We should scarcely conceive it possible (and it certainly tends to prove the original power, copiousness and flexibility of the human mind,) that, by the side of a false mysticism totally sunk and lost in the abyss of the eternally incomprehensible and unfathomable, like the Indian philosophy, a rich, various, beautiful and highly wrought poetry should have existed. The Epic narrative of the old Indian poems bears a great resemblance to the Homeric poetry, in its inexhaustible copiousness, in the touching simplicity of its antique forms, in justness of feeling, and accuracy of delineation. Yet in its subjects, and in the prevailing tone of its Mythological fictions, this Indian Epic poetry is characterized by a style of fancy incomparably more gigantic, such as occasionally prevails in the mythology of Hesiod--in the accounts of the old Titanic wars--or in the fabulous world of Æschylus, and of the Doric Pindar. In the tenderness of amatory feeling, in the description of female beauty, of the character and domestic relations of woman, the Indian poetry may be compared to the purest and noblest effusions of Christian poesy; though, on the whole, from the thoroughly mythical nature of its subjects, and from the rhythmical forms of its speech, it bears a greater resemblance to that of the ancients. Among the later poets, Calidas, who is the most renowned and esteemed in the dramatic poetry of the Indians, might be called by way of comparison, an Idyllic and sentimental Sophocles. The poetry of the Indians is not a little indebted to the genius of their beautiful language, which bears indubitable traces of the same generous and lofty poetical spirit; and it may be therefore necessary, in this general sketch of the primitive state of the human mind, to make a few observations on this very remarkable language.