The deficiency, supposing all to be recoverable, is 1,349 13 1, or almost precisely what it was last year; so that our present price exactly pays the expenses of publication.

The bulk of the volume has gone increasing at the usual rate, and instead of eight hundred pages, we have now risen to eleven hundred, with sixty plates; too much to be conveniently bound up in one volume. We have therefore provided separate title pages to enable those, who so prefer, to divide the annual volume into two parts with an index, common to both, at the conclusion of the second part.

The prominent subject of public discussion (to imitate the order of preceding prefaces) as far as the Asiatic Society is concerned, has been THE MUSEUM,-the memorial to the local government-now under reference to the Court of Directors,suggesting that the Society's collection of antiquities and natura] history should form the nucleus of an extensive national establishment, in the present day almost "an essential engine of education, instructive alike to the uninformed, who admires the wonders of nature through the eye alone, and to the refined student who seeks in these repositories what it would be quite out of his power to procure with his own means." It is to be hoped that this appeal to the court will not share the fate of the oriental publication memorial of 1835, which is still unacknowledged; but that we shall soon have an answer embracing the united objects of the Society's solicitude, and enabling her to advance boldly in her schemes to secure for herself, and for the British name the glory of placing India physical, moral, and historical,' upon the records of literature. What could be adduced as a more convincing argumentum' (ad ignorantiam dare we say?) than the fact that at this moment a French gen

6

tleman of fortune well grounded in Sanskrit and other oriental studies at Paris, is come to Calcutta, about to retrace the steps of the French naturalists DUVAUCEL and JACQUEMONT in the interest of the antiquarian, as they travelled in that of the physical sciences. He contemplates exploring Gaur, Patiliputra, Magadha, Mithila, Kási, Ayudhya, Nipál, Kemaon, the Panjáb Affghanistan, Tibet; then the Jain provinces, as they may be called, of Márwár and Málwá, and finally the cave antiquities of Western India*.

We wish M. THEROULDE every success, we proffer him every aid; yet we do so not without a blush that any thing should be left for a foreigner to explore! India, however, is large enough for us all to run over without jostling, and we cannot allow that inactivity is at the present moment a reproach against our Society or our governors. We have expeditions in Cashmir, Sinde, Bhotán, Ava, Maulmain, all well provided with scientific adjuncts, and contributing to our maps, our cabinets, and our commerce. Our Societies were never more vigorous. The Agricultural of Calcutta is become exceedingly active. The Geographical of Bombay has opened the field with an interesting volume and a journal of proceedings; and in science we have to boast of the brilliant progress of experiment and magnetic discovery due to one whom we should be happy at having enlisted among our own members. With his colleagues of the Medical College,

* We cannot omit to notice here another laudable demonstration of the greater honor that awaits literary merit at Paris than in London-making full allowance for the proverbial truth that a prophet must seek honor out of his own country. We have just learnt that the French Government has ordered a gold medal to be struck for, and the decoration of the Legion of Honour to be bestowed on Mr. B. H. HODGSON, in return for the valuable donation of Sanskrit manuscripts presented by him to the Asiatic Society of Paris, and in token of their appreciation of the great services he has rendered to oriental literature. Neither in this case is the reward blindly given, nor the present disregarded; for we know that the Sanskrit scholars of Paris have already dipped profoundly into the contents of the Nipalese Buddhist volumes, and in a short time we may expect a full analysis of them. As a comment on this announcement we may add that similar donations more extensive and more valuable were long since presented by the same party to the Royal Asiatic Society and to the College of Fort William, and that (with exception of the Tibetan portion so well analysed by M. CSOMA) they remain as yet sealed books.

Professor O'SHAUGHNESSY has drawn off to their own valuable publication, the subjects of chemical and physical interest to which we should otherwise have felt ourselves blameable in not offering a conspicuous place. While far different occupations have prevented our passing in review the very promising discoveries in this novel and enticing science, to which their public exhibition has now familiarized the society of Calcutta, the sight of models of magnetic motors and explosive engines worked by gas and spark, both generated by galvanism alone, leads us to suggest that mechanics and the arts should have been included among the proper objects of our projected national museum. An Adelaide gallery would do more to improve the native mind for invention than all the English printed works we would place before them.

But we are as usual wandering from the legitimate objects of a preface. Our own attention has been principally taken up this last year with Inscriptions. Without the knowledge necessary to read and criticise them thoroughly, we have nevertheless made a fortunate acquisition in palæography which has served as the key to a large series of ancient writings hitherto concealed from our knowledge. We cannot consent to quit the pursuit until we shall have satiated our curiosity by a scrutiny of all these records-records as Dr. MILL says, "which are all but certainly established to belong to and to illustrate a most classical and important part of the history of this country." In our hasty and undigested mode of publication, we are doubtless open to continual corrections and change of views: as a talented and amusing satire on our present predilection for old stones and old coins, in the Meerut Magazine describes it,-if not satisfied with one account our readers have only to wait for the next journal to find it discarded and another adopted, as in the case of the Bactro-pehlevi alphabet.'

*

The learned M. E. BURNOUF in a most interesting article inserted in the Journal des Savans for June, says, alluding to the Burmese inscription at Gaya published first in the journal, and

* On the grand work of the Chinese Buddhist traveller FoE KOUE KI, lately published at the expense of the French Government, through the labour of three successive editors MM. REMUSAT, KLAPROTH and LANDRESSE. Alas! when shall we in India have an opportunity of seeing these works at any tolerable period after their publication?-ED.

afterwards more completely commented upon by Colonel BURNEY, il faut le dire à l'honneur des membres de la Société Asiatique du Bengale, le zele qui les anime pour l'etude des antiquités de l' Inde est si soutenu et si heureusement secondé par la plus belle position dans laquelle une réunion de savants ne soit jamais trouvée, que les monuments et les textes quils mettent chaque jour en lumière se succèdent avec une rapidité que la critique peut à peine suivre." While they are taken up with an object once published, we are republishing or revising or adding more matured illustration to it. Some may call this system an inconvenient waste of space and tax on readers, who are entitled to have their repast served up in the most complete style at once, and should not be tantalized with fresh yet immature morceaux from month to month. We, however, think the plan adopted is most suitable to an ephemeral journal, which collects materials and builds up the best structure for immediate accommodation, although it may be soon destined to be knocked down again and replaced by a more polished and classical edifice :—diruit ædificat; mutat quadrata rotundis,-may still be said of our journal, without imputing capricious motives to our habit of demolition. We build not fanciful theories, but rather collect good stones for others to fashion, and unless we advertize them from the first, with some hint of their applicability, how should architects be invited to inspect and convert them to the "benefit and pleasure of mankind ?"—hitasukháya manusánam,-as the stone pillars at Delhi and Allahabad quaintly express the object of their erection.

Connected with the subject of these remarks we would fain in this place give insertion (and we will do so hereafter) to a valuable series of criticisms on the matter of our last volume contained in M. JACQUET'S correspondence. It is just what we most desire. With the aid of an index, such additional information and correction is as good as if incorporated with the text, to the reader who in future days wishes to ferret out all that has been done on a particular subject; and we would have all our contributors and readers bear in mind that our journal, though it has long changed its title, does not pretend to have changed its original character of being a mere collection of "Gleanings."

Calcutta, 1st January, 1838.