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One evening, in April, 1794, after remaining imprudently in the open air till a late hour, he called upon his friend, Sir John Shore (afterwards Lord Teignmouth), and complained of aguish symptoms. These, unfortunately, were found to indicate the existence of inflammation of the liver, when, two or three days afterwards, medical advice was obtained. His enfeebled constitution could not resist the disease; it ran its course with increased swiftness; and on the 27th of April proved fatal. On the morning of that day, his attendants, alarmed at the signs of approaching dissolution, hastened to summon Lord Teignmouth to the bedside of his friend. He found him lying on his bed in a posture of meditation, and the sole indication of lingering life was a small degree of action in the heart: this, after a few seconds, ceased, and he expired without a pang or groan. From the complacency of his features, and the ease of his position, it was evident that he had suffered little; and no doubt he had found consolation from those sources where he had always been accustomed to seek it, -where alone, as we pass through the valley of the shadow, we can hope to find it successfully.

Sir William Jones, at the time of his death, was only forty-eight years old. But of his short life he had made admirable use. He had devoted himself to the acquisition of knowledge from no selfish motives. He had made it a means of advancing the cause of civilisation and human progress. His sympathies were always with right and justice and freedom; his mind was as pure and as lofty as his life. Those last lines of Berkeley's "Siris,"

of which he was so fond-" He that would make a real progress in knowledge must dedicate his age as well as youth, the latter growth as well as the first-fruits, at the altar

of Truth". -seem to me the exact epitome, as it were of his career; or rather, I should say, perhaps, they gave its keynote. Truth was his guiding-star, his inspiration. In every relation of life, and in every capacity, he commanded esteem by his rectitude of conduct and loftiness. of purpose. As a judge, his inflexible integrity was long remembered in Calcutta, both by Europeans and natives.

"So cautious was he," says Lord Teignmouth, "to guard the independence of his character from any possibility of violation or imputation, that no solicitation could prevail upon him to use his personal influence with the members of administration in India to advance the private interests of friends whom he esteemed, and which he would have been happy to promote. He knew the dignity and felt the importance of his office, and, convinced that none could afford him more ample scope for exerting his talents for the benefit of mankind, his ambition never extended beyond it."

As a linguist, Sir William Jones has been surpassed by few. He acquired a complete critical knowledge of eight languages :-English, Latin, French, Italian, Greek, Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit. Eight more he knew less perfectly, but could read with some small assistance from a dictionary -Spanish, Portuguese, German, Runic, Hebrew, Bengali, Hindu, and Turkish. And with twelve others he had a varying degree of acquaintance-Tibetan, Pati, Phalari, Deri, Russian, Syrian, Ethiopic, Coptic,

* This sentence is the germ of the following lines by Sir William Jones :

"Before thy mystic altar, heavenly Truth,

I kneel in manhood as I knelt in youth;
Thus let me kneel till this dull form decay,
And life's last shade be brightened by thy ray;
Then shall my soul, now lost in clouds below,
Soar without bound, without consuming grow."

Welsh, Swedish, Dutch, and Chinese. But, as we have seen, his acquirements in this direction did not prevent him from pursuing with energy and success the other branches of knowledge; and he nourished his mind, fed his imagination, and guided his life by "the doctrines of philosophy, the records of history, and the teachings of science."*

* Our chief authority for the foregoing sketch is, of course, Lord Teignmouth's "Life of Sir William Jones."

Sir Samuel Romilly.

1757-1818.

S

AMUEL ROMILLY was born on the 1st of March, 1757, in Frith Street, Soho, London. Like some other illustrious Englishmen, he sprang from a Huguenot family, who at one time held land at Montpelier, in the south of France. His grandfather, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes-the great act of toleration which France owed to the wisdom of Henri Quatre-withdrew from his native country for conscience' sake, and settled in England. The patrimonial estates having passed away from him, he struggled as best he might against the pressure of poverty, but at a comparatively early age fell in the unequal fight. His eldest son, Peter, born in 1712, was brought up to the trade of a jeweller. He married a lady of the name of Gamaule, who, like himself, was of French extraction, and by her had several children, of whom only three, Thomas, Catherine, and the subject of this sketch, escaped the perils of childhood.

Few particulars of the early life of Samuel Romily have come down to us, but it is known that he showed much sensibility of temperament, an amiable disposition,

and exceptional activity of intellect. When very young he and his brother were sent to a neighbouring day-school, where they contrived to acquire, through their own exertions rather than any effort on the part of their master, some knowledge of writing, arithmetic, and the rules of the French grammar. At the age of fourteen Samuel Romilly left school, and for a couple of years gave assistance to his father in keeping his accounts, and occasionally taking the orders of his customers. This occupation left him a good deal of leisure, which he occupied in reading-reading all such books as he could possibly procure, while preferring those in ancient history, criticism, and English poetry. I suppose that most young men with a taste for letters dabble in rhyme, and think themselves poets. Romilly did not escape the delusion, and scrawled an infinite number of eclogues, songs, and satires, translated Boileau, and imitated Spenser. There is one advantage in this form of composition—the practice of it chastens the taste, trains the ear, and accustoms the writer to the choice of words. A young man who writes verses can soon persuade himself that he is a genius. This was the case with Romilly, but he had good sense enough to perceive that even genius needs culture. He applied himself, therefore, to the study of Latin, and in the course of three or four years mastered the principal Latin authors in poetry and prose, and attained to some degree of facility in Latin composition. In Greek he was unable to make much progress, but he read the Greek writers in Latin and English versions. Meanwhile, by his process of desultory reading, he had gained some knowledge of a good many sciences, and an inherited taste had led him to study the works of the great painters, so that, at eighteen, young

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