generation? Was he not at liberty--nay, would he not have felt it his duty, to explain apparent difficulties, to remove contradictions, and to correct palpable mistakes? In our time, when even the contemporaneous evidence of Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, or Jornandes is sifted by the most uncompromising scepticism, we must not expect a more merciful treatment for the annals of Buddhism. Scholars engaged in special researches are too willing to acquiesce in evidence, particularly if that evidence has been discovered by their own efforts and comes before them with all the charms of novelty. But, in the broad daylight of historical criticism, the prestige of such a witness as Buddhaghosha soon dwindles away, and his statements as to kings and councils eight hundred years before his time are in truth worth no more than the stories told of Arthur by Geoffrey of Monmouth, or the accounts we read in Livy of the early history of Rome. One of the most important works of M. Grimblot's collection, and one that we hope will soon be published, is a history of Buddhism in Ceylon, called the Dîpavansa. The only work of the same character which has hitherto been known is the Mahâvansa, published by the Honourable George Turnour. But this is professedly based on the Dîpavansa, and is probably of a much later date. Mahânâma, the compiler of the Mahâvansa, lived about 500 A. D. His work was continued by later chroniclers to the middle of the eighteenth century. Though Mahânâma wrote towards the end of the fifth century after Christ, his own share of the chronicle seems to have ended with the year 302 A.D., and a commentary which he wrote on his own chronicle likewise breaks off at that period. The exact date of the Dîpavansa is not yet known; but as it also breaks off with the death of Mahâsena in 302 A.D., we cannot ascribe to it, for the present, any higher authority than could be commanded by a writer of the fourth century after Christ.