or by thanking you for this agreeable proof of your remembrance. I look forward to the increasing splendour, which the arts and sciences must attain in a country, where the son of the king possesses genius and erudition capable of translating and illustrating with learned notes the first of the Roman historians. How few youths amongst the nobility in other countries possess the requisite ability or inclination for such a task! The history of Sallust is a performance of great depth, wisdom, and dignity to understand it well is no small praise; to explain it properly is still more commendable; but to translate it elegantly, excites admiration. If all this had been accomplished by a private individual, he would have merited applause; if by a youth, he would have had a claim to literary honours; but when to the title of youth that of Prince is added, we cannot too highly extol, or too loudly applaud, his distinguished merit. Many years are elapsed since I applied myself to the study of your learned language, but I well remember to have read in it, with great delight, the heroic poem of Alonzo, the odes of Garcilasso, and the humorous stories of Cervantes: but I most sincerely declare, that I never perused a more elegant or polished composition than the translation of Sallust; and I readily subscribe to the opinion of the learned author in his preface, that the Spanish language approaches very nearly to the dignity of the Latin.

May the accomplished youth continue to deserve well of his country and mankind, and establish his claim to distinction above all the princes of the age! If I may be allowed to offer my sentiments, I would advise him to study most diligently the divine works of Cicero, which no man, in my opinion,

ever perused without improving in eloquence and wisdom. The epistle which he wrote to his bro. ther Quintus, on the government of a province, deserves to be daily repeated by every sovereign in the world; his books on offices, on moral ends, and the Tusculan question, merit a hundred perusals; and his orations, nearly sixty in number, deserve to be translated into every European language; nor do I scruple to affirm, that his sixteen books of letters to Atticus are superior to almost all his tories, that of Sallust excepted. With respect to your own compositions, I have read with great attention, and will again read, your most agreeable book. I am informed that you propose giving a Latin translation of it, and I hope you will do it for the benefit of foreigners. I see nothing in it which requires alteration-nothing which is not entitled to praise. I much wish that you would publish more of your treatises on the antiquities of Asia and Africa. I am confident they would be most acceptable to such as study those subjects. I have only for the present to conclude, by bidding you farewell in my own name, and that of the republic of letters. Farewell.

WILLIAM JONES.

Edmund Burke to Mr. Jones.

MY DEAR SIR,

March 12, 1779.

I GIVE you many thanks for your most obliging and valuable present, and feel myself extremely honoured by this mark of your friendship. My first leisure will be employed in an attentive perusal of an author, who had merit enough to fill up a part of yours, and whom you have made accessible

to me with an ease and advantage, which one so many years disused to Greek literature as I have been, could not otherwise have. Isæus is an author of whom I know nothing but by fame: I am sure that any idea I had from thence conceived of him will not be at all lessened by seeing him in your translation. I do not know how it has happened, that orators have hitherto fared worse in the hands of the translators than even the poets; I never could bear to read a translation of Cicero. Demosthenes suffers I think somewhat less; but he suffers greatly; so much, that I must say, that no English reader could well conceive from whence he had acquired the reputation of the first of orators. I am satisfied that there is now an eminent exception to this rule, and I sincerely congratulate the public on that acquisition. I am, with the greatest truth and regard, my dear sir, your, &c. EDMUND BURKE.

Sir William Jones to Sir Joseph Banks.

DEAR SIR JOSEPH,

September 17, 1789.

THE season for paying my annual epistolary rents being returned with the rough gales of the autumnal equinox, I am eager to offer my tribute where it is most due, to my best landlord, who, instead of claiming, like the India company, sixteen shillings in the pound for the neat profits of my farm (I speak correctly, though metaphorically,) voluntarily offers me indulgences, even if I should

run in arrears.

You have received, I trust, the pods of the finest Dacca cotton, with which the commercial resident at that station supplied me, and which I sent by

different conveyances, some inclosed to yourself. some to Sir George Young, and some by private hands. But I have always found it safer to send letters and small parcels by the public packet, than by careless and inconsiderate individuals. I am not particular to the pryangu, which I now find is its true name; but Mr. Shore found benefit from it, and procured the fresh plants from Arracan, which died unluckily in their way to Calcutta. But, seriously, it deserves a longer trial before its tonic virtues, if it have any, can be ascertained. It is certainly not so fine a bitter as camomile or columbo root.

I wish politics at the devil, but hope that, when the king recovered, science revived. It gives me great pain to know, that party, as it is called (I call it faction, because I hold party to be grounded on principles, and faction on self-interest, which excludes all principle,) has found its way into a literary club, who meet reciprocally to impart and receive new ideas. I have deep-rooted political principles, which the law taught me; but I should never think of introducing them among men of science; and if, on my return to Europe, ten or twelve years hence, I should not find more science than politics in the club, my seat in it will be at the service of any politician, who may wish to be one of the party,

An intimate friend of Mr. Blane has written to him, at my request, for the newly discovered fragrant grass; and should the plants be sent before the last ships of the season sail, they shall be sent to you. Whether they be the nard of the ancients, I must doubt, because we have sweet grasses here of innumerable species; and Reuben Burrow brought me an odoriferous grass from the place

where the Ganges enters India, and where it covers whole acres, and perfumes the whole country. From his account of it, I suspect it to be Mr. Blane's; but I could make nothing of the dry specimens, except that they differed widely from the Jatamansi, which I am persuaded is the Indian nard of Ptolemy. I can only procure the dry Jatamansi, but if I can get the stalks, roots, and flowers from Butan, I will send them to you. Since the death of Koenig, we are in great want of a professed botanist, I have twice read with rapture the Philosophia Botanica,' and have Murray's edition of the Genera et Specics Plantarum' always with me; but as I am no lynx, like Linnæus, I cannot examine minute blossoms, especially those of grasses.

We are far advanced in the second volume of our Transactions.'

WILLIAM JONES,

Edward Gibbon, Esq. to J. Holroyd, Esq.

DEAR HOLROYD,

October 6, 1771.

I SIT down to answer your epistle, after taking a very pleasant ride.-A ride! and upon what? Upon a horse.-You lie !—I don't.-I have got a droll little poney, and intend to renew the long forgotten practice of equitation, as it was known in the world before the second of June of the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and sixtythree. As I used to reason against riding, so I can now argue for it; and indeed the principal use I know in human reason is, when called upon, to furnish arguments for what we have an inclination to do.