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ART. XI.-Lecture on the present State of the Cultivation of Oriental Literature. By PROFESSOR H. H. WILSON, Director of the Royal Asiatic Society.

[Delivered January 24th, 1852.]

Ir has been judged possible, by the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society, that the objects for which the Society was founded, and for which it is maintained, may be made more generally known, and more accurately appreciated, by the adoption of arrangements of a more popular character than our ordinary proceedings, and which may interest a more numerous and varied portion of the public than the Members of the Society only, in matters concerning the Eastern World. It is not to be denied that the subjects which in a peculiar degree engage the attention of the Society,-the antiquities and literature of the nations of the East,-have hitherto failed to receive that attention from the public at large which might have been expected, if not from their own inherent interest, yet from our long and intimate intercourse with the most important countries of Asia, and the political identification of India and Great Britain. Works of high merit, elucidating Oriental literature, history, antiquities, religion, the conditions of Asiatic society in past or present times, and descriptive of the products of art or nature in the East, usually meet with a cold and discouraging reception, even from the reading world, or at most attract passing and ephemeral notice, leaving no durable impression, creating no continuous and progressive interest. It is with the hope of applying some corrective to this state of indifference, and of extending and keeping alive some permanent feeling of interest in the East, and in India especially, that the Society has determined to try the experiment of widening the sphere of its operations, by inviting the attendance of those friends and associates, who, without having time or opportunity to pursue independent inquiry, may be well disposed to accept such general information, as those members of the Society, who are more or less assiduously occupied in exploring the sources of that information, may be in a condition to communicate through the medium of an occasional lecture. The Society also invites the assistance of other qualified individuals who are not associates, but who, from the inci

ART. XI.-Lecture on the present State of the Cultivation of Oriental Literature. By PROFESSOR H. H. WILSON, Director of the Royal Asiatic Society.

[Delivered January 24th, 1852.]

Ir has been judged possible, by the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society, that the objects for which the Society was founded, and for which it is maintained, may be made more generally known, and more accurately appreciated, by the adoption of arrangements of a more popular character than our ordinary proceedings, and which may interest a more numerous and varied portion of the public than the Members of the Society only, in matters concerning the Eastern World. It is not to be denied that the subjects which in a peculiar degree engage the attention of the Society, the antiquities and literature of the nations of the East,-have hitherto failed to receive that attention from the public at large which might have been expected, if not from their own inherent interest, yet from our long and intimate intercourse with the most important countries of Asia, and the political identification of India and Great Britain. Works of high merit, elucidating Oriental literature, history, antiquities, religion, the conditions of Asiatic society in past or present times, and descriptive of the products of art or nature in the East, usually meet with a cold and discouraging reception, even from the reading world, or at most attract passing and ephemeral notice, leaving no durable impression, creating no continuous and progressive interest. It is with the hope of applying some corrective to this state of indifference, and of extending and keeping alive some permanent feeling of interest in the East, and in India especially, that the Society has determined to try the experiment of widening the sphere of its operations, by inviting the attendance of those friends and associates, who, without having time or opportunity to pursue independent inquiry, may be well disposed to accept such general information, as those members of the Society, who are more or less assiduously occupied in exploring the sources of that information, may be in a condition to communicate through the medium of an occasional lecture. The Society also invites the assistance of other qualified individuals who are not associates, but who, from the inci

dental direction of their studies, may be in possession of interesting results connected with the East in general, and India in particular, in those departments of knowledge which other institutions and societies have been established to cultivate.

The multiplication of literary and scientific associations, whilst it has had the effect of spreading over a wider surface the accumulating treasures of intellectual acquirements, and so far contributed to their more universal currency, has, at the same time, been detrimental to their collective aggregation in one comprehensive and easily accessible repository. In the case of our Society, for instance, a variety of communications on subjects within its especial province, the geography, geology, statistics, numismatics, even the literature and antiquities of India, are to be found, not where they would most naturally be looked for, in the pages of an Asiatic Journal, specifically dedicated to the illustration of India in all its relations, but scattered through the several journals of as many societies as there are subjects of investigation. The Royal Asiatic Society contemplates these excursive divergences of its natural resources with no unfriendly feeling. So long as the public are put in possession of desirable knowledge through an appropriate channel, it matters little which medium is preferred; and the more popular the medium, the wider its circulation, the more advantageous its selection. Without interfering, however, or wishing in any way to interfere with the spontaneous choice of the channels through which contributors to our knowledge of the East may deem fit to communicate their inquiries to the public, it has appeared to the Council of the Asiatic Society practicable to combine the advantages of publication in other journals with a less formal and lasting communication of the subjects of such publications to the occasional meetings of this Society. A popular and general view in this place of topics more fully illustrated elsewhere, will not detract from the value of the published details; and the oral notice of any new and interesting circumstances relating to the East, which may be submitted to such an assemblage as the present, will not in the least impair the usefulness or interest of the same matter when given to a totally different meeting, or when assuming its state of typographical immortality. The Council, therefore, hope that they may expect the aid in this form-in the form of an occasional lecture-of the associates even of kindred societies, when their researches may chance to take a direction which falls within the legitimate precincts of the Asiatic Society, within which they may reasonably expect to meet with many who will take a lively