Anquetil du Perron, and printed in 1771. The Frenchman had published, in three quarto volumes, an account of his travels in India, the life of Zoröafter, and fome fuppofed works of that philofopher. To this publication he prefixed a difcourfe, in which he treated the University of Oxford, and some of its learned members and friends of Mr. Jones, with ridicule and disrespect. From the perusal of his works, Mr. Jones was little disposed to agree with Monfieur du Perron, in the boasted importance of his communications; he was difgufted with his vanity and petulance, and particularly offended by his illiberal attack upon the University, which he refpected, and upon the perfons whom he esteemed and admired. The letter which he addressed to M. du Perron was anonymous; it was written with great force, and expreffes his indignation and contempt with a degree of afperity, which the judgment of maturer years would have difapproved. Profeffor Biorn Sthal, a Swedish Orientalift, fays of it, that he had known many Frenchmen fo far mif

taken in the writer, as to afcribe it to fome bel efprit of Paris. Such in their opinion was the brilliancy and correctness of its style. Dr. Hunt, the Laudian Profeffor of Arabic, at Oxford, who had been contemptuoufly mentioned by du Perron, addreffed the two following letters to Mr. Jones on this occasion:

DEAR SIR,

Ch. Church, Oct. 25, 1771.

I have now found the tranflation of all the remains of Zoröafter, mentioned in your laft, and think, upon an attentive perufal of it, that the account which Dr. Frafer has given of it is true.

I never told Perron, that I understood the ancient Perfic language; and I am authorized by Mr. Swinton, who was prefent all the time Perron was with me, to say that he never heard me tell him fo. I might perhaps fay, that I knew the old Perfic character, as given by Dr. Hyde; but to a further knowledge of the language I never pretended, nor could I tell him that I did. Put for a proof of the veracity of this fellow, I beg leave to refer

you to page 461. of his preliminary discourse, where he says, that he made me a prefent of a fine Sanfkirrit, (or, as he calls it, Sanskrotan) alphabet, and that he promised Dr. Barton and Mr. Swinton, to fend them alphabets of the feveral Afiatic languages; whereas he neither made me the prefent, nor performed the promise to them. Mr. Swinton says, he can furnish us with other inftances of this Frenchman's veracity, which he has promised to do in a few days. In the mean time, I am, &c.

THOMAS HUNT.

DEAR SIR,

Ch. Church, Nov. 28, 1771. I received the welcome prefent of your excellent pamphlet against Perron* in due time, and yesterday I was favoured with your kind letter; for both which I return you my hearty thanks. I fhould have thanked you for your pamphlet fooner, but have been out of town. I have read it over and over again, and think the whole nation, as well as

* Works, vol. x. p. 461.

the University and its members, are much obliged to you for this able and fpirited defence. I acknowledge myself to be so in a particular manner, and fo does Mr. Swinton, who defires his compliments and thanks. But there is one thing which Mr. Swinton seems to doubt of, which is, whether there has been fuch a general deftruction of the writings of the ancient Perfians as you imagine there has been. For my own part, till fome better proof can be given of the authenticity of those books, which have been produced as the genuine compofitions of that ancient people, than what I have yet feen given, I am inclined to be of your opinion. At least, this I am fure of, that if the books, which Alexander, Omar, &c. deftroyed, were no better than those which have been published, the world has had no great lois; witness the insufferable jargon which you have given from their writings in the 38th and 41ft, &c. pages of your letter; to which, as this bulky performance of Perron* will be but in few

*Mons. Anquetil du Perron made a voyage to India, Life-V. I.

hands, it may not perhaps be amifs to add fome others. But, as Mr. Swinton has fuggefted, that he has fome doubts about the fate of the writings of the old Persians, I think

in 1755, for the purpose of acquiring the ancient language of Persia, and that of the Bramins. His ardour for this undertaking was so great, that he engaged himself to the French East-India Company as a private soldier, as affording the speediest means of accomplishing the voyage, but some friends procured his discharge, and a small pension for him from the Crown of France. He arrived at Pondicherry, in 1755, and, after travelling over various parts of India, by the assistance of the Government of Bombay, was enabled to return to Europe in an English vessel, and landed at Portsmouth, in November 1761. He brought with him many Oriental manuscripts, which he afterwards carried to France, and in 1771 published three quarto volumes, containing an account of his travels, and the information which he had obtained in the course of them, under the general title of Zind-Avesta, Ouvrage de Zoroaster.

In a discourse addressed to the Asiatic Society at Calcutta, in 1789, Sir William Jones speaks of him, as "hav"ing had the merit of undertaking a voyage to India in "his earliest youth, with no other view than to recover "the writings of Zeratusht (Zoröaster) and who would "have acquired a brilliant reputation in France, if he had "not sullied it by his immoderate vanity and virulence "of temper, which alienated the good-will even of his "own countrymen." In the same discourse, he affirms, that M. Anquetil most certainly had no knowledge of Sanscrit.

In 1799, M. Anquetil published a work, entitled,