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jected. When Bishops and Chancellors honour us by offering to dine with us at a tavern, it seems very extraordinary that we should ever reject such an offer; but there is no reasoning on the caprice of men. Of our club I will only say, that there is no branch of human knowledge, on which some of our members are not capable of giving information, and I trust that as the honour will be ours, so your Lordship will receive some pleasure from the company once a fortnight, of some of our first writers and critics, as well as our most virtuous senators and accomplished men. I think myself highly honoured in having been a member of this society near ten years, and chiefly in having contributed to add such names to the number of our friends as those of your Lordship and Lord Althorpe. I spoke yesterday in Westminster-Hall for two hours and a half, on a knotty point of law, and this morning for above an hour, on a very ing public question; to-morrow I must argue a great cause, and am therefore obliged to conclude with assuring your Lordship, that I am with the highest, &c.

interest

W. JONES.

The Bishop of St. ASAPH to Mr. JONES.
DEAR SIR,

November 27.

You was prevented by Sir Joshua Reynolds in your kind intentions of giving me the earliest notice of the honour you have done me. I believe Mr. Fox will allow me to say, that the honour of being elected into the Turk's-Head Club is not inferior to that of being the representa

tive of Westminster or Surry. The electors are certainly more disinterested, and I should say they were much better judges of merit, if they had not rejected Lord Camden and chosen me. I flatter myself with the hopes of great pleasure and improvement in such a society as you describe, which indeed is the only club of which I ever wished myself a member.

Though I am much flattered with hearing from you, I was delighted with the cause of your delaying to write. Your talents have found means, by their own weight, to open the way to public notice and employment, which could not long be shut against them. Your pleadings for the nephew against the daughter promise something very curious in the particulars of the case, which seems to call for great abilities to defend it.

I would not neglect the first opportunity of answering your very obliging letter, though, it being early post day, I am forced to write in a greater hurry than I could wish.

I am, &c. J. ST. A.

After an interval of six years, we find Mr. Jones retracing his favourite haunts with the Arabian muses. He devoted the leisure hours of the winter of 1780-1 to complete his translation of seven ancient poems of the highest repute in Arabia*. Literature,

* At the beginning of the seventh century, the Arabic language was brought to a high degree of perfection, by a sort of poetical academy, that used to assemble at stated times in a place called O'cadh, where every poet produced his best composition, and was sure to meet with the applause that it deserved; the most excellent of these poems were

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Literature, politics, professional studies and practice, all had a share of his attention; but the principal object of his hopes and ambition was the vacant seat on the bench in India, to which he looked forward with increasing anxiety. The marriage of Lord Althorpe with Miss Bingham, daughter of Lord Lucan, was too interesting an event to pass unnoticed by Mr. Jones; and he celebrated the nuptials of his friend in a very poetical ode, under the title of the Muse Recalled". This composition, the dictate of friendship, and offspring of genius, was written in the course of a few hours. His poetic talents were also exerted in

transcribed in characters of gold upon Egyptian paper, and hung up in the Temple of Mecca, whence they were named Mozahebat, or golden, and Moallakat, or suspended: the poems of this sort were called Casseidas or Eclogues, seven of which are preserved in our libraries, and are considered as the finest that were written before the time of Mohammed.

Essay on the Poetry of the Eastern Nations.

Works, vol. xiv. p. 535.

It may be satisfactory to the reader who does not possess the works of Sir Wm. Jones, to read his metrical imitation of a passage in the 4th Eclogue.

But ah! thou knows't not in what youthful play,
Our nights, beguil'd with pleasure, swam away;
Gay songs, and cheerful tales, deceiv'd the time,
And circling goblets made a tuneful chime;
Sweet was the draught, and sweet the blooming maid,
Who touch'd her lyre beneath the fragrant shade;
We sipp'd till morning purpled every lain;
The damsels slumber'd, but we sipp'd again;

The waking birds that sung on every tree
Their early notes, were not so blythe as we.
* Works, vol. iv. P. 563.

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a cause ever nearest to his heart, that of Liberty: he restrung the lyre of Alcæus, and produced a short ode* in the genuine spirit of the patriot and poet, whom he imitated. These were his amusements. The result of his professional studies was an Essay on the Law of Bailments. He divided and treated the subject under the distinct heads of analysis, history, and synthesis; and intimates an intention, if the method used in this tract should be approved, and on the supposition of future leisure, to discuss in the same form every branch of English law, civil and criminal, private and public; ́and he concludes the Essay with the following just and elegant reflections :

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"The great system of jurisprudence, like that of "the Universe, consists of many subordinate systems, all of which are connected by nice "links and beautiful dependencies; and each of "them, as I have fully persuaded myself, is redu"cible to a few plain elements, either the wise "maxims of national policy and general conve"nience, or the positive rules of our forefathers, "which are seldom deficient in wisdom or utility: "if LAW be a science, and really deserve so sublime

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a name, it must be founded on principle, and "claim an exalted rank in the empire of reason ; "but if it be merely an unconnected series of de"crees and ordinances, its use may remain, though "its dignity be lessened; and he will become the greatest lawyer, who has the strongest habitual, * Works, vol. iv. p. 571.

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"or artificial memory. In practice, law certainly employs two of the mental faculties; reason in "the primary investigation of points entirely new, "and memory, in transmitting the reason of sage "and learned men, to which our own ought inva"riably to yield, if not from a becoming modesty, "at least from a just attention to that object, for "which all laws are framed, and all societies "instituted, THE GOOD OF MANKIND."

Nothing can more strongly evince the predilection of Mr. Jones for his professional studies, and his anxiety to acquire a knowledge of the general principles and practice of law, than a work which he undertook about this period, the translation of an Arabian poem on the Mohammedan law of succession to the property of intestates. The subject of the original is dry, the diction obscure; it exhibits no rhetorical flowers, no poetical ornament; and even the partiality of Mr. Jones for Eastern literature could never have induced him to engage in a work of this nature, if he had not thought it connected with objects of information and utility. In the expectation of obtaining the situation of an Indian judge, this law tract probably recommended itself to his notice, as he could not but foresee that a knowledge of Mohammedan law would be essential to the performance of the duties of that station.

The reader will recollect how much the public attention was occupied in the year 1782, with the *Works, vol. iii. p. 489.

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