Chapter 22

The year after his entrance at college, he accepted a proposal that was made him to undertake the education of Lord Althorpe, then a child about seven years old; and for that purpose spent much of his time at Wimbledon, where he composed many of his English poems, and studied attentively the Hebrew Bible, particularly the prophetical writings, and the book of Job.

In the summer of 1766, a fellowship of University College unexpectedly became vacant; and being conferred on Jones, secured him the enjoyment of that independence which he had so much desired. With independence he seems to have been satisfied; for, on his return to Wimbledon, he declined an offer made him by the Duke of Grafton, then first Lord of the Treasury, of the place of interpreter for eastern languages. The same answer which conveyed his refusal recommended in earnest terms his friend Mirza as one fitted to perform the duties of the office, but the application remained unnoticed; and he regretted that his inexperience in such matters had prevented him from adopting the expedient of nominally accepting the employment for himself, and consigning the profits of it to the Syrian.

In 1767 he began his treatise De Poesi Asiatica, on the plan of Lowth's Praelectiones, and composed a Persian grammar for the use of a school-fellow, who was about to go to India. His usual course of study was for a short time interrupted by an attendance on Earl Spencer, the father of his pupil, to Spa. The ardour of his curiosity as a linguist made him gladly seize the opportunity afforded him by this expedition of obtaining some knowledge of German. Nor was he so indifferent to slighter accomplishments as not to avail himself of the instructions of a celebrated dancing master at Aix-la-Chapelle. He had before taken lessons from Gallini in that trifling art. From a pensioner at Chelsea he had learnt the use of the broadsword. He afterwards made an attempt, in which, however, he does not seem to have persevered, to become a performer on the national instrument of his forefathers, the harp. Ambition of such various attainments reminds us of what is related concerning the Admirable Crichton, and Pico of Mirandola.

Christian the Seventh, King of Denmark, who in 1768 was on a visit to this country, had brought with him a Persian history of Nadir Shah in manuscript, which he was desirous to have translated from that language into the French. On this occasion Jones was applied to by one of the under secretaries to the Duke of Grafton, to gratify the wishes of the Danish monarch. The task was so little to his mind that he would have excused himself from engaging in it; and he accordingly suggested Major Dow, a gentleman already distinguished by his translations from the Persic, as one fit to be employed; but he likewise pleading his other numerous occupations as a reason for not undertaking this, and the application to Jones being renewed, with an intimation that it would be disgraceful to the country if the King should be compelled to take the manuscript into France, he was at length stimulated to a compliance. At the expiration of a twelvemonth, during which interval it had been more than once eagerly demanded, the work was accomplished. The publication of it was completed in 1770, and forty copies were transmitted to the court of Denmark. To the History was appended a treatise on Oriental poetry, written also in French. One of the chief difficulties imposed on the translator had been the necessity of using that language in the version, of which it could not be expected that he should possess an entire command; but to obviate this inconvenience, he called in the aid of a Frenchman, who corrected the inaccuracies in the diction. Christian expressed himself well satisfied with the manner in which his intentions had been fulfilled: but a diploma constituting the translator a member of the Royal Society at Copenhagen, together with an earnest recommendation of him to the regard of his own sovereign, were the sole rewards of his labour. Of the history he afterwards published an abridgment in English.

The predilection he had conceived for the Muses of the East, whom, with the blind idolatry of a lover, he exalted above those of Greece and Rome, was further strengthened by his intercourse with an illustrious foreigner, whom they had almost as much captivated. The person, with whom this similarity of taste connected him, was Charles Reviczki, afterwards imperial minister at Warsaw, and ambassador at the English court with the title of Count. Their correspondence, which turns principally on the object of their common pursuits, and is written in the French and Latin languages, commenced in 1768. At this time he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts.

In the summer of the ensuing year, Jones accompanied his pupil to the school at Harrow. During his residence there he transcribed his Persian grammar. He had already begun a dictionary of that language, with illustrations of the principal words from celebrated writers, a work of vast labour, which he resolved not to prosecute without the assurance of an adequate remuneration from the East India Company. At the entreaty of Dr. Glasse, he now dedicated some portion of his time to religious inquiry. The result was a conviction of the truth of Christianity, in his belief of which, it is said, he had hitherto been unconfirmed. In the winter he made a second visit to the Continent with the family of his noble patron. After a longer stay at Paris, than was agreeable to him, they passed down the Rhine to Lyons, and thence proceeded by Marseilles, Frejus, and Antibes, to Nice. At the last of these places they resided long enough to allow of his returning to his studies, which were divided between the arts of music and painting; the mathematics; and military tactics; a science of which he thought no Briton could, without disgrace, be ignorant. He also wrote a treatise on education; and begun a tragedy entitled Soliman, on the murder of the son of that monarch by the treachery of his step-mother. Of the latter, although it appears from one of his letters that he had completed it, no traces were found among his papers, except a prefatory discourse too unfinished to meet the public eye. The subject has been treated by Champfort, a late French writer, and one of the best among Racine's school, in a play called Mustapha and Zeangir. I do not recollect, and have not now the means of ascertaining, whether that fine drama, the Solimano of Prospero Bonarelli is founded on the same tragic incident in the Turkish History.

An excursion which he had meditated to Florence, Rome, and Naples, he was under the necessity of postponing to a future occasion. On his way back he diverged to Geneva, in hopes of seeing Voltaire; but was disappointed, as the Frenchman excused himself, on account of age and sickness, from conversing with a stranger. At Paris he succeeded by the help of some previous knowledge of the Chinese character, and by means of Couplet's Version of the Works of Confucius, in construing a poem by that writer, from a selection in the king's library, and sent a literal version of it to his friend Reviczki. From the French capital the party returned through Spa to England. During their short residence at Spa he sketched the plan of an epic poem, on the discovery of Britain by the Prince of Tyre. The suggestion and advice of his friends, who thought that abilities and attainments like his required a more extensive sphere of action than was afforded him by the discharge of his duties as a private tutor, strengthened, probably, by a consciousness of his own power, induced him to relinquish that employment, and henceforward to apply himself to the study and practice of the law. An almost enthusiastic admiration of the legal institutions of his own country, a pure and ardent zeal for civil liberty, and an eminent independence and uprightness of mind, were qualifications that rendered this destination of his talents not less desirable in a public view, than it was with reference to his individual interests. He accordingly entered himself a member of the Temple, on the 19th of September, 1770. To faculties of so comprehensive a grasp, the abandonment of his philological researches was not indispensable for the successful prosecution of his new pursuit. Variety was perhaps even a necessary aliment of his active mind, which without it might have drooped and languished. Indeed, the cultivation of eastern learning eventually proved of singular service to him in his juridical capacity.

In 1771 he published in French a pamphlet in answer to Anquetil du Perron's Attack on the University of Oxford, in the discourse prefixed to his "Zind-Avesta;" and entered on "A History of the Turks," the introduction to which was printed, but not made public till after his death. He had a design to apply for the office of minister at Constantinople, in the event of a termination of the war with Russia, and looked forward with eagerness to an opportunity of contemplating the Turkish manners at their source. A small volume of his poems, consisting chiefly of translations from the Eastern languages, with two prose dissertations annexed, made their appearance in the following year, when he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. From the preface to the poems, it appears that his relish for the Greek and Roman writers had now returned; and that he justly regarded them as the standard of true taste. His terms not having been regularly kept in the University, (where his mother and sister had still continued to reside) he did not take his degree of Master of Arts till the Easter of 1773. In the January following he was called to the bar. At the conclusion of the preface to his Commentaries de Poesi Asiatica, published at this period, he announces his determination to quit the service of the muses, and apply himself entirely to his professional studies. In a letter to Reviczki, of February, 1775, we find him declaring that he no longer intended to solicit the embassy to Constantinople. This year he attended the spring circuit, and sessions at Oxford; and the next was appointed one of the commissioners of bankrupts, and was to be found regularly as a legal practitioner in Westminster Hall. At the same time, that he might not lose sight of classical literature, he was assiduous in his perusal of the Grecian orators, and employed himself in a version of the Orations of Isaeus; nor does he appear to have broken off his correspondence with learned foreigners, among whom were the youngest Schultens, and G.S. Michaelis. The translation of Isaeus, which appears to be executed with fidelity, was published in 1778, with a dedication to Lord Bathurst, in which he declares "his Lordship to have been his greatest, his only benefactor." His late appointment is the obligation to which he refers.

A vacancy had now occurred on the bench at Fort William, in Bengal; and Jones was regarded by his brethren at the bar as the fittest person to occupy that station. The patronage of the minister, however, was requisite to this office; and the violent measures which government had lately adopted, with respect to the American Colonies, were far from being such as accorded with his notions of freedom and justice. He was resolved that no consideration should induce him to surrender the independence of his judgment on this, or any other national topic. "If the minister," says he, in one of his letters to his pupil, Lord Althorpe, "be offended at the style in which I have spoken, do speak, and will speak, of public affairs, and on that account, shall refuse to give me the judgeship, I shall not be at all mortified, having already a very decent competence without a debt, or a care of any kind." His patriotic feelings displayed themselves in a Latin Ode to Liberty; published in March, 1780, under the title of Julii Melesigoni ad Libertatem, an assumed name, formed by an anagram of his own in Latin.

The resignation of Sir Robert Newdigate, one of the members returned to parliament for the University of Oxford, in the meantime, induced several members of that learned body, who were friendly to Jones, to turn their eyes towards him as their future representative. The choice of a candidate undistinguished by birth or riches, and recommended solely by his integrity, talents, and learning, would have reflected the highest honour on his constituents; but many being found to be disinclined to his interest, it was thought more prudent to relinquish the canvass. He published in July a small pamphlet, entitled an Inquiry into the Legal Mode of suppressing Riots, with a constitutional Plan of future Defence. The insurrection which had for some days disgraced the British metropolis, at the beginning of June, suggested the publication of this tract. In the autumn of this year he made a journey to Paris, as he had done the preceding summer. During a fortnight's residence in that capital, he attended some causes at the Palais; obtained access to a fine manuscript in the royal library, which opened to him a nearer insight into the manners of the ancient Arabians; and mingled in the society of as many of the American leaders as he could fall in with, purposing to collect materials for a future history of their unhappy contest with the mother country. In the midst of this keen pursuit of professional and literary eminence he had the misfortune to lose his mother, who had lived long enough to see her tenderness and assiduity in the conduct of his education amply rewarded.

An Essay on the Law of Bailments, and the translation of an Arabian Poem, on the Mohammedan Law of Succession to the Property of Intestates, to the latter of which undertakings he was incited by his views of preferment in the East, testified his industry in the pursuit of his legal studies; while, on the other hand, several short poems evinced, from time to time, his intended relinquishment of the tuneful art to be either impracticable or unnecessary.

In the summer of 1782 the interests of one of his clients led him again to Paris, from whence he returned by the circuitous route of Normandy, and the United Provinces. In the spring of this year he had become a member of the Society for Constitutional Information. A more equal representation of the people in parliament was at this time the subject of general discussion, and he did not fail to stand forward as the strenuous champion of a measure which seemed likely to infuse new spirit and vigour into our constitutional liberties. His sentiments were publicly professed in a speech before the meeting assembled at the London Tavern, on the 28th of May; and he afterwards gave a wider currency to them from the press. He maintained that the representation ought to be nearly equal and universal; an opinion in which few would now be found to coincide; and which, if he had lived a little longer, he would probably himself have acknowledged to be erroneous. At Paris, he had written a Dialogue between a Farmer and a Country Gentleman on the Principles of Government, and it was published by the Society. A bill of indictment was found against the Dean of St. Asaph, whose sister he afterwards married, for an edition printed in Wales; and Jones avowed himself the author.

In the beginning of 1783 appeared his translation of the seven Arabian poems, suspended in the temple at Mecca about the commencement of the sixth century.

In the March of this year, he was gratified by the long desired appointment to the office of judge in the supreme court of judicature, at Fort William, in Bengal, which was obtained for him through the interest of Lord Ashburton; and he received the honour of knighthood usually conferred on that occasion. The divisions among his political friends, after the decease of that excellent nobleman, the Marquis of Buckingham, afforded him an additional motive for wishing to be employed at a distance from his country, which he no longer hoped to see benefited by their exertions. He was immediately afterwards united to Anna Maria Shipley, the daughter of the Bishop of St. Asaph, a learned and liberal prelate. His attachment to this lady had been of long continuance, and he had been waiting only for an honourable independence before he could resolve to join the fortunes of one so tenderly beloved to his own.

Sir William Jones embarked for the East in April, 1783. It is impossible not to sympathise with the feelings of a scholar about to visit places over which his studies had thrown the charm of a mysterious interest; to explore treasures that had rested as yet in darkness to European eyes; and to approach the imagined cradle of human science and art. During his voyage he made the following memoranda of objects for his inquiry, and of works to be begun or executed during his residence in Asia.

1. The laws of the Hindus and Mahommedans.

2. The History of the Ancient World.

3. Proofs and Illustrations of Scripture.

4. Traditions concerning the Deluge, &c.

5. Modern Politics, and Geography of Hindustan.

6. Best Mode of Governing Bengal.

7. Arithmetic and Geometry, and Mixed Sciences of the Asiatics.

8. Medicine, Chemistry, Surgery, and Anatomy, of the Indians.

9. Natural Productions of India.

10. Poetry, Rhetoric, and Morality of Asia

11. Music of the Eastern Nations.

12. The Shi-King, or 300 Chinese Odes.

13. The best Accounts of Thibet and Cashmir.

14. Trade, Manufactures, Agriculture, and Commerce of India.

15. Mogul Constitution contained in the Defteri Alemghiri, and Ayein Acbari.

16. Mahratta Constitution.

* * * * *

To print and publish the Gospel of St. Luke, in Arabic.

To publish Law Tracts, in Persian or Arabic.

To print and publish the Psalms of David, in Persian Verse.

To compose, if God grant me life,

1. Elements of the Laws of England. Model--the Essay on Bailment. Aristotle.

2. The History of the American War. Model--Thucydides and Polybius.

3. Britain Discovered, an Heroic Poem on the Constitution of England. Machinery. Hindu Gods. Model--Homer.

4. Speeches, Political and Forensic. Model--Demosthenes.

5. Dialogues, Philosophical and Historical. Model--Plato.

6. Letters.

Model--Demosthenes and Plato.

In the course of the voyage the vessel touched at Madeira; and in ten weeks after quitting Cape Verd Islands arrived at that of Hinzuan or Joanna, of which he has left a very lively and pleasing description.

In September he landed at Calcutta; and before the conclusion of the year, entered on the performance of his judicial function, and delivered his first charge to the grand jury, on the opening of the sessions. This address was such as not to disappoint the high expectations that had been formed of him before his arrival.

It was evident that the leisure, or perhaps even the undivided attention and labour of no one man, could have sufficed for prosecuting researches so extensive and arduous as those he had marked out for himself. The association of others in this design was the obvious method of remedying the difficulty. At his suggestion, accordingly, an institution was, in January, 1784, framed as closely as possible on the model of the Royal Society in London; and the presidency was offered to Mr. Hastings, then Governor-general in India, who not only was a liberal encourager of Persian and Sanscrit literature, but had made himself a proficient in the former of these languages at a time when its importance had not been duly appreciated; and was familiarly versed in the common dialects of Bengal. That gentleman, however, declining the honour, and recommending that it should be conferred on the proposer of the scheme, he was consequently elected president. The names of Chambers, Gladwyn, Hamilton, and Wilkins, among others, evince that it was not difficult for him to find coadjutors. How well the institution has answered the ends for which it was formed the public has seen in the Asiatic Researches.

A thorough acquaintance with the religion and literature of India appeared to be attainable through no other medium than a knowledge of the Sanscrit; and he therefore applied himself without delay to the acquisition of that language. It was not long before he found that his health would oblige him to some restriction in the intended prosecution of his studies. In a letter written a few days after his arrival in India, he informs one of his friends that "as long as he stays in India, he does not expect to be free from a bad digestion, the morbus literatorum; for which there is hardly any remedy but abstinence from too much food, literary and culinary. I rise," he adds, "before the sun, and bathe after a gentle ride; my diet is light and sparing, and I go early to rest; yet the activity of my mind is too strong for my constitution, though naturally not infirm; and I must be satisfied with a valetudinarian state of health." All these precautions, however, did not avail to secure him from violent and reiterated attacks. In 1784, he travelled to the city of Benares, by the route of Guyah, celebrated as the birth-place of the philosopher Boudh, and the resort of Hindu pilgrims from all parts of the East; and returned by Gour, formerly the residence of the sovereigns of Bengal. During this journey he laboured for some time under a fit of illness that had nearly terminated his life. Yet no sooner did he become a convalescent than he applied himself to the study of botany, and composed a metrical tale, entitled The Enchanted Fruit, or Hindu Wife; and a Treatise on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India; the latter of which he communicated to the Society. He had not been many months settled after his return to Calcutta, when he found the demand made on him for his company, by the neighbourhood of that place, so frequent as to produce a troublesome interruption to the course of his literary engagements. He therefore looked out for a situation more secluded, to which he might betake himself during the temporary cessations of his official duties; and made choice of Chrishnanagur, at the distance of about fifty miles, which, besides a dry soil and pure air, possessed an additional recommendation in its vicinity to a Hindu College. Indeed, he omitted no means that could tend to facilitate his acquaintance with the learning and manners of the natives. A considerable portion of his income was set aside for the purpose of supporting their scholars, whom he engaged for his instruction.

The administration of justice was frequently interrupted by the want of integrity in the Pundits, or expounders of the statutes. To prevent the possibility of such deception, this upright magistrate undertook to compile and translate a body of Hindu and Mohammedan laws, and to form a digest of them in imitation of that of the Roman law framed by the order of the Emperor Justinian. The mind can scarcely contemplate a plan of utility more vast or splendid than one which aimed at preserving the fountain of right uncontaminated for twenty millions of people. During the period of sessions and term, when his attendance was required at Calcutta, he usually resided on the banks of the Ganges, five miles from the court.

In 1785 a periodical work, called the Asiatic Miscellany, which has been erroneously attributed to the Asiatic Society, was undertaken at Calcutta; and to the first two volumes, which appeared in that and the following year, he contributed six hymns addressed to Hindu deities; a literal version of twenty tales and fables of Nizami, expressly designed for the help of students in the Persian language; and several smaller pieces.