lived in better times, and we almost grudge so high and noble a character to a country not our own, and to a religion unworthy of such a man. Of selfishness we find no trace in him. His whole life belonged to the faith in which he was born, and the objects of his labour was not so much to perfect himself as to benefit others. He was an honest man. And strange, and stiff, and absurd, and outlandish as his outward appearance may seem, there is something in the face of that poor Chinese monk, with his yellow skin and his small oblique eyes, that appeals to our sympathy--something in his life, and the work of his life, that places him by right among the heroes of Greece, the martyrs of Rome, the knights of the crusades, the explorers of the Arctic regions--something that makes us feel it a duty to inscribe his name on the roll of the 'forgotten worthies' of the human race. There is a higher consanguinity than that of the blood which runs through our veins--that of the blood which makes our hearts beat with the same indignation and the same joy. And there is a higher nationality than that of being governed by the same imperial dynasty--that of our common allegiance to the Father and Ruler of all mankind. It is but right to state that we owe the publication, at least of the second volume of M. Julien's work, to the liberality of the Court of Directors of the East-India Company. We have had several opportunities of pointing out the creditable manner in which that body has patronized literary and scientific works connected with the East, and we congratulate the Chairman, Colonel Sykes, and the President of the Board of Control, Mr. Vernon Smith, on the excellent choice they have made in this instance. Nothing can be more satisfactory than that nearly the whole edition of a work which would have remained unpublished without their liberal assistance, has been sold in little more than a month. _April, 1857._ XI. THE MEANING OF NIRVÂNA. _To the Editor of_ THE TIMES. Sir,--Mr. Francis Barham, of Bath, has protested in a letter, printed in 'The Times' of the 24th of April, against my interpretations of Nirvâ_n_a, or the summum bonum of the Buddhists. He maintains that the Nirvâ_n_a in which the Buddhists believe, and which they represent as the highest goal of their religion and philosophy, means union and communion with God, or absorption of the individual soul by the divine essence, and not, as I tried to show in my articles on the 'Buddhist Pilgrims,' utter annihilation.