still
remains _terra incognita_. No doubt this exploring work is
troublesome, and often disappointing, but young students must learn
the truth of a remark lately made by a distinguished member of the
Indian Civil Service, whose death we all deplore, Dr. Burnell, "that
no trouble is thrown away which saves trouble to others." We want men
who will work hard, even at the risk of seeing their labors
unrequited; we want strong and bold men who are not afraid of storms
and shipwrecks. The worst sailors are not those who suffer shipwreck,
but those who only dabble in puddles and are afraid of wetting their
feet.

It is easy now to criticise the labors of Sir William Jones, Thomas
Colebrooke, and Horace Hayman Wilson, but what would have become of
Sanskrit scholarship if they had not rushed in where even now so many
fear to tread? and what will become of Sanskrit scholarship if their
conquests are forever to mark the limits of our knowledge? You know
best that there is more to be discovered in Sanskrit literature than
Nalas and _S_akuntalas, and surely the young men who every year go out
to India are not deficient in the spirit of enterprise, or even of
adventure? Why, then, should it be said that the race of bold
explorers, who once rendered the name of the Indian Civil Service
illustrious over the whole world, has well-nigh become extinct, and
that England, which offers the strongest incentives and the most
brilliant opportunities for the study of the ancient language,
literature, and history of India, is no longer in the van of Sanskrit
scholarship?

If some of the young candidates for the Indian Civil Service who
listened to my Lectures, quietly made up their minds that such a
reproach shall be wiped out, if a few of them at least determined to
follow in the footsteps of Sir William Jones, and to show to the world
that Englishmen who have been able to achieve by pluck, by
perseverance, and by real political genius the material conquest of
India, do not mean to leave the laurels of its intellectual conquest
entirely to other countries, then I shall indeed rejoice, and feel
that I have paid back, in however small a degree, the large debt of
gratitude which I owe to my adopted country and to some of its
greatest statesmen, who have given me the opportunity which I could
find nowhere else of realizing the dreams of my life--the publication
of the text and commentary of the Rig-Veda, the most ancient book of
Sanskrit, aye of