The German missionary B. Ziegenbalg was the first to make the study of Tamil possible in Europe by the publication of his Grammatica Damulica, which appeared at Halle in 1716. Some time later the Jesuit father Beschi devoted much time and labour to the composition of grammars both of the vulgar and the poetical dialect. The former is treated in his Grammatica Latino Tamulica, which was written in 1728, but was not printed till eleven years later (Tranquebar, 1739). It was twice reprinted, and two English translations have been published (1831, 1848). His Sen-Tamil Grammar, accessible since 1822 in an English trans lation by Dr. Babington, was printed from his own ms. (Clavis humaniorum literarum sublimioris Tamidici idiomatis) at Tran quebar in 1876. This work is especially valuable, as the greater portion of it consists of a learned and exhaustive treatise on Tamil prosody and rhetoric. (See, on his other works, Graul's Reise, vol. iv. p. 327.) There are also grammars by Anderson, Rhenius, Graul (in vol. ii. of his Bibliotheca Tamulica, Leipzig, 1855), Lazarus (Madras, 1878), Pope (4th edition in three parts, London, 1883-85), and Grammaire francaise-tamoule, by the Abbe Dupuis (Pondicherry, 1863). The last two are by far the best. The India Office library possesses a ms. dictionary and grammar "par le Rev. Pere Dominique" (Pondicherry, and a copy of a ms. Tamil-Latin dictionary by the celebrated missionary Schwarz, in which 9,o00 words are explained. About
the like number of words are given in the dictionary of Fabricius and Breithaupt (Madras, 1779 and 1809). Rottler's dictionary, the publication of which was commenced in 1834, is a far more ambitious work. But neither it nor Winslow's (1862) come up to the standard of Tamil scholarships; the Dictionnaire tamoul francais, which appeared at Pondicherry in 2 vols. (1855-62), is superior to both, just as the Dictionarium latino-gallico-tamulicum (ibid, 1846) excels the various English-Tamil dictionaries which have been published at Madras.