The elegant little tale in verfe, under the title of The Enchanted Fruit, or Hindu Wife, was compofed during his refidence in Beyhar, and affords a proof of the fuccefs of his enquiries, as well as of his skill in the happy application of the intelligence obtained by

them.

The other production was a Treatise on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India, which he afterwards revised, and prefented to the fociety. The defign of this effay was to point out a resemblance, too ftrong to have been accidental, between the popular worship of the old Greeks and Italians, and that of the Hindus, and between their ftrange religion and that of Egypt, China, Perfia, Phrygia, Phoenicia, and Syria, and even remoter nations. The proof of fuch resemblance, if fatisfactorily established, would, as he remarks, authorize an inference of a general union and affinity between the most distinguished inhabitants of the primitive world, at the time when they deviated, as they did too early de

viate, from the rational adoration of the only

true God.

To this journey, under Providence, he was in all probability indebted for the prefervation of his life, which without it might have fallen a facrifice to the accumulation of disease after his arrival in Calcutta, his health was almost completely restored.

He now refumed his functions in the fupreme court of judicature, and renewed the meetings of the fociety, which had been interrupted by his abfence. In his second anniversary difcourfe, which was delivered in February 1785, he notices with pleasure and furprize the fuccefsful progrefs of the inftitution, and the variety of subjects which had been difcuffed by the members of it: and as in his first addrefs, he had confined himself to the exhibition of a diftant profpect only of the vast career on which the fociety was entering; in the second, he delineates a flight but masterly sketch of the various discoveries in hiftory, science, and art, which might juftly

be expected to refult from its researches into the literature of Afia. He mentions his fatisfaction at having had an opportunity of visiting two ancient feats of Hindu religion and literature, and notices the impediments oppofed by illness to the profecution of his propofed enquiries, and the neceffity of leaving them, as Æneas is feigned to have left the fhades, when his guide made him recollect the fwift flight of irrevocable time, with a curiofity raised to the height, and a regret not easy to be described.

I now return to the correspondence of Sir William Jones, which in this year, confifts of few letters, and those chiefly addressed to *John Macpherson, Esq. who, in February 1785, fucceeded to the station of GovernorGeneral of India, on the departure of Mr. Haftings. If, in thefe letters, Sir William adverts to topics not familiar to his readers, they are fuch as naturally arife out of his fituation and connections. Removed at a dif

tance of a quarter of the circumference of the

* The present Sir John Macpherson, Bart.

globe from the scene of politics, in which he had taken a deep intereft, his attention is transferred to new objects and new duties. The sentiments which flow from his pen, in the confidential intercourse of friendship, difplay his mind more clearly than any narrative; and they are often fuch as could not be omitted without injury to his character. Some paffages in the letters, which, as less generally interefting, could be fuppreffed without this effect, have not been transcribed,

Sir WILLIAM JONES to J. MACPHERSON, Efq.

March 12, 1785.

I always thought before I left England, that a regard for the public good required the moft cordial union between the executive and judicial powers in this country; and I lamented the mischief occafioned by former divifions. Since I have no view of happiness on this fide of the grave, but in a faithful discharge of my duty, I shall spare no pains to preferve that cordiality which fub

fifts, I truft, and will fubfift, between the government and the judges.

Lord Bacon, if I remember right, advises every statesman to relieve his mind from the fatigues of business by a poem, or a profpect, or any thing that raises agreeable images; now. as your own gardens afford you the finest profpects, and I fhould only offer you a view of paddy fields*, I fend you for your amufement, what has amufed me in the compofition, a poem † on the old philofophy and religion of this country, and you may depend on its orthodoxy. The time approaches when I must leave these recreations, and return to my defk in court, where however a knowledge of the Hindu manners and prejudices may not be ufelefs.

+ The Enchanted Fruit; or, Hindu Wife. Works,

vol. xiii. p. 211.