losophy, and this must be considered the first movement in the direction towards which Dr. Ballantyne's labours are all turned. At length arrived the present Principal, who having recorded his impression in looking back on the year 1846-47 that in the studies of the Sanscrit College all improvement at present must be in the way of addition not of substitution, proceeded in 1847-48 to try an experiment. What was the experiment? To translate Duns Scotus into Sanscrit probably? On the contrary, to introduce the study of English into the Sanscrit College. This experiment with a little difficulty at the outset gradually succeeded, and an English class of Pandits was formed. For their use the Principal prepared an English Grammar in Sanscrit, existing Grammars being as he himself expresses it, "with reference to the Pandits, at once redundant and defective, inasmuch as these manuals take for granted that the learner knows nothing of grammar as a science, and that his vernacular is English or a language of a similar idiom." In the next session then, after the experiment was tried, the students of English consisted of the regular pupils of that department and the Sanscrit students who had been induced to begin English. Between these two bodies, though speaking the same vernacular, no interchange of conversation on the subject of their studies could take place, for, as the Principal observed, "the technical terms with which they were respectively familiar, being the product of opposite theories, were not convertible by one who was not conversant with both." He goes on to say, "The consequence is that the Pandits, in full reliance upon a dogmatic, and, as they think, inspired philosophy, which has stood the discussior (such as it has yet encountered) of centuries, look with calm superiority on the pretensions of a more modest philosophy, which avows that it is only progressing towards that perfection which it cannot hope to reach; whils on the other hand, our English students, struck by the inposing methodical completeness of the brahminical systen, which they cannot comprehend in detail, and bewildered in every attempt to cope with the dialectical subtlety of the Pandits, who, they see perfectly, though unintelligibe to the English student, are quite intelligible to each other, become possessed by an uneasy feeling, that there is more, if they could but come at it, in the Sanscrit philosophy than is dreamt of in ours."

In some way to remove this barrier, and to enable the English students in some degree to judge of the where abouts of their Sanscrit compeers in mental cultivation, the Principal prepared an English version of the Sanscrit School Grammar, the "Laghu Kaumudi," with references and comments. This book is an abridgment of the "Siddhánta Kaumudi," which again itself is an arrangement of the celebrated work of Panini, a sage, who, with great ingenuity condensed the canons of grammar into so small a space as to render them utterly unintelligible without the aid of a conjectural commentary. "The peculiar advantage," says the Principal, "of studying the Sanscrit grammar in the shape in which it is presented in the Kaumudi,' is this, that the learner is thus prepared to avail himself of the rich treasures of Sanscrit philology."

Besides the publication of this Grammar, the Principal prepared and delivered a set of lectures on the Nyaya philosophy, This system was selected, because whilst the Vedanta attempts to form a philosophical theory of the universe from the inspired pages of the Vedas, and the Sankhiya (having suppressed the Deity) to dream a gradual development of the universe from the primordial essence, the Nyaya* is an attempt to present a physical and metaphysical theory of the universe in the shape of a philosophical arrangement. This system was therefore best suited to the Principal's purposes. " Of it," he says, "I have chiefly made use in laying the foundation of an attempt to present to the students of the Sanscrit College an equally comprehensive view of the universe, divested of those errors, in their own Nyaya, which modern observation and experiment have shown to be such, and giving somewhat of its due to the physical departments of science, which were much less prominent in the original exposition of the Nyaya doctrine than its metaphysics, to which the physics were entirely subordinated, as they have ever since remained." The text book taken was the " Tarka Sangraha." Sentence was read by sentence, translated and commented on in English, so that the regular English students could easily follow.

During the same session, the Principal also delivered to the class of Pandits part of a course of lectures in Sanscrit on the "Mutual Relations of the Sciences." When, in the

* A practice prevailed of calling the Nyaya system, "Hindu logic," but logic is only a part of it. However, till later years the word has been loosely used, Dr. Watts baptized his amazing sabject," Logic."

due exposition of this subject, he came to " Part 3, Metaphysics," some natural astonishment fell upon his auditors, the pudding bag was discovered in the midst of the pudding, they having been accustomed to look upon Metaphysics as the one science which formed a receptacle for all the others.

To silence, however, objections, he promised that he would afterwards give a full exposition of the sciences with an arrangement modelled on their own. This promise he is now fulfilling in his "Synopsis of science" for which the arrangement of Gautama's Aphorisms has been adopted as a frame-work.

It is erroneous to suppose, however, that these Aphorisms can be made into a frame-work without planing and chiselling and dovetailing and hammering of an extensive description. Take an instance. Take a subdivision of a Nyaya category-Earth, this is stated to be of two kinds, "eternal and transient, eternal in the form of atoms, transient in the form of products." To this subdivision the Principal has to join three others, water, light and air. Then for atom and mass he substitutes chemical and non-chemical. Matter, not in the form of atoms, is subdivided into" organized body, organ of sense, and organic mass." The Principal's chisel scoops out the middle division, and from the organized bodies, his plane has to shave off fiery, aqueous and aërial. Under the head of organized bodies come in our Zoology and Botany, the Hindoos admitting that animals and plants have both organized bodies, their difference being marked by the absence or presence of the power of locomotion, with which distinction the Principal expresses himself generally satisfied, though we should think some of the molluscs, and the zoophytes would trouble him here. Then, under the inorganic mass, he places his Geography, Geology and Astronomy. From this specimen, it may be seen that a vast deal of alteration and adaptation is necessary before the framework can be in any way made to serve the purpose required.

Subsequently, the Principal has prepared for the use of the students in the English department, a lecture on the Sankhya and a lecture on the Vedanta philosophy. The "Sahitya Darpana" also has been selected as a portion of the course of Sanscrit study designed for the English department. This work, it appears, is a treatise on the

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graces of language and their employment in rhetoric; it was from the pen of Viswanatha Kaviraja, and is considered the standard of taste among the learned Hindoos.

Enough, we think, will now have been said to show that the system which the Principal of the Benares College has been pursuing, if a mighty maze, is not at any rate without a plan.

For this system he claims that it tends " to make the English and Sanscrit departments of the College understand each other on subjects, in regard to which hitherto the students of the two departments, though speaking the same vernaculars, could as little understand each other as the inhabitants of separate planets with separate natural laws." He claims also that he has enlisted Sanscrit on the side of progress, and that he has endeavoured to make the learning of the Hindoos a strong ally, instead of a stubborn opponent. And we think he has a fair right to the admission of all these claims. We have purposely reserved to this place the notice of another view of Dr. Ballantyne, which, as it does not seem to us in the least degree connected with his great plan, had better not be confused with it. He considers the Sanscrit language would be the best source for the supply of compounded words to correspond with our philosophical and scientific terms, in communicating modern knowledge by means of the vernacular languages. Here we gladly take his opinion as a guide, and believe, on his authority, that the Sanscrit would prove abundantly opulent for that purpose. And now that we think we have both discerned, and (after a feeble fashion), narrated what is being done at Benares, let us warn whomsoever has followed us thus far, that we are entering the region of commentary, so that he may swiftly make his escape if he should be indifferent to our opinions.

We know no fresher or more agreeable hand-book of Metaphysics than Mr. Lewes' Biography of Philosophy, but yet he speaks (in his preface) mournfully of this wisdom, as Solomon had spoken far more mournfully of all wisdom before him, that it ends only in vexation of spirit. And we hope it will not prejudice the candour with which we have sought to understand operations at Benares if we confess that, to our mind, after full consideration, it appears that this also is vanity.

In the first place, we cannot but think that the influence of the Pandits on the public mind of the native population

is greatly over-rated, and here we join issue with the writer in the Delhie Gazette, whom we before quoted.

Where is it exerted? We know that it prevails at Benares and Nuddeeah. But what is its weight at Allahabad, at Agra, at Meerut, at all the large towns in these Provinces? Something very small. Really, from all we can learn, something very small. There is now in this part of the country a tolerably successful native Press. Much occurs in the pages of these journals on the subject of Musselman tenets, and, surely, if in all quarters there was a stealthy, watchful, skilful influence abroad on the part of the Pandits, like that attributed (rightly or wrongly) to the Society of Jesus, this means, such as it is, would not be neglected of strengthening the ancient faith in the minds of a considerable body of such middle classes as the present state of native society affords; for the very small circulation of the native papers is not a fair criterion of how many read them, as they are often lent.

But we are constantly in the habit of inspecting these little journals, and can testify that no advantage is taken of them to entrench the ground of Hindooism. In fact, the only paper which seems to view with alarm our efforts towards public enlightenment is a Benares one, which has recommended parents once or twice not to send their children to Missionary schools where Christianity is inculcated, but rather to the Government Colleges where there will be no danger of their picking up religious heresies of any kind. Now, we hold that if the efforts of the Pandits were mysterious, united, universal as some allege, the "progress" spoken of by Dr. Ballantyne would be very soon detected, its tendency discerned, and resort to the Benares College finally discouraged.

Only thirty-six miles north of the city where this Magazine is published, is Muthra. Every one knows that place to be the scene of the incarnation of Vishnu as Krishna, the darling of the milk-maids and the hero of the Mahabharata. To it and to its sister town Bindrabun, many Bengalis and others retire in the close of life. The latter place especially is considered a propitious spot in which to die, and indeed any one who had once encountered its monkeys, and passed through its bazars would naturally conclude it was not a place in which to live. The neighbourhood of Muthra is the mysterious and sanctified district of Brij, and to make the circuit of the Twenty-four Woods, as it is called, many