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the luxury of liberality, but their generosity will have to be yet largely exercised before the present work, which is the grandest and apparently the most useful of all the works undertaken by the Datavya Karyalya, namely, the English translation of the Mahabharat, can be successfully completed. It is estimated that not less than a lac of rupees will be necessary to give the great epic poem of India an English garb, but the projector seems so sanguine of raising this sum that we will be sorry to damp his spirits by giving expression to any ill-advised fear, and we sincerely hope that a work of great present and prospective utility will not be allowed to be dropped owing to a want of funds. It is proposed to publish this translation in monthly parts of which the first part is now before us, and the total number of copies issued will be 1250 to be variously distributed in India, Europe, and America, free of all charges. A small number of copies will, however, be charged for at Rs. 50 and Rs. 65 per copy according as the address of the purchaser is Indian or foreign. The present departure from the institution's principle and uniform practice has been made on account of a "few gentlemen evincing some reluctance in accepting in gift the publications of the Bharat Karyalya," and it is to be hoped that the new arrangement will satisfy their delicacy of feelings. As to the general merits of the first part now published, we find that it is neatly printed on good paper, and is free from any disfiguring errors of typography, and considering the difficulty of properly and thoroughly understanding the original itself when one passage is interpreted in half a dozen different ways by half a dozen different commentators, we must allow the translation the credit of being correct to all intents and purposes. The task of giving any adequate idea of the attic wit of Vyasa and representing the sweet harmony and the ineffable beauty of his verse and sentiments in the prose of a language characteristically more rugged than Sanskrit, is certainly a task of enormous difficulty and labor, and requires a complete mastery of both the languages and literature in all their subtlety; but the translation of Babu Pratab Chander Roy, notwithstanding this, is very creditable, and we believe will be accepted by the public with satisfaction as being quite capable for the useful work it is intended to perform.—The Indian Chronicle.
We are indebted to Babu Protap Chundra Roy, the Secretary of the Bengal Datavya Bharat Karyalya, for Part I of The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, translated into English prose. Taking for his text the truism that the ancient literature of India is its most glorious inheritance, the translator has given to the English-reading public an excellent rendering of one of the most remarkable epics in Indian story, dating from a period when the world itself was young and the fabled Romulus and Remus even were undreamt of. Prof. Max Muller, in an appreciative letter to the compiler, remarks:—"I expect the time will come when every educated native will be as proud of his Mahabharata and Ramayana
