Of his miscellaneous works, the following are some of the most remarkable ::

Historical. Outlines of the History of the World' (written between 1755 and 1763); 'Mémoire sur la Monarchie des Mèdes' (do.); Introduction à l'Histoire Générale de la République des Suisses' (1767); 'Antiquities of the House of Brunswick' (1790).

Classical and critical. Essai sur l'Etude de la Littérature;' Nomina Gentesque Antiquæ Italiæ’ (1763 and 1764); Remarques sur les Ouvrages et sur le Caractère de Salluste, Jules César, Cornèle Nepos, Tite Live, &c.;' Critical Observations on the Design of the 6th Book of the Æneid (1770) 'Vindication of the History of the Decline and Fall.'

Miscellaneous. Mémoire Justificatif;' Principes des Poids, des Monnoies, et des Mesures des Anciens' (1759); and 'Dissertation sur les Anciennes Mesures du Bas Empire;' Selections from the Extraits raisonnés de mes Lectures, and from the Recueil de mes Observations' (from 1754 to 1764); 'Remarks on Blackstone's Commentaries' (1770). These, and many more than these, were the subjects to which he applied his extensive erudition-with more or less success, but never without throwing some light on whatever he undertook to treat.

WILLIAM JONES, the most accomplished Oriental scholar of the last century, an upright magistrate, and eminent benefactor of the native subjects of our Indian dominions, was born in London, on Michaelmas Eve, 1746. His father, a man esteemed by his contemporaries, a skilful mathematician, and the friend of Newton, died in July, 1749. His mother then devoted herself entirely to the education of this her only surviving son; and to her careful and judicious culture of his infant bestowed indeed upon years, a happy soil, is to be ascribed the early development of that thirst for learning and faculty for profitable application, which enabled Jones to accumulate, in a short and busy life, a quantity and variety of abstruse knowledge, such as the same age does not often see equalled. To the end of her life he acknowledged and repaid her care and affection by ardent love and

unchanging filial respect. When only seven years old, he was sent to Harrow. His progress, slow at first, afterwards became most rapid; and the head master, Dr. Thackeray, a man not given to praise, spoke of him as a boy of so active a mind, that if he were left naked and friendless on Salisbury Plain, he would find the way to fame and riches."

At the time of his quitting school, besides a much deeper acquaintance with the classical languages than usually falls to the lot of a schoolboy, Jones had acquired the French and Italian languages, had commenced the study of Hebrew, and (a thing only worth mention as indicative of his tastes) had made himself acquainted with the Arabic letters. Botany, the collection of fossils, and composition in English verse, were his favourite amusements at this period. March 16, 1764, he was entered as a student of University College, Oxford. He was elected a scholar on the Bennet foundation, October 30, 1764; and fellow on the same foundation, August 7, 1766, before he was of standing to proceed to the degree of B.A., which he took in 1768. At an early period of his residence he applied in earnest to the study of Arabic; and his zeal was such, that, though habitually self-denying, and anxious not to trespass on his mother's slender income, he maintained at Oxford, at his own expense, a Syrian, with whom he had become acquainted in London, for the benefit to be derived from his instruction. From the Arabic he proceeded to learn the Persian language.

His residence was varied, though his favourite studies do not appear to have been interrupted, by an invitation to undertake the care of the late Lord Spencer, then a boy of seven years old. This was in 1765. The next five years he spent with his pupil chiefly at Harrow, and occasionally at Althorp, or in London, or on the continent. It appears from the

college books that he resided at Oxford very little in the years 1766, 1767, and 1768. Wherever he was, his time was diligently employed, not only in his severer studies, but in the pursuit of personal accomplishments and the cultivation of valuable acquaintances, especially with those who, like himself, were attached to the investigation of Eastern languages and science. In 1768 he received a high, but an unprofitable compliment, in being selected to render into French a Persian Life of Nadir Shah, transmitted to the English government by the King of Denmark for the purpose of translation. To this performance, which was printed in 1770, Mr. Jones added a "Treatise on Oriental Poetry,' in which several of the odes of Hafiz are translated into verse. This also was written in French; and it has justly been observed by a French writer in the 'Biographie Universelle' that the occurrence of some imperfections of style ought not to interfere with our forming a high estimate of the talents of a man who, at the age of twentytwo, possessed the varied qualifications and recondite acquirements displayed in this work. By the end of the same year, 1770, the author finished his Commentaries on Asiatic Poetry,' a Latin treatise, which, for its style, is commended by the competent authority of Dr. Parr; and which has also obtained high praise for the taste and judgment displayed in selecting and translating the passages by which the text is illustrated. It was not printed till 1774.

Not the least striking part of Mr. Jones's character was an ardent love of liberty, and a high and honourable feeling of independence in his own person. The former was displayed in his open and fearless advocacy of opinions calculated to close the road to preferment, such as an entire disapprobation of the American war, and a strong feeling of the necessity of reform in parliament. It should also be noticed that

at an early period he denounced in energetic language the abomination of the Slave Trade. His personal love of independence was at this time manifested in his resolution to quit the certain road to ease and competence which his connexion with the noble family of Spencer laid before him, to embark in the brilliant but uncertain course of legal adventure. Ambition was a prominent feature in Jones's character; and it was his hope and his earnest wish to distinguish himself in the House of Commons as well as at the bar. He was admitted of the Middle Temple November 19, 1770; and his Oriental studies, though not entirely abandoned, especially at first, were thenceforth much curtailed until the prospect of being appointed to a judicial office in India furnished an adequate reason for the resumption of them. But he gave a proof that his devotion to Oriental had not destroyed his taste for Grecian learning, by publishing in 1778 a translation of the Orations of Isæus,' relative to the laws of succession to property in Athens. The subject appears to have interested him ; for in 1782, when his attention was again directed to the East, he published translations of two Arabian poems; one on the Mohammedan law of succession to the property of intestates, the other on the Mohammedan law of inheritance. About the same time he translated the seven ancient Arabian poems, called Moallakat, or Suspended,' because they had been hung up, in honour of their merit, in the Temple of Mecca; and to show, perhaps, that his attention had not been withdrawn from his immediate profession, he wrote an < Essay on the Law of Bailments.'

Mr. Jones was called to the bar in 1774. Within two years' space he obtained a commissionership of bankrupts; by what influence does not appear: it could not be from any professional eminence. A letter written to Lord Althorp so early as October,