compiling such a dictionary as the present, apart from the unsatisfactory nature of the available texts, is that the alphabet is so very vague and confused. The language contains a very great number of sounds which the alphabet, borrowed from the Semitic, is incapable of expressing; the same letter, therefore, is often used for different sounds, and combinations of the various letters again often express simple sounds. This makes the arrangement very difficult, but the author of this work has adopted the only safe method, that of arranging the words according to the alphabetical order of the letters rather than in order of sounds. A table, in which the various combinations of the letters are explained, also much simplifies reference. The author has in all cases followed the traditional reading and interpretation of words, leaving to the more critical scholars of Europe the task of investigating them from a scientific point of view. * * * * * Dr. Haug's _Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Parsis_ (Trübner's Oriental Series, 1878) is another most important contribution to comparative theology and philology. The nature of the doctrines of Zoroaster and the rites and ceremonies of the Magians had for centuries exercised the uninitiated. The earliest mention of them occurs in the Prophet Jeremiah (xxxix. 3), who speaks of the _rab mag_ (chief of the Magi) as forming part of the retinue of Nebuchadnezzar at his entry into Jerusalem; Ezekiel calls the Persian king Cyrus (who professed the religion of the Magi) the "anointed of the Lord;" the New Testament speaks of Magi from the East--translated "wise men" in our version--as the first to pay homage to our Lord; and the old Persian language has supplied, through the New Testament also, the name Paradise, which is universally employed to represent heaven throughout the civilized world. Herodotus also mentions them, and testifies to the purity of their worship and their morals, and other Greek as well as Latin writers have treated at more or less length on the subject of the Magi. But these scattered and incomplete notices were all that scholars had until Hyde, the celebrated Oxford scholar, in 1700, collected all the ancient sources of information into a volume _Historia religionis veterum Persarum eorumque Magorum_. The original texts of the Zend Avesta, &c., however, of which some manuscripts had been brought to Europe, were still sealed books, and the Parsi priests in India and Persia strictly refrained from affording any information upon their contents. At length, in 1754, Anquetil Duperron, an enterprising Frenchman, undertook a journey to India with the express intention of procuring manuscripts and learning the Zend language, in both of which purposes he succeeded, and published ten years later the first known translation of the Zend Avesta. His work was by many scholars, Sir