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In vain, my Parnell, wrapt in ease,
We shun the merchant-marring seas;
In vain we fly from wars:

In vain we shun th' autumnal blast,
(The slow Cocytus must be past)
How needless are our cares!

Our house, our land, our shadowy grove,
The very mistress of our love,

Ah me! we soon must leave.

Of all our trees, the hated boughs
Of cypress shall alone diffuse

Their fragrance o'er our grave.

To others shall we then resign
The num'rous casks of sparkling wine,
Which, frugal, now we store;
With them a more deserving heir

(Is this our labour, this our care?)
Shall stain the stucco floor.

1760.

The new situation of Mr. Jones, at the university, did not at first correspond with his expectations.... Under the tuition of a master, who saw with admiration his capacity and application, who was anxious to assist his exertions, and rewarded their success with unlimited applause, his ardour for learning had been raised to a degree of enthusiasm: at the university, he expected to find a Sumner or Askew in every master of arts, and generally the same passion for literature, which he had himself imbibed. It was evident that such extravagant expectations must be disappointed; and from the public lectures he derived little gratification or instruction: they were much below the standard of his attainments, and, in fact, were considered as merely formal. Instead of pure principles, on subjects of taste, on rhetoric, poetry, and practical morals, he complained that he was required to attend dull comments on artificial ethics, and logic, detailed in such barbarous La

tin, that he professed to know as little of it as he then knew of Arabic. The only logic then in fashion was that of the schools; and, in a memorandum written by himself, which is my authority for these remarks, I find an anecdote related of one of the fellows, who was reading Locke with his own pupils, that he carefully passed over every passage in which that great metaphysician derides the old system.

With the advice of Dr. Sumner, he was preparing for the press his Greek and Latin compositions, including a comedy, written in the language and measures of Aristophanes. But his solicitude to appear as an author was perhaps prudently checked by the advice of his friends; and the proposed publication, from which he expected an increase of reputation, was reluctantly postponed. This comedy, which bears the title of Mormo, still exists; but in a state of such mutilation, from the depredations of worms and time, that it cannot be published without very copious conjectural emendations.

After the residence of a few months at the university, on the 31st of October, 1764, Mr. Jones was unanimously elected one of the four scholars on the foundation of Sir Simon Bennett, to whose munificence he was ever proud to acknowledge his obligations.... The prospect of a fellowship, to which he looked with natural impatience, was, however, remote, as he had three seniors.

His partiality for Oriental literature now began to display itself in the study of the Arabic, to which he was strongly incited by the example and encouragement of a fellow-student, of great worth and abilities, who had acquired some knowledge in that celebrated language, and offered him the use of the best books, with which he was well provided. In acquiring the pronunciation, he was assisted by a native of Aleppo,

who spoke and wrote the vulgar Arabic fluently, but was without any pretensions to the character of a scholar. Mr. Jones accidentally discovered him in London, where he usually passed his vacations, and prevailed upon him to accompany him to Oxford, under a promise of maintaining him there. This promise he was obliged exclusively to fulfil for several months, at an expense which his finances could ill afford, being disappointed in the hopes which he had entertained, that some of his brother-collegians might be inclined to avail themselves of the assistance of the Syrian, and participate with him in the expense of his maintenance.

The disgust expressed by Mr. Jones, after his first introduction into the university, soon subsided, and his time now passed with great satisfaction to himself. He found in it all the means and opportunity of instruction which he could wish; and adopted that respectful attachment to it which he ever after retained. His college tutors, who saw that all his hours were devoted to improvement, dispensed with his attendance on their lectures, alleging, with equal truth and civility, that he could employ his time to more advantage. Their expectations were not disappointed: he perused with great assiduity all the Greek poets and historians of note, and the entire works of Plato and Lucian, with a vast apparatus of commentaries on them; constantly reading with a pen in his hand, making remarks, and composing in imitation of his favourite authors. Some portion of every morning he allotted to Mirza, whom he employed in translating the Arabian Tales of Galland into Arabic, writing himself the translation from the mouth of the Syrian. He afterwards corrected the grammatical inaccuracies of the version, by the help of Erpenius and Golius.

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In the course of his application to this ancient language he discovered, what he never before suspected, a near connection between the modern Persic and Arabic; and he immediately determined to acquire the former. He, accordingly, studied it with attention, in the only Persian grammar then extant; and having laboured diligently at the Gulistan of Sadi, assisted by the accurate, but inelegant, version of Gentius, and at the wellchosen praxis at the close of Meninski's grammar, he found his exertions rewarded with rapid success.

His vacations were past in London, where he daily attended the schools of Angelo, for the purpose of acquiring the elegant accomplishments of riding and fencing. He was always a strenuous advocate for the practice of bodily exercises, as no less useful to invi gorate his frame, than as a necessary qualification for any active exertions, to which he might eventually be called. At home, his attention was directed to the modern languages; and he read the best authors in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, following in all respects the plan of education recommended by Milton, which he had by heart; and thus, to transcribe an observation of his own, with the fortune of a peasant, giving himself the education of a prince.

If the literary acquisitions of Mr. Jones, at this period, be compared with his years, few instances will be found in the annals of biography, of a more successful application of time and talents, than he exhibits; and it is worthy of observation, that he was no less indebted to his uncommon industry and method for his attainments, than to his superior capacity.

A mind thus occupied in the pursuit of universal literature, was little susceptible of the passions of avarice or ambition; but, as he was sensible that the charges attending his education, notwithstanding his

habitual attention to economy, must occasion a considerable deduction from the moderate income which his mother possessed, he anxiously wished for a fellowship, that he might relieve her from a burden which she could ill support. If the prospect of acquiring that advantage had not been remote, no temptation would have seduced him from the university; but at the period when he began to despair of obtaining it, he received, through Mr. Arden, whose sister was married to his friend Sumner, an offer to be the private tutor of Lord Althorpe, now Earl Spencer. He had been recommended to the family of this nobleman by Dr. Shipley, to whom he was not then personally known, but who had seen and approved his compositions at Harrow, and particularly a Greek oration in praise of Lyon, an honest yeoman, who founded the school at that place, in the reign of Elizabeth. The proposal was cheerfully accepted by Mr. Jones, and, in his nineteenth year, he went to London, and was so delighted with the manners of his pupil, then just seven years old, that he abandoned all thoughts of a profession, and resolved to devote him. self to the faithful discharge of the important duties of his new situation. He had the satisfaction to find that this determination would probably restore him to the society of his best and most respected friend, Dr. Sumner; as he understood from Mr. Arden, that his pupil, after some preliminary instruction, would be fixed at Harrow.

He returned for the present to Oxford, where he remained for a few months, and, in the summer of 1765, went, for the first time, as had been proposed, to Wimbledon Park, to take upon himself the charge of his pupil's education.

He was now placed in a sphere perfectly new to him. If he quitted the university with a regret proportioned

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