DELIVERED BEFORE The Asiatic Society : AND MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS, ON THE RELIGION, POETRY, LITERATURE, ETC. OF THE NATIONS OF INDIA. BY SIR WILLIAM JONES. WITH AN BY THE RIGHT HON. LORD TEIGNMOUTH, SELECTED AND EDITED BY JAMES ELMES, IN TWO VOLUMES, VOL. I. LONDON: TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1824. THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL, K.G. FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY, COMMISSIONER FOR THE AFFAIRS OF INDIA, PRIME MINISTER OF THE UNITED KINGDOM, ETC. ETC. ETC. MY LORD, The variety, value, and extent of the talents and character of Sir William Jones, are acknowledged wherever the English language is.spoken or understood. The immensity of his literary attainments, his fertile capacity, his great and unerring judginent, bis zeal, his patriotism, and his public services to his country, in the administration of justice in her most important colony, India, are as universally acknowledged at home as they are felt and valued in our Eastern settlements. His works are a monument of his greatness; and the two volumes of the lighter and more generally interesting parts, the elegant amusements of his leisure hours, selected from his vast storehouse of intellect, which your Lordship has permitted me to dedicate to you, are proofs of the brilliancy and versatility of his powers, the blanched purity of his vigorous mind, and the ardent love of his fellow creatures, which so prominently distinguish this illustrious character. It is delightful, instructive, and exhilarating, to follow this great lawyer, unbending from a pursuit which generally requires the entire occupation of the strongest minds, informing, |