find that the former should have been led by it, to entertain an intention of visiting the Eaft: no one, however, will regret that it was at that period abandoned. Every reader will perufe with pleasure the enthusiastic veneration expreffed by Mr. Jones for the British conftitution, and the ardour with which he pronounces himself its champion; they will also remark that his attachment to it was indelible, and acquired strength from his increasing knowledge of its laws and principles.

For an account of his occupations at Wimbledon, where he paffed the Spring of 1769, I fhall transcribe part of a letter which he wrote to an intimate friend, John Wilmot, Efquire.

My life is one unvaried scene of writing "letters, and attending the donzelle vezzofe "e tenerolle, by whofe beauties I confefs myself easily overcome.

"I have just read Robertfon's Life of Charles the Fifth, the narrative of which

"is amusing and instructive, and the ftyle "flowing and elegant: but the former wants

"that spirit and fire of genius, that alone can make a history animated, and leave

great impreffions on the mind and the "latter has too great a fameness in the turn "of the fentences, and abounds with too many affected words.

"I have alfo given my favourite Petrarch

a fecond reading, and was so much pleased "with his lamentations over Laura, that I "felected the most beautiful paffages, and "threw them altogether in the form of an

Elegy *, which I fend you enclosed, but "beg you will return it as foon as you can, 66 as I have no other copy. I fear I fhall not "be at Oxford this Spring, but am not cer"tain. Give my compliments to Poore, and "tell him, if he will defcend from the starry "temple of philofophy, and write to a very " idle fellow, I fhall be glad to hear from

* Works, vol. x. p. 261.

"him, especially as I am defirous of know

66

ing his fentiments about my Treatife De "Poëfi Afiaticâ."

༔

*

In the Summer of this year, Lord Althorp was fettled at Harrow, and Mr. Jones, who accompanied him there, had the fatisfaction of feeing himself reftored to the society of Dr. Sumner. Their enthufiafm for literature was equal the mafter contemplated, with delight unmixed with envy, a rival of his own erudition in his fcholar, who acknowledged with gratitude his obligations to his preceptor. Their intercourfe, although interrupted, had never been discontinued; and Mr. Jones feldom fuffered any confiderable time to elapfe without vifiting Harrow. During his refidence there at this period, he transcribed a Perfian Grammar, which he had three years before compofed for the use of a fchool-fellow who had been deftined for India, but had fince relinquished that object for a commiffion in the army.

I find alfo from his correfpondence, that

he had begun a Dictionary of the Perfian Language, in which the principal words were illuftrated from the most celebrated authors of the Eaft: but he expreffed at the fame time his determination not to continue the

work, unless the India Company would chase it at a confiderable expense.

any,

pur

The serious reader has probably remarked, that, amidst the attention of Mr. Jones to general literature, Religion has not been mentioned as an object of his ftudy, and he may be folicitous to know his opinions on this important fubject, and whether he had made and what, progrefs in that knowledge, in comparison of which all erudition is trifling, and human fcience vain. Notwithftanding the anxiety of Mrs. Jones for the improvement of her fon, and her indefatigable exertions to promote it in his early years, she had initiated him no further in the principles of our holy faith, than to teach him the Lord's Prayer and Apoftles' Creed. During his refidence at Harrow, at the earnest recommendation of Dr. Glaffe, whose name I men

1

tion with reverence, Mr. Jones was induced to peruse a work, intitled, "Private Thoughts on Religion," by Bishop Beveridge, with confiderable attention; and he was particularly ftruck with a paffage, in which the pious author argues, that a profeffion of Christianity merely because our countrymen profess it, without a candid enquiry and fincere conviction, would be no better reafon for our faith, than the Mohammedans have for theirs. The obfervation readily suggested to his recollection a famous couplet in Zayre, which he did not hesitate to apply to himself:

J'eusse été près du Gange, esclave des faux dieux,
Chrétienne dans Paris, Mussulmane en ces lieux.

I wish for my own fatisfaction, as well as that of my reader, that I were able to pronounce what impreffion the perusal of this work made upon the mind of Mr. Jones. It is probable, and the prefumption is not advanced without reason, that it induced him to reflect with more seriousness than he had ever before entertained on the fubject of reLife-V. I.

I