Page:Tamil proverbs.pdf/13

Rh English translation, in the Telugu Dinavartamâni. When the late Major informed me that he was preparing a volume of Telugu proverbs for the Press, I made over to him my collection, a service he thus acknowledged in the Preface to his work—“The Translator has to thank the Rev. P., Professor of Vernacular Literature, Presidency College, for kindly placing at his disposal a MS. containing a large number of Telugu proverbs.”

In the year 1860 my collection of Tamil proverbs contained nearly five thousand examples translated into English and ready for the Press. At that time, however, I was so much engaged in preparing books and maps, in the Vernaculars, for the Director of Public Instruction, that I found it impossible to carry out my design of printing these proverbs, although I had announced it in the Dinavartamâni. Then followed an interval of ten years during which I was engaged in duties absorbing all my time and attention. I had the superintendence of the Public Instruction Press on my hands; and, aided by the Pundits of the Presidency College, and other competent native scholars, had the responsibility of editing, among the works that issued from the Press during this period, seven dictionaries, some of which have since been re-printed.

At the beginning of 1870, having been relieved from my heavy duties in connexion with the Presidency College and the University, I resolved to print the proverbs as they stood, and soon after this having met the Rev. G. of Manargudi, Tanjore District, I learnt that he had for eight or nine years been also engaged in collecting Tamil proverbs, and that his collection then amounted to five thousand examples, and that he proposed eventually to publish it on the basis of my First Edition. On