to lay it afide again without giving it a thorough perufal. I find you have enriched this work with a great variety of curious quotations, and judicious criticisms, as well as with the addition of several valuable new pieces, fince you favoured me with the fight of it before, and the pleasure which I have now had in reading it has been in proportion. I hope this new key to the Afiatic poetry, with which you have obliged the world, will not be fuffered to ruft for want of use; but that it will prove, intended it to be, an happy what you inftrument in the hands of learned and inquifitive men, for unlocking the rich treasures of wisdom and knowledge which have been preferved in the Hebrew, Arabic, Perfic, and the other Oriental languages, and especially the Hebrew, that venerable channel, through which the facred compofitions of the divinely inspired poets have been conveyed down to us. I hope this will find you well,

and am, &c.

THOMAS HUNT.

P. S. I have seen your proposals for print

Life-V. I.

Р

ing the mathematical works of my worthy friend, your late father, and beg to be of the number of your fubfcribers.

* Mr. JONES to F. P. BAYER.

March 1774.

I have received a moft elegant copy of your Treatise on the Phoenician Language and Colonies, and I am at a lofs to decide whether it is most learned or entertaining. Although I fear, like Diomede, that I shall give you brass in exchange for your gold; yet I send you, as a proof of my gratitude and efteem, my Commentaries on Afiatic Poetry; and it will afford me great satisfaction to learn that they please you.-Farewell.

† Mr. JONES to H. A. SCHULTENS.

July 1774.

This letter will be prefented to you

by Mr. Campbell, a young gentleman of great modefty and worth, and I recommend

* Appendix, No. 23.

+ Appendix, No. 24.

him to your particular attention. He intends going to India as a merchant, but, previous to his embarkation, wishes to give some time to the study of foreign languages, European and Afiatic, and particularly the Perfian. Any affiftance which you may afford him in his ftudies, or other little affairs, I fhall efteem a favour done to myself, and he will confider it a great obligation.

How goes on our Hariri? Will it ever be published with your elucidations? My time is employed in the courts; and whatever leisure I can command is exclufively devoted to the study of law and hiftory. I hope you have received my Commentaries, which I fent you.-Farewell.

* H. A. SCHULTENS to Mr. JONES, The phoenix of his time, and the

ornament of the age-Health!

Amsterdam, Sept. 1774.

When I reflect, my dear Jones, upon the fortunate period, which I paffed in your hap

Appendix, No. 25.

py island, I feel the most exquifite delight at the recollection of the pleasure and improvement, which I derived from your fociety; at the fame time, my anxiety for your company excites the most lively regret at our feparation. If I cannot altogether conquer it, I can at least alleviate it by corresponding with you.

Nothing but a variety of unusual occupations could have delayed my writing to you so long after my return to Amfterdam; I was moreover apprehenfive of interrupting your studies by my intrufion. The receipt of the obliging prefent of your Commentaries, has removed all my fear on this account, and affords me a moft agreeable proof of your remembrance. Accept my fincereft thanks for your finished and moft elegant work, which I have eagerly read again and again with admiration and astonishment.

As fincere a lover as yourself of the Muses, how much I regret their unhappy lot, that whilft they have fo few admirers, one of their most distinguished votaries fhould be feduced

from their fervice by the difcordant broils of the bar! Do they not then poffefs fuch charms and graces as to merit a preference to others, who have no portion but wealth and honour? Is not their beauty fo attractive, their dress fo elegant and enchanting, as to fascinate their admirers to a degree, which makes them defpife all others, and feel no delight but in their fociety? Forgive, my dear Jones, this friendly expoftulation.

Two or three copies only of your work have reached us; I beg you will not suffer the inattention of booksellers to deprive us of a larger fupply. You will receive shortly a little inaugural difcourfe which I pronounced here, On extending the limits of Oriental li terature. It was done too much in hafte to be as perfect as it ought to have been, and as I could have made it with more leisure. The office which I hold here is most agreeable to me, but is attended with this inconvenience, that the duties of it allow me no time for the pursuit of other ftudies; and the attention which I am forced to bestow on grammatical