WILSON, Horace Hayman, one of the most distinguished orientalis to whom England has given birth, was born in London in 1786. He was educated for the medical profession, and on finishing his studies went out to Calcutta as an assistant surgeon in the Company's Bengal establishment. His great ambition was, however, to emulate Sir
William Jones, and he accordingly devoted himself with great assiduity to the study of the oriental languages, for which his residence in Calcutta gave him peculiar facilities. In 1813 he published a translation of a Sanscrit poem, and in 1819 he compiled a Dictionary in Sanscrit and English, which has been of essential service in removing the difficulties which formerly impeded a European in his endeavours to acquire a knowledge of the oriental languages. He was now recognised as one of the most competent oriental scholars of the day, and became a valuable contributor to the Asiatic Researches, for which he wrote An Account of the Religious Sects of the Hindoos, which is still our best authority on that subject. In 1827 he published a translation of six Sanscrit dramas, which was received with much favour by the learned both in England and on the continent. His ability, in the meantime, procured him an official position in India of considerable dignity; and any leisure which his duties allowed him was occupied in preparing articles for the various literary journals of India. In 1831 he became a candidate for the Boden Professorship of Sanscrit at Oxford, and after a sharp contest he was elected, and left India for England. Shortly after his arrival he was appointed librarian at the East India House, and various literary honours were conferred on him by the different learned societies in England. He still continued his labours in elucidating the history and language of India. In 1840 appeared a translation of the Vishnu Purana, accompanied with learned notes; and shortly afterwards he published an excellent grammar of the Sanscrit language; and several similar works also proceeded from his pen. He also edited a translation of Bopp's Comparative Grammar; and a revised edition of Mills India, in which the mistakes into which that historian's ignorance of the Indian language led him are corrected, and the history continued to the year 1855. He died in 1860.