studied the peculiar genius of each, and traced the influence which climate, circumstance, and national character have exerted over all. The object of the former was to point out the general threads of primeval truth in the fabric of Paganism--that of the latter to trace the later and fanciful intertexture of superstition. For in that fantastic web, which we call mythology, truth and fiction, poetry and history, physics and philosophy, are all curiously interwoven. Hence the arduous nature of these researches--hence the difficulties and perils which await the investigator at almost every step. Of the second part of this work on India, which treats of the religious and philosophical systems of the early Asiatic nations, it is the less necessary here to speak, as the reader will find the subject amply discussed in the course of the following sheets. It may be proper, however, to observe that the different philosophic errors mentioned by Schlegel, as prevalent in the ancient Asiatic world, may all be resolved to two systems--Dualism and Pantheism--the two earliest heresies in the history of religion--the two gulfs, into which dark, but presumptuous, reason fell, when, rejecting the light of revelation, she attempted to explain those unfathomable mysteries--the origin of evil on the one hand, and the co-existence of the finite and the infinite on the other. On the whole, the "Wisdom of the Indians" is an admirable little book, whether we consider the profound and extensive philological knowledge it displays--the rich variety of historical perceptions it discloses--the clearness of its arrangement, and the elegant simplicity of the style. In the seven and twenty years which have elapsed since this production saw the light, the subjects discussed in it have undergone ample investigation--many of its observations have passed into the current coin of the learned world--truths which it vaguely surmised, have since been fully established--and the knowledge of Indian literature and philosophy has been vastly extended; yet this is one of those works which will be always read with a lively interest. It is thus that, in despite of the progress of classical philology, the writings of the great critical restorers of ancient literature have, after the lapse of three centuries, retained their place in public estimation. It is pleasing to watch the stream of learning in its various meanderings--to trace it as it winds through a broader, but not always a deeper, channel, sullied and disturbed not unfrequently by accidental pollutions--it is pleasing to trace it to its source, where, from underneath the rock, it wells out in all its limpid purity. Prior to the publication of this work, the Semitic languages of the East were alone, I believe, cultivated with much ardour in Germany; its appearance had the effect of directing the national energies towards an intellectual region, where they were destined to meet with the most brilliant