Sir William Jones, 1746-94: A Commemoration

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The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 2006 - Biography & Autobiography - 169 pages
This volume publishes the results of the "Jones Day" conference, a meeting of scholars at his alma mater (University College, Oxford) on the bicentennial of his death. Contents: Sir William Jones as Comparative Lawyer, David Ibetson; Sir William Jones and the Classical Tradition, Richard Fynes; Sir William Jones as an Arabist, Alan Jones. Lives of Sir William Jones, Thomas R. Trautmann; Sanskrit Manuscripts of Sir William Jones in the Bodleian Library, Gillian Evison; Sir William Jones, University College, and Its Portraits, Peter Bayley.

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Page 54 - Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. No; Men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, brake or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude ; Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain, Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain ; These constitute a State; And sovereign law, that State's collected will, O'er thrones and globes elate Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.
Page 77 - Sweet maid, if thou would'st charm my sight, And bid these arms thy neck infold; That rosy cheek, that lily hand, Would give thy poet more delight Than all Bocara's vaunted gold, Than all the gems of Samarcand.
Page 6 - ... years. The faculties of his mind, by nature vigorous, were improved by constant exercise; and his memory, by habitual practice, had acquired a capacity of retaining whatever had once been impressed upon it. To an unextinguished ardour for Universal Knowledge he joined a perseverance, in the pursuit of it, which subdued all obstacles. His studies began with the dawn, and, during the intermissions of Professional duties, were continued throughout the day. Reflection and meditation strengthened...
Page 146 - Thackeray, one of his masters, was wont to say of him, that he was a boy of so active a mind, that if he were left naked and friendless on Salisbury Plain, he would, nevertheless, find the road to fame and riches.
Page 50 - ... so generally important, that I make no apology for sending you a professional work. You must pardon my inveterate hatred of C. Octavianus, basely surnamed Augustus. I feel myself unable to forgive the death of Cicero, which, if he did not promote, he might have prevented.
Page 86 - To fall responsive to the breeze below? The matted thistles, bending to the gale, Now clothe those meadows once with verdure gay; Amidst the windings of that lonely vale The teeming antelope and ostrich stray. The large-eyed mother of the herd that flies Man's noisy haunts, here finds a sure retreat, Here watches o'er her young, till age supplies Strength to their limbs and swiftness to their feet.
Page 61 - I am quite ready to take the oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.
Page 6 - But what appears to me more particularly to have enabled him to employ his talents so much to his own and the public advantage, was the regular allotment of his time...
Page 82 - Nay, was its blaze, or the lamps of a hermit that dwells alone, and pours o'er the twisted wicks the oil from his slender cruse? We sat there my fellows and I twixt Darij and al-'Udhaib, and gazed as the distance gloomed, and waited its oncoming. The right of its mighty rain advanced over Katan's ridge...

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