Dr. Charles Riew has just issued the first volume of his _Catalogue of the Persian MSS. in the British Museum_ (London: 1879), containing Christian and Mohammedan Theology, and the works on History and Geography of which the Museum has a large and important collection. Amongst these are the _Jámi ut tawárikh_, written in the seventh--eighth centuries of the Hejra, and comprising the histories of all the principal Turkish and Mongol dynasties; the _Táríkh i Rashídí_, a history of the Khans of Mogolistan and of the Amirs of Kashgar; and the _Zafar Namah_, the earliest authentic history of Timur, written by his order in 1404 A.D. A brief but complete analysis of each manuscript is given, enabling scholars to refer at once and without difficulty to any portion of the histories without the labour of looking through an often voluminous manuscript. The value of such a scholar-like production as this Catalogue is cannot be over-estimated; it has, in fact, placed within reach of the student of history most important and authentic works, the very existence of which was unknown except to a few Orientalists. The second volume is already complete in MS., and will be shortly published. We shall look forward to it with great interest, as the British Museum possesses a magnificent collection of Persian poetical and other works. * * * * * A _Pahlavi Dictionary_, by Dastur Jamaspji Minocheherji Jamasp Asana, of which the first two volumes have just appeared (London: Trübner and Co., 1879), supplies a want long felt by students of the old Persian speech. Pahlavi is the name applied to the old Persian tongue, and more particularly to that phase of it which was spoken during the reigns of the Sassanian kings. It is of great interest to the philologist, inasmuch as it contains a large admixture of Semitic words, derived, however, from a different source than the Arabic element in modern Persian, and appears to be akin to the Assyrian. It is sometimes called _Huzvaresh_, though this word seems to be more properly applied to a particular method of reading, by which, when a Semitic word occurs in the text, the priest _reads_ the Aryan equivalent, just as we in English say "pounds, shillings, and pence" when we meet with the signs £ s. d., and _read_ "namely," though we write and print "videlicet" or "viz." Dastur Jamaspji Asana interprets the word _Huzvaresh_ to mean the "language of Assyria," a suggestion which, if correct, throws some light on the origin of the language. The etymology of the word Pahlavi has been the subject of much discussion, but the latest as well as the most reasonable conjecture is that of Dr. Haug (followed by the author of this Dictionary), that it is identical with _Parthva_, the Parthia of the classical writers; that most warlike and important nation having given its name to the language, just as the province of Pars has given the name to the language of modern Iran. The great difficulty in