Hayley was, however, now in great favour with the public; the first edition of his plays was sold in a fortnight; and through the intervention of his friend Thomas Payne, the bookseller, he re-purchased for 500_l._ from Dodsley the copyright of all he had written. It would have been well if his poetical career had closed here; for whatever he did afterwards in this way met either with disregard or contempt. Such was the fate of a Poem on the Anniversary of the Revolution in 1788; of an imitation of a German opera, called the Trial of the Rovers, which he sold to Harris for 100_l._ but which failed at Covent-Garden in 1789; of Eudora, a tragedy, acted with no better success in 1790; of the National Advocates, intended to commemorate the triumph of Erksine in his defence of Horne Tooke in 1795; of an Elegy on Sir William Jones in the same year; of an Essay on Sculpture in 1800; of Ballads on Animals, the most empty of his productions that I have seen, in 1802; of the Triumphs of Music in 1804; of Stanzas to the Patriots in Spain in 1808; and of another volume of plays in 1811.
Yet he still continued to secure to himself some share of attention by several works in prose. In the Essay on Old Maids, published in 1785, there is an agreeable combination of learning, sprightliness, and arch humour. He now and then approaches to irreverence on sacred subjects, but, as I am persuaded without any ill intention; the dedication of the book to Mrs. Carter gave much offence to that lady. His Dialogues on Johnson and Chesterfield, in 1787, contrast the character of these writers in a lively manner and with some power of discrimination, but the partiality of the author is very evident. He had himself "sacrificed" too successfully to the Graces to be a fair umpire between the rough scholar and the polished nobleman. The Young Widow, or the History of Cornelia Sedley, a novel, was published without his name (as the last-mentioned two books had also been) in 1789. For this he received 200_l_. from Mr. Nichols. The purchaser found his bargain a hard one: for the novel had little to recommend it, being deficient in probability of incident and character. He made up for the loss by presenting his bookseller with another anonymous work entitled the "Eulogies of Howard, a Vision," in prose.[1] His "Life of Milton," was intended for an edition of the poet to be published by Nichols the King's printer; but an abridgement of it only was employed in 1794, for the purpose, some passages being not thought courtly enough for the royal eye. He afterwards published it without mutilation. The design of this work, to which he devoted two years of diligent application, was to vindicate Milton from the asperity of Johnson—a task, which according to the general opinion, has since been more ably executed by Doctor Symmons. He had, however, reason to be satisfied with this undertaking, as it led to an acquaintance and friendship with Cowper, who was at the same time engaged in writing notes to Milton. Eight years after, it fell to his lot to write a Life of Cowper himself. This proved to him the most lucrative of all his literary engagements; but its success was owing principally not to the narrative but to the private letters of Cowper which accompanied them. Of the Life and Letters he added another volume in 1804; and in 1809 wrote the Life of Romney, which, having no such attraction, did not recommend itself to the public notice.
From the time that he left London, in 1774, till his death, a period of 46 years, he was seldom long absent from his home, first at Eartham, and afterwards at Felpham, a pleasant village on the sea-shore, distant only a few miles from his former residence. Cowper, who visited him at Eartham, in 1792, speaks of the house as "the most elegant mansion he had ever inhabited, surrounded by the most delightful pleasure grounds he had ever seen," and observes "he had no conception that a poet could be the owner of such a paradise." The house was built, and the pleasure grounds laid out by himself. Here I saw him in the next summer but one after Cowper's visit. His habits appeared to me such as they were long afterwards described by Mrs. Opie—those of extreme retirement, of abstemiousness, and of family devotion. He was at that time employed on his Life of Milton, and in educating his son, a promising boy, who under the age of fourteen, had began to translate the Epistles of Horace into tolerable blank verse. On accompanying me the next morning out of "Paradise," the lad spoke to me with some sorrow of his father's refusal to let him "join a pack of hounds in the neighbourhood." He died in his 20th year, a victim probably to the secluded life and the studious habits to which his parent had so early devoted him. His mother, a servant in the family, as I was told by Anna Seward, declared him to be the son of a young orphan, named Howell, who having been benevolently received by Hayley into his house, and through his means promoted in the military service of the East India Company, soon after perished by shipwreck. But the features of the boy told a different story, and one more consonant to that of the poet, by whom he was always acknowledged for his son. He was, for some time the pupil of Mr. Flaxman, who augured highly of his abilities, and who, if the young man had lived, would certainly have done all that could be done by example and instruction to render him illustrious in his art and respectable as a man.
Considering his independence on any profession, the ease of his manners, his talents for conversation, and his knowledge of modern languages, it may be wondered that Hayley did not mix more in society, or visit other countries besides his own. Once, indeed, when a young man he made an excursion to Scotland; and, in the summer of 1790, passed three weeks at Paris with his friends, Carwardine and Romney, from whence, much to the scandal of the neighbourhood, he brought back a French governess for his son. Mrs. Hayley had then left him, or rather had been gently forced out of his house; and, afterwards when she begged for leave to return, was denied it. From his own account of the matter, and from the letters that passed between them, some of which he has published in his Memoirs, it is difficult to acquit him of blame, and not to wish that he had endured with more patience the foibles of a woman, who, though irreproachable in her own conduct, was more indulgent than she need have been to his frailties. He appears, however, to have been anxious for her happiness after they were separated. She died in London in 1797, and received from her husband, the empty honours of a funeral sermon and an epitaph. He was loth to quit his home except on some errand of friendship, when he was ever ready to run to the Land's End. I remember his quoting to me the following line out of Aeschylus, on the advantage of a master's presence in his own family.
[Greek: "Omma gar domon nomixo despton paronsian".]
He seems to have taken delight in the instruction of youth; besides his own boy, he undertook to educate gratuitously two sons of his friend, Mr. Carwardine, and one of his neighbour Lord Egremont. On the death of Warton, he declined some advances that were made him through his friends, towards an offer of the laureatship. Nothing but a high sense of independence could have prompted this refusal; for, though no courtier, he was not wanting in loyalty; and the stipend would have been a welcome addition to an income which barely sufficed his own moderate wants and his liberal contributions to the necessities of others.
He was not more fortunate in a second marriage than he had been in his first. The vain confidence which he placed in his good stars on this occasion shall be told in his own words, which are as follows:
While he was deeply engaged in his biographical compositions he used to say, 'I have not leisure to wander from my hermitage, and look into the world in quest of a wife; but I feel a strong persuasion that if it is really good for me to venture once more on marriage,
that step Of deepest hazard and of highest hope,
my kind stars will conduct to my cell some compassionate fair one, fond of books and retirement, who may be willing to enliven, with the songs of tenderness, the solitude of a poetical hermit.'
Such was the frame of mind in the recluse when an incident occurred, that gradually seemed to accomplish a completion of his prophecy. This incident was a visit from an old ecclesiastical acquaintance, attended by two young ladies, Mary and Harriet Welford, daughters of an aged and retired merchant on Blackheath.
The countenance and musical talents of the elder sister made a strong impression on the sequestered poet. Their accidental visit gradually led to his second marriage, on the 23d of March 1809, an event attended with much general exultation and delight, though evidently, like the usual steps of poets in the world, rather a step of hasty affection than of deliberate prudence.
In three years they were separated; I know not for what reasons. On shewing me some gaps in his library, he said that they had been made by proceedings in Doctors Commons.
To Felpham where he passed the last twenty years of his life, there retired also, to end his days in privacy and quiet, Doctor Cyril Jackson, who had been many years Dean of Christ Church, and in that time had refused some of the highest honours in the church. It is said that when Hayley waited on him, the Doctor declined entering upon an interchange of visits; but said that he should be happy to establish an intercourse of a different kind, and to send him occasionally books, or anything else which he might happen to have, and which Hayley might be without, and to receive from him the same neighbourly accommodations in return. Accordingly when the poet took a wife in his old age, he sent the Doctor a piece of the wedding cake, with a message, that he hoped at some future time to receive a neighbourly communication of the same sort in return.
In 1818, he told me that his medical attendant was apprehensive of his becoming dropsical, and had prescribed him a glass of port wine after his dinner. His usual drink before this had been water. In the October of the following year he wrote to me that "he had been assailed by two of the most formidable enemies of the human frame; and had been almost demolished by a fit of apoplexy, and a fit of the stone: the blow from the former," he adds, "was so violent, that my physician despaired of my revival; but, by the mercy of Heaven, I am so far revived, that I can again enjoy a social and literary intercourse with my friends; and even dabble again in rhyme; but, as I suspect, that my rhymes, like the Homilies of Gil Blas' Archbishop, may savour of apoplexy, I think it right to keep them in utter privacy."
His other complaint the stone, terminated his life on the 12th ofNovember, 1820.
Under all his sufferings (says his early friend, Mr. Sargent), he was never heard to express a querulous word; and if I had not seen it, I could not have thought it possible for so much constant patience and resignation to have been exhibited under so many years of grievous pain. Of his severe disease he spoke with great calmness; and when there seemed to be some doubt among his medical friends, as to the existence of a stone in the bladder, he said to me in a gentle tone, "I can settle the controversy between them; I am sure there is, for I distinctly feel it." A very large stone was found, after his decease. An accidental fall from the slipping of his foot, brought on his last illness and death. When I came to him, the day before he died, he mentioned this circumstance, and expressed a strong hope that God was, in mercy, about to put a period to his sufferings. He had received the Sacrament about a fortnight before, from the Rev. Mr. Hardy, a minister in the neighbourhood, towards whom he always expressed a most friendly regard.
To this satisfactory account of Hayley's latter days, let me be allowed to add, that which is given by the son of his friend, the Rev. John Sargent. More perfect patience than Hayley manifested under his excruciating tortures, it never was my lot to witness. His was not only submission, but cheerfulness. So far could he abstract himself from his intense sufferings, as to be solicitous, in a way that affected me tenderly, respecting my comfort and accommodation as his guest; a circumstance that might appear trivial to many, but which, to my mind, was illustrative of that disinterestedness and affection which were so habitual to him in life, as not to desert him in death. That his patience emanated from principles far superior to those of manly and philosophical fortitude, I feel a comfortable and confirmed persuasion, not merely from the sentiments he expressed when his end was approaching, but from the more satisfactory testimony of his declarations to his confidential servant in the season of comparative health. Again and again, before his last seizure, did he read over a little book I had given him, Corbett's Self-Examination in Secret, and repeatedly did he make his servant read to him that most valuable little work, of which, surely, no proud and insincere man can cordially approve; and to her did he avow, when recommending it for private perusal, "In the principles of that book I wish to die." He also mentioned to her, at the same time, his approbation of the Rev. Daniel Wilson's Sermons, which had been kindly sent to him. He permitted me frequently to pray with him, as a friend and minister; and when I used the confessional in the communion service of our church, and some of the verses of the fifty-first psalm, he appeared to unite devoutly in those acts of penitence, and afterwards added, "I thank you heartily."
With emphasis did I hear him utter the memorable words, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, &c." and on my reminding him that Job exclaimed also, "Behold I am vile," he assented to the excellence of that language of repentance and humility. Indeed, I well remember his heartily agreeing with me in an observation I made some months before, "That a progress in religion was to be discerned by a progressive knowledge of our own misery and sinfulness." The last words almost I heard fall from him, contained a sentiment I should wish, living and dying, to be my own—" Christ, have mercy upon me! O my Saviour, look down upon me, forsake me not."
Of his habits during the latter part of his life, Mrs. Opie, who has the art of conferring an interest on whatever she relates, has given this very pleasing account, in a letter addressed to the Editor of his Memoirs. "In consequence of a previous correspondence with Mr. Hayley, the result of his flattering mention of me in the twelfth edition of the "Triumphs of Temper," I went to his house on a visit, in the year 1814. Nothing could exceed the regularity and temperance of Mr. Hayley's habits. We did not breakfast till a little before eight, out of compliment to me I believe; but, as he always rose at six,[2] he breakfasted at half-past seven when he was alone; and as soon as he returned from his usual walk in the garden; you remember how rapidly he walked, spite of his lameness, bearing on his stick on one side, and his umbrella on the other.[3] During breakfast, at which he drank cocoa only, he always read; and while I was with him, he read aloud to me. We then adjourned to his sitting room, the upper library, and he read to me, or I to him, till coffee was served in the dining room, which was, I think, at eleven o'clock. That repast over, we walked in the garden, and then returned to our books; or I sang to him till it was time for us to dress for dinner—with him a very temperate meal. He drank water only at dinner, and took coffee instead of wine after it. The coffee was served up with cream and fruit in the upper library.
"After dinner I read to him, or he read to me, till it was near tea-time, when we again walked in the garden, and on our return to the house, cocoa was served for him, and tea for me. After tea I read aloud or sang to him, till nine o'clock, when the servants came in to prayers, which were manuscript compositions, or compilations of his own; and which, as you well know, he read in a very impressive manner. He then conversed for half an hour or I sang one or two of Handel's songs to him, or a hymn of his own; and then we retired for the night. I think he had for some years been in the habit of waking at five o'clock, and composing a hymn, but I do not remember to have heard him mention having been so employed, while I was his guest.
"With the single exception of a drive to Chichester, and to Lavant, where we spent a day with Mrs. Poole, and of having one or two friends to tea three times, there was novarietyin the life which I have above described, during the whole month I passed with Mr. Hayley; and, I believe, the years that followed, to the time of his death, were as little varied as the days I have detailed. The Honourable Miss Moncktons; and their sister, Mrs. Milnes, drank tea with us once, as they were very ambitious of being presented to Mr. Hayley, and their conversation and great musical powers were justly appreciated by him.
"The next year I repeated my visit to Felpham, and found the Moncktons at Bognor, with their brother and sister, Viscount and Viscountess Galway. The latter were eager to make Mr. Hayley's acquaintance, and I easily obtained leave to introduce them. At the same time, the Countess of Mayo, and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Smith, requested of me a similar introduction, and this application drew from our friend the following remark; 'I think, my dear, you had bettershowme at a shilling a head.' Leave was granted me to present these new visitants; and they afterwards, I found, introduced Lord Mayo. That year Mr. Hayley was unable to bear the motion of a carriage, from the increased pain in his hip-joint, and, from that time he scarcely ever left his own precincts.
"The next year I went to Scotland, and did not see Felpham till the year 1817. I found Mr. Hayley was become fond of seeing occasional visitors, and that Earl and Countess Paulett, and Lady Mary Paulett, as well as Lord and Lady Mayo, and Mr. and Mrs. T. Smith, were frequent callers on him that year. The Miss Godfreys were also his guests and with them I occasionally paid visits, but for the most part our life was as unvaried as it was in 1814 and 1815.
"In 1818, I was unable to visit Felpham; but in 1819, I went down to Bognor in considerable alarm, on hearing of our poor friend's illness; and I was not certain that I should not arrive too late to see him. But I found him out of danger; and had the happiness of returning to London at the end of the week, leaving him recovering. But I saw him no more. He died in November of the following year.
"You will wish to know what we read aloud. Chiefly manuscript poems and plays of Mr. Hayley's, and modern publications. One of the former was a sensible, just, and, as he read it, an apparently well-written Epistle to a Socinian friend on the errors of his belief. You know, I suppose, that our friend always read the Bible and Testament before he left his chamber in a morning." Hayley's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 204. The epistle, of which Mrs. Opie speaks, was printed with a few other "Poems on serious and sacred Subjects," to be distributed among the friends of the author, two years before his death.
His person and character are well described by the Rev. Doctor Johnson, in the following words: "He was considerably above the middle stature, had a countenance remarkably expressive of intellect and feeling, and a commanding air and deportment that reminded the beholder rather of a military officer, than of the character he assumes in the close of his epistolary addresses (he used to sign himselfthe Hermit). The deplorable infirmity, however, of his early years, had left a perceptible lameness, which attended him through life, and induced a necessity of adventitious aid, towards procuring him the advantage of a tolerably even walk.
"As to his personal qualities, of a higher order, these were cheerfulness and sympathy in a very eminent degree; so eminent, indeed, that as no afflictions of his own could divest him of the former, so neither could the afflictions of others find him destitute of the latter. His temper also was singularly sweet and amiable, being not only free from ebullitions of anger, but from all those minor defects which it is needless to enumerate, and to which social peace and harmony are so repeatedly sacrificed. It was the most even in its exercise, that the writer of this brief account of him ever witnessed. Whether this regular flow of good humour was owing to the native cheerfulness of his mind, to the habit which he had contracted of viewing every adverse circumstance on its bright side, to a course of self discipline, which he did not avow to others, or to the joint operation of all these, it is not possible to say; but certain it is that it was one of his most striking peculiarities.
"In all these respects there can be no doubt that the character of Hayley was worthy of imitation; and the Editor feels that he should be deficient in a becoming attention to the expressed wish of the author, in the close of his Memoir, if he did not briefly advert to the importance, both to individual and social happiness, of endeavouring to cultivate to the utmost those eminent ingredients of a beneficial life, cheerfulness, sympathy, and good temper.
"Closely connected with these was a rich assemblage of amiable qualities, which the Editor cannot do better than display in the following extract, from the before-mentioned sketch, by the Rev. Samuel Greatheed. 'Hayley retained, I believe, throughout his life, a high sense of honour, inflexible integrity, a warmth of friendship, and overflowing benevolence. The last was especially exerted for the introduction of meritorious young persons into useful and respectable situations; and it was usually efficient, as it never relaxed while they justified his patronage. He did not, indeed, scruple, while it was in his power, to entrust them with large sums, when there appeared a prospect of their future ability for repayment; but as this prospect not seldom failed, either through death or unavoidable impediments, his property was greatly reduced by such beneficence.
"Another distinctive mark of the character of Hayley, which few possess by nature, and still fewer attain to by art, was an eminently great conversational ability. It was scarcely possible for any one to be in his company an hour, how distinguished soever his own gifts or acquirements might be in the possession and exercise of colloquial powers, without being conscious of his superiority in this respect. It has been a subject of repeated astonishment to the Editor, that in a soil so unfavourable to the growth of this faculty, as seclusion must necessarily be, it should yet have arrived at such a pitch of exuberance, in the case of the retired subject of this Memoir, as only an interchange of the best informed minds, and that continually exercised, could be supposed capable of producing. He can only attempt to account for it from the opportunities which the author enjoyed, through the advantage of one of the finest private libraries in the kingdom, of conversing at all hours, and in all conceivable frames of mind, with the illustrious dead of every age and nation. But the solution of the difficulty is still incomplete, for although these literary "Pleiades" could furnish as it were "the sweet influences of rain and sunshine," to foster his native talent; yet, breath being denied them, its improvement is more than his friend Cowper could have accounted for, without violating his poetical axiom, that
—Ev'n the oakThrives by the rude concussion of the storm.
"As to the defects of the character of Hayley, perhaps the most prominent feature was a pertinacity of determination with regard to his modes of action, which has been seldom exemplified to the same extent in the case of others. When, in the contemplation of supposed advantage, whether to himself or his friends, he had once matured his purpose, it was an attempt of no ordinary difficulty to divert him from the pursuit of it. To this may, perhaps, be attributed the perpetual disappointments with which his life was chequered. Certain it is, that his matrimonial infelicities may be traced to this source. His first adventure of the kind alluded to, had the warning voice of his surviving parent against it, and it may naturally be supposed, the dissuasive arguments of all his thinking and judicious friends. And as to the similar connexion he formed in the decline of life, he must have overcome obstacles both numerous and weighty, with respect to his own situation and habits in accomplishing that object of his wishes. Instead of entering into a detail of these, however, it will be more profitable to secure the good effect that may arise from the contemplation of the former part of his character, from the danger of being neutralized by the present exhibition of it. This may, perhaps, be accomplished by reminding the reader of that principle of our lapsed nature, which inclines us, too often, to confound evil with good. The good, in Hayley's case, appears to have been the viewing, through his native cheerfulness, everydispensation of Providenceon its bright side; and the evil, his applying this rule to what might be not improperly designatedthe dispensation of his own will. There can be no doubt that his example in the first instance and his mistake in the last, are equally to be followed and avoided.
"Another failing observable in the character of Hayley, was the little attention he paid to public opinion, in regard to his modes and habits of life. During his long residence in his paternal seat of Eartham, though he occasionally received friends from a distance, and especially the votaries of literature and the fine arts, yet to the families in his vicinity he was not easily accessible. He seems, indeed, to have been almost an insulated mortal among them; and one who, discharging himself from the obligation of what is commonly calledetiquette, made it impossible to maintain with him the reciprocities of intercourse. It is true, indeed, that the attention of the possessor of Eartham was considerably engrossed by meditation and study; but this increased rather than lessened his adaptation to society, and made the effect of his seclusion the more to be lamented." Hayley's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 220.
As Hayley was too much extolled at the beginning of his poetical course, so was he undeservedly neglected or ridiculed at the close of it. The excessive admiration he at first met with, joined to that flattering self-opinion which a solitary life is apt to engender, made him too easily satisfied with what he had done. Perhaps he wrote worse after his acquaintance with Cowper; for, aiming at a simplicity which he had not power to support, he became flat and insipid. He had at no time much force of conception or language. Yet if he never elevates he frequently amuses his reader. His chief attraction consists in setting off some plain and natural thought or observation, by a sparkling and ingenious similitude, such as we commonly find in the Persian poets. To this may be added a certain sweetness of numbers peculiar to himself, without the spirit and edge of Pope, or the boldness of Dryden, and fashioned as I think to his own recitation, which though musical, was somewhat too pompous and monotonous. He was desirous that all his rhymes should be exact; but they are sometimes so only according to his own manner of pronouncing them. He holds about the same rank among our poets that Bertaut does among the French; but differs from him in this; that, whereas Bertaut was the earliest of a race analogous to the school of Dryden and Pope, so Hayley was the latest of the correspondent class amongst ourselves.
In one respect he is deserving of most honourable notice. During the course of a long literary life, I doubt whether he was ever provoked to use a single word of asperity or sarcasm towards any of his contemporaries. This was praise which alone ought to have exempted him from the harsh and unmerited censure of Porson, by whom he was called Criticorum et Poetarum pessimus. He sometimes on the other hand, indulged himself too much in a lavish and indiscriminate commendation of contemporary writers. But from whatever might appear like flattery of the great, he scrupulously abstained. When the Princess Charlotte visited him at Felpham, he would not present some verses he had written on her, lest he should be thought capable of that meanness.
His Essays on Painting, History, and Poetry, contain much information that may be useful to young artists and students. That on Sculpture is very inferior to the rest; as the Triumph of Music is to the Triumphs of Temper. The last of these is a poem that still continues to interest a class of readers, whose studies are intimately connected with the happiness and well being of society. The design of it, which is to shew the advantages of self-control to the mind of a well-educated girl, is much to be commended. The machinery though it required no great effort in the production, yet suffices to give some relief to the story. It has been remarked that the trials of the Heroine are too insignificant. But of one of them, at least, the calumny in the newspaper, this cannot properly be said. Nor would the purpose of the writer have been so well answered, if he had been more serious, and had uttered his oracles from behind a graver mask.
The taste which has been lately excited amongst us for Spanish and Italian literature, after having slept nearly since the age of Elizabeth, may be attributed in a great measure to the influence of his example. Gray, Hurd, and the two Wartons, had done something towards awakening it, but the spell was completed by him. The decisive impulse was given by the copious extracts from the great poets in those languages, which he inserted in the notes to his Essay on Epic Poetry, and which he accompanied by spirited translations. Lord Holland, the best informed and most elegant of our writers on the subject of the Spanish theatre, declared that he had been induced to learn that language by what Hayley had written concerning the poet Ercilla.
I have heard his Greek scholarship questioned in consequence of an error which, in his Epistles on History, he has made in the quantity of the word Olorus, the name of the father of Thucydides; but from a casual mistake of this sort, no decisive inference can be drawn.
There is little knowledge of human life and character to be gained from his writings. He had seen mankind chiefly through the medium of books, and those such as did not represent them very faithfully to him, that is, in ordinary plays and novels. Indeed he appeared to consider the real affairs of life in which he was concerned much in the light of a romance, and himself and his friends as so many personages acting in it, all meeting with marvellous adventures at every turn, and all endowed with admirable qualities, to which their petty frailties served only as foils. It is impossible in reading his memoirs to avoid smiling at the importance he attaches to very ordinary occurrences. I am not sure whether it was not this propensity that led him to magnify his own distresses in living with his first wife. That lady I well recollect to have been lively and elegant in her manners, and much addicted to literary pursuits, of which she gave a proof in translating Madame de Lambert's Essay on Friendship. Her excessive zeal for her husband's reputation as an author, he has bantered with some humour in the play of the Mausoleum, where Mrs. Rumble, the wife of a poet is introduced:
Who crows o'er her husband's poetical eggs.
The character of Rumble in the same play appeared so evidently designed for Johnson, though the author disclaimed that intention, that Boswell, when he read it on its first coming out, at Anna Seward's, exclaimed, "It is we. It is we." Trope, who
Talks in a high strutting style of the stars,Of the eagle of Jove, and the chariot of Mars,
was meant for Mason; and by Facil,
Whose verse is the thread of tenuity,A fellow distinguish'd by flippant fatuity,Who nonsense and rhyme can incessantly mingle,A poet—if poetry's only a jingle,
he intended to represent himself.
The name of Facil was but too appropriate. The slender thread of his verse was hastily and slightly spun.
His comedies are adapted to the entertainment of those readers only who have formed their taste on the French drama. His tragedies are some of the most endurable we have in what a lively modern critic[4] has termed the rhetorical style. Yet he had some skill in moving compassion.
His diction, both in poetry and prose, is vitiated by the frequent recurrence of certain hyperbolical expressions, which he applies on almost all occasions.
He was particularly fond of composing epitaphs, of which, as I remember, he shewed me a manuscript book full. One of these on Henry Hammond, the parish clerk at Eartham, is among the best in the language. It is inserted in the Memoirs which Hayley wrote of his son.
An active spirit in a little frame,This honest man the path of duty trod;Toil'd while he could, and, when death's darkness came,Sought in calm hope his recompense from God.His sons, who loved him, to his merit just,Raised this plain stone to guard their parent's dust.
FOOTNOTES[1] Nichols's Illustrations of Literature, vol. iv. p. 742.[2] In a similar sketch from the pen of the Rev. Samuel Greatheed,referring to an earlier period, it is stated that "he usually roseand took a dish of coffee at four A.M.," and that "while dressing, hemost frequently composed a few stanzas of a devotional turn." Thispractice of early rising he continued many years after the Editorbecame acquainted with him, walking in his garden, even in winter,and when the ground was covered with snow, with a lantern in hishand, some hours before daylight; and repeatedly throwing up thesash of his friend's sleeping room, on the ground floor, to give himthe benefit of the morning air.Note by Doctor Johnson.[3] To the best of his recollection, the Editor never saw him abroadwithout an umbrella; which in fine weather he used as a parasol, topreserve his eyes. He even rode with it on horseback, a very awkwardoperation, considering the high-spirited animals that composed hisstud, and the constitutional malady in his hip-joint, which, inaddition to his weight (for he was a remarkably strong-built man),and his never riding without military spurs, reduced his danger offalling almost to a certainty, when he opened his umbrella withoutdue precaution. But he was a stranger to fear in equestrian matters,and always mounted his horse again, as soon as he could be caught.The Editor was once riding gently by his side, on the stony beach ofBognor, when the wind suddenly reversing his umbrella, as heunfolded it, his horse, with a sudden but desperate plunge, pitchedhim on his head in an instant. Providentially he received no hurt,and some fishermen being at hand, the plunging steed was stopped ata gate, and being once more subjected to his rider, took him home insafety. On another occasion, in the same visit of the Editor, he wastost into the air on the Downs, at the precise moment when aninteresting friend, whom they had just left, being apprehensive ofwhat would happen, was anxiously viewing him from her window througha telescope.
These anecdotes may serve to illustrate thatdeterminedfeature ofhis character, which has been already noticed, and which impelledhim, contrary to the advice of his friends, to persevere in afavourite, though perilous exercise, even at the manifest hazard ofhis life. At length, however, they prevailed; and for some yearsbefore he died, he gave up riding on horseback altogether.Note byDr. Johnson.[4] My friend Mr. Darley,MS. addition.—ED.
* * * * *
The life of Sir William Jones has been written by his friend Lord Teignmouth with that minuteness which the character of so illustrious and extraordinary a man deserved. He was born in London, on the twenty-eighth of September, 1746. His father, whose Christian name he bore, although sprung immediately from a race of yeomen in Anglesea, could yet, like many a Cambro-Briton beside, have traced his descent, at least in a maternal line, from the ancient princes of Wales. But what distinguished him much more was, that he had attained so great a proficiency in the study of mathematics as to become a teacher of that branch of science in the English metropolis, under the patronage of Sir Isaac Newton, and rose to such reputation by his writings, that he attracted the notice and esteem of the powerful and the learned, and was admitted to the intimacy of the Earls of Hardwicke, and Macclesfield; Lord Parker, President of the Royal Society; Halley; Mead; and Samuel Johnson. By his wife, Mary, the daughter of a cabinet-maker in London, he had two sons, one of whom died an infant, and a daughter. In three years after the birth of the remaining son, the father himself died, and left the two children to the protection of their mother. An extraordinary mark of her presence of mind, sufficiently indicated how capable this mother was of executing the difficult duty imposed on her by his decease. Dr. Mead had pronounced his case, which was a polypus on the heart, to be a hopeless one; and her anxious precautions to hinder the fatal intelligence from reaching him were on the point of being defeated by the arrival of a letter of condolence and consolation from an injudicious but well-meaning friend, when, on discovering its purport, she had sufficient address to substitute the lively dictates of her own invention for the real contents of the epistle, and by this affectionate delusion not merely to satisfy the curiosity but to cheer the spirits of her dying husband.
So great was her solicitude for the improvement of her son, that she declined the pressing instances of the Countess of Macclesfield to reside under her roof, lest she should be hindered from attending exclusively to that which was now become her main concern. To the many inquiries which the early vivacity of the boy prompted him to put to her, the invariable answer she returned was,read and you will know. This assurance, added to the other means of instruction, from which her fondness, or more probably her discernment, induced her to exclude every species of severity, were so efficacious that in his fourth year he was able to read at sight any book in his own language. Two accidents occurred to hinder this rapid advancement from proceeding. Once he narrowly escaped being consumed by flames from having fallen into the fire, while endeavouring to scrape down some soot from the chimney of a room in which he had been left alone; and was rescued only in consequence of the alarm given to the servants by his shrieks. At another time, his eye was nearly put out by one of the hooks of his dress, as he was struggling under the hands of the domestic who was putting on his clothes. From the effects of this injury his sight never completely recovered.
In his fifth year he received a strong impression from reading the twentieth chapter of the Apocalypse. The man must have a cold imagination who would deny that this casual influence might have first disclosed not only the lofty and ardent spirit, but even that insatiable love of learning, by which he was afterwards distinguished above all his contemporaries. Amidst the general proscription of reading adapted to excite wonder, that germ of knowledge, in the minds of our children, it is lucky that the Bible is still left them.
At the end of his seventh year he was placed under the tuition of Dr. Thackeray, the master of Harrow school; but had not been there two years before a fracture of his thigh bone, that happened in a scramble among his play-fellows, occasioned another suspension of his studies. During the twelvemonth which he now passed at home with his mother, he became so conversant with several writers in his own language, especially Dryden and Pope, that he set himself about making imitations of them.
On his return to Harrow, no allowance was made for the inevitable consequences of this interruption; he was replaced in the class with those boys whose classical learning had been progressive while his was stationary, or rather retrograde, and unmerited chastisement was inflicted on him for his inferiority to those with whom he had wanted the means of maintaining an equality. Impelled either by fear, by shame, or by emulation, he laboured hard in private to repair his losses: of his own accord recurred to the rudiments of the grammar; and was so diligent that he speedily outstripped all his juvenile competitors.
In his twelfth year he entered into a scheme for representing a play in conjunction with his schoolfellows; but instead of seeking his Dramatis Personae among the heroes of Homer, as Pope had done in his boyhood, Jones, by a remarkable effort of memory, committed to paper what he retained of Shakspeare's Tempest, which he had read at his mother's; and himself sustained the part of Prospero in that Comedy. Meanwhile, his poetical faculty did not lie dormant. He turned into English verse all Virgil's Eclogues and several of Ovid's Epistles; and wrote a Tragedy on the fable of Meleager, which was acted during the holidays by himself and his comrades, and in which he sustained the character of the hero. A short specimen of the drama is preserved. The language brings to our recollection that of the Mock Tragedy in Hamlet.
When the other boys were at their sports, Jones continued to linger over his book, or, if he mingled in their diversions, his favourite objects were still uppermost in his thoughts; he directed his playmates to divide the fields into compartments to which he gave the names of the several Grecian republics; allotted to each their political station; and "wielding at will the fierce democracies," arranged the complicated concerns of peace and war, attack and defence, councils, harangues, and negociations. Dr. Thackeray was compelled to own that "if his pupil were left naked and friendless on Salisbury plain, he would yet find his way to fame and riches."
On the resignation of that master, the management of the school devolved on Dr. Sumner, by whom Jones, then in his fifteenth year, was particularly distinguished. Such was his zeal, that he devoted whole nights to study; and not contented with applying himself at school to the classical languages, and during the vacations to the Italian and French, he attained Hebrew enough to enable him to read the Psalms in the original, and made himself acquainted with the Arabic character. Strangers, who visited Harrow, frequently inquired for him by the appellation of the great scholar.
Some of his compositions from this time to his twentieth year, which he collected and entitled Limon,[1] in imitation of the ancients, are printed among his works. A young scholar who should now glance his eye over the first chapter, containing speeches from Shakspeare and Addison's Cato translated into Greek iambics on the model of the Three Tragedians, would put aside the remainder with a smile of complacency at the improvement which has since been made in this species of task under the auspices of Porson.
His mother was urged by several of the legal profession, who interested themselves in his welfare, to place him in the office of a special pleader: but considerations of prudence, which represented to her that the course of education necessary to qualify him for the practice of the law was exceedingly expensive and the advantages remote, hindered her from acquiescing in their recommendation; at the same time that his own inclination and the earnest wishes of his master concurred in favour of prosecuting his studies at college. Which of the two universities should have the credit of perfecting instruction thus auspiciously commenced was the next subject of debate. But the advice of Dr. Glasse, then a private tutor at Harrow, prevailing over that of the head master, who, by a natural partiality for the place of his own education would have given the preference to Cambridge, he was in 1764 admitted of University College in Oxford, whither his mother determined to remove her residence, either for the purpose of superintending his health and morals, or of enjoying the society of so excellent a son.
Before quitting school he presented to his friend Parnell, nephew of the poet, and afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland, a manuscript volume of English verses, consisting, among other pieces, of that essay which some years after he moulded into his Arcadia; and of translations from Sophocles, Theocritus, and Horace. If the encouragement of Dr. Sumner had not been overruled by the dissuasion of his more cautious friends, he would have committed to the press his Greek and Latin compositions, among which was a Comedy in imitation of the style of Aristophanes, entitled Mormo. Like many other lads whose talents have unfolded in all their luxuriance under the kindness of an indulgent master, he experienced a sudden chill at his first transplantation into academic soil. His reason was perplexed amid the intricacies of the school logic, and his taste revolted by the barbarous language that enveloped it.
On the 31st of October he was unanimously elected to one of the four scholarships founded by Sir Simon Bennet. But as he had three seniors, his prospect of a fellowship was distant; and he was anxious to free his mother from the inconvenience of contributing to his support. His disgust for the University, however, was fortunately not of long continuance. The college tutors relieved him from an useless and irksome attendance on their lectures, and judiciously left the employment of his time at his own disposal. He turned it to a good account in perusing the principal Greek historians and poets, together with the whole of Lucian and of Plato; writing notes, and exercising himself in imitations of his favourite authors as he went on. In order to facilitate his acquisition of the Arabic tongue, more particularly with regard to its pronunciation, he engaged a native of Aleppo, named Mirza, whom he met with in London, to accompany him to Oxford, and employed him in re-translating the Arabian Nights' Entertainments into their original language, whilst he wrote out the version himself as the other dictated, and corrected the inaccuracies by the help of a grammar and lexicon. The affinity which he discovered between this language and the modern Persian, induced him to extend his researches to the latter dialect; and he thus laid the foundation of his extraordinary knowledge in oriental literature.
During the vacations he usually resorted to London, where he was assiduous in his attendance on the schools of Angelo, for the sake of accomplishing himself in the manly exercises of fencing and riding; and, at home, directed his attention to modern languages; and familiarised himself with the best writers in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese: "thus," he observed, "with the fortune of a peasant, he gave himself the education of a prince."
The year after his entrance at college, he accepted a proposal that was made him to undertake the education of Lord Althorpe, then a child about seven years old; and for that purpose spent much of his time at Wimbledon, where he composed many of his English poems, and studied attentively the Hebrew Bible, particularly the prophetical writings, and the book of Job.
In the summer of 1766, a fellowship of University College unexpectedly became vacant; and being conferred on Jones, secured him the enjoyment of that independence which he had so much desired. With independence he seems to have been satisfied; for, on his return to Wimbledon, he declined an offer made him by the Duke of Grafton, then first Lord of the Treasury, of the place of interpreter for eastern languages. The same answer which conveyed his refusal recommended in earnest terms his friend Mirza as one fitted to perform the duties of the office, but the application remained unnoticed; and he regretted that his inexperience in such matters had prevented him from adopting the expedient of nominally accepting the employment for himself, and consigning the profits of it to the Syrian.
In 1767 he began his treatise De Poesi Asiatica, on the plan of Lowth's Praelectiones, and composed a Persian grammar for the use of a school-fellow, who was about to go to India. His usual course of study was for a short time interrupted by an attendance on Earl Spencer, the father of his pupil, to Spa. The ardour of his curiosity as a linguist made him gladly seize the opportunity afforded him by this expedition of obtaining some knowledge of German. Nor was he so indifferent to slighter accomplishments as not to avail himself of the instructions of a celebrated dancing master at Aix-la-Chapelle. He had before taken lessons from Gallini in that trifling art. From a pensioner at Chelsea he had learnt the use of the broadsword. He afterwards made an attempt, in which, however, he does not seem to have persevered, to become a performer on the national instrument of his forefathers, the harp. Ambition of such various attainments reminds us of what is related concerning the Admirable Crichton, and Pico of Mirandola.
Christian the Seventh, King of Denmark, who in 1768 was on a visit to this country, had brought with him a Persian history of Nadir Shah in manuscript, which he was desirous to have translated from that language into the French. On this occasion Jones was applied to by one of the under secretaries to the Duke of Grafton, to gratify the wishes of the Danish monarch. The task was so little to his mind that he would have excused himself from engaging in it; and he accordingly suggested Major Dow, a gentleman already distinguished by his translations from the Persic, as one fit to be employed; but he likewise pleading his other numerous occupations as a reason for not undertaking this, and the application to Jones being renewed, with an intimation that it would be disgraceful to the country if the King should be compelled to take the manuscript into France, he was at length stimulated to a compliance. At the expiration of a twelvemonth, during which interval it had been more than once eagerly demanded, the work was accomplished. The publication of it was completed in 1770, and forty copies were transmitted to the court of Denmark. To the History was appended a treatise on Oriental poetry, written also in French. One of the chief difficulties imposed on the translator had been the necessity of using that language in the version, of which it could not be expected that he should possess an entire command; but to obviate this inconvenience, he called in the aid of a Frenchman, who corrected the inaccuracies in the diction. Christian expressed himself well satisfied with the manner in which his intentions had been fulfilled: but a diploma constituting the translator a member of the Royal Society at Copenhagen, together with an earnest recommendation of him to the regard of his own sovereign, were the sole rewards of his labour. Of the history he afterwards published an abridgment in English.
The predilection he had conceived for the Muses of the East, whom, with the blind idolatry of a lover, he exalted above those of Greece and Rome, was further strengthened by his intercourse with an illustrious foreigner, whom they had almost as much captivated. The person, with whom this similarity of taste connected him, was Charles Reviczki, afterwards imperial minister at Warsaw, and ambassador at the English court with the title of Count. Their correspondence, which turns principally on the object of their common pursuits, and is written in the French and Latin languages, commenced in 1768. At this time he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts.
In the summer of the ensuing year, Jones accompanied his pupil to the school at Harrow. During his residence there he transcribed his Persian grammar. He had already begun a dictionary of that language, with illustrations of the principal words from celebrated writers, a work of vast labour, which he resolved not to prosecute without the assurance of an adequate remuneration from the East India Company. At the entreaty of Dr. Glasse, he now dedicated some portion of his time to religious inquiry. The result was a conviction of the truth of Christianity, in his belief of which, it is said, he had hitherto been unconfirmed. In the winter he made a second visit to the Continent with the family of his noble patron. After a longer stay at Paris, than was agreeable to him, they passed down the Rhine to Lyons, and thence proceeded by Marseilles, Frejus, and Antibes, to Nice. At the last of these places they resided long enough to allow of his returning to his studies, which were divided between the arts of music and painting; the mathematics; and military tactics; a science of which he thought no Briton could, without disgrace, be ignorant. He also wrote a treatise on education; and begun a tragedy entitled Soliman, on the murder of the son of that monarch by the treachery of his step-mother. Of the latter, although it appears from one of his letters that he had completed it, no traces were found among his papers, except a prefatory discourse too unfinished to meet the public eye. The subject has been treated by Champfort, a late French writer, and one of the best among Racine's school, in a play called Mustapha and Zeangir. I do not recollect, and have not now the means of ascertaining, whether that fine drama, the Solimano of Prospero Bonarelli is founded on the same tragic incident in the Turkish History.
An excursion which he had meditated to Florence, Rome, and Naples, he was under the necessity of postponing to a future occasion. On his way back he diverged to Geneva, in hopes of seeing Voltaire; but was disappointed, as the Frenchman excused himself, on account of age and sickness, from conversing with a stranger. At Paris he succeeded by the help of some previous knowledge of the Chinese character, and by means of Couplet's Version of the Works of Confucius, in construing a poem by that writer, from a selection in the king's library, and sent a literal version of it to his friend Reviczki. From the French capital the party returned through Spa to England. During their short residence at Spa he sketched the plan of an epic poem, on the discovery of Britain by the Prince of Tyre. The suggestion and advice of his friends, who thought that abilities and attainments like his required a more extensive sphere of action than was afforded him by the discharge of his duties as a private tutor, strengthened, probably, by a consciousness of his own power, induced him to relinquish that employment, and henceforward to apply himself to the study and practice of the law. An almost enthusiastic admiration of the legal institutions of his own country, a pure and ardent zeal for civil liberty, and an eminent independence and uprightness of mind, were qualifications that rendered this destination of his talents not less desirable in a public view, than it was with reference to his individual interests. He accordingly entered himself a member of the Temple, on the 19th of September, 1770. To faculties of so comprehensive a grasp, the abandonment of his philological researches was not indispensable for the successful prosecution of his new pursuit. Variety was perhaps even a necessary aliment of his active mind, which without it might have drooped and languished. Indeed, the cultivation of eastern learning eventually proved of singular service to him in his juridical capacity.
In 1771 he published in French a pamphlet in answer to Anquetil du Perron's Attack on the University of Oxford, in the discourse prefixed to his "Zind-Avesta;" and entered on "A History of the Turks," the introduction to which was printed, but not made public till after his death. He had a design to apply for the office of minister at Constantinople, in the event of a termination of the war with Russia, and looked forward with eagerness to an opportunity of contemplating the Turkish manners at their source. A small volume of his poems, consisting chiefly of translations from the Eastern languages, with two prose dissertations annexed, made their appearance in the following year, when he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. From the preface to the poems, it appears that his relish for the Greek and Roman writers had now returned; and that he justly regarded them as the standard of true taste. His terms not having been regularly kept in the University, (where his mother and sister had still continued to reside) he did not take his degree of Master of Arts till the Easter of 1773. In the January following he was called to the bar. At the conclusion of the preface to his Commentaries de Poesi Asiatica, published at this period, he announces his determination to quit the service of the muses, and apply himself entirely to his professional studies. In a letter to Reviczki, of February, 1775, we find him declaring that he no longer intended to solicit the embassy to Constantinople. This year he attended the spring circuit, and sessions at Oxford; and the next was appointed one of the commissioners of bankrupts, and was to be found regularly as a legal practitioner in Westminster Hall. At the same time, that he might not lose sight of classical literature, he was assiduous in his perusal of the Grecian orators, and employed himself in a version of the Orations of Isaeus; nor does he appear to have broken off his correspondence with learned foreigners, among whom were the youngest Schultens, and G.S. Michaelis. The translation of Isaeus, which appears to be executed with fidelity, was published in 1778, with a dedication to Lord Bathurst, in which he declares "his Lordship to have been his greatest, his only benefactor." His late appointment is the obligation to which he refers.
A vacancy had now occurred on the bench at Fort William, in Bengal; and Jones was regarded by his brethren at the bar as the fittest person to occupy that station. The patronage of the minister, however, was requisite to this office; and the violent measures which government had lately adopted, with respect to the American Colonies, were far from being such as accorded with his notions of freedom and justice. He was resolved that no consideration should induce him to surrender the independence of his judgment on this, or any other national topic. "If the minister," says he, in one of his letters to his pupil, Lord Althorpe, "be offended at the style in which I have spoken, do speak, and will speak, of public affairs, and on that account, shall refuse to give me the judgeship, I shall not be at all mortified, having already a very decent competence without a debt, or a care of any kind." His patriotic feelings displayed themselves in a Latin Ode to Liberty; published in March, 1780, under the title of Julii Melesigoni ad Libertatem, an assumed name, formed by an anagram of his own in Latin.
The resignation of Sir Robert Newdigate, one of the members returned to parliament for the University of Oxford, in the meantime, induced several members of that learned body, who were friendly to Jones, to turn their eyes towards him as their future representative. The choice of a candidate undistinguished by birth or riches, and recommended solely by his integrity, talents, and learning, would have reflected the highest honour on his constituents; but many being found to be disinclined to his interest, it was thought more prudent to relinquish the canvass. He published in July a small pamphlet, entitled an Inquiry into the Legal Mode of suppressing Riots, with a constitutional Plan of future Defence. The insurrection which had for some days disgraced the British metropolis, at the beginning of June, suggested the publication of this tract. In the autumn of this year he made a journey to Paris, as he had done the preceding summer. During a fortnight's residence in that capital, he attended some causes at the Palais; obtained access to a fine manuscript in the royal library, which opened to him a nearer insight into the manners of the ancient Arabians; and mingled in the society of as many of the American leaders as he could fall in with, purposing to collect materials for a future history of their unhappy contest with the mother country. In the midst of this keen pursuit of professional and literary eminence he had the misfortune to lose his mother, who had lived long enough to see her tenderness and assiduity in the conduct of his education amply rewarded.
An Essay on the Law of Bailments, and the translation of an Arabian Poem, on the Mohammedan Law of Succession to the Property of Intestates, to the latter of which undertakings he was incited by his views of preferment in the East, testified his industry in the pursuit of his legal studies; while, on the other hand, several short poems evinced, from time to time, his intended relinquishment of the tuneful art to be either impracticable or unnecessary.
In the summer of 1782 the interests of one of his clients led him again to Paris, from whence he returned by the circuitous route of Normandy, and the United Provinces. In the spring of this year he had become a member of the Society for Constitutional Information. A more equal representation of the people in parliament was at this time the subject of general discussion, and he did not fail to stand forward as the strenuous champion of a measure which seemed likely to infuse new spirit and vigour into our constitutional liberties. His sentiments were publicly professed in a speech before the meeting assembled at the London Tavern, on the 28th of May; and he afterwards gave a wider currency to them from the press. He maintained that the representation ought to be nearly equal and universal; an opinion in which few would now be found to coincide; and which, if he had lived a little longer, he would probably himself have acknowledged to be erroneous. At Paris, he had written a Dialogue between a Farmer and a Country Gentleman on the Principles of Government, and it was published by the Society. A bill of indictment was found against the Dean of St. Asaph, whose sister he afterwards married, for an edition printed in Wales; and Jones avowed himself the author.
In the beginning of 1783 appeared his translation of the seven Arabian poems, suspended in the temple at Mecca about the commencement of the sixth century.
In the March of this year, he was gratified by the long desired appointment to the office of judge in the supreme court of judicature, at Fort William, in Bengal, which was obtained for him through the interest of Lord Ashburton; and he received the honour of knighthood usually conferred on that occasion. The divisions among his political friends, after the decease of that excellent nobleman, the Marquis of Buckingham, afforded him an additional motive for wishing to be employed at a distance from his country, which he no longer hoped to see benefited by their exertions. He was immediately afterwards united to Anna Maria Shipley, the daughter of the Bishop of St. Asaph, a learned and liberal prelate. His attachment to this lady had been of long continuance, and he had been waiting only for an honourable independence before he could resolve to join the fortunes of one so tenderly beloved to his own.
Sir William Jones embarked for the East in April, 1783. It is impossible not to sympathise with the feelings of a scholar about to visit places over which his studies had thrown the charm of a mysterious interest; to explore treasures that had rested as yet in darkness to European eyes; and to approach the imagined cradle of human science and art. During his voyage he made the following memoranda of objects for his inquiry, and of works to be begun or executed during his residence in Asia.
1. The laws of the Hindus and Mahommedans.
2. The History of the Ancient World.
3. Proofs and Illustrations of Scripture.
4. Traditions concerning the Deluge, &c.
5. Modern Politics, and Geography of Hindustan.
6. Best Mode of Governing Bengal.
7. Arithmetic and Geometry, and Mixed Sciences of the Asiatics.
8. Medicine, Chemistry, Surgery, and Anatomy, of the Indians.
9. Natural Productions of India.
10. Poetry, Rhetoric, and Morality of Asia
11. Music of the Eastern Nations.
12. The Shi-King, or 300 Chinese Odes.
13. The best Accounts of Thibet and Cashmir.
14. Trade, Manufactures, Agriculture, and Commerce of India.
15. Mogul Constitution contained in the Defteri Alemghiri, and Ayein Acbari.
16. Mahratta Constitution.
* * * * *
To print and publish the Gospel of St. Luke, in Arabic.
To publish Law Tracts, in Persian or Arabic.
To print and publish the Psalms of David, in Persian Verse.
To compose, if God grant me life,
1. Elements of the Laws of England. Model—the Essay on Bailment. Aristotle.
2. The History of the American War. Model—Thucydides and Polybius.
3. Britain Discovered, an Heroic Poem on the Constitution of England. Machinery. Hindu Gods. Model—Homer.
4. Speeches, Political and Forensic. Model—Demosthenes.
5. Dialogues, Philosophical and Historical. Model—Plato.
6. Letters.
Model—Demosthenes and Plato.
In the course of the voyage the vessel touched at Madeira; and in ten weeks after quitting Cape Verd Islands arrived at that of Hinzuan or Joanna, of which he has left a very lively and pleasing description.
In September he landed at Calcutta; and before the conclusion of the year, entered on the performance of his judicial function, and delivered his first charge to the grand jury, on the opening of the sessions. This address was such as not to disappoint the high expectations that had been formed of him before his arrival.
It was evident that the leisure, or perhaps even the undivided attention and labour of no one man, could have sufficed for prosecuting researches so extensive and arduous as those he had marked out for himself. The association of others in this design was the obvious method of remedying the difficulty. At his suggestion, accordingly, an institution was, in January, 1784, framed as closely as possible on the model of the Royal Society in London; and the presidency was offered to Mr. Hastings, then Governor-general in India, who not only was a liberal encourager of Persian and Sanscrit literature, but had made himself a proficient in the former of these languages at a time when its importance had not been duly appreciated; and was familiarly versed in the common dialects of Bengal. That gentleman, however, declining the honour, and recommending that it should be conferred on the proposer of the scheme, he was consequently elected president. The names of Chambers, Gladwyn, Hamilton, and Wilkins, among others, evince that it was not difficult for him to find coadjutors. How well the institution has answered the ends for which it was formed the public has seen in the Asiatic Researches.
A thorough acquaintance with the religion and literature of India appeared to be attainable through no other medium than a knowledge of the Sanscrit; and he therefore applied himself without delay to the acquisition of that language. It was not long before he found that his health would oblige him to some restriction in the intended prosecution of his studies. In a letter written a few days after his arrival in India, he informs one of his friends that "as long as he stays in India, he does not expect to be free from a bad digestion, the morbus literatorum; for which there is hardly any remedy but abstinence from too much food, literary and culinary. I rise," he adds, "before the sun, and bathe after a gentle ride; my diet is light and sparing, and I go early to rest; yet the activity of my mind is too strong for my constitution, though naturally not infirm; and I must be satisfied with a valetudinarian state of health." All these precautions, however, did not avail to secure him from violent and reiterated attacks. In 1784, he travelled to the city of Benares, by the route of Guyah, celebrated as the birth-place of the philosopher Boudh, and the resort of Hindu pilgrims from all parts of the East; and returned by Gour, formerly the residence of the sovereigns of Bengal. During this journey he laboured for some time under a fit of illness that had nearly terminated his life. Yet no sooner did he become a convalescent than he applied himself to the study of botany, and composed a metrical tale, entitled The Enchanted Fruit, or Hindu Wife; and a Treatise on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India; the latter of which he communicated to the Society. He had not been many months settled after his return to Calcutta, when he found the demand made on him for his company, by the neighbourhood of that place, so frequent as to produce a troublesome interruption to the course of his literary engagements. He therefore looked out for a situation more secluded, to which he might betake himself during the temporary cessations of his official duties; and made choice of Chrishnanagur, at the distance of about fifty miles, which, besides a dry soil and pure air, possessed an additional recommendation in its vicinity to a Hindu College. Indeed, he omitted no means that could tend to facilitate his acquaintance with the learning and manners of the natives. A considerable portion of his income was set aside for the purpose of supporting their scholars, whom he engaged for his instruction.
The administration of justice was frequently interrupted by the want of integrity in the Pundits, or expounders of the statutes. To prevent the possibility of such deception, this upright magistrate undertook to compile and translate a body of Hindu and Mohammedan laws, and to form a digest of them in imitation of that of the Roman law framed by the order of the Emperor Justinian. The mind can scarcely contemplate a plan of utility more vast or splendid than one which aimed at preserving the fountain of right uncontaminated for twenty millions of people. During the period of sessions and term, when his attendance was required at Calcutta, he usually resided on the banks of the Ganges, five miles from the court.
In 1785 a periodical work, called the Asiatic Miscellany, which has been erroneously attributed to the Asiatic Society, was undertaken at Calcutta; and to the first two volumes, which appeared in that and the following year, he contributed six hymns addressed to Hindu deities; a literal version of twenty tales and fables of Nizami, expressly designed for the help of students in the Persian language; and several smaller pieces.
A resolution, which had passed the Board of the Executive Government of Bengal, for altering the mode of paying the salaries of the judges, produced from him a very spirited remonstrance. The affair, however, seems to have been misconceived by himself and his brethren on the Bench; and on its being explained the usual harmony was restored. At the commencement of 1786, while this matter was pending, he made a voyage to Chatigan, the boundary of the British dominions in Bengal towards the east. In this "Indian Montpelier," where he describes "the hillocks covered with pepper vines, and sparkling with blossoms of the coffee tree," in addition to his other literary researches he twice perused the poem of Ferdausi, consisting of above sixty thousand couplets. This he considered to be an epic poem as majestic and entire as the Iliad; and thought the outline of it related to a single hero, Khosrau, (the Cyrus of Herodotus and Xenophon), whom, as he says, "the Asiaticks, conversing with the Father of European History, described according to their popular traditions by his true name, which the Greek alphabet could not express." A nearer acquaintance with the great epic bard of Persia had now taught him therefore to retract the assertion he had made in his Commentary on Asiatic Poetry, that "the hero, as it is called, of the poem, was that well known Hercules of the Persians, named Rustem; although there are several other heroes, or warriors, to each of whom their own particular glory is assigned." At the time of writing this, he had an intention, if leisure should be allowed him, of translating the whole work. A version of Ferdausi, either in verse unfettered by rhyme, or in such numerous prose as the prophetical parts of the Bible are translated into, would, I think, be the most valuable transfer that our language is now capable of receiving from foreign tongues.
In 1787 he flattered himself that his constitution had overcome the climate; but his apprehensions were awakened for the health of Lady Jones, to which it had been yet more unfavourable; and he resolved, if some amendment did not appear likely, to urge her return to her native country; preferring, he said, the pang of separation for five or six years, to the anguish, which he should hardly survive, of losing her.
At the beginning of 1789 appeared the first volume of the Society's Researches, selected by the President. Two other volumes followed during his life-time, and a fourth was ready for the press at the time of his decease.
In the same year he published his version of an Indian drama of Calidas, entitled Sancontala, or the Fatal Ring; a wild and beautiful composition, which makes us desire to see more by the same writer, who has been termed the Shakspeare of India, and who lived in the last century before the Christian era. The doubts suggested by the critics in England, concerning the authenticity of this work, he considered as scarcely deserving of a serious reply.