PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
A few words on the history of the book now offered to the Public in an enlarged form may not be out of place in the Preface to the Second Edition.
Almost immediately after my arriva in this country in 1826, I entered on my Missionary work among the Tamil people, having acquired the rudiments of their language in England from a gentleman who had spent several years in the South of India and North Ceylon. Intercourse with the natives afforded me ample opportunities of becoming acquainted with their modes of thought and expression, and, noticing their predilection for proverbial sayings, I was led to an early study and use of Tamil proverbs.
In 1830 I was removed to Bengal. There I became acquainted with a clergyman who had, like myself, turned his attention to the proverbs of the people among whom he dwelt. He collected a considerable number of Bengali proverbs, and published them, with an English translation, in a small volume, printed at the Press connected with Bishop's College, Calcutta. When the Mission in Bengal with which I was connected was withdrawn, I returned to my former sphere of labor among the Tamil people. As opportunity offered, I collected and arranged proverbs that I found current among them; and in 1842 printed a collection of nearly nineteen hundred with an English translation.
