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the life of william carey-第57章

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 vindicate them。  I have long wished to obtain a copy of the Veda; and am now in hopes I shall be able to procure all that are extant。  A Brahman this morning offered to get them for me for the sake of money。  If I succeed; I shall be strongly tempted to publish them with a translation; pro bono publico。〃

It was not surprising that the Governor…General; even if he had been less enlightened than Lord Wellesley; found in this missionary interloper; as the East India Company officially termed the class to which he belonged; the only man fit to be Professor of Bengali; Sanskrit; and Marathi in the College of Fort William; and also translator of the laws and regulations of the Government。

In a memoir read before the Berlin Academy of Sciences; which he had founded in the first year of the eighteenth century; Leibniz first sowed the seed of the twin sciences of comparative philology and ethnology; to which we owe the fruitful results of the historical and critical school。  That century was passed in the necessary collection of facts; of data。  Carey introduced the second period; so far as the learned and vernacular languages of North India are concernedof developing from the body of facts which his industry enormously extended; the principles upon which these languages were constructed; besides applying these principles; in the shape of grammars; dictionaries; and translations; to the instruction and Christian civilisation alike of the learned and of the millions of the people。  To the last; as at the first; he was undoubtedly only what he called himself; a pioneer to prepare the way for more successful civilisers and scholars。  But his pioneering was acknowledged by contemporary14 and later Orientalists; like Colebrooke and H。 H。 Wilson; to be of unexampled value in the history of scientific research and industry; while the succeeding pages will show that in its practical results the pioneering came as nearly to victory as is possible; until native India lives its own national Christian life。

When India first became a united British Empire under one Governor…General and the Regulating Act of Parliament of 1773; Warren Hastings had at once carried out the provision he himself had suggested for using the moulavies and pundits in the administration of Mussulman and Hindoo law。  Besides colleges in Calcutta and Benares to train such; he caused those codes of Mohammedan and Brahmanical law to be prepared which afterwards appeared as The Hedaya and The Code of Gentoo Laws。 The last was compiled in Sanskrit by pundits summoned from all Bengal and maintained in Calcutta at the public cost; each at a rupee a day。  It was translated through the Persian; the language of the courts; by the elder Halhed into English in 1776。  That was the first step in English Orientalism。  The second was taken by Sir William Jones; a predecessor worthy of Carey; but cut off all too soon while still a young man of thirty…four; when he founded the Bengal Asiatic Society in 1784 on the model of Boyle's Royal Society。  The code of Warren Hastings had to be arranged and supplemented into a reliable digest of the original texts; and the translation of this work; as done by pundit Jaganatha; was left; by the death of Jones; to Colebrooke; who completed it in 1797。  Charles Wilkins had made the first direct translation from the Sanskrit into English in 1785; when he published in London The Bhagavat…Geeta or Dialogue of Krishna and Arjoon; and his is the imperishable honour thus chronicled by a contemporary poetaster:

   〃But he performed a yet more noble part;     He gave to Asia typographic art。〃

In Bengali Halhed had printed at Hoogli in 1783; with types cut by Wilkins; the first grammar; but it had become obsolete and was imperfect。  Such had been the tentative efforts of the civilians and officials of the Company when Carey began anew the work from the only secure foundation; the level of daily sympathetic intercourse with the people and their Brahmans; with the young as well as the old。

The Marquis Wellesley was of nearly the same age as Carey; whom he soon learned to appreciate and to use for the highest good of the empire。  Of the same name and original English descent as John and Charles Wesley; the Governor…General was the eldest and not the least brilliant of the Irish family which; besides him; gave to the country the Duke of Wellington and Lord Cowley。  While Carey was cobbling shoes in an unknown hamlet of the Midlands and was aspiring to convert the world; young Wellesley was at Eton and Christ Church; Oxford; acquiring the classical scholarship which; as we find its fruits in his Primiti?et Reliqui? extorted the praise of De Quincey。  When Carey was starving in Calcutta unknown the young lord was making his mark in the House of Commons by a speech against the Jacobins of France in the style of Burke。  The friend of Pitt; he served his apprenticeship to Indian affairs in the Board of Control; where he learned to fight the directors of the East India Company; and he landed at Calcutta in 1798; just in time to save the nascent empire from ruin by the second Mysore war and the fall of Tipoo at Seringapatam。  Like that other marquis who most closely resembled him half a century after; the Scottish Dalhousie; his hands were no sooner freed from the uncongenial bonds of war than he became even more illustrious by his devotion to the progress which peace makes possible。  He created the College of Fort William; dating the foundation of what was fitted and intended to be the greatest seat of learning in the East from the first anniversary of the victory of Seringapatam。  So splendidly did he plan; so wisely did he organise; and with such lofty aims did he select the teachers of the college; that long after his death he won from De Quincey the impartial eulogy; that of his three services to his country and India this was the 〃first; to pave the way for the propagation of Christianitymighty service; stretching to the clouds; and which in the hour of death must have given him consolation。〃

When Wellesley arrived at Calcutta he had been shocked by the sensual ignorance of the Company's servants。  Sunday was universally given up to horse…racing and gambling。  Boys of sixteen were removed from the English public schools where they had hardly mastered the rudiments of education to become the magistrates; judges; revenue collectors; and governors of millions of natives recently brought under British sway。  At a time when the passions most need regulation and the conscience training; these lads found themselves in India with large incomes; flattered by native subordinates; encouraged by their superiors to lead lives of dissipation; and without the moral control even of the weakest public opinion。  The Eton boy and Oxford man was himself still young; and he knew the world; but he saw that all this meant ruin to both the civil and military services; and to the Company's system。  The directors addressed in a public letter; dated 25th May 1798; 〃an objurgation on the character and conduct〃 of their servants。  They re…echoed the words of the new Governor…General in their condemnation of a state of things; 〃highly discreditable to our Government; and totally in
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