THESE Essays are taken from the Calcutta Review, in which they appeared many years ago.¹ They are now republished as containing matter which, it is hoped, may still, in various quarters, have some special interest.

FIRST ESSAY, 1845 A.D. The Mohammedan Controversy. —The immediate object of this paper was a review I was called on to make of Dr. Pfander's famous Apologies for the Christian faith. As leading up to the subject, the Essay opens with an account, chiefly from Dr. Lee's great work, of the controversy in previous times, and of Henry Martyn's discussions with the Moollas of Persia. The three chief writings of Pfander—the Mîzân-ul-Haqq, Miftâh-ul-Asrâr, and Tarîq-ul-Hyât—are then described. The debates which these give rise to between their Author and his Moslem opponents follow, notably that with the Mujtahid, or royal Apologist of the King of Oudh. In the latter part of the Second Essay the subject is resumed, and an account given of the continued controversy with the champions of the North-West Provinces and Lucknow brought up to date (1852).

SECOND ESSAY, 1852 A.D. Biographies of Mohammed. —The Essay opens with a warning against the danger of publishing incorrect biographies of the Prophet. Certain treatises, founded on imperfect sources (as Washington Irving's Life of Mohammed), and circulated by the London and Bombay Tract Societies, are