Is not this the height of forensic ingenuity? Because A has criticised B, therefore B cannot criticise A justly. In that case A has indeed nothing to do but to criticise B C D to Z, and then no one in the world can criticise him justly. I have watched many controversies, I have observed many stratagems and bold movements to cover a retreat, but nothing to equal this. Professor Pott was very hard on Professor Curtius, but he did not screen himself by denying to his adversary the competency to criticise him in turn. What would Newman have said, if Kingsley had tried to shut him up with such a remark, a remark really worthy of one literary combatant only, the famous Pastor Goeze, the critic of Lessing?

What would even Professor Whitney think, if I were to say that, because I have criticised his “Lectures,” he could not justly criticise my “Sanskrit Grammar?” He might not think it good taste to publish an advertisement to dissuade students in America from using my grammar; he might think it unworthy of himself and dishonorable to institute comparisons, the object of which would be too transparent in the eyes even of his best friends in Germany. Mr. Whitney has lived too long in Germany not to know the saying, Man merkt die Absicht und man wird verstimmt. But should I ever say that he was incompetent to criticise my “Sanskrit Grammar” justly? Certainly not. All that I might possibly venture to say is, that before Professor Whitney undertakes to criticise my own or any other Sanskrit grammar, he should look at § 84 of my grammar, and practice that very simple rule, that if Visarga is preceded by a, and followed by a, the Visarga is dropt, a changed to o, and the initial vowel elided. If with this rule clearly impressed on his memory, he will look at his edition of the Atharva-Veda Prâtiśâkhya, I. 33, then perhaps, instead of charging Hindu grammarians in his usual style with “opinions obviously and grossly incorrect and hardly worth quoting,” he might discover that eke spṛshṭam could only have been meant in the MSS. for eke ’spṛshṭam, and that the proper translation was not that vowels are formed by contact, but that they are formed without contact. Instead of saying that none of the other Prâtiśâkhyas favors this opinion, he would find the same statement in the Rig-Veda Prâtiśâkhya, Sûtra 719, page cclxi of my edition, and he might perhaps say to himself, that before criticising Sanskrit grammars, it would be useful to learn at least the phonetic rules. I had pointed out this slip before, in the second edition of my “Sanskrit Grammar;” but, as to judge from an article of his on the accent, Professor Whitney has not seen that second edition (1870), which contains the Appendix on the accent in Sanskrit, I beg leave to call his attention to it again.

WHY I OUGHT TO BE GRATEFUL.

I am glad to say that we now come to a more amusing part of this controversy. After I had been told that because I was attacked first, therefore I was not able to criticise Professor Whitney’s writings justly, I am next told that I ought to be very grateful for having been attacked, nay, I am told that, in my heart of hearts, I am really very grateful indeed. I must quote this passage in full:—

“During the last eight years I have repeatedly taken the opportunity accurately to examine and frankly to criticise the views of others and the arguments by which they were supported. I have done this more particularly against eminent and famous men whom the public has accustomed itself to regard as guides in matters referring to the Science of Language. What unknown and uncared for people say, is of no consequence whatever; but if Schleicher and Steinthal, Renan and Müller, teach what to me seems an error, and try to support it by proofs, then surely I am not only justified, but called upon to refute them, if I can. Among these students the last-named seems to be of different opinion. In his article, ‘My Reply to Mr. Darwin,’ published in the March number of the ‘Deutsche Rundschau,’ he thinks it necessary to read me a severe lecture on my presumption, although he also flatters me by the hint that my custom of criticising the most eminent men only is appreciated, and those whom I criticise feel honored by it.”

I confess when I read this, I wished I had really paid such a pretty compliment to my kind critic, but looking through my article from beginning to end, I find no hint anywhere that could bear so favorable an interpretation, unless it is where I speak of “the noble army of his martyrs,” and of the untranslated remark of Phocion, which he may have taken for a compliment. In saying that it was acknowledged to be an honor to be attacked by him, Professor Whitney was, no doubt, thinking of the words of Ovid, Summa petunt dextra fulmina missa Jovis, and I am not going in future to deny him the title of the Jovial and Olympian critic, nor should I suggest to him to read the line in Ovid immediately preceding the one quoted. Against one thing only I must protest. Though the last named, I am surely not, as he boldly asserts, the only one of the four sommités struck by his Olympian thunderbolts, who have humbly declined too frequent a repetition of his celestial favors. Schleicher, no doubt, was safe, for alas, he is dead! But Steinthal surely has uttered rather Promethean protests against the Olympian,—

Οἶδ’ ὅτι τραχὺς καὶ παρ’ ἑαυτῷ

τὸ δίκαιον ἔχων Ζεύς· ἀλλ’ ἔμπας

μαλακογνώμων

ἔσται ποθ’, ὅταν ταύτῃ ῥαισθῇ·