Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/789

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772

MAX-MOLLER.

the " Big- Veda," the Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans, and the Com- mentary of S&yan4ch4rya. After copying and collating the MSS. in the Boyal Library at Paris, he repaired to England in June, 1B46, in order to coUiEtte the MSS. at the East-India House and the Bodleian Library. As he was on the point of returning to Gtermany, he made the acquaintance of the late Baron Bunsen, then Prussian ambassador in London, who persuaded him to stay in England, and on his and the late Prof. Wilson's recom- mendation the East-India Company engaged him to publish the first edition of the "Big-Veda" at their expense. In 1848 he settled at Oxford, where his work was to be printed, and the first volume, of 1,000 pages quarto, appeared in 1849. He was invited by the Uni- versity to give some courses of lectures on Comparative Philology, as Deputy Taylorian Professor, in 1850; was made Honorary M.A. and member of Christ Church in 1851 J was elected Taylorian Pro- fessor, and received the full degree of mA. by decree of Convocation in 1854 ; was made a Curator of the Bodleian Library in 1856; and elected a Fellow of All Souls Col- lege in 1858. He was in 1860 an unsuccessful candidate for the pro- fessorship of Sanskrit at Oxford, being opposed by a coalition of theologic^ parties. For a time he was Oriental librarian at the Bod- leian Library. In 1868 the Uni- versity f oimded a new Professorship of Comparative Philology, and the statute of foundation named him as the first professor. In 1872 he was invited to lecture in the newly founded University of Strasburg as Professor of Sanslnit. He declmed the appointment, but gave some courses of lectures there in 1872. As he refused to accept any salary, the University of Strasburg founded a triennial prize for Sanskrit scho- larship in memory of his services. On the 3rd of Dec., 1873, at the

invitation of the Dean of Westmin- ster, he delivered in Westminster Abbey a lecture on the " Beligions of the World." In 1876 he resigned his professorship at Oxford, intend- ing to return to Qermanj, but ihe ^ University requested him to remain in OidFord, and entrusted him with the edition of a series of transla- tions of the " Sacred Books of the i East," appointing at the same time a Deputy-Professor, Mr. Sayoe. Twenty-two volumes of this series have been published, of which the first contains Max-Muller'a trans- lation of the Upanishadr, 1879, and the tenth his translation of the Dhammapada from Pali, 1881. A new series was begun in 1888. In 1878, he delivered in the Chapter House of Westminster a course of lectures on "The Origin and Growth of Beligion, as illustrated by the Beligions of India" (last edition, 1882). These lectures were deli- vered in consequence of a bequest made by the late Mr. Hibbert. On Nov. 13, 1877, Professor Max- Mttller was elected a Delegate of the University Press. On Oct. 28, 1881, he was elected curator of the Bodleian Library in place of the late Professor Bolleston. In 1882 he was invited by the Uni- versity of Cambridge to give a course of lectures on India, spe- ciallv intended for the candidates for the Indian Civil Service. These lectures were published in 1882, under the title of "India: What can it teach us ? " In addition to the " Hitopadesa," he published at Eanigsberg, in 1847, " Meghadtita, an India Elegy," translated from the Sanskrit, with notes, in Ger- man ; in the Transactions of the British Association, in 1847, "An Essay on Bengali, and its Belation to the Aryan Languages ; " in 1853, " An Essay on Indian Logic," in "Thompson's Laws of Thought;" in 1864, " Proposals for a Uniform Missionary Alphabet," and " Sug- gestions on the Learning and Lan- g^uages of the seat of War in the