It is generally known that sir William Jones was the first who drew the attention of Orientalists to the Dabistán. This happened five years after the beginning of a new era in Oriental literature, the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta by that illustrious man. It may not appear inopportune here to revive the grateful remembrance of one who acquired the uncontested merit of not only exciting in Asia and Europe a new ardor for Oriental studies, but also of directing them to their great objects――MAN and NATURE; and of endeavoring, by word and deed, to render the attainment of languages conducive to the required knowledge equally easy and attractive. Having, very early in life, gained an European reputation as a scholar and elegant writer, sir William Jones embarked[1] for the Indian shores with vast projects, embracing, with the extension of science, the general improvement of mankind.[2] Four months after his arrival in Calcutta,[3] he addressed as the first president of the Asiatic Society, a small but select assembly, in which he found minds responsive to his own noble sentiments. A rapid sketch of the first labors of their incomparable leader, may not be irrelevant to our immediate subject. In his second anniversary discourse,[4] he proposed a general plan for investigating Asiatic learning, history, and institutions. In his third discourse, he traced the line of investigation, which he faithfully followed, as long as he lived in India, in his annual public speeches: he determined to exhibit the prominent features of the five principal nations of Asia――the Indians, Arabs, Tartars, Persians, and Chinese. After having treated in the two following years of the Arabs and Tartars, he considered in his sixth discourse[5] the Persians, and declared that he had been induced by his earliest investigations to believe, and by his latest to conclude, that three primitive races of men must have migrated originally from a central country, and that this country was _Iran_, commonly called Persia. Examining with particular care the traces of the most ancient languages and religions which had prevailed in this country, he rejoiced at “a fortunate discovery, for which,” he said, “he was first indebted to Mir Muhammed Hussain, one of the most intelligent Muselmans in India, and which has at once dissipated the cloud, and cast a gleam of light on the primeval history of Iran and of the human race, of which he had long despaired, and which could hardly have dawned from any other quarter;” this was, he declared, “the rare and interesting tract on twelve different religions, entitled the DABISTAN.”[6]