition  of  the 
labouring  classes,  not  only  by  word,  but  by  deed  also. 
What  would  people  have  said  in  Germany,  if  he  had 
thundered  into  their  ears  that  whosoever  does  not 
devote  at  least  one  tenth  part  of  his  time  and  one 
tenth  part  of  his  annual  income  to  public  and 
charitable  purposes  belongs  to  the  most  dangerous 
class  and  fosters  the  growth  of  social  democracy  ! 

Thus  he  marched  on,  straight  as  an  arrow.  Though 
devoted  heart  and  soul  to  the  English  Church,  he 


CHARLES   KINGSLEY.  373 

Stepped  forward  as  the  defender  of  Frederick  Maurice, 
when  the  Bishops  deprived  him  of  his  professorship 
at  King's  College,  because  he  denied  the  doctrine  of 
Eternal  Punishment. 

When,  during  long-continued  rain,  the  Bishops 
ordered  a  general  prayer  for  sunshine,  he  declined  to 
read  it  from  the  pulpit,  first,  because  even  his  limited 
knowledoe  of  the  laws  of  nature  told  him  that  much 
rain  was  necessary,  secondly,  because  with  his  limited 
knowledge  of  the  laws  of  nature  he  would  not  criticise 
the  decrees  of  the  Highest  Wisdom. 

At  the  end  of  a  sermon  which  he  had  been  asked  to 
preach  in  London,  the  clergyman  to  whom  the  church 
belonged  rose  and  warned  the  congregation  against 
the  heresies  to  which  they  had  had  to  listen.  This 
was  something  quite  unheard-of,  and  the  excitement 
became  threatening.  Kingsley  bowed  in  silence, 
pacified  the  people  who  had  gathered  round  the 
church,  published  his  sermon,  and  succeeded  in 
making  the  Bishop  of  the  diocese  acknowledge  that 
there  was  nothing  in  his  sermon,  in  any  way  opposed 
to  the  true  spirit  of  old  and  genuine  Christianity. 

At  the  time  when  nearly  the  whole  of  what  is 
called  Good  Society  declared  in  favour  of  the  Southern 
States  of  America,  Kingsley  remained  true  to  the 
North,  not  because  he  did  not  admire  the  heroism 
of  the  rebels,  but  because  he  clung  to  one  simple 
principle,  that  slavery  is  wrong,  and  that  the  victory 
of  the  South  would  have  been  the  victory  of  slavery. 

In  the  year  1866,  when  but  few  Englishmen  saw 
the  true  meaning  of  the  war  of  Prussia  against 
Austria,  Kingsley  wrote  to  me  (Letters,  vol.  ii. 
p.  238) :— 


374  bioaeaphical  essays. 

'My  dear  Max, 

What  great  things  have  happened  for  Germany, 
and  what  great  men  your  Prussians  have  shown 
themselves.  Much  as  I  was  wroth  with  them  about 
Schleswig-Holstein,  I  can  only  see  in  this  last  cam- 
paign a  great  necessary  move  for  the  physical  safety 
of  every  North  German  household,  and  the  honour 
of  every  North  German  woman.  To  allow  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  second  1 807-1812  to  remain,  when  it 
could  be  averted  by  any  amount  of  fighting,  were 
sin  and  shame ;  and  had  I  been  a  Prussian,  I  would 
have  gone  down  to  Sadowa  as  a  sacred  duty  to  wife 
and  child  and  fatherland.' 

Again,  when  towards  the  close  of  the  Franco- 
German  War  the  sympathies  of  nearly  all  the  mos't 
eminent  men  in  England,  and  particularly  of  the 
Liberal  party,  went  over  from  Germany  to  France, 
he  remained  faithful  to  the  end.  Knowing  how  my 
best  friends  had  then  turned  against  me,  he  wrote  to 
me  (Letters,  ii.  p.  323) : — 

'  EVERSLEY, 

August  8,  1870. 

'Accept  my  loving  congratulations  to  you  and 
your  people.  The  day  which  dear  Bunsen  used  to 
pray,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  might  not  come  till  the 
German  people  were  ready,  has  come,  and  the  German 
people  are  ready.  Verily,  God  is  just ;  and  rules  too, 
whatever  the  press  may  think  to  the  contrary.  My 
only  fear  is,  lest  the  Germans  should  think  of  Paris, 
which  cannot  concern  them,  and  turn  their  eyes  away 
from  that  which  does  concern  them, — the  re-taking 
Elsass  (which  is  their  own),  and  leaving  the  French- 


CHARLES   KINGSLEY.  375 

man  no  foot  of  the  Rhine-bank.  To  make  the  Rhine 
a  word  not  to  be  mentioned  by  the  French  hence- 
forth, ought  to  be  the  one  object  of  wise  Germans, 
and  that  alone.  In  any  case,  I  am  yours,  full  of 
delight  and  hope  for  Germany.' 

Later  on  there  follows  another  letter,  in  which  he 
pours  out  his  whole  heart  on  the  Franco-German  war : — 

'August  31. 

'And  now  a  few  words  on  this  awful  war.  I 
confess  to  you,  that  were  I  a  German,  I  should  feel  it 
my  duty  to  my  country  to  send  my  last  son,  my  last 
shilling,  and  after  all,  my  own  self  to  the  war,  to  get 
that  done  which  must  be  done,  done  so  that  it  will 
never  need  doins:  again.  I  trust  that  I  should  be 
able  to  put  vengeance  out  of  my  heart — to  forget  all 
that  Germany  has  suffered  for  two  hundred  years 
past,  from  that  vain,  greedy,  restless  nation ;  all  even 
which  she  suffered,  women  as  well  as  men,  in  the 
late  French  war:  though  the  Germans  do  not  forget 
it,  and  some  of  them,  for  their  mothers'  or  aunt;*' 
sakes,  ought  not.  But  the  average  German  has  a 
right  to  say,  "  Property,  life,  freedom,  has  been  in- 
secure in  Germany  for  two  hundred  years,  because 
she  has  been  divided.  The  French  kings  have  always 
tried  to  keep  her  divided  that  they  might  make  her 
the  puppet  of  their  ambition.  Since  the  French  Re- 
volution, the  French  people  (all  of  them  who  think 
and  act,  viz.  the  army  and  the  educated  classes)  have 
been  doing  the  same.  They  shall  do  so  no  longer. 
We  will  make  it  impossible  for  her  to  interfere  in 
the  internal  affairs  of  Germany.  We  will  make  it 
an  offence  on  her  part — after  Alfred  de  Musset's  brutal 


376  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

song — to  mention  the  very  name  of  the  Rhine."  As 
for  the  present  war,  it  was  inevitable,  soon  or  late. 
The  French  longed  for  it.  They  wanted  to  revenge 
1 8 13-15,  ignoring  the  fact  that  Germany  was  then 
avenging — and  very  gently — 1807.  Bunsen  used  to 
say  to  me — I  have  seen  the  tears  in  his  eyes  as  he 
said  it — that  the  war  must  come  ;  that  he  only  prayed 
God  that  it  might  not  come  till  Germany  was  prepared 
and  had  recovered  from  the  catastrophe  of  the  great 
French  war.  It  has  come,  and  Germany  is  prepared ; 
and  would  that  the  old  man  were  alive  to  see  the 
"battle  of  Armageddon,"  as  he  called  it,  fought,  not  as 
he  feared  on  German,  but  on  French  soil.  It  must 
have  come.  The  Germans  would  have  been  wrong 
to  begin  it ;  but  when  the  French  began,  they  would 
have  been  "niddering"  for  ever  not  to  have  accepted 
it.  If  a  man  persists  for  years  in  brandishing  his 
fist  in  your  face,  telling  you  that  he  will  thrash  you 
some  day,  and  that  you  dare  not  fight  him ;  a  wise 
man  will,  like  Germany,  hold  his  tongue  till  he  is 
actually  struck  ;  but  he  will,  like  Germany,  take  care 
to  be  ready  for  what  ivill  come.  As  for  Prussia's 
being  prepared  for  war,  being  a  sort  of  sin  on  her 
part — a  proof  that  she  intended  to  attack  France — 
such  an  argument  only  proves  the  gross  ignorance 
of  history,  especially  of  German  history,  which  I 
remark  in  average  Englishmen.  Gross  ignorance, 
too,  or  willing  oblivion  of  all  that  the  French  have 
been  threatening  for  years  past,  about  "rectifying 
their  frontier."  The  Germans  had  fair  warning  from 
the  French  that  the  blow  would  be  struck  some  day. 
And  now  that  it  is  struck,  to  turn  the  other  cheek 
in  meekness  may  be  very  "  Christian"  towards  a  man's 


CHARLES  KINGSLEY.  377 

self,  but  most  unchristian,  base,  and  selfish  towards 
his  women,  his  children,  and  his  descendants  yet  un- 
born. There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  French  pro- 
gramme of  this  war  was,  to  disunite  Germany  once 
more,  and  so  make  her  weak  and  at  the  mercy  of 
France.  And  a  German  who  was  aware  of  that — as 
all  sensible  Germans  must  have  been  aware — had  to 
think,  not  of  the  text  which  forbids  us  to  avenge 
private  injuries,  but  of  that  which  says,  "They  that 
take  the  sword  shall  perish  by  the  sword;"  not  of 
the  bodily  agony  and  desolation  of  the  war,  but  of 
Him  who  said,  "  Fear  not  them  that  can  kill  the 
body,"  and  after  that  have  nothing  left  to  do;  but 
fear  him — the  demon  of  selfishness,  laziness,  anarchy, 
which  ends  in  slavery,  which  can  kill  both  body  and 
soul  in  the  hell  of  moral  and  political  degradation. 
As  for  this  being  a  "dj-nastic  war,"  as  certain  foolish 
working  men  are  saying — who  have  got  still  in  their 
heads  the  worn-out  theory  that  only  kings  ever  go 
to  war — it  is  untrue.  It  is  not  dynastic  on  the  part 
of  Germany.  It  is  the  rising  of  a  people  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest,  who  mean  to  be  a  people,  in 
a  deeper  sense  than  any  republican  democrat,  French 
or  English,  ever  understood  that  word.  It  is  not 
dynastic  on  the  part  of  France.  The  French  Emperor 
undertook  it  to  save  his  own  dynasty ;  but  he  would 
never  have  done  so,  if  he  had  not  been  of  opinion  (and 
who  knows  the  French  as  well  as  he  ?)  that  it  would 
not  be  a  dynastic  war,  but  a  popular  one.  Else,  how 
could  it  save  his  throne?  What  could  it  do  but 
hasten  his  fall,  by  contravening  the  feelings  of  his 
people  ?  But  it  did  not  contravene  them.  Look  hack 
at  the  papers,  and  you  will  find  that  Paris  and  the 


378  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

army  (which  hetween  them,  alas !  constitute  now  the 
French  people)  received  the  news  of  war  with  a  de- 
lirium of  insolent  joy. 

'  The  Emperor  was  mistaken  ...  in  spite  of  all  his 
cunning.  He  fancied  that  after  deceiving  the  French 
people — after  governing  them  by  men  who  were 
chosen  because  they  could  and  dared  deceive — that 
these  minions  of  his,  chosen  for  their  untruthfulness, 
would  be  true,  forsooth,  to  him  alone;  that  they 
would  exhibit,  unknown,  in  a  secret  government, 
virtues  of  honesty,  economy,  fidelity,  patriotism,  which 
they  were  forbidden  to  exercise  in  public,  where  their 
only  function  was,  to  nail  up  the  hand  of  the  weather- 
glass, in  order  to  ensure  line  weather ;  as  they  are 
doing  to  this  day  in  every  telegram.  So  he  is  justly 
punished,  as  all  criminals  are,  by  his  own  crimes  ;  and 
God's  judgments  are,  as  always,  righteous  and  true.' 


On  September  5,  1870,  he  wrote  again  :- 


'  EVERSLET, 

Sept.  5. 


•  Since  Waterloo,  there  has  been  no  such  event  in 
Europe.  I  await  with  awe  and  pity  the  Parisian 
news  of  the  next  few  days.  As  for  the  Emperor, 
whilst  others  were  bowing  down  to  him,  I  never 
shrank  from  expressing  my  utter  contempt  of  him. 
His  policy  is  now  judged,  and  he  with  it,  by  fact, 
which  is  the  '-voice  of  God  revealed  in  things,"  as 
Bacon  says;  and  I  at  least,  instead  of  joining  the 
crowd  of  curs  who  worry  where  they  lately  fawned, 
shall  never  more  say  a  harsh  word  against  him. 
Let  the  condemned  die  in  peace  if  possible;  and  he 
will  not,  I  hear,  live  many  months.' 


CHARLES  KINGSLEY.  379 

In  this  manner  Klngsloy  spoke,  wrote,  and  acted 
throughout  the  whole  of  his  life,  always  the  sworn 
enemy  of  all  hypocrisy,  meanness,  and  selfishness ; 
always  the  open  friend  of  all  who  meant  well,  who  pi'O- 
fessed  openly  whatever  they  had  discovered  to  be  true, 
and  who  lived  for  others  rather  than  for  themselves. 
He  was  by  nature  the  defender  of  all  who  were  un- 
justly persecuted,  or  borne  down  by  the  Juggernaut 
of  public  opinion.  That  such  a  man  should  have 
enemies,  and  bitter  enemies,  was  but  natural,  but  in 
all  the  battles  which  he  had  to  fight  he  proved  him- 
self, not  only  a  brave,  but  likewise  a  generous  an- 
tagonist. The  rules  of  chivalrous  courtesy  were 
sacred  to  him,  and  to  a  German  reader  his  courtesy 
and  modesty  may  sometimes  seem  carried  too  far. 
But  this  modesty  was  part  of  Kingsley's  nature,  and 
in  some  sense  the  respect  which  he  showed  to  others 
arose  from  self-respect ;  and  the  modesty  with  which 
he  spoke  of  his  own  achievements,  prove  only  his 
truthfulness  towards  himself.  He  was  in  this  respect 
a  true  nobleman,  one  of  nature's  true  gentlemen.  We 
remember  one  case  only  where  he  seems  to  have  for- 
gotten himself.  He  had  been  shamefully  attacked 
and  maligned.  Then,  instead  of  saying  quietly  that 
his  opponent  had  stated  the  opposite  of  what  was 
the  fact,  he  allowed  himself  to  imitate  an  old  Father 
of  the  Church,  and  to  fell  his  enemy  to  the  ground, 
with  the  words.  Impudent issime  mentiris. 

His  most  famous  controversy  was  that  with  John 
Henry  Newman,  the  High  Church  theologian,who  ended 
by  becoming  a  Roman  Catholic.  The  controversy  was 
the  old  controversy,  whether  it  is  allowable  within  the 
Christian  Church  to  suppress  truth  from  respect  for 


380  BIOaKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

authorit5^  To  Kingsley  that  ecclesiastical  policy  was 
not  only  unchristian,  but  simply  inhuman,  and,  with  all 
due  respect  for  the  historical  importance  of  the  papal 
church-government,  he  often  spoke  with  the  strongest 
indignation  against  what  he  called  the  un-English 
character  of  the  Roman  priesthood.  This  called  the 
learned  and  clever  theologian,  John  Henry  Newman, 
into  the  arena,  as  the  defender  of  his  new  co-reli- 
gionists, and  led  to  a  literary  duel  which  will  retain 
an  historical  character,  if  only  by  having  called  forth 
Newman's  Apologia  jjro  vita  mea.  Strange  to  say, 
public  opinion  was  in  favour  of  Newman.  He  was 
the  cleverer,  sharper,  more  sarcastic  fencer,  and  while 
Kingsley  came  down  with  heavy  blows,  his  opponent 
inflicted  many  painful  wounds. 

In  spite  of  his  secession  Newman  enjoys  great 
popularity  in  England.  He  is  loved  and  esteemed, 
because  after  all  he  is  looked  upon  as  a  martyr  to 
his  convictions.  The  Roman  Catholics  themselves 
fear  him,  or  at  least  do  not  quite  trust  him,  and  he 
who  has  done  more  for  the  Roman  Church  than  any 
other  Eno-lish  convert,  has  never  been  admitted  to 
an  influential  position  in  the  Church  ^  Personal 
sympathies  and  a  certain  delight  in  his  swordsman- 
ship secured  the  sympathy  of  most  newspapers  and 
journals  in  favour  of  Newman;  and  Kingsley  him- 
self, in  his  frank,  honest  way,  confessed  openly  that 
'he  had  crossed  swords  with  a  man  too  strong  for 
him.'  And  yet,  whoever  is  able  to  separate  the  out- 
ward shell  from  the  real  kernel  of  the  question,  will 
easily  see  that  Kingsley  defended  a  strong  position 
badly,   while    Newman    defended    a   weak    position 

'  Written  before  he  was  made  a  Cardinal. 


CHAKLES   KINGSLEY.  381 

cleverly.  Kingsley  fought  with  his  heart,  Newman 
with  his  tongue.  The  one  cared  for  truth,  the  other 
for  victory. 

During  this  long  controversy  in  the  years  1864 
and  1865,  Kingsley's  friends  observed  the  first 
symptoms  of  decreasing  force  and  health,  and  it  re- 
quired his  iron  will  during  the  last  ten  years  of  his 
life  to  produce  so  much  and  to  sustain  throughout 
the  glow  of  his  thoughts  and  the  splendour  of  his 
language.  But  he  was  weary.  Nay,  through  the 
whole  of  his  life,  full  of  work  as  it  was,  we  can  hear 
a  deep  note  of  sadness  and  of  longing  for  peace  and 
rest  in  the  grave.  Even  in  his  first  work,  the  '  Saint's 
Tragedy,'  he  sang  his  touching  song : — 

*  0  that  we  two  lay  sleeping 
In  our  nest  in  the  churchyard  sod, 
With  our  limbs  at  rest  on  the  quiet  earth's  breast, 
And  our  souls  at  houae  with  God ! ' 

His  lot  on  earth  could  hardly  have  been  happier. 
But  in  the  midst  of  all  his  happiness  as  husband, 
father,  friend,  teacher,  preacher,  and  poet,  his  eyes 
seem  always  lifted  beyond  the  earth  towards  the 
Eternal.  He  has  died  young ;  and  of  his  life,  if  we 
mean  by  that  a  chain  of  great  events,  there  is  little 
to  relate.  He  was  a  country-clergyman,  a  Professor 
of  History  at  Cambridge,  then  Canon  of  Chester  and 
Westminster,  and  died  on  the  23rd  of  January,  1875, 
in  the  fifty-fifth  year  of  his  life.  The  interest  of  the 
two  volumes  in  which  his  wife  and  his  friends  have 
collected  his  letters  and  the  memoirs  of  his  life 
centres  entirely  in  the  man  himself,  in  the  magnifi- 
cent human  soul  that  speaks  to  us  on  every  page. 


382  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Whoever  wants  to  know  England  and  its  real 
strength,  should  read  these  volumes. 

But  the  book  has  also  a  charm  of  its  own,  and 
whoever  can  watch  a  beautiful  sun,  settinsf  in  the 
west  after  a  glorious  course,  and  illuminating  by  its 
refracted  rays  the  whole  sky  with  its  clouds,  and  the 
whole  earth  with  its  mountains  and  valleys,  will 
delight  in  watching  the  glorious  course  and  the 
beautiful  setting  of  a  human  soul  which  in  life  has 
warmed,  nourished,  strengthened  and  gladdened  many 
a  heart,  and  which  was  never  more  grand  and  glorious 
than  in  its  death. 

In  conclusion,  I  add  a  few  extracts  from  a  pre- 
face which  I  was  asked  to  write  soon  after  Kings- 
ley's  death  for  a  new  edition  of  his  'Roman  and 
Teuton :' — 

'Never  shall  I  forget  the  moment  when  for  the 
last  time  I  gazed  upon  the  manly  features  of  Charles 
Kingsley,  features  which  Death  had  rendered  calm, 
grand,  sublime.  The  constant  struggle  that  in  life 
seemed  to  allow  no  rest  to  his  expression,  the  spirit, 
like  a  caged  lion,  shaking  the  bars  of  his  prison,  the 
mind  striving  for  utterance,  the  soul  wearying  for 
loving  response, — all  that  was  over.  There  remained 
only  the  satisfied  expression  of  triumph  and  peace, 
as  of  a  soldier  who  had  fought  a  good  fight,  and  who, 
while  sinking  into  the  stillness  of  the  slumber  of 
death,  listens  to  the  distant  sounds  of  music  and  to 
the  shouts  of  victory.  One  saw  the  ideal  man,  as 
Nature  had  meant  him  to  be,  and  one  felt  that  there 
IS  no  greater  sculptor  than  Death. 

'  As  one  looked  on  that  marble  statue  which  only 
some  weeks  ago  had  so  warmly  pressed  one's  hand. 


CHARLES   KINGSLEY.  383 

his  whole  life  flashed  through  one's  thoughts.  One 
remembered  the  young  curate  and  the  Saint's  Tragedy ; 
the  chartist  parson  and  Alton  Locke ;  the  happy  poet 
and  the  Sands  of  Dee  ;  the  brilliant  novel-writer  and 
Hypatia  and  Westward-Ho ;  the  Rector  of  Eversley 
and  his  Village  Sermons;  the  beloved  professor  at 
Cambridge,  the  busy  canon  at  Chester,  the  powerful 
preacher  in  Westminster  Abbey.  One  thought  of 
him  by  the  Berkshire  chalk-streams  and  on  the 
Devonshire  coast,  watching  the  beauty  and  wisdom 
of  Nature,  reading  her  solemn  lessons,  chuckling  too 
over  her  inimitable  fun.  One  saw  him  in  town- 
alleys,  preaching  the  Gospel  of  godliness  and  cleanli- 
ness, while  smoking  his  pipe  with  soldiers  and  nav- 
vies. One  heard  him  in  drawing-rooms,  listened  to 
with  patient  silence,  till  one  of  his  vigorous  or  quaint 
speeches  bounded  forth,  never  to  be  forgotten.  How 
children  delighted  in  him!  How  young,  wild  men 
believed  in  him,  and  obeyed  him  too !  How  women 
were  captivated  by  his  chivalry,  older  men  by  his 
genuine  humility  and  sympathy ! 

'  All  that  was  now  passing  away — was  gone.  But 
as  one  looked  on  him  for  the  last  time  on  earth,  one 
felt  that  greater  than  the  curate,  the  poet,  the  pro- 
fessor, the  canon,  had  been  the  man  himself,  with 
his  warm  heart,  his  honest  purposes,  his  trust  in  his 
friends,  his  readiness  to  spend  himself,  his  chivalry 
and  humility,  worthy  of  a  better  age. 

'  Of  all  this  the  world  knew  little ; — yet  few  men 
excited  wider  and  stronger  sympathies. 

'  Who  can  forget  that  funeral  on  the  28th  Jan., 
1875,  and  the  large  sad  throng  that  gathered  round 
his  grave  ?  There  was  the  representative  of  the  Prince 


38  i  BIOGKAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

of  Wales,  and  close  by  the  gipsies  of  the  Eversley 
common,  who  used  to  call  him  their  Patrico-rai,  their 
Priest-King.  There  was  the  old  Squire  of  his  village, 
and  the  labourers,  young  and  old,  to  whom  he  had 
been  a  friend  and  a  father.  There  were  Governors 
of  distant  Colonies,  officers,  and  sailors,  the  Bishop 
of  his  diocese,  and  the  Dean  of  his  abbey ;  there  were 
the  leading  Nonconformists  of  the  neighbourhood, 
and  his  own  devoted  curates.  Peers  and  Members  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  authors  and  publishers;  and 
outside  the  churchyard,  the  horses  and  the  hounds 
and  the  huntsman  in  pink,  for  though  as  good  a 
clergyman  as  any,  Charles  Kingsley  had  been  a  good 
sportsman  too,  and  had  taken  in  his  life  many  a  fence 
as  bravely  as  ho  took  the  last  fence  of  all,  without 
fear  or  trembling.  All  that  he  had  loved,  and  all 
that  had  loved  him  were  there,  and  few  eyes  were  dry 
when  he  was  laid  in  his  own  yellow  gravel  bed,  the 
old  trees  which  he  had  planted  and  cared  for  waving 
their  branches  to  him  for  the  last  time,  and  the  grey 
sunny  sky  looking  down  with  calm  pity  on  the 
deserted  rectory,  and  on  the  short  joys  and  the 
shorter  sufferings  of  mortal  men. 

'AH  went  home  feeling  that  life  was  poorer,  and 
every  one  knew  that  he  had  lost  a  friend  who  had 
been,  in  some  peculiar  sense,  his  own.  Charles 
Kingsley  will  be  missed  in  England,  in  the  English 
colonies,  in  America,  where  he  spent  his  last  happy 
year ;  aye,  wherever  Saxon  speech  and  Saxon  thought 
is  understood.  He  will  be  mourned  for,  yearned  for, 
in  every  place  in  which  he  passed  some  days  of  his 
busy  life.  As  to  mj'self,  I  feel  as  if  another  cable 
had  snapped  that  tied  me  to  this  hospitable  shore. 


CHARLES  KINGSLEY.  385 

*  When  an  author  or  a  poet  dies,  the  better  part  of 
him,  it  is  often  said,  is  left  in  his  works.  So  it  is 
in  many  cases.  But  with  Kingsley  his  life  and  his 
works  were  one.  All  he  wrote  was  meant  for  the 
day  when  he  wx'ote  it.  That  was  enough  for  him. 
He  hardly  gave  himself  time  to  think  of  fame  and 
the  future.  Compared  with  a  good  work  done,  with 
a  good  word  spoken,  with  a  silent  grasp  of  the  hand 
from  a  young  man  he  had  saved  from  mischief,  or 
with  a  "  Thank  you.  Sir,"  from  a  poor  woman  to  whom 
he  had  been  a  comfort,  he  would  have  despised  what 
people  call  glory,  like  incense  curling  away  in  smoke. 
He  was,  in  one  sense  of  the  word,  a  careless  writer. 
He  did  his  best  at  the  time  and  for  the  time.  He 
did  it  with  a  concentrated  energy  of  will  which  broke 
through  all  difficulties.  Though  the  perfection  and 
classical  finish  which  can  be  obtained  by  a  sustained 
effort  only,  and  by  a  patience  which  shrinks  from  no 
drudgery,  may  be  wanting  in  many  of  his  works,  he 
has  but  few  equals,  if  any,  in  the  light  and  fire  of  his 
language,  in  the  boldness  of  his  imagination,  and  in 
the  warmth  of  his  heart. 

'  He  cared  little  for  fame ;  but  fame  has  come  to 
him.  His  bust  will  stand  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
in  the  Chapel  of  St.  John  the  Baptist,  by  the  side  of 
his  friend  Frederick  Maurice;  and  in  the  Temple 
of  Fame  which  will  be  consecrated  to  the  period  of 
Victoria  and  Albert,  there  will  be  a  niche  for  Charles 
Kingsley,  the  author  of  Alton  Locke  and  Hypatia.' 


VOL.  IT.  C  C 


WILHELM  MULLEE\ 

'  Ich  liebe  keinen  Liederdicliter  ausser  Goethe  so  sehr  wie  Wilbelm 
Miiller.' — H.  Heine. 

1794-1827. 

SELDOM  has  a  poet  in  a  short  life  of  thirty-three 
years  engraven  his  name  so  deeply  on  the 
memorial  tablets  of  the  history  of  German  poetry 
as  Wilhelm  Miiller.  Although  the  youthful  efforts 
of  a  poet  may  be  appreciated  by  the  few  who  are 
able  to  admii-e  what  is  good  and  beautiful,  even 
although  they  have  never  before  been  admired  by 
others,  yet  in  order  permanently  to  win  the  ear  and 
heart  of  his  people  a  poet  must  live  with  the  people 
and  take  part  in  the  movements  and  struggles  of  his 
age.  Thus  only  can  he  hope  to  stir  and  mould  the 
thoughts  of  his  contemporaries,  and  to  remain  a  per- 
manent living  power  in  the  memory  of  his  countrymen. 
Wilhelm  Miiller  died  at  the  very  moment  when  the 
rich  blossoms  of  his  poetic  genius  were  developing 
into  fruit ;  and  after  he  had  warmed  and  quickened 
the  hearts  of  the  youth  of  Germany  with  the  lyric 

'  Preface  to  a  new  edition  of  Wilhelm  Miiller's  poems,  published 
in  1868,  in  the  'Bibliothek  iler  deutschen  Nationalliteratiir  des 
achtzehnten  und  neunzehnten  Jahrhunderts.'  Leipzig,  Brockhaus. 
Translated  from  the  G(  rman  by  G.  A.  M. 


WILHELM  MiJLLEK.  387 

songs  of  his  youth,  only  a  short  span  of  time  was 
granted  him  to  show  the  world,  as  he  did  more 
especially  in  his  '  Greek  Songs  '  and  '  Epigrams,'  the 
higher  goal  towards  which  he  aspired.  In  these  his 
last  works  it  is  easy  to  see  that  his  poetry  would  not 
merely  have  reflected  the  happy  dreams  of  youth,  but 
that  he  could  also  perceive  the  poetry  of  life  in  its 
sorrows  as  clearly  as  in  its  joys,  and  depict  it  in  true 
and  vivid  colours. 

One  may,  I  think,  divide  the  friends  and  admirers 
of  Wilhelm  Midler  into  two  classes  :  those  who  re- 
joice and  delight  in  his  fresh  and  joyous  songs,  and 
those  who  admire  the  nobleness  and  force  of  his 
character  as  shown  in  the  poems  celebrating  the  war 
of  Greek  independence,  and  in  his  epigrams.  All 
poetry  is  not  for  every  one,  nor  for  every  one  at  all 
times.  There  are  critics  and  historians  of  literature 
who  cannot  tolerate  songs  of  youth,  of  love,  and  of 
wine.  They  always  ask  why  ?  and  wherefore  ?  and 
they  demand  in  all  poetry,  before  an3"thing  else,  high 
or  deep  thoughts.  No  doubt  there  can  be  no  poetry 
without  thought,  but  there  are  thoughts  which  are 
poetical  without  being  drawn  from  the  deepest  depths 
of  the  heart  and  brain,  nay,  which  are  poetical  just 
because  they  are  as  simple  and  true  and  natural  as 
the  flowers  of  the  field  or  the  stars  of  heaven.  There 
is  a  poetry  for  the  old,  but  there  is  also  a  poetry  for 
the  young.  The  young  demand  in  poetry  an  inter- 
pretation of  their  own  youthful  feelings,  and  fii'st 
learn  truly  to  understand  themselves  through  poets 
who  can  speak  for  them  as  they  would  speak  for 
themselves,  had  nature  endowed  them  with  melody 
pf  thought  and  harmony  of  diction.  Youth  is  and 
c  c  3 


388  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

will  remain  the  majority  of  the  world,  and  wiU  let 
no  gloomy  cynic  rob  it  of  its  poetic  enthusiasm  for 
young  love  and  old  wine.  True,  youth  is  not  over- 
critical  ;  true,  it  does  not  know  how  to  speak  or 
write  in  learned  phrases  of  the  merits  of  its  favourite 
poets.  But  for  all  that,  where  is  the  poet  who  would 
not  rather  live  in  the  warm  recollection  of  the  never- 
dying  youth  of  his  nation,  than  in  voluminous  ency- 
clopaedias, or  even  in  the  marble  Walhallas  of 
Germany  ?  The  story  and  the  songs  of  a  miller's 
man,  who  loves  his  master's  daughter,  and  of  a  miller's 
daughter,  who  loves  a  huntsman  better,  may  seem 
very  trivial,  commonplace,  and  unpoetical  to  many 
a  man  of  forty  or  fifty.  But  there  are  men  of  forty 
and  fifty  who  have  never  lost  sight  of  the  bright 
but  now  far-off  days  of  their  own  youth,  who  can 
still  rejoice  with  those  that  rejoice,  and  weep  with 
those  that  weep,  and  love  with  those  that  love — 
aye,  who  can  still  fill  their  glasses  with  old  and 
young,  and  in  whose  eyes  everyday  life  has  not 
destroyed  the  poetic  bloom  that  rests  everywhere 
on  life  so  long  as  it  is  lived  with  warm  and  natural 
feelings.  Songs  which  like  the  '  Beautiful  Miller's 
Daughter,'  and  the '  Winter  Journey,'  could  so  penetrate 
and  again  spring  forth  from  the  soul  of  their  musical 
composer,  Franz  Schubert,  may  well  stir  the  very 
depths  of  our  own  hearts,  without  the  need  of  fearing 
the  wise  looks  of  those  who  possess  the  art  of  saying 
nothing  in  many  words.  Why  should  poetry  be  less 
free  than  paintiag  to  seek  for  what  is  beautiful  wher- 
ever a  human  eye  can  discover,  wherever  human  art  can 
imitate  it "?  No  one  blames  the  painter  if,  instead 
of  giddy  peaks  or  towering  waves,  he  delineates  on 


WILHELM   MiJLLEE.  389 

his  canvas  a  quiet  narrow  valley,  filled  with  a  green 
mist  and  enlivened  only  by  a  grey  mill  and  a  dark- 
brown  mill-wheel,  from  which  the  spray  rises  like 
silver  dust,  and  then  floats  away,  and  vanishes  in  the 
rays  of  the  sun.  Is  what  is  not  too  common  for 
the  painter,  too  common  for  the  poet  ?  Is  an  idyll 
in  the  truest,  warmest,  softest  colours  of  the  soul, 
like  the  '  Beautiful  Miller's  Daughter,'  less  a  work 
of  art  than  a  landscape  by  Ru^^sdael  ?  And  observe 
in  these  songs  how  the  execution  suits  the  subject ; 
their  tone  is  thoroughly  popular,  and  reminds  many 
of  us,  perhaps  even  too  much,  of  the  popular  songs 
collected  by  Arnim  and  Brentano  in  '  Des  Knaben 
Wunderhorn.'  But  this  could  not  be  helped.  Theo- 
critus could  not  write  his  idylls  in  grand  Attic  Greek  ; 
he  needed  the  homeliness  of  the  Boeotian  dialect. 
It  was  the  same  with  Wilhelm  Miiller,  who  must 
not  be  blamed  for  expressions  which  now  perhaps, 
more  than  formerly,  may  sound  to  fastidious  ears 
too  homely  or  commonplace. 

His  simple  and  natural  conception  of  nature  is 
shown  most  beautifully  in  the  '  Wanderer's  Songs,' 
and  in  the  '  Spring  Wreath  from  the  Plauen  Valley.' 
Nowhere  do  we  find  a  laboured  thought  or  a  laboured 
word.  The  lovely  spring  world  is  depicted  exactly 
as  it  is,  but  over  all  is  thrown  the  light  that  radiates 
from  the  poet's  eye  and  the  poet's  mind.  That  mind 
alone  is  able  to  perceive  and  to  give  utterance  to 
what  others  fail  to  see  and  silent  nature  cannot  utter. 
It  is  this  recognition  of  the  beautiful  in  what  is  in- 
significant, of  greatness  in  what  is  small,  of  the 
marvellous  in  ordinary  life  ;  yes,  this  perception  of 
the  divine  in  every  earthly  enjoyment,  which  gives 


390  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

its  own  charm  to  each  of  Wilhelm  Miiller's  smallest 
poems,  and  endears  them  so  truly  to  those  who, 
amidst  the  hurry  of  life,  have  not  forgotten  the 
delight  of  absorption  in  nature,  who  have  never  lost 
their  faith  in  the  mystery  of  the  divine  presence 
in  all  that  is  beautiful,  good,  and  true  on  earth.  We 
need  only  read  the  '  Frlihlingsmahl '  or  '  Pfingsten  ' 
to  see  how  a  whole  world,  aye,  a  whole  heaven,  may 
be  mirrored  in  the  tiniest  drop  of  dew. 

And  as  enjoyment  of  nature  finds  so  clear  an  echo 
in  the  poetry  of  Wilhelm  MUller,  so  also  does  the 
delight  which  man  should  have  in  man.  Drinking 
songs  and  table  songs  do  not  belong  to  the  highest 
flights  of  poetry;  but  if  the  delights  of  friendly  meet- 
ings and  greetings  belong  to  some  of  the  brightest 
moments  of  human  happiness,  why  should  a  poet 
hold  them  to  be  unworthy  of  his  muse"?  There  is 
something  especially  German  in  all  drinking  songs, 
and  no  other  nation  has  held  its  wine  in  such  honour. 
Can  one  imagine  English  poems  on  port  or  sherry? 
or  has  a  Frenchman  much  to  tell  us  of  his  Bordeaux, 
or  even  of  his  Burgundy?  The  reason  that  the  poetry 
of  wine  is  unknown  in  England  and  France  is,  that 
in  these  countries  people  know  nothing  of  what  lends 
its  poetry  to  wine,  namely,  the  joyous  consciousness 
of  mutual  pleasure,  the  outpouring  of  hearts,  the 
feeling  of  common  brotherhood,  wliich  makes  learned 
professors  and  divines,  generals  and  ministers,  men 
once  more  at  the  sound  of  the  ringing  glasses.  This 
purely  human  delight  in  the  enjoyment  of  life,  in 
the  flavour  of  the  German  wine,  and  in  the  yet  higher 
flavour  of  the  German  Symposium,  finds  its  happiest 
expression  in  the  drinking  songs  of  Wilhelm  Miiller. 


WILHELM   MULLEU.  391 

They  have  often  been  set  to  music  by  the  best  masters, 
and  have  long  been  sung  by  the  happy  and  joyous. 
The  name  of  the  poet  is  often  forgotten,  whilst  man}' 
of  his  songs  have  become  popular  songs,  just  because 
they  were  sung  from  the  heart  and  soul  of  the  German 
people,  as  the  people  were  fifty  years  ago,  and  as  the 
best  of  them  still  are,  in  spite  of  many  changes  in 
the  Fatherland. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  a  serious  tone  is  not  wanting 
even  in  the  drinking  songs.  The  wine  was  good,  but 
the  times  were  bad.  Those  who,  like  Wilhelm  Mliller, 
had  shared  in  the  great  sufferings  and  the  great  hopes 
of  the  German  people,  and  who  then  saw  that,  after 
all  the  sacrifices  that  had  been  made,  all  was  in  vain, 
all  was  again  as  bad  or  even  worse  than  before,  could 
with  difficulty  conceal  their  disaffection,  however 
helpless  they  felt  themselves  against  the  brutalities 
of  those  in  power.  Many  who,  like  Wilhelm  Mliller, 
had  laboured  to  reanimate  German  popular  feeling, 
who,  like  him,  had  left  the  University  to  sacrifice 
as  common  soldiers  their  life  and  life's  happiness  to 
the  freedom  of  the  country,  and  who  then  saw  how 
the  dread  of  their  own  deliverers  felt  by  the  scarcely 
rescued  princes,  and  the  fear  cherished  by  foreign 
nations  of  an  united  and  strong  Germany,  combined 
to  destroy  the  precious  seed  sown  in  blood  and  tears, — 
could  not  always  suppress  their  gloomy  anger  at  such 
faint-hearted,  weak-minded  policy.  On  January  i, 
1820,  Wilhelm  Mliller  wrote  thus  in  the  dedication 
of  the  second  part  of  his  '  Letters  from  Rome '  to 
his  friend  Atterbom,  the  Swedish  poet,  with  whom 
he  had  but  a  short  time  before  passed  the  Carnival 
time   in   Italy  joyfully  and   carelessly.     '  And  thus 


392  BIOGKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

I  greet  you  in  your  old  sacred  Fatherland,  not 
jokingly  and  merrily,  like  the  book,  whose  writer 
seems  to  have  become  a  stranger  to  me,  but  earnestly 
and  briefly ;  for  the  great  fast  of  the  European  world, 
expecting  the  passion,  and  waiting  for  deliverance, 
can  endure  no  indifferent  shrug  of  the  shoulders  and 
no  hollow  compromises  and  excuses.  He  who  cannot 
act  at  this  time,  can  yet  rest  and  mourn.'  For  such 
words,  veiled  as  the}^  were,  resigned  as  they  were, 
the  fortress  of  Mayence  was  at  that  time  the  usual 
answer. 

'  Deutsch  und  frei  und  stark  und  lauter 
In  dem  deutschen  Land 
1st  der  Weill  alleiu  geblieben 
An  des  Rlieines  Strand. 
1st  (ler  nicht  ein  Demagoge, 
Wer  soil  einer  sein  ? 
Mainz,  du  stolze  Bundesfeste, 
Sperr  ihn  nur  nicht  ein  ^.' 

That  Wilhelm  Mliller  escaped  the  petty  and  annoy- 
ing persecutions  of  the  then  police  system,  he  owed 
partly  to  the  retired  life  he  led  in  his  little  native 
country,  partly  to  his  own  good  spirits,  which  pre- 
vented him  from  entirely  sinking  the  man  in  the 
politician.  He  had  some  enemies  in  the  little  court, 
whose  Duke  and  Duchess  were  personally  attached 
to  him.  A  prosperous  life  such  as  his  could  not 
fail  to  attract  envy,  and  his  frank  guileless  character 

^  '  Free,  and  strong,  and  pure,  and  German, 
On  the  German  Rhine, 
Nothing  of  that  name  is  worthy, 
Notliing  but  our  wine ; 
If  the  wine  is  not  a  rebel, 
Then  no  more  are  we ; 
Mainz,  thou  proud  and  frowning  fortress. 
Let  him  wander  free!' 


WILHELM   MULLER.  393 

gave  plenty  of  occasion  for  suspicion.     But  the  only 
answer  which  he  vouchsafed  to  his  detractors  was : — 

'  Und  lasst  mir  doch  mein  voiles  Glass, 
Und  lasst  mir  meinen  guten  Spass, 
Mit  unsrer  schlechten  Zeit  I 
Wer  bei  dem  Weine  singt  und  lacht, 
Den  thut,  ihr  Herru,  :iiclit  in  die  Acht  1 
Ein  Kind  ist  Frohligkeit '.' 

Wilhelm  Mliller  evidently  felt  that  when  words 
are  not  deeds,  or  do  not  lead  to  deeds,  silence  is 
more  worthy  of  a  man  than  speech.  He  never 
became  a  political  poet,  at  least  never  in  his 
own  country.  But  when  the  rising  of  the  Greeks 
appealed  to  those  human  sympathies  of  Christian 
nations  which  can  never  be  quite  extinguished,  and 
when  here,  too,  the  faint-hearted  policy  of  the  great 
powers  played  and  bargained  over  the  great  events 
in  the  East  of  Europe  instead  of  trusting  to  those 
principles  which  alone  can  secure  the  true  and  last- 
ing well-being  of  states,  as  well  as  of  individuals, 
then  the  long  accumulated  wrath  of  the  poet  and 
of  the  man  burst  forth  and  found  utterance  in  the 
songs  on  the  Greek  war  of  Independence.  Human, 
Christian,  political,  and  classical  sympathies  stirred 
his  heart,  and  breathed  that  life  into  his  poems, 
which  most  of  them  still  possess.  It  is  astonishing 
how  a  young  man  in  a  small  isolated  town  like 
Dessau,  almost  shut  out  from  intercourse  with  the 

*  *  The  times  are  evil,  so  leave  me  still 
My  brimming  glass,  my  wit  at  vi'ill, 

My  frolic  fancies  wild  ! 
"Who  laughs  and  quaffs,  and  loves  good  cheer, 
Of  him,  my  masters,  have  no  fear  ! 
Mirth  is  a  very  child.' 

Translation,  by  Sir  Theodore  ^Tartin. 


394  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

great  world,  could  have  followed  step  by  step  the 
events  of  the  Greek  revolution,  seizing  on  all  the 
right,  the  beauty,  the  grandeur  of  the  struggle, 
making  himself  intimately  acquainted  with  the  domi- 
nant characters,  whilst  he  at  the  same  time  mastered 
the  peculiar  local  colouring  of  the  passing  events. 
Wilhelm  Mliller  was  not  only  a  poet,  but  he  was 
intimately  acquainted  with  classic  antiquity.  He 
hneio  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans.  And  just  as 
during  his  stay  in  Rome  he  recognised  everywhere 
the  old  in  what  was  new,  and  everywhere  sought 
to  find  what  was  eternal  in  the  eternal  city,  so 
now  with  him  the  modern  Greeks  were  inseparably 
joined  with  the  ancient.  A  knowledge  of  the  modern 
Greek  language  appeared  to  him  the  natural  com- 
pletion of  the  study  of  old  Greek ;  and  it  was  his 
acquaintance  with  the  popular  songs  of  modern  as 
well  as  of  ancient  Hellas  that  gave  the  colour  which 
imparted  such  a  vivid  expression  of  truth  and  natural- 
ness to  his  own  Greek  songs.  It  was  thus  that  the 
'  Griechen-Lieder '  arose,  which  appeared  in  separate 
but  rapid  numbers,  and  found  great  favour  with  the 
people.  But  even  these  '  Griechen-Lieder '  caused 
anxiety  to  the  paternal  governments  of  those  days : — 

'  Ruh'  und  Friede  will  Europa — warum  hast  du  sie  gestort  ? 
Warum  mit  dera  Wahn  der  Freiheit  eigenrnachtig  dich  bethort  ? 
HofF'  auf  keines  Herren  Hiilfe  gegen  eines  Herren  Frohn : 
Audi  de3  Tiirkenkaisers  Polster  nennt  Europa  einen  ThronV 

His   last   poems   were  suppressed  by  the  Censor, 

'  '  Eui'ope  wants  but  peace  and  quiet :   why  hast  thou  disturbed  her 
rest? 
How  with  silly  dreams  of  freedom  dost  thou  dare  to  fill  thy  breast  ? 
If  thou  rise  against  thy  rulers,  Hellas,  thou  must  tight  alone, 
Ev'u  the  bolster  of  a  Sultan  loyal  Europe  calls  a  throne.' 


■WILHELM   MULLER.  395 

as  well  as  his  '  Hymn  on  the  death  of  Raphael  Riego.' 
Some  of  these  were  first  published  loug  after  his 
death,  others  must  have  been  lost  whilst  in  the  Cen- 
sor's hands. 

Two  of  the  Greek  songs, '  Mark  Bozzari,'  and  '  Song 
before  Battle,'  may  help  the  English  reader  to  form 
his  own  opinion  both  of  the  poetical  genius  and  of 
the  character  of  Wilhelm  MllUer  : — 

MARK   BOZZARI  1. 

'  OefFne  deine  hohen  Thore,  Missolunghi,  Stadt  der  Ehren, 
Wo  der  Helden  Leichen  ruhen,  die  una  frohlich  sterben  leliren, 
Oeflne  deine  hohen  Thore,  bffne  deine  tiefen  Griifte, 
Auf,   und  streue  Lorberieiser  auf  den  Pfad  und  in  die  Llifte  ; 
Mark  Bozzari's  edlen  Leib  bringen  wir  zu  dir  getragen, 
Mark  Bozzari's  !   Wer  darf's  wagen,  solchen  Helden  zu  beklagen? 
"Willst  zuerst  du  seine  Wunden  oder  seine  Siege  zahlen? 
Keinem  Sieg  wird  eine  Wunde,  keiner  Wund'  ein  Sieg  hier  fehlen. 
Sieh  auf  unsern  Lanzenspitzen  sich  die  Turbanhiiupter  drehen, 
Sieh,   wie  viber  seiner  Bahre  die  Osnianenfalinen  wehen, 
Sieh,  o  sieh  die  letzten  Werke,  die  vollbracht  des  Hehlen  Rechte 
In  dem  Feld  von  Karpinissi,   wo  sein  Stahl  im  Blute  zechte  ! 
In  der  schwarzen  Geisterstunde  rief  er  unsre  Schar  zusamnien. 
Funken  spriihten  unsre  Augen  durch  die  Nacht  wie  Wetterflammen, 
Uebers  Knie  zerbrachen  wir  jauchzend  unsrer  Schwerter  Seheiden, 
Um  mit  Sensen  einzumahen  in  die  feisten  Tiirkenweiden ; 
Und  wir  driickten  uns  die  Hiinde,  und  wir  strichen  uns  die  Barte, 
Und  der  stampfte  mit  dem  Fusse,  und  der  rieb  an  seinem  Schwerte. 
Da  erscholl  Bozzari's  Stimme  :   "Auf,  ins  Lager  der  Barbaren  ! 
Auf,  mir  nach  !  Verirrt  euch  nicht,  Briider,  in  der  Feinde  Scharen ! 
Sucht  ihr  mich,  im  Zelt  des  Paschas  werdet  ihr  uiich  sicher  finden, 
Auf,   mifc    Gott  1    Er   hilft    die  Feinde,    hilft   den  Tod  auch    iiber- 

winden  ! " 
Auf!    Und  die  Trompete  riss  er  hastig  aus  des  Bliisers  Handen 
Und  stiess  selbst  hinein  so  hell,  dass  es  von  den  Felsenwiinden 
Heller  stets  und  heller  musste  sich  verdoppelnd  widerhallen ; 
Aber  heller  widerhallt'  es  doch  in  unstrn  Herzen  alien. 

*  I  am  enabled  through   the  kindness  of  Sir  Theodore  Martin  to 
supply  an  excellent  translation  of  these  two  poems. 


396  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Wie  des  Herren  Blitz  und  Dnnner  aus  der  Wolkenburg  der  Nachte, 
Also  traf  das  Schwert  der  Freien  die  Tyrannen  und  die  Knechte; 
Wie  die  Tuba  des  Gericlites  wird  dereinst  die  Sunder  wecken, 
Also  sclioll  durchs  Tiirkenlager  brausend  dieser  Ruf  der  Schrecken  : 
"  Mark  Eozzari  !    Mark  Bozzari !    Sulioten  !    Sulioten  !  " 
Solch  ein  guter  Morgengruss  ward  den  Schliifern  da  entboten, 
Und  sie  riittelten  sich  auf,  und  gleich  hirtenlosen  Scliafen 
Eannten  sie  durch  alle  Gassen,  bis  sie  aneinander  trafen 
Und,  betboi-t  von  Todesengeln,  die  durch  ihre  Schwarme  gingen, 
Briider  sich  in  blinder  Wuth  sttirzten  in  der  Brlider  Klingen. 
Frag'    die    Nacht   nach    unsern   Thaten ;    sie   hat  uns    im   Kainpf 

gesehen — 
Aber  wird  der  Tag  es  glanben,  was  in  dieser  Nacht  geschehen  ? 
Hundsrt  Griechen,  tausend  Tiirken  :  also  war  die  Saat  zu  schauen 
Auf  dem  Feld  von  Karpinlssi,  als  das  Licht  beganii  zu  grauen. 
Mark  Bozzari,  Mark  Bozzari,  und  dich  haben  wir  gefunden — 
Kenntlich    nur    an    deinem    Schwerte,    kenntlich    nur    an    deinen 

Wnnden, 
Au  den  Wunden,  die  du  schlugest,  und  an  denen,  die  dich  trafen — 
Wie  du  es  verheissen  hattest,   in  dem  Zelt  des  Pasclias  schlafen. 

OefFne  deine  liohen  Tiiore,  Missolunghi,  Stadt  der  Ehren, 
Wo  der  Helden  Leichen  ruhen,  die  uns  frohlich  sterben  lehren, 
OefFne  deine  tiefen  Griifte,  dass  wir  in  den  heil'gen  Stiitten 
Neben  Helden  unsern  Helden  zu  dem  langen  Schlafe  betten  !  — 
Schlafe    bei   dem    deutschen    Grafen,    Grafen   Normann,    Fels   der 

Ehren, 
Bis  die  Stimmen  des  Gerichtes  alle  Graber  werden  leeren.' 


MARK  BOZZARI. 

'Open  wide,  proud  Missolonghi,  open  wide  thy  portals  high, 
Where  repose  the  bones  of  heroes,  teach  us  cheerfully  to  die ! 
Open  wide  thy  lofty  portals,  open  wide  thy  vaults  profound  ; 
Up,  and  scatter  laurel  garlands  to  the  breeze  and  on  the  ground ! 
Mark  Bozzari's  noble  body  is  the  freight  to  thee  we  bear, 
Mark  Bozzari's  !     Who  for  hero  great  aa  he  to  weep  will  dare  ? 
Tell  liis  wounds,  his  victories  over !    Which  in  number  greatest  be  ? 
Every  victory  hath  its  wound,  and  every  wound  its  victory  1 
See,  a  turlian'd  head  is  grimly  set  on  all  our   lances  here ! 
See,  how  the  Osmanli's  banner  swathes  in  purple  folds  his  bier! 
See,  oh,  see,  the  latest  trophies,  which  our  hero's  glory  seal'd. 
When    his   glaive   with   gore    was    drunken    on    great    Karpinissi's 
field! 


WILHELM   MULLER.  397 

In  tlie  murkiest  hour  of  midnii^ht  did  we  at  his  call  arise, 
Through  the  gloom  like  lightning-Hashes  flash'd  the  fury  from  our* 

eyes; 
With  a  shout,  across  our  knees  we  snapp'd  the  scabbards  of  our 

swords. 
Better  down  to  mow  the  harvest  of  the  mellow  Turkish  hordes ; 
And  we  clasp'd  our  hands  together,   and  each  warrior  stroked  his 

beard, 
And  one  stamp'd  the  sward,  another  rubb'd  his  blade,  and  vow'd 

its  weird. 
Then  Bozzari's  voice  resounded :  "  On,  to  the  barbarian's  lair ! 
On,  and  follow  me,  my  brothers,   see  you  keep  together  there ! 
Should    you    miss    me,    you    will    find    me    surely   in    the  Paslia's 

tent  ! 
On,  with  God !     Through   Him   our  foemen,  death  itself  through 

Him  is  shent ! 
On !  "     And  swift  he  snatch'd   the    bugle  from    the  hands    of   him 

that  blew. 
And  himself  awoke  a  summons  that  o'er  dale  and  mountain  flew. 
Till  each  rock  and  cliff  made  answer  clear  and  clearer  to  the  call, 
But  a  clearer  echo  sounded  in  the  bosom  of  us  all ! 
As  from  midnight's  battlemented  keep  the  lightnings  of  the  Lord 
Sweep,  so   swept    our    swords,  and    smote    the    tyrants    and    their 

slavish  horde ; 
As   the   trump  of  doom    shall  waken   sinners  in  their  graves  that 

lie, 
So  through  all  the  Turkish  leaguer  thunder'd  his  appalling  cry  : 
"Mark  Bozzari  !      Mark  Bozzari  !      Suliotes,  smite  them  in  their 

lair  !  " 
Such  the  goodly  morning  greeting  that  we  gave  the  sleepers  there. 
And  they  stagger'd  from  their  slumber,  and  they  ran  from  street 

to  street, 
Ean  like  sheep  without  a  shepherd,  striking  wild  at  all  they  meet ; 
Ran,  and  frenzied  by  Death's   angels,  who  amidst  their  myriads 

stray'd, 
Brother,  in  bewilder'd  fury,  dash'd  and  fell  on  brother's  blade. 
Ask  the  night  of  our  achievements  !     It  beheld  us  in  the  fight, 
But  the  day  will  never  credit  what  we  did  in  yonder  night. 
Greeks    by    hundreds,    Turks    by    thousands,    there    like    scatter'd 

seed  they  lay, 
On  the  field  of  Karpinissi,  when  the  morning  broke  in  grey. 
Mark  Bozzari,  Mark  Bozzari,  and  we  found  thee  gash'd  and  mown; 
By  thy  sword   alone   we   knew  thee,  knew  thee   by  thy  wounds 

alone ; 


398  BIOGKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

By  the  wounds  thy  hand  had  cloven,  by  the  wounds  that  seam'd 

thy  breast, 
Lying,  as  thou  hadst  foretold  us,  in  the  Pasha's  tent  at  rest ! 

Open  wide,  proud  Missolonghi,  open  wide  thy  portals  high, 
Where  repose  the  bones  of  heroes,  teacli  us  cheerfully  to  die  I 
Open  wide  thy  vaults !     Witliin  their  holy  bounds  a  couch  we  'd 

make, 
Where  our  hero,  laid  with  heroes,  may  his  last  long  slumber  take ! 
Rest  beside  that  Rock  of  Honour,  brave  Count  Noi-mann,  rest  thy 

head, 
Till,   at   the   archangel's    trumpet,   all  the    graves   give   up   their 

dead  I ' 


LIED   VOR   DER   SCHLACHT. 

*Wer  fiir  die  Freiheit  kiinipft  und  fallt,  dess  Ruhm  wird  bliihend 

stehn, 
Solange  frei  die  Winde  noch  durch  freie  Liifte  wehn, 
Solange  frei  der  Biiume  Laub  noch  rauscht  im  grunen  Wald, 
Solang'  des  Stromes  Woge  noch  frei  nach  dem  Meere  wallt, 
Solang'  des  Adlers  Fittich  frei  noch  durch  die  Wolken  fleugt, 
Solang'  ein  freier  Odeni  noch  aus  freiem  Herzen  steigt. 

Wer  fiir  die  Freiheit  kiimpft  und   fallt,  dess  Ruhm  wird  bliihend 

stehn, 
Solange  freie  Geister  noch  durch  Erd'  und  Himmel  gehn. 
Durch  Erd'  und  Himmel  schwebt  er  noch,  der  Helden  Schatten- 

reibn, 
Und  rauscht  um  uns  in  stiller  Nacht,  in  hellem  Sonnenschein, 
Im  Sturm,  der  stolze  Tannen  bricht,  und   in  dem  Luftchen  auch, 
Das  durch  das  Gras  auf  GrJibern  spielt  mit  seinem  leisen  Hauch, 
In  ferner  Enkel  Hause  noch  um  alle  Wiegen  kreist 
Auf  Hellas'  heldenreicher  Flur  der  freien  Ahnen  Geist; 
Der  haucht  in  Wundertriiumen  sclion  den  zarten  Saugling  an 
Und  weiht  in  seinem  ersten  Schlaf  das  Kind  zu  einem  Mann ; 
Den  Jiingling  lockt  sein  Ruf  hinaus  mit  nie  gefiihlter  Lust 
Zur  Statte,  wo  ein  Freier  fiel  ;    da  greift  er  in  die  Brust 
Dem  Zitternden,  und  Schauer  ziehn  ihm  durch  das  tiefe  Herz, 
Er  weiss  iiicht,  ob  es  Wonne  sei,  ob  es  der  erste  Schmerz. 
Herab,  du  heil'ge  Geisterschar,  schwell'  unsre  Fahnen  auf, 
Befliigle  unsrer  Herzen  Schlag  und  unsrer  Ftisse  Lauf; 
Wir  Ziehen  nach  der  Freiheit  aus,  die  Waffen  in  der  Hand, 
Wir  Ziehen  aus  auf  Kampf  und  Tod  fiir  Gott,  fiirs  Vaterland ! 


WILIIELM   MiJLLER.  399 

Ilir  seid  mit  nns,  ilir  rauscht  um  uns,  eu'r  Geisterodem  zieht 

Mit  zauberisclien  Tiinen  hin  diirch  unser  Jubellied; 

Ihr  seid  mit  uns,  ihr  schvvebt  dalier,  ihr  aus  Tliennopyia, 

Ihr  aus  dem  giiinen  Marathon,  ihr  von  der  Llaueri   bee, 

Am  Wolkenfelsen  Mykale,  am  Salami iierstrand, 

Ihr  air  aus  Wald,  Feld,  Berg  und  Thai  im  weiten  Griechenland  ! 

Wer  fiir  die  Freiheit  kampft  und   fallt,  dess  Ivuhm  wird  bltihend 

stehn, 
Solange  frei  die  Winde  noch  durch  freie  Liifte  wehn, 
Solange  frei  der  Biiume  Laub  noch  rauscht  im  grtiuen  Wald, 
Solang'  des  Stromes  Woge  noch  frei  nach  dem  Meere  wallt, 
Solang'  des  Adlers  Fittich  frei  noch  durch  die  Wolken  fleugt, 
Solang'  ein  freier  Odem  noch  aus  freiem  llerzen  steigt.' 


SONG   BEFORE   BATTLE. 

•  Whoe'er  for  freedom  fights  and  falls,  his  fame  no  blight  shall  know. 
As  long  as  through  heaven's  free  expanse  the  breezes  freely  blow. 
As  long  as  in  the  forest  wild  tlie  green  leaves  flutter  free, 
As  long  as  rivers,  mountain-born,  roll  freely  to  the  sea. 
As  long  as  free  the  eagle's  wing  exulting  cleaves  the  skies, 
As  long  as  from  a  freeman's  heart  a  freeman's  breath  doth  rise. 

Whoe'er  for  freedom  fights  and  falls,  his  fame  no  blight  shall  know. 
As  long  as  spirits  of  the  free  through  earth  and  air  shall  go ; 
Through  earth  and  air  a  spirit-band  of  heroes  moves  always, 
'Tis  near  us  at  the  dead  of  night,  and  in  the  noontide's  blaze, 
In  the  storm  that  levels  towering  pines,  and  in  the  breeze  that  waves 
With  low  and  gentle  breath  the  grass  upon  our  fathers'  graves. 
There  's  not  a  cradle  in  the  bounds  of  Hellas  broad  and  fair. 
But  the  spirit  of  our  free-born  sires  is  surely  hovering  tliere. 
It  breathes  in  dreams  of  fairyland  upon  the  infant's  brain, 
And  in  his  first  sleep  dedicates  the  child  to  manhood's  pain  ; 
Its  summons  lures  the  youth  to  stand,  with  new-born  joy  possess'd. 
Where  once  a  freeman  fell,  and  there  it  fires  his  thrilling  breast. 
And  a  shudder  runs  through  all  his  frame  ;  he  knows  not  if  it  be 
A  throb  of  rapture,   or  the  first  sharp  pang  of  agony. 
Come,  swell  our  banners  on  the  breeze,  thou  sacred  spirit-band. 
Give  wings  to  every  warrior's  foot,  and  nerve  to  every  hand. 
We  go  to  strike  for  freedom,  to  break  the  oppressor's  rod, 
We  go  to  battle  and  to  death  for  our  country  and  our  God. 
Ye  are  with  us,  we  hear  your  wings,  we  hear  in  magic  tone 
Your  spirit-voice  the  Paean  swell,  and  mingle  with  our  own. 


4C0  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Ye  are  with  us,  ye  throng  around, — you  from  Tliermopylae, 
You  from  the  verdant  Marathon,  you  from  the  azure  sea. 
By  the  cloud-capp'd  rocks  of  Mykale,  at  Salamis, — all  you 
From  field  and  forest,  mount  and  glen,  the  land  of  Hellas  through ! 

Whoe'er  for  freedom  fights   and  falls,  his  fame  no  blight  shall 
know, 
As  long  as  through  heaven's  free  expanse  the  breezes  freely  blow, 
As  long  as  in  the  forest  wild  the  green  leaves  flutter  free, 
As  long  as  rivers,  mountain-born,  roll  freely  to  the  sen, 
As  long  as  free  the  eagle's  wing  exulting  cleaves  the  skies, 
As  long  as  from  a  freeman's  heart  a  freeman's  breath  doth  rise.' 

There  is  a  poem  on  Konstantin  Kanares  published 
by  Wilhelm  Miiller  in  his  'Neueste  Lieder  der 
Griechen,'  1824,  and  translated  by  Professor  Aytoun  in 
his  '  Lays  of  the  Scottish  Cavaliers  and  other  poems  ^' 
It  was  probably  written  soon  after  the  second  fireship 
exploit  of  Kanares  which  took  place  in  November, 
1 833  -.  Kanares  lived  to  be  Prime  Minister  of  Greece, 
and  died  in  1877,  while  the  poet  who  wrote  his 
epitaph  died  fifty  years  before. 

EPITAPH   ON  KONSTANTIN   KANARI. 

'  Konstantin  Kanari  heiss'  ich,  der  ich  lieg'  in  dieser  Gruffc, 
Zwei  Osmanenflotten  hab'  ich  fliegen  lassen  in  die  Luft, 
Bin  auf  meinem  Bett  gestorben  in  dem  Herrn,  als  guter  Christ: 
Nur  ein  Wunsch  von  dieser  Erde  noch  mit  mir  beerdigt  ist: 

Dass  ich  mit  der  dritten  Flotte  unsrer  Feind'  auf  hohem  Meer 
Mitten  unter  Blitz  und  Donner  in  den  Tod  geflogen  war' ! 
Hier  in  freier  Erde  haben  meinen  Leib  sie  eingesenkt — 
Gieb   raein  Gott,  dass    frei    sie  bleibe,  bis   mein  Leib   sie   wieder 
sprengt 1 ' 

Aytodn's  Translation. 

*  I  am  Constantine  Kanares, 
I,  who  lie  beneath  this  stone, 
Twice  into  the  air  in  thunder 
Have  the  Turkish  galleys  blown. 

1  2oth  ed.  i86S,  p.  324. 

'  See  Finlay,  *  History  of  Greece,'  vi.  301. 


WILHELM   MULLER.  401 

In  my  bed  I  died,  a  Christian, 

Hoping  straight  with  Clirist  to  be ; 

Yet  one  earthly  wish  is  buried 

Deep  within  the  grave  with  me — 

That  upon  the  open  ocean, 

When  the  third  Armada  came, 
They  and  I  had  died  together, 

Whirled  aloft  on  wings  of  flame. 

Yet  'tis  something  that  they  've  laid  me 

In  a  land  without  a  stain  : 
Keep  it  thus,  my  God  and  Saviour, 

Till  I  rise  from  earth  again.' 

When  we  remember  all  that  was  compressed  into 
the  poet's  short  life,  we  might  well  believe  that  this 
ceaseless  acquiring  and  creating  must  have  tired  and 
weakened  and  injured  both  body  and  mind.  Such, 
however,  was  not  the  case.  All  who  knew  the  poet 
agree  in  stating  that  he  never  overworked  himself, 
and  that  he  accomplished  all  he  did  with  the  most 
perfect  ease  and  enjoyment.  Let  us  only  remember 
how  his  life  as  a  student  was  broken  into  by  his 
service  during  the  war,  how  his  journey  to  Italy 
occupied  several  years  of  his  life,  how  later  in  Dessau 
he  had  to  follow  his  profession  as  Teacher  and 
Librarian,  and  then  let  us  turn  our  thoughts  to  all  the 
work  of  his  hands  and  the  creations  of  his  mind,  and 
we  are  astonished  not  only  at  the  amount  of  work 
done,  but  still  more  at  the  finished  form  which 
distinguishes  all  his  works.  He  was  one  of  the  first 
who  with  Zeune,  von  der  Hagen,  and  the  brothers 
Grimm,  laboured  to  reawaken  an  interest  in  ancient 
and  mediaeval  German  literature.  Ho  was  a  favourite 
pupil  of  Wolf,  and  his '  Homerisehe  Vorschule '  did  more 
than  any  other  work  at  that  time  to  propagate  the 
ideas  of  Wolf.    He  had  explored  the  modern  languages 

VOL.  II.  D  d 


402  BI0GRA.PH1CAL   ESSAYS. 

of  Europe, — French,  Italian,  English,  and  Spanish,  and 
his  critiques  in  all  these  fields  of  literature  show  how 
intimately  acquainted  he  was  with  the  best  authors  of 
these  nations.  Besides  all  this  he  worked  regularly  for 
journals  and  encyclopaedias,  and  was  engaged  as  co- 
editor  of  the  great  Encyclopaedia  of  Arts  and  Sciences 
by  Ersch  and  Gruber.  He  also  undertook  the  publica- 
tion of  a  '  Library  of  the  German  Poets  of  the  Seven- 
teenth Century,'  and  all  this,  over  and  above  his  poems 
and  novels,  in  the  short  space  of  thirty-three  years. 

I  almost  forget  that  I  am  speaking  of  my  father, 
for  indeed  I  hardly  knew  him,  and  when  his  scientific 
and  poetic  activity  reached  its  end,  he  was  far  younger 
than  I  am  now.  I  do  not  believe,  however,  that 
a  natural  affection  and  veneration  for  the  man  de- 
prives us  of  the  right  of  judging  of  the  poet.  It  is 
well  said  that  love  is  blind,  but  love  also  strengthens 
and  sharpens  the  dull  eye,  so  that  it  sees  beauty  where 
thousands  pass  by  unmoved.  If  one  reads  most  of 
our  critical  writings,  it  would  almost  seem  as  if  the 
chief  duty  of  the  reviewer  were  to  find  out  the  weak 
points  and  faults  of  every  work  of  art.  Nothing  has 
so  injured  the  art  of  criticism  as  this  prejudice. 
A  critic  is  a  judge,  but  a  judge,  though  he  is  no  advo- 
cate, should  never  be  a  mere  prosecutor.  The  weak 
points  of  any  work  of  art  betray  themselves  only  too 
soon,  but  in  order  to  discover  its  beauties,  not  only 
a  sharp  but  also  an  experienced  eye  is  needed  ;  but 
more  necessary  than  all  are  love  and  a  sympathetic 
spirit.  It  is  the  heart  that  makes  the  true  critic,  and 
not  the  head  only.  It  is  well  known  how  man}^  of 
the  most  beautiful  spots  in  Scotland,  and  Wales,  and 
Cornwall,  were   not   many  years   ago   described    as 


WILHELM    MiJLLER.  403 

wastes  and  wildernesses.  Richmond  and  Hampton 
Court  were  admired,  people  travelled  also  to  Versailles 
and  admired  the  often  admired  blue  sky  of  Italy. 
But  poets  such  as  Walter  Scott  and  Wordsworth 
discovered  the  beauties  of  their  native  land.  Where 
others  had  only  lamented  over  bare  and  dreary  hills, 
they  saw  the  battle-fields  and  burial-places  of  the 
primaeval  Titan  struggles  of  nature.  Where  others 
saw  nothing  but  barren  moors  full  of  heather  and 
broom,  the  land  in  their  eyes  was  covered  as  with 
a  carpet  softer  and  more  variegated  than  the  most 
precious  products  of  the  looms  of  Turkey.  Where 
others  lost  their  temper  at  the  grey  cold  fog,  they 
marvelled  at  the  silver  veil  of  the  bride  of  the 
morning,  and  the  gold  illumination  of  the  departing 
sun.  Now  every  cockney  can  admire  the  smallest 
lake  in  Westmoreland  or  the  barest  moor  in  the 
Highlands.  Why  is  this  ?  Because  few  eyes  are  so 
dull  that  they  cannot  see  what  is  beautiful  after  it 
has  been  pointed  out  to  them,  and  when  they  know 
that  they  need  not  feel  ashamed  of  admiring  it.  It 
is  the  same  with  the  beauties  of  poetry,  as  with  the 
beauties  of  nature.  We  must  fu-st  discover  what 
is  beautiful  in  poetry,  and  when  it  is  discovered 
show  how  and  why  it  is  beautiful,  otherwise  the 
authors  of  Scotch  ballads  are  but  strolling  singers, 
and  the  Niebelungen  songs  are,  as  Frederick  the  Great 
said,  not  worth  powder  and  shot.  The  trade  of  fault- 
finding is  quickly  learnt,  the  art  of  admiration  is 
a  difficult  art,  at  least  for  little  minds,  narrow  hearts, 
and  timid  souls,  who  prefer  treading  broad  and  safe 
paths.  Thus  many  critics  and  literary  historians 
have  rushed  by  the  poems  of  Wllhelm  Miiller,  just 
D  d  3 


404  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

like  travellers,  who  go  on  in  the  beaten  track,  pass- 
ing by  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left  the  most 
beautiful  scenes  of  nature,  and  who  only  stand  still 
and  open  both  eyes  and  mouth  when  their  Murray 
tells  them  there  is  something  they  ought  to  admire. 
Should  an  old  man  who  is  at  home  there,  meet  them 
on  their  way  and  counsel  the  travellers  to  turn  for 
a  moment  from  the  high  road  and  accompany  him 
through  a  shady  path  to  a  mill,  many  may  feel  at  first 
full  of  uneasiness  and  distrust.  But  when  they  have 
refreshed  themselves  in  the  dark  green  valley  with 
its  lively  mill  stream  and  delicious  wood  fragrance, 
they  no  longer  blame  their  guide  for  having  called 
somewhat  loudly  to  them  to  pause  in  their  journey. 
It  is  such  a  pause  that  I  have  tried  in  these  few  intro- 
ductory lines  to  enforce  on  the  reader,  and  I  believe 
that  I  too  may  reckon  on  pardon,  if  not  on  thanks, 
from  those  who  have  followed  my  sudden  call. 


A    NATIONAL     MONUMENT     OF     WILHELM 
MULLER,  ERECTED  AT  DESSAU,  Sept.  1891. 

Dessau,  the  native  place  of  the  poet  Wilhelm 
Miiller,  is  the  capital  of  the  Duchy  of  Anhalt.  The 
monument  erected  there  by  a  national  subscription 
was  unveiled  on  September  30,  1891.  The  following 
account  of  the  ceremony  appeared  in  the  German 
papers,  and  in  a  volume  published  by  Dr.  W.  Hosaeus, 
the  Librarian  of  the  Ducal  Library. 

'  It  was  a  good  omen  for  the  unveiling  of  the 
monument  that,  after  a  long  spell  of  rain,  the  most 
magnificent   autumnal   weather  had  set  in.     People 


WILHELM   MULLER.  405 

of  the  town  and  from  the  neighbourhood  were  on  the 
alert,  looking  forward  to  the  festive  day.  Their  H.H. 
the  reigning  Duke  and  Duchess,  Prince  Edward, 
Prince  Aribert  with  his  young  wife  (the  granddaughter 
of  the  Queen  of  England  and  daughter  of  Princess 
Christian  of  Schleswig-Holstein),  and  the  Princess 
Alexandra  arrived  from  Ballenstedt  in  the  Harz 
mountains.  The  previous  evening  the  whole  town 
was  decorated  to  receive  the  Prince  and  Princess 
Aribert,  who,  after  their  marriage  in  England  on 
July  6,  made  on  this  occasion  their  first  appearance 
in  Dessau.  Professor  Max  Miiller,  the  son  of  the  poet, 
had  come  from  England  with  his  family,  and  excited 
lively  interest  among  all  classes  of  his  native  town. 
The  sun  shone  brightly  from  a  cloudless  sky,  and 
flags  and  streamers  fl.uttered  merrily  in  the  fresh 
autumnal  wind.  The  gaily  decorated  tribunes  erected 
in  the  streets  were  inspected  by  large  numbers  of 
townspeople  and  visitors,  and  the  places  reserved 
for  ladies  began  to  fill  at  an  early  hour.  Next 
arrived  the  deputations  of  the  magistracy  and  the 
officers  of  the  regiments  stationed  at  Dessau  with  their 
military  bands.  Representatives  from  far  and  near, 
and  the  professors  and  pupils  of  the  two  Government 
schools,  stood  around,  whilst  the  whole  population 
soon  covered  the  reserved  ground.  At  noon  punc- 
tually the  Court  appeared  in  carriages  drawn  by  four 
horses  with  outriders,  and  were  received  by  the  Com- 
mittee. H.H.  the  reignins:  Duke  gave  the  word  of 
command,  and  a  large  chorus  of  male  voices  sang 
a  hymn  written  and  composed  for  the  occasion.  After 
that  Privy  Councillor  Dr.  A.  Rumelin  delivered  the 
following  eloquent  speech  ; — 


406  BIOGEAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

'  Here,  where  we  are  assembled  to-day  to  unveil 
the  monument  of  Wilhelm  Muller,  we  feel  ourselves 
inspired  by  the  recollections  of  a  memorable  past,  full 
of  stirring  thouG^hts.  Behind  the  livinsf  who  are 
gathered  here  and  who  gratefully  recall  the  memory 
of  our  great  poet,  there  seem  to  rise  unseen  figures  of 
former  days,  that  went  in  and  out  of  the  old  and 
now  vanished  schoolhouse  ^  as  if  wishing  to  see  once 
more  the  face  of  their  genial  teacher  ; — poets  who 
sang  with  him  of  "  Spring  and  Love,"  of  "  blessed 
golden  times,"  "  of  Liberty,  of  manly  work,  of  truth 
and  sanctity "- ;  masters  of  music,  who  by  their 
melodies  have  planted  our  poet's  songs  deep  in  the 
hearts  of  the  German  people,  brothers-in-arms  who 
sacrificed  by  his  side  their  life  for  the  freedom  of  the 
fatherland,  and  foremost  among  them  the  "  youth 
with  sword  and  lyre  "  (Theodor  Korner),  the  centenary 
of  whose  birth  we  celebrated  here  a  few  days  ago ; 
and  from  the  Eurotas  and  the  island-rock  of  Hydra, 
the  valiant  sons  of  Greece  whose  King  and  Parlia- 
ment have  sent  the  marble  for  the  monument  of  the 
loved  poet  of  the  "  Griechenlieder." 

'  The  place,  however,  where  the  genius  of  the  poet 
grew  and  flourished  is  here,  in  this  country,  whose 
Prince  acted  as  his  gracious  friend  and  protector,  and 
it  was  in  this  very  town  that  from  the  cradle  to  the 
grave  the  greater  part  of  his  life  was  spent  and  his 
work  done.  Still  and  peaceful  was  the  respected 
burgher-house  which  witnessed  his  birth,  and  allowed 

*  The  old  schoolhouse  in  which  Wilhelm  Muller  taught  has  been 
demolished,  and  a  new  one  has  been  built,  in  front  of  which  stands  the 
monument  of  the  poet. 

''^  All  these  are  quotations  from  W.  Miiller's  poems  and  other  popular 
Bongs. 


WILHELM   MULLER.  407 

full  play  to  the  boy's  spirits  and  thoughts  ;  still  and 
peaceful  was  the  land  of  his  childhood  under  the 
patriarchal  government  of  the  mild  and  wise  Duke 
Franz.  The  young  heart  could  take  root  with  all  its 
fibres  in  the  wonders  of  the  surrounding  nature  wdiich 
had  been  made  more  wonderful  by  the  creative  genius 
of  the  reigning  Prince.  It  was  here  that  the  birds  of 
the  forest  took  his  thoughtful  mind  captive  with  their 
songs  ;  it  was  here  that  God's  bright  sunshine  sank 
deep  into  his  soul,  from  whence,  when  the  hour  had 
come,  sprang  up  his  fragrant  "  Songs  of  Spring."  And 
bound  up  with  this  wonderful  nature  were  the  drama- 
tic characters,  the  huntsman  in  his  green  di'ess  and 
the  feather  in  his  hat,  the  miller  listening  to  the  music 
of  the  rivulet  and  the  mill-wheel,  the  organ-grinder 
passing  through  the  village,  and  the  roving  youth 
before  whose  eyes  the  image  of  his  beloved  was 
always  moving.  The  Muse,  who  met  him  in  the 
gardens  and  parks  of  the  friend  and  patron  of  Winkel- 
mann^  and  Erdmannsdorf-,  looked  on  him  with  her 
bright  eyes,  and  became  his  guide  through  the  world 
of  classical  beauty,  the  languages  of  which  he  had 
mastered  as  if  in  play. 

'On  this  peaceful  life,  however,  there  broke  the 
thunder  of  the  cannons  of  Jena ;  Germany  lay  pros- 
trate. The  boy,  only  twelve  years  old,  saw  the 
French  conqueror  in  his  native  town,  saw  the  young 
soldiers  of  his  fatherland  forced  to  follow  the  com- 
mand of  the  tyrant.  He  heard  the  cry  of  an  enslaved 
people,  and  then  the  fire  first  began  to  burn  within 

*  The  Duke  of  Dessau,  who  during  his  travels  in  Italy  was  on 
friendly  terms  with  Winkelniann,  the  great  archaeologist, 

*  Erdmannsdorf  was  the  Duke's  friend  and  adviser. 


408  BIOGiKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

his  breast  which  afterwards  burst  forth,  stirring  and 
consuming,  in  the  songs  of  the  man,  when  he  saw  the 
noble  people  of  Greece  trodden  under  foot  and  strug- 
gling for  freedom  against  their  oppressors.  And  even 
before  the  time  when  these  immortal  songs  sprang 
from  his  lyre,  the  youth  himself  had  grasped  his 
sword  to  fight  for  his  own  fatherland.  At  the  time 
when  Theodor  Korner  with  Llitzow's  bold  warriors 
appeared  here  in  Dessau,  Wilhelm  Mliller,  then  a 
student  at  Berlin,  had  entered  the  Prussian  army 
as  a  volunteer,  and  had  fought  bravely  on  many 
a  battlefield. 

'  And  now  we  see  the  bud  growing  into  the  flower. 
It  opened  in  the  enchanted  garden  of  the  Romantic 
School,  whose  members  looked  up  to  the  royal  seer 
of  Weimar.  Art  and  science,  with  poetry  in  the  van, 
were  striving  then  to  unite  with  the  life  of  the  people, 
to  draw  life  from  it,  and  to  return  life  to  it.  The 
past  of  the  German  people,  the  middle  ages  with  their 
Minne-song,  where  poetry  and  reality  seemed  to  em- 
brace each  other,  was  brought  to  life  again.  People 
began  to  study  the  origin,  the  growth  and  spirit  of 
language  and  poetry,  of  nations  and  states,  in  order 
to  bring  what  seemed  lost  to  the  service  of  the  de- 
livered fatherland.  United  with  the  brothers  Grimm, 
the  founders  of  the  science  and  history  of  the  German 
language,  men  like  F.  A.  Wolf  and  A.  Bockh  laboured, 
the  one  to  discover  the  origin  of  the  Homeric  poems, 
the  other  to  explain  the  organism  of  the  Athenian 
state.  At  their  feet  sat  Wilhelm  Mliller,  and  how 
sedulousl}^  he  followed  them  has  been  shown  by  his 
later  works.  At  the  same  time  he  was  powerfully 
attracted  by  the  newly  recovered   treasures  of  Old 


WILIIELM   MULLER.  409 

German  poetry.  The  "  Wuuderhorn"  of  Brentano^ 
sounded  through  the  windows  of  his  study  amid  the 
stirring  notes  of  popular  poetry  which  had  so  long 
been  despised.  It  was  while  moving  in  this  enchanted 
garden  that  Gustav  Schwab,  his  friend  and  afterwards 
the  editor  of  his  collected  works,  saw  and  described 
him,  his  face  in  the  bloom  of  youth,  the  quickly 
changing  colour  on  his  cheek,  the  eye  bright  with  the 
consciousness  of  the  growing  poet,  the  high  forehead 
crowned  with  fair  locks,  the  very  image  of  strong- 
nerved  genius.  He  hardly  knew  as  yet  where  to 
turn,  so  many  high-strung  interests  divided  his  mind. 
When  on  the  point  of  devoting  himself  to  the 
study  of  the  Old  German  Language  and  Literature 
and  entering  on  an  academic  career,  he  was  chosen 
by  the  Berhn  Academy  to  accompany  a  rich  patron 
of  classical  archaeology  to  Greece  and  Egypt.  But 
Wilhelra  Muller,  full  of  a  desire,  kindled  by  Goethe, 
to  see  Italy,  succeeded  in  persuading  his  friend  to 
travel  to  Italy  first,  and  then  separated  from  him 
in  order  to  remain  there,  his  heart  full  of  the  impres- 
sions of  the  eternal  city  and  of  the  sunnj^  south,  looking, 
with  his  Virgil  open  before  him,  from  the  Alban  hills 
over  the  surrounding  country,  recognising  Horatian 
descriptions  in  the  scenes  of  Roman  life,  collecting 
popular  Italian  songs,  and  after  having  been  the  head 
of  a  poetical  circle  in  the  northern  capital  (Berlin), 
now  becoming  himself  a  real  poet. 

'Many  of  his  poems  had  then  appeared  in  German 
journals.  And  when  after  spending  a  year  and 
a  half  in  Italy,  and  publishing  his  fii'st  book,  "  Rom, 

^  An  early  collection  of  German  popular  songs,  published  by  Brentano 
under  that  title. 


410  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Romer  und  Romerinnen,"  a  description  in  glowing 
colours  of  his  experiences  in  Italy,  he  published  his 
"  Seventy-seven  poems  from  the  papers  of  a  travelling 
Waldhornist,"  Wilbelm  Miiller  stood  before  his  con- 
temporaries as  a  lyrical  poet  whose  poems  could  never 
be  forgotten,  but  would  hold  an  abiding  place  in  the 
history  of  German  literature,  and,  what  is  more,  in 
the  heart  of  the  German  people.  He  was  a  true 
disciple  of  Goethe,  an  admirer  of  Uhland,  but  his 
thoughts  and  feelings  were  never  imitative,  always 
his  own,  and  therefore,  clear  and  impressive.  We 
feel  carried  along  with  the  movement  of  his  Wander- 
lieder,  we  hear  the  voice  of  the  rivulet  as  if  talking 
to  ourselves.  In  his  heart's  lono-ino-,  findings  and 
losing,  the  poet,  w^hether  joyful  as  if  in  heaven,  or 
sad  unto  death  ^,  makes  us  sharers  of  his  own  joy,  his 
own  despair.  Whether  he  weaves  a  wreath  of  lyric 
songs,  as  in  his  "  Schone  Miillerin,"  "  Johannes  and 
Esther,"and  the  "Winterreise,"'  or  gives  us  a  single  song, 
his  words  breathe  forth  the  feelings  of  the  moment  so 
fully  and  clearly,  that  each  poem  by  itself  becomes 
a  favourite.  The  full  maturity  and  beauty  displayed 
in  what  he  calls  "  Lyrische  Spaziergauge,"  published  in 
the  last  years  of  his  life,  meet  us  already  in  the  first 
poems  of  the  "  Waldhornist." 

'  The   sweet  bird-song,  "  A  bullfinch  sat  on  a  lilac 
bough,  and  sang  -,"  with  its  joj-ful  call,  "  Now  cast  the 

^  All  these  are  allusions  to  well-known  German  poems. 

«  THE   BULLFINCH'S  GREETING. 

'A  bullfinch  sat  on  a  lilac  bough, 
And  sang 
Thick-warbling  notes',  and  this  is  how 

They  rang: 


WILHELM   MULLER.  411 

winter  out  of  door,  away ! "  dazzles  us  with  the  same 
joy  of  spring,  and  appeals  to  our  ear  with  the  same 
tones  caught  from  nature  as  the  splendid  "  Spring- 
songs"  which  he  composed  in  the  house  of  his  friend 
Count  Kalkreuth,  in  the  Plauensche  Grund  near 
Dresden.  We  willingly  obey  their  call,  "  Open  the 
windows  and  open  the  hearts,  quick,  quick! "  Whoever 
wants  to  feel  how  nature  pervades  the  poet's  songs, 
let  him  follow  his  "  Winterreise,"  in  which  the  last 

"  Now  cast  the  winter  out  of  door, 

Away  ! 
May,  May,  good  folks,  is  here  once  more, 

tsweet  May ! 

A  gay  green  overcoat  has  he 

Of  grass, 
With  buttons  sheen,  right  fair  to  see, 

Of  glass. 

The  springald  has  a  great  wide  eye 

Of  blue  ; 
Allwheres  it  pierces,  low  and  high, 

Clean  through. 

His  breatli  bedews,  so  fresh  and  pure. 

The  air; 
Perfumed  all  o'er  must  be,  I'm  sure, 

His  hair. 

A  winning  way  with  maidens'  moods 

Has  he, 
Him  too  young  lads  delight  in  woods 

To  see. 

He  brings  the  children  toys  galore ; 

But  whence  ? 
From  Niirnberg,  from  the  Flower-Smith's  store: 

Yes  I  thence  ! 

And  how  will't  be  with  the  humdrum  Goths? 

Oh,  they 
Find  sport  in  catching  flics  and  moths 

All  day  ! "  ' 

Theodore  Martin. 


412  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

falling  leaf,  the  snow-covered  footprints  on  the  field, 
the  ice  of  the  rivers,  and  the  frozen  flowers  on  the 
window-panes  are  so  naturally  interwoven  with  the 
grief  of  unhappy  love  that  they  seem  inseparable. 
His  poetry  shows  that  it  is  born  of  nature  and  springs 
from  a  joyful  heart.  The  poet  avoids  with  few  ex- 
ceptions the  artificial  metres  of  antiquity  as  well  as 
the  complicated  strophes  of  the  South.  But  staflT- 
rhyme  finds  its  way  naturally  into  his  -verses,  and  the 
final  rhyme  is  to  him  the  very  soul  of  German  song. 
He  has  endowed  his  poems  with  the  wings  of  rhyme 
and  of  melody.  Having  praised  in  manifold  variation 
the  juice  of  the  vine  and  the  sound  of  the  goblets  in 
the  company  of  friends,  he  is  willing  to  be  counted 
among  the  Anacreontic  poets,  but  he  will  not  be  one 
of  the  rhymeless  Anacreontic  poets  or  of  the  imitators 
of  Klopstock's  odes.  His  poems  lend  themselves  to 
song,  nay  they  seem  themselves  to  be  sung  rather 
than  to  be  written.  It  is  no  mere  chance  that 
W,  Miiller  dedicated  the  second  volume  of  his  "Wald- 
hornist "  to  Weber  ^,  that  he  was  on  the  most  intimate 
terms  with  Schneider  ^  and  other  masters  of  music, 
and  that  he  found  in  Schubert  a  setter  to  music  of  his 
songs  w^ho  showed  how  thoroughly  poetry  and  music 
can  intermingle.  Whenever  w^e  open  the  volumes  of 
his  poetry,  we  feel  delighted  at  the  talent  with  which 
he  discovers  a  poetic  side  in  every  situation,  at  the 
sharp  wit  with  which  in  hundreds  of  epigrams  he 
touches  the  folly  and  vanity  of  the  world,  at  the 
living  perception  which,  in  his  travels  through  German 

'  The  composer  of  the   '  Freiscliutz,'   &c.,   godfather   of  Professor 
Max  Miiller. 

^  A  well-known  composer,  Director  of  the  Ducal  orchestra  at  Dessau. 


WILHELM   MIJLLER.  413 

• 

and  foreign  lands,  grasps  the  meaning  and  the  charm 
of  every  landscape  and  of  the  customs  of  every  people. 
Even  those  who  do  not  read  poetry  often  sing  his 
popular  poems,  without  knowing  the  poet's  name. 
And  that  is  the  highest  reward  to  the  brave  Wald- 
hornist.  Though  he  has  lived  himself  through  the 
joys  and  sufferings  of  his  poetry,  yet  he  has  known  so 
well  how  to  veil  his  own  personality  and  the  story  of 
his  own  life,  that  the  fashionable  curiosity  which 
delights  in  ferreting  out  the  private  life  of  the  poet 
instead  of  enjoying  his  thoughts,  would  in  his  case  be 
a  double  wrong. 

'His  genius  is  still  alive  and  pervades  the  German 
fatherland  wherever  the  young  men  sing  before  the 
houses  his  student  song,  "  When  we  march  through 
the  streets  with  shout  and  song,"  or  wherever  friends 
are  met  together  and  sing  cheerfully,  "  My  home  is  on 
the  Elbe,"  and  "  At  the  inn  of  the  Green  Wreath,"  when 
the  merry  music  is  heard  of  "To  wander  is  the  millers 
joy,"  or  when  we  listen  to  the  sad  melody  of  "  Near 
the  spring  before  the  gate.' 

'  In  the  German  war  against  France  W.  Muller  took 
part  with  his  sword,  but  not,  like  Korner  and  Arndt, 
with  his  lyre.  It  was  not  till  after  the  war  was  over 
that  we  see  him  as  a  poet,  and  then  the  disappointment 
at  the  weakness  and  discord  to  which  the  brave  and 
victorious  German  people  were  reduced  through  a 
non-German  policy,  turned  him  away  from  patriotic 
poetry.  Yet  patriotic  sentiments  breathe  forth  from 
many  of  his  poems.  In  one  poem  on  "  The  Eagle  of 
Arkona"  he  sees  in  the  nest  of  the  royal  bird  on  the 
broken  northern  promontory  of  Germany,  the  emblem 
of  a  future  victorious  unity.     At  last  the  day  came 


414  BIOGRAPHICAL    ESSAYS. 

when  he  too  was  allowed,  what  he  had  envied  in  others, 
to  make  his  song  an  inspiration  to  deeds  of  valour. 
It  was  strange,  that  he,  the  pupil  of  F.  A.  Wolf,  he, 
the  collector  and  translator  of  modern  popular  Greek 
songs,  should  thus  have  been  drawn,  though  "  on 
the  wings  of  song"  only,  towards  the  country  of 
the  Greeks  which,  on  his  travels  as  a  youth,  he  had 
sacrificed  in  favour  of  Italy.  Hellenic  patriotism  had 
burst  forth,  and  the  lieroic  struggle  of  a  people 
enslaved  for  centuries,  and  left  to  their  fate  by  a 
pitiless  world,  began  in  earnest.  Then  Wilhelm 
Miiller's  "  Greek  Songs"  sounded  like  a  trumpet  through 
the  country,  roused  the  sleeping,  stirred  up  the  in- 
different, and  spoke  in  words  of  indignant  condemna- 
tion to  the  heartless  statesmen  of  Europe.  He  then 
thought  no  longer  of  love  and  spring  and  wine :  the 
heart  of  the  poet  was  stirred  to  its  very,  depth,  filled 
with  that  true  enthusiasm  which  is  rare,  but  which 
when  uttered  with  the  voice  of  a  prophet,  never  fails, 
but  fires  and  warms,  and  at  last  carries  the  world 
triumphantly  along  with  it.  These  "  Greek  Songs " 
mark  in  the  history  of  literature  that  powerful  move- 
ment of  Philhellenism  which  was  shared  by  the  best 
spirits  in  Germany.  Some  people  afterwards  ridiculed 
the  idea  that  a  country,  so  divided  and  weak  as 
Germany  then  was,  should  have  expressed  her 
enthusiasm  for  this  struggle  for  freedom  on  the  part 
of  a  foreign  nation.  But  would  it  have  been  worthy 
of  the  German  people,  which  claims  the  peculiar 
privilege  of  admiring  whatever  is  noble  and  elevating 
in  other  nations,  to  remain  indifferent  towards  the 
fate  of  an  unhappy  and  brave  people  ?  Did  not  the 
enthusiasm  for  the  Greek  war  of  freedom  mirror  the 


WTLHELM   MULLEB.  415 

fire  that  was  burning  in  the  poet's  heart  for  the  rights 
of  the  German  people?  That  heart  indeed  must  he 
cokl  which  could  dwell  on  the  stirring  pictures  of  the 
Greek  war  unrolled  before  our  eyes  by  Wilhelm 
Miiller,  without  being  moved.  He  asks  the  friends 
of  classical  antiquity  whether  they  who  profess  to 
admire  the  spark  in  the  ashes  of  antiquity,  are  afraid 
of  the  bright  liames  of  the  love  of  freedom  which  have 
risen  from  those  very  ashes  ?  We  listen  to  the  wailing 
voice  of  the  Phanariot,  when  he  says : 

"  My  father,  my  mother,  they  have  sunk  thein  in  the  sea ; 
Through   the    streets  they  dragg'd    their    bodies,  that  were   sacred 

things  to  me ; 
My  sister,  my  fair  sister,   they  did  from  her  chamber  chase, 
And  they  sold  her  virgin  beauty  on  the  public  market-place ! 
When  I  hear  the  billows  roar,  then,  methinks,  I  hear  a  cry, 
Tis  my  parents  calling  to  me  from  the  wide  deep  where  they  lie ; 
'  Avenge  ! '    they  cry — and  in  the  sea  I  hurl  Turks'  heads,  until 
My  vengeance  has  been  glutted,   till  the  raging  waves  aie  still. 
But  when  around  my  temples  plays  the  cooling  evening  gale, 
Ah,  in  my  ears  its  sighs  are  like  a  low  beseeching  wail ; 
In  shameful  bondage  sunk  my  sister  sighs  to  me, 
'Oh,  brother,  set  your  sister  from  these  loathsome  fetters  free!' 
Oh,  that  I  were  an  eagle — might  hover  high  in  air, 
And  might  with  swift  and  piercing  glance  look  round  me  every- 
where. 
Till  I  should  find  my  sister,  and  from  our  foeman's  hand 
Should  bear  her  in  iny  talons  free  to  our  free  Grecian  land  1 "  ^ 

We  see  the  sacred  army  which  "reddens  with  their 
blood  the  dawn  of  liberty,"  we  follow  with  admiring 
eyes  the  hero  Marco  Bozzari,  we  share  in  the  hopes 
and  fears,  the  disappointments  and  the  discord,  the 
shrieks  of  despair  and  the  joy  of  victory,  of  heroes 
now  forgotten  by  the  world.  We  recognise  the 
Spartan  woman  in  the  Mainotte  mother  who  adorns 
herself  with  her  bridal  wreath  when  standing  by  the 

*  Translation  by  Sir  Theodore  Martin. 


416  BIOGEAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

dead  body  of  her  husband,  and  who  wishes  to  see  her 
sons  victorious  or  dead  ;  we  recognise  the  warriors  of 
Salamis  in  the  modern  Athenians  who,  when  driven 
from  the  land,  built  themselves  a  wooden  town  on  the 
sea,  and  we  see  the  descendants  of  the  companions  of 
Leonidas  in  the  brave  soldiers  who  fell  again  near 
Thermopylae.  The  poet  throws  fire  into  the  souls  of 
his  heroes,  and  they  stand  before  us  alive.  The 
playful  arrows  which  formerly  he  let  fly  so  grace- 
fully at  folly  and  conceit,  are  now  changed  into 
burning  arrows,  arrows  aimed  at  Albion  for  deserting 
the  Akropolis,  and  at  Prince  Metternich,  who  in  his 
own  journal,  the  Oderreickische  Beohachter,  had 
dared  to  call  the  Greeks  rebels. 

'  His  firm  hope,  "  With  us,  with  us  is  God  the  Lord  ^," 

1  SONG  OF  CONSOLATION. 

*With   us,  witli   us   is   God   the  Lord!      Then,  brothers,  hold   not 

back, 
Though  o'er  our   heads  the  storm   shall  burst  through  thunderous 

clouds  and  black, 
Though    it    shoot    down    lightning-shafts    on   us,    and   vomit    fiery 

hail! 
With  us,  with  us  is  God  the  Lord  !    This  is  no  time  to  quail. 

If  'neath  such  shocks  the  Paynim,  too,  are  stricken  to  the  ground, 
With    fists    close    clench'd,   with    streaming    hair,    with   wild   eyes 

glaring  round. 
If  they  stamp   and  writhe  as  low  they  He,  and  bite  the  sodden 

grass, 
And  curse  the  lying  spirit  brought  them  to  such  direful  pass, 
Who  promised  triumph,  Paradise,  if  for  the  moon  they  fought, 
And  now  hath   wounds,  and  shame,  and  death  for  their  requital 

brought ; 
It  is  not  with  us  Christians  so ;  though  gash'd  our  hands  may  be. 
Yet  we  together  fold  them  in  our  last  death-agony; 
Down  to  the  earth  if  we  be  struck,  yet  on  our  knees  we  rise, 
And  even  as  they  close  in  death,  heaven  opens  on  our  eyes. 


WILHELM    MULLER.  417 

did  not  play  him  false,  and  as  true  poetic  enthusiasm 
is  alwaj's  prophetic,  it  was  so  with  the  poet  of  the 
"  Greek  Songs."  Who  could  have  dreamed  at  that  time 
of  what  we  see  to-day — the  free  Greek  nation  sending 
the  marble  for  the  monument  of  the  German  poet — 
nay,  the  daughter  and  sister  of  a  German  Emperor 
ffivins:  her  hand  to  the  heir  of  the  Greek  throne  ! 

'  In  our  old  Churchj^ard,  close  to  the  tomb  of  the 
poet's  father,  a  simple  stone  adorns  his  grave  and  that 
of  his  wife,  recording  only  their  names,  and  the  days 
of  their  birth  and  death.  Above  it  stands  a  Ij're  in 
white  marble,  and  on  a  scroll  across  the  strings  we 
read  the  words  "  Griechenlieder."  As  the  poet  of 
these  songs  his  name  has  been  carried  far  beyond  the 
frontiers  of  Anhalt,  and  of  Germany  ;  and  wherever 
the  songs  of  "Alexander  Ypsilanti  "  and  of  "  The  Little 
Hydriot "  are  heard,  the  heart  of  the  German  youth  is 
tilled  with  love  for  Greece. 

'At  the  time  when  Wilhelm  MUller  wrote  these 
songs,  he  was  surrounded  by  a  cheerful  and  happy 
home  at  Dessau.  In  the  g-rand-dauo-hter  of  Basedow, 
the  founder  of  popular  education  in  Germany,  he  had 
found  the  wife  of  his  heart,  the  graceful  partner  of 
his  work,  and  he  might  well  sing 

"Vor  der  Thiire  meiner  Lieben 
Hiing  ich  auf  den  Wanderstab, 
Was  mich  durch  die  Welt  gelrieben, 
Leg  ich  ihr  zu  Fiissen  ab." 


With  us,  with  us  is  God  the  Lord !     "We  kiss  the  hand  low-bent, 
That  joy  and  victory,  pain  and  death,  hath  down  upon  us  sent. 
"  Suffer  or  die,  the  dawn  is  nigh  !  "     Be  that  our  battle-call : 
If  not  before,  there,  there  on  high  we  shall  all  be  free,  yes,  all ! ' 

Theodore  Martin. 
VOL.  II.  E  e 


418  BIOaRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

'  The  favour  of  a  noble  prince  gave  him,  in  his 
double  employment  at  the  public  school  of  his  native 
town  and  at  the  Ducal  Library,  grateful  occupation, 
and  yet  such  full  measure  of  freedom  and  leisure  as 
he,  not  made  for  narrow  barriers,  required.  The 
sovereign  kept  his  protecting  hand  over  the  poet, 
and  when  he  fell  ill  and  felt  tired,  he  granted  him  in 
his  own  park  near  Dessau  a  villa  to  rest  and  get 
strong  in,  for  which  the  poet  expressed  his  gratitude 
to  Duke  Leopold  in  one  of  his  poems. 

'  His  memory  lives  on  in  the  hearts  of  all  who  were 
his  pupils  at  Dessau.  TiU  a  few  years  ago  a  venerable 
old  man  was  seen  among  us  whose  eyes  beamed 
whenever  he  spoke  of  his  master,  to  whom  he  himself 
had  dedicated  a  beautiful  poem  at  his  grave.  With 
excellent  friends  near  and  far  a  constant  correspon- 
dence was  kept  up,  and  in  his  own  house  music  was 
often  heard,  and  friends  were  assembled  round  a 
hospitable  board.  His  work  was  always  varied.  His 
assays  on  ancient  and  modern  literature  published  in 
German  journals  are  still  delightful  to  read.  How 
delicately  and  accurately  he  portrays  Uhland,  Riickert, 
Justinus  Kerner;  how  powerfully,  both  condemning 
and  admiring,  the  English  poet  Lord  Byron,  to  whose 
death  he  devotes  one  of  his  best  Greek  songs.  Whether 
the  idea  of  accepting  a  Germanistic  professorship 
remained  while  he  wrote  these  papers,  and  edited  the 
"  Library  of  the  Poets  of  the  Seventeenth  Century,"  is 
not  known.  He  was  inspired  by  a  powerful  desire  to 
gain  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  classical  languages 
and  literatures  of  the  world. 

'After  he  had  travelled  with  his  wife  over  many 
parts  of  Germany,  and  gathered  flowers   of  poetry 


WILHELM   MiJLLER.  419 

everywhere,  his  health  began  to  fail.  He  sought 
heahng  from  the  springs  of  Bohemia,  made  a  pil- 
grimage to  the  house  of  Jean  Paul,  saw  Goethe  face 
to  face  at  Weimar,  was  the  guest  of  Gustav  Schwab 
and  Justinus  Kerner,  but  returned  home  full  of 
thoughts  of  death.  While  asleep  the  angel  of  death 
touched  him,  and  on  an  autumnal  evening  in  the 
year  1827  he  was  carried  away  from  his  children 
and  from  his  wife  (whose  noble  face  many  of  us  still 
remember)  to  his  eternal  rest  by  the  light  of  torches 
and  with  the  funeral  music  composed  by  Friedrich 
Schneider. 

'  Wilhelm  Muller  was  a  poet  by  the  grace  of  God, 
a  scholar  of  the  most  varied  interests,  and  a  true 
patriot.  His  whole  character,  rather  resentful  agaiust 
external  interference,  sprang  from  a  thankful  and 
truthful  heart.  Earnestness  and  purity  of  thought 
never  left  him  even  in  his  merriest  poetry.  When 
consulted  by  a  doubting  friend,  he  gives  a  manly 
answer,  showing  undeviating  faith  in  God,  virtu«, 
and  justice.  Even  when  using  the  sharp  weapon  of 
satire,  he  retains  a  harmless  and  peaceful  tone.  Thus 
he  has  lived  and  thus  he  lives  on  in  the  remembrance 
of  his  people. 

'  And  if  now  the  veil  is  drawn  from  the  image  which 
the  hand  of  a  master  has  carved  from  the  Greek 
marble,  let  us,  young  and  old,  gratefully  remember 
the  noble  poet,  and  learn  from  him  the  pure  delight 
of  feeling  the  presence  of  God  in  nature,  of  devotion 
to  the  highest  ideals  of  life,  and  of  that  love  and 
loyalty  which  is  ready  to  sacrifice  all  the  goods  of 
this  world,  nay  our  very  life,  whenever  the  fatherland 
calls.' 

E  e  2 


420  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

'Professor  Max  Muller,  the  son  of  the  poet,  then 
spoke : 

'  YouE  Serene  Highness,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen, 
'  After  all  that  has  just  been  said  with  so  much 
eloquence  and  enthusiasm,  little,  I  fear,  is  left  for  me 
to  say,  except  to  express  my  deep-felt  thanks  to  His 
Highness,  the  noble  Duke  of  Anhalt,  to  the  members 
of  the  Committee,  and  to  many  people  present  here  to- 
day, for  the  active  sympathy  they  have  shown  for  my 
father's  monument,  and  at  the  same  time  to  congratu- 
late the  artist  on  the  perfect  work  of  art  with  which 
he  has  adorned  his  native  town,  an  honour  to  the 
poet,  and  an  honour  to  himself. 

'  A  people  that  honours  its  poets  honours  itself,  for 
the  true  poet  is  of  the  people.  He  must  know  how  to 
give  perfect  and  permanent  expression  to  all  that  is 
beautiful,  though  hidden  in  the  heart  of  the  people  ; 
he  must  know  how  to  speak  from  the  soul  and  to  the 
soul  of  the  people.  Thus  only  can  he  become  the 
people's  poet  and  live  on  in  the  grateful  recollection 
of  his  people,  as  Wilhelm  Muller  has  lived  and  will 
live.  What  public  school  is  there  in  Germany  where 
his  "  Little  Hydriot "  and  the  "  Bell-founding  at 
Breslau  "  are  not  known,  what  festive  gathering  takes 
place  where  his  songs  are  not  sung "? 

*  "  On  the  wings  of  song  "  his  poems  have  flown  far 
beyond  the  frontiers  of  the  German  fatherland,  to 
Enfdand  and  even  to  America.  You  know  that  the 
Americans  are  going  to  celebrate  the  Jubilee  of  the 
Discovery  of  America  in  1492.  The  Germans  in 
America  also  mean  to  celebrate  their  own  Jubilee, 
namely,  the  bi-centenar}'-  of  the  first  planting  of 
a  German  colony  on  American  soil.     I  had  the  honour 


WILHELM   MULLEE.  421 

of  being  invited  as  a  guest,  and  why  1  Was  it  because 
I  had  published  the  Rig-veda  ?  No  ;  allow  me  to  quote 
the  words  of  the  invitation,  which  I  received  only 
a  few  days  ago  :  "  Should  time  or  circumstances  pre- 
vent you  from  honouring  our  Jubilee  with  your 
presence,  we  still  hope  that  you  will  be  with  us  in 
spirit,  for  the  spii'it  of  your  immortal  father,  as  it 
breathes  in  his  hearty  songs,  has  followed  the  Germans 
to  every  part  of  America,  and  will  be  with  us  at  our 
Jubilee  also.  Our  chief  object  is  to  encourage  the 
Germans  to  hold  together,  in  order  to  be  better  able 
to  keep  up  our  German  language  in  America." 

'  But  a  poet  must  not  only  be  a  singer,  he  must  be 
a  thinker  also,  nay  he  must  be  a  scholar.  He  cannot 
do  justice  to  the  thoughts  of  the  present  unless  he  has 
himself  thought  the  thoughts  of  the  past.  Wilhelm 
Miiller  was  a  scholar  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  his 
spirit  was  quickened  and  warmed  by  the  spirit  of 
classical  antiquity.  How  well  he  knew  ancient  Greece 
he  has  shown  in  his  "  Homerische  Vorsehule  "  ;  how 
well  he  loved  the  newly-risen  Greece  he  has  proved 
by  his  "  Greek  Songs."  In  Italy  also  he  was  perfectly 
at  home,  familiar  as  well  with  the  ancient  as  with  the 
modern  Rome,  its  men  and  its  women.  And  he  had 
mastered  not  only  the  modern  literature  of  Greece  and 
Italy,  but  likewise,  as  he  has  proved  in  many  learned 
essays,  the  literature  of  Spain,  of  France  and  England, 
and  all  this  in  a  short  life  of  thirty-three  years,  with 
the  scanty  means  of  a  German  student,  and  the  small 
opportunities  that  a  small  town,  like  Dessau,  could 
offer. 

'  And  yet  Wilhelm  MiiUer  was  not  a  mere  bookworm. 
He  lived  not  for  his  studies  only,  or  for  his  poetry : 


423  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

he  lived  for  his  friends  and  for  his  people.  Like  the 
best  of  his  contemporaries,  he  also  was  ready  to  sacri- 
fice his  life  for  his  fatherland,  I  remember  reading 
in  a  volume  of  his  notes  taken  in  the  lectures  at 
Berlin:  " To-day  Boeckh  stops  lecturing — to-morrow 
we  march  to  Paris."  And  he  marched  to  Paris,  and 
lived  to  see  the  fall  of  the  French  conqueror  and 
tyrant.  But  afterwards  followed  the  dark  years  of 
which  every  German  patriot  said,  "  they  do  not 
please  me,"  the  years  when,  as  Ptiickert  wrote, "  every- 
thing was  taken  away  from  the  people,  except  their 
harp,"  And  that  harp  has  kept  the  people  awake,  it 
has  said  and  sung,  "  What  is,  what  ought  to  be  the 
German's  fatherland?"  And  what  the  harp  has  said 
and  sung,  the  sword  has  at  last  dared  and  done,  and 
we  have  again  a  Germany,  united,  strong,  respected, 
nay  feared, 

'  But  with  all  his  enthusiasm  for  a  great  and  united 
Germany,  his  heart  beat  warmly  for  his  own  smaller 
fatherland  also.  My  friend,  the  Privy  Councillor 
Hosaeus,  has  already  quoted  the  words  in  which 
Wilhelm  Miiller  has  so  happily  expressed  his  love  of 
Anhalt : 

"  Es  ist  das  kleinste  Vaterland  der  grossten  Liebe  nicht  zu  klein, 
Je  enger  es  dicli  rings  umschlingt,  je  naher  wirds  dem  Herzen  sein." 

'  It  would  have  been  a  misfortune  for  Germany,  if  in 
its  political  reorganisation  it  had  lost  its  smaller  states. 
It  would  be  easy  to  show,  I  believe,  that  the  smaller 
states  have  done  more  for  the  greatness  of  Germany 
in  science  and  art  than  the  great  states.  May  they 
continue  as  centres  of  light  and  life  for  the  whole  of 
Germany,  proud,  like  Anhalt,  of  their  past,  proud,  like 


WILHELM   MtJLLER.  423 

Anhalt,  of  their  ancient  reigning  family,  proud,  like 
Anhalt,  of  their  poets. 

'And  now  as  soon  as  our  deputations,  some  old  pupils 
of  Wilhelm  Miiller,  my  son,  my  son-in-law,  and  other 
friends  shall  have  deposited  their  wreaths  at  the  foot 
of  the  monument,  I  call  upon  all  here  present  to  sing 
the  Anhalt-song,  composed  by  our  friend  Appel.' 

At  the  banquet,  the  first  toast  was  that  of  '  The  Duke 
of  Anhalt,'  proposed  by  the  Prime  Minister,  His  Excel- 
lency von  Krosigk.  Then  followed  the  toast  of  '  Pro- 
fessor Max  Miiller,'  proposed  by  Professor  Gerlach. 

Professor  Max  Miiller  replied  : — 

'Ladies  and  Gentlemen, 

'  How  shall  I  thank  you  for  all  the  kindness 
and  love  which  you  have  shown  me  during  these  days 
dedicated  to  the  memory  of  my  father?  How  shall 
I  thank  the  last  speaker  for  the  undeserved  praise 
which  he  has  bestowed  on  me,  as  the  son  of  my 
father  ? 

'And  yet  I  should  know  very  well  what  I  ought  to 
say,  and  how  I  ought  to  express  my  gratitude,  for 
through  the  whole  of  my  life  I  have  again  and  again 
had  to  do  the  same  thing,  that  is,  to  thank  my  friends 
for  the  kindness  which  they  have  shown  to  me  for  the 
sake  of  my  father,  and  not  for  any  merit  of  my  own. 
I  may  well  say  that  the  old  saying  has  proved  true  in 
my  case,  that  the  "  blessing  of  the  fathers  builds 
houses  for  their  children."  My  path  through  life  has 
often  been  pretty  hard,  but  from  my  earliest  youth 
I  have  found  friends  who  took  me  by  the  hand,  who 
helped  me  by  word  and  deed,  and  why  ?      Because 


424  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

they  bad  known  my  father,  or  because  they  had  learned 
to  admire  and  to  love  the  works  of  his  mind  and  the 
words  of  his  heart.  Allow  me  to  refer  to  a  few  cases 
only  which  return  to  my  memory.  After  all,  it  is  the 
best  gratitude  to  remember  and  not  to  forget ;  grateful 
in  Sanskrit  is  hritagna,,  and  that  means  simply 
knowing  or  remembering  {gna)  what  has  been  done 
for  us  (krita). 

'  While  I  was  still  at  school  at  Dessau,  I  well  re- 
member some  delightful  private  lessons  which  I  re- 
ceived from  a  young  master,  Dr.  Honicke.  When 
I  was  going  to  pay  my  debt  to  him,  he  said,  "  No, 
I  was  your  father's  pupil,  I  accept  no  payment  from 
you :  come  to  me  as  long  as  you  like."  I  know  this 
made  a  lasting  impression  on  my  young  heart,  and 
not  very  long  ago,  when  I  looked  through  my  old 
collection  of  autographs,  I  was  pleased  to  find  a  page 
which  my  teacher  had  written  for  me  : — 

"Fortes  creantnr  fortibus  et  bonis, 
Est  in  juvencis,  est  in  equis  patrum 

Virtus,  nee  imbellem  feroces 

Progenerant,  aquilae  colnmbam. 
Doctrina  sed  vim  promovet  insitam 
Eectique  cultiis  pectora  roborant, 

Utcunque  defecere  nioies, 

Indecorant  bene  nata  culpae." 

I  was  so  young  at  that  time  that  I  could  hardly 
construe  these  lines  of  Horace.  I  have  never  seen 
Dr.  Honicke  again.  He  died  very  young.  But  he 
was  an  excellent  teacher,  and  his  generous  sympathy 
has  remained  deeply  impressed  on  my  memory. 

'  When  after  some  years  I  went  to  the  University  of 
Leipzig,  Gottfried  Hermann,  the  great  Greek  scholar, 
received  me  with  open  arms.     "  You  are  the  son  of 


WILHELM   MULLER.  425 

Wilhelm  Mliller,"  he  said ;  he  may  have  meant,  not 
of  Otfried  Miiller,  with  whom  he  was  never  on  the 
best  of  terms.  He  put  me  in  the  way  of  gaining 
some  scholarships,  I  became  a  member  of  his  Seminary, 
and  I  owe  to  him  many  things  that  have  proved  useful 
to  me  in  after-life.  Like  all  respectable  students  of 
that  time,  I  also  had  the  misfortune  of  passing  some 
time  in  prison.  I  had  worn  the  black-red-golden 
riband  ;  I  had  joined  in  Arndt's  song,  "What  is  the 
German's  fatherland,"  and  I  was  looked  upon  in 
consequence  as  a  highly  dangerous  person,  though 
I  was  only  eighteen  years  of  age  and  knew  next  to 
nothing  of  politics.  I  belonged  to  the  poetical  youth 
of  Germany  :  we  dreamt  even  then,  perhaps  somewhat 
prematurely,  of  what  in  our  later  years  has  at  last 
become  a  reality.  The  worst  part  of  it  was  that 
I  was  punished  by  the  loss  of  my  scholarships.  But 
I  went  to  Hermann,  then  Dean  of  the  Faculty,  and 
told  him  of  all  my  misfortunes.  He  embraced  me, 
and  said :  "  Your  name  is  Miiller,  there  are  many 
Miillers,  and  I  do  not  know  which  of  them  has  been 
sent  to  prison  ;  keep  your  scholarship ! "  You  see 
how  the  name  of  Miiller,  which  has  really  ceased  to 
be  a  name,  a  nomen  quo  noscimur,  may  sometimes 
prove  useful  when  one  does  not  wish  to  be  known. 
But  the  kindness  of  heart  shown  to  me  by  the  old 
professor,  who  was  a  truly  liberal  man,  has  never 
been  forgotten  by  me. 

'  Afterwards  I  went  from  the  University  of  Leipzig 
to  that  of  Berlin.  1  wished  to  read  Persian  with 
Professor  RUckert,  the  great  German  poet.  RUckert 
always  advertised  his  lectures,  but  he  did  not  like 
lecturing.      He  had  a   general   dispensation  for  the 


426  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

summer,  but  even  during  the  winter  term  he  generally 
petitioned  for  leave  of  absence,  so  that  the  Minister 
of  Education  asked  him  at  last,  "  But,  dear  Professor, 
when  do  you  wish  to  lecture  ? "  When  I  came  to  him 
to  attend  his  Persian  lectures,  he  was  at  first  very 
unwilling.  "Why  do  you  want  to  study  Persian?" 
he  said,  "  you  should  study  Arabic  first."  I  told  him 
that  I  had  been  studying  Arabic  under  Professor 
Fleischer  for  a  year ;  in  fact  I  did  not  let  him  off", 
and,  whether  he  liked  it  or  not,  he  had  to  read  the 
Gulistan  with  me  and  two  friends  of  mine,  for  it  is 
a  rule  in  every  German  university,  that  tres  faciunt 
collegium.  One  day  when  I  brought  him  a  metrical 
translation  of  a  Sanskrit  elegy,  the  Meghaduta,  he 
asked  me  who  I  was,  and  when  I  told  him  that  I  was 
the  son  of  the  poet  Wilhelm  Mliller,  his  face  hghted 
up  and  he  said:  "Your  father  once  saved  my  life. 
We  were  travelling,  two  poor  poets,  through  Italy. 
We  had  to  sleep  in  miserable  inns,  and  had  to  suffer 
much  from  vermin  of  all  kinds.  A  fine  morning  we 
came  near  a  lake  and  settled  to  have  a  bath.  We 
jumped  in,  but  the  lake  was  deeper  than  I  thought. 
I  could  not  swim,  and  was  sinking.  Your  father 
swam  towards  me  and  brought  me  to  shore.  I  then 
wrote  my  first  epic  poem  in  the  style  of  Camoens, 
and  called  it  '  The  Lousiad.' "  The  poem  was  never 
published  and  is  probably  lost,  but  if  it  should  ever 
turn  up,  what  I  have  said  here  may  prove  a  useful 
hint  to  future  students  of  Riickert.  After  this, 
Rlickert's  lectures  became  more  and  more  lively  and 
exciting.  His  knowledge  of  Oriental  literature  was 
very  great,  but  he  was  .not  very  fond  of  communicating 
his  knowledge.      As  he  had   learned  everything  by 


WILHELM   MULLER.  427 

himself,  he  thought  it  was  better  for  others  also  to 
do  the  same.  Perhaps  he  was  right.  The  best 
professors  are  those  who  know  how  to  excite  ova- 
appetite,  not  those  who  feed  and  cram  their  pupils 
till  they  lose  all  appetite. 

'  And  thus  life  went  on,  though  it  became  more  and 
more  serious,  more  and  more  difhcult.  I  was  working 
at  an  edition  of  the  Eig-veda.  I  had  copied  and 
collated  MSS.  at  Paris  and  in  London,  but  my 
supplies  had  come  to  an  end,  and  I  was  on  the  point 
of  returning  to  Germany  before  having  finished  my 
collations,  and  beginning  my  academic  career  in  the 
University  of  Berlin.  I  went  to  the  Prussian 
Legation  to  have  my  passport  vise.  Bunsen  was 
Prussian  Minister  then,  and  he  too  had  known  my 
father  in  Rome,  when  he  was  secretary  to  Niebuhr. 
Bunsen's  idea  was  then  to  go  to  Benares  with  Mr. 
Astor,  in  order  to  see  whether  there  really  existed 
such  a  book  as  the  Rig-veda.  He  received  me  most 
warmly,  as  the  son  of  his  departed  friend,  and  as  the 
young  man  who  was  destined  to  carry  out  what  he 
himself  had  not  been  allowed  to  carry  out.  "  I  see 
myself  young  in  you  once  more,"  he  said ;  "  stay  in 
England,  finish  here  what  is  necessary  for  your  work ; 
I  advance  you  whatever  money  you  will  want,  and  I 
know  you  will  pay  it  back  by-and-by."  Yes,  I  have 
repaid  it,  but  I  could  never  repay  his  kindness.  That 
has  remained  in  my  memory,  never  to  be  forgotten, 
like  so  many  other  acts  of  kindness  which  I  have 
received  from  my  father's  friends. 

'  There  is  one  more  recollection  which  comes  back 
to  my  mind  just  now,  of  a  different  kind,  but  very 
pleasant  too.     I  was  paying  a  visit  to  Jenny  Lind. 


428  BIOGEAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

She  sang  Schubert's  composition  of  my  father's  poem, 
"  Withered  Flowers."  It  was  difficult  to  keep  back 
one's  tears,  and  I  told  her  when  thanking  her  that 
I  was  the  son  of  the  poet.  "  What! "  she  cried,  '"'you 
are  the  son  of  Wilhelm  Miiller !  Now  sit  down,"  and 
then  she  went  to  the  pianoforte,  and  sang  the  best 
songs  of  the  "  Schone  Miillerin  "  from  beginning  to 
end.  It  was  a  perfect  tragedy,  and  what  she  expressed 
with  her  voice,  her  eyes,  and  some  slight  movements 
of  head  and  hands,  was  more  than  the  greatest  actress 
could  have  represented  on  the  stage. 

'  Well,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  you  see,  in  thanking 
you  to-day  I  can  only  say  again  what  I  have  so  often 
said  before.  I  thank  you  from  my  heart  for  the 
sympathy  you  have  shown  me  to-day  for  my  father's 
sake,  and  it  shall  be  my  endeavour  in  the  future,  as  it 
has  been  during  the  whole  past  of  my  life,  to  show 
myself  not  unworthy  of  that  sympathy,  and  of  my 
father's  name.     I  thank  you  with  all  my  heart.' 


SHOET  MEMORIAL  NOTICES. 


BISHOP  PATTESON. 

(Died  1S71.) 

AN  appeal  from  the  Secretary  of  the  Society  for 
S\.  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  has  appeared  in 
the  newspapers,  inviting  subscriptions  for  a  memo- 
rial of  Bishop  Patteson,  The  subscriptions  were 
intended  to  supply  a  new  ship  for  missionary  purposes, 
and  to  build  a  church  in  the  Norfolk  Islands.  I  saw 
the  advertisement  by  accident.  Many  of  my  friends 
never  knew  of  it  till  I  told  them.  No  list  of  sub- 
scribers has  as  yet  been  published.  I  have  waited 
from  day  to  day,  and  from  week  to  week  in  the  hope 
that  some  one  better  qualified  for  such  a  task  would 
speak  ;  but  I  cannot  any  longer  repress  a  feeling  of 
regret  that  this  memorial  should  not  from  the  tu'st 
have  assumed  a  broader  and  truly  national  character. 
Surely  there  are  men  who,  with  the  deepest  eloquence 
of  the  heart,  could  have  told  every  man,  and  woman, 
and  child,  what  England  has  lost  by  the  death  of  that 
true-hearted  son  of  hers — Bishop  Patteson.  His  death 
was  a  national  loss,  it  may  become  a  national  gain 
and  blessing.     As  a  national  loss  it  found  its  place  by 


430  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

right  in  the  Queen's  Speech ;  as  a  national  gain  it 
should  be  marked  b}^  a  truly  national  thanksgiving 
or  thankofFering. 

Patteson  was  an  Eton  boy:  let  the  boys  of  Eton 
show  how  they  loved  him,  and  love  him  still. 

Patteson  was  an  Oxford  man :  let  the  men  of  Oxford 
show  that  they  were  proud  of  him,  and  are  proud  of 
him  still. 

Patteson  belonged  to  Ealliol  and  Merton :  let  these 
Colleges  show  that  they  feel  the  honour  which  his 
name  will  ever  reflect  on  them. 

Patteson  belonged  to  the  Established  Church :  let 
bishops  and  curates  show  their  gratitude  for  one  who 
has  added  a  new  English  name  to  the  noble  Army  of 
Martyrs. 

But  Patteson  belonged,  in  his  whole  character,  by 
his  heart  and  his  mind,  in  his  life  and  his  death,  to 
England ;  let  England  show  that  she  knows  how 
to  honour  her  sons  who  have  honoured  her  and  raised 
her  high  in  the  eyes  of  the  whole  world. 

Patteson  himself,  no  doubt,  would  have  said  that 
he  had  simply  done  his  duty,  and  that  England  pos- 
sessed hundreds  and  thousands  of  men  who  would 
have  lived  his  life  and  died  his  death.  It  may  be  so  ; 
but  it  is  not  right  for  us  to  say  so.  True,  Patteson  was 
not  a  man  who  struck  his  friends  as  exceptional,  and 
as  marked  out  for  an  historical  career.  When  I  knew 
him  at  Oxford  he  was  a  hale,  honest-looking,  hard- 
working young  fellow ;  always  among  the  first,  yet 
never  envied  ;  full  of  enthusiasm,  yet  never  obtrusive; 
a  man  of  strong  convictions,  of  strict  and  even  narrow 
views,  yet  never  impatient,  never  overbearing,  never 
uncharitable.     I  saw  him  last  at   Dresden  in   1853, 


BISHOP   TATTESON.  431 

revellinsf  in  the  treasures  of  ancient  Italian  ait, 
working  hard  at  Hebrew,  Arabic,  and  German,  and 
delighting  in  all  that  the  best  minds  of  modern  Europe 
could  supply  in  literature,  science,  and  art.  I  then 
thought  I  saw  in  him  the  future  accomplished  Dean  or 
Bishop.  But  when  I  heard  of  him  next,  his  letters 
were  dated  Longitude  and  Latitude,  from  some  un- 
known island  in  the  Pacific  Ocean.  There  he  has 
been  and  has  worked  ever  since,  determined  from  the 
first  never  to  return  to  England,  however  strong  the 
ties  that  bound  him  to  those  he  left  behind.  His 
life  had  become  a  devoted  life,  devoted  to  one  great 
object — the  laying  the  foundations  of  a  Christian 
future  among  the  races  of  the  Melanesian  Islands. 

Yet,  devoted  as  he  was  to  his  work  in  that  new 
world,  he  did  not  become  estranged  from  the  literary 
and  scientific  interests  of  his  old  home.  His  corre- 
spondence with  me  was  chiefly  on  philological  subjects. 
He  had  a  genius  for  languages,  and  felt  a  deep  interest 
in  the  great  problems  connected  with  the  Science  of 
Language.  His  library  will  be  found  well  supplied 
with  the  best  books  on  comparative  philology.  Even 
Sanskrit  grammars  he  asked  to  have  sent  to  him, 
because  he  felt  that  a  knowledge  of  that  ancient 
language  was  essential  to  every  true  scholar.  Every 
one  of  his  letters  deserves  to  be  published,  and  I  shall 
give  here  a  few  extracts. 

In  1857  he  writes  : — '  In  almost  all  cases  the  natives 
are  friendly ;  where  they  are  not  well  disposed,  it  is 
owing  to  some  outrage  previously  committed  upon 
them  by  some  whaling  or  trading  vessel.  We  two 
(he  and  the  Bishop  of  New  Zealand)  have  been  among 
large  parties  of  them,  stark  naked,  armed  with  clubs, 


432  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

bows,  and  arrows,  with  perfect  security.  They  are 
most  docile,  gentle,  loveable  fellows.' 

In  1 866  he  writes : — '  All  that  I  can  do  is  to  learn 
many  dialects  of  a  given  archipelago,  present  their 
existing  varieties,  and  so  work  back  to  the  original 
language.  This  to  some  extent  has  been  done  in  the 
Banks  Group,  and  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  Solomon 
Islands.  But  directly  I  get  so  far  as  this  I  am  recalled 
to  the  practical  necessity  of  using  my  knowledge  of 
the  several  dialects  rather  to  make  known  God's  truth 
to  the  heathen  than  to  inform  the  "literati"  of  the 
process  of  "  dialectic  variation."  Do  not  mistake  me, 
my  dear  friend,  or  suspect  me  of  silly  sentimentalism. 
But  you  can  easily  understand  what  it  is  to  feel,  "  God 
has  given  to  me,  and  to  me  only  of  all  Christian  men, 
the  power  of  speaking  to  this  or  that  nation ;  and, 
moreover,  this  is  the  work  He  has  sent  me  to  do." 
Often,  I  do  not  deny,  I  should  perhaps  like  the  other 
better.  It  is  very  pleasant  to  shirk  my  evening  class, 
and  to  spend  the  time  with  Sir  W.  Martin,  discussing 
some  point  of  Melanesian  philology.  But  then  my 
dear  lads  have  lost  two  hours  of  Christian  instruction, 
and  that  won't  do. 

'The  last  season  I  have  had  some  three  or  four 
months,  during  which  I  determined  I  must  refuse  to 
take  so  much  English  work,  &c.  I  sat  and  growled 
in  my  den,  and,  of  course,  rather  vexed  people,  and 
perhaps  (for  which  I  should  be  most  heartily  grieved) 
my  dear  good  friend  and  leader,  the  Bishop  of  New 
Zealand.  But  I  stuck  to  my  work.  I  wrote  about 
a  dozen  Papers  of  Phrases  in  as  many  dialects,  to  show 
the  mode  of  expressing  in  those  dialects  what  we 
express  by  adverbs,  prepositions,  &c.     It  is,  of  course, 


BISHOP   PATTESON.  433 

the  difficult  part  of  a  language  (unwritten),  for  a 
stranger  to  find  out.  I  also  printed  three  (and  I  have 
three  more  nearly  finished  in  MS.)  vocabularies  of 
about  600  words,  with  a  true  native  scholion  on  each 
word.  The  mere  writing  (for  much  was  written  twice 
over)  took  a  long  time.  And  there  is  this  gained  by 
these  vocabularies  for  our  practical  purposes.  These 
are — with  more  exceptions,  it  is  true,  than  I  intended — 
the  words  which  crop  up  most  readily  in  a  Melanesian 
mind.  Much  time  I  have  wasted,  and  would  fain  save 
others  from  wasting,  in  trying  to  force  a  Melanesian 
mind  into  a  given  direction  into  which  it  ought,  as 
I  supposed,  to  have  travelled  easily  enough,  but  which, 
nevertheless,  it  refused  to  follow. 

'  What  is  perhaps  of  consequence  is  to  be  able  to 
show  that  the  languages  of  the  whole  Pacific,  though 
I  know  but  little  of  the  Eastern  dialects,  prove  the 
same  mode  of  thought  to  prevail  everywhere.  I  am 
satisfied,  if  there  could  be  found  a  man  to  do  it,  it 
might  be  proved  that  all  the  languages  of  the  Pacific 
belong  to  the  same  family,  so  as  to  oblige  a  candid 
man  to  acknowledge  that  it  is  so.  I  care  little  com- 
paratively for  identity  of  words,  and  somehow  in  my 
limited  field  I  do  not  quite  see  why  so  much  importance 
should  be  given  to  the  identity  of  numerals  as  you 
think  right.  .  .  .  But  the  grammatical  structure  of 
these  dialects,  where  none  but  a  very  close  observer 
of  many  dialects  can  detect  any  similarity  in  the 
words,  is  invariably  indicative  of  a  real  affinity.' 

Such  was  the  man !  No  doubt,  but  for  his  death, 
he  might  have  passed  away  a  hardworking,  merito- 
rious, but  almost  unknown  missionary.  There  are 
many  great  and  good  men — it  may  be,  as  great  and 

VOL.  II.  F   f 


434  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

good  as  he  was — who  pass  away  unnoticed  by  the 
world.  But  that  is  the  very  reason  why  we  should 
be  ready  to  recognise  and  honour  the  man  who  him- 
self looked  for  no  recognition  and  no  honour,  but 
who,  as  by  a  terrible  flash  of  lightning,  was  suddenly 
revealed  to  us  by  his  death  in  all  his  grandeur  and 
human  majesty.  It  is  well  that  we  should  know  what 
stuff  there  may  be  unknown  to  us  in  the  men  whom 
we  meet  in  common  life,  doing  their  allotted  work 
steadily  and  quietly,  but  carrying  in  their  breasts 
those  lion  hearts  which  neither  ambition  nor  love  of 
ease,  neither  danger  nor  death,  can  force  one  inch 
from  the  narrow  path  of  duty. 

To  have  known  such  a  man  is  one  of  life's  greatest 
blessings.  In  his  life  of  purity^  unselfishness,  devotion 
to  man,  a  faith  in  a  higher  world,  those  who  have 
eyes  to  see  may  read  the  best,  the  most  real  Imitatio 
Christi.  In  his  death,  following  so  closely  on  his 
prayer  for  forgiveness  for  his  enemies — 'for  they 
know  not  what  they  do' — we  have  witnessed  once 
more  a  truly  Christ-like  death. 

As  we  look  back  into  the  distant  past,  when  there 
was  as  yet  no  Rome,  no  Athens,  when  Germany  had 
not  yet  been  discovered,  when  Britain  was  but  a 
fabulous  island,  nay,  when  the  soil  of  Europe  had  not 
yet  been  trodden  by  the  harbingers  of  the  Aryan 
race,  may  we  not  look  forward,  too,  into  the  distant 
future,  when  those  '  Black  Islands '  of  the  Pacific  shall 
have  been  changed  into  bright  and  happy  isles,  with 
busy  harbours,  villages,  and  towns?  In  that  distant 
future,  depend  upon  it,  the  name  of  Patteson  will  live 
in  every  cottage,  in  every  school  and  church  of 
Melanesia,  not  as  the  name   of  a  fabulous  saint  or 


BARTHOLD  GEORG  NIEBUHR.  435 

martyr,  but  as  the  never-to-be-forgotten  name  of 
a  good,  a  brave.  God-fearing,  and  God-loving  man. 
His  bones  will  not  work  childish  miracles,  but  his 
spirit  will  work  signs  and  wonders  by  revealing  even 
among  the  lowest  of  Melanesian  savages  the  indelible 
God-like  stamp  of  human  nature,  and  by  upholding 
among  future  generations  a  true  faith  in  God  founded 
on  a  true  faith  in  man. 

To  have  carried  but  one  small  stone  to  the  cairn 
which  is  to  commemorate  this  great  and  holy  life 
should  be  a  satisfaction  to  all  who  knew  Patteson, 
a  duty  to  all  who  have  heard  the  name  of  the  first 
Bishop  of  Melanesia. 


II. 

BARTHOLD  GEORG  NIEBUHR. 

(Died  1S31.) 

ONE  hundred  years  ago,  on  August  27,  1776, 
B.  G.  Niebuhr,  the  historian  of  Rome,  was  born 
at  Copenhagen,  the  son  of  Carsten  Niebuhr,  the 
famous  Eastern  traveller.  Forty-five  years  have 
passed  since  his  death,  on  January  2,  1831,  sixty-five 
since  the  first  appearance  of  his  '  Roman  History.' 
Few  only  are  left  of  those  who  knew  him  personally 
and  intimately.  Brandis,  Bunsen,  Savigny,  Twesten 
were  the  last  who  could  speak  and  write  of  him  as 
they  had  known  and  watched  him  during  some  of 
the  most  critical  periods  of  his  life.  In  anticipation 
of  the  hundredth  anniversary  of  his  birthday,  the 
only  one  of  Niebuhr  s  intimate  friends  who  is  still 

F  f  3 


436  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

alive,  Professor  Classen,  of  Kiel,  has  given  us,  not, 
indeed,  a  biography,  but  a  short  survey  of  Niebuhr's 
life,  with  such  details  as  were  known  to  him  from 
his  personal  intercourse  with  him,  particularly  during 
the  years  1827-1 831,  when  Classen  lived  in  his  house 
as  tutor  to  his  son  Marcus.  This  interesting  volume, 
entitled  '  Barthold  Georg  Niebuhr,  Eine  Gedachtniss- 
schrift  zu  seinem  hundertjahrigen  Geburtstage,  den 
27.  August,  1876,'  published  at  Gotha,  appears  very 
opportunely.  We  possess,  indeed,  a  very  full  account 
of  the  principal  events  of  Niebuhr's  life,  with  large 
extracts  from  his  correspondence,  in  the  three  volumes 
of  '  Lebensnachrichten,'  published  by  his  sister-in-law, 
Frau  Dora  Hensler,  and  translated  into  English  by 
Miss  S.  Winkworth.  But  a  real  biography  of  the 
great  scholar  is  still  wanting,  and  we  are  glad  to 
hear  that  such  a  work  is  now  in  preparation,  and 
entrusted  to  the  competent  hands  of  Professor  Nissen. 
In  the  meantime  many  of  Niebuhr's  admirers  will 
read  with  deep  interest  the  pages  which  Professor 
Classen  has  devoted  to  his  memory.  Though  they 
are  fragments  only,  they  cover  the  whole  of  Niebuhr's 
life.  They  give  us  an  explanation  of  several  events 
in  his  political  career  which  had  been  misrepresented, 
and  required  explanation,  and  they  throw  a  new  light 
on  certain  sides  of  his  character  which  his  friends 
had  hitherto  treated  with  unnecessary  reticence. 
After  an  introduction  which  reproduces  some  articles 
written  immediately  after  Niebuhr's  death  by  Pro- 
fessor Classen,  and  published  at  the  time  in  the 
AUgemeine  Freuasische  Staatszeitung,  we  have  a 
chapter  on  his  childhood  and  youth  extending  to 
Easter,  1794.     Professor  Classen  dwells  on  the  fact 


EARTIIOLD    GEOKG   NTEBUHR.  437 

that,  though  born  in  Denmark,  Niebuhr  by  both  his 
parents  was  of  thorough  German  descent.  He  might 
have  added  that  at  the  beginning  of  our  century  there 
existed  hardly  any  feeling  of  national  difference  or 
antagonism  between  Danes  and  Germans,  and  that 
Germany  certainly  owes,  if  not  the  blood,  at  all  events 
the  education  of  some  of  her  greatest  men  at  that 
time  to  Denmark.  Next  follows  a  chapter  on  Nie- 
buhr's  years  of  study  and  travel  in  Kiel,  Copenhagen, 
London,  and  Edinburgh,  from  1794  to  1799.  After 
this  we  come  to  the  time  of  his  official  employment 
in  the  Danish  service,  1800  to  1806,  which  is  followed 
by  the  most  eventful  period  of  his  life  spent  in  the 
service  of  the  King  of  Prussia.  This  period  is  sub- 
divided, so  that  we  read  first  an  account  of  his  official 
career  from  1806  to  18 10,  chiefly  devoted  to  financial 
matters,  and  afterwards  a  description  of  his  return  to 
office  as  Prussian  Minister  at  Kome,  1816-1 821.  The 
interval  between  1810  and  1814,  when  he  was  em- 
ployed as  Professor  at  Berlin,  and  the  years  from 
1825  to  1830  which  he  spent  as  Professor  at  Bonn, 
are  treated  together,  and  followed  by  another  chapter 
on  his  work  and  influence  in  the  University  of  Bonn 
to  his  death,  in  1831. 

Niebuhr's  name  is  known  as  widely,  we  believe,  in 
England  as  in  Germany — nay,  there  was  a  time  when 
his  •  Poman  History  '  attracted  more  general  attention 
among  English  scholars  than  in  his  own  country. 
His  work  had  the  rare  fortune  of  being  introduced 
to  the  English  public  by  Thirlwall  and  Julius  Hare, 
of  being  recommended  by  Arnold,  of  being  carefully 
criticised  by  Sir  C.  Lewis,  and  of  being  made  a  text- 
book   at   Oxford    and   Cambridije    durina:    the   last 


438  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

generation  by  some  of  the  most  active  and  influential 
tutors.  In  Germany,  Niebuhr's  name  has  never  en- 
joyed a  very  wide  popularity,  and  the  study  of  his 
Roman  history  has  always  been  confined  to  a  small 
number  of  scholars  only.  Niebuhr's  spirit,  however, 
has  certainly  been  most  active  in  Germany  among 
the  select  circle  of  real  students  of  history,  and  we 
can  watch  its  working  to  the  present  day.  Niebuhr's 
principles  of  historical  criticism,  his  method  of  his- 
torical research,  his  views  on  the  joint  treatment 
of  history,  customs,  and  law,  have  been  adopted  by 
all  historians  of  note.  According  to  Professor  Clas- 
sen, no  one  who  has  followed  in  Niebuhr's  footsteps 
as  an  historian  of  Rome  has  done  so  with  a  more 
profound  understanding  of  his  spirit  than  Schwegler, 
in  his  '  Romische  Geschichte,'  1867.  Both  by  the 
accuracy  and  the  extent  of  his  knowledge,  and 
bjT^  the  carefulness  and  sobriety  of  his  judgment, 
Schwegler,  he  thinks,  was  pre-eminently  qualified  to 
bring  Niebuhr's  arduous  task  to  a  successful  end, 
if  a  sudden  death  had  not  cut  short  his  brilliant  career. 
Niebuhr's  work  has  no  doubt  been  severely  criticised 
by  others,  and  many  weak  points  have  been  dis- 
covered, more  particularly  in  the  linguistic  and  ethno- 
logical portions.  But  even  those  who  have  criticised 
Niebuhr's  Roman  history  were  clearly  under  the  in- 
fluence of  his  spirit,  and  Schwegler  has  truly  said, 
that  his  work  not  only  forms  the  focus  of  all  that 
had  been  done  before,  but  is  at  the  same  time  the 
true  starting-point  and  the  only  safe  foundation  of 
all  later  researches  into  Roman  history. 

What  will  probably  at  the  present  moment  interest 
people  most  in  Professor  Classen's  book  is  the  account 


BARTHOLD   GEORG   NIEBUHR.  439 

of  Niebuhr's  views  on  the  ecclesiastical  policy  of 
Prussia  in  its  relation  to  the  Roman  Curia.  After 
the  annexation  of  the  Rhenish  Provinces,  which  were 
mostly  Roman  Catholic,  a  better  detined  modus 
Vivendi  between  the  Prussian  Government  and  the 
Pope  was  felt  to  be  a  necessity,  and  Niebuhr  was 
selected  as  the  fittest  person  to  arrange  the  questions 
then  pending  between  the  Protestant  King  and  the 
Papal  See.  They  chiefly  related  to  the  election  of 
Bishops,  in  which  the  Royal  veto  was  to  be  reserved, 
and  to  educational  institutions,  particularly  those 
which  were  intended  for  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy. 
They  were,  indeed,  the  same  questions  which  have 
turned  up  again,  in  our  own  more  stormy  times,  and 
which  for  the  moment  seem  to  defy  every  solution, 
while  fifty  years  ago,  when  Prussia  was  more  yielding 
and  the  Roman  Curia  less  exacting,  it  was  hoped  that 
a  lasting  harmony  had  been  established  between  the 
Roman  Catholic  clergy  in  Prussia  and  their  so-called 
heretical  King.  The  Pope  at  that  time  was  Pius  VII, 
not  Pius  IX,  and  his  adviser  Cardinal  Consalvi,  not 
Cardinal  Antonelli.  There  were  German  Bishops 
then  who  dared  to  warn  the  Pope  against  the  dangers 
which  an  opposition  to  the  national  instincts  of  the 
German  people,  even  of  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy 
in  Germany,  might  rouse.  The  idea  of  a  national 
German  Church  was  at  that  time  warmly  supported 
by  an  influential  party  among  the  Roman  Catholics, 
headed  by  the  Vicar  General  of  the  Bishopric  of 
Constance,  J.  H.  von  Wesenberg.  Some  of  the  South 
German  Governments  entertained  similar  hopes,  and 
placed  their  views  on  the  subject  before  the  Pope, 
while   Niebuhr  was  left  at   Rome  for  a  long  time 


440  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

without  definite  instructions  from  his  temporising 
Government.  Niebuhr  himself  was  incredulous  as  to 
the  success  of  this  movement.     He  says  : — 

'  They  dream  of  making  a  new  reform  of  the 
Church,  simply  because  they  wish  for  a  change. 
They  do  not  see  that  such  undertakings  cannot 
succeed  unless  the  hearts  are  stirring,  as  they  were 
in  Luther's  time.  They  themselves  feel  nothing  in 
their  own  hearts,  and  no  one  can  have  his  feelings 
aroused  by  what  is  merely  a  new  regulation  of  purely 
external  matters.  They  may  be  instruments  of  good, 
but  their  way  is  as  wrong  as  Luther's  was  right.' 

During  his  prolonged  stay  at  Rome,  Niebuhr  enter- 
tained the  most  kindly  and  almost  reverential  feelings 
for  the  Pope  and  his  Court.  He  evidently  thought  the 
whole  system  of  the  Roman  Church  doomed,  and  saw, 
as  we  do  in  a  dying  man,  the  good  sides  rather  than 
the  bad.  '  The  harmlessness,'  he  says,  '  of  the  Roman 
Church  in  the  nineteenth  century  can  only  go  on 
increasing  till  it  comes  to  its  end,  which,  in  the 
changes  that  threaten  Europe,  is  inevitable.'  In  his 
transactions,  however,  with  Pope  Pius  VII  and  Car- 
dinal Consalvi,  Niebuhr  was  very  determined.  II 
me  faisait  suer,  as  the  Cardinal  said.  The  arrange- 
ments based  on  mutual  concession  were  approved  in 
1 821  both  by  the  Pope  and  the  Prussian  Government, 
and  Hardenberg,  the  then  Prime  Minister  of  Prussia, 
came  himself  to  Rome,  after  the  Congress  of  Laybach, 
to  conclude  the  peace  between  Rome  and  Berlin. 
Ranke,  one  of  the  few  persons  who  has  had  access 
to  the  Prussian  archives  of  that  period,  writes  : — 

'  The  Roman  Court  consented  to  reduce  the  dioceses, 
as   proposed   by  the  Prussian   Government,   and   to 


BARTHOLD   GEOEG    NIEBUHR.  441 

abolish  some  of  the  old  episcopal  Sees.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  do  not  find  on  the  Prussian  side  those 
harassing  conditions  which  keep  up  mutual  distrust. 
The  proceedings  were  of  a  grander  character,  as  becomes 
the  importance  and  dignity  of  the  Prussian  State.' 

Niebuhr,  though  full  of  faith  in  Pope  Pius  VII,  was 
not  blind  to  the  dangers  lurking  in  the  future.  '  The 
Pope  is  weak, 'he  says,'  and  his  death  will  be  a  calamity, 
for  there  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  they  will 
elect  a  bigoted  and  obstinate  successor.'  This  was  in 
1822.     In  1826  he  writes  : — 

'  It  requires  much  historical  experience  and  resig- 
nation to  remain  quiet  if  one  sees  what  is  passing 
before  our  eyes.  The  influence  of  arch-clerical  and 
altogether  Jesuitical  Roman  Catholics,  particularly  in 
matters  concerning  national  education,  is  deplorable. 
I  might,  perhaps,  bring  on  a  crisis  if  I  wished,  but 
the  result  is  too  doubtful.  The  matter  is  more 
dangerous  than  the  favours  bestowed  here  in  Prussia 
on  the  aristocratic  nobility.  This  may  produce  mis- 
chief for  a  generation,  but  cannot  be  permanent.  In 
France,  where  the  political  volcano  seems  to  be 
extinct,  the  priests  collect  new  inflammable  material.' 

It  is  a  pity  that  more  could  not  have  been  published 
of  Niebuhr's  official  correspondence  touching  these 
matters.  Though  a  strenuous  defender  of  the  autho- 
rity of  the  State,  and  fully  convinced  that  education 
in  order  to  be  efficient  must  be  national,  and  in  order 
to  be  national  must  be  unsectarian,  he  was,  neverthe- 
less, inclined  to  grant  to  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy 
a  certain  amount  of  independence  in  the  management 
of  their  educational  institutions,  particularly  their 
clerical   seminaries.      He   knew    perfectly    well   the 


443  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

mischief  that  was  done  in  these  seminaries,  and  how 
easily  they  might  be  converted  into  hotbeds  of  dis- 
satisfaction, anti-national  intrigue,  and  even  treachery ; 
but  he  also  knew  that  the  best  part  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  subjects  of  Prussia  was  proof  against  those 
Ultramontane  influences,  and  that  the  evil  elements 
which  exist,  and  always  will  exist,  in  an  ambitious 
priesthood  would  do  less  harm  if  left  to  assume  the 
oflfensive  than  if  driven  into  a  defensive  position  and 
surrounded  by  a  halo  of  martyrdom.  Most  touching 
are  Niebuhr's  expressions  with  regard  to  his  own 
religious  opinions.  The  conflict  between  the  convic- 
tions of  the  historian  and  the  aspirations  of  the  Chris- 
tian continues  during  the  whole  of  his  life.  It  was 
certainly  not  the  fear  of  personal  consequences  which 
kept  him  from  openly  expressing  his  opinions  as  to 
the  historical  value  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments, 
nor  was  it  a  mere  acquiescence  in  established  customs 
which  made  him  so  anxious  to  secure  for  his  son 
a  strictly  religious  education.  He  was  convinced  of 
the  essential  truths  of  Christianity,  and  on  this  con- 
viction rested  the  whole  conduct  of  his  life — in  every 
sense,  a  truly  Christian  life.  But  he  was  too  honest 
towards  himself  to  allow  himself  to  use  unmeaning 
words  and  phrases,  or  the  formulas  of  what  he  knew 
to  be  in  many  cases  an  irreligious  orthodoxy.  He 
recojrnised  in  the  Protestant  as  in  the  Roman  Catholic 
Churches  the  same  seeds  of  Christian  truth,  but  he 
found  no  satisfaction  in  either  for  the  deepest  wants 
of  his  soul.  Thus  he  writes  in  i8ia  to  Professor 
Vater : — 

'  I  frequently  ask  myself,  What  is  to  happen  ?     In 
Roman  Catholic  countries  the  clergy  is  dying  out : 


RARTHOLD   GEORG  NIEBUHR.  443 

very  soon  no  one  will  have  the  power  or  the  will  to 
take  orders.  We  Protestants  have  names  and  for- 
mulas, and  with  them  a  dark  foreboding  that  all  is 
not  right.  Everybody  is  uncomfortable  ;  we  feel  like 
ghosts  in  broad  daylight.  However,  I  am  not  afraid. 
We  shall  become  more  true  and  more  pure  when  all 
who  do  not  from  their  heart  belong  to  one  of  the  many 
communities  that  will  arise,  are  separated.  I  would 
not  pull  down  the  dead  Church,  but  if  it  were  to  fall 
I  should  not  be  frightened.  Let  us  trust  that  a  Com- 
forter can  come,  a  new  light,  when  we  least  expect  it. 
The  travails  of  our  time  will  lead  us  on  to  truth,  if 
we  only  have  the  will.' 

In  1 817,  after  he  had  gained  an  insight  into  the 
religious  life  of  Italy,  he  writes  : — 

'  I  understand  even  less  how  our  religious  than  how 
our  civil  conditions  will  be  bettered,  unless  there 
comes  a  new  revelation.  A  religion  on  which  people 
cannot  stand  firm  with  their  feet,  but  to  which  they 
cling  with  their  hands,  hanging  in  the  air,  cannot  be 
long  maintained.' 

When  Harms  and  his  friends  tried  to  introduce 
a  more  rigorous  system  in  the  Protestant  Church, 
Niebuhr  expressed  himself  as  follows  in  a  letter  dated 
March  7,  1818:— 

'  I  quite  agree  with  Harms  in  his  indignation  against 
a  Christianity  which  is  no  Christianity — nay,  even  in 
his  personal  invectives  against  many  of  our  theolo- 
gians ;  but  I  hold  it  to  be  an  error  if  he  attempts  to 
restrict  true  Christianity  to  the  symbolical  books,  and 
if  he  opposes  the  union  of  Protestant  communities. 
Every  one  who  knows  the  history  of  the  Church 
knows  that,  during  the  first  centuries  at  least,  there 


444  ,     BIOGEAPHICAL   ESSAYS.      ' 

were  no  sj^stomatic  theories  of  atonement,  original  sin, 
grace,'  &c. 

And  again : — 

'  There  are  in  the  symbolical  books  the  doctrines  of 
literal  inspiration,  and  the  connection  between  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments,  which  can  never  be  rein- 
stated. And  how  much  more  is  there  in  them  of 
what  the  primitive  Church  knew  nothing ! ' 

Let  us  see  now  how  the  same  Niebuhr  spoke  and 
acted  when,  with  all  these  difficulties  in  his  mind, 
he  had  to  face  the  problem  of  the  education  of  his 
children.     He  writes  : — 

'  I  wish  ardently  that  my  son  should  become  pious 
from  the  very  heart.  I  myself  cannot  impart  to  him 
that  pious  disposition,  but  I  can  and  I  shall  support 
the  clergyman.  His  heart  shall  be  lifted  up  to  God, 
as  soon  as  he  is  capable  of  feeling  after  God,  and  his 
childlike  feelings  shall  find  utterances  in  prayers  and 
sacred  songs.  Much  of  what  in  our  age  has  become 
obsolete  shall  be  to  him  a  necessity  and  a  law.' 

And  again  : — 

'  I  know  and  feel  perfectly  what  is  wanting  in  me, 
but  what  I  myself  cannot  give  to  the  child  I  do  not 
omit  because  I  do  not  recognise  its  value,  but  simply 
because  one  cannot  impart  that  as  something  living 
which  one  does  not  realise  oneself.  As  far  as  I  can, 
I  shall  try  to  lay  in  his  mind  the  foundation  of 
a  living  and  historical  faith  in  the  Supernatural  in 
its  most  simple  and  most  positive  form.  ...  I  know 
what  faith  is  ;  if  it  deserves  that  name,  I  recognise  it 
as  the  highest  good.  But  I  could  only  gain  it  by 
a  miracle — by  an  actual  experience  of  signs  and 
wonders.' 


BARTHOLD   GEORG    NIEBUHU.  445 

At  an  earlier  period  of  his  life,  in  the  letter  to  Pro- 
fessor Vater,  cited  above,  he  explains  what  is  here 
meant  by  a  want  of  faith : — 

'  It  was  only  in  mature  age,  and  in  the  prosecution 
of  my  historical  studies,  that  I  returned  to  our  Sacred 
Books.  I  read  them  then  with  a  purely  critical  pur- 
pose, in  order  to  study  their  contents  as  the  evidence 
of  one  of  the  most  important  events  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  That  was  not  a  state  of  mind  in  which  what 
is  called  faith  could  grow  up  ;  it  was  the  position 
assumed  by  modern  Protestantism.  I  did  not  require 
the  '  Wolfenblittel  Fragments  '  to  perceive  the  varia- 
tions in  the  Gospels,  and  to  recognise  the  impossibility 
of  tracing  critically  a  tenable  history  of  the  life  of 
Christ.  Nor  could  I  see  prophecies  in  the  Messianic 
passages  of  the  Old  Testament,  for  all  these  passages 
admitted  of  the  simplest  explanation.' 

With  all  his  honest  doubt,  Niebuhr  was  able  to  say, 
*  I  want  nothing  but  the  God  of  the  Bible,  who  is  to 
me  heart  to  heart.  I  have  often  said  I  can  do  nothins: 
with  a  metaphysical  God.'  And  Professor  Classen, 
who,  as -tutor  to  his  son  during  the  last  years  of  his 
life,  possessed  his  full  confidence  in  those  matters, 
adds  : — 

'  Niebuhr,  to  the  end  of  his  life,  remained  true  to 
this  faith  in  a  personal  God,  by  whose  hand  every 
moment  of  our  life  is  ruled.  In  his  historical  lectures 
he  frequently  gave  expression  to  that  faith  in  a  Divine 
Providence  which  dwelt  in  his  soul,  and  on  it  he 
grounded  his  hopes  for  the  future.' 

This  was  the  state  of  mind  with  regard  to  religious 
problems  of  one  of  the  greatest  scholars  and  histo- 
rians whom  Germany  has  produced.     No  one  could 


446  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

call  it  a  satisfactory  state  of  mind,  for,  in  spite  of  the 
truthfulness  of  Niebuhr's  character,  he  shows  a  want 
of  clearness  and  precision  which  surprises  us  in  a 
character  otherwise  so  determined.  What  is  the  faith 
the  loss  of  which  Niebuhr  mourns  for  himself?  Not 
a  real  faith  in  that  which  can  be  grasped  by  faith 
only,  and  not  by  sight — that  living  faith  penetrated 
the  whole  of  his  being, — but  simply  that  literal,  and 
frequently  not  even  literal,  interpretation  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments  which  he  himself  knew  to  be 
erroneous,  and  which,  nevertheless,  he  wished  to  see 
implanted  in  his  son's  mind.  In  this  respect  Niebuhr 
simply  reflects  the  ordinary  light  of  his  time — nay,  if 
we  may  judge  by  what  we  know  at  present  of  his 
religious  and  theological  opinions,  we  should  say  that 
he  was  behind,  rather  than  in  advance  of  his  time. 


III. 
FRIEDRICH  WILHELM  RITSCHL. 

(Died  1877.) 

THE  University  of  Leipzig  has  lost  its  greatest 
ornament  and  one  of  its  most  powerful  supports 
through  the  death  of  Ritschl,  the  editor  of  '  Plautus,' 
as  he  is  called  all  over  the  world,  but,  in  reality,  the 
founder  of  a  new  era  in  Latin  scholarship.  He  died 
on  November  9,  in  his  seventy-first  year,  having  been 
born  on  April  6,  1806.  For  several  years  he  had 
been  an  invalid  in  body,  not  in  mind,  and  he  fought 
so  bravely  against  his  bodily  ailments,  that  even  at 


FRIEDRICH  WILHELM   RITSCHL.  447 

the  beginning  of  the  present  winter  term,  he  advertised 
his  lectures,  wisliing  to  die,  like  a  true  soldier,  not 
in  the  hospital,  but  on  the  battle-field.  A  sudden 
attack  on  the  lungs  finished  his  laborious  life,  and 
his  funeral  drew  together  a  large  number  of  classical 
scholars,  mostly  his  own  pupils,  who  now  fill  nearly- 
all  the  chairs  in  the  principal  Universities  of  Germany 
and  Switzerland.  At  his  grave,  Professor  Lange  spoke 
in  the  name  of  the  University ;  Professor  Ribbeck, 
of  Heidelberg,  in  the  name  of  his  numerous  pupils, 
with  a  depth  and  warmth  of  feeling  which  moved 
all  who  were  present. 

Ritschl,  after  receiving  an  excellent  school  educa- 
tion, went  in  1825  to  Leipzig  to  study  philology, 
under  Gottfried  Hermann.  From  1826-1827  he  con- 
tinued his  studies  at  Halle,  chiefly  under  Reisig, 
whose  disciple  he  may  be  called  rather  than  that  of 
Gottfried  Hermann.  After  Reisig's  death  he  became 
a  privat-docent  at  Halle,  was  advanced  to  a  professor- 
ship in  1832,  and  a  year  later  called  to  Breslau,  to 
become  the  successor  to  Passow,  of  Greek  lexicoa 
celebrity.  The  years  1836  and  1837  mark  a  decisive 
period  in  his  life  and  labours.  He  was  enabled  to 
spend  them  in  the  libraries  of  Italy,  of  Belgium, 
Holland,  and  France,  and  he  collected  there  the 
materials  for  his  future  work,  the  history  of  the 
Latin  language.  That  work  has  never  been  finished, 
but  it  remained  his  ideal  through  life,  and  in  nearly 
all  his  publications  we  may  recognise  the  stones  for 
a  building  which  is  now  left  to  be  finished  by  others. 
Much  of  Ritschl's  time  was  given  to  his  professorial 
duties,  and,  if  we  consider  how,  during  the  whole 
of  his  life,  he  lectured,  how  he  taught  in  his  Semina- 


448  ,.        BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

rium  and  in  his  Philological  Society,  how  he  per- 
formed the  duties  of  an  examiner,  how  he  arranged 
museums  and  edited  journals,  we  rather  wonder  that 
he  could  have  finished  so  much  than  that  he  should 
have  left  something  unfinished.  His  professorial 
activity  divides  itself  into  two  periods — the  first  from 
1839  to  1865,  when  he  was  Professor  at  Bonn;  the 
second  from  1865  to  1876,  when  he  was  Professor 
at  Leipzig.  Both  Universities  became,  while  he  was 
there,  the  real  nurseries  of  classical  scholarship  in 
Germany.  By  the  attraction  which  he  exercised, 
the  number  of  classical  students  rose  both  at  Bonn 
and  at  Leipzig  to  a  height  never  reached  before ; 
and  his  departure  from  Bonn  in  1865  was  felt  as 
a  misfortune  from  which  that  University  has  not  yet 
recovered.  It  is  most  interesting  to  observe  the 
patriarchial  position  which  a  great  professor  occupies 
in  a  German  University.  It  is  quite  true  that  Eitschl 
could  not  do  much  more  in  his  public  lectures  than 
other  distinguished  professors,  nor  did  he  consider  the 
lumdreds  who  attended  his  public  lectures  as  his 
pupils  but  simply  as  his  hearers.  His  real  pupils 
were  those  who  stained  access  to  his  '  Philological 
Society,'  or  to  his  Seminarium,  whose  studies  he 
personally  directed,  who  worked  for  him  and  with 
him  both  during  the  University  career  and  after- 
wards, w^ho  contributed  to  his  journal,  "who  fought 
his  battles,  who  formed,  in  fact,  his  school.  If,  on 
his  side,  Ritschl  felt  bound  to  do  all  he  could  for  his 
pupils,  in  recommending  them  to  the  Government 
for  liberal  support  in  their  literary  undertakings, 
in  urging  their  claims  to  appointments  in  schools 
and  Universities,  he  would  expect  from  them  in  turn 


FRIEDrJCH   WILHELM   RITSCIIL.  449 

a  certain  recognition  of  his  well-earned  authority. 
He  thus  became  the  founder  and  leader  of  a  great  and 
influential  school.  As  earl 3^  as  1864,  when  he  had 
been  lecturing  for  twenty-five  years,  he  was  presented 
by  forty-three  of  his  former  pupils  with  a  volume 
of  '  Symbola  Philologorum  Bonnensium  in  honorem 
F.  Ritschelii  collecta,'  containing  valuable  contribu- 
tions in  every  branch  of  scholarship.  At  Leipzig 
the  best  essays  of  the  members  of  his  '  Philological 
Society '  were  published  in  the  '  Acta  Societatis 
Philologicae  Lipsiensis,'  of  which  six  volumes  are 
before  us,  from  1871  to  1876.  Supported  by  such 
an  army,  Ritschl  was  a  dangerous  antagonist,  and 
in  his  literary  warfare  not  always  inclined  to  for- 
bearance and  generosity. 

Ritschl's  greatest  merit  was  the  introduction  of 
an  historical  method  into  the  study  of  Latin.  Not 
what  Latin  was  at  the  time  of  Cicero,  but  how  Latin 
became  what  it  was,  formed  the  object  of  his  study. 
Hence  his  patient  investigations  of  the  language  as 
preserved  to  us  in  ancient  inscriptions ;  hence  his 
careful  collection  of  every  variety  in  spelling,  in 
grammatical  form,  in  syntactical  arrangement.  Much 
as  he  valued  Plautus  and  his  comedies  as  an  element 
in  the  early  literary  life  of  Rome,  his  chief  interest 
in  the  Roman  comic  poet  centred  in  his  language 
and  his  metres.  Though  he  did  not  flatter  himself 
that  he  could  restore  the  text  of  Plautus  as  it  came 
originally  from  his  hand,  he  spent  months  over  the 
collation  of  the  Ambrosian  palimpsest  at  Milan  and  of 
the  Vatican  MSS.  of  Plautus  in  order  to  restore  every 
trace  of  ancient  Latin  that  might  have  escaped  the 
uncritical  hands  of  Roman  regisseurs.     His  '  Parerga 

VOL.  II.  .  G  2: 


450  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

Plautina  atque  Terentiana,'  1845,  formed  an  intro- 
duction to  his  edition  of  the  comedies,  '  T.  M.  Plauti 
Comoediae,'  1878;  while  his  many  contributions  to 
the  '  Rheinische  Museum '  prepared  the  way  for  his 
magnificent  work,  '  Priscae  Latinitatis  Monumenta 
Epigraphica,'  containing  more  than  100  most  carefully 
executed  copies  of  the  most  important  inscriptions 
of  ancient  Rome.  These  were  his  two  great  works. 
The  number  of  his  smaller  contributions  to  classical 
scholarship  makes  it  impossible  to  mention  them 
here,  but  the  thirty-two  volumes  of  the  '  Rheinische 
Museum'  will  show  how  much  the  industry  of  one 
man  can  achieve,  if  it  is  inspired  by  real  genius 
and  guided  by  a  true  method. 

Though  Ritschl  has  formed  so  large  a  number 
of  highly-distinguished  pupils,  not  only  scholars  by 
profession,  but  also  such  men  as  the  old  Catholic 
Bishop  Reinkens,  the  University  of  Leipzig  will  find 
it  difiicult  to  fill  the  gap  which  he  has  left.  It  was 
due  to  the  vigilance  and  quick  decision  of  Falkenstein, 
then  Minister  of  Instruction  in  Saxony,  that  Ritschl, 
who  had  quarrelled  with  the  Prussian  authorities  at 
Bonn,  was  at  once  secured  for  Leipzig.  The  rise  of 
Leipzig  to  its  present  prosperity  (it  counts  3,090 
students)  dates  from  the  time  when  Ritschl  was 
called  there.  The  present  Minister  of  Instruction 
will  have  a  most  arduous  task  in  selecting  from  the 
numerous  candidates  whose  names  suggest  themselves 
one  really  worthy  to  be  the  successor  of  Ritschl. 
A  mistake  might  prove  fatal  to  the  prestige  of  Leipzig, 
which,  though  it  counts  among  its  professors  some 
of  the  best  names  in  Germany,  must  not  forget  that 
it  is  hard  pressed  in  the  race  by  other  universities. 


HERMANN  BEOCKHAUS.  451 

Ritschl  was  one  of  the  eight  foreign  members 
of  the  Institut  de  France,  and  member  of  most  of  the 
great  academies  in  Europe. 


IV. 


HERMANN   BROCKHAUS. 

(Died  1877.) 

THE  University  of  Leipzig  had  hardly  recovered 
from  the  blow  it  had  received  by  the  death  of 
Ritschl  when  it  had  to  mourn  a  new  loss  in  the 
death  of  the  great  Sanskrit  scholar  Professor  H. 
Brockhaus.  Brockhaus  had  reached  the  age  of  seventy- 
one,  having  been  born  at  Amsterdam  in  1806.  He 
was  a  son  of  F.  A.  Brockhaus,  the  founder  of  the 
great  publishing  fii'm  at  Leipzig.  While  his  two 
brothers  carried  on  the  business,  he  devoted  himself 
to  an  academic  career.  He  was  an  Oriental  scholar 
in  the  old  sense  of  the  word,  devoting  his  attention, 
not  to  one  language  only,  but  acquiring  a  familiarity 
with  the  principal  languages  and  literature  of  the  East. 
He  studied  Hebrew,  Arabic  and  Persian,  and  though 
Sanskrit  became  afterwards  his  specialite,  he  was  able 
to  lecture  at  the  same  time  on  Pali,  Zend,  and  even 
on  Chinese.  He  was  likewise  well  versed  in  modern 
languages  and  general  literature,  being,  in  fact,  not 
only  a  scholar  by  profession,  but  a  highly  cultivated 
gentleman,  refined  in  his  tastes,  courteous  in  his 
bearing,  and  free  from  all  self-assertion  and  rudeness 
in  his  intercourse  with  other  scholars. 

G  or   2 


45.2  BIOGRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

He  had  few  enemies,  and  many  friends,  not  only  in 
Germany,  but  in  France  and  England  also.  Many 
will  remember  his  venerable  head,  and  kindly  ex- 
pression, when  in  1874,  at  the  International  Congress 
of  Orientalists  in  London,  he  was  pointed  out  by  the 
President  of  the  Aryan  Section  as  his  old  master,  and 
loudly  cheered  by  the  large  assembly  of  Oriental 
scholars. 

His  most  important  work  was  the  editio  princeps  of 
the  Katha-sarit-sagara,  lit.  *  The  Ocean  of  the  Kivers 
of  Tales,'  the  large  collection  of  Sanskrit  stories  made 
by  Soma  Deva  in  the  twelfth  century  a.d.  By  this 
publication  he  gave  the  first  impetus  to  a  really 
scientific  study  of  the  origin  and  spreading  of  popular 
tales,  and  enabled  Professor  Benfey  and  others  to 
trace  the  great  bulk  of  eastei-n  and  western  stories  to 
an  Indian,  and  more  especially  to  a  Buddhistic  source. 
Though  the  collection  by  Soma  Deva  is  late,  it  pre- 
supposes earlier  collections,  some  of  which  exist  in 
Sanskrit,  while  one  ascribed  to  the  sixth  century,  and 
written  in  Paisa/d,  a  Prakrit  or  popular  dialect — 
lit.  the  dialect  of  devils — has  lately  been  discovered 
in  India  by  Dr.  Buhler. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  the  sometimes  literal 
coincidences  between  the  stories  told  in  Sanskrit 
verse  by  Soma  Deva  in  the  twelfth  century,  and 
the  '  Dekhan  Tales  '  lately  published  by  Miss  Frere, 
which  she  collected  from  the  mouth  of  her  Indian 
Nurse.  Among  Professor  Brockhaus's  other  publica- 
tions we  can  only  mention  his  edition  of  the  curious 
philosophical  play,  the  Prabodha-/;androdaya,  '  The 
Rise  of  the  Moon  of  Intelligence,'  his  critical  edition 
of  the  '  Songs  of  Hafiz,'  and  his  publication  in  Latin 


HERMANN  BROCKHAUS.  453 

letters  of  the  'Zend-Avesta.'  Since  1841  Brockhaus 
has  been  active  as  Professor  of  Sanskrit  at  Leipzig, 
and  there  his  success  as  a  teacher  has  been  most 
surprising.  When  he  began  to  lecture,  now  thirty- 
six  years  ago,  Sanskrit  was  still  considered  as  a 
luxury,  and  the  number  of  his  pupils  was  seldom 
more  than  three,  sometimes  less.  But  times  have 
changed,  and  of  late  years  his  lectures  on  Sanskrit 
grammar  at  Leipzig  were  regularly  attended  by  some 
fifty  students,  who,  without  wishing  to  master  all 
the  intricacies  of  the  language,  learnt  at  least  so 
much  as  would  enable  them  to  use  Sanskrit  inde- 
pendently for  the  purposes  of  comparative  philology. 
Much  of  that  success  was  due,  no  doubt,  to  the 
influence  of  Professor  Curtius,  who  instead  of  warn- 
ing his  classical  students  against  the  charms  of  San- 
skrit, as  was  the  custom  among  classical  Professors 
in  other  Universities,  insisted  on  their  acquiring  at 
least  the  elements  of  Sanskrit  grammar.  Leipzig, 
at  present  the  best  philological  school  in  Germany, 
owes  much  of  its  great  reputation  to  the  combined 
labours  of  those  two  Professors,  Brockhaus  and  Curtius, 
and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  University  may  be  as 
fortunate  in  selecting  among  the  rising  Sanskrit 
scholars  as  worthy  a  successor  of  Brockhaus,  as,  if 
report  speaks  true,  it  has  been  in  finding  a  classical 
scholar  worthy  to  continue  the  great  traditions  of 
Gottfried  Hermann  and  Friedrich  Ritschl. 


454  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Y. 

ANTON   SCHIEFNER. 

(Died  1878.) 

THE  last  number,  which  we  have  just  received,  of 
the  Melanges  Asiatiques,  containing  extracts 
from  the  Bulletin  of  the  Imperial  Academy  of 
St.  Petersburg,  possesses  a  mournful  interest.  We 
shall  probably  have  seen  in  it  for  the  last  time  the 
name  of  a  laborious  contributor,  Anton  Schiefner, 
a  member  of  the  Imperial  Academy,  and  for  many 
years  its  valued  librarian.  Schiefner's  name  is  but 
little  known  outside  the  small  circle  of  Oriental 
scholars,  and  he  has  not  left  any  single  work  that 
could  be  called  a  worthy  memorial  of  his  vast  acquire- 
ments. But  few  men  have  worked  so  hard,  few 
men  have  acted  as  pioneers  in  so  many  unknown 
languages  and  literatures  as  Anton  Schiefner.  His 
life  is  soon  told.  He  was  born  at  Reval  in  181 7, 
studied  law  at  St.  Petersburg,  went  to  Berlin  in  1842, 
where  he  acquired  a  taste  for  philological  and  Oriental 
studies ;  and  after  having  been  employed  for  a  time  as 
master  in  a  public  school  at  St.  Petersburg,  he  was 
elected  a  member  and  librarian  of  the  St.  Petersburg- 
Academy,  a  post  which  he  held  until  his  death. 
Whatever  work  there  was  to  be  done  at  the  Academy 
which  no  other  member  was  able  or  willing  to  do, 
seems  to  have  fallen  to  Schiefner's  lot.  At  a  time 
when  the  languages  of  the  Caucasus  and  its  neigh- 
bourhood had  a  special  interest  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Russian  Government,  Schiefner  published  grammatical 


ANTON  SCHIEFNER.  455 

treatises  on  the  following  dialects  : — On  the  Thushian, 
on  the  Awarian,  on  the  Udian,  on  the  Abchasian,  on 
the  Tschetschenzian,  and  on  the  Kasikumykian.  When 
the  great  Northern  traveller,  Castren,  died,  before 
having  had  time  to  publish  his  collections,  Schiefner 
not  only  edited  his '  Northern  Travels  and  Researches,' 
but  prepared  and  published  the  following  gram- 
mars : — Ostiakian,  Samoyedian,  Tungusian,  Buriatian, 
Koibalian  and  Karagassian,  Jenisei-Ostiakian  and 
Kottian.  In  addition  to  these  grammatical  labours 
he  translated  into  German  verse  the  Finnish  epic 
poem  Kalevala,  1852,  and  the  heroic  songs  of  the 
Minussinian  Tatars,  1859.  And  yet  while  doing  all 
this  more  or  less  official  work  his  heart  was  fixed  else- 
where, on  the  language  of  Tibet  and  the  immense 
literature  of  Buddhism  preserved  in  that  language. 
He  it  was  who  most  successfully  continued  the  noble 
work  begun  by  Csoma  Korosi,  and  brought  to  light 
treasure  after  treasure  from  the  rich  mine  which  had 
been  opened  for  the  first  time  by  that  truly  heroic 
Hungarian  scholar.  It  was  chiefly  in  the  columns  of 
the  Melanges  Asiatiques  that  Schiefner  published  his 
translations  from  the  Tibetan  canon,  and  the  last 
number  contains  no  less  than  three  contributions 
from  his  pen,  all  of  real  value — one,  an  account  of 
a  curious  Tibetan  manuscript,  which  he  had  copied  at 
the  India  Office  library;  another,  an  article  on  a  collec- 
tion of  Buddhist  verses,  something  like  the  Dharma- 
pada,  with  the  announcement  that  he  had  discovered 
in  the  Kandjur  the  long-looked-for  Northern  version 
of  that  important  handbook  of  Buddhist  ethics.  A 
third  article  gives  a  continuation  of  Buddhist  stories, 
translated  from  the  Tibetan  canon,  the  Kandjur,  many 


456  BIOaRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

of  them  supplying  the  original  or,  at  all  events,  a  very 
primitive  version  of  stories  and  fables  which,  chiefly 
through  the  influence  of  Buddhist  priests  and  mission- 
aries, have  made  the  round  of  the  whole  world.  We 
shall  give  as  a  small  specimen  of  what  Schiefner  has 
brouo-ht  to  liffht  from  the  canonical  books  of  the 
Buddhists  two  stories,  both  in  the  spirit  of  the  story 
of  Solomon's  judgment — the  one  in  a  more  rudimentary, 
the  other  in  a  more  developed  form. 

'  A  man  took  off"  his  boots  and  left  them  on  the 
shore  before  he  went  to  bathe  in  the  river.  While  he 
was  bathing  another  man  came,  took  the  boots,  tied 
them  round  his  neck,  and  plunged  into  the  water. 
When  the  first  had  bathed,  he  went  on  shore  and 
looked  everywhere  for  his  boots.  "  What  are  you 
looking  for  ? ""  said  the  man  in  the  water.  "  My  boots," 
he  replied.  "  Where  are  your  boots  "?  "  the  other  said  ; 
"  If  you  have  any,  you  should  tie  them  round  your 
neck  before  you  go  into  the  water  as  I  have  done." 
Then  the  first  said,  "  But  the  boots  you  have  round 
your  neck  are  my  boots."  Soon  a  fight  arose,  and 
they  went  before  the  King.  The  King  commanded 
his  Ministers  to  settle  their  dispute,  but  alter  sitting 
in  judgment  the  whole  day,  they  went  home  tired  in 
the  evening  and  could  not  settle  anything.  Then 
a  clever  woman,  VLsakha  by  name,  when  she  heard  of 
the  lawsuit,  said,  "  What  is  the  use  of  examining  and 
cross-examining "?  Say  to  one  man,  '  Take  this  boot,' 
and  to  the  other,  '  Take  that  boot.'  Then  the  real 
owner  will  say,  '  Why  should  my  pair  of  boots  be 
divided  1 '  But  the  thief  will  say,  '  What  shall  I  do 
with  one  boot  1 '  "  The  King  followed  her  advice  and 
the  thief  was  discovered.' 


ANTON   SCHIEFNER.  457 

The  next  story  approaches  more  closely  to  the 
judgment  of  Solomon,  and  as  the  matter  in  dispute 
is  settled  without  the  cruel  order  of  the  King  to  cut 
the  child  in  two,  the  Buddhist  may  even  claim  a  certain 
advantage  over  the  Semitic  story.  '  A  householder 
had  married  a  wife,  and  when  their  marriage  remained 
childless  he  married  a  second.  When  the  second  wife 
became  the  mother  of  a  son,  she  was  afraid  that  the 
first  wife  would  hate  and  injure  the  child,  and;  out  of 
love  for  her  son,  she  agreed  with  her  husband  that  the 
first  wife  should  be  the  reputed  mother  of  the  boy. 
After  a  time  the  husband  died,  and  as  the  house 
belonged  to  the  son,  the  two  waves  began  to  quarrel, 
which  of  them  should  live  in  the  house  with  her  son. 
At  last  they  went  before  the  King.  The  King  com- 
manded his  Ministers  to  settle  the  dispute,  with  the 
usual  result  that  the  judges  could  make  nothing  of  it. 
Then  the  clever  woman,  Vifeakha,  came  in  and  said, 
"  What  is  the  use  of  examining  and  cross-examining 
these  women  ?  Tell  them  that  we  do  not  know  wdio 
the  real  mother  is,  and  that  they  must  settle  it  for 
themselves.  Let  both  lay  hold  of  the  boy  and  pull 
him  with  all  their  might,  and  whoever  can  pull 
hardest  shall  have  the  boy  and  the  house."  When 
the  tussle  began,  the  child,  being  pulled  very  hard, 
began  to  cry.  Then  the  true  mother  let  him  go,  and 
said,  "  Anyhow,  if  he  is  not  torn  to  pieces  and  killed, 
I  shall  sometimes  be  able  to  see  him."  But  the  other 
woman  tore  him  away  with  violence.  Then  the 
violent  woman  was  beaten  with  a  rod  and  the  true 
mother  was  allowed  to  carry  off  her  child.' 


458  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

VI. 

THEODOR  BENFEY. 

(Died  iSSi.) 

IN  Theodor  Benfey  we  have  lost  one  of  the  great 
Sanskrit  scholars  of  our  times,  and  if  one  looks 
at  his  works  and  at  the  permanent  results  which  they 
represent,  one  feels  tempted  to  ask,  Has  there  ever 
been  a  single  scholar  in  Europe  who  since  the  dis- 
covery of  Sanskrit  has  more  advanced  our  knowledge 
of  the  language  and  literature  of  ancient  India  than 
Benfey  ?  There  is  not  much  to  record  of  his  life.  He 
was  born  in  1809,  and  was,  as  his  name  shows,  of 
Jewish  descent.  He  was  educated  at  the  Gymnasium 
of  Gottingen,  studied  at  the  Universities  of  Gottingen 
and  Munich,  and  was  appointed  professor  at  Gottingen 
in  1834,  where  he  has  been  working  and  lecturing  till 
his  death.  It  would  be  impossible  to  give  a  complete 
list  of  his  literary  labours,  particularly  as  some  of  his 
smaller  contributions  in  the  Gottinger  Gelehrte  Anzei- 
gen  often  represent  work  which  in  other  hands  would 
have  assumed  the  proportion  of  volumes.  Many  of 
these,  we  hope,  will  now  be  rescued  from  their  hiding- 
places  and  published  in  a  permanent  and  accessible 
form  ^.  His  first  opus  was  the  '  Griechisches  Wurzel- 
lexicon,'  1839-1842.  To  the  younger  generation  of 
comparative  philologists  that  work  may  chiefly  be 
known  by  the  frequent  criticisms  which  it  has  evoked 
in  later  times,  nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  that  the 

*  This  has  been  done  in  two  volumes,  '  Kleinere  Schriften  von 
Theodor  Benfey,'  1890  and  1S92. 


THEODOR   BENFEY.  459 

comparative  study  of  Greek  has  since  advanced  so 
rapidly  as  to  leave  to  that  work  of  Benfey  an 
historical  interest  only.  Still,  whoever  will  examine 
its  pages  will  be  surprised  to  see  of  how  many 
now  widely-accepted  theories  and  etymologies  Benfey 
was  really  the  first  author.  In  no  science  does  the 
claim  of  the  first  discoverer  seem  to  be  so  little  re- 
garded as  in  comparative  philology.  It  is  impossible, 
of  course,  or,  at  least,  extremely  troublesome,  to  find 
out  who  was  the  first  to  say  that  viginti,  eiKoo-i,  and 
Sanskrit  vimsati  are  the  same  word,  or  to  remember 
who  first  placed  that  comparison  on  a  sound,  scientific 
basis.  Hence  there  arises  quickly  a  great  mass  of 
what  is  considered  common  property — nay,  what  is 
afterwards  often  put  down  to  the  account  of  the  last 
scholar  who  quotes  it.  How  often  do  we  find  the 
names  of  Tick,  Curtius,  and  Corssen  where  by  right 
the  names  of  Bopp,  Pott,  or  Benfey  ought  to  stand  ? 
Benfey  himself  rejoiced  in  that  kind  of  impersonal  fame, 
and  on  a  few  extreme  occasions  only,  when,  not  only 
his  own  discoveries  were  ascribed  to  others,  but  he 
himself  was  blamed  for  not  holding  his  own  views,  did 
he  lose  patience  and  set  himself  right  with  posterity. 
To  the  early  period  in  Benfey's  career  belongs  like- 
wise his  elaborate  article  on  India  in  'Ersch  und 
Gruber's  Encyclopaedic,'  which  like  the  '  Wurzel- 
lexicon '  is  now  to  a  great  extent  antiquated,  but  con- 
tains, nevertheless,  many  things  quae  Tneminisse  iu- 
vabit.  Later  in  life  Benfey  was  one  of  the  first  to 
contribute  to  that  revival  of  Sanskrit  philology  which 
began  with  the  study  of  the  Vedas.  In  1848  he 
published  his  text,  translation,  and  glossary  of  the 
Sama-veda,  and  he  also  gave  at  that  early  time  a  com- 


460  BTOaRAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

plete  translation  of  the  first  book  of  the  Rig-veda. 
He  then  stopped  for  a  while,  chiefly  because  he  saw 
that  no  real  progress  could  be  made  in  Vedic  studies 
before  the  text  of  the  Rig-veda,  and,  above  all,  before 
Sayaiia's  complete  commentary  on  the  Rig-veda  had 
been  published.  In  the  meantime  he  devoted  himself 
to  the  publication  of  several  Sanskrit  grammars,  in 
which  he  showed  a  mastery  of  Paviini,  very  unusual 
at  that  time.  He  also  published  a  Sanskrit  Chresto- 
mathy,  a  dictionary,  and  other  useful  works.  But 
suddenly  he  surprised  the  world  by  a  discovery  in 
a  totally  new  line  of  research — namely,  by  his 
'  Pantschatantra/  in  which  he  established  on  a  safe 
basiS;  not  only  the  Indian  origin  of  European  fables, 
but  what  was  even  more  important,  the  Buddhist 
origin  of  Indian  fables.  This  was  a  work  which  alone 
would  have  placed  its  author  in  the  front  rank  of 
European  scholars.  With  Benfey  it  represented  but 
one  out  of  many  victories  in  a  life-long  campaign. 
We  cannot  dwell  on  all  his  works,  on  his  contribu- 
tions to  the  knowledge  of  Zend,  his  scholarlike  edition 
of  the  Cuneiform  Inscriptions,  and  many  more.  But, 
as  another  truly  monumental  work  his  '  History  of  the 
Science  of  Language  and  Oriental  Philology  in  Ger- 
many '  (1869)  has  to  be  mentioned,  showing  what  can 
be  achieved  by  the  genius  and  industry  of  one  man, 
if  only  he  has  a  purpose  in  life  and  possesses  the  un- 
selfish devotion  of  the  scholar.  The  concluding  years 
of  his  life  were  consecrated  again  to  Vedic  studies, 
which  he  resumed  with  all  the  ardour  of  youth  and 
the  experience  of  the  veteran  general.  The  results  of 
these  were  published  from  year  to  year  in  the  '  Trans- 
actions of  the  Royal  Gottingen  Society  '  and  elsewhere. 


THEODOR  BENFET.  461 

In  order  to  give  an  idea  of  the  minuteness  of  his 
studies,  it  may  be  mentioned  that  his  treatises  on  the 
single  question  of  the  prolongation  of  vowels  in  the 
Rig-veda  occupy  more  than  400  pages  quarto.  This 
may  seem  an  excess,  if  there  can  be  an  excess  in 
accuracy,  but  it  shows,  at  all  events,  what  we  might 
have  expected  from  his  long-promised  Vedic  grammar. 
Unless  the  materials  for  that  work,  which  he  has  been 
collecting  and  sifting  for  years,  have  been  worked  up 
by  himself,  it  is  extremely  doubtful  whether  any  living 
scholar  will  be  able  to  take  up  the  tangled  threads 
and  finish  the  design  on  the  scale  on  which  Benfey 
conceived  it. 

We  ought  not  to  conclude  this  notice  without  pay- 
ing a  well- deserved  tribute  to  the  high  character 
which  Benfey,  as  a  man,  has  always  borne  among 
Oriental  scholars.  Through  life  he  seemed  to  care 
for  nothing  but  work — true  and  honest  work.  The 
career  of  a  scholar  is  free,  no  doubt,  from  many  of  the 
ordinary  temptations  of  life,  yet  character  tells  hero 
too,  and  often  even  more  than  learning.  Through  his 
long  literary  career,  which  has  not  been  free  from  the 
inevitable  controversies  of  the  scientific  world,  not 
a  word  has  ever  been  breathed  against  Benfey's  inde- 
pendence, justice,  straightforwardness  and  truthful- 
ness. He  never  belonged  to  any  set.  He  seldom 
praised  and  he  seldom  blamed ;  but,  for  that  very 
reason,  his  praise  was  praise  indeed,  and  his  blame 
blame  indeed.  Science  to  him  "was  a  sacred  thing, 
where  no  personal  interests  were  allowed  to  intrude. 
Even  in  his  more  animated  controversies  he  always 
treated  his  opponents  with  respect,  while  he  would 
have   resented  the  cheap   praises  of  his   friends   or 


462  BIOORAPHICAL  ESSAYS. 

pupils  as  an  insult.  In  this  respect,  too,  he  will 
long  be  missed,  for  the  mere  presence  of  an  upright 
man  awes  and  scares  away  mere  triflers  and  pre- 
tenders. 


vn. 

ADALBERT  KUHN 

(Died  1881). 
N  Adalbert  Kuhn,  who  died  at  Berlin  last  month, 


I 


Germany  has  lost  another  of  the  few  remaining 
scholars,  who  may  be  said  to  have  assisted  in  laying 
the  foundations  of  the  two  new  sciences  of  Compara- 
tive Philology  and  Comparative  Mythology.  He  was 
a  pupil  of  Bopp,  and  soon  became  his  friend  and 
fellow-worker.  Being  a  classical  scholar,  and  by 
profession  a  Master,  and  for  many  years  Head-master 
at  one  of  the  public  schools  in  Berlin,  he  exercised 
great  influence  in  gaining  a  hearing  for  Bopp's  teaching 
among  Greek  and  Latin  scholars  at  a  time  when 
'anything  comparative'  was  still  treated  with  ridicule 
and  contempt.  He  was  one  of  the  first  to  show  with 
how  great  advantage  the  method  inaugurated  by  the 
Science  of  Lanojuaffe  could  be  introduced  into  the  first 
elementary  teaching  of  Greek  and  Latin,  and  he  lived 
long  enough  to  witness  a  complete  revolution  in  that 
respect,  the  old  grammars  being  everywhere  replaced 
by  new  ones,  like  that  of  Curtius,  and  every  classical 
scholar  being  examined  in  the  very  subjects  which 
many  of  the  contemporaries  of  Bopp  and  Grimm  had 
at  first  derided. 

Professor   Kuhn    himself  was   not    a  voluminous 


ADALBERT   KUHN.  463 

■writer,  but  what  he  has  written  and  published  has 
produced  a  great  effect,  and  some  of  his  small,  but 
carefully  considered,  essays  have  told  and  will  con- 
tinue to  tell  when  many  a  large  volume  of  his 
contemporaries  shall  have  been  forgotten.  From  the 
very  first  Kuhn's  labours  were  not  confined  to  mere 
comparisons  of  words,  to  phonetic  rules  and  etymolo- 
gical niceties.  He  cared  for  tilings  rather  than  for 
words,  and  all  his  et3'mologies  had  one  object  only,  to 
discover  behind  ancient  words  some  of  the  ancient 
thoughts  of  mankind,  and  more  particularly  of  the 
Aryan  speakers.  Thus  he  was  one  of  the  first  who 
utilised  the  words  shared  in  common  by  Hindus, 
Persians,  Greeks,  Romans,  Germans,  Celts,  and  Slaves 
as  historical  evidence  for  the  earliest  civilisation  of  the 
Aryas  before  their  separation.  Similar  attempts  had 
been  made  by  Colebrooke  (see  Chips,  Vol.  II,  p.  499), 
and  by  Crawford  also  for  the  Polynesian  family  of 
speech,  but  Kuhn's  paper  '  Zur  altesten  Geschichte 
der  Indo-germanischen  Volker '  (1845)  was  quite  origi- 
nal, and  opened  a  path  which  has  afterwards  been 
followed  with  great  success  by  Grimm  and  others. 
Comparative  Philology,  as  Grimm  said,  had  to  shake 
the  bed  of  Ancient  History,  and  it  has  certainly  done 
so,  though  that  bed  has  not  always  been  a  bed  of 
roses.  It  was  Kuhn  also  who  first  pointed  out  the 
great  importance  of  Vedic  as  compared  with  later 
Sanskrit.  Little  only  of  the  Veda  was  accessible  at 
his  time,  but  the  hidden  treasures  which  he  pointed 
out  in  the  language  and  poetry  of  the  Vedic  Rishis 
formed  the  most  powerful  stimulus  for  others  to 
devote  their  life  to  the  editing  of  the  complete  texts 
and  the  native   commentaries   of  the  Riff- Veda,  the 


464  BIOaRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Sama-Veda,  the  Ya^/ur-Veda,  and  the  Atharva-Veda. 
As  time  went  on  his  attention  became  more  and  more 
concentrated  on  the  great  problem  of  mythology,  and 
while  studying  its  most  ancient  formations  in  the  Veda, 
in  Greece,  in  Italy  and  Germany,  he  devoted  much  of 
his  free  time  to  the  collecting  of  folk-lore  from  the 
mouth  of  old  men  and  old  women  in  various  parts  of 
Germany, '  Markische  Forschungen'  (1841),  'Markische 
Sagen  und  Mahrchen'  (ih'43),  '  Norddeutsche  Sagen, 
Miihrchen  und  Gebrauche'  (1848),  'Sagen,  Gebrauche 
und  Mahrchen  aus  Westfalen '  (1859).  In  collecting 
this  detritus  of  mythological  lore  he  was  one  of  the 
few  who  were  thoroughly  conscientious  and  careful. 
Nothing  was  added,  nothing  omitted,  nothing  was 
done  to  polish  or  beautify  the  old  popular  heirlooms. 
We  know  how  great  this  teinptation  is,  and  how 
many  eminent  collectors  have  more  or  less  succumbed 
to  it.  But  with  Kuhn  folk-lore  was  something  sacred, 
and  he  would  as  little  have  thought  of  taking  liberties 
with  it  as  with  the  text  of  the  Vedas. 

Kuhn,  as  a  pupil  of  Grimm,  looked  upon  popular 
stories,  on  Mahrchen  and  Legenden,  as  representing 
the  last  stage  of  ancient  mythology.  As  dialects  were 
in  the  eyes  of  Grimm  modifications  and  corruptions 
of  an  antecedent  classical  speech,  folk-lore  also  was 
to  him  and  his  pupils  the  detritus  only  of  more 
ancient  mythology,  and  to  be  traced  back,  wherever 
possible,  to  that  more  ancient  stratum.  As  we  have 
learned  to  distinguish  between  primary  and  secondary 
dialects,  and  have  had  in  many  cases  to  recognise 
dialectic  forms  as  more  primitive  than  their  cor- 
responding classical  forms,  we  can  no  longer  doubt 
that  certain  popular  stories  also,  though  known  to  us 


ADALBEBT   KUHN-.  465 

in  a  veiy  modern  form  only,  had  an  independent 
existence  by  the  side  of  other  popular  stories,  and 
that  not  every  hero  of  popular  tradition  must  be 
a  corruption  of  a  more  ancient  mythological  hero  or 
god.  If  he  can  be  shown  to  be  so,  if  his  character 
can  be  explained  as  a  modification  of  a  well-known 
mythological  character,  whether  god  or  hero,  nothing 
can  be  better ;  but  here  too,  as  in  the  growth  of 
language,  the  XeheneinaTider  has  as  much  right  as 
the  Nacheinander,  and  we  need  no  longer  be  afraid 
of  using  traditions,  known  to  us  in  their  most  recent 
form  only,  as  throwing  light  on  the  very  earliest 
growth  of  mythology,  custom  and  religion.  All  that 
is  wanted  is  that  there  should  be  no  tampering  with 
the  folk-lore  of  the  present  day,  and  that  it  should 
be  written  down  conscientiously,  not  as  we  wish  it 
to  be,  but  as  it  actually  is. 

Some  of  Kuhn's  identifications  of  the  names  of 
mythological  personalities  in  India,  Greece,  Italy,  and 
Germany  have  been  found  fault  with,  because  they 
seem  to  offend  against  the  phonetic  rules  which 
regulate  the  changes  of  words  in  these  Aryan  lan- 
guages. But  we  must  not  expect  what  we  have 
no  right  to  expect  in  proper  names.  The  phonetic 
changes  which  regulate  the  phonetic  structure  of  the 
Aryan  languages  are  no  doubt  most  astounding  in 
their  never-i'ailing  stringency,  but  if  they  apply  with 
unbroken  regularity  to  nouns  and  verbs,  they  certainly 
do  not  so  with  regard  to  proper  names.  Mythological 
names  fall  under  the  same  category  as  proper  names. 
They  are  therefore  from  the  beginning  local  and 
exposed  to  the  peculiarities  of  local  dialects,  and  they 
are  handed  down  with  less  restraint  than  the  general 

VOL.  II.  H  h 


466  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSA\S. 

body  of  a  language.  Pott  in  his  work  on  '  Personal 
Names '  (1859),  has  strongly  dwelt  on  this  point.  We 
have  seen,  he  writes,  p.  122,  that  proper  names  have 
sometimes  their  tail,  sometimes  even  their  head  bitten 
off,  which  language  would  never  have  allowed  itself  to 
do,  if  personal  names,  like  meaningless  interjections, 
had  not  been  liable  to  be  treated  with  very  extensive 
licence.  To  say  thei-efore  that  the  Sanskrit  Saram  ey  a 
could  not  be  identified  with  'Ep//eias  and  ^Epfxrjs,  be- 
cause it  ought  to  be  'Epf/xetas,  is  certainly  being 
righteous  over  much,  or,  in  other  words,  unscientific. 
No  phonetic  rule  will  account  for  OHG.  Rihhart  being 
changed  into  Dich,  or  of  Maria  into  Polly.  These 
are  no  doubt  extreme  cases,  and  we  have  no  right 
to  appeal  to  them ;  but  as  a  general  rule  it  ought 
to  be  known  that  proper  names,  and,  in  consequence, 
mythological  names,  cannot  and  must  not  be  treated 
like  ordinary  appellatives  ;  otherwise  we  should  soon 
be  told  that  Agni  cannot  be  ignis,  or  Nis  nox,  or 
Vritra  Orthros,  or  Varuna  Uranos,  and  that  there  is 
no  consanguinity  between  Ushas  smd  Aurora,  between 
Ahand  and  Athene. 

Another  ari^ument  that  has  been  used  asrainst  the 
explanation  which  Kuhn  and  I  myself  have  given  of 
the  same  mythological  characters  is  that  while  I  dis- 
cover in  many  myths  the  background  of  the  regular 
diurnal  changes  of  the  sky,  Kuhn  sees  in  the  same 
a  retiection  of  thunder,  lightning  and  storm-clouds. 
But  this  difficulty  also  is  becoming  less  and  less 
startling,  when  we  perceive  how  the  same  actors  are 
concerned  in  the  mi'teoric  and  in  the  diurnal  changes 
of  nature.  The  same  god  of  the  sky  who  seems  to 
rescue  the  sun  from  the  night,  delivers  also  the  light 


ADALBKRT    KUIIN.  467 

from  the  clouds  that  were  hidino-  it  during  a  thunder- 
storm.  The  rain  that  is  poured  down  from  the  cloud, 
is  poured  down  from  the  sky  also,  and  the  dark 
demon  of  the  thunder-cloud,  wdio  is  struck  down  by 
the  lightnings  of  the  god  of  the  sky,  is  spoken  of  in 
much  the  same  language  as  the  dark  demon  of  the 
night  who  is  defeated  every  day  by  the  rays  of  the 
sun.  This  syncretism  was  almost  inevitable  in 
ancient  mythology,  because  not  only  might  different 
phenomena  be  ascribed  to  the  same  agency,  but  the 
same  phenoinenon  might  be  traced  back  to  different 
agencies.  The  light  of  the  dawn,  the  noonday  splen- 
dour, nay,  even  the  lunar  brightness  of  the  night, 
might  all  be  referred  to  the  god  of  the  sky,  while  the 
fertilising  rain  might  be  called  the  gift  of  the  clouds, 
or  of  the  sky,  nay,  very  often  of  the  moon  also, 
and  of  the  night.  This  is  only  the  same  process 
which  under  a  more  general  name  I  defined  as 
Polyonywy  and  Homonyiny,  terms  which  were  adopted 
by  Kuhn  also  in  his  later  writings.  It  was  in  these 
later  contributions  that  Kuhn  pointed  out  how  every 
stage  in  the  social  and  political  development  of  man- 
Ivind  has  its  own  peculiar  mythological  character,  and 
how,  for  instance,  the  change  between  day  and  night 
receives  various  expressions  according  to  the  prevail- 
ing occupation  of  the  people,  as  hunters,  breeders  of 
cattle,  or  tillers  of  the  soil  who  speak  of  it  in  their  own 
mythological  language.  His  '  Herabkunft  des  Feuers,' 
much  as  it  has  been  criticised,  forms  still  the  most 
useful  preparation  for  an  independent  study  of  Com- 
parative Mythology,  but  no  one  would  be  more  ready 
to  admit  its  shortcomings  than  Kuhn  himself.  In  all 
his  writings  he  shows  himself  the  very  pattern  of 
H  h  2 


468  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

a  scholar — careful,  conscientious,  caring  for  truth  and 
nothing  else,  always  open  to  conviction,  never  unkind 
or  offensive  to  those  from  whom  he  differs.  During 
the  twenty-five  years  that  he  acted  as  editor  of  the 
'Zeitschrift  fur  Vergleichende  Sprachforschung,'  that 
journal  was  never  tainted  by  partisanship.  It  was 
open  to  all  who  could  work  as  scholars  and  write  as 
gentlemen,  who  could  respect  truth  and  yet  make 
allowance  for  difference  of  opinion. 

It  was  due  to  him  and  to  Curtius  that  Comparative 
Philology  made  its  way  into  the  schools  and  univer- 
sities of  Germany,  and  it  will  maintain  its  place  in  the 
scheme  of  liberal  education  so  long  as  scholars  do  not 
lose  sight  of  the  high  aims  which  such  men  as  Bopp, 
Grimm,  Humboldt,  Curtius,  Kuhn  and  others  always 
had  in  view. 

YIII. 
JOHN  MUIR. 

(Died  188-2.) 

SANSKRIT  scholarship  has  suffered  a  real  loss 
through  the  death  of  John  Muir,  which  was 
announced  in  the  Times  of  Thursday.  He  was  one 
of  the  few  Indian  civil  servants  who  took  advantage 
of  the  splendid  opportunities  supplied  by  a  long  resi- 
dence in  India  for  cultivating  a  study  of  the  ancient 
language  and  literature,  the  religion  and  antiquities  of 
that  country.  While  employed  on  active  service  there, 
between  1828  and  1853,  he  did  not  find  much  time  to 
publish  and  to  distinguish  himself  as  a  Sanskrit 
scholar,  but  he  devoted  his  leisure,  such  as  it  was, 
chiefly  to  the  encouragement  of  missionary  labours. 


JOHN   MUIR.  469 

In  1850  he  published  'A  Short  Life  of  the  Apostle 
Paul,  with  a  Summary  of  Christian  doctrine,  in  San- 
skrit Verse,'  after  the  model  of  Dr.  Mills  well-known 
'  History  of  Christ ' — '  The  Christa-Sangita.'  This  was 
followed,  in  1852,  by  his  'Examination  of  Religions,' 
or  '  Mata-pariksha,'  again  in  Sanskrit  verso,  contain- 
ing in  the  first  part  a  consideration  of  the  Hindoo 
(bastras,  and  in  the  second  part  (published  in  1H54)  an 
exposition  of  the  evidences  of  Christianity  for  Hindus. 
In  the  preface  he  refers  to  a  similar  work  published 
by  him  as  early  as  1840.  While  engaged  in  these 
more  or  less  controversial  labours  he  was  one  of  the 
first  to  perceive  and  point  out  the  necessity  of  a  know- 
ledge of  the  Vedas  for  a  right  understanding  of  the 
religious  development  of  India,  and  while  still  in  India 
he  offered  a  prize  for  the  first  edition  of  the  text  of 
the  Rig-Veda  and  its  commentary  by  Saya^iacharya. 
After  his  return  to  England,  in  1853,  finding  himself 
in  possession  of  ample  leisure  and  of  a  larger  income 
than  he  required  for  his  modest  wants,  he  became  both 
a  patron  and  an  active  contributor  to  Sanskrit  scholar- 
ship. He  began  by  offering  some  prizes  for  essays  on 
Indian  philosophy  and  religion,  still  chiefly  with  a  view 
to  help  in  the  conversion  of  the  Hindus  to  Christianity. 
After  a  time,  however,  his  views  on  religion  seemed 
to  undergo  a  considerable  change,  and  his  name  might 
often  have  been  seen  of  late  among  the  advocates  of 
freedom  of  thought  both  in  Scotland  and  elsewhere. 
He  was  one  of  the  many  writers  to  whom,  not  without 
some  reason,  the  anonymous  work  '  Supernatural  Reli- 
gion '  was  at  first  ascribed.  His  own  studies,  how- 
ever, became  more  and  more  concentrated  on  the 
VedaSj  and  in  his  five  volumes,  '  Original  Sanskrit 


470  BTOGRAPHrCAL   ESSAYS. 

Texts  on  the  Origin  and  History  of  the  People  of 
India,  their  Religion  and  Institutions,'  he  showed  what 
excellent  and  truly  useful  work  might  be  done  by 
simply  collecting,  classifying,  and  translating  impor- 
tant passages  from  the  published  texts  of  the  ancient 
literature  of  India.  Though  his  labours  were  not  so 
original  as  those  of  Sir  William  Jones,  Colebrooke, 
and  Wilson,  they  were  always  honest  and  sound,  and 
they  will  secure  to  his  name  an  honoured  place  by  the 
side  of  his  more  illustrious  predecessors.  It  is  chiefly 
due  to  him  that  scholars,  missionaries,  and  the  public 
at  large  have  gained  a  more  correct  view  of  ancient 
India  than  could  be  found  in  any  other  works  pub- 
lished before  the  revival  of  Sanskrit  studies  produced 
by  the  publication  of  the  literature  of  the  Vedic  period  ; 
and  even  if  some  of  his  works  should  in  time  be  super- 
seded, they  never  will  be  forgotten  in  the  history  of 
Sanskrit  scholarship.  His  liberality  and  real  munifi- 
cence were  well  known  to  all  Sanskrit  scholars.  The 
Uuiversity  of  Edinburgh  owes  to  him  not  only  the 
foundation  of  a  Chair  of  Sanskrit  and  Comparative 
Philology,  but  likewise  the  discriminating  selection  of 
its  first  distinguished  occupants.  Professor  Aufrecht 
(now  at  Bonn)  and  Professor  Eggeling.  Many  stu- 
dents and  professors  of  Sanskrit  in  Germany  are 
deeply  indebted  to  his  bounty,  and  will  often  miss  the 
generous  hand  that  supplied  their  pressing  wants  or 
assisted  in  the  publication  of  their  works.  His  absence 
at  the  late  Congress  of  Orientalists  in  Berlin  was  much 
regretted,  and  the  frequent  and  anxious  inquiries  after 
his  health  showed  how  truly  loved  and  honoured  he 
was  by  Oriental  scholars  in  all  countries  of  Europe. 

'  Unci  wer  den  Besten  seiner  Zeit  genug  gethau, 
Per  hat  genug  gethan  fiir  alle  Zeiteu.' 


PRINCESS    ALICE.  471 

IX. 

PEINCESS  ALICE. 

(Died  1878.) 

THEEE  has  just  appeared  an  important  addition 
to  what  may  be  called  our  Royal  literature.  It 
has  been  said  that  during  the  last  generation  Royal 
families  have  not  been  rich  in  great  men,  but  they 
have  certainly  been  rich  in  great  women.  Among 
the  Princesses  whose  fame  has  passed  beyond  the 
walls  of  the  palace,  Princess  Alice  stands  high,  and, 
taken  all  in  all,  stands  highest  perhaps  among  the 
Royal  women  of  this  century.  Her  life  and  letters 
have  lately  been  published  in  Germany  under  the 
title  of  '  Alice,  Grossherzogin  von  Hessen,  Princessin 
von  Grossbritannien  und  Irland,  Mittheilungen  aus 
ihrem  Leben  und  ihren  Briefen.'  What  Princess  Alice 
was  to  her  father  and  to  her  mother,  what  she  was 
as  a  mother,  how  devotedly  she  worked  as  a  nurse 
during  the  war,  how  she  suffered  at  the  death  of  her 
child,  and  how  she  died  from  a  parting  kiss  given  to 
her  dying  child,  is  known  more  or  less  in  England 
and  in  Germany.  But  what  she  was  in  herself,  how 
she  worked,  how  she  read,  how  she  struggled,  battling 
with  the  problems  with  which  we  all  have  to  battle, 
fighting  the  enemies  who  beset  us  all — that  we  may 
now  learn,  at  least  to  a  certain  extent,  from  the  book 
published  in  Germany,  and,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  soon  to 
be  translated  by  a  competent  hand  into  English.  The 
Queen,  with  her  noble  trust  in  the  noble  instincts  of 
her  people,  has  again  thrown  open  the  sacred  treasure 
of  her  sorrows,  and  allowed  large  extracts  from  her  own 


472  BIOGKArHICAL   ESSAYS. 

and  her  daughter's  letters  to  be  inserted  in  the  forth- 
coming biography,  These  letters  are,  in  fact,  the  real 
jewels  of  the  book ;  the  biographical  setting  is 
extreniel}'  slight. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  epitaph  which  Frederick 
the  Great  had  engraved  on  the  tomb  of  the  great 
Landgravine  of  Hessia, '  Henrietta  Carolina,  died  1774, 
tcxu  femina,  mgenio  vlr'  might  be  placed  on  the 
monument  of  Princess  Alice.  But  that  is  hardly  true. 
In  her  it  seemed  as  if  sex  was  transfigured  in  the 
pure  light  of  perfect  womanliness,  while  her  intellect, 
though  brave  and  manly,  was  dominated  by  a  love  of 
truth  which  had  all  the  passion  of  a  woman's  love. 
Besides  reading  the  more  important  books  which 
touched  on  questions  which  she  had  at  hearty  she  was 
extremely  fond  of  the  society  of  eminent  men,  whether 
scholars,  philosophers,  men  of  science,  or  artists.  She 
respected  them,  and  was  proud  to  be  taken  into  their 
workshops.  That  she  preferred  to  listen  to  a  professor 
rather  than  to  a  duke  has  often  been  mentioned  as  one 
of  her  grave  delinquencies.  The  greatest  offence  she 
gave  was  by  her  kindness  to  Strauss,  who  was  often 
invited  to  her  palace,  and  who  wrote  some  of  his  best 
lectures  for  her.  It  is  no  secret  now — she  herself 
never  concealed  it — that  from  a  very  early  time  the 
traditional  religion  in  which  she  had  been  brought  up 
became  intolerable  to  her  ;  and  because  she  could 
no  longer  believe  in  a  God,  half  Greek,  half  Jewish, 
she  for  some  time,  as  her  biographer  writes,  doubted 
the  very  existence  of  God.  That  was  not  vulgar 
atheism — far  from  it.  It  was  true  love  of  God,  a  seek- 
ing after  a  higher  God,  a  belief  in  a  true  God  with 
whom  the  true  believer  could  be  true,  true  to  himself. 


PEINCESS   ALICE.  473 

true  to  his  best  convictions,  true  to  his  highest  aspira- 
tions. And  what  she  sought  for,  honestly,  patiently, 
faithfully,  she  found,  though  it  was  not  philosophy 
alone  that  helped  her  to  find  her  God,  but  sorrow  also. 
A  friend  of  hers  writes  : — '  After  the  death  of  her  son, 
I  thought  I  perceived  a  ditference  in  her  sentiments. 
While  formerly  she  almost  openly  avowed  that  she 
doubted  the  existence  of  a  God,  and  that  she  would 
only  allow  herself  to  be  guided  by  philosophical 
reasons,  she  did  no  longer  speak  in  this  way  after  her 
child's  death.  She  was  silent  under  the  voiceless 
struggle  which  went  on  in  her  heart,  and  which  I 
afterwards  perceived.  It  seemed  as  if  she  would  not 
confess  that  a  change  had  taken  place  in  her.  Later 
on  she  confessed  to  me  how  that  change  took  place, 
and  I  could  not  listen  to  it  without  tears.  She  ascribed 
it  to  the  death  of  her  child,  and  to  the  influence  of 
a  Scotchman  who  every  morning  gave  her  lessons  in 
drawing.  "  To  that  man,"  she  said,  "  who  exercised  so 
beneficial  an  influence  on  my  religious  views,  of  whom 
people  said  so  many  bad  things  and  likewise  of  my 
relations  to  him,  I  owe  everything."  I  recollect  her 
saying  to  me,  "  The  whole  edifice  of  philosophical 
conclusions  which  I  had  erected  for  myself  has 
dwindled  down  to  nothing.  Nothing  is  left  of  it, 
and  what  would  become  of  us  in  this  life  if  we  had 
not  the  belief,  the  conviction  that  there  is  a  God  who 
rules  the  world,  and  rules  over  every  one  of  us  ? 
I  weary  for  prayer ;  I  love  to  sing  hymns  with  my 
children,  every  one  of  whom  has  his  favourite  hymn."  ' 
It  must  not  bo  supposed  that  this  faithful  seeker 
after  truth  ever  fell  back  into  mere  formalism  or 
ritualism.     Like  most  honest  thinkers,  she  was  richer 


474  BTOaEAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

by  what  she  had  lost,  because  what  remained  to  her 
was  the  one  pearl  of  great  price,  of  which  those  only 
can  know  who  have  given  up  for  it  all  they  had.  It 
is  well  that  people,  both  men  and  women,  but  women 
particularly,  should  know  how  the  noblest  natures  pass 
valiantly  through  those  struggles  which  to  many  seem 
so  full  of  danger,  if  not  of  sin,  that  they  try  to  hide 
them  from  the  world,  nay  from  themselves.  Here 
Princess  Alice  showed  her  truly  Royal  nature.  Where 
the  danger  seemed  greatest  there  she  marched  forward, 
lion-hearted,  trusting  in  her  good  cause,  nay,  trusting 
in  God,  while  denying  God.  Like  Luther  at  Worms, 
she  seemed  to  say,  'Here  I  stand  ;  I  cannot  otherwise, 
God  help  me.  Amen ! '  And,  like  Luther's  memory, 
her  memory,  too,  will  be  blessed  centuries  hence,  for 
havino;  ventured  to  be  a  true  and  faithful  servant  when 
it  was  so  easy  to  be  false  and  faithless. 

One  shrinks  from  translating  her  letters  which  were 
written  in  English,  but  which  are  published  here  in 
German.  We  hope  they  will  soon  be  made  accessible 
in  England,  too,  in  their  original  form.  We  shall 
attempt  one  passage  only,  taken  from  a  letter  addressed 
to  the  Queen  on  May  ii,  1868  : — 

'  I  always  had  the  conviction  which  makes  me 
serious  and  thoughtful,  that  no  one  can  know  whether, 
with  the  end  of  this  time,  my  life  also  will  end.  That 
is  one  of  the  reasons  why  I  yearn  so  much  to  see  you 
this  summer,  my  darling  mamma,  for  I  cling  to  you 
with  a  love  and  gratitude  the  depth  of  which  I  find  no 
w'ords  to  express.  After  an  absence  of  one  year, 
I  wish  so  deeply  to  have  your  good  dear  face  once 
more  before  me,  and  to  press  my  lips  on  your  dear 
hands.     The  older  I  grow  the  more  I  prize  and  value 


RICHARD  LEPSIUS.  475 

that  love  of  a  mother  which  stands  quite  alone  in  the 
world,  and  as  after  dear  papas  death  I  have  you  only, 
all  my  love  for  my  parents  and  for  the  memory  of  my 
adored  father  now  centres  in  you.' 

It  may  easily  be  understood  that  the  selection  from 
the  letters  of  the  Queen  and  her  daughter  had  to  be 
made  with  the  gi-eatest  care,  so  as  not  to  wound  the 
feelings  of  those  who  are  still  alive.  But  what  has 
been  given  to  the  world  ought  to  be  received  with  real 
gratitude,  if  only  for  showing  us  what  heroic  struggles 
are  going  on  under  the  smooth  surface  of  our  society. 


RICHARD    LEPSIUS. 

(Died  1884.) 

AS  we  watch  a  mighty  oak,  knowing  that  its  time 
has  nearly  come,  and  that  the  next  fierce  gale 
may  uproot  it  and  leave  it  prostrate,  we  have  for 
several  years  been  anxiously  watching  Richard 
Lepsius,  knowing  that  his  course  must  soon  be  run, 
and  that  the  next  severe  attack  of  illness  might 
shatter  his  vigorous  frame.  The  blow  has  fallen  at 
last,  and  our  dear  old  friend  now  rests  from  his 
labours.  Could  he  have  wished  for  a  longer  life  1 
I  doubt  it.  Could  he  have  wished  for  a  fuller,  a  more 
complete  and  happier  life  ?  I  doubt  it  too.  Lepsius 
was  a  true  prince  among  scholars ;  and  from  his 
earliest  youth  to  his  latest  manhood  he  has  stood  in 
the  front  of  the  battle,  always  pressing  forward, 
always  gaining  new  ground,   inch  b}'  inch  and  foot 


476  BIOGKAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

by  foot,  seldom  defeated,  never  disheartened.  He 
belonged  to  the  old  chivalrous  race  of  German 
scholars,  to  whom  scholarship  was  a  means,  not  an 
end,  who  lived  for  great  ideas,  and  were  conscious  of 
their  high  calling  to  do  good  work,  not  for  the 
lecture-room  onl}^  but  for  mankind  at  large.  He  was 
a  student  of  antiquity,  but  not  a  mere  antiquarian. 
To  him  everything  old  was  new,  everything  new  was 
old — a  thousand  years  as  yesterday;  and  what  he 
strove  to  discover  among  the  ruins  of  Egypt,  Greece, 
or  Italy,  in  the  secret  passages  of  the  pyramids,  or  in 
the  hidden  foundations  of  languages  and  hieroglyphic 
alphabets  was  not  a  heap  of  curiosities,  but  man,  the 
work  of  man,  the  mind  of  man,  and,  in  the  end,  the 
solution  of  the  old  riddle  of  man.  Such  students  grow 
scarcer  and  scarcer,  and,  with  the  ever-increasing 
subdivision  of  labour,  they  may  become  extinct 
altogether.  There  was  a  time  when  Oriental  scholars 
had  first  of  all  to  prove  themselves  classical,  then 
Oriental  scholars.  How  well  I  remember  Professor 
Fleischer,  the  Nestor  of  Orientalists,  who  is  still 
working  and  teaching  in  the  University  of  Leipzig^ 
as  he  was  forty  years  ago  when  I  was  his  unworthy 
pupil,  impressing  on  us  the  duty  of  keeping  up  our 
classical  studies,  as  he  had  done  himself,  so  that  he 
was  able  to  hold  his  own  against  Hermann  or  Haupt, 
besides  knowing,  as  he  added  smilingly,  a  little  of 
Arabic,  Persian,  and  Turkish.  Now,  not  only  is 
Oriental  scholarship  divorced  from  classical  learning, 
but  the  name  of  Oriental  scholar  has  itself  become 
a  name  of  the  past ;  and  a  man,  in  order  to  hold  his 
own,  must  confine  himself  not  only  to  one  family  of 

^  He  died  iSS8. 


RICHARD   LEPSIUS.  477 

Oriental  speech,  the  Semitic,  Aryan,  or  Turanian  {mt 
venia  verba),  but  to  one  of  their  branches,  say  Sanskrit 
or  Hebrew,  or  to  one  of  their  dialects,  say  Pali  or 
Chaldee.  Whether  we  call  it  historical  growth  or, 
in  the  euphemistic  language  of  modern  philosophy, 
differentiation  and  evolution,  this  tendency  towards 
subdivision  is  inevitable  and  irresistible ;  and  I  am 
the  last  to  ignore  the  advantages  which  it  produces — 
minute  accuracy  and  critical  honesty.  Yet  we  may 
regret  the  time  when  there  were  giants  in  the  land, 
men  of  telescopic  as  well  as  microscopic  sight,  scholars 
like  Hermann,  Lachmann,  Haupt,  Bernays,  and 
others,  who  could  not  only  collate  MSS.  with  un- 
erring surety,  count  with  never-wearying  patience 
lines,  words,  and  sj^llables,  and  weigh  rhymes  and 
metres  with  the  precision  of  a  chemical  balance,  but 
who  were  able  at  the  same  time  to  survey  wide  areas 
of  literature,  to  grasp  broad  principles,  to  frame  wide 
concepts,  and  to  start  theories  which  led  them,  like 
Columbus,  to  the  discovery  of  new  worlds.  It  was 
said  of  them  that  they  knew  something  of  everything, 
but  they  also  knew  everything  of  something. 

Lepsius  had  inherited  from  the  old  classical  Oriental 
school  the  true  spirit  of  what  used  to  be  called 
Jaimanitas,  wide  human  sympathy,  critical  accuracy, 
and  historical  tact.  Born  in  1810  at  Naumburg,  he 
went  to  Pforta  in  1823,  and  remained  there  till  1829. 
Pforta  is  one  of  the  few  public  schools  in  Germany 
where  boys  live  together  as  at  Eton  and  Harrow.  It 
is  a  school  which  has  kept  up  most  faithfully  the 
traditions  of  mediaeval  learning,  Greek  and  Latin 
being  the  staple  of  education,  Greek  and  Latin  verse 
its  highest  aspiration.     Whatever  we  may  think  of 


478  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

this  education,  it  certainly  had  its  advantages  to 
a  man  who,  before  all  things,  wished  to  become 
a  scholar.  Well  prepared  by  seven  years  of  classical 
training,  young  Lepsius  in  1829  went  to  Leipzig  and 
Gottingen  to  study  philology;  and  it  was  not  till  he 
migrated  to  Berlin  that  the  horizon  of  his  studies 
began  to  widen,  chiefly  owing  to  the  influence  of 
Bopp,  whose  lectures  on  comparative  philology, 
derided  as  they  were  by  mere  narrow-minded  classical 
scholars,  had  an  irresistible  charm  for  him  and  other 
young  students.  When  Lepsius  took  his  degree,  he 
showed  at  once  by  his  Dissertation  that  he  knew  how 
best  to  utilise  the  principles  of  comparative  philology 
by  applying  them  to  the  solution  of  difficult  problems 
of  classical  scholarship.  '  He  took  for  his  subject  the 
Umbvian  inscriptions,  and  thus  laid  the  foundation 
of  what  has  proved  in  the  end  one  of  the  most 
successful  achievements  of  the  science  of  language — 
namely,  the  decipherment  and  grammatical  analysis 
of  the  Eugubian  Tables.  Those  who  remember  Sir 
George  Cornewall  Lewis's  squib,  published  at  Oxford 
in  1862,  Inscriptio  Antiqua  in  Agro  Bruttio  nuper 
reperta,  thirty  years  after  Lepsius,  thirteen  after 
KirchhofF  and  Aufrecht,  may  easily  convince  them- 
selves how  heavy  and  helpless  classical  philology  is, 
in  this  and  many  other  departments,  without  the 
wings  of  comparative  philology. 

It  was  clear  from  this  first  specimen  that  Lepsius 
was  not  to  be  one  of  those  scholars  who  are  satisfied 
with  ploughing  once  more  the  soil  that  has  been 
ploughed  a  hundred  times  before.  In  1833  he  went 
to  Paris  to  attend  lectures  and  study  in  libraries  and 
museums.     In    1 834  appeared  his   treatise   '  Palaeo- 


RICHARD   LEPSIUS.  479 

graphy  as  an  Instrument  in  the  Study  of  Language.' 
So  original  and  promising  were  some  of  the  ideas 
propounded  by  him  that  the  French  Institute  awarded 
him  the  Prix  Yolney  in  1H34.  No  doubt  these 
prizes  of  the  French  Institute  are  given  every  year, 
but  when  they  are  given  to  a  young  man  of  twenty- 
four  they  are  a  real  distinction.  In  1H35  another 
essay  of  his,  on  '  The  Arrangement  and  the  Relation- 
ship of  the  Semitic,  Indian,  Old-Persian,  Old-Egyptian, 
and  Aethiopic  Alphabets,'  was  read  before  the  Berlin 
Academy  ;  and  in  the  same  year,  while  still  at  Paris, 
he  wrote  his  paper  on  '  The  Origin  and  Kelationship 
of  the  Numerals  in  the  Indo-Germanic,  Semitic,  and 
Coptic  Languages.'  These  papers  are  now  in  many 
respects  antiquated,  but  they  still  repay  a  careful 
study,  if  only  by  warning  other  scholars  against 
making  discoveries  that  have  been  made  long  ago. 
Thus  Lepsius  wrote  in  1837, '  that  all  Sanskrit  letters 
can  be  traced  back  to  Semitic  originals  admits  of  no 
doubt.'  He  propounds  in  the  same  paper  a  curious 
theory  with  regard-  to  the  Aethiopic  alphabet.  He 
shows,  first  of  all,  that  it  is  not  derived  from  Greek, 
but  is  purely  Semitic.  Its  vowel  system,  however,  as 
well  as  its  direction  from  left  to  right,  he  ascribes 
to  Indian  influences ;  nay,  at  the  suggestion  of  Dr. 
Schulz,  he  explains  the  Arabic  name  of  the  old 
Aethiopic  writing — namely,  Musnad — as  a  participial 
form  of  Sind,  or  India.  What  distinguishes  Lepsius, 
even  in  his  earliest  writings,  is  his  independent  judg- 
ment, his  ingenuity  and  originality.  One  often  says, 
in  reading  his  books,  '  E  ben  trovato,  se  non  e  vero,' 
and  one  carries  away  hints  and  suggestions  which 
often  prove    more  useful  even  than  well-established 


480  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

facts.  At  the  time  of  his  residence  at  Paris,  Cham- 
poUion's  star  was  just  rising,  but  Egyptian  studies 
were  only  in  their  infancy.  In  Germany  it  was  then 
still  the  fashion  to  be  incredulous  about  hieroglyphs. 
In  England  Sir  Cornewall  Lewis  protracted  the 
fashionable  scepticism  about  hieroglyphic  interpre- 
tation to  the  year  1862.  Young  Lepsius  felt  attracted 
towards  these  new  studies,  partly  by  their  immense 
importance  for  the  history  of  ancient  Greek  art  and 
civilisation,  partly  by  their  very  venturesomeness. 
Having  acquired  the  first  principles  of  the  decipher- 
ment of  hieroglyphics  from  Champollion's  works,  he 
proceeded  from  Paris  to  Italy,  which  was  rich  in 
Egyptian  antiquities.  He  spent  some  time  with 
Kosellini  at  Pisa,  and  then  settled  down  to  steady 
work  at  Rome.  Here  he  was  attracted  by  Bunsen, 
who  did  for  Lepsius  at  Rome  what  he  afterwards  did 
for  me  in  London — encouraging  him,  helping  him, 
recommending  him,  and  at  last  making  him  do  the 
work  which  he  himself  had  contemplated,  but  found 
himself  unable  to  finish  owing  to  his  official  duties. 
By  his  Lettre  d  M.  Rosellini  sur  V Alphabet  luero- 
glyphique  (1837)  Lepsius  took  his  position  as  one  of 
the  leading  Egyptologists  of  the  day,  and  thus  entered 
upon  a  career  which  he  never  left  again.  But,  although 
Egypt  formed  the  principal  object  of  his  studies,  his 
classical  tastes  too  found  ample  food  in  Italy,  as  was 
shown  by  his  edition  of  the  Inscriptiones  Umbricae 
et  Oscae,  and  by  his  papers  on  '  The  Tyrrhenian 
Pelasgians  in  Etruria '  and  on  '  The  Spreading  of 
the  Italian  Numismatic  System  from  Etruria.' 

From  Italy  he  came  to  England,  where  he  spent 
two  happy  years,  from  1838  to  1840,  part  of  them  in 


RICHARD   LEPSIUS.  481 

close  intimacy  with  Bunsen.  studying  at  the  British 
Museum,  and  shaping  plans  for  future  work.  At  last, 
however,  his  years  of  preparation  came  to  an  end,  and 
in  i(S42  we  find  him  established  as  Professor  at 
Berlin.  In  the  meantime  he  had  published  some  of 
his  best-known  works — his  '  Selections  of  the  Most 
Important  Documents  of  Egyptian  Antiquity,'  twenty- 
three  tables  (1842),  and  'The  Book  of  the  Dead,' 
seventy-nine  tables  (likewise  in  1842).  Then  followed 
the  great  expedition  to  Egypt,  projected  by  Bunsen, 
and  carried  out  at  the  expense  of  the  King  of  Prussia, 
Frederick  William  IV.  Lepsius  was  the  leader,  and 
he  acquitted  himself  of  this  most  difficult  task  with 
perfect  succefs.  Every  student  of  Egyptolog}-  knows 
the  fruits  of  that  expedition,  as  gathered  partly  in 
'  The  Monuments  of  Egypt  and  Aethiopia,'  900  tables 
(1849-59),  partly  in  the  monuments  themselves  col- 
lected in  the  New  Egyptian  Museum  at  Berlin.  The 
materials  which  Lepsius  thus  placed  at  the  disposal 
of  all  students  inaugurated  a  new  period  in  the  study 
of  hieroglyphic  literature,  and  still  serve  as  a  mine 
which  it  will  take  several  generations  to  utilise  and 
exhaust.  What  Lepsius  himself  valued  most  among 
the  results  of  his  expedition  was  the  constitution  of 
a  new  chronology  of  the  old,  middle,  and  modern 
empires  of  Egypt.  This  he  published  in  his  'Chrono- 
logy of  the  Egyptians,'  one  volume  (1849).  "^^^ 
Second  volume  never  appeared,  but  the  subject  itself 
continued  to  occupy  his  attention  to  the  very  last. 
In  1859  he  published  a  paper  on  'Some  Points  of 
Contact  between  Egyptian,  Greek,  and  Roman  Chron- 
ology;'  and  the  recent  discoveries  at  Dayr-el-Baharee, 
in  their  important  bearing  on  chronological  problems, 
VOL.  II.  I  i 


482  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

excited  his  deepest  interest,  though  he  was  then 
hardly  able  to  reconsider  his  former  conclusions. 

Besides  his  purely  scientific  work,  Lepsius  did 
during  the  whole  of  his  life  a  great  deal  of  practical 
work.  He  was,  in  fact,  an  excellent  man  of  business, 
and  possessed  the  gift  of  making  others  work  with 
him  and  under  him.  It  was  no  easy  task  to  conduct 
to  a  successful  end  an  expedition  consisting  of  a  large 
number  of  independent  fellow-labourers ;  and  it 
required  great  organising  power  to  build  and  arrange 
a  museum  of  Egyptian  antiquities  such  as  now 
excites  the  admiration  of  all  Egyptologists  who  pay 
a  visit  to  Berlin. 

Few  people  know  the  trouble  which  is  entailed  on 
a  scholar  who  has  to  superintend  the  drawing, 
cutting,  and  casting  of  new  types :  but,  when  those 
types  are  1,300  hieroglyphs,  the  undertaking  which 
Lepsius  brought  to  a  successful  issue  was  indeed 
most  laborious. 

Much  time,  again,  was  spent  by  Lepsius  in  devising, 
carrying  out,  and  recommending  his  new  system  of 
transliteration,  applicable  to  all  languages.  He  had 
to  travel  from  place  to  place,  attending  meetings, 
making  converts,  refuting  objections,  &c.  He  several 
times  came  to  London  and  Paris  trying  to  make 
proselytes  ;  and  he  certainly  succeeded  more  than 
could  have  been  expected  in  gaining  support  for  his 
Standard  Alphabet  both  among  scholars  and  mission- 
aries. It  might  have  been  supposed  that  my  own 
advocacy  of  another  system  of  transliteration,  the 
Missionary  Alphabet,  would  have  caused  a  collision 
between  us ;  but  it  was  not  so.  Our  two  systems 
were  the  same  in  all  really  essential  points — namely, 


KICHARD   LEPSIUS.  483 

in  their  physiological  basis  and  in  the  analysis  and 
classification  of  all  sounds  that  require  alphabetical 
symbols.  I  looked  to  the  old  Hindu  /S'ikshas  as  the 
highest  authority  on  phonetics  ;  Lepsius  thought  it 
was  possible  to  improve  on  them.  The  question  on 
which  we  really  differed  was  one  of  expediency  only. 
I  objected  to  any  system  of  transliteration  which 
required  new  types,  because  at  distant  missionary 
stations  it  would  be  impossible  to  procure  such 
types.  I  therefore  recommended,  if  only  as  a  2^'^'^ 
aller,  italics  or  larger  types,  instead  of  types  with 
diacritical  mai'ks ;  but  I  should  have  preferred 
Lepsius'  system  to  my  own  if  the  new  types  could 
always  be  obtained,  and  I  have  rejoiced  as  much  as 
Lepsius  himself  at  the  success  of  his  system. 

In  1866  Lepsius  went  to  Egypt  once  more,  and 
this  second  expedition  was  crowned  by  the  discovery 
of  a  new  trilingual  tablet,  a  worthy  companion  of  the 
Ptosetta  stone.  In  1869  he  paid  his  last  visit  to  the 
land  of  his  life-long  love,  was  present  at  the  opening 
of  the  Suez  Canal,  and  afterwards  travelled  with  the 
Crown  Prince  of  Prussia  to  Upper  Egypt  and  Nubia. 

The  last  years  of  his  life  were  devoted  chiefly  to 
the  elaboration  of  his  'Nubian  Grammar  ' — a  work 
of  enormous  labour,  full  not  only  of  new  materials, 
but  of  new  views  on  the  relationship  of  the  numerous 
languages  of  Africa. 

In  addition  to  all  this,  he  was  Principal  Librarian 
of  the  Ro3^al  Library  at  Berlin,  a  place  which  is  no 
sinecure,  and  which  he  filled  successfully  to  the  end 
of  his  life. 

I  am  well  aware  that  I  have  given  a  very  imperfect 
idea  of  the  fifty  years  of  literary  work  done  by  Prof. 
I  i  2 


484  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

Lepsius,  nor  can  I  in  any  way  pretend  to  assess  at 
their  right  value  his  contributions  to  Egyptian 
scholarship.  That  will  no  doubt  be  done  by  other 
and  more  competent  hands.  I  only  hope  it  will  be 
done  by  scholars  of  a  certain  age,  who  have  learnt 
that  the  study  of  antiquity,  and  more  particularly  the 
deciphering  of  inscriptions,  whether  in  Egj'pt,  or  in 
Assyria,  or  in  India,  is  a  progressive  study.  The 
discoveries  of  yesterday  may  be  superseded  by  those 
of  to-day,  as  those  of  to-day  will  be,  we  hope,  by 
those  of  to-morrow.  Many  of  Lepsius'  views  on 
Egyptian  chronology,  for  instance,  may  have  to  be 
surrendered,  because  new  inscriptions  have  brought 
to  light  new  facts.  But  that  does  not  detract  from 
the  real  merit  of  his  theories.  In  many  cases  theories 
which  we  now  know  to  be  erroneous  reflect  greater 
credit  on  their  inventors  than  the  corrections  of  later 
comers.  Even  the  Ptolemaic  system  of  astronomy  is 
not  such  utter  bungling  as  school-boys  imagine.  It 
is  easy  to  laugh  nowadays  at  Champollion  or  Grote- 
fend,  but  discoveries  are  never  made  without  the  risk 
of  mistakes,  nor  are  those  necessarily  the  bravest 
soldiers  who  return  from  war  without  a  scratch. 
Lepsius  was  fond  of  new  work.  He  was  a  pioneer, 
an  explorer — if  you  like,  an  adventurer.  It  is  im- 
possible that  all  adventures  should  be  successful,  but 
in  science  even  failure  is  sometimes  a  success.  And 
let  us  not  forget  that,  besides  his  theories,  there  is 
the  substantial  store  of  literary  material  which  he 
was  the  first  to  render  accessible  in  his  voluminous 
publications.  These  will  remain  a  monument  of 
German  industry,  and  on  them  his  name  will  stand 
engraved  as  on  the  base  of  a  pyramid. 


RICHARD   LEPSIUS.  485 

Lepsius  had  many  friends,  but  he  had  also  his 
enviers  and  enemies.  He  was  in  many  respects 
a  successful  man.  Very  early  in  life  he  received  the 
highest  distinctions  to  which  a  scholar  can  aspire, 
while  others  had  to  wait.  But  Lepsius  was  never 
overbearing.  He  was  reserved  when  it  was  necessary 
to  be  so,  and  he  was  too  proud  to  mix  himself  up  in 
literary  intrigues.  He  hated  all  car)iaruderle,  and 
always  acted  up  to  the  German  proverb: 

*  E  genlob  stinkt, 
Schiilerlob  hinkt.' 

There  was  a  true  nobility  in  his  bearing,  and  at  times 
he  was  even  too  sensitive,  when  he  suspected  vulgarity 
and  meanness.  So  long  as  his  opponents  attacked 
him  straightforwardly,  he  answered  in  the  same 
chivalrous  spirit.  But  when  he  knew  that  they  were 
dishonest,  writing  what  they  knew  to  be  not  true,  he 
left  them  to  their  self-inllicted  punishment,  the  loss 
of  their  own  self-respect. 

Taken  all  in  all,  Lepsius  was  the  perfect  type  of 
a  German  Piofessor,  devoted  to  his  w^ork,  full  of 
ideals,  and  convinced  that  there  is  no  highej'  vocation 
in  life  than  to  preserve  and  add  to  the  sacred  stock 
of  human  knowledge,  which,  though  it  is  seen  by  the 
few  only,  has  to  be  carried,  like  the  Ark  of  the 
Covenant,  from  battle  to  battle,  and  kept  safe  from 
the  hands  of  the  Philistines. 


486  BIOGEAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 


XI 

AUGUST  FRIEDRICH  POTT. 

(Died  1887.) 

HE  last  of  the  triumvirs  who  founded  the  study 


T 

JL  of  comparative  philology — Bopp,  Grimm,  and 
Pott — has  departed.  Professor  Pott,  as  the  papers 
inform  us,  died  at  Halle  on  July  5,  in  his  eighty-fifth 
year.  I  have  at  present  no  books  of  reference  at 
hand,  and  cannot  tell  where  he  was  born,  how  he  was 
educated,  when  he  became  professor,  and  what  were 
his  titles  and  orders  and  other  distinctions.  Though 
I  believe  I  have  read  or  consulted  every  one  of  his 
books,  I  cannot  undertake  to  give  even  their  titles. 
And  yet  I  feel  anxious  to  pay  my  tribute  of  gratitude 
and  respect  to  one  to  whom  we  all  owe  so  much,  who 
has  fought  his  battle  so  bravely,  and  whose  whole 
life  was  consecrated  to  what  was  to  him  a  sacred 
cause — the  conquest  of  new  and  accurate  knowledge 
in  the  wide  realm  of  human  speech.  I  believe  he 
never  left  the  University  of  Halle,  in  which  he  first 
began  his  career.  He  knew  no  ambition  but  that 
of  being  in  the  first  rank  of  hard  and  honest  workers. 
His  salary  was  small ;  but  it  was  sufficient  to  make 
him  independent,  and  that  was  all  he  cai-ed  for. 
Others  were  appointed  over  his  head  to  more  lucra- 
tive posts,  but  he  never  grumbled.  Others  received 
orders  and  titles  :  he  knew  that  there  was  one  order 
only  that  he  ought  to  have  had  long  ago — the  Ordre 
2)our  le  Merite,  which  he  received  only  last  year, 
fortunately  before  it  was  too  late.  He  never  kept 
any  private  trumpeters,  nor  did  he  surround  himself 


AUGUST   FRIEDRICH    POTT.  487 

with  what  is  called  a  school,  so  often  a  misnomer  for 
a  clique.  His  works,  he  knew,  would  remain  his 
best  monuments,  long  after  the  cheap  applause  of 
his  friends  and  pupils,  or  the  angry  abuse  of  his 
envious  rivals,  had  died  away.  What  he  cared  for 
was  work,  work,  work.  His  industry  was  indefatigable 
to  the  end  of  his  life ;  and  to  the  very  last  he  was 
pouring  out  of  his  note-books  streams  of  curious 
information  which  he  had  gathered  during  his  long 
Ufe. 

A  man  cannot  live  to  the  age  of  eighty-five,  particu- 
larly if  he  be  engaged  in  so  new  and  progressive  a 
science  as  comparative  philology,  without  hearing 
some  of  his  earlier  works  called  antiquated.  But  we 
ought  to  distinguish  between  books  that  become 
antiquated,  and  books  that  become  historical.  Pott's 
Utymolog csche  Forschungen,  in  its  first  edition,  con- 
tains, no  doubt,  many  statements  which  the  merest 
beginner  now  knows  to  be  en-oneous.  But  what 
these  beginners  are  apt  to  forget  is  that  Pott's  mis- 
takes were  often  inevitable,  nay,  even  creditable. 
We  do  not  blame  the  early  decipherers  of  the  hiero- 
glyphic inscriptions,  because  in  some  of  their  first 
interpretations  they  guessed  wrongly.  We  admire 
them  for  what  they  guessed  rightly,  and  we  often 
find  even  their  mistakes  extremely  ingenious  and 
instructive.  I  should  advise  all  those  who  have  been 
taught  to  look  upon  Pott's  early  works  as  obsolete  to 
read  his  Etymologische  Forachungen,  even  the  first 
edition ;  and  I  promise  them  they  will  gain  a  truer 
insight  into  the  original  purposes  of  comparative 
philology  than  they  can  gain  from  any  of  the  more 
recent  manuals,  and  that  they  will  be  surprised  at 


488  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

the  numberless  discoveries  which  are  due  to  Pott, 
though  they  have  been  made  again  and  again,  quite 
innocentl}^,  by  later  comers.  In  Pott's  time  the  most 
necessary  work  consisted  in  the  collection  of  materials. 
Overwhelming  proofs  were  wanted  to  establish  what 
seems  to  us  a  simple  fact,  but  what  was  then  regarded 
as  a  most  pestilent  heresy,  namely,  that  Greek,  Latin, 
Teutonic,  Celtic,  Slavonic,  and  Sanskrit  are  cognate 
tongues.  It  was  Pott  who  brought  these  overwhelming 
proofs  together,  and  thus  crushed  once  and  for  all  the 
opposition  of  narrow-minded  sceptics.  It  is  quite 
true  that  his  work  was  always  rather  massive,  but 
massive  work  was  w^anted  for  laying  the  founda- 
tions of  the  new  science.  It  is  true,  also,  that 
his  style  was  very  imperfect,  was,  in  fact,  no  style  at 
all.  He  simply  poured  out  his  knowledge,  without 
any  attempt  at  order  and  perspicuity.  I  believe  it 
w^as  Ascoli  who  once  compared  his  books  to  what  the 
plain  of  Shinar  might  have  looked  like  after  the  Tower 
of  Babel  had  come  to  grief.  But,  after  all,  the  founda- 
tion which  he  laid  has  lasted  ;  and,  after  the  rubbish 
has  been  cleared  away  by  himself  and  others,  enough 
remains  that  will  last  for  ever.  Nor  should  it  be 
forgotten  that  Pott  was  really  the  first  who  taught 
respect  for  phonetic  rules.  We  have  almost  forgotten 
the  discussions  which  preceded  the  establishment  of 
such  simple  rules  as  that  Sanskrit  g  may  be  represented 
by  Greek  j3,  that  Sanskrit  gaus  may  be  ^ovs,  and 
Sanskrit  gam  jSaiVio.  We  can  hardly  imagine  now 
that  scholars  could  ever  have  been  incredulous  as  to 
Sanskrit  knh  being  represented  by  Greek  kt,  as  to  an 
initial  s  being  liable  to  elision,  and  certain  initial  con- 
sonants liable  to  prosthetic  vowels.  The  rules,  however. 


AUGUST   FKIEDrvICH    POTT.  489 

iaccording  to  which  d  might  or  might  not  be  changed 
into  I  had  to  be  established  by  exactly  the  same 
careful  arguments  as  those  accordinor  to  which  the 
vowel  a  is  liable  to  palatal  or  labial  colouring  (e  and 
o).  And  when  we  look  at  the  second-edition  of  Pott's 
Etymologisclie  Forschuvgen,  we  find  it  a  complete 
storehouse  which  will  supply  all  our  wants,  though, 
no  doubt,  every  student  has  himself  to  test  the  wares 
which  are  ofl;ered  him.  The  same  remark  applies  to 
his  works  on  the  Gipsies,  on  Personal  Names,  and  on 
Numerals ;  to  his  numerous  essays  on  Mythology, 
on  African  Languages,  and  on  General  Grammar. 
Everywhere  there  is  the  same  ernharros  de  richesse; 
but,  nevertheless,  there  is  richesse,  and  the  collection 
of  it  imphes  an  amount  of  devoted  labour  such  as  but 
few  scholars  have  been  capable  of. 

In  his  earlier  years.  Professor  Pott  was  very  '  fond 
of  fechting ' ;  and  when  we  look  at  the  language 
which  he  sometimes  allowed  himself  to  use  in  his 
controversies  with  Curtius  and  others,  we  cannot 
help  feeling  that  it  was  not  quite  worthy  of  him. 
But  we  must  remember  what  the  general  tone  of 
scientific  wrangling  was  at  that  time.  Strong  language 
was  mistaken  for  strong  argument,  and  coarseness  of 
expression  for  honest  conviction.  In  the  days  of 
Lachmann  and  Haupt,  no  one  was  considered  a  real 
scholar  who  could  not  be  yrob.  Pott  caught  the 
infection ;  but,  with  all  that,  though  he  dealt  hard 
blows,  he  never  dealt  foul  blows.  He  never  became 
the  slave  of  a  clique,  and  never  wrote  what  he  did 
not  at  the  time  believe  to  be  true.  He  must  often 
have  felt,  like  Goethe,  that  he  stumbled  over  the  roots 
of  the  trees  which  he  himself  had  planted ;   but  he 


490  BIOGRAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

remained  on  pleasant  terms  with  mdst  of  the  rising 
generation,  and,  to  the  end  of  his  life,  was  ready  to 
learn  from  all  who  had  anything  to  teach.  He  cared 
for  the  science  of  language  with  all  the  devotion  of 
a  lover  ;  and  he  never  forgot  its  highest  aims,  even 
when  immersed  in  a  perfect  whirlpool  of  details.  He 
had,  in  his  younger  days,  felt  the  influence  of  William 
von  Humboldt ;  and  no  one  who  has  ever  felt  that 
influence  could  easily  bring  himself  to  believe  that 
language  had  nothing  to  teach  us  but  phonetic  rules. 
Pott's  name  will  remain  for  ever  one  of  the  most 
glorious  in  the  heroic  age  of  comparative  philology. 
Let  those  who  care  to  know  the  almost  forgotten 
achievements  of  that  age  of  heroes  study  them  in 
Benfey's  classical  work — The  History  of  Comparative 
Fhilology. 


XII. 

AFRICAN  SPIRi. 

Died  1S90. 

'  ^TRIKE  the  iron  while  it  is  hot '  is  a  very  important 
k3  truth  for  the  man  of  action.  For  the  man  of 
thought,  the  warning  conveyed  by  the  Arabic  proverb 
is  even  more  useful,  '  If  you  strike  the  iron  before  it  is 
hot,  you  will  only  make  a  clatter.'  To  the  man  of 
thought,  whether  poet  or  philosopher,  the  public  is 
the  iron,  and  the  public  is  not  always  hot  or  malleable. 
Hence  so  many  poets,  excellent  in  their  own  way, 
who  are  admired  within  their  own  small  local  sphere, 

^  Gesammelte  Schriften.     4  vols.     Leipzig,  Findel. 


AFRICAN   SPIR.  491 

but  produce  no  impression  on  a  larger  public.  Hence, 
likewise,  so  many  philosophers,  some  behind,  and 
some  before  their  time,  who,  in  spite  of  their  learning, 
in  spite  of  their  original  force,  in  spite  of  their  per- 
severing efforts,  never  command  a  hearing,  except 
within  a  small  circle  of  friends  and  pupils.  If 
England  is  very  rich  in  unknown  local  poets,  Germany 
is  equally  rich  in  unknown  local  philosophers.  Every 
German  university  counts  at  least  two  or  three  pro- 
fessors of  philosophy,  to  sa}''  nothing  of  the  Privat 
Bocenten,  every  one  of  whom,  besides  being  intimately 
acquainted  with  the  whole  history  of  philosophy,  is 
able  to  convict  Plato  and  Aristotle,  Descartes  and 
Kant,  of  ever  so  many  false  syllogisms,  while  he  has 
himself  elaborated  a  pet  system  of  philosophy,  which, 
if  only  accepted,  would  produce  universal  peace 
between  all  the  contending  schools  of  philosophical 
thought.  Nowhere  is  it  more  dangerous  to  be  ahead 
of  the  time,  or  not  in  touch  with  the  past  and  present, 
than  in  philosophy.  We  hear  much  of  a  philosophy 
of  the  future,  of  Zukuvftsgedanken,  as  we  hear  of  an 
Art  of  the  future,  and  of  a  Religion  of  the  future. 
But  it  is  very  rarely  that  these  paulo-post-future  philo- 
sophies assume  a  real  life  and  influence  after  the  death 
of  their  prophets.  Many  philosophers  have  died  with 
the  conviction  that  the  future  will  be  more  just  to 
them  than  their  contemporaries.  But  that  depends 
almost  entirely  on  their  finding  one  or  two  posthumous 
disciples,  with  sufticient  honesty  and  self-denial  to  be 
satisfied  with  mere  apostleship,  without  claiming  any 
originality  for  themselves.  If  these  apostles  have 
bided  their  time,  if  they  have  fought  the  battle  and 
won  the  victory,  they  are  not  always  inclined  to  take 


492  BIOGRAPHICAL    ESSAYS. 

the  laurels  from  their  own  temple  and  place  them  on 
the  tomb  of  their  master.  There  was  a  case  in  point 
not  long  ago.  Schopenhauer  during  his  lifetime  was 
almost  smothered  in  silence  [todt  gesclaviegen).  No 
German  professor  would  ever  treat  him  as  his  equal, 
or  as  a  foeman  worthy  of  his  steel — but  his  conviction, 
expressed  again  and  again,  with  the  most  unhesitating 
assurance,  that  his  time  would  come  after  his  death, 
has  come  true  indeed.  He  has  become  a  power,  and 
while  most  of  his  professional  despisers  are  forgotten, 
his  name  has  become  a  household  word  among  philo- 
sophers, not  in  Germany  only,  but  all  over  the  world. 
The  same  is  true  with  regard  to  Lotze  and  Noire. 
Neither  of  these,  during  his  lifetime,  was  known 
beyond  the  frontiers  of  Germany.  In  France  and 
Belgium  their  works  began  to  be  noticed,  but  in 
England  it  was  not  till  after  their  death  that  their 
real  merits  were  recognised  and  their  opinions  con- 
sidered in  the  discussion  of  the  great  problems  of 
philosophy.  In  Germany,  more  than  in  any  other 
country,  the  influence  of  the  universities  is  very 
strong.  For  a  philosopher  who  does  not  belong  to 
the  professorial  caste  to  gain  a  hearing  is  extremely 
difficult.  The  best  critical  papers  are  in  the  hands  of 
the  professors  and  their  young  pupils  or  assistants. 
They  notice  the  books  of  their  friends  and  their 
rivals  either  in  a  kindly  or  in  an  unkindly  spirit,  but 
the  outsider  is  but  seldom  noticed.  Nowhere  is  the 
do  ut  des  principle  so  openly  acted  upon  as  in  the 
literary  life  of  Germany. "  This  is  what  made  Schopen- 
hauer so  furious  and  so  ill-mannered  in  his  onslaughts 
on  the  whole  professorial  crew.  But  even  apart  from 
these  more  or  less  conscious  attempts   to  silence  a 


AFRICAN   SPIR.  493 

writer  to  death,  the  difficulty  is  verj'  great  particularly 
for  a  metaphysical  writer  to  find  an  audience.  One 
has  only  to  go  to  any  of  the  smaller  German  univer- 
sities, and  look  at  a  bookseller's  shop  window,  to  see 
the  never -failing  crop  of  new  systems  of  logic, 
psychology,  metaphysics,  &c.,  which  spring  up  with 
every  new  generation,  sell  in  a  few  hundred  copies, 
and  then  vanish.  Some  of  these  unknown  books  are 
very  interesting,  sometimes  extremely  valuable,  rich 
in  thought,  whether  coined  or  uncoined,  and  well 
worth  the  attention  of  the  casual  visitor  of  the 
smaller  German  universities.  It  is  touching  to  see, 
in  reading  them,  how  some  of  these  unknown  philo- 
sophers yearn,  not  so  much  for  recognition  and  fame,  as 
for  a  chance  of  influencing  the  world  for  good,  and 
contributing  towards  the  final  victor}^  of  truth.  Who 
in  England  has  ever,  for  instance,  heard  of  the  name 
of  African  Sjnrl  He  is  dead  now.  Some  of  his 
earlier  works  he  has  himself  suppressed,  but  he  has 
left  behind  him  four  volumes  of  philosophy,  wliich 
well  deserve  a  careful  study.  In  a  preface  to  his 
collected  works,  which  were  meant  to  appear  after 
his  death,  he  writes: — 

'  I  hope  that  my  death  may  break  that  curious 
charm  which  seems  to  affect  everything  that  comes 
from  me.  What  was  most  evident,  if  it  came  from 
me,  would  never  convince  others  ;  what  was  most 
certain  seemed  to  them  untrue  or  dubious ;  what  was 
most  important  was  considered  insignificant.' 

This  is  very  honest,  and  shows  us  the  man  as  he  is 
described  to  us  by  all  who  know  him  more  intimatel}'. 
He  lived  the  life  of  a  solitary  thinker.  Eorn  and 
educated  in   Russia,  he  entered   the   Russian   naval 


494  EIOGRAPPIICAL   ESSAYS. 

service,  fought  at  Sebastopol,  but  afterwards  retired 
from  the  navy,  sold  his  landed  estates,  left  Russia, 
and  settled  in  Germany,  devoting  all  his  time  and 
his  considerable  talents  to  a  systematic  study  of 
philosophy.  He  never  became  a  professor,  and  never 
rallied  a  class  of  students  and  disciples  around  him. 
He  married  at  Stuttgart,  and  afterwards,  chiefly  for 
the  sake  of  his  failing  health,  migrated  to  Switzerland, 
settling  first  at  Lausanne,  then  at  Geneva,  where  he 
succumbed  to  an  attack  of  influenza  in  1890  at  the 
age  of  fifty-three.  Some  autobiographical  notices  of 
his  begin  with  the  following  lines  :  — 

'  Nothing  is  more  remote  from  my  thoughts  than  to 
wish  to  force  myself  on  the  notice  of  other  people ; 
those  who  have  perceived  the  nothingness  of  indi- 
viduality can  assign  no  value  to  glory.  The  only 
thing  of  value  is  to  have  done  good  work.' 

When  he  felt  himself  dying,  with  no  one  near  but 
his  wife  and  daughter,  he  said  to  them,  'I  do  not 
know  why  people  are  afraid  of  death.  If  one  has 
done  one's  duty  in  this  world,  it  is  joy  to  die.'  When 
tears  were  rolling  down  his  cheeks  as  he  looked  at 
his  wife  and  daughter  he  said,  '  Do  not  mind  it,  it  is 
only  weakness,  because  I  must  part  from  the  only 
two  beings  who  have  ever  loved  me.'  His  last  words 
were  like  Goethe's,  '  Fiat  lux,'  and  on  his  tombstone 
at  Geneva  we  read  only  his  name  and  one  line  in 
French :  '  La  lumiere  luit  dans  les  tenebres,  mais  les 
tenebres  ne  I'ont  pas  refue.' 

African  Spir  was  a  thorough  idealist,  and  in 
Germany  the  time  for  idealism  is  past.  The  new 
generation  feeds  on  materialism.  Even  psychology 
has  become   physiological,    and    Rictschl's   cynicism 


AFRICAN   SPIR.  495 

counts  probably  more  adherents  than  Kant's  criticism, 
whether  in  metaphysics  or  in  ethics.  No  wonder 
that  Spir's  speculations  elicited  little  response  in  his 
adopted  country.  Spir's  principal  works  were,  like 
Kant's,  partly  critical,  Denken  unci  Wirhlichkeit,  and 
partly  ethical,  tSchrlften  zur  Moral phllosophie.  Spir, 
however,  was  not  only  an  idealist,  but  has  at  the 
same  time  been  called  a  Dualist,  and  this  in  the  days 
of  Monism  was  another  unpardonable  offence.  Still, 
his  so-called  Dualism  differed  but  little  from  honest 
Monism,  that  is  to  say,  it  simply  confessed  that  the 
manifoldness  of  the  phenomenal  world  cannot  be 
accounted  for,  but  must  be  accepted  as  a  fact,  though 
as  an  abnormal  fact.  Still,  in  these  days,  everything 
goes  by  names,  and  to  be  labelled  a  Dualist  is  as  much 
as  to  be  labelled  antiquated.  Spir  starts,  like  the 
Monists,  with  the  admission  of  an  absolute  Being, 
a  uniform  substance  which  is,  of  course,  by  its  very 
nature  one,  but  he  does  not  attempt  to  explain  how 
this  Monon  became  manifold  in  its  phenomenal  mani- 
festations. Others  think  they  have  solved  this  oldest 
of  all  problems  by  asserting  that  becoming  is  an 
essential  determination  of  being,  or  by  maintaining 
the  necessity  of  development  in  all  things.  Spir 
prefers  to  confess  that  there  exists  a  normal  (noumenal) 
and  an  abnormal  world,  and  that  the  abnormal  can 
only  be  accepted,  but  cannot  be  explained.  The 
absolute  and  perfect  Being  which  is  postulated  by 
human  reason  would,  by  necessity,  be  identical  with 
itself,  perfect,  and  therefore  without  variance.  As  it 
is  not  so,  Spir  is  satisfied  with  calling  the  actual  or 
phenomenal  state  of  things  abnormal ;  and,  however 
consistent  Monism  strives  to  be,  it  cannot  deny  that 


496  BIOGHAPHICAL   ESSAYS. 

there  is  a  clifFerenee  between  the  phenomenal  and  the 
noumenal  worlds  ;  and  that  if  the  latter  is  normal, 
the  former  is  abnormal.  It  has  never  been  explained 
what  forced  the  Absolute  into  its  conditioned  state. 
Philosophers  may  give  different  names  to  the  solution 
of  this  world-old  problem.  In  the  end  the  most 
honest  answer  will  always  be  the  confession  of  the 
Docta  Ignorantia  of  mediaeval  philosophers,  or  the 
Agnosticism  of  the  present  age.  Spir  admits,  how- 
ever, that  the  abnormal  is  to  be  subdued  by  the 
normal,  and  he  applies  this  principle  with  great  effect 
to  human  nature  in  its  twofold  character.  He  recog- 
nizes in  man  the  existence  of  a  normal,  and  of  an 
abnormal  element,  and  all  morality  starts  with  him 
from  this  recognition.  '  All  future  progress  of 
humanity,'  he  waites,  'in  perfecting  the  character  of 
human  individuals  and  their  mutual  relations,  depends 
on  their  becoming  conscious  of  the  normal  being  of 
things  and  the  opposition  between  it  and  the  empirical 
state  of  all  natural  objects.  What  men  are  depends 
on  what  they  believe  themselves  to  be.'  If  we  have 
once  recognized  our  normal  being,  our  duties  towards 
ourselves  become  coincident  with  our  duties  towards 
the  whole,  for  we  ourselves  represent  what  is  normal 
or  divine  in  this  world,  and  we  alone  can  make  it 
prevail.  This  Normal  or  Divine  is  to  prevail  more 
and  more  in  religion  and  morality,  in  science  and  art. 
Every  man  is  to  help  in  this,  as  Zoroaster  helped 
Ormuzd  in  his  eternal  fight  against  the  evil  spirit,  and 
he  is  to  do  this,  not  for  any  external  reason,  but  for 
the  sake  of  his  normal  and  divine  being.  Work  done 
in  this  spirit  produces  its  effect  and  carries  it  onward, 
if  not  for  this  life,  for  all  eternity,  and  lifts  us  from  an 


AFRICAN  SPIR.  497 

abnormal  into  a  normal  life.  A  system  of  morals 
founded  on  these  principles  is  perhaps  the  most 
valuable  contribution  made  by  Spir  to  the  common 
stock  of  philosophical  thought,  and  will,  particularly 
in  England,  interest  probably  a  larger  number  of 
readers  than  his  purely  metaphysical  speculations. 


VOL.  IT.  K  k 


APPENDIX. 

compaeatiye  view  op  sanskrit  and  other 
Languages,  by  T.  H.  Colebeooke. 

Oxford,  September,  1874. 

I  MENTIONED  in  my  Address  before  the  Aryan 
section  of  the  Oriental  Congress  that  I  possessed  some 
MS.  notes  of  Colebrooke's  on  Comparative  Philology. 
They  were  sent  to  me  some  time  ago  by  his  son, 
Sir  E.  Colebrooke,  who  gave  me  leave  to  publish 
them,  if  I  thought  them  of  sufficient  importance. 
They  were  written  down,  as  far  as  we  know,  about 
the  years  1801  or  1802,  and  contain  long  lists  of 
words  expressive  of  some  of  the  most  important  ele- 
ments of  early  civilisation,  in  Sanskrit,  Greek,  Latin, 
Teutonic,  Celtic,  and  Slavonic.  Like  everything  that 
Colebrooke  wrote,  these  lists  are  prepared  with  great 
care.  They  exist  in  rough  notes,  in  a  first,  and  in 
a  second  copy.  I  give  them  from  the  second  copy, 
in  which  many  words  from  less  important  languages 
are  omitted,  and  several  doubtful  comparisons  sup- 
pressed. I  have  purposely  altered  nothing,  for  the 
interest  of  these  lists  is  chiefly  historical,  showino- 
how,  long  before  the  days  of  Bopp  and  Grimm, 
K  k  2 


500  APPENDIX. 

Colebrooke  had  clearly  perceived  the  relationship  of 
all  the  principal  branches  of  the  Aryan  family,  and, 
what  is  more  important,  how  he  had  anticipated  the 
historical  conclusions  which  a  comparison  of  the  prin- 
cipal words  of  the  great  "dialects  of  the  Aryan  family 
enables  us  to  draw  with  regard  to  the  state  of 
civilisation  anterior  to  the  first  separation  of  the 
Aryan  race.  No  one  acquainted  with  the  progress 
which  Comparative  Philology  has  made  during  the 
last  seventy  years  would  think  of  quoting  some  of 
the  comparisons  here  suggested  by  Colebrooke  as 
authoritative.  The  restraints  which  phonetic  laws 
have  since  imposed  on  the  comparison  of  words  were 
unknown  in  his  days.  But  with  all  that,  it  is  most 
surprising  to  see  how  careful  Colebrooke  was,  even, 
when  he  had  to  guess,  and  how  well  he  succeeded  in 
collecting  those  words  which  form  the  earliest  common 
dictionary  of  our  ancestors,  and  supply  the  only  trust- 
worthy materials  I'or  a  history  of  the  very  beginnings 
of  the  Aryan  race. 

Father. 
Sans,  Pitri  (-t4).     Beng.  Hind.  Yiik.     Pers.  Pider. 
tSans.  Janayitri  (-ta).    Gr.  Geneter,  Gennetor.    Lat.  Genitor. 
Sans.  Tata.      Seng.    Tat.      Arm.   Tat.       Wal.    Corn.  Tad. 

Ang.  Dad. 
Sans.  Vaptri  (-ta).     Beng.  Bapa.     Hind.  Baba,  Bap.     Germ. 

Vater.     Bdg.  Vader.     Isl.  Bader.     Gr.  Lat.  Pater. 

Mother. 
Sans.  Janayitri,  Janani.     Gr.  Gcnnotelra.     Lat.  Geuitrix. 
Sans.  Mdtri  (-ta).      Beng.  Mata.     Lat.  Mater.     Gr.  Meter. 


APrENDIX,  501 

Sclav.  Mati.     Ir.  Mat 'hair.     Germ.  Mutter.     Sa.x.  Moder. 
Belg.  Id.  Mooder. 

N.  B.  The  roots  jan  and  jani  (the  past  tense  of  which  last 
is  jajnye,  pronounced  ^'a^ye  in  Bengal,  Tirhut,  &c.)  are  evi- 
dently analogous  to  the  Latin  gigno,  and  Greek  gennao. 

Son. 

Sans.  Putra.     Hind.   Putr,  Put.  Tdmil.  Putren.    Ori.  Pud. 

Sans.  Siinu.     Hind.  Siin,  Suan.  Goth.  Sunus.     Sax.  Suna. 

Belg.  Soeii,   Sone.      Sue.  Son.  Balm.  Szun.      Fol.  Boh. 

Syn.     Scl.  Sin,  Syn. 

Grandson. 

Sans.    Naptrl    (-td).      Lat.   ISTepos.      Hind.   Ndtf.      Ilahr. 
Ndtu. 

Granddaughter. 

Sans.  Naptri.      Lat.  Neptis.      Hi7id.  Natni.     Beng.  Natni, 
Ori.  Niltuni. 

Daughter's  Son. 

Sans.  Dauhitra.     Beng.  Dauhitro.     Hind.  Dohta.     Gr.  Thu- 
gatridous. 

Son's  Son. 

Sans.  Pautra.     Hind.  Potd.     Beng.  Pautro. 

Daughter. 

Sans.  Duhitrt  (-td).     Beng.  Duhitd.     Hind.  Dohitd.     Goth. 

Dauhter.    Sax.  Dohter.    Bers.  Dokhter.     Belg.  Dochtere. 

Ger7n.  Tochter.    Gr.  Thygater.    Sue.  Dotter.    Isl.  Dooter. 

Ban.  Daater. 
Sans.  Toed.    Bnss.  Doke.    Hind.  Dhiya,  Dhi.    Or.  Jhiii.    Sd. 

Hzhi.     Balm.  Hchii.     Boh.  Dey,  Deera.     Ir.   Dear. 


502  APPENDIX. 

Brother. 

Sans.  Bliratri  (-td).  Hind.  Bhr^ta,  Bhai,  Bhayd,  Bir,  Biran. 
Fe7-s.  Birddar.  Corn.  Bredar.  Wal.  Braud.  Ir.  Brathair. 
Arm.  Breur,  Mona.  Breyr.  Scl.  Brat.  Russ.  Brate. 
Dalm.  Bratli.  Boh.  Bradr.  Germ.  Bruder.  Ang.-Sax. 
Brother.     iSax.  Bi-otber.     Lat.  Frater.     Gall.  Frere. 

Sister. 

/Sans.  Bhagini,     Hind.  Bhagni,  Baliin,  Bhaind.     Beng.  Bho- 

gini,  Boin.     Malir.  Baliiu.     Or.  Bhaunf. 
&ans.  Swasri  (-sd).     Ir.  Shiur.    Gall.  Soeur.    Mona.  Sywr. 

Sicil.    Suora.       Lat.    Soror.       Germ.    Schwester.      Sax. 

Sweoster.     Goth.  Swister.     Holl.  Zuster.     Wal.  C'huaer. 

Father-in-law. 

Sans.  S^wasura.  Beng.  Sosur.  Mahr.  Sasara.  Hind.  Susar, 
Susrd,  Sasur.     Lat.  Sdcer,  Socerus.     Gr.  Hecyros. 

Mother-in-law. 

Sans.  SVa^ni.  Beng.  Sosru,  Sasuri.  Hind.  Sas.  Mahr. 
Sasu.     Lat.  Socrus.     Gr.  Hecyra. 

Wife's  Brother. 
Sans.  Sydla.     Beng.  Syaloc.     Hind.  Sdld.     Or.  SalS. 

Husband's  Brother. 

Sans.  Devri  (-va),  Devara.  Hind.  D^war.  Guj.  Diyar. 
Mahr.  Dir.     Gr.  Daer.     Lat.  Levir  {plim  Devir). 

Son-in-law. 
Sans.  Jdmdtri  (-td).     Hind.  Janidi,  Jawdf.     Pers.  Ddmdd. 


APPENDIX. 


503 


Widow. 
Sans.  Vidhavd.     Lat.  Vidua.     Sax.  "Widwa.    EoU.  Weduwe. 

Daughter-in-law. 

Sans.  Badhii.     Hind.  Bahu.     Beng.  Biiu.     Gall.  Bru. 
Sans.  Snushd.     Cashm.  Nus.     Penj.  Nuh.     Gr.  Nyos.     iaf. 
Nurus. 

Sun. 
>S'ans.  Heli  (-lis).      (?r.  Helios.      Arm.  Heol.      FaZ.  Hayl, 

Heyluen. 
Sans.  Mitra.     Pehl.  Mithra. 
Sans.  Mihara,  Mahira.     Pers.  Mihr. 

Sans.  Sura,  Surya.     Hind.  Surej.     Mahr.  Surj,  Stirya.    OW. 
Suruy. 

Moon. 
Sans.  Chandra.     Hind.  Chdnd,  Chandr,  Chandramd. 
Sans.  Mds  (mdh).     Pers.  Mdh.     -Bo/i.  ilesyc.     PoZ.  Miesyac. 
Dalm.  Miszecz. 

Star. 
Sans.    Tard.       Hind.    Tard.       /'cr«.    Sitareh.       Gr.    Aster. 
^^Z^.  Sterre.     /^aa;.  Steorra.     Germ.  Stern,     Com.  ^rni. 
Steren. 

Month. 
Sans.  Mdsa  (-sas).     Hind.  Mahind,  Mas.     Pers.  I\Iali.     Scl. 
Messcz.     Dalm.  Miszecz.      Wal.  Misguaith.      Gr.  Mene. 
Lat.  Mensis.     Gall.  Mois. 

Day. 

Sans.  Diva.     Mahr.  Diwas.     Lat.  Dies.     /Sax.  Dgeg. 
;Saws.  Dina.      ^mc/.  Din.      Boh.  Den.      aS'cZ.  Dan.      DaZwi. 
Daan.     Pol.  Dzien.     -4n^.  (^w<.)  Den. 


504  APPENDIX. 

Night. 
Sans.  Rdtri,     Hind.  Edt.     Pemj.  Ratter. 
Sans.  Nis,  Nisd.      Wal.  Arm.  Nos. 

Sans.  Nacta.     Lat.  Nox.      Gr.  Nyx.     Goth.  Nalits,  Nauts. 
Sax.  Nilit.     Isl.  Natt.     ^o/t.  Noc.     Gall.  Nuit. 

By  Night, 
^aws.  (adv.)  Nactam.     Lat.  Noctu.     Gr.  Nyctor. 

Sky,  Heaven. 
Sans.  Div,  Diva.     Beng.  Dibi.     Liv.  Debbes. 
Sans.  Swar,  Swarga.     Hind.  Swarag.     Guz.  Sarag.     Cant. 

Cerua. 
Sans.  Nabhas.      Beng.   Nebbo.      Russ.  Nebo.      Scl.  Nebu. 

Boh.  Nebe.     Pol.  Niebo. 

God. 
Sans.  Deva  (-vas),   Devatd.      Hind.    Dewatd.      Penj.   Dcu. 

Tamil,  Taivam.      Lat.  Deus.       Gr.  Theos.       Wal,  Diju. 

Lr.  Diu. 
Sans.  Bhagavdn.     Balm.  Bogh.     Croat.  Bog. 

Fire. 

Sans.  Agni.     Casm.  Agin.     Beng.  A'gun.     Hind.  Ag.     Scl. 

Ogein.     Croat.  Ogayu.    Pol.  Ogien.    Dalm.  Ogany.     Lat. 

Ignis. 
Sans.  Vabni.     Boh.  Ohen, 
Sans.  Anala.     Beng.  Onol.     Mona.  Aul. 
Sans.  S'ushman  (-md).     Cant.  Sua. 
Sans.  Tanunapdt.      Wal.  Tan.     /r.  Teene. 
Sans.  Varhis.     Sax.  Viir.     Belg.  Vier. 

Water. 
.San*.  Ap.     Pers.  JOo. 
Sans.  Pdnfya.     Hind.  Pdni. 


APPENDIX.  505 

Sans.  Udaca.     Russ.  Oaode.     ScL  Voda,     Boh.  Woda. 
Sans.  Nira,  Nara.      Bewj.  Nir.      Cam.  Nira.      Tel.  Nillu. 

Vulg.  Gr.  Nero. 
Sans.  Jala.     Hind.  Jal.     Tr.  Gil. 
iS'aws,  Arna.     Ir.  An. 
>Sans.  Var,  Vdri.     Beng.  Bar.     /r.  Bir.     C«?zi.  Vra. 

Cloud. 

Sans.  Abhra.      Peytj.   Abliar.      Casm.   Abar.      Pers.   Abr. 
Gr.  Ombros.     Lat.  Imber. 

Man, 

Sans.  Nara.     Pers.  Nar.     (7r.  Aner. 

Sans.  Manava,  Manusba.    Guz.  Mauas.    Beng.  Manus.    Dan. 
Mand.     Sax.  Man,  Men. 

Mind. 
Sans.  Manas.     Gr.  Menos,     Lat.  Mena. 

Bone. 

Sa7is.  Had'd'a.     Hind.  Hadi. 

Sans.  Asthi.     Lat.  Os.     Gr.  Osteon. 

Hand. 

Sans.  Hasta.      Hind.   Hdt'h.      Penj.    Hatt'h.      Beng.  Hat. 

Pers.  Dest. 
Sans.  Cara.     (?r.  Clieir.      Vulg.  Gr.  Chere. 
Sans.  Paiii.      Wal.  Pawen.     Aug.  Paw. 

Enee. 

Sans.  Janu.      Pmj.  Jfibnu,      Pers.  Zdnu.      //ind   Gutand. 
G^r.  Genu.     Lat.  Genu.     (?a/Z.  Genou.     Sax.  Cneow. 


506  APPENDIX. 

Toot. 

Sans.  Pada,  Pad.  Or.  Pad.  Beng.  Pod,  Pd.  Hind.  PM, 
Payar.  Lat.  Pes  (pedis).  Gr.  Pous  (podos).  Vulg.  Gr. 
Podare.  Gall.  Pied.  Goth.  Fotus.  /S'aa;.  Fot,  Vot.  Sue. 
Foot. 

/Sajis.  Anghri.     ^en^r,  Onghri.     Scl.  Noga.     PoZ.  Nogi. 

Breast. 

Sans.  Staua.  ^mgr.  Stan.  {Ang.  Pap.)  G^r.  Sternon.  Xa^. 
Sternum.     {Ang.  Chest.) 

Navel. 

Sans.  Ndbbi.  Hind.  WMi.  Beng.  Ndi.  Or.  Ndlii.  Pers. 
Naf.     G^r.  Omphalos.     Sax.  Nafela,  Navela. 

Ear. 
Sans.  Carna.     Hind.  Cdn.     ^Irm.  Skuarn.     Corn.  Skevam. 

Nose. 

/Saws.  Nasicd,  Nasd,  Nasya.  //md!.  Ndc.  Penj.  ISTacca. 
Casw.  Nast.  Za<.  Nasus.  Germ.  Nase.  ^e/^r.  Nuese. 
Sax.  Noese,  Nosa.  ^ite.  Nasa.  Boli.  Nos.  aScZ.  Nus. 
Dalm.  Nooss. 

Tooth. 

Sans.  Danta.  S'ln^^.  Ddnt.  P<3ray.  Dand.  Pers.  Dendan 
Wal.  Dant.  ia«.  Dens.  G^aZZ.  Dent.  Gr.  Odous  (-ontos). 
5eZ^.  Tant,  Tand.     Sax.  Toth. 

Mouth. 

Sans.  Muc'ha.  .S^iwci.  IMuc'h,  Muh,  Munh,  iMunh.  Pen;. 
Muh.     (?««.  Moh.     Sax.  Muth. 


APPENDIX.  507 

Elbow. 
Sans.  Anka,  flank ;  Anga,  membrum,     Gr.  Agkon. 

Voice. 
Sana.  Vdcb  (vdc).     Lat.  Vox.     Gr.  Ossa. 

Name. 
Sans.  Naman  (-ma).     Hind.  Nam,  N^on.    Pers.  Ndm.     Gr. 
Onoma.     Lat.  Nomen.     Gall.  Nom.     Sax.  Nama. 

King. 
Sans.  Edj   (-t',  -d),    Rajan  (-ja).      Hind.  Rajd.      Lat.  Eex. 
Gall.  Roy.     Wal.  Rliuy,  Rhiydh.     Ir.  Righ,  Rak. 

Kingdom. 
Sans.  Edjnya  (-am).     Za^  Regnum. 

Town. 

Sans.  C'het'a.     Hind.  C'herd.     Wal.  Kaer.     Arm.  Koer. 

House. 

Sans.  Ocas,     Cr.  Oicos. 

Sans.  Giiha.     Hind.  Gliar.     Casm.  Gar. 

Ship  or  Boat. 

aSows.  Nau   (naus).      Gr.  Naus.      Za^.  Navis.      Pers.  Nau. 
Hind.  Nau,  Nau.     Or.  Nd.     Cara.  Naviya. 

A  Small  Boat. 
Sans.  Plava.     Mah.  Plav.     Gr.  Ploion. 

Thing,  Wealth. 
Sans.  Eal  (rds).     Zai.  Res. 


508  APPENDIX. 

Mountain. 
Sans.  Parvata.    Hind.  Parbat,  Pahar,    Ptnj.  Parabat.    Cam. 

Parbatavu. 
Sans.  Adri.     Fenj.  Adari.     Ir.  Ard. 
Sans.  Naga,  Aga.     Ir.  Aigb. 
Sans.  Gravan  (-va),  Giri.     Lus.  Grib.     Scl.  Hrib. 

Rock  or  Stone. 
Sans.    Prastara.       Hind.    Patt'har.      Guz.    Pat'har.      Beng. 

Pat'bar.     Gr.  Petra,     Lat.  Petra. 
Sa7is.  Gravan  (-va).     Fenj.  Gardv. 

Tree. 

Sans.  Dru  (drus),  Druma  (-mas).    Gr.  Dry?  (Drjraos,  a  wood). 

Fpir.  Druu.     Fuss.  Dreous.     Scl.  Drevu. 
Sans.  Taru.      Goth.  Triu,  Trie.      Sax.  Tree,   Treow.     Dan. 

Tree. 

Pomegranate. 
Sans.  RoLita.     Gr.  Eboa,  PJioia. 

Horse. 

Sans.  Gbdt'aca.     Hind.  Ghora,     Guz.  Gboro.     Casm.  Guru. 

Wal.  Goruydh,  Govar. 
Sans.  Haya  (-yas).     Ant.  Sans.  Arusba.     Isl.  Hors,  Hestur. 

Ban.  Hest.     Sue.  Hast.     Sax.  Hors. 
Sans.  Asva.     Fenj.  Aswa.     Fers.  Asp. 

Ass. 

Sans.  C'bara.     Fenj.  Char.     Fers.  Kbar. 

Sans.  Gardabba.     Hind.  Gadhd.     Tirh.  Gadahd. 

Mule. 
Sans.  Aswatara.     Fers.  Astar. 


APPENDIX.  509 

Camel. 
Sans.    Usht'ra.       Hind.   Unt.       Guz.    lit.       Penj.    Ustar. 
Fers.  Ushtur,  Shutur. 

Ox,  Cow,  Bull. 
tSans.  Go   (gaus).      Hind.  Gau,   Gai.      Benj.  Goru.      Pers. 

Gau.     Sax.  Cu.     Sue.  Koo.     Belg.  Koe.     Germ.  Kue. 
/Sans.  Ucshan  (-sh^).      /Saa;.  Oxa.       Dan.  Oxe.       /s?.  Uxe. 

5oA.  Ochse.     Germ.  Oclis.      Tl^aZ.  Ychs. 
Sans.  VrTsha,   VrTshan    (-shd).       Tirh.    Brikh.      Boh.    Byk. 

Pol.  Beik.     Balm.  Bak.     Zws.  Bik.     Hung.  Bika.      If  aZ. 

Byuch.     ^rm.  Biycli.     Com.  Byuh. 

Goat. 

Sans.  Bucca,  Barcara.  Hind.  Bacra.  Mahr.  Bocar.  Guz. 
B6car6.  Beng.  Boca.  Arm.  Buch.  Corn.  Byk.  Sax. 
Bucca.    Gall.  Bouc.    Sue.  Bock.    Belg.  Bocke.    Ital.  Becco. 

Ewe. 
Sans.  AvI  (-vis).     Gr.  Ois.     Lat.  Ovis.     Sax.  Eowe, 

Wool. 
Sans.  Urna.     Hind.  Un.     Sd.  Volna.     Pol.  Welna.     Boh. 
Wlna.      Balm.  Vuna.      Sue.  Ull.     /sZ.  Ull.     Belg.  Wul. 
(?erm.  Wolle.    ^.-»S'fl.r.  "Wulle.    Wal.  Gulau.     Corn.  Gluan. 
Arm.  Glean.     Ir.  Olann. 

Hair  of  the  Body. 
Sans.  Lava.     Ir.  Lo. 

Sans.  Loman  (-ma),  Roman  (-ma).  Hind.  Rdiin.  Beng. 
Lorn,  Rom.     Casm.  Riim.     Mah.  Rome. 

Hair  of  the  Head. 

Sans.  Ccsa.     Hind.  Ces.     Casm.  CIs.     Lat.  Criuis. 
Sans.  Bala.     Hind.  Bill, 


510  APPENDIX. 

Hog, 

Sans.  Sucara  (fem.  -ri).  Penj.  Sur.  Hind.  Stiar,  Siiwar, 
Su,  Suen.  Beng.  Shucar,  Shii6r.  Mdir.  Dticar.  Tirh. 
Sugar.  Nepal.  Surun.  Dan.  Suin.  Sue.  Swiin.  Lus. 
Swina.  Cam.  Swynia,  Swine.  Ang.  Swine.  Sax.  Sugn. 
Holl.  Soeg,  Sauwe.  Germ.  Sauw.  Ang.  Sow.  Belg. 
Soch.  Lat.  Sus.  Gr.  Hys,  Sys.  Lacon.  Sika.  Pers. 
Khuc.      TJaZ.  Hukh.     Corn.  Hoch,  Hoh. 

Boar. 

Sans.  Yaraha.  Hind.  Bardli.  0rz5.  Bardlia.  Beng.  Bordho, 
Bora.  C'orri.  Bora,  Baedh.  Belg.  Beer.  .S'aaj.  Bar.  Ang. 
Boar.     »S2?a»*.  Berraco.     Gall.  Verrat.     Ital.  Verro. 

Mouse. 

Sans.  Mushaca,  Mushd.  Z^mrZ.  Mus,  Musd,  Musi,  Musri, 
Musnd.  Penj.  Mush^.  Tirh.  Miis.  Xai!.  Mus.  Gr.  Mus. 
aS'cu;.  Mus. 

Bear. 

Sans.  Eicsha.     Hind.  Eich'h.     Penj.  Pdchh.     Guz.  Ednchh. 

I'M.  Eikh. 
Sans.  Bhalla,  Bhallaca,  Bhdlluca.     iTrnfi.  Bhal,  Bhdlu. 
Sans.  Ach'ha,  Acsba.     Gr.  Arctos.     Wal.  Arth. 

Wolf. 
Sans.  Vrica.     X'aZm.  Vuuk.     ^c^.  Vulk.     Pol.  Wulk. 

Insect. 

A^ans.  Crimi.     Pers.  Cirm.     5en<7.  Crimi.     Tamil,  Crimi. 

Serpent. 

^tms.  Ahi  (ahis).     Gr.  Ophis. 

,Sans.  Sarpa.     Pers.  Serp.     Za<.  Serpens.     ZTtwtf.  Sarp. 


APPENDIX.  511 

Cuckoo. 

Sans.  Cocila.     Hind.  Coil.     Lat.  Cuculus.     Gr.  Kokkyx. 
Sans.  Pica.     Lat.  Picus. 

Crab. 

Sans.  Carcata.  Beng.  Cancrd,  Cencrd.  Hind.  Cencrd, 
C^ci'd.  Gr.  Carcinos.  Lat.  Cancer.  Wal.  Krank.  Corn. 
Arm.  Kankr.  Gall.  Cancre.  Ir.  Kruban.  Sax.  Crabbe. 
Ang.  Crab. 

Cucumber. 
Sans.  Carcati.    Beng.  Cancur.    Hind.  Cacri.     Lat.  Cucumer, 
Cucumis.     Gall.  Concombre.     Ang.  Cucumber. 

Sound. 

Sans.  Swana,  Swdna.  Lat.  Sonus.  Wal.  Sun,  Son,  Sain. 
Sax.  Suud. 

Sleep. 

Sans.  Swapna,  S'aya,  Swapa.  Beng.  Shoon.  Hind.  (Supna) 
Sona  [to  sleep].  Gr.  Hypnos.  Wal.  Heppian  [to  sleep]. 
Sax.  Sleepan.     Ang.  Sleep. 

New. 

Sans.  Nava  (m.  Navas,  f.  ISTavd,  n.  Navam),  JsTavina.     Lat. 

Novus.       Gr.  Neos,   Nearos.      Pers.  No.      Hind.  Naya, 

Nawen.     Beng.  Niara.      Wal.  Corn.  Neuydh.     Ir.  Nuadh. 

Arm.  Nevedli,  Noadh.      Gall.  Neuf.     Ang.  New.     Sax. 

Neow. 

Young. 
Sans.  Yuvan  (Yuva).     Lat.  Juvenis. 

Thin. 

Sans.  Tanus.     Lat.  Tenuis. 


512  APPENDIX. 

Great. 
Sans.  ]\Ialia.     Gr,  Megas.     Lat.  Magnus. 

Broad. 

Sans.  Urus.     Gr.  Eurus. 

Old. 
Sans.  Jirnas.     Gr.  Geron. 

Other. 
Sans.  Itaras.     GV.  Heteros. 
Sans.  Anj^as.     Lat.  Alius. 

Fool. 

Sans.  Mud'has,  Murchas.     Gr.  Moi'os. 

Dry. 

Sans.  Csliaras.     Gr.  Xcros. 

Sin. 

Sans.  Aglia.     Gr.  Hagos  (veneratio,  scelus). 

One. 
Sans.  Eca.     Hind.  Beng.  &c.  Ec.     Pers.  Y^c. 

Two. 

Sans.  Dwi  (nom.  du.  Dwau).  Hind.  Do.  Pers.  Do.  Gr. 
T>jo.  Lat.  Duo.  Gall.  Deux.  Corn.  Deau.  Arm.  Dou. 
Ir.  Do.     Goth.  Twai.     Sax.  Twu.     Any.  Two. 

Three. 
Sans.  Tri  (nom.  pi.  Trayas).     Lat.  Tres.     Gr.  Treis.     Gall. 
I'rois.       Germ.  Drei.      //oZZ.  Dry.      /S'ax.  Threo.      Anrj. 
Three.     JF«Z.  .4rm.  Ir.  Tri.     Co?-».  Tre. 


APPENDIX.  513 

Four. 
Sans.  Chatur  (nom.   pi.  Chatwaras,  fern.   Chatasras).     Lat. 
Quatuor.      Gall.  Quatre.      Gr.  Tessares.      Fers.  Cheliar. 
Hind.  Cheliar. 

And. 
Sans.  Cha.     Lat.  Que. 

Five. 
Sans.  Panclia.      Hind.  Pdnch.      Pers.  Penj.      Gr.   Pente. 
Arm.  Corn.  Pemp.     Wal.  Pymp. 

Six. 
Sans.  Shash.    Pers.  Shesh.    Lat.  Sex.     Gr.  Hex.    Gall.  Ang. 
Six.    Wal.  Khuekh.    Corn.  Huih.    Arm.  Huekh.    Ir.  She, 
Seishear. 

Seven. 
Sans.  Sapta.      Lat.  SeiDtem.      Gall.  Sept.      Germ.   Sieben. 
Ang.   Seven.       Sax.   Seofon.       Gr.   Hepta.       Pers.   Heft. 
Hind.  Sat.    Wal.  Saith.     Arm.  Com.  Seith.    Tr.  Sheakhd. 

Eight. 
Sans.  Asht'a.     Pers.  Hasht.     H^id.  Atli.     Gall.  Huit.     Sax. 
Eahta.     Ang.  Eight.     Ir.  Okht.     Lat.  Octo. 

Nine. 
Sans.  Nava.      Hind.  No.      Lat.  Novem.     Wal.  Com.  Nau. 
Arm.  Nao.   Ir.  Nyi.   Pers.  Noh.    Gall.  Neuf.   Sax.  Nigon. 
Ang.  Nine. 

Ten. 
Sans.  Dasa.      Hind.  Das.      Pers.  Dah.      Lat.  Decern.     Ir. 
Deikh.     Arm.  Dek.     Com.  Deg. 
TOL.  TI.  '       L  1 


514  APPENDIX. 

PRONOUNS. 
I. 

Sans.  Ahara  (ace.  Md ;  poss.  and  dat.  Me ;  du.  Nau ;  pi. 
Nas).  Lat.  Gr.  Ego,  &c.  Pers.  Men.  Hind.  Mai.  Ir. 
Me.     Wal.  Corn.  Mi.     Arm.  Ma. 

Thou. 

Sans.  Twam  (ace.  Twa ;  poss.  and  dat  Te ;  du.  Vam ;  pi. 
Vas).  Lat.  Tu,  &c.  Gr.  Su,  &c.  Hind.  Tu,  Tain.  Beng. 
Tumi,  Tui.  Ir.  Tu.  Fers.  To.  Ar7n.  Te.  Corn.  Ta. 
Wal  Ti. 

PREPOSITIONS,   ETC. 

Sans.  Antar.  Lat.  Inter.  Sans.  Upari.  Gr.  Hyper.  Lat. 
Super.  Sans.  Upa.  Gr.  Hypo.  Lat.  Sub.  Sans.  Apa. 
Gr.  Apo.  Sans.  Pari.  Gr.  Peri.  Sans.  Pra.  Gr.  Lat. 
Pro.  /S'aws.  Pard.  Gr.  Pera.  ;iSaws.  Abhi.  G'r.  Amphi. 
Sans.  Ati.  G^r.  Anti.  Sans.  Ama.  Cr.  Ama.  AS'cms. 
Anu.     Gr.  Ana. 

TERMINATIONS. 

/Saws,  (terminations  of  comparatives  and  superlatives)  Taras, 
Tamas.  Gr.  Tei'os,  Tatos.  Lat.  Terus,  Tinius.  Sans. 
Isht'has.     Gr.  Istos. 

Sans,  (termin.  of  nouns  of  agency)  Tri,  Gr.  Tor,  Ter,  Lat. 
Tor. 

Sans,  (termin.  of  participle)  Tas.     Gr.  Tos.     Lat.  Tus. 

Sans,  (termin.  of  supine)  Turn.     Lat.  Turn. 


APPENDIX.  515 

VERBS. 
To  Be,  Eoot  AS. 

Sans.  Asti,  Asi,  Asmi,  Santi,  Stha,  Smas. 

Gr.  Esti,  Eis  (Essi),  Eimi  (D.  Emmi),  Eisi  (D.  Enti),  Este, 

Esmen  {D.  Eimes). 
Lat.  Est,  Es,  Sum,  Sunt,  Estis,  Sumus. 

To  Go,  Eoot  I. 

Sans.  Eti,  Esi,  Emi,  Yanti,  Itha,  Imas. 

Lat.  It,  Is,  Eo,  Eunt,  Itis,  Imus. 

Gr.  Eisi,  Eis,  Eimi,  Eisi,  Ite,  Imen  (D.  Lues). 

To  Eat,  Root  AD. 

Sans.  Atti,  Atsi,  Adrai,  Adanti,  Attha,  Adraas.  Lat.  Edit, 
Edis,  Edo,  Edunt,  Editis,  Edimus.  Gr.  Esthiei.  Sax. 
Etan. 

To  Give,  Root  DA. 

Sans.   Daddti,  Dadasi,  Dadami.      Lat.    Dat,  Das,  Do.     Gr. 
Didosi,  Didos,  Didomi. 
Hence,  Sans.  Ddnam.     Lat.  Donum. 

To  Join,  Eoot  YUJ. 

Sans.  Yunacti,  Yunjanti.  Lat.  Jungit,  Jungunt.  Sans. 
Yunajmi.     Gr.  Zeugnumi. 

Hence,  Snns.  Yugam.     Lat.  Jugum.     Gr.  Zugos,  Zugon. 
Hind.  Jua,     Sax.  Geoc.     Ang.  Yoke.     Dutch,  Joek. 

To  Sit,  Root  SAD. 

Sans.  Sidati,  Sidanti.     Lat.  Sedet,  Sedent. 
Hence,  Sans.  Sadas.     Lat.  Sedes. 
l1  2 


516  APPENDIX. 

To  Subdue,  Root  DAM. 
Sans.  Ddmayati.     Gr.  Damaei.     Lat.  Domat. 
JSence,  Sans.  Damanam.     Lat.  Damnum. 

To  Drink,  Root  Pi.  or  PL 
Sans.    Pibati,  Pibanti ;   Piyate.      Lat.  Bibit,  Bibunt.      Gr. 
Pinei,  Piuousi. 

To  Die,  Root  MRI 
Sans.  Mriyate,  Mriyante.     Lat.  Moritur,  Monuntur. 
Hence,  Sans.  Mritis,  Mritas.     Lat.  Mors,  Mortuus. 

To  Know,  Root  JNYA. 
Sans.  Jdndti,  Jdnanti.    Gr.  Ginosco  or  Gignosco.    Lat.  Nosco. 
Hence,  Sans.  Jiiyatas.     Lat.  Notus.     Gr.  Gnostos. 

To  Beget,  Root  JAN. 
Sans.  J^yate.    Pret.  J«jnye  (pronounced  Jagye).  Gr.  Ginomai 
vel  Gignomai.     Lat.  Gigno. 

To  Go,  Root  SRIP. 
Sans.  Sarpati.     Lat.  Serpit.     Gr.  Herpei. 

To  See,  Root't)RISf. 
Gr.  Derco.     Sans.  Dris.     Hind.  Dek'h,  to  see. 

To  Procreate,  Root  STJ. 

Sans.  Suyat6  (rad.  Su). 

Hence,  Sans.  Suta,  son.    Hind.  Suliii.    Gr.  Huios,  Huieus. 

To  Know,  Root  VID. 
Sans.  Vid,  to  know.     Lat.  Video,  to  see. 

To  Delight,  Root  TRIP. 
t^ans.  Trip.     Gr.  Terpo. 


APPENDIX.  517 

To  strew,  Root  STRI 
Sans.  Strt.     Lat.  Sterno.     Ang.   To  strew.     Gr.  Storuumi, 


Stronnumi. 


ADVERBS,  ETC. 


Sans.  A.     Gr.  A  priv.  (before  vowels  Au). 

Sans.  Su.     Gr.  Eu. 

Sans.  Dus.     Gr.  Dys. 

Sans.  Cha.     Gr.  Te.     Lat.  Que. 

Sans.  Na,  No.     Za«.  Ne,  Non.     Jn^r.  No, 

^Sams.  Chit  (in  comp.).     Lat.  Quid.     6^r.  Ti. 

Sa7is.  Nanu.     Za<.  Nonne. 

Sans.  Prabhate.     Gr.  Pro'i. 

&ms.  Pura,  Puratas.     Gr.  Pro,  Proteros,  &c. 

Sans.  Punar.     Gr.  Palin. 

Sans.  Pura.     (xr.  Palai. 

aSotcs.  Alam.     Gr.  Halis. 

/Sans.  Hj^as.     Gr.  Chthes. 

Sa7is.  Adya.     i/mcZ.  Aj.     Lat.  Hodie. 


INDEX. 


A,    liable    to    labial    and    palatal 

colouring,  p.  489. 
Abhidharraakosha-sastra,  208,  209. 
Adam,  William,  24. 
Adesa,  or  Divine  Command,  90,  98, 

108. 
Adi  Brahma  Samaj,  58,  92,  106. 
Aethiopic  alphabet,  479. 
Ag:e  of  man,  5. 
Agni,  ignis,  466. 
Albion  deserting  Greece,  416. 
Alice,  Princess,  471. 

hei-  kindness  to  Strauss,  472. 

her  religious  views,  472-474. 

—  —  her  letters,  474. 
All-Father,  the,  10. 
Alphabet,  Lepsius'  standard,  482. 

—  Max  Miiller's  Missionary,  482. 
Alton  Locke,  372. 

Anecdota     Oxoniensia,     Buddhist 

texts  in,  188. 
Anhalt-song,  423. 
Anquetil  Duperron,  320. 
Appel,  423. 

Arabic,  Mohl's  reports  on,  298. 
Archasological   Institute  at  Rome, 

334- 
Aribert,  Prince  and  Princess,  405. 
Arnim  and  Brentano,  popular  songs, 

389,  409. 
Aryans,  the  North- Western,  10. 

—  South-Eastern,  10. 
Arya-Samaj,  92,  167,  181. 
Ashi-dahaka,  278. 
Asiatic  Researches,  240. 
Assyrian  inscriptions,  287,  288. 

—  sculptures,  288. 
Atma,  104. 

Atterliom.  Swedish  poet,  391. 


Aytoun's  translation  of  W.  Miiller's 
song  on  K.  Kanares,  400. 


BABYLON  and  Nineveh,  inscrip- 
tions at,  291. 

Babylonian  alphabet,  292. 

Banks  Islands  dialects,  432. 

Basedow,  the  pedagogue,  417. 

Behistun,  trilingual  inscriptions  of, 
284,  287. 

—  sculptures  of,  288. 
Bell-founding  at  Bieslau,  420. 
Benfey,  Theodor,  458. 

—  his  first  work,  458. 

—  his  Sanskrit  studies,  459,  460. 

—  his  Pantschatantra,  460. 

—  his  History  of  Science  of  Lan- 

guage in  Germany,  460,  490. 
Bentley,  dislike  of  Colebrooke,  259. 
Bernays,  477. 
Beyond,  the,  9,  10. 
Bhagvat  Geeta,  the,  237. 
Bliarata  Asrama,  77- 
Boeckh,  400,  422. 
Boehtlinglc    and    Roth's    Sanskrit 

Dictionaries,  301. 
Botta's    discoveries   at  Khorsabad, 

289. 

—  Monuments  de  Ninive,  290. 
Bozzari,  Mark,  395,  415. 
Brahma-dhanna,  41. 
Brahma  marriage,  the  first,  56. 

—  rites,  109-112. 

—  Marriage  Bill,  77. 

—  Missionary  Conference,  94. 
Brahma-Sabhil,  25. 
Brahma-Samaj,   25,  27,  37,  38,  90, 

92,  96,  106,  143,  150,  1S2. 


520 


INDEX. 


Brahma  -  Samaj,  pronounced  the 
Veda  not  of  superhuman  origin, 
40,  181. 

—  dates  in  history  of,  87. 

—  a  monotheistic  church,  152. 

—  a  religion  and  a  church,  152. 
Brahmaic  Covenant,  38  n.,  41. 
Briihniajias,  the,  20,  246,  249. 
Brockhaus,  Hermann,  451. 

—  attended  Orientalist  Congress  in 

London,  452. 

—  his  most  important  work,  452. 

—  his  work  as  Professor,  453. 

—  services  rendered  by,  to  philology, 

453- 
Buddha  Amitabha,  183,  214. 
Buddhist  texts,  186. 

—  Chinese  translations  of,  186. 
• —  literature,  187. 

—  origin  of  Indian  fables,  460. 
Buhler,  Dr.,  452. 

Bunsen,  313. 

—  memoirs  of,  314. 

—  his  birth,  317. 

—  his  education,  318. 

—  travels  with  Astor,  319,  427. 

—  his  longing  for  the  East,  320. 

—  stay  in  Holland,  322. 

—  in  Denmark,  323. 

—  goes  to  Berlin,  323. 

—  to  Paris,  325. 

—  works   at  Arabic  and  Persian, 

325. 

—  goes  to  Italy,  326. 

—  his  marriage,  328. 

—  becomes     Niebuhr's     secretary, 

330. 

—  Charg^  d' Affaires  at  Rome,  331. 

—  his     interest     in     ecclesiastical 

matters,  332. 

—  the  Prussian  legation  at  Rome, 

333- 

—  his  friends  at  Rome,  333,  480. 

—  his  Hymn  and  Prayer  Book,  334. 

—  studies  hieroglyphics,  334. 

—  leaves  Rome  for  England,  334. 

—  life  in  England,  335-338. 

—  Prussian  Minister  in  Switzerland, 

338. 

—  second  visit  to  England,  339. 


Bunsen,  appointed  Prussian  Envoy 
in  England,  342,  427. 

—  works  written  in  England,  346. 

—  visit  to  Oxford,  346. 

—  his  orthodoxy  doubted,  347-349. 

—  his  many  friends,  348. 

—  his  feelings  towards  the  Pusey- 

ites,  349. 

—  his  love  for  the  king  of  Prussia, 

350-. 

—  his  faith  in  Prussia,  353. 

—  loss  of  political  influence,  354. 

—  resigns  and  settles  at  Heidelberg, 

356,  357- 

—  his  Bibelwerk,  357,  358. 

—  last  visit  to  Berlin,  358. 

—  death,  359. 

—  amount   of  work   achieved    by, 

359.  360. 

—  his  great  influence,  364. 
Bunyiu  Nanjio,  182. 

—  sent  to  England,  185. 

—  studies  at  Oxford,  185. 

—  prepares  Catalogue  of  the  Tripi- 

<aka,  187. 

—  his  life  in  Japan,  190-204. 
Burnouf,  Eugfene,  278,  283,  300. 
Byron,  Lord,  418. 

CAIRD,  Dr.,  his  doctrine  and  the 

Upauishads,  104. 
Caste,  244  n. 

—  Colebrooke  on,  248-250. 
Castes,  diff'erent,  246. 
Castren,  455. 

Catholic  Samaj,  78,  83. 

Caucasus,  Schiefner's  studies  on  the 

languages,  454. 
Chinese,  Mohl's  reports  on,  299. 

—  poem,  205. 

—  translations   of  Buddhist  texts, 

186. 
Christ,  humility  of,  124. 
Christianity,    distinction    between, 

and  other  faiths,  1 20. 
Church  of  the  Future,  345,  346. 
Classen  and  Niebuhr,  436. 
Code  of  Gentoo  Laws,  244. 
Colebrooke,  T.  H.,  228. 

—  on  the  Vedas,  39. 


INDEX. 


521 


Colebrooke,  founder  of  Sanskrit 
schohirship,  229,  232. 

—  his  father,  233. 

• —  goes  to  India,  233. 

—  view  of  the  vernaculars,  234. 

—  scheme  for  governing  India,  235. 

—  settles  at  Tirhut,  235. 

—  Oriental  studies,  236. 

—  scientific,  236. 

—  not  literary,  237. 

—  transferred  to  Purneah,  23S. 

—  letters  to  his  father,  23S-240. 
■ —  studies  in  philosophy,  241. 

—  first  paper  presented  to  Asiatic 

Society,  241. 

—  removed  to  the  judicial  service, 

243. 

—  settles  near  Benares,  244. 

—  translates  Jagannatha's  Digest, 

245- 

—  Essays,  &c.,  245. 

—  views  on  Caste,  246. 

—  diplomatic  mission   to  Nagpur, 

251. 

—  contributions     to    the     Asiatic 

Researches,  251,  256. 

—  Sanskrit  Grammar,  252. 

—  President  of  the  Court  of  Ap- 

peal, 256. 

—  of  the  Asiatic  Society,  256. 

—  studies  the  Veda,  257. 

—  Member  of  Council,  261. 

—  marriage,  262. 

—  returns  to  England,  262. 

—  his    Oriental   works,    262,    263, 

265. 

—  presents  his  MSS.  to  the  East 

India  Company,  263. 

—  Royal  Asiatic  Society,  264. 

—  death,  266. 

Collet,  Miss,  24M.,  72,  89,  106,  149. 

Communion  of  Saints,  90,  98. 

Comparative  mythology,  tirst  glim- 
merings of,  240. 

Comparative  philology,  Colebrooke's 
studies  in,  252. 

Cornelius,  341. 

Crimean  War,  356. 

Critic,  the  heart,  not  the  head  alone, 
makes  the  true,  402. 


Cuneiform  inscriptions,  2S3-284. 
Cureton's  Ignatius,  298. 
Curtius,  G.,  453. 

Cutch  Behar  marriage,  78,  86,  97, 
99,  107,  114,-  148. 

letters  on,  88-89,  107-1 11. 

Czoma  de  Koros,  320,  455. 


D  changed  to  L,  489. 
Danes  and  Germans,  437. 
Daya-bhaga,  261. 
Dayananda  Sarasvatl,  92,  167. 

—  his  belief  in  the  Vedas,  168,  179, 

180. 

—  autobiography,  I'jl  n. 

—  his  early  training,  172. 

—  his  early  doubts,  1 73. 

—  leaves  his  home,  175- 

—  studies  the  Yoga  philosophy,  176. 

—  his  ascetic  life,  177. 

—  his  orthodoxy  questioned,  1 79. 

—  his  publications,  iSo,  182. 

—  his  death,  180. 
Debendranath  Tagore,  37,  40,   83, 

84,91,92,  103,  152. 

—  sends  Brahmans  to  Benares,  40. 

—  his  doctrines,  42,  59,  152. 

—  retires  to  the  hills,  53,  58,  154. 

—  friendship  with   Keshub  Chun- 

der  Sen,  54. 

—  parts  with  Keshub  Chunder  Sen, 

58,  63. 
Dekhan  Tales,  Misa  Freer's,  452. 
Dessau,    birthplace   of  W.  Miiller, 

404. 
Deva,  118. 
Dharma-sabha,  25. 
Dharmasangraha,  213. 
Digest  of  Laws,  Colebrooke's,  255, 

260. 
Discoveries  made  at  risk  of  mistakes, 

484. 
Dvarkanath  Taeore,  i,  37. 

—  joins  the  Bruhma-Samaj,  38. 

—  in  Paris,  40. 


EDUCATION   must  be    national 
and  unsectarian,  441. 


522 


INDEX. 


Egypt's  Place  in  History,  Bunsen's, 

346. 
England's     ignorance    of    German 

aims,  352. 
English  Dictionary,  new,  5. 
Erdniannsdorf,  407. 
Er.scli  and  Gruber,  Encyclopaedia, 

402. 
Essays  on  the  Religious  Ceremonies 

of  the  Hindus,  245. 
Eugubian  Tables,  478. 

FAITH,  165. 

Eather,  God  as  a,  120,  12 1. 

Feridun  and  Fredun,  278. 

Finite,  the,  164,  166. 

Fleischer,  Professor  of  Arabic,  426, 

476. 
Foucaux's  Life  of  Buddha,  301. 
Frederick  the  Great,  his  view  of  the 

Nibelung,  403. 
Frederick  William  IV,  363. 
Freischiitz  of  Weber,  412  Ji. 
Fresnel,  M.,  294,  295,  298. 
Fiirst,  first,  30. 

GENTOO,  244  n. 
Gerlach,  Professor,  423. 
German  Symposium,  390. 
Germans  in  America,  426. 
Germany,  what  its  smaller  States 

have  done  for,  422. 
Gladstone,  Bunsen's  love  for,  336, 
God,  names  for,  119. 
Goethe,  W.  Mliller  visits,  419. 

—  stumbling  over  the  roots  of  the 

trees  he  had  planted,  4S9. 
Goldstiicker's  Sanskrit  Dictionary, 

301- 
Gorresio's  Eamayawa,  301. 
Greece,  marble  from,  for  W.  Miiller's 

monument,  406. 
Greek  Grammar,  254. 
Greek,  revival  of,  230. 

—  Songs,  W.   Miiller's,    387,   393, 

401. 

some  suppressed,  394. 

Griechisches    Wurzellexicon,    Ben- 

fey's,  458. 
Grimm,  the  brothers,  401,  40S. 


Grotefend,  283. 

Guizot,  his  patronage  of  Onental 
studies,  300. 

HAGEN,  von  der,  401. 

Hamadan,  inscriptions  of,  284. 

Hardenberg,  440. 

Harms,  443, 

Haupt,  477. 

Hermann,  Gottfried,  424,  447,  477. 

M.  M.  a  member  of  his  semi- 
nary, 425, 

Hermes,  466. 

Hibbert  Lectures,  M.  M.'s,  118, 
158,  160,  161,  166. 

Himyaritic  inscriptions,  294,  297. 

Hincks,  Rev.  E.,  293. 

Hindu  agriculture,  239. 

—  philosophy,  241. 
Hodgson,  B.  H.,  1 86. 
Honicke,  Dr.,  424. 
Hora,  236. 

Hosaeus,  Dr.  W.,  404,  422. 
H6tan,  the  priest,  206. 

—  copies  the  MSS.  in  the  temple 

at  Nara,  208. 

—  his  works,  209. 
Hundred  Greatest  Men,  30. 
Hydriot,  the  little,  417,  420. 
Hypatia,  Kingsley's,  368. 

ID0LS„3i,  32. 

Ignatius,  Bunsen's,  346. 

India,  despised  by  Europeans,  103, 

105._ 
Indian  literature.  Mold's  attention 

to,  301. 
Indian  Reform  Association,  77* 
Indian  Reformation,  4. 
Indian    Theists,    their    opinion    of 

Christ,  75-77. 
Infinite,  the,  162,  163,  164,  166. 

—  or  Indefinite,  162. 

—  sensuous  impressions  suggest  the, 

165. 
Institut  de  France,   its   opposition 
to  Napoleon,  308. 

JAGANNATHA,  34. 

—  the  Pandit,  244. 


INDEX. 


523 


Jasyannclfclia,  his  digest,  244. 
Jean  Paul,  419. 
Jerusalem,  Bishopric,  339. 
Jones,  Sir  W.,  268,  269,  270. 
Journal   Asiatique,   Mohl's   reports 

in,  273,  273  n.,  2S1. 
Juggernaut,  34. 

KAN  ARES,  K.,  400. 

—  -Prime  Minister  of  Greece,  400. 

—  his  death,  400. 
Kandjur,  the,  455. 
Kant's  philosophy,  160. 
Kath9,-sarit-sagara,  the,  452. 
Kenjiu  Kasawara,  211.    • 

—  comes  to  England,  211. 

—  his  death,  213. 

—  visits  Ceylon  on  his  voyage  home, 

219. 
Kemer,  J.,  418,  419. 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  49, 83, 92, 103. 

—  his  family,  50,  5 1 . 

—  his  boyhood,  51,  52. 

—  love  of  acting,  52. 

—  English  studies,  52,  53. 

—  his  marriage,  53. 

—  joins  the  Brahma-Samaj,  53. 

—  abjures  idolatry,  54. 

—  friendship  of  Debendranath  Ta- 

gore,  54. 

—  clerk  in  Bank  of  Bengal,  55. 

—  resigns  clerkship,  55. 

—  expelled  from  his  family,  56. 

—  champion  of  the  Brahma-Samaj, 

56. 

—  gives  up  the  Sacred  Thread,  58. 

—  dismissed  by  Debendranath  Ta- 

gore,  58,  63. 

—  his  eloquence,  59. 

—  doctrines  held  by,  62,  153. 

—  devotion  to  Christ,  64,  98,  118. 

—  practical  reforms,  64. 

—  and  Debendranath Tagore,  differ- 

ence between,  65. 

—  his  influence  for  good,  67,  95. 

—  his  conception  of  prayer,  70. 
of  inspiration,  71. 

—  visits  England,  72. 

• —  interview   with   Dr.   Pusey,  73, 

lOI. 


Kesliub  Chunder  Sen,  marriage  of 
his  daughter,  78,  97,  107,  14S, 
156. 

—  his  view  of  all  religions,  80. 

—  death,  84. 

—  his  bo-called  vagaries,  154,  157. 

—  persecution  of,  93. 

—  on  the  Trinity,  126. 
Khorsabad,   Botta's  discoveries   at, 

289. 

—  M.  Place  at,  293. 

—  treasures  from,  lost,  295. 
Kingsley,  Charles,  365,  369. 

—  his  wide-spread  influence,  370. 

—  Chartist  sympathies,  372. 

—  liorror  of  slavery,  373. 

—  views  on  the  war  of  1866,  373, 

374- 

—  on  the  Franco-German  war,  374, 

378- 

—  his  uiodesty,  379. 

—  and  Newman,  380. 

—  his  death,  382. 

—  his  funeral,  3S4. 

Knaben   Wunderhom,    Aniim   and 

Brentano's,  389,  409. 
Komer,  Theodore,  406,  408. 
Koyunjik,  Layard  at,  292,  294. 
KWtaf/na,  Sk.  grateful,  424. 
Krosigk,  von,  423. 
Kshatriyas,  the,  246,  249. 
Kuhn,  Adalbert,  462. 

—  Zur  altestenGeschichte  derlndo- 

germanischen  Volker,  463. 
his  views  of  Folk-lore,  464. 

—  on  mythological  names,  466. 

—  his  Herabkunft  des  Feuers,  467. 

—  his  fairness  as  editor,  468. 

LACHMANN,  477. 
Language,  Science  of,  7. 
Lassen,  283,  2S5. 

—  Indian  Antiquities,  301. 
Latin,  historical  method  of  studying, 

449. 
Layard,  289. 
Lepsius,  Richard,  475. 
his  first  dissertation,  478. 

—  on  various  alphabets,  479. 

—  letter  to  Rosellini,  4S0. 


524 


INDEX. 


Lepsius,  in  Rome,  480. 

—  expeditions  to  Egypt,  481,  483. 

—  his  chronology  of  the  Egyptians, 

481. 

—  Egyptian  museum  in  Berlin,  482. 

—  standard  alphabet,  482. 

—  Nubian  Grammar,  483. 

—  librarian  at  Berlin,  483. 
Lewis,    Sir  G.  C.,  his  squib,  478- 

480. 
Lind,     Jenny,     and     the     Schone 

Mtillerin,  428. 
Loftus,  289. 

—  his  work  at  Susah,  294. 
London  Protocol,  the,  356. 
Lotze,  492. 

MAHISHYA,  a,  247. 
Mahrattas,  234. 
Maimansaka  philosophers,  258. 
Man,  age  of,  5. 
JNIaria,  Polly,  466. 
Martin,  Sir  Theodore,  395  n.,  41 1  n., 
41 7  w. 

—  Sir  W.,  432. 

Max   Miiller,    speech    at    Dessau, 

420. 
Mayence,   fortress  of,  W.  Miiller's 

song,  392. 
Median  and  Babylonian  inscriptions, 

285,  2S6,  289,  291,  292. 
Melanesia,  Pattison's  work  in,  431- 

433- 
Melanesian    dialects,    vocabularies 

of,433- 
Meteoric  and  diurnal  changes,  same 

actors  concerned  in,  466. 
Metternich,  416. 

Middleton,  Bishop  of  Calcutta,  24. 
Mimansa,  the,  24I. 
Miracles,  22,  137. 
Mohl,  Julius,  272. 

—  birth  and  family,  274. 

—  education,  274,  275. 

—  Oriental  studies,  275. 

—  professor  at  Tubingen,  276. 

—  Chinese  studies,  276. 

—  life  in  Paris,  277. 

—  Persian  studies,  277. 

—  friends  in  Paris,  280. 


Mohl,  Julius,  member  of  the  French 

Institute,  280. 

—  Professor  of  Persian,  280. 

—  Soci^t^  Asiatique,  281. 

—  his   Annual  Reports,   281,   297, 

301,  302. 

—  his  truthfulness,  ^0%. 
Monism,  495. 

Mozumdar,  Protap  Chunder,  52,  84. 
Muir,  John,  468. 

—  offers  prize  for  first   edition   of 

Rig- Veda,  469. 

—  his  missionary  efforts,  469. 

—  his  Sanskrit  studies,  469,  470. 

—  his  munificence,  470. 

MuUer,  Wilhelm,  Greek  Songs,  387, 

393,  401.  414,  417.  421. 

epigrams,  387. 

his  admirers,  387. 

Beautiful  Miller's  Daughter, 

389,  410,  428. 

Wanderer's  Songs,  389. 

Spring  Wreath  from  Plauen, 

389,411. 

Drinking  Songs,  390,  391. 

Letters  from  Rome,  391. 

Homerische  Vorschule,  401, 

421. 
German  poets  of  seventeenth 

century,  402,  418. 

monument  to,  at  Dessau,  404. 

the  unveiling  of,  404. 

marble   for,  from   Greece, 

406,  417. 
entered    the  Prussian    army, 

40S,  422. 

Schwab's  description  of,  409. 

goes  to  Italy,  409. 

Rom,     Romer    und    Romer- 

innen,  410. 

Waldhornist,  410-412,  413. 

Winterreise,  410,  411. 

Johannes  and  Esther,  410. 

BuUiineh's  Greeting,  41071. 

Song  of  Consolation,  416. 

his  home,  417. 

his  last  journey,  419. 

his  death,  419. 

marched  to  Paris,  42a. 

Murdhabhisbikta,  a,  247. 


INDEX. 


525 


Musnad,    old    Aethiopic    writing, 

479-. 
Mythological  names,  465. 
Mythology,    syncretism    inevitable 

in  ancient,  467. 
Myths,  the  background  of,  466. 

NACHEINANDER    and    Neben- 

einander,  465. 
New  Charter  of  East  India  Company, 

242. 

—  Dispensation,    65,   79>   81,    I15, 

143.  150. 

—  newspaper,  115,  117. 
Newman,  interview  with    Bunsen, 

337- 

—  Apologia,  340. 

—  and  Kiugsley,  380. 
Nibelungen,  Fredericlc  the  Great's 

view  of  the,  403. 
Niebuhr,  B.  G.,  435. 

—  his  father,  435. 

—  Classen's  life  of,  436. 

—  his    youth,    his    public    service, 

437- 

—  his  Roman  History,  437. 

—  his  religious  opinions,  442-445. 

—  wishes  for  his  son,  444. 
Nineveh,    Botta's    excavations    at, 

285,  286. 
Nis,  nox,  466. 
Nishada,  a,  247. 
Nissen,  life  of  Niebuhr,  436. 
Noirt?,  492. 

Norris,  Mr.,  289,  290,  295. 
Nyaya  philosophy,  104,  241. 

OCEAN  of  the   Rivers   of  Tales, 

4.52. 
Olmiitz,  354,  356. 
Oppert's    view    of    the    cuneiform 

alphabet,  296. 
Origin  of  Caste,  Colebrooke's,  245. 
Oxford,  Bunsen  at,  337. 

PACIFIC,  languages  of  the,  belong 
to  one  family,  433. 

PaisaM,  tales  in,  452. 

Palm-leaves  in  the  Horiuji  Monas- 
tery, 224. 


Panini,  253. 

Pantschatiintra,  Benfey's,  460. 
Paramatma,  104,  122. 
Pattison,  Bishop,  429. 

his  boyhood  and  youth,  430. 

his  work  in  Melanesia,  431- 

433- 
hia    linguistic    studies,    432, 

433. 

his  character,  434. 

Peel,  Sir  R.,  letter  from,  341. 

Pehlevi  and  Parsi,  278. 

Persian  inscriptions,  285,  286. 

Phanariot,  the,  415. 

Plautus,  edited  by  Ritschl,  446. 

Poetry,  387. 

Polyonomy  and  Homonomy,  467. 

Popular  Songs  of  Wilhelm  Muller, 

391- 

Popular  stories,  not  always  of  mytho- 
logical origin,  464,  465. 

Pott  on  personal  names,  466. 

—  his  hard  work,  486,  487. 

—  received  the  Ordre  pour  le  Merite, 

486. 

—  his  Etymologische  Forschunger, 

487-489. 
Pra^apati,  11. 
Pratyag-atma,  the,  122. 
Precepts  of  Jesus,  22. 
Present  to  Monotheists,  34  n. 
Prinsep's  Pali  alphabet,  301. 
Proper  names,  465. 
Prussia,  ecclesiastical  policy  of,  439. 
Prussian  constitution,  351. 
Purawas,  41,  42,  42  n.,  181. 
Pusey,  Dr.,  and  Keshub  Chunder 

Sen,  73. 

QUEEN  Victoria  and  Bunsen,  343, 

344- 

—  opening  parliament,  344. 

—  at  Windsor,  344,  346, 

RAM  Chandra  Vidyabagish,  37. 
Rammohun   Roy,    i,   83,    92,    103, 
152. 

—  his  death,  i,  29. 

—  his  burial,  i. 

—  his  language,  6,  7. 


526 


INDEX. 


Ramraohun    Roy,   why  he   visited 
England,  8,  ii,  12. 

—  a  true  Brahman,  8,  11,  33. 

—  his  birth,  15. 

—  his  youth,  15,  47. 

—  visits  Tibet,  15,  16. 

—  serves  as  Diwan,  16. 

—  his  wealth,  16  n. 

—  life  at  Calcutta,  17. 

—  his  belief  in  the  Veda,  18,  21, 

34.  36. 

—  learns  Greek  and  Hebrew,  21. 

—  study  of  the  Bible,  22. 

—  Precepts  of  Jesus,  22. 

—  opposition  of  missionaries,  22. 

—  and  Middleton,  Bishop   of  Cal- 

cutta, 24. 

—  Saturday  meetings,  24,  25. 

—  founder   of  the   Brahma- Samaj, 

25,  37- 

—  widow-burning,  25. 

—  Prayer  Hall,  27. 

—  visits  England,  28,  48. 

—  arrives  at  Bristol,  28. 

—  a  great  man,  30,  31. 

—  opposition  to  idolatry,  31,  47. 

—  his  mother,  33. 

—  religious  views,  34. 

—  letter  to  Mr.  Gordon,  45. 

—  his  parents,  46. 
Raphael  Eiego,  song  on,  395. 
Rawlinson,  Colonel,  282,  284,  288, 

2S9. 

—  paper  on  the  Behistun   inscrip- 

tion, 290,  292,  294. 

—  reply  to,  311. 

Reforms,      practical,     of     Keshub 

Chunder  Sen,  64. 
Reisig,  447. 
Religion,  Science  of,  8. 
'  Remarlis  on  the  Husbandry  and 

Commerce  of  Bengal,'  242. 
Renan,  his  account  of  Mohl,  305. 
Revolution  of  1S48,  352. 
Rig- Veda,    Dayananda    Sarasvati's 

commentary  on  the,  170. 
Rihhart  and  Dicli,  466. 
Rishia,  the,  146. 
Ritschl,  F.  W.,  446. 

—  editor  of  Plautus,  446. 


Ritschl,  F.  W.,  studied  under  Her- 
mann and  Reisig,  447. 

—  his  work  as  Professor,  448. 

—  his  Seminarium,  448. 

—  historical  study  of  Latin,  449. 

—  his    Priscae    Latinitatis    Monu- 

menta  Epigraphica,  450. 
Rosellini,  480. 
Rosen,  Friedrich,  39. 
Riickert,  418,  423. 

—  M.  M.'s  studies  under,  426. 

—  saved  by  W.  Midler,  426. 

—  his  first  epic,  426. 
Riimelin,  Dr.  A.,  405. 

SACRED  Books  of  the  Buddhista 

in  Japan,  184. 
Sacred  Thread,  the,  57,  58. 
Sadharan-Samaj,  78}  83,  I06. 
(Sakuntala,  230. 
Sankara  (Sastri,  20. 
Sanskrit,  discovery  of,  231. 

—  scholars,  two  classes  of,  266. 

—  texts  first  printed,  245. 

—  Tales,  452. 

—  philology,  revival  of,  459. 

—  letters  traced  to  Semitic  originals, 

479- 
Sarameya,  Sk,,  466. 
Sayawa,  257. 
Schiefner,  Anton,  454. 

—  languages  of  the  Caucasus,  454. 

—  translation  of  the  Kalevala,  455. 
of  heroic  songs  of  the  Minus- 
sin  i  an  Tartars,  455. 

—  discovery  of  the  Northern   ver- 

sion of  the  Dharmapada,  455. 
Schlacht,  Lied  vor  der,  398. 
Schlegel,  320. 
Schleswig-Holstein    question,    353, 

355- 
Schneider  of  Dessau,'  41 2. 
Schopenhauer  ignored,  492. 
Schubert,  Franz,  3S8. 
Schultz  in  Armenia,  283. 
Schwab,  description  of  W.  Muller, 

409,  410. 
Schwegler's   Romische  Geschichte, 

438. 
Science  of  Language,  7- 


INDEX. 


527 


Science  of  Religion,  8. 
Self,  the  true,  1 1,  12. 
Sensuous  impressions  and   the  In- 
finite, 164. 
Shah  Nameh  of  Firdusi,  273,  302. 

—  translated  by  Mohl,  276,  277. 

—  importance  of,  2 78. 
Shin-shiu  sect,  183,  184. 
Shyamaji  Kr/shwavarnia,  171. 
/Sivanath  iSastri,  37  n.,  38  n. 
Solomon  Islands  dialects,  432. 
Solomon's  judgment,  Buddhist  story 

like,  456,  457. 
Soma-l)eva,   his   collection  of  Sk. 

Tales,  452. 
Spir,  African,  490. 

—  ignored,  493,  494. 

—  his  death,  494. 

—  a  dualist,  495. 

Stanley,  Dean,  115,  141,  144. 

—  and  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  116, 

128. 

—  his  boldness,  132. 

—  his  tone  of  mind  historical,  135. 

—  did  he  believe  in  miracles  ?  137. 
Strauss  and  Princess  Alice,  472. 
iSiidra  class,  246,  249, 
Snkhavati,  182. 
Sukhavati-vytlha,  1S5, 

Suttee,  25,  26. 

Syriac  and  Coptic  MSS.,  298. 

TABLET,  trilingual,  found  by 
Lepsiu?,  483. 

Tantras,  42,  43  «.,  181. 

Tatars,  heroic  songs  of  the,  455. 

Tattva-bodhinl  Sabha,  37. 

Theistic  Review,  150,  154. 

Theocritus,  dialect  of,  3S9. 

Thirlwall  and  Hare,  their  transla- 
tion of  Niebuhr's  Rome,  437. 

Thraetaona,  Zend,  278. 

Traitana,  or  Trita,  278. 

Trinitarianism  in  India,  23. 

Trinitarians,  23,  122. 

Tripifaka,  or  Three  Baskets,  187. 

Troyer's  Ragfatarangiui,  301. 


UHLAND,  418. 
Umbrian  inscriptions,  478. 
Unitarians,  23,  122. 
Uni-trinitarian,  126. 
Upanishads,  20,  21,  42,  104. 

VAIDYA,  or  AmbashfAa,  247. 
Vaisyas,  the,  246,  249. 
Van,  inscriptions  of,  2qi. 
Veda,  3,  20,  40,  43,  16S. 

—  difficulty   in    studying   the,    19, 

39- 

—  declared     not     of     superhuman 

origin,  40,  168. 

—  still  the  sacred  books  of  India, 

181. 

—  Mohl  on  the  Veda,  29S. 
Vediinta,  20. 

Vedic  Grammar,  Benfey's,  46 1 . 

—  Propaganda,  i8i. 

—  College,  182. 

Visakha,  the  wise  woman,  456,  457. 
Voysey's  attack  on  Keshub  Chun- 
der Sen,  88,  94,  95. 

WARREN  HASTINGS,  233,  243, 

244,  245. 
Weber,   K.  M.  von,   friend   of  W. 

Miiller,  412. 
Wessenberg,  J.  H.  von,  439. 
Westergaard,  2  8  7. 

—  essay    on    Median    inscrii^tions, 

289. 
White  Lotus  Sect,  184. 
Wilkins'  Bhagvat  Geeta,  237. 
Winkelmann,  407. 
Woepkt',  301. 
Wolf,  401,  408. 
Wolfenbiittel  Fragments,  445. 

YOGA,  176,  176  n. 

Youth,  the  majority  of  the  world, 

388. 
Ypsilauti,  A.,  417. 

ZEUNE,  401. 
Zohak,  278. 


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mics in  Purdue  University,  U.S.  Crown 
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LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL    WORKS. 


History,  Politics,  Polity,   Political  Memoirs,   ^tc— continued. 


Nash.— THK  GREAT  FAMINE  AND 
ITS    CAUSES.     By   Vacghan  Nash. 
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showing  the  Famine  Area.     Cr.  8vo,  6.s-. 
Owens  College  Essays.— Edited  by 
T.  F.  Tout,  M.A.,  Professor  of  History 
in  the  Owens  College,  Victoria  Univer- 
sity, and  James  Tait,  M.A.,  Assistant 
Lecturer  in  History.   With  4  Maps.  8vo, 
12.S.  %d.  net. 
Pears.— THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  THE 
(!REEK  EMPIRE  AND  THE  STORY 
OF  THE  CAPTURE   OF   CONSTAN- 
TINOPLE   BY    THE    TURKS.       By 
Edwin  Pears,   LL.B.      With  3   Maps 
and  4  Illustrations.     8vo,  IS-s-.  net. 
Powell     and     Trevelyan. — THE 
PEASANTS'  RISING  AND  THE  LOL- 
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Randolph.— THE  LAW  AND  POLICY 
OF  ANNEXATION,  with  Special  Refer- 
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Carman  F.  Randolph.     8vo,  9s.  net. 
Rankin  (Reginald). 
THE  MARQUIS  D'ARGENSON;  AND 
RICHARD    THE    SECOND.      8vo, 
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A  SUBALTERN'S   LETTERS  TO  HIS 
WIFE.      (The  Boer  War.)     Cr.  8vo, 
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Ransome.— THE   RISE  OF  CONSTI- 
TUTIONAL GOVERNMENT  IN  ENG- 
LAND.     By   Cyril    Ransome,    M.A. 
Crown  8vo,  6s. 
Scott.- PORTRAITURES  OF  JULIUS 
CfESAR :    a   Monograph.     By  Frank 
Jesup  Scott.      With  38  Plates  and  49 
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Seebohm  (Frederic,  LL.D.,  K.S.A.). 
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TRIBAL      CUSTOM      IN       ANGLO- 
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Seton-Karr.— THE  CALL  TO  ARMS, 
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connected    therewith.     By    Sir  Henry 
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Shaw.— A    HISTORY   OF   THE  ENG- 
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Shaw,  Litt.D.     2  vols.     8vo',  36s. 
Sheppard.  — THE     OLD    ROYAL 
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Smith. —CARTHAGE      AND      THE 
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Crown  8vo,  3s.  M. 
Stephens.— A     HISTORY     OF    THE 
FRENCH     REVOLUTION.       By     H. 
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18s.  each. 
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Stubbs.— HISTORY    OF    THE    UNI- 
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Stubbs.— HISTORICAL    INTRODUC- 
TIONS  TO   THE    'ROLLS  SERIES'. 
By    William   Stubbs,  D.D.,   formerly 
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Collected     and     Edited     by     Arthur 
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Sutherland.     THE      HISTORY     OF 
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from      1606  -  1900.       By     Alexander 
Sutherland,      M.A.,     and       George 
Sutherland,  M.A.    Crown  Svo,  2s.  M. 
Taylor.— A     STUDENT'S     MANUAL 
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Colonel      Meadows     Taylor,     C.S.I. 
Crown  8vo,    7s.    6rf. 
Thomson.  -  CHINA      AND      THE 
POWERS :  a  Narrative  of  the  Outbreak  of 
1900.    Bv  H.  C.  Thomson.  With  2  Maps 
and  29  Illustrations.     8vo,  10s.  M.  net. 
Todd.— PARLIAMENTARY  GOVERN- 
MENT IN  THE  BRITISH  COLONIES. 
Bv  Alpheus  Todd,  LL.D.    Svo,  30s.  net. 
Trevelyan.— THE    AMERICAN    RE- 
VOLUTION.     Part  I.   1766-1776.      By 
Sir  G.  0.  TuEVEr.YAN,  Bart.     8vo,  16s. 
Trevelyan.— ENG  LA  ND  IN  THE  AGE 
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lay  Trevelyan.     Svo,  15s. 


8   LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


History,  Politics,  Polity,  Political  Memoirs,  etc. — continued 

Wakeman  and  Hassall. — ESSAYS  i  Wylie  (James  Hamilton,  M.A.). 
INTRODUCTORY  TO   THE   STUDY 


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"W"alpole.— HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND 
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HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  UNDER 
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Bacon.— THE  LETTERS  AND  LIFE  OF 
FRANCIS  BACON,  INCLUDING  ALL 
HIS  OCCASIONAL  WORKS.  Edited 
bv  James  Spedding.  7  vols.  Svo,  £4  4s. 

Bagehot.  -BIOGRAPHICAL 
STUDIES.  By  Walter  Bagf.hot. 
Crown  8vo.  3s.  60?. 

Blount.— THE  MEMOIRS  OF  SIR 
EDWARD  BLOUNT,  K.C.B.,  etc. 
Edited  by  Stuart  J.  Reid,  Author  of 
'  Tlie  Life  and  Times  of  Sydney  Smith,' 
etc.  With  3  Photogravure  Plates.  Svo, 
10s.  M.  net. 

Bowen.  —  EDW^ARD  BOWEN  :  A 
MEMOIR.  By  the  Rev.  the  Hon.  W. 
E.  Bowen.  With  Appendices,  3  Photo- 
gravure Portraits  and  2  other  Illustra- 
tions.    Svo,  12s.  6r?.  net. 

Carlyle.— THOMAS  CARLYLE  :  A 
H  istory  of  his  Life.  By  James  Anthony 
Froude. 

1795-1835.     2  vols.     Crown  Svo,  7s. 
18.34-1881.     2vol.s.     Crown  Svo,  7s. 

Crozier.— MY  INNER  LIFE  :  being  a 
Chapter  in  Personal  Evolution  and 
Autobiography.  By  John  Beattie 
Crozier,  LL.D.     Svo,  14s. 

Dante.— THE  LIFE  AND  WORKS  OF 
DANTE  ALLIGHIERI  :  being  an  In- 
troduction to  the  Study  of  the  '  Divina 
Conimedia'.  By  the  Rev.  J.  F.  Hogan, 
D.D.     With  Portrait.     Svo,  12s.  6(/. 

Danton.— LIFE  OF  DANTON.  By  A. 
H.  Beesly.   With  Portraits.  Cr.  Svo,  6s. 

De  Bode.  — THE  BARONESS  DE 
RODE,  1775-1803.  By  William  S. 
Childk-Pemberton.  With  4  Photo- 
gravure Portraits  and  other  Illustrations. 
Svo,  gilt  top,  12s.  M..  net. 

Erasmus. 

LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF  ERASMUS. 
By  James  Anthony  Froude.  Crown 
Svo,  35.  6rf. 


Erasmus — ondiimed. 

THE  EPISTLES  OF  ERASMUS,  from 
his  earliest  Letters  to  his  Fifty-fir.st 
Year,  arranged  in  Order  of  Time. 
English  lYanslations,  with  a  Com- 
mentary. By  Francis  Morgan 
Nichols.    Svo,  ISs.  net 

Faraday. -FARADAY  AS  A  DIS- 
COVERER. By  John  Tyndall.  Crown 
Svo,  3s.  M. 

Fdnelon  :  his  Friends  and  his  Enemies, 
1651-1715.  By  E.  K.  Sanders.  With 
Portrait.     Svo,  10s.  M. 

Fox.— THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF 
CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  By  the 
Right  Hon.  Sir  G.  0.  Trevelyan,  Bart. 
Crown  Svo,  3s.  6rf. 

Froude.— MY  RELATIONS  WITH 
CARLYLE.  By  James  Anthony 
Froude.  Together  with  a  Letter  from 
the  late  Sir  James  Stephen,  Bart., 
K.C.S.L,  dated  Dec, 1886.  Svo.,  2s.  net. 

Granville.  —  SOME  RECORDS  OF 
THE  LATER  LIFE  OF  HARRIET, 
COUNTESS  GRANVILLE.  By  her 
Granddaughter,  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Old- 
field.  With  17  Portraits.  Svo,  gilt  top, 
16s.  net. 

Grey.— MEMOIR  OF  SIR  GEORGE 
GREY,  BART.,  G.C.B.,  1799-1882. 
By  Mandell  Creighton,  D.D.,  late 
Lord  Bishop  of  London.  With  3 
Portraits.     Crown  Svo,  6s.  net. 

Hamilton.-LIFE  OF  SIR  WILLIAM 
HAMILTON.  By  R.  P.  Graves.  Svo, 
3  vols.  16s.  each.  Addendum.  Svo, 
6f/.  sewed. 

Harro-w  School  Register  (The), 
1801  -  1900.  Second  Edition,  1901. 
Edited  by  M.  (i.  Dauglish,  Barrister- 
at-Law.     Svo,  10s.  net. 

Havelock. —  MEMOIRS  OF  SIR 
HENRY  HAVELOCK,  K.C.B.  By 
John  Clark  Marshman.  Cr.  Svo,  3s.  M. 


LONGMANS  AND  CO:S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS.      9 


Biography,   Personal  Memoirs,  etc. — continued. 


Haweis.— MY  MUSICAL  LIFE.      By 
the  Rev.  H.  R.  Haweis.    With  Portrait 
of  Richard  Waguer  auil  3  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo,  6s.  net. 
Higgins.  —  THE     BERNARDS     OF 
ABINGTON    AND    NETHER    WIN- 
CHENDON:   a    Family   History.      By 
Mrs.   Napier  Higgins.     2  vols.     8vo, 
2l6-.  net. 
Hunter.  —  THE     LIFE    OF    SIR 
WILLIAM        WILSON        HUNTER, 
K.C.S.I.,  M.A.,  LL.D.     Author  of  'A 
History   of    British    India,'     etc.      By 
Francis  Henry  Skrine,  F.S.S.     With 
6  Portraits  (2  Photogravures)  and  4  other 
Illustrations.     8vo,  16s.  net. 
Jackson.— STONEWALL     JACKSON 
AND  THE  AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 
By  Lieut. -Col.  G.    F.    R.  Henderson. 
With    2   Portraits   and    33    Maps   and 
Plans.     2  vols.     Crown  8vo,  16s.  net. 
Kielmansegge.  —  DIARY     OF     A 
.JOURNEY   TO    ENGLAND  IN   THE 
YEARS  1761-1762.     By  Count  Frede- 
rick Kielmansegge.     With  4  Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  8vo,  os.  net. 
Luther.— LIFE    OF    LUTHER.        By 
Julius    Kostlin.       With  62    Illustra- 
tions and  4  Facsimiles  of  MSS.     CrowTi 
8vo,  3s.  M. 
Macaulay.— THE    LIFE   AND   LET- 
TERS OP  LORD  MACAULAY.  By  the 
Right  Hon.  Sh'  G.  0.  Trevelyan,  Bart. 
Popular  Edition.     1    vol.     Cr.    8vo, 

2s.  i6d. 
Student's  Edition.  1  vol.  Cr.  8vo,  6s. 
Cahinet  Edition.  2  vols.  PostSvo,  12s. 
'  Edinburgh  '  Edition.     2  vols.     8vo, 

6s.  each. 
Library  Edition.     2  vols.      8vo,  36s. 
Marbot.— THE    MEMOIRS   OF    THE 
BARON  DE  MARBOT.    2  vols.     Crown 
8vo,  7s. 
Max  Miiller  (F.). 
THE  LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF  THE 
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MY  AUTOBIOGRAPHY:  a  Fragment. 

With  6  Portraits.     8vo,  12s.  6d. 
AULD  LANG  SYNE.     Second  Series, 

8vo,  10s.  6^;. 
CHIPS  FROM   A  GERMAN  WORK- 
SHOP.   Vol.  II.  Biographical  Essays. 
Crown  8vo,  5s. 


Meade.— GENERAL  SIR  RICHARD 
MEADE  AND  THE  FEUDATORY 
STATES  OF  CENTRAL  AND  SOUTH- 
ERN INDIA.  By  Thomas  Henry 
Thornton.  With  Portrait,  Map  and 
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Morris.— THE  LIFE  OF  WILLIAM 
MORRIS.  By  J.  W.  Mackail.  With 
2  Portraits  and  8  other  Illustrations 
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Crown  8vo,  10s.  net. 

On  the  Banks  of  the  Seine.— By 
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Paget.— MEMOIRS  AND  LETTERS  OF 
SIR  JAMES  PAGET.  Edited  by 
Stephen  Paget,  one  of  his  sons.  With 
Portrait.     8vo,  6s.  net. 

Place.— THE  LIFE  OP  FRANCIS 
PLACE,  1771-1854.  By  Graham  Wal- 
las, M.A.    With  2  Portraits.    8vo,  12s. 

Powys.— PASSAGES  FROM  THE 
DIARIES  OF  MRS.  PHILIP  LYBBE 
POWYS,  OF  HARDWICK  HOUSE, 
OXON.  1756-1808.  Edited  by  Emily 
J.  Climenson.     8vo,  gilt  top,  16s. 

Ramakr/shna  :  His  Lite  and  Sayings. 
By  the  Right  Hon.  F.  Max  Muller. 
Crown  8vo,  5s. 

Rich.  —  MARY  RICH,  COUNTESS 
OF  WARWICK  (1625  - 1678)  :  Her 
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Smith.  With  7  Photogravure  Portraits 
and  9  other  Illustrations.  8vo,  gilt  top, 
18s.  uet. 

Rochester,  and  other  Literary 
Rakes  of  the  Court  of  Charles 
IL,  with  some  Account  of  their 
Surroundings.  By  the  Author  of 
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Life  of  a  Prig,'  etc.  With  15  Portraits. 
8vo,  16s. 

Romanes.— THE    LIFE   AND    LET- 

i^TERS  OF  GEORGE  JOHN  ROMANES, 
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Edited  by  his  Wife.  With  Portrait 
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Russell.  —  SWALLOVVFIELD  AND 
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Seebohm.— THE  OXFORD  REFOR- 
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their  Fellow-Work.  By  Frederic 
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10     LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


Biography,   Personal  Memoirs,  etc. — continued. 
Shakespeare.— OUTLINES  OF  THE    Wellington.— LIFE  OF   THE  DUKE 


LIFE  OF  SHAKESPEARE.  By  J.  0. 
Halliwell-Phillipps.  With  Illustra- 
tions and  Facsimiles.  2  vols.  Royal 
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Tales  of  my  Father. -By  A.  M.  F. 
Crown  8vo,  6,9. 

Tallentyre.-THE  WOMEN  OF  THE 
SALONS,  and  other  French  Portraits. 
By  S.  G.  Tallentyre.  With  11  Photo- 
gravure Portraits.     8vo,  lOs.  Qd.  net. 

Victoria,  Queen,  1819-1901.  By 
Richard  R.  Holmes,  M.V.O.,  F.S.A. 
With  Photogravure  Portrait.  Cr.  8vo, 
gilt  to]),  bs.  net. 

Walpole.  —  SOME  UNPUBLISHED 
LETTERS  OF  HORACE  WALPOLE. 
Edited  liy  Sir  Spencer  Walpole.K.C.  B. 
With  2  Portraits.     Cr.  8vo,  4s.  %d.  net. 


OF  WELLINGTON.    By  the  Rev.  G.  R. 
Gleig,  M.A.     Crown  8vo,  3s.  M. 


Wilkins  (W.  H.). 

CAROLINE  THE  ILLUSTRIOUS, 
QUEEN-CONSORT  OF  GEORGE 
n.  AND  SOMETIME  QUEEN- 
REGENT  :  a  Study  of  Her  Life  and 
Time.     2  vols.     8vo,  36s. 

THE  LOVE  OF  AN  UNCROWNED 
QUEEN:  Sophie  Dorothea,  Consort 
of  George  I.,  and  her  Correspondence 
with  Philip  Christopher,  Count 
Kouigsmarck.  With  Portraits  and 
Illustrations.     8vo,  12s.  6(^.  net. 


Travel  and  Adventure,  the  Colonies,  etc. 


Arnold.— SEAS  AND  LANDS.     By  Sir 
Edwin  Arnold.     With  71  Illustrations. 
Crown  Svo,  3s.  &d. 
Baker  (Sir  S.  W.). 

EIGHT  YEARS  IN   CEYLON.     With 

6  Illustrations.     Crown  Svo,  3s.  %d.      \ 
THE  RIFLE  AND  THE  HOUND  IN 
CEYLON.        With     6     lUu.strations. 
Crown  8vo,  3s.  6rf. 
Ball  (John). 
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and  Revised  on  behalf  of  the  Alpine 
Club,  liy  W.  A.  B.  Coolidge. 
Vol.  1.,  THE  WESTERN  ALPS  :  the 
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Revised  Maps.   Crown  Svo,  12s.  net. 
HINTS    AND    NOTES,    PRACTICAL 
AND  SCIENTIFIC,  FOR  TRAVEL- 
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Bent.— THE  RUINED  CITIES  OF  MA- 
SHON ALAND:     being    a    Record     of 
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By  J.  Theodore  Bent.     With  117  Il- 
lustrations.    Crown  Svo,  3s.  Qd. 
Brassey  (The  Late  Lady). 

A  VOYAGE  IN  THE   'SUNBEAM'; 

OUR  HOME  ON  THE  OCEAN  FOR 

ELEVEN  MONTHS. 

Cabinet  Jidition.     With  Map  and  66 

Illu.strations.  Crown  Svo,  gilt  edges, 

7s.  Qd. 


Brassey  (The  Late  Lady) — amtinued. 
A  VOYAGE  IN  THE  '  SUNBEAM  '. 
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lllu.strations.     Crown  Svo,  3s.  6rf. 
Po2)ular    Edition.       With    60   Illus- 
trations.    4to,  Qd.  sewed.  Is.  cloth. 
School  Edition.      With   37    Illustra- 
tions.    Fcp. ,  2s.  cloth,  or  3s.  white 
parchment. 
SUNSHINE   AND    STORM    IN   THE 
EAST. 

Popular   Edition.      With    103   Illus- 
trations.    4to,  &d.  sewed.  Is.  cloth. 
IN    THE   TRADES,    THE   TROPICS, 
AND  THE  'ROARING  FORTIES'. 
Cabinet  Edition.     With  Map  and  220 
Illustrations.  Crown  Svo,  gilt  edges, 
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Coekerell.  —  TRAVELS  IN  SOU- 
THERN EUROPE  AND  THE 
LEVANT,  1810  -  1817.  By  C.  R. 
Cockerell,  Architect,  R.A.  Edited 
by  his  son,  Samuel  Pepys  Cockerell. 
With  Portrait.     Svo,  10.s.  M.  net. 

Fountain  (Paul). 

THE       GREAT       DESERTS       AND 

FORESTS  OF  NORTH   AMERICA. 

With  a  Preface  by  W.  H.  Hudson, 

Author    of   '  The    Naturalist    in    La 

Plata,'  etc.     Svo,  9s.  %d.  net. 
THE     GREAT     MOUNTAINS     AND 

FORESTS   OF  SOUTH    AMERICA. 

With    Portrait    and   7    Illustrations. 

Svo,  10s.  Qd.  net. 


LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL    WORKS,     ii 


Travel  and  Adventure,  the  Colonies,  etc. — continued. 


Froude  (James  A. ). 

OCEANA :  or  England  and  lier  Colon- 
ies. With  9  Illustrations.  Crown 
8vo,  3.S.  6(;. 

THE  ENGLISH  IN  THE  WEST  IN- 
DIES :  or,  the  Bow  of  Ulysses.  With 
9  Illustrations.  Crown  8vo,  Is. 
boards,  2*.  M.  cloth. 

Grove.  —  SEVENTY  -  ONE  DAYS' 
CAMPING  IN  MOROCCO.  By  Lady 
Grove.  With  Photogravure  Portrait 
and  32  Illustrations  from  Photographs. 
8vo,  75.  6(/.  net. 

Haggard.  — A  WINTER  PILGRIM- 
AGE :  Being  an  Account  of  Travels 
through  Palestine,  Italy  and  the  Island 
of  Cyprus,  undertaken  in  the  year  1900. 
By  H.  Rider  Haggard.  With  31 
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Hard  wick.— AN  IVORY  TRADER  IN 
NORTH  KENIA  :  the  Record  of  an 
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Mount  Kenia  in  East  Equatorial  Africa, 
with  an  Account  of  the  Nomads  of 
Galla-Land.  By  A.  Arkell-Hardwick, 
F.R.G.S.  With  23  Illustrations  from 
Photographs,  and  a  Map.  8vo,125.6'-/.net. 

Heatheote.— ST.  KILDA.  By  Nor- 
JIAN  Heathcote.  With  80  Illustrations 
from  Sketches  and  Photographs  of  the 
People,  Scenery  and  Birds  by  the 
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Howitt.— VISITS  TO  REMARKABLE 
PLACES.  Old  Halls,  Battlefields, 
Scenes,  illustrative  of  Striking  Passages 
in  English  History  and  Poetry.  By 
William  Howitt.  With  80  Illustra- 
tions.    Crowu  8vo,  3s.  %d. 

Knight  (E.  F.). 

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THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  '  ALERTE '  : 
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sure  on  the  Desert  Island  of  Trinidad. 
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WHERE  THREE  EMPIRES  MEET  :  a 
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Norway  Book.     By  J.  A.  Lees.     With 
63  Illustrations  and   Photographs.     Cr. 
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<luced  from  Photographs  and  Sketches 
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Smith.— CLIMBING  IN  THE  BRITISH 
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pedition to  the  Lapps.   By  A.  Edmund 
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Stephen.— THE    PLAYGROUND    OF 
EUROPE  (The  Alps).     By  Sir  Leslie 
Stephen,  K.C.B.    With  4  Illustrations. 
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Three  inWorway. — By  Two  of  Them. 
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12     LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL    WORKS. 


Sport  and  Pastime. 
THE  BADMINTON  LIBRARY. 

Edited  by  His  Grace  the  (Eighth)  DUKE  OF  BEAUFORT,  E.G.,  and 
A.  E.  T.  WATSON. 


ARCHERY.  By  C.  J.  Longman,  Col. 
H.  Walrond,  Miss  Legh,  etc.  With 
2  Maps,  23  Plates,  and  172  Illus- 
trations in  the  Text.  Crown  8vo,  cloth, 
Gs.  net ;  half-hound, with  gilt  top,  9.s-.  net. 

ATHLETICS.  By  Montague  Shear- 
man, W.  Beacher  Thomas,  W.  Rye, 
etc.  With  12  Plates  and  37  Illustra- 
tions in  the  Text.  Crown  8vo,  cloth,  6.s. 
net ;  half-bound,  with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 

BIG  GAME  SHOOTING.  By  Clive 
Phillipps-Wollet. 

Vol.  I.  Africa  and  America. 
With  Contributions  by  Sir  Samuel 
W.  Baker,  W.  C.  Oswell,  F.  C. 
Selous,  etc.  With  20  Plates  and  57 
Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown  8vo, 
cloth,  65.  net ;  half-bound,  with  gilt 
top,  95.  net. 

Vol.  II.  Europe,  Asia,  and  the 
Arctic  Regions.  With  Contri- 
butions by  Lieut. -Colonel  R.  Heber 
Percy,  Major  Algernon  C.  Heber 
Percy,  etc.'  With  17  Plates  and  56 
Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown  8vo, 
cloth,  6s.  net;  half- bound,  with  gilt 
top,  9s,  net. 

BILLIARDS.  By  Major  W.  Broadfoot, 
R.E.,  A.  H.  Boyd,  W.  J.  Ford, 
etc.  With  11  Plates,  19  Illustrations 
in  the  Text,  and  numerous  Diagrams. 
Crown  8vo,  cloth,  6s.  net ;  half-bound, 
with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 

COURSING  AND  FALCONRY.  By 
Harding  Cox,  Charles  Richardson, 
etc.  With  20  Plates  and  55  Illustrations 
in  the  Text.  Crown  8vo,  cloth,  6s.  net ; 
half-bound,  with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 

CRICKET.  By  A.  G.  Steel,  the  Hon. 
R.  H.  Lyttei.ton,  a.  Lang,  W.  G. 
Grace,  etc.  With  13  Plates  and  52  Illus- 
trations in  the  Text.  Crown  8vo,  cloth, 
6s.  net;  half-bound,  with  gilttop,  9s.  net. 

CYCLING.  By  the  Earl  of  Albemarle 
and  G.  Lacy  Hillier.  With  19  Plates 
and  44  Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown 
8vo,  cloth,  6s.  net  ;  half-bound,  with 
gilt  top,  9s.  net. 


DANCING.  By  Mrs.  Lilly  Gro\t:,  etc. 
With  Mu.sioal  Examples,  and  38  Full- 
page  Plates  and  93  Illu.strations  in  the 
Text.  Cr.  8vo,  cloth,  6s.  net ;  half- 
bound,  with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 


DRIVING.  By  His  Grace  the  (Eighth) 
Duke  of  Beaufort,  K.G.,  A.  E.  T. 
Watson,  etc.  With  12  Plates  and  54 
Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown  8vo, 
cloth,  6.S.  net ;  half-bound,  with  gUt 
top,  9s.  net. 

FENCING,  BOXING  AND  WREST- 
LING. By  Walter  H.  Pollock,  F 
C.  Grove,  etc.  With  18  Plates  and  24 
Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown  8vo, 
cloth,  6s.  net ;  half-bound,  with  gilt  top, 
9s.  net. 

FISHING.        By     H.     Cholmondeley- 
Pennell. 

Vol.  I. — Salmon  and  Trout.  With 
Contributions  by  H.  R.  Francis, 
Major  John  P.  Traherne,  etc.  With 
9  Plates  and  numerous  Illustrations  of 
Tackle,  etc.  Crown  8vo,  cloth,  6s.  net ; 
half- bound,  with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 

VoL  11.— Pike  and  Other  Coarse  Fish. 
With  Contributions  by  William 
Senior,  G.  Christopher  Davis,  etc. 
With  7  Plates  and  numerous  Illustra- 
tions of  Tackle,  etc.  Cr.  8vo,  cloth,  6s. 
net ;  half-ljound,  with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 

FOOTBALL. — By  Montague  Shearman, 
W.  .J.  Oakley,  Frank  Mitchell,  etc. 
With  19  Plates  and  35  Illustrations  in 
the  Text.     Crown  8vo,  cloth,  6s.   net ; 

\  fhalf-liound,  with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 

GOLF.  By  Horace  G.  Hutchinson, 
the  Rt.  Hon.  A.  J.  Balfour,  M.P., 
Andrew  Lang,  etc.  With  34  Plates 
and  56  Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown 
8vo,  cloth,  6s.  net ;  half-bound,  with 
gilt  top,  9s.  net. 


LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS.     13 


Sport  and  Pastime — continued. 
THE  BADMINTON  l^mRARY— continued. 

Edited  by  His  Grace  the  (Eighth)  DUKE  OF  BEAUFORT,  K.G.,  and 
A.  E.  T.  WATSON. 


HUNTING.  By  His  Grace  the  (Eighth) 
Duke  of  Beaufort,  K.G.,  Mowbray 
Morris,  G.  H.  Longman,  etc  With  5 
Plates  and  54  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Crown  8vo,  cloth,  6s.  net ;  half-bound, 
with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 

MOTORS  AND  MOTOR-DRIVING.  By 
Alfred  C.  Harmsworth,  the  Hon. 
John  Scott-Montagu,  etc.  With  13 
Plates  and  136  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Crown  8vo,  cloth,  9s.  net ;  half-bound, 
12s.  net.  A  Cloth  Box  for  use  when 
Motoring,  '2s.  net. 

MOUNTAINEERING.  By  C.  T.  Dent, 
the  Right  Hon.  J.  Bryce,  M.P.,  Sir 
Martin  Conway,  etc.  With  13  Plates 
and  91  Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown 
8vo,  cloth,  6s.  net ;  half-bound,  with  gilt 
top,  9s.  net. 

POETRY  OF  SPORT  (THE).  Selected 
by  Hedley  Peek.  With  32  Plates  and 
74  Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Cr.  8vo, 
cloth,  6s.  net ;  half-bound,  with  gilt 
top,  9s.  net. 

RACING  AND  STEEPLE-CHASING. 
By  the  Earl  of  Suffolk  and  Berk- 
shire, W.  G.  Craven,  the  Hon.  F. 
Lawley,  etc.  With  Frontispiece  and  56 
Illustrations  in  the  Text.  t'r.  8vo,  cloth, 
6s.  net ;  half-bound,  with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 

RIDING  AND  POLO.  By  Captain 
Robert  Weir,  J.  Moray  Brown,  T. 
F.  Dale,  the  late  Duke  of  Beaufort, 
etc.  With  IS  Plates  and  41  Illustra- 
tions in  the  Text.  Crown  8vo,  cloth,  6s. 
net ;  half-bound,  with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 

ROWING.  By  R.  P.  P.  RowE  and  C.  M. 
Pitman,  etc.  With  75  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo,  cloth,  6s.  net ;  half-bound, 
with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 

SEA  FISHING.  By  John  Bickerdyke, 
Sir  H.  W.  Gore-Booth,  Alfred  C. 
Harmsworth,  and  W.  Senior.  With 
22  Full-page  Plates  and  175  Illustrations 
in  the  Text.  Crown  8vo,  cloth,  Qs.  net ; 
half-bound,  with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 


SHOOTING. 
Vol.  I. — Field  and  Covert.  By  Lord 
Walsingham,  Sir  Ralph  Payne- 
Gallwey,  Bart.,  etc.  With  11  Plates 
and  95  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Crown  8vo,  cloth,  &s.  net ;  half-bound, 
with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 
V^ol.  n. — Moor  and  Marsh.  By 
Lord  Walsingham,  Sir  Ralph 
Payne-Gallwey,  Bart.,  etc.  With  8 
Plates  and  57  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Crown  8vo,  cloth,  6s.  net ;  half-bound, 
witli  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 

SKATING,  CURLING,  TOBOGGANING. 
By  J.  M.  Heathcote,  C.  G.  Tebbutt, 
T.  Maxwell  Witham,  etc.  With  12 
Plates  and  272  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Crown  8vo,  cloth,  6s.  net ;  half-bound, 
with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 

SWIMMING.  By  Archibald  Sinclair 
and  William  Henry.  With  13  Plates 
and  112  Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Cr. 
8vo,  cloth,  6s.  net ;  half-liound,  with 
gilt  top,  9s.  net. 

TENNIS,  LAWN  TENNIS,  RACKETS 
AND  FIVES.  By  J.  M.  and  C.  G. 
Heathcote,  E.  0.  Pleydell-Bodverib, 
the  Hon.  A.  Lyttelton,  etc.  With  14 
Plates  and  65  Illustrations  in  the  Text, 
Crown  8vo,  cloth,  6s.  net ;  half-bound, 
with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 

YACHTING. 
Vol.  I. — Cruising,  Construction  of 
Yachts,  Yacht  Racing  Rules, 
Fitting-Out,  etc.  By  Sir  Edward 
Sullivan,  Bart.,  the  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke, Lord  Brassey,  K.C.B.,  etc. 
With  21  Plates  and  93  Illustrations 
in  the  Text.  Crown  Svo,  cloth,  6s. 
net ;  half-bound,  with  gilt  top,  9s.  net. 
Vol.  II. — Yacht  Clubs,  Yachting  in 
America  and  the  Colonies,  Yacht 
Racing,  etc.  By  R.  T.  Pritchett, 
the  Marquis  of  Dufferin  and  Ava, 
K.P.,  etc.  With  35  Plates  and  160 
Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown  Svo, 
cloth,  9s.  net ;  half- bound,  with  gilt 
top,  9s.  net. 


14     LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL    WORKS. 


Sport  and  Pastime — continued. 
FUR,  FEATHER,  AND  FIN  SERIES. 

Edited  by  A.  E.  T.  Watson. 

Crowu  8vo,  price  5s.  each  Volume,  cloth. 

Tlie  Viilmnes  arc  also  issued  half -bound  in  Leather,  with  gilt  top. 
7s.  6d.  net  each. 


Price 


THE  PARTRIDGE.  Natural  History, 
by  the  Rev.  H.  A.  Macpherson  ; 
Shooting,  by  A.  J.  Stuart- Wortley  ; 
Cookery,  by  George  Saintsbuky. 
With  11  Illustrations  and  various  Dia- 
grams.    Crown  8vo,  5s. 

THE  GROUSE.  Natural  History,  by 
the  Rev.  H.  A.  Macpherson  ;  Shoot- 
ing, by  A.  J.  Stuart-Wortley  ; 
Cookery,  by  Gs;orge  Saintsbury. 
With  13  Illustratious  and  vai-ious  Dia- 
grams.    Crown  8vo,  5.s'. 

THE  PHEASANT.  Natural  History, 
by  the  E«v.  H.  A.  Macpherson  ;  Shoot- 
ing, by  A.  J.  Stuart-Wortley  ; 
Cookery,  by  Alexander  Innes  Shand. 
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grams.    Crown  Bvo,  5s. 

THE  HARE.  Natural  PIistory,  by  the 
Rev.  H.  A.  Macpherson  ;  Shooting, 
by  the  Hon.  Gerald  Lascelles; 
Coursing,  by  Charles  Richardson  ; 
Hunting,  by  J.  S.  Gibbons  and  G.  H. 
Longman  ;  Cookery,  by  Col.  Kenney 
Herbert.  With  9  Illustrations.  Crown 
8vo,  5s. 


RED  DEER.  Natural  History,  by  the 
Rev.  H.  A.  Macpherson  ;  Deer  Stalk- 
ing, by  Cameron  of  Lochiel  ;  Stag 
Hunting,  by  Viscount  Bbrington  ; 
Cookery,  by  Alexander  Innes  Shand. 
With  10  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo,  5s. 

THE  SALMON.  By  the  Hon.  A.  E. 
Gathorne-Hardy.  With  Chapters  on 
the  Law  of  Salmon  Fishing  by  Claud 
Douglas  Pennant;  Cookery,  by  Alex- 
ander Innes  Shand.  With  8  Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  8vo,  5s. 

THE  TROUT.  By  the  Marquess  of 
Granby.  With  Chapters  on  the  Breed- 
ing of  Trout  by  Col.  H.  Custance  ;  and 
Cookery,  by  Alexander  Innes  Shand. 
With  12  Illustrations.     Crown  Bvo,  5s. 

THE  RABBIT.  By  James  Edmund 
Harting.  Cookery,  by  Alexander 
Innes  Shand.  With  10  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo,  5s. 

PIKE  AND  PERCH.  By  William  Senior 
{' Redspinner,'  Editor  of  the  Field). 
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and  W.  H.  Pope.  Cookery,  by  Alex- 
ander Innes  Shand.  With  12  Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  8vo,  5s. 


Alverstone  and  Alcock.— SURREY 
CRICKET :  Its  History  and  Associa- 
tions. Edited  by  the  Right  Hon.  Lord 
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W.  Alcock,  Secretary,  of  the  Surrey 
County  Cricket  Club.  With  48  Illus- 
trations.    8vo,  16s.  net. 


Bickerdyke.— DAYS  OF  MY  LIFE 
ON  WATER,  FRESH  AND  SALT: 
and  other  papers.  By  John  Bicker- 
dyke. With  Photo-Etching  Frontis- 
piece and  8  Full-page  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo,  3s.  Qd. 


Blackburne.— MR.  BLACKBURNE'S 
GAMES  AT  CHESS.  Selected,  An- 
notated and  Arranged  by  Himself. 
Edited,  with  a  Biographical  Sketch 
and  a  brief  History  of  Blindfold  Chess, 
by  P.  Anderson  Graham.  With  Por- 
trait of  Mr.  Blackburne.  Svo,  7s.  &d.  net. 

Dead  Shot  (The)  :  or,  Sportsman's 
Complete  Guide.  Being  a  Treatise  on 
the  use  of  the  Gun,  with  Rudimentary 
and  Finishing  Lessons  in  the  Art  of 
Shooting  Game  of  all  kinds.  Also 
Game-driving,  Wildfowl  and  Pigeon- 
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Marksman.  With  numerous  Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  Svo,  10s.  6d. 


LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS.     15 


Sport  and  Pastime — continued. 

Lillie.— CROQUET     UP     TO     DATE. 
Contaiuiug  the  Ideas  and  Teachings  of 
the    Leading    Players   and    Clianipion.s. 
By   Akthur   Lillie.      With  Contribu- 
tions by  Lieut. -Col.  the  Hon.  H.  Need- 
HAM,    C.    D.    LocuCK,    etc.       With   19 
Illustrations  (15  Portraits)  and  numerous 
Diagrams.      8vo,  10s.  6(^.  net. 
Locock.— SIDE  AND  SCP.EW  :    being 
Notes  on  the  Theory  and  Practice  of  the 
Game  of  Billiards.     By  C.  D.  LococK. 
With  Diagrams.     Crown  8vo,  bs.  net. 
Ijongman.— CHESS  OPENINGS.     By 
Frederick    W.    Longman.     Fcp.   8vo, 
2s.  M. 
Mackenzie.— NOTES  FOR  HUNTING 
MEN.  By  Captain  Cortlandt  Gordon 
Mackenzie.     Crown  8vo,  2s.  Qd.  net. 
Madden.— THE  DIARY  OF  MASTER 
WILLIAM     SILENCE:     a    Study    of 
Shakespeare  and  of  Elizabethan  Sport. 
By   the   Right    Hon.    D.    H.    Madden, 
Vice-Chancellor    of    the     University    of 
Dublin.     8vo,  gilt  top,  16s. 
Maskelyne.— SHARPS  AND  FLATS  : 
a  Complete  Revelation  of  the  Secrets  of 
Cheating    at    Games    of    Chance    and 
Skill.     By  John  Nevil  Maskelyne,  of 
the  Egyptian  Hall.     With  62  Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  8vo,  6s. 
Millais  (John  Goille). 
THE  WILD-FOWLER  IN  SCOTLAND. 
With  a  Frontispiece  in  Photogravure 
by  Sir  J.  E.  Millais,  Bart.,  P.R.A., 
8    Photogravure   Plates,    2    Colouretl 
Plates,  and  .50  Illustrations  from  the 
Author's  Drawings  and  from    Photo- 
graphs.    Royal  4to,  gilt  top,  30s.  net. 
THE  NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  THE 
BRITISH       SURFACE  ■  FEEDING 
DUCKS.     With  6  Photogravures  and 
66  Plates  (41  in  Colours)  from  Draw- 
ings   l)y    the    Author,    Archibald 
Thorburn,    and   from    Photographs. 
Royal  4to,  cloth,  gilt  top,  £6  6.s-.  net. 
Modern  Bridge.— By  '  Slam  '.     With 
a   Reprint   of    the  Laws  of   Bridge,  as 
adopted    by    the     Portland    and    Turf 
Clubs.     18mo,  gilt  edges,  3s.  Qd.  net. 
Park.— THE    GAME   OF   GOLF.      By 
William      Park,      Jun.,      Champion 
Golfer,    1887-89.     With    17    Plates   and 
26    Illustrations   in   the   Text.      Crown 
8vo,  7s.  6d. 


Ellis.— CHESS  SPARKS  ;  or.  Short  and 
Bright  Games  of  Chess.  Collected  and 
Arranged  by  J.  H.  Ellis,  M.A.  8vo, 
4s,  6d. 

Folkard.— THE  WILD-FOWLER:  A 
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24 


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Poetry  and  the  Drama — continued. 


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Fiction,   Humour,  etc. 


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26     LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


Fiction,   Humour,  etc. — continued. 
Doyle  (Sir  A.  Conan).  Haggard  (H.  Rider) — conti/med. 


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LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS.      27 


Fiction,   Humour,  etc. — continued. 


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Howard.  —  THE  FAILURE  OF 
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Hutchinson.  —  A  FRIEND  OF 
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son.    Crown  8vo,  Qs. 

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Joyce.— OLD  CELTIC  ROMANCES. 
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lated from  the  Gaelic.  By  P.  W.  Joyce, 
LL.D.     Crown  8vo,  3s.  M. 

Lang  (Andrew). 
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THE  DISENTANGLERS.  With  7 
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Lyall  (Edna). 

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DOREEN.  The  Story  of  a  Singer. 
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WAYFARING  MEN.      Crown  8vo,  6s. 

HOPE  THE  HERMIT  :  a  Romance  of 
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Marchmont.— IN  THE  NAME  OF  A 
WOMAN  :  a  Romance.  By  Arthur 
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Mason  and  Lang.— P  ARSON 
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Max  Miiller.— DEUTSCHE  LIEBE 
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German  by  G.  A.  M.  Crown  8vo,  gilt 
top,  fts. 

Melville  (G.  J.  Whyte). 


The  Gladiators. 
The  Interpreter. 
Good  for  Nothing. 
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Holmby  House. 
Kate  Coventry. 
Digby  Grand. 
Genei-al  Bounce. 


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THE  STORY  OF  THE  GLITTERING 
PLAIN,  which  has  been  also  called 
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THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  MOUNTAINS, 
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A  DREAM  OF  JOHN  BALL,  AND 
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28      LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


Fiction,  Humour,  etc. — continued. 

Morris  (William) — continued. 

NEWS  FROM  NOWHERE:  or,  An 
Epoch  of  Rest.  Being  some  Chapters 
from  an  Utopian  Romance.  Post  8vo, 
Is.  6(1 


Stebbing.  -  RACHEL    WULFSTAN, 

and  other  Stories.  By  W.  Stebbing, 
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landic by  EiRfKR  MAGNtissoN  and 
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THREE  NORTHERN  LOVE 
STORIES,  and  other  Tales.  Trans- 
lated from  the  Icelandic  by  EiRfKR 
Magndsson  and  William  Morris. 
Crown  Svo,  6s.  net. 
*»*  For  Mr.  William  Morris's  other 
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Newrman  (Cardinal). 

LOSS   AND   GAIN  :     The   Story   of  a 

Convert.     Crown   8vo,   3s.  Qd. 
CALLISTA  :     a    Tale    of    the     Third 

Century.     Crown  Svo,   3s.   M. 

Phillipps-Wolley.— SNAP  :  A  Le- 
gend of  the  Lone  Mountain.  By  C. 
Phillipps-Wolley.  With  13  Illustra- 
tions.     Crown  Svo,   3s.   &d. 

Portman.  —  STATION  STUDI ES  : 
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By  Lionel  Portman.     Cr.  Svo,  5.s.  net. 

Sewell  (Elizabeth  M.). 

A  Glimpse  of  the  World.    Amy  Herbert. 

Laneton  Parsonage.  Cleve  Hall. 

Margaret  Percival.  Gertrude. 

Katharine  Ashton.  Home  Life. 

The  Earl's  Daughter.  After  Life. 

The  Experience  of  Life.     Ursula.  Ivors. 

Crown  Svo,  cloth  plain,  Is.  M.  each  ; 

cloth  extra,  gilt  edges,  2s.  %d.  each. 

Sheehan.— LUKE  DELMEGE.    By  the 

Rev.    P.  A.  Sheehan,  P.P.,  Author  of 

'  My  New  Curate  '.     Crown  Svo,  6s. 

Somerville     (E.    (E.)    and     Ross 
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IRISH  R.M.      With  31  Illustrations 

by  E.  (E.  Somerville.  Crown  Svo,  6s. 
ALL  ON  THE  IRISH  SHORE :   Irish 

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Svo,    3s.  Qd. 
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THE  STRANGE  CASE  OF  DR. 
JEKYLL  AND  MR.  HYDE.  Fop. 
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THE  STRANGE  CASE  OF  DR. 
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'  Silver  Library '  Edition.      Crown 
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THE  WRONG  BOX.  By  Robert 
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Suttner.— LAY  DOWN  YOUR  ARMS 
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graphy  of  Martha  von  Tilling.  By 
Bertha  von  Suttner.  Translated  by 
T.  Holmes.     Crown  Svo,  Is.  &d. 

Trollops  (Anthony). 

THE  WARDEN.     Crown  Svo,  Is.  M. 

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CHARLOTTE.     Crown  Svo,  6s. 

ONE  OF  OURSELVES.     Cr.  Svo,  6s. 

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THE  BABY'S  GRANDMOTHER. 
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LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL    WORKS.     29 


Fiction,   Humour,  etc. — continued. 


Walford  (L.  B. ) — continued. 

COUSINS.     Crown  8vo,  Is.  6d. 

TROUBLESOME  DAUGHTERS.     Cr. 
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THE  OUTDOOR  WORLD;  or,  The 
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BUTTERFLIES  AND  MOTHS! 

(British).      With   12  coloured  Plates  , 
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LIFE   IN    PONDS    AND   STREAMS,  i 
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30     LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL    WORKS. 


Popular  Science  (Natural 

Helmholtz.— POPULAR  LECTURES 
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Hoffmann.— ALPINE  FLORA  :  For 
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Text  descriptive  of  the  most  widely  dis- 
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Millais.— THE  NATURAL  HISTORY 
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ING DUCKS.  By  John  Guille 
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Proctor  (Richard  A.). 

LIGHT  SCIENCE  FOR  LEISURE 
HOURS.  Familiar  Essays  on  Scien- 
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PLEASANT  WAYS  IN  SCIENCE. 
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*^*  Ft>r  Mr.  Proctor's  other  books  see 
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Stanley.— A  FAMILIAR  HISTORY 
OF  BIRDS.  By  E.  Stanley,  D.D., 
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Wood  (Rev.  J.  G.). 

HOMES  WITHOUT  HANDS  :  A  De- 
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LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS.    31 


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net  :  cloth,  21.s'.  lialt'-niorocco. 


Maunder  (Samcel). 

BIOGRAPHICAL  TREASURY.  With 
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THE  TREASURY  OF  BIBLE  KNOW- 
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THE  TREASURY  OF  BOTANY. 
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Composition.  By  Peter  Mark  Roget, 
M.D.,  F.R.S.  Recomposed  throughout, 
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Adelborg.  —  CLEAN  PETER  AND 
THE  CHILDREN  OF  GRUBBYLBA. 
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Wallas.  With  23  Coloured  Plates. 
Oblong  4to,  boards,  3s.  Qd.  net. 

Alick's    Adventures.      By    G.    R. 

With  8  Illustrations  by  John  Hassall. 
Crown  8vo,  3s.  6rf. 

Brown.— THE  BOOK  OF  SAINTS 
AND  FRIENDLY  BEASTS.  By 
Abbie  Fahwell  Brown.  With  8 
Illustrations  by  Fanny  Y.  Cory.  Cr. 
8vo,  4s.  Qd.  net. 


Buckland.  -TWO  LITTLE  RUN- 
AWAYS. Adapted  from  the  French 
of  Louis  Desnoyers.  By  James 
Buckland.  With  110  Illustrations  by 
Cecil  Aldin.     Crown  8vo,  6s. 


Crake  (Rev.  A.  D.). 

EDWY  THE  FAIR;  or 
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silver  top,  2s.  net. 


The    First 
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ALEGAR  THE  DANE  ;  or.  The  Second 
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THE  RIVAL  HEIRS  :  being  the  Third 
and  last  Chronicle  of  ^Escendune. 
Crown  8vo,  silver  top,  2s.  net. 

THE  HOUSE  OF  WALDERNE.  A 
Tale  of  the  Cloister  and  the  Forest  in 
the  Days  of  the  Barons'  Wars.  Cr. 
8vo,  silver  top,  2s.  net. 

BRIAN  FITZ-COUNT.  A  Story  of 
Wallingford  Castle  and  Dorchester 
Abbey.    Crown  8vo,  silver  top,  2s.  net. 


32     LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


Children's  Books — continued. 


Henty  (G.  A.).— Edited  by. 

YULE  LOGS  :  A  Story  Book  for  Boys. 

By    Various    Authoks.       With    61 

Illustrations.     Cr.  8vo,  gilt  edges,  3s. 

net. 
YULE-TIDE    YARNS:    a  Story   Book 

for    Boys.      By  Various  Authors. 

With  45   Illustrations.      Crown   8vo, 

gilt  edges,  3s.  net. 

Lang  (Andrew).— Edited  by. 

THE  BLUE  FAIRY  BOOK.  With  138 
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THE  RED  FAIRY  BOOK.  With  100 
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THE  GREEN  FAIRY  BOOK.  With 
99  Illustrations.  Crown  8vo,  gilt 
edges,  6s. 

THE  GREY  FAIRY  BOOK.  With  65 
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THE  YELLOW  FAIRY  BOOK.  With 
104  Illustrations.  Crown  Svo,  gilt 
edges,  6s. 

THE  PINK  FAIRY  BOOK.  With  67 
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THE  VIOLET  FAIRY  BOOK.  With 
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trations.    Crown  Svo,  gilt  edges,  6s. 

THE  CRIMSON  FAIRY  BOOK.  With 
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THE  BLUE  POETRY  BOOK.  With 
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edges,  6s. 

THE    TRUE    STORY    BOOK.      With 

66  Illustrations.       Crown    Svo,    gilt 
edges,  6s. 

THE     RED     TRUE    STORY    BOOK. 

With  100  Illustrations.     Cr.  Svo,  gilt 

edges,  6s. 
THE  ANIMAL  STORY  BOOK.     With 

67  Illustrations.       Crown    8vo,    gilt 
edges,  6s. 

THE  RED  BOOK  OF  ANIMAL 
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THE  ARABIAN  NIGHTS  ENTER- 
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THE  BOOK  OF  ROMANCE.  With 
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Lyall.— THE  BURGES  LETTERS:  a 
Record  of  Chilii  Life  in  the  Sixties.  By 
Edna  Lyall.  With  Coloured  Frontis- 
piece and  8  other  full-page  Illustrations 
by  Walter  S.  Stagey.  Crown  Svo, 
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Meade  (L.  T.). 
DADDY'S  BOY.     With  8  Illustrations. 

Crown  Svo,  gilt  edges,  3s.  net. 
DEB  AND  THE   DUCHESS.     With  7 

Illustration.-*.     Crown  Svo,  gilt  edges, 

3s.  net. 
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lUustratious.     Crown  Svo,  gilt  edges, 

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6  lUusti-ations.    Crown  Svo,  gilt  edges, 

3s.  net. 

Murray.— FLOWER  LEGENDS  FOR 
CHILDREN.  By  Hilda  Murray 
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Pictured  by  J.  S.  Eland.  With 
numerous  Coloured  and  other  Illustra- 
tions.    Oblong  4to,  6s. 

Penrose.— CHUBBY  :  A  NUISANCE. 
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by  G.  G.  Manton.      Crown  Svo,  3s.  Qd. 

Praeger  (Rosamond). 

THE  ADVENTURES  OF  THE 
THREE  BOLD  BABES  :  HECTOR, 
HONORIA  AND  ALISANDER.  A 
Story  in  Pictures.  With  24  Coloured 
Plates     and     24     Outline     Pictures. 

I  Oblong  4  to,   3s.   Qd. 

\  THE  FURTHER  DOINGS  OF  THE 
THREE  BOLD  BABES.  With  24 
Coloui'ed  Pictures  and  24  Outline 
Pictures.     Oblong  4to,  3s.  &d. 

Roberts.— THE  ADVENTURES  OF 
CAPTAIN  JOHN  SMITH  :  Captain  of 
Two  Hundred  and  Fifty  Horse,  and 
sometime  President  of  Virginia.  By 
E.  P.  Roberts.  With  17  Illustrations 
and  3  Maps.     Crown  Svo,  5s.  net. 

Stevenson.— A  CHILD'S  GARDEN 
OF  VERSES.  By  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson.    Fcp.  Svo,  gilt  top,  5s. 

Tappan.— OLD  BALLADS  IN  PROSE. 
By  Eva  March  Tappan.  With  4  Illu.s- 
trations  by  Fanny  Y.  Cory.  Crown 
Svo,  gilt  top,  4s.  &d.  net. 


LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL    WORKS.      33 


Children's  Books — continued. 


Upton  (Florence  K.  and  Bertha). 

THE  ADVENTURES  OF  TWO  DUTCH 
DOLLS  AND  A  'GOLLIWOGG'. 
With  31  Coloured  Plates  and  uumerous 
Illustrations  in  the  Text.    Oblong  4to, 


THE  GOLLIWOGG'S  BICYCLE 
CLUB.  With  31  Coloured  Plates 
and  numerous  Illustrations  in  the 
Text.     Oblong  4to,  6s. 

THE  GOLLIWOGG  AT  THE  SEA- 
SIDE. With  31  Coloured  Plates  and 
numerous  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
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THE  GOLLIWOGG  IN  WAR.  With 
31  Coloured  Plates.     Oblong  4to,  6s. 

THE  GOLLIWOGG'S  POLAR  AD- 
VENTURES. With  31  Coloured 
Plates.     Oblong  4to,  6s. 


Upton  (Florence  K.   and   Bertha)— 

continued. 

THE  GOLLIWOGG'S  AUTO-GO- 
CART.  With  31  Coloured  Plates 
and  numerous  Illiisti-ations  in  the 
Text.     Oblong  4to,  6s. 

THE  GOLLIWOGG'S  AIR-SHIP. 
With  30  Coloured  Plates  and 
numerous  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Oblong  4to,  6s. 

THE  GOLLIWOGG'S  CIRCUS.  With 
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lustrations in  the  Text.  01)long4to,  6s. 

THE  VEGE-MEN'S  REVENGE.  With 
31  Coloured  Plates  and  numerous  Illus- 
trations in  the  Text.    Oblong  4to,  6s. 

Wemyss.  — '  THINGS  WE  THOUGHT 
OF '  :  Told  from  a  Child's  Point  of 
View.  Bv  Mary  C.  E.  Wemyss, 
Author  of  '  All  About  All  of  Us  '.  With 
8  Illustrations  in  Colour  by  S.  R. 
Praeger.     Crown  8vo,  3s.  M. 


THE    SILVER   LIBRARY. 

Crown  Svo,  3s.  Qd.  each  Volume. 


Arnold's  (Sir    Edwin) 

With  71  Ilhistrations 


Seas 

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and 

M. 


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Bagehot's     (W.)     Biographical      Studies. 

3s.  6(1 
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Bagehot's  (W.)  Literary   Studies.     With 

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Baker's  (Sir  S.  W.)  Eight  Years  in  Ceylon. 

With  6  Illustrations.    .3s.  &d. 


Baker's  iSir  S.  W.i  Rifle  and  Hound  in 
Ceylon.     With  6  Illustrations.     3s.  &d. 
Baring-Gould's  (Rev.  S.)  Curious  Myths  of    Dougairs(L.)Beggars  All;  a  Novel 


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3s.  M. 


the  Middle  Ages.     3s.  M. 

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Bent's  (J.  T.)  The  Ruined  Cities  of  Ma- 
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Doyle's  (Sir  A.  Conan)  The  Stark  Munro 
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34     LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


THE  SILVER  UBRXRY— continued. 

Proude's  (J.  A.)  The  English  in  Ireland.  Haggard's   (H.    R.)   Montezuma's    Daugh- 

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of  Aragon.     3s.   M.  Great  Trek.  With  8  Illustrations.  3s.  6fZ. 

Froude's  (J.    A.)    The    Spanish    Story  of  Haggard's 

the  Armada,  and  other  Essays.     3.s'.  loil. 
Froude's  (J.   A.)   English   Seamen  in   the 


(H.    R.)    The 


Sixteenth  Century.     Zs.  ivf. 
Froude's  (J.  A.)  Short  Studies  on   Great 

Subjects.     4  vols.      3.s.  6d.  each. 
Froude's    (J,    A.)    Oceana,     or    England 

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Froude's   (J.    A.)    The    Council   of  Trent. 

3s.   6*/. 
Froude's  (J,  A.)  The  Life  and  Letters  of    Haggard's  (H.  R 


Witch's    Head. 

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Haggard's  (H.  R.)  Mr.  Meeson's  Will. 
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Haggard's  (H.  R.)  Nada  the  Lily.  With 
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Haggard's  (H.  R.)  Dawn.  With  16  Illus- 
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Haggard's  (H.  R.)  The  People  of  the  Mist. 

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Erasmus.     3s.  6c^. 
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Froude's  (J.  A.)  Caesar :  a  Sketch.    3s.  6^^. 
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boy  :  an  Irish  Romance  of  the  Last  Cen- 
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Harte's  (Bret)  In  the  Carquinez  Woods, 
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Greville's     (C.    C.    F.)     Journal    of    the    Jefferies^  (R.)  The  Story  of  My  Heart:  My 


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Haggard's    (H.    R.)     Allan     Quatermain. 

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Knight's  (E.  F.)  Where  Three  Empires 
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Gilgit.  With  a  Map  and  54  Illustra- 
tions.    3s.  6d. 


LOMGMANS  and  CO.'S  STANDAkD  AND  GENERAL    WORK^.     35 


THE  SILVER  LIBRARY— co«//;/?/W. 

The    Orbs  Around   Us 


Knight's  (E.  F.)  The  'Falcon'  on  the 
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mersmith to  Copenhagen  in  a  Three- 
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LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL    WORKS.     37 


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38     LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL    WORKS. 


The  Fine  Arts  and  Music — continued. 


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LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL    WORKS. 


39 


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Gilford  Lectures,  1890. 

Vol.  III.  Anthropological  Reli- 
gion :   the  Giflford  Lectures,  1891. 

Vol  IV.  Theosophy;  or.  Psycholo- 
gical Religion  :  the  Gilford  Lectures, 
1892. 

Chips  from  a  German  Workshop. 

Vol.  V.    Recent  Essays  and  Addre.sses. 

Vol.  VI.     Biographical  E.ssays. 

Vol.  VII.  E.ssays  on  Language  and 
Literature. 

Vol.  VIII.  Essays  on  Mythology  and 
Folk-lore. 


Vol.  IX.  The  Origin  and  Growth 
OF  Religion,  as  illustrated  by  the 
Religions  of  India  :  the  Hibbert 
Lectures,  1878. 

Vol.  X.  Biographies  op  Words,  and 
THE  Home  of  the  Aryas. 

Vols.  XL,  XII.  The  Science  op 
Language  :  Founded  on  Lectures 
delivered  at  the  Royal  Institution 
in  1861  and  1863.     2  vols.     10s. 

Vol.  XIII.  India  :  What  can  it  Teach 
Us? 

Vol.  XIV.  Introduction  to  the 
Science  of  Religion.  Four  Lec- 
tures, 1870. 

Vol.  XV.  RAMAKR/SHiVA  :  his  Life 
and  Sayings. 

VoL  XVI.  Titree  Lectures  on  the 
Vedanta  Philosophy,  1894. 

Vol.  XVII.  Last  Essays.  First 
Series.  Essays  on  Language,  Folk- 
lore, etc. 

Vol.  XVIII.  Last  Essays.  Second 
Series.  Essays  on  the  Science  of 
Religion. 


40     LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


Miscellaneous  and  Critical  V^or\^s— continued. 


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