[Fakhru'd-Dín Fatḥu'lláh], the brother of the author of this work (may his life be long!), has composed some fine odes. The following is written in imitation of Awḥadí:—

One of the most important and significant of the epoch making discoveries of the nineteenth century in ancient Egypt is that of a stele found by Flinders Petrie, containing a hymn of victory of King Merneptah. This victory was one obtained in the fifth year of his reign over the Libyans.

I. The Mullā Fīrūz Library, Bombay.—This owes its existence to the liberality and public spirit of Mullā Fīrūz b. Kawus, a Parsi ecclesiastic and a friend of Jonathan Duncan, for whom he wrote the poem called the Georgenāma. The library is open to the public, but it seems to be little known to the citizens. It is situated in the native part of the town, in a lane off the Kalka Devi Road, and is near the Roman Catholic Cathedral. There is a printed catalogue (Bombay, 1873) by E. Rehatsek, a Hungarian scholar, who lived for many years in Bombay, and who died there in December, 1891.

This book, the work of the Mahāthera Ānanda, is all but unknown in Europe, and though copies exist in Ceylon they have never, I believe, been published. A Sinhalese MS. in the possession of Mr. Easton, of Opawa, Christchurch, N.Z., was recently shown to me by the possessor, to whose courtesy I am indebted for permission to publish the following excerpts, to which I add a few doubtful conjectures.

The manuscript consists of 827 folios with two detached leaves. The paper on which it is written measures 10 in. by 7 ½ in., and is generally creamy white and thick. A few sheets are coloured brown, and there are a few sheets of very thin paper.

Clay impressions bearing the well-known Buddhist formula, Ye dharmā hetuprabhavā, etc., are well known and have often been published. The specimens to be described in the present article seem to be partly non-religious—simply the signets of individuals—and partly Hindu (Vaiṣṇava or Śaiva). The last-named class, represented here chiefly by a number of specimens belonging to Mr. L. White King, seems hitherto to have attracted little or no notice.

The scholars who have studied hitherto the Greek magical papyri, such as Parthey, Wessely, Dieterich, and others, have either concentrated their attention upon the Greek forms contained in these documents, or have tried to find a connecting link between these books, notably between the weird notions contained therein and Greek and Egyptian parallels. Greek mysteries have been adduced in order to explain some of the curious notions prevailing in these papyri. Egypt had to serve for explaining the origin of some of the mystical names or angels mentioned therein. From time to time allusion has been made to so-called Cabalistic parallels, without any clear proof being furnished as to the dependence of one upon the other. But one branch of literature has been entirely neglected, which ought to have attracted attention in the first place, namely, the apocryphal and pseudo-epigraphic literature, which is the only truly contemporary literature. Similarity in tendency, claim of great antiquity, and open or covert allusions to heavenly mysteries show close affinities of no mean order. The authors in one case would be the very persons to avail themselves of the information furnished by the other. The world in which the writers of the apocryphal literature move has not been very much different from that in which the writers and speculators in this mystical lore, preserved, in the papyri, have lived. And one would have thought that the material offered by the apocryphal literature would have been the first to be utilized for the elucidation of some of the problems connected with these magical papyri.