able by your obliging manner of giving it, and which has been literally the sole fruit that I have gathered from an incessant course of very painful toil."

His noble Alcaic Ode shows that he was animated by a wise and genuine spirit of patriotism; and though he did not interfere actively in political life, his sympathies were all with the cause of enlightenment and progress. He was strongly opposed to the American war, and lifted his voice in favour of the abolition of the slave trade. He appears to have contemplated for himself in the future a parliamentary career, under such circumstances, however, as should secure his independence. His ambition was as high-toned as his character; and it was not personal advancement he sought, but the means and opportunity of contributing to the public welfare. Writing to his old pupil, Lord Althorpe, in 1778, he says:"I wish to have twenty thousand pounds in my pocket before I am eight-and-thirty years old, and then I might contribute in some degree towards the service of my country in Parliament, as well as at the bar, without selling my liberty to a patron, as too many of my profession are not ashamed of doing; and I might be a speaker in the House of Commons in the full vigour and maturity of my age. It happened, however, that a different channel was opened up to him for the suitable employment of his abilities. His acquirements as an

Oriental linguist and a lawyer pointed him out as a man eminently fitted to adorn the Indian judicature; and in 1783, during the Administration of the Earl of Shelbourne, he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court

* It was about this time that he published his "Essay on the Law of Bailments," of which lawyers still speak highly. He also issued pamphlet in favour of Parliamentary reform.

at Fort William (Calcutta), in Bengal. This appointment enabled him to offer his hand to a lady who had long enjoyed his esteem and affection, Miss Shipley, the eldest daughter of his friend the Bishop of St. Asaph.

Accompanied by his wife, Sir William Jones—he had received the honour of knighthood as the necessary appanage of the judicial office-embarked for India in April, 1773. On the voyage he addressed a letter to Lord Ashburton, to whose influence he owed his promotion:

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"As to you, my dear Lord," he said, we consider you as the spring and fountain of our happiness, as the author and parent (a Roman would have added—what the coldness of our northern language will hardly admit-the god) of our fortunes. It is possible, indeed, that, by incessant labour and irksome attendance at the bar, I might in due time have attained all that my limited ambition could aspire to; but in no other station than that which I owe to your friendship would I have gratified at once my boundless curiosity concerning the people of the East, continued the exercise of my profession, in which I sincerely delight, and enjoyed at the same time the comforts of domestic life.

"The grand jury of the county of Denbigh have proved, I understand, the bill against the Dean of St. Asaph for publishing my Dialogue;* but as an indictment for a theoretical essay on government was, I believe, never before known, I have no apprehension for the consequences. As to the doctrines of the tract, though I shall certainly not preach them to the Indians, who must and will be governed by absolute power, yet I shall go through life with a persuasion that they are just and

* He had written a tract entitled "A Dialogue between a Farmer and a Country Gentleman on the Principles of Government," of which the Dean of St. Asaph published a Welsh edition.

rational; that substantial freedom is both the daughter and parent of virtue; and that virtue is the only source of public and private felicity."

In December, 1783, Sir William Jones took his seat on the bench, and delivered his first charge to the grand jury. Lord Teignmouth tells us that the public— that is, the English community-had formed a high estimate of his oratorical powers, and that they were not disappointed. His address, we are told, was concise, graceful, and appropriate. He expounded his principles and sentiments with manly candour, but in a conciliatory manner; and from the known sincerity of his character, it was felt that his promises would not fail in the act of performance. Alluding with tact and good taste to the dissensions that at no remote period had unhappily prevailed between the executive and the judicial bench in Bengal, he showed that they ought to have been and might be avoided; that the functions of both were distinct, and could be exercised without risk of collision in promoting what should be the common object-the public good.

In the following year, his health becoming affected by the climate and his excessive application to his many duties, Sir William went on a tour through various parts of India, in the course of which he wrote "The Enchanted Fruit, or the Hindu Wife," a tale in verse, and a "Treatise on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India." On his return he resumed his official duties with characteristic earnestness; but he seems always to have been a valetudinarian. Nothing, however, was allowed to interfere with his indefatigable pursuit of knowledge, or his eager desire to benefit the teeming millions of India. He planned a grand "Digest of Hindu and Mohammedan

Laws," on the model of Justinian's celebrated code; and the plan having been approved by the Governor-General, he superintended its execution by native lawyers, devoting nearly the whole of his leisure to its advancement. To develop among the Anglo-Indian public a love of oriental literature, he founded the Asiatic Society, of which he was the first president. In order that he might investigate the principles of the Hindu law, without a servile dependence on the statements of the Pandects, he applied himself to the study of Sanskrit. To the Asiatic Miscellany, a periodical published at Calcutta, he contributed several translations, essays, and original poems. His energy was inexhaustible, and his activity ceaseless. It was impossible for him to desist from doing while there was anything to be done. Writing to a friend, he says:-" My private life is similar to that which you remember. Seven hours a-day, on an average, are occupied by my duties as a magistrate, and one hour is given to the new Indian Digest. For an hour in the evening I read aloud to Lady Jones.” We are reminded of the division of time he suggests in the couplet which he improved from Sir Edward Coke. Coke wrote:

"Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six,

Four spend in prayer, the rest on nature fix.”

Sir William Jones laid down a wiser rule :—

"Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,

Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven."

In 1789 he translated the famous Indian drama of "Sakontala, or the Fatal Ring," which supplies us with some interesting pictures of Hindu characteristics and

manners. This translation of Kâlidâsa's great dramatic poem has been to some extent superseded by Professor Monier Williams's; but it deserves to be ever held in respectful remembrance as the starting-point of Sanskrit philology in Europe. To Sir William Jones belongs the credit which is always ascribed to the pioneer who opens up a new path to man's intellectual enterprise.

Three years later, in pursuance of his great object of adapting the European administration of justice in India to the forms and principles of the old Indian laws, he published a translation of the "Ordinances of Menu." This great work is something more than a system of jurisprudence; it is also a system of cosmogony, an exposition of the art of government, and a treatise upon metaphysics. It is divided into twelve books, which treat respectively of-1. Creation; 2. Education, and the duties of a pupil, or the first order; 3. Marriage, and the duties of a householder, or the second order; 4. Means of subsistence, and the morals of the individual; 5. Diet, purification, and the duties of women; 6. Duties of an anchorite and an ascetic, or the third and fourth orders; 7. Government, and the duties of a king and the military caste; 8. Judicature and law, private and criminal; 9. Duties of the commercial and servile castes; 10. Mixed castes, and the duties of the castes in time of distress; 11. Penance and expiation; and 12. Transmigration and final beatitude.

In December, 1793, Lady Jones, by the impaired condition of her health, was compelled to return to England, leaving her husband to complete the "Digest," and then to join her in the happy rural retreat which his imagination, weary of its old ambitions, had pictured to him as the home of his later years. But this was not to