it published in England. At last his
efforts had been successful, the funds for printing my edition of the
text and commentary of the Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans had been
granted, and Bunsen was the first to announce to me the happy result
of his literary diplomacy. 'Now,' he said, 'you have got a work for
life--a large block that will take years to plane and polish.' 'But
mind,' he added, 'let us have from time to time some chips from your
workshop.'

I have tried to follow the advice of my departed friend, and I have
published almost every year a few articles on such subjects as had
engaged my attention, while prosecuting at the same time, as far as
altered circumstances would allow, my edition of the Rig-veda, and of
other Sanskrit works connected with it. These articles were chiefly
published in the 'Edinburgh' and 'Quarterly Reviews,' in the 'Oxford
Essays,' in 'Macmillan's' and 'Fraser's Magazines,' in the 'Saturday
Review,' and in the 'Times.' In writing them my principal endeavour
has been to bring out even in the most abstruse subjects the points of
real interest that ought to engage the attention of the public at
large, and never to leave a dark nook or corner without attempting to
sweep away the cobwebs of false learning, and let in the light of real
knowledge. Here, too, I owe much to Bunsen's advice, and when last
year I saw in Cornwall the large heaps of copper ore piled up around
the mines, like so many heaps of rubbish, while the poor people were
asking for coppers to buy bread, I frequently thought of Bunsen's
words, 'Your work is not finished when you have brought the ore from
the mine: it must be sifted, smelted, refined, and coined before it
can be of real use, and contribute towards the intellectual food of
mankind.' I can hardly hope that in this my endeavour to be clear and
plain, to follow the threads of every thought to the very ends, and to
place the web of every argument clearly and fully before my readers, I
have always been successful. Several of the subjects treated in these
essays are, no doubt, obscure and difficult: but there is no subject,
I believe, in the whole realm of human knowledge, that cannot be
rendered clear and intelligible, if we ourselves have perfectly
mastered it. And now while the two last volumes of my edition of the
Rig-veda are passing through the press, I thought the time had come
for gathering up a few armfulls of these chips and splinters, throwing
away what see