Upon the Zand language, in which Zoroaster’s laws were written, I refer to the great philologers of our days, who have examined it――Rask,[111] Bopp, Burnouf, Lassen, and others: it is one of the most important conquests made in archæology and philology, and this we owe to Anquetil. When Jones[112] treated with such severity the publication of this French author, he could not foresee that he should one day call forth to notoriety the Dabistán, which rests in great part upon the authority of the Desátir, and these very books to which he refused all authenticity. Mohsan Fani, one hundred and twenty years before Anquetil, derived his information probably from other copies of Zoroaster’s works, and knew nothing of Western authors, yet his statements agree with what the latter, before and after our era related, and most particularly with what the French discoverer published of that ancient philosopher. Can it be supposed that all these men of different nations, whose statements have thus coincided during the lapse of more than two thousand years, have “imposed upon themselves, or been imposed upon by others concerning the pretended laws of a pretended legislator?” Anquetil deserved a better name than that of “a French adventurer, who translated the books ascribed to Zoroaster, from the translation of a certain gypsy at Surat, and his boldness in sending them abroad as genuine”[113] was not unsupported by judgment. If there was some folly and foppery to deride in a young man, who spoke of his _lilly-rosy cheeks and elegant figure_, there was no “_imposture_” to detect, and too much acerbity shewn in retorting thoughtless indiscretions, exaggerated into “_invectives_.” Sir William Jones, when he published the strictures which his antagonist, from pride or moderation, never answered, was but in his twenty-fourth year and under the influence of youthful ardor. Eighteen years after, in a discourse, addressed to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, in 1789, he spoke with more moderation of Anquetil as “having had the merit of undertaking a voyage to India in his earliest youth with no other view than to recover the writings of Zoroaster.” The illustrious president of that Society was not in the position to appreciate Anquetil’s whole character, and died too soon to become acquainted with the brilliant reputation which the youthful voyager acquired in his maturer years as a learned member of the French Academy of Letters, both in his own country and abroad.[114]