Well might M. Stanislas Julien put εὕρηκα on the title-page of his last work, in which he explains his method of deciphering the Sanskrit words which occur in the Chinese translations of the Buddhist literature of India. We endeavoured to explain the laborious character and the important results of his researches on this subject on a former occasion, when reviewing his translation of the 'Life and Travels of the Buddhist Pilgrim Hiouen-thsang.' At that time, however, M. Julien kept the key of his discoveries to himself. He gave us the results of his labours without giving us more than a general idea of the process by which those results had been obtained. He has now published his 'Méthode pour déchiffrer et transcrire les noms sanscrits qui se rencontrent dans les livres chinois,' and he has given to the public his Chinese-Sanskrit dictionary, the work of sixteen years of arduous labour, containing all the Chinese characters which are used for representing phonetically the technical terms and proper names of the Buddhist literature of India. [Footnote 91: 'Méthode pour déchiffrer et transcrire les noms sanscrits qui se rencontrent dans les livres chinois.' Par M. Stanislas Julien, Membre de l'Institut. Paris, 1861.] In order fully to appreciate the labours and discoveries of M. Julien in this remote field of Oriental literature, we must bear in mind that the doctrine of Buddha arose in India about two centuries before Alexander's invasion. It became the state religion of India soon after Alexander's conquest, and it produced a vast literature, which was collected into a canon at a council held about 246 B.C. Very soon after that council, Buddhism assumed a proselytizing character. It spread in the south to Ceylon, in the north to Kashmir, the Himalayan countries, Tibet, and China. In the historical annals of China, on which, in the absence of anything like historical literature in Sanskrit, we must mainly depend for information on the spreading of Buddhism, one Buddhist missionary is mentioned as early as 217 B.C.; and about the year 120 B.C. a Chinese general, after defeating the barbarous tribes north of the desert of Gobi, brought back as a trophy a golden statue--the statue of Buddha. It was not, however, till the year 65 A.D. that Buddhism was officially recognised by the Chinese Emperor as a third state religion. Ever since, it has shared equal honours with the doctrines of Confucius and Lao-tse in the Celestial Empire; and it is but lately that these three established religions have had to fear the encroachments of a new rival in the creed of the Chief of the rebels.