ance of literary merit, wherever it could be found; and, if any perfon had cultivated a particular branch of learning more affiduously than himself, he took a real pleasure in receiving information, and, what was ftill more rare at his age, in renouncing ancient prejudices, and retracting opinions which he allowed to have been precipitately formed.

But it is needless to expatiate on his excellent qualities, which were known to Your Lordship, as well as to many of Your common friends ; and I need only add, that his well spent life would have been completely happy, if it had lafted until he had feen You retire with dignity from the high office which You fo long filled with honour, and had been witness of the splendid tranquillity which you now enjoy.

The nature and scope of the following work, which I had before imparted to Him, I took the liberty of explaining also to Your Lordship; and, if the execution of it were conformable to the defign, I might flatter myself, that it would obtain your approbation: it has antiquity at leaft to recommend it; and, whatever opinion Your Lordship may juftly entertain concerning the general utility of minute philological researches, yet You will be convinced, that ancient literature, properly directed, may be applied to any useful purposes beyond those intended at the school or the college.

Among other things, You will remark with fatisfaction, that, how much foever the old states of Greece might have surpassed us in the productions of art and genius, yet the adminiftration of juftice, on which our common fecurity depends, now flows in a purer stream at Westminster, than formerly at ATHENS; for the Archon fat in a tribunal, where every cafe was generally decided by a kind of political law, to which no precedents were applied, and from which no rules were deduced; whereas Your Lordship prefided in a court where the great boundaries of property are not only distinct and visible, but irrevocably fixed, where nothing is vague or precarious, nothing left to difcretionary interpretation, but where Your predeceffors wifely established, and Your Lordfhip nobly maintained, a beautiful fyftem of liberal jurifprudence, which, while it fecures many important rights of our countrymen, contributes to the glory of our country itself by attracting the admiration of all mankind.

The laws of ENGLAND are the proper tudy of Englishmen; but they always fhine with greater luftre, when they are compared with thofe of other nations; and, as Your Noble Father conftantly admired the eloquence of Demofthenes, so I am perfuaded that Your Lordfhip will not be displeased with the fpeeches of an orator, whom Demofthenes himself both ad

mired and imitated: if I fhould not be deceived in this expectation, I fhall gain a fufficient reward for my trouble in tranflating him, and fhall feel Your Lordship's approbation of my paffed, to be the strongest incentive to future, labours.

I am, my Lord,

with unfeigned respect,

Your Lordship's

moft obliged and

moft grateful fervant,

WILLIAM JONES.

1

THE

PREFATORY DISCOURSE.

THERE is no branch of learning, from which a student of the law may receive a more rational pleasure, or which feems more likely to prevent his being difgufted with the dry elements of a very complicated science, than the hiftory of the rules and ordinances by which nations, eminent for wisdom and illuftrious in arts, have regulated their civil polity: nor is this the only fruit that he may expect to reap from a general knowledge of foreign laws both ancient and modern; for, whilst he indulges the liberal curiofity of a scholar in examining the customs and inftitutions of men, whose works have yielded him the highest delight, and whofe actions have raised his admiration, he will feel the fatisfaction of a patriot in obferving the preference due in most instances to the laws of his own country above those of all other ftates; or, if his just profpects in life give him hopes of becoming a legiflator, he may collect many ufeful hints,