Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

A

DISCOURSE, &c.

GENTLEMEN,

IF I had confulted my competency only, for the station which your choice has conferred upon me, I muft without hesitation have declined the honour of being the Prefident of this Society; and although I most cheerfully accept your invitation, with every inclination to affift, as far as my abilities extend, in promoting the laudable views of your association, I muft ftill retain the consciousness of thofe difqualifications, which you have been pleased to overlook.

It was lately our boaft to poffefs a Prefident, whofe name, talents, and character, would have been honourable to any inftitution; it is now our misfortune to lament, that Sir William Jones exifts, but in the affections of his friends, and in the esteem, veneration, and regret of all.

I cannot, I flatter myself, offer a more grateful tribute to the Society, than by making his character the subject of my first address to you;

B 2

and if in the delineation of it, fondness or affection for the man should appear blended with my reverence for his genius and abilities, in the fympathy of your feelings I shall find my apology.

To define with accuracy the variety, value, and extent of his literary attainments, requires more learning than I pretend to poffefs, and I am therefore to folicit your indulgence for an imperfect sketch, rather than expect your approbation for a complete defcription of the talents, and knowledge, of your late and lamented Prefident.

I shall begin with mentioning his wonderful capacity for the acquifition of languages, which has never been excelled. In Greek and Roman literature, his early proficiency was the subject of admiration and applaufe; and knowledge, of whatever nature, once obtained by him, was ever afterwards progreffive. The more elegant dialects of modern Europe, the French, the Spanish, and the Italian, he spoke and wrote with the greatest fluency and precision; and the German and Portuguese were familiar to him. At an early period of life his application to Oriental literature commenced; he ftudied the Hebrew with eafe and fuccefs, and many of the most learned Afiaticks have the candour to avow, that his knowledge of Arabick and Perfian was as accurate and extenfive as their own:

he was alfo converfant in the Turkish idiom, and the Chinese had even attracted his notice, fo far as to induce him to learn the radical characters of that language, with a view perhaps to farther improvements. It was to be expected, after his arrival in India, that he would eagerly embrace the opportunity of making himself master of the Sanscrit; and the most enlightened profeffors of the doctrines of BRAHMA confess with pride, delight, and surprise, that his knowledge of their facred dialect was most critically correct and profound. The Pandits, who were in the habit of attending him, when I saw them after his death, at a public Durbar, could neither suppress their tears for his lofs, nor find terms to express their admiration at the wonderful progress he had made in their sciences.

Before the expiration of his twenty-second year, he had completed his Commentaries on the Poetry of the Afiaticks, although a confiderable time afterwards elapfed before their publication; and this work, if no other monument of his labours existed, would at once furnish proofs of his confummate skill in the Oriental dialects, of his proficiency in those of Rome and Greece, of taste and erudition far beyond his years, and of talents and application without example.

« PreviousContinue »