Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

active steps to advance them, beyond appointing the elder brother to an office of some importance on his secretariat. Henry, the younger brother, had been educated at home, and at the age of fifteen he had laid a solid foundation in Latin, Greek, French, and particularly in mathematics. As he never seems to have been urged on, he learned what he learned quietly and thoroughly, trying from the first to satisfy himself rather than others. Thus a love of knowledge for its own sake remained firmly engrained in his mind through life, and explains much of what would otherwise remain inexplicable in his literary career.

At the age of eighteen he started for India, and arrived at Madras in 1783, having narrowly escaped capture by French cruisers. The times were anxious times for India, and full of interest to an observer of political events. In his very first letter from India Colebrooke thus sketches the political situation :

'The state of affairs in India seems to bear a far more favourable aspect than for a long time past. The peace with the Mahrattas and the death of Hyder Ally, the intended invasion of Tippoo's country by the Mahrattas, sufficiently removed all alarm from the country powers; but there are likewise accounts arrived, and which seem to be credited, of the defeat of Tippoo by Colonel Matthews, who commands on the other coast.'

From Madras Colebrooke proceeded, in 1783, to Calcutta, where he met his elder brother, already established in the service. His own start in official life was delayed, and took place under circumstances by no means auspicious. The tone, both in political and private life, was at that time at its lowest ebb in India. Drinking, gambling, and extravagance of all kinds were tolerated even in the best society, and Colebrooke could not entirely escape the evil effects of the moral atmosphere in which he had to live. It is all the more remarkable that his taste for work never deserted him, and that 'he would retire to his midnight Sanskrit studies unaffected by the excitement of the gambling-table.' It was not till 1786-a year after Warren Hastings had left India-that he received his first official appointment, as Assistant Collector of Revenue in Tirhut. His father seems to have advised him from the first to be assiduous in acquiring the vernacular languages, and we find him at an early period of his Indian career thus writing on this subject: The one, and that the 'most necessary, Moors (now called Hindustani), by not 'being written, bars all close application; the other, Persian, is too dry to entice, and is so seldom of any use, that I seek

[ocr errors]

its acquisition very leisurely.' He asked his father in turn to send him the Greek and Latin classics, evidently intending to carry on his old favourite studies, rather than begin a new career as an Oriental scholar. For a time he seemed, indeed, deeply disappointed with his life in India, and his prospects were anything but encouraging. But although he seriously thought of throwing up his position and returning to England, he was busy nevertheless in elaborating a scheme for the better regulation of the Indian service. His chief idea was, that the three functions of the civil service-the commercial, the revenue, and the diplomatic should be separated; that each branch should be presided over by an independent board, and that those who had qualified themselves for one branch should not be transferred to another. Curiously enough, he lived to prove by his own example the applicability of the old system, being himself transferred from the revenue department to a judgeship, then employed on an important diplomatic mission, and lastly raised to a seat in Council, and acquitting himself well in each of these different employments. After a time his discontent seems to have vanished. He quietly settled down to his work in collecting the revenue of Tirhut; and his official duties soon became so absorbing, that he found little time for projecting reforms of the Indian Civil Service.

Soon also his Oriental studies gave him a new interest in the country and the people. The first allusions to Oriental literature occur in a letter dated Patna, December 10, 1786. It is addressed to his father, who had desired some information concerning the religion of the Hindus. Colebrooke's own interest in Sanskrit literature was from the first scientific rather than literary. His love of mathematics and astronomy made him anxious to find out what the Brahmans had achieved in these branches of knowledge. It is surprising to see how correct is the first communication which he sends to his father on the four modes of reckoning time adopted by Hindu astronomers, and which he seems chiefly to have drawn from Persian sources. The passage (pp. 23-26) is too long to be given here, but we recommend it to the careful attention of Sanskrit scholars, who will find it more accurate than what has but lately been written on the same subject. Colebrooke treated, again, of the different measures of time in his essay 'On Indian Weights and Measures,' published in the Asiatic Researches,' 1798; and in stating the rule for finding the planets which preside over the day, called Horā, he was the first to point out the coincidence between that expression and

[ocr errors]

our name for the twenty-fourth part of the day. In one of the notes to his Dissertation on the Algebra of the Hindus he showed that this and other astrological terms were evidently borrowed by the Hindus from the Greeks, or other external sources; and in a manuscript note published for the first time by Sir E. Colebrooke, we find him following up the same subject, and calling attention to the fact that the word Hora occurs in the Sanskrit vocabulary-the Medini-Kosha, and bears there, among other significations, that of the rising of a sign of the zodiac, or half a sign. This, as he remarks, is in diurnal motion one hour, thus confirming the connexion between the Indian and European significations of the word.

[ocr errors]

While he thus felt attracted towards the study of Oriental literature by his own scientific interests, it seems that Sanskrit literature and poetry by themselves had no charms for him. On the contrary, he declares himself repelled by the false taste of Oriental writers; and he speaks very slightingly of the amateurs who do not seek the acquisition of useful knowledge, but would only wish to attract notice, without the labour of deserving it, which is readily accomplished by an 'ode from the Persian, an apologue from the Sanskrit, or a 'song from some unheard-of dialect of Hinduee, of which the amateur favours the public with a free translation, without ' understanding the original, as you will immediately be con'vinced, if you peruse that repository of nonsense, the Asiatic Miscellany. He makes one exception, however, in favour of Wilkins. I have never yet seen any book,' he writes, which 'can be depended on for information concerning the real 'opinions of the Hindus, except Wilkins's Bhagvat Geeta. That gentleman was Sanskrit mad, and has more materials and more general knowledge respecting the Hindus than any other foreigner ever acquired since the days of Pythagoras.' Arabic, too, did not then find much more favour in his eyes than Sanskrit. Thus much,' he writes, I am induced to believe, that the Arabic language is of more difficult acquisition than Latin, or even than Greek; and, although it may be concise and nervous, it will not reward the labour of the 'student, since, in the works of science, he can find nothing new, and, in those of literature, he could not avoid feeling his judgment offended by the false taste in which they are written, and his imagination being heated by the glow of 'their imagery. A few dry facts might, however, reward the literary drudge.

[ocr errors]

It may be doubted, indeed, whether Colebrooke would ever have overcome these prejudices, had it not been for his father's

exhortations. In 1789 Colebrooke was transferred from Tirbut to Purneah; and such was his interest in his new and more responsible office, that, according to his own expression, he felt for it all the solicitude of a young author. Engrossed in his work, a ten years' settlement of some of the districts of his new collectorship, he writes to his father in July 1790:

'The religion, manners, natural history, traditions, and arts of this country may, certainly, furnish subjects on which my communications might, perhaps, be not uninteresting; but to offer anything deserving of attention would require a season of leisure to collect and digest information. Engaged in a public and busy scene, my mind is wholly engrossed by the cares and duties of my station; in vain I seek, for relaxation's sake, to direct my thoughts to other subjects; matters of business constantly recur. It is for this cause that I have occasionally apologised for a dearth of subjects, having no occurrences to relate, and the matters which occupy my attention being uninteresting as a subject of correspondence.'

When, after a time, the hope of distinguishing himself impelled Colebrooke to new exertions, and he determined to become an author, the subject which he chose was not antiquarian or philosophical, but purely practical.

'Translations,' he writes, in 1790, 'are for those who rather need to fill their purses than gratify their ambition. For original compositions on Oriental history and sciences is required more reading in the literature of the East than I possess, or am likely to attain. My subject should be connected with those matters to which my attention is professionally led. One subject is, I believe, yet untouched-the agriculture of Bengal. On this I have been curious of information; and, having obtained some, I am now pursuing inquiries with some degree of regularity. I wish for your opinion, whether it would be worth while to reduce into form the information which may be obtained on a subject necessarily dry, and which (curious, perhaps) is, certainly, useless to English readers.'

Among the subjects of which he wishes to treat in this work we find some of antiquarian interest, e. g., what castes of Hindus are altogether forbid cultivating, and what castes have religious prejudices against the culture of particular articles. Others are purely technical; for instance, the question of the succession and mixture of crops. He states that the Hindus have some traditional maxims on the succession of crops to which they rigidly adhere; and with regard to mixture, he observes that two, three, or even four different articles are sown in the same field, and gathered successively, as they ripen; that they are sometimes all sown on the same day, sometimes at different periods, &c.

His letters now become more and more interesting, and

they generally contain some fragments which show us how the sphere of his inquiries became more and more extended. We find (p. 39) observations on the Psylli of Egypt and the snakecharmers of India, on the Sikhs (p. 45), on human sacrifices in India (p. 46). The spirit of inquiry which had been kindled by Sir W. Jones, more particularly since the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784, had evidently reached Colebrooke. It is difficult to fix the exact date when he began the study of Sanskrit. He seems to have taken it up and left it again in despair several times. In 1793 he was removed from Purneah to Nattore. From that place he sent to his father the first volumes of the Asiatic Researches,' published by the members of the Asiatic Society. He drew his father's attention to some articles in them, which would seem to prove that the ancient Hindus possessed a knowledge of Egypt and of the Jews, but he adds: No historical light can be expected from Sanskrit literature; but it may, nevertheless, be curious, if not useful, to publish such of their legends as seem to ' resemble others known to European mythology.' The first glimmering of comparative mythology in 1793!

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Again he writes in 1793, In my Sanskrit studies, I do not 'confine myself now to particular subjects, but skim the surface ' of all their sciences. I will subjoin, for your amusement, some ' remarks on subjects treated in the "Researches."

6

[ocr errors]

What the results of that skimming were, and how far more philosophical his appreciation of Hindu literature had then become, may be seen from the end of the same letter, written from Rajshahi, December 6, 1793 :

[ocr errors]

Upon the whole, whatever may be the true antiquity of this nation, whether their mythology be a corruption of the pure deism we find in their books, or their deism a refinement from gross idolatry; whether their religious and moral precepts have been engrafted on the elegant philosophy of the Nyaya and Mīmānsa,. or this philosophy been refined on the plainer text of the Veda; the Hindu is the most ancient nation of which we have valuable remains, and has been surpassed by none in refinement and civilisation; though the utmost pitch of refinement to which it ever arrived preceded, in time, the dawn of civilisation in any other nation of which we have even the name in history. The further our literary inquiries are extended here, the more vast and stupendous is the scene which opens to us; at the same time that the true and false, the sublime and the puerile, wisdom and absurdity, are so intermixed, that, at every step, we have to smile at folly, while we admire and acknowledge the philosophical truth, though couched in obscure allegory and puerile fable.'

In 1794 Colebrooke presented to the Asiatic Society his first paper, On the Duties of a Faithful Hindu Widow,' and he

« НазадПродовжити »