I most earnestly beg all who may copy or translate these books to place this protestation of mine at the end of each volume.”

A few days later he fell ill. Secretly his companions mixed meat with the usual herbs he ate and gave it to him but the alert mind guessed it and he refused to eat it. On the 16th of January, 1656, he breathed his last. He was buried in Mylapore. It is a pity that no epitaph marks this great man's grave.

17. REV. P. PERCIVAL

In 1826, Percival arrived in Madras. He had studied the rudiments of Tamil in England. A keen observer with an absorbing interest he was soon attracted to the proverbs which embellished every day life. In 1830, he was moved to Bengal where he was a clergyman. At Calcutta he commenced to collect Bengali proverbs. Before this list was complete he again returned to Madras. At Madras he started to collect Tamil proverbs. By 1842, he had gathered 1900 Tamil proverbs and printed them from Jaffna with an English translation of them. He decided to collect more to prepare an enlarged edition. It was during this time, he was nominated a member of the Committee to revise the Scripture along with Rhenius, Knight, Spaulding and Hutching. For this purpose, he crossed the sea to Ceylon. Till 1854, he was preoccupied with this revision and only after its completion could he take up the collection again. A magazine sometime about this time was sponsored by Messers Stokes, Sim, Chamiers, Colones, Brown, Pars and Bell-belonging to the civil and military services. They invited Percival to be its editor. After a short visit to Calcutta the magazine Tiṉnavarttamāṉni was started in 1855 and Percival was the editor. In Telugu, a similar journal with the same name was also published. He was interested in collecting Telugu proverbs also. Since Major Care was doing similar work in Telugu, Percival very generously handed over his list to him. Major care has acknowledged Percival's contribution in his book. From this acknowledgement we know that Rev. Percival was the Professor of Vernacular Literature at Presidency College, Madras. By 1860 his list of proverbs had enlarged to 5,000. Again he was interrupted