[462] The Javanese civilization is examined at great length by William Humboldt, in his celebrated work, Ueber die Kawi Sprache, Berlin, 1836. From the evidence supplied by some early Chinese writings, which have only recently been published, there are good grounds for believing that the Indian Colonies were established in Java in the first century after Christ. See Wilson on the Foe Kue Ki, in Journal of Asiat. Soc. vol. v. p. 137; compare vol. vi. p. 320.
[463] Crawfurd's Hist. of the Indian Archipelago, vol. ii. p. 297. Compare with this the exactness with which, even in the island of Celebes, the dates were preserved ‘before the introduction of Mahomedanism.’ Crawfurd, vol. i. p. 306. For similar Footnote: instances of royal genealogies being obscured by the introduction into them of the names of gods, see Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. i. pp. 27, 335.
[464] Asiatic Researches, vol. x. p. 191, vol. xiii. p. 128. In the Appendix to Raffles' Hist. of Java, vol. ii. p. cxlii., it is said, that ‘in Bali not more than one in two hundred, if so many, are Mahomedans.’ See also p. 65, and vol. i. p. 530.
[465] Indeed, the Javanese appear to have no other means of acquiring the old Kawi traditions than by learning them from natives of Bali. See note to an Essay on the Island of Bali, in Asiatic Researches, vol. xiii. p. 162, Calcutta, 1820, 4to. Sir Stamford Raffles (Hist. of Java, vol. i. p. 400) says, ‘It is chiefly to Bali that we must look for illustrations of the ancient state of the Javans.’ See also p. 414.
[466] Respecting the corruption of Druidical traditions in Gaul by Christian priests, see Villemarqué, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, Paris, 1846, vol. i. pp. xviii. xix.
[467] The injury done to the traditions handed down by Welsh and Irish bards, is noticed in Dr. Prichard's valuable work, Physical Hist. of Mankind, vol. iii. p. 184, 8vo, 1841. See also Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. i. p. xxxvii. note.
[468] See the remarks on Beowulf, in Wright's Biog. Brit. Lit. vol. i. p. 7, 8vo, 1842. See also pp. 13, 14: and compare Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. i. p. 331.
[469] Talvi's Language and Literature of the Slavic Nations, 8vo, 1850, p. 231. The Pagan songs of the Slovaks, in the north-west of Hungary, were for a time preserved; but even they are now lost. Talvi, p. 216.
[470] The monkish chroniclers neglected the old Finnish traditions; and allowing them to perish, preferred the inventions of Saxo and Johannes Magnus. Prichard's Physical Hist. vol. iii. pp. 284, 285.
[471] For an instance in which the monks have falsified the old Icelandic traditions, see Mr. Keightley's learned book on Fairy Mythology, 8vo, 1850, p. 159.