counterbalance what is wanting to them in elegance; and he has only to regret the necessity which caused the greater number of them to be the productions of his own pen; his endeavours to induce, natives versed in this branch of study to compose easy and intelligible rules for the purpose,, having very generally been unsuccessful.
The quotations, already alluded to have been selected from the easiest and most popular, writings in the language, which have presented themselves in the course of the author's reading. In this . point he has not been able to avail himself of any aid from the native . authors who have written regarding Telugu prosody,. These have usually neglected the citations they might have made, from the standard poets, while they substituted examples of their own composition, which possess little merit beyond that of singular difficulty, the involution of two different meanings, or their con-, taining eulogies equally absurd, of some favorite god, their patron, or the composers themselves.
The numerical references to the works from which these selections have been made, have regard to the editions of the poets prepared under the eye of the present writer; in which, beyond the numbers . of chapters and pages, which form the only distinctions hitherto known to the natives, each stanza has been numbered, and can be at once referred to. The great bulk of some leading compositions renders these facilities particularly desirable; and such a plan is therefore recommended to those who may be inclined to give their leisure hours to reading any language, the literature of. which is
