and most generally adopted measure is the Sloka; a distich of two
sixteen syllable-lines, divided at the eighth syllable." According to
our prosodial marks, the following is the scheme:--

u u u u | u - - - | u u u u | u - u -
- - - - | u | - - - - | u

u u u u | u - - - | u u u u | u - u u
- - - - | - u | - - - - | -

The first four syllables are bound by no rule; the second half, on the
contrary, is unalterably fixed, excepting that the last syllable has
the common licence of termination. In the second half verse, I do not
remember a single instance of deviation from this, though sometimes,
but very seldom, the first half verse ends with another quadrisyllable
foot. The reader who is curious on the subject, may compare Mr.
Colebrooke's elaborate essays on Sanscrit poetry, Kosegarten's preface
to his Translation of Nala, and Bopp's preface to his Translation of
Selections from the Mahabharata.

In the first translations which I attempted, a few passages from the
Bhagavat-Gita, I adhered as nearly as possible to the measure of the
original; in the Nala, in order to give the narrative a more easy and
trochaic flow, I omitted one syllable, and in some degree changed the
structure of the verse.

_July_ 1835.

NALA AND DAMAYANTI.

The episode of Nala is extracted from the Vanaparvam, the third part
of the Mahabharata, the great Indian poem, which contains 100,000
slokas, or distichs. The sage, Vrihadasva, relates the story of Nala
to king Yudishthira, in order to console him under the miseries to
which he was exposed by bad success in play. By the terms of the
gaming transaction, in which he was worsted by Sakuni, who threw the
dice for Duryodhana, he was condemned to wander with his brothers for
twelve years in the forest. The adventures of Nala showed how that
king, having been in the same manner unfortunate with the dice, had
suffered still greater toil and misery, and had at length recovered
his kingdom and his wife. The popularity of this fable with the
natives, is sufficiently proved by the numerous poetic versions of the
story. The Nalodaya, a poem ascribed to Kalidas, should first be
mentioned. A new edition of this work has been recently published by
Ferdinand Benary; we have a notice of it in the Quarterly Review: it
seems to bear the same relation to the simple and national episode of
the Mahabharata, as the seicentesti of Italy to Dante or Ariosto, or
Gongora to the poem o