infidels of India. On the whole, it is the most amusing and inftructive book I ever read in Perfian *.

I hear nothing from Europe, but what all the papers contain; and that is enough to make me rejoice exceedingly, that I am in Afia. Those with whom I have spent some of my happiest hours, and hope to spend many more on my return to England, are tearing one another to pieces, with the enmity that is proverbial here, of the fnake and the ichneumon. I have nothing left therefore, but to wish what is right and juft may prevail, to discharge my public duties with unremitted attention, and to recreate myself at leifure with the literature of this interesting country.

*The Dabistan, is a treatise on twelve different religions, composed by a Mohammedan traveller, a native of Cashmir, named Mohsan, but distinguished by the assumed name of Fani, or perishable. Sir William Jones, in his sixth discourse to the society, on the Persians, refers to it as a rare and interesting tract, which had cast a gleam of light on the primeval history of Iran and the human race, of which he had long despaired, and which could hardly have dawned from any other quarter.

Sir William Jones to J. Shore, Efq.

Crishna-nagur, Aug. 16, 1787.

I thank you heartily, my dear Sir, for the tender ftrains of the unfortunate Charlotte*, which have given us pleasure and pain; the fonnets which relate to herself are incomparably the beft. Petrarca is little known; his fonnets, especially the first book, are the leaft valuable of his works, and contain less natural fentiments than those of the fwan of Avon; but his odes which are political, are equal to the lyric poems of the Greeks; and his triumphs are in a triumphant strain of fublimity and magnificence. Anna Maria gives you many thanks for the pleasure you have procured her. We are in love with this pastoral cottage; but though these three months are called a vacation, yet I have no vacant hours. It rarely happens that favourite ftudies are closely connected with the ftrict discharge of our duty, as mine happily are; even in this cottage I am affifting the court *Sonnets by Charlotte Smith.

by ftudying Arabic and Sanferit, and have now rendered it an impoffibility for the Mohammedan or Hindu lawyers to impose upon us with erroneous opinions.

This brings to my mind your honeft pundit, Rhadacaunt, who refused, I hear, the office of pundit to the court, and told Mr. Hastings that he would not accept of it, if the falary were doubled; his fcruples were probably religious; but they would put it out of my power to serve him, fhould the office again be vacant. His unvarnished tale I would have repeated to you, if we had not miffed one another on the river; but fince I despair of seeing you until my return to Calcutta, at the end of October, I will fet it down here, as nearly as I can recollect, in his own words:

My father (faid he) died at the age of an hundred years, and my mother, who was eighty years old, became a fati, and burned herself to expiate fins. They left "me little befides good principles. Mr.

"which at firft yielded twelve hundred rupees

a year; but lately, either through my in"attention or through accident, it has pro"duced only one thousand. This would be "fufficient for me and my family; but the "duty of Brahmans is not only to teach the 66 youths of their fect, but to relieve those "who are poor. I made many presents to 66 poor scholars and others in distress, and for "this purpose I anticipated my income: I

66

66

was then obliged to borrow for my family

expenfes, and I now owe about three "thousand rupees. This debt is my only "cause of uneasiness in this world. I would "have mentioned it to Mr. Shore, but I was "afhamed."

Now the question is, how he can be fet upon his legs again, when I hope he will be more prudent. If Bahman* should return to Perfia, I can afford to give him one hundred rupees a month, till his debt shall be discharged out of his rents; but at prefent, I pay more

* A parsi and a native of Yezd, employed by Sir William Jones as a reader.

in falaries to my native scholars than I can well afford; nevertheless I will cheerfully join you in any mode of clearing the honeft man, that can be fuggefted; and I would affift him merely for his own fake, as I have more Brahmanical teachers than I can find time to hear.

I send you not an elegant pathetic fonnet, but the wildest and ftrangest poem that was ever written, Khakani's complaint in prison. The whole is a menace, that he would change his religion, and feek protection among the Chriftians, or the Gabres. It contains one or two proper names, of which I find no full explanation even in a commentary profeffedly written to illuftrate the poem. The fire of Khakani's genius blazes through the fmoke of his erudition; the measure of the poem, which will enable you to correct the errors of the copies, is

with a ftrong accent on the last fyllable of each foot. Adieu, my dear Sir, &c.