Art. XI.—Lecture on the present State of the Cultivation of Oriental Literature

Extract

It has been judged possible, by the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society, that the objects for which the Society was founded, and for which it is maintained, may be made more generally known, and more accurately appreciated, by the adoption of arrangements of a more popular character than our ordinary proceedings, and which may interest a more numerous and varied portion of the public than the Members of the Society only, in matters concerning the Eastern World. It is not to be denied that the subjects which in a peculiar degree engage the attention of the Society,—the antiquities and literature of the nations of the East,—have hitherto failed to receive that attention from the public at large which might have been expected, if not from their own inherent interest, yet from our long and intimate intercourse with the most important countries of Asia, and the political identification of India and Great Britain. Works of high merit, elucidating Oriental literature, history, antiquities, religion, the conditions of Asiatic society in past or present times, and descriptive of the products of art or nature in the East, usually meet with a cold and discouraging reception, even from the reading world, or at most attract passing and ephemeral notice, leaving no durable impression, creating no continuous and progressive interest.