he had read in one of the 'Lettres Édifiantes et Curieuses' written by
the Jesuit Missionaries of China. But, although he sought information
by consulting both Bráhmans and Europeans, he was wholly unable for
some time to satisfy his curiosity as to the nature of these books. It
was reported to him that they were not histories, as he had hoped, but
that they abounded with fables, and consisted of conversations in
prose and verse held before ancient Rájás, in their public assemblies.
Others, again, asserted that they were discourses on dancing, music,
and poetry. At length, a sensible Bráhman, conversant with European
manners, removed all his doubts, and gave him no less delight than
surprise, by telling him that the English nation had compositions of
the same sort, which were publicly represented at Calcutta in the cold
season, and bore the name of 'plays.' The same Bráhman, when asked
which of these Nátaks was most universally esteemed, answered without
hesitation, '[S']akoontalá.'

It may readily be imagined with what interest, the keen Orientalist
received this communication; with what rapidity he followed up the
clue; and, when at length his zeal was rewarded by actual possession
of a MS. copy of one of these dramas, with what avidity he proceeded
to explore the treasures which for eighteen hundred years had remained
as unknown to the European world as the gold-fields of Australia.

The earliest Sanskrit drama with which we are acquainted, the
'Clay-cart,' translated by my predecessor in the Boden Chair at
Oxford, Professor H.H. Wilson, is attributed to a regal author, King
[S']údraka, the date of whose reign cannot be fixed with any certainty,
though some have assigned it to the first or second century B.C.
Considering that the nations of Europe can scarcely be said to have
possessed a dramatic literature before the fourteenth or fifteenth