Sanskrit and Prakrit Poetry

The design of the present work is not an enumeration of the poetical compositions current among the Hindus, nor an examination of their poetry by maxims of criticism, or by rules of composition taught in their own treatises of rhetoric; but to exhibit the laws of versification, together with brief notices of the most celebrated poems in which these have been exemplified.
Even to those who are unacquainted with the language, a concise explanation of the Indian system of prosody may be curious, since the artifice of its construction is peculiar, and not devoid of ingenuity; and the prosody of Sanscrìt will be found to be richer than that of any other known language, in variations of metre, regulated either by quantity or by number of syllables, both with an without rhyme, and number of syllables, both with and without rhyme, and subject to laws imposing in some instances rigid restrictions, in other allowing ample latitude. The author is prompted by these considerations to undertake the explanation of that system, premising a few remarks on the original works in which it is taught, and adding notices of the poems from which examples are selected.