We are all the more pleased, therefore, that a young German scholar, Dr. Haug--who through the judicious recommendation of Mr. Howard, Director of Public Instruction in the Bombay Presidency, was appointed to a Professorship of Sanskrit in the Poona College--should have grasped the opportunity, and devoted himself to a thorough study of the sacred literature of the Parsis. He went to India well prepared for his task, and he has not disappointed the hopes which those who knew him entertained of him on his departure from Germany. Unless he had been master of his subject before he went to Poona, the assistance of the Dustoors would have been of little avail to him. But knowing all that could be known in Europe of the Zend language and literature, he knew what questions to ask, he could check every answer, and he could learn with his eyes what it is almost impossible to learn from books--namely, the religious ceremonial and the ritual observances which form so considerable an element in the Vendidad and Vispered. The result of his studies is now before us in a volume of 'Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Parsees,' published at Bombay, 1862. It is a volume of only three hundred and sixty-eight pages, and sells in England for one guinea. Nevertheless, to the student of Zend it is one of the cheapest books ever published. It contains four Essays: 1. History of the Researches into the Sacred Writings and Religion of the Parsees from the earliest times down to the present; 2. Outline of a Grammar of the Zend Language; 3. The Zend-Avesta, or the Scripture of the Parsees; 4. Origin and Development of the Zoroastrian Religion. The most important portion is the Outline of the Zend Grammar; for, though a mere outline, it is the first systematic grammatical analysis of that curious language. In other languages, we generally begin by learning the grammar, and then make our way gradually through the literature. In Zend, the grammatical terminations had first to be discovered by a careful anatomy of the literature. The Parsis themselves possessed no such work. Even their most learned priests are satisfied with learning the Zend-Avesta by heart, and with acquiring some idea of its import by means of a Pehlevi translation, which dates from the Sassanian period, or of a Sanskrit translation of still later date. Hence the translation of the Zend-Avesta published by Anquetil Duperron, with the assistance of Dustoor Dârâb, was by no means trustworthy. It was, in fact, a French translation of a Persian rendering of a Pehlevi version of the Zend original. It was Burnouf who, aided by his knowledge of Sanskrit, and his familiarity with the principles of comparative grammar, approached, for the first time, the very words of the Zend original. He had to conquer every inch of ground for himself, and his 'Commentaire sur le Yasna' is, in fact, like the deciphering of one long inscription, only surpassed in difficulty by his later