Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/415

 envied distinction of the "honorary" degree of Doctor-in-Law, the only other native of India similarly honored as yet being that erudite but somewhat biassed scholar, the late Rev. K. M. Bannerjea. Thus, respected by his countrymen, honored by the Government, and esteemed by his fellow-savants, the illustrious Rajah was "the cynosure of neighbouring eyes."

But even an Achilles may have his vulnerable heel; and the towering genius that could so thoroughly master the most abstruse problems of ancient history could hardly realise the sad social defects of the nation at the present time. He who traced the sociology of by-gone generations with such remarkable success justified the woes and wrongs of our virgin-widows with the specious argument of the numerical equality of the two sexes! In fact, Macaulay's well-known reflection on Johnson may, with almost equal justice, be applied to our "great Cham," that his mind was like the gin of the Arabian tale that now, in full freedom, spread out in amazing propor-