SIR W. JONES.

William Jones, the most accomplished Oriental scholar of the last century, an upright magistrate, and eminent benefactor of the native subjects of our Indian dominions, was born in London on Michaelmas Eve, 1746. His father, a man esteemed by his contemporaries, a skilful mathematician, and the friend of Newton, died in July, 1749. His mother then devoted herself entirely to the education of this her only surviving son; and to her careful and judicious culture of his infant years, bestowed indeed upon a happy soil, is to be ascribed the early development of that thirst for learning and faculty of profitable application, which enabled Jones to accumulate in a short and busy life a quantity and variety of abstruse knowledge, such as the same age does not often see equalled. To the end of her life he acknowledged and repaid her care and affection by ardent love and unchanging filial respect. When only seven years old, he was sent to Harrow. His progress, slow at first, afterwards became most rapid; and the head master, Dr. Thackeray, a man not given to praise, spoke of him as “a boy of so active a mind, that if he were left naked and friendless on Salisbury Plain he would find the way to fame and riches.”

At the time of his quitting school, besides a much deeper acquaintance with the classical languages than usually falls to the lot of a schoolboy, Jones had acquired the French and Italian languages, had commenced the study of Hebrew, and (a thing only worth mention as indicative of his tastes) had made himself acquainted with the Arabic letters. Botany, the collection of fossils, and composition in English verse, were his favourite amusements at this period. March 16, 1764, he was entered as a student of University College, Oxford. He was elected a scholar on the Bennett foundation, October 30, 1764; and fellow on the same foundation, August 7, 1766, before he was of standing to proceed to the degree of B.A., which he took in 1768. At an early period of his residence he applied in earnest

Engraved by J. Posselwhite.SIR WILLIAM JONES.From the Picture in the Hall of University College, Oxford.Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street.

to the study of Arabic; and his zeal was such, that, though habitually self-denying, and anxious not to trespass on his mother’s slender income, he maintained at Oxford, at his own expense, a Syrian, with whom he had become acquainted in London, for the benefit to be derived from his instruction. From the Arabic he proceeded to learn the Persian language.

His residence was varied, though his favourite studies do not appear to have been interrupted, by an invitation to undertake the care of the late Lord Spencer, then a boy of seven years old. This was in 1765. The next five years he spent with his pupil chiefly at Harrow, and occasionally at Althorp, or in London, or on the continent. It appears from the college books that he resided at Oxford very little in the years 1766, 1767, and 1768. Wherever he was, his time was diligently employed, not only in his severer studies, but in the pursuit of personal accomplishments and the cultivation of valuable acquaintances, especially with those who, like himself, were attached to the investigation of Eastern languages and science. In 1768 he received a high, but an unprofitable compliment, in being selected to render into French a Persian Life of Nadir Shah, transmitted to the English government by the King of Denmark for the purpose of translation. To this performance, which was printed in 1770, Mr. Jones added a ‘Treatise on Oriental Poetry,’ in which several of the odes of Hafiz are translated into verse. This also was written in French; and it has justly been observed by a French writer in the ‘Biographie Universelle,’ that the occurrence of some imperfections of style ought not to interfere with our forming a high estimate of the talents of a man who, at the age of twenty-two, possessed the varied qualifications and recondite acquirements displayed in this work. By the end of the same year, 1770, the author finished his ‘Commentaries on Asiatic Poetry,’ a Latin treatise, which for its style is commended by the competent authority of Dr. Parr; and which has also obtained high praise for the taste and judgment displayed in selecting and translating the passages by which the text is illustrated. It was not printed till 1774.

Not the least striking part of Mr. Jones’s character was an ardent love of liberty, and a high and honourable feeling of independence in his own person. The former was displayed in his open and fearless advocacy of opinions calculated to close the road to preferment, such as an entire disapprobation of the American war, and a strong feeling of the necessity of reform in Parliament. It should also be noticed that at an early period he denounced in energetic language the abomination of the Slave Trade. His personal love of independence was at this time manifested in his resolution to quit the certain road to ease and competencewhich his connexion with the noble family of Spencer laid before him, to embark in the brilliant but uncertain course of legal adventure. Ambition was a prominent feature in Jones’s character; and it was his hope and his earnest wish to distinguish himself in the House of Commons as well as at the bar. He was admitted of the Middle Temple November 19, 1770; and his Oriental studies, though not entirely abandoned, especially at first, were thenceforth much curtailed until the prospect of being appointed to a judicial office in India furnished an adequate reason for the resumption of them. But he gave a proof that his devotion to Oriental had not destroyed his taste for Grecian learning, by publishing in 1778 a translation of the ‘Orations of Isæus,’ relative to the laws of succession to property in Athens. The subject appears to have interested him; for in 1782, when his attention was again directed to the East, he published translations of two Arabian poems; one on the Mohammedan law of succession to the property of intestates, the other on the Mohammedan law of inheritance. About the same time he translated the seven ancient Arabian poems, called Moallakat, or ‘Suspended,’ because they had been hung up, in honour of their merit, in the Temple of Mecca; and to show, perhaps, that his attention had not been withdrawn from his immediate profession, he wrote an ‘Essay on the Law of Bailments.’

Mr. Jones was called to the bar in 1774. Within two years’ space he obtained a commissionership of bankrupts; by what influence does not appear: it could not be from any professional eminence. A letter written to Lord Althorp so early as October, 1778, intimates a wish to obtain some judicial appointment in India, not only in consequence of the interest which he had felt from an early age in every thing connected with the East, but from a motive which has sent other eminent men to the same unhealthy climate; a feeling that pecuniary independence was almost essential to success in political life, and the hope of returning in the prime of manhood with an honourable competence.

In 1780 Mr. Jones became a candidate to represent the University of Oxford. His political opinions were not calculated to win the favour of that learned body, and though respectably supported, he did not find encouragement to warrant him in coming to a poll. From this time forward Mr. Jones’s mind was much occupied by the thought of going to India. His letters contain frequent allusions to the subject, and express doubt whether, notwithstanding the personal friendship of Lord North, his own known views of politics, especially his often and strongly-declared reprobation of the American war, would not interfere with his obtaining the desired promotion. The event proved him to be right, for it was not until after the formation ofthe Shelburne ministry that he received information of his appointment to a seat in the Supreme Court of Judicature at Calcutta, March 3, 1783. For this he was indebted to the friendship of Lord Ashburton (Mr. Dunning). The state of uncertainty in which he was so long retained interfered considerably with his attention to his legal practice, which was rapidly increasing. He was the more anxious on this subject, because he had been long attached to Miss Shipley, daughter of the Bishop of St. Asaph; and his union with her was only deferred until professional success should place him in a fit station to support a family. His marriage took place in April, and in the same month he embarked for India. It remains to be noticed, that in 1782 Mr. Jones had written an essay, entitled ‘The Principles of Government,’ in a dialogue between a farmer and country gentleman, intended to express in a cheap and simple form his own views on constitutional questions. This was first printed by the Society for Constitutional Information, of which Mr. Jones was a member: it was reprinted by his brother-in-law, the Dean of St. Asaph, who was in consequence indicted for libel. In the prosecution which ensued, Mr. Erskine made one of his first and most remarkable appearances, and the series of speeches which he delivered in this case prepared the way for the Libel Bill of 1792.

Sir William Jones arrived in Calcutta in September, and entered on his judicial functions in December, 1783. One of his first employments was the organization of a scientific association, under the title of the Asiatic Society. The Governor-general, Warren Hastings, was requested to become president; and on his declining to accept, as an honorary distinction, an office the real duties of which he was unable to fulfil, Sir William Jones was fitly placed at the head of that institution, which, but for him, probably would not have existed. The transactions of that society, under the name of ‘Asiatic Researches,’ were published under his superintendence, and owe a large portion of their interest to the labours of his pen. Another work, the ‘Asiatic Miscellany,’ was also indebted to him for several valuable contributions. But the perfect acquisition of the Sanscrit language was the chief employment of that time which could be spared from his judicial labours; a task indeed subsidiary to those labours, and performed with the benevolent design of insuring to the Indian subjects of Britain a pure administration of justice, by rendering the knowledge of their laws accessible to British magistrates. Bound to adjudicate between the natives according to their own native laws, and ignorant for the most part of the very language in which those laws were written, the judges were obliged to have recourse to native lawyers, called Pundits, whowere regularly attached to the courts as a species of assessors. Of these men Sir W. Jones, no harsh or hasty reprover, says, “It would be unjust and absurd to pass indiscriminate censure on so considerable a body of men; but my experience justifies me in declaring that I could not, with an easy conscience, concur in a decision merely on the written opinion of native lawyers, in a case in which they could have the remotest interest in misleading the court.” The obvious remedy was to obtain a trustworthy digest of the Hindoo laws, which should then be accurately translated into English. The scheme indeed had been already undertaken in part at the desire of Mr. Hastings, by Mr. Halhed: but as the code of Hindoo law, compiled by that gentleman, was merely a translation from a defective Persian version of the original Sanscrit, it did not possess the requisite correctness, or authority. It appears from Sir W. Jones’s correspondence, that at an early period he had contemplated supplying this great desideratum by his own labour and expense. But prudence did not warrant such an uncalled-for act of liberality; and he addressed a letter to Lord Cornwallis, dated March 19, 1788, in which the necessity for such a work, and the means by which it might be executed, are fully laid down. It was to be compiled by the Mohammedan or Hindoo lawyers, working under the superintendence of a director and translator, who should be qualified to check and correct intentional or careless error: and a chief difficulty, in Sir W. Jones’s own words, was “to find a person who, with a competent knowledge of the Sanscrit and Arabic, has a general acquaintance with the principles of jurisprudence, and a sufficient share even of legislative spirit, to arrange the plan of a digest, superintend the compilation of it, and render the whole, as it proceeds, into perspicuous English. Now (he continues), though I am truly conscious of possessing a very moderate portion of those talents which I should require in the superintendent of such a work, yet I may without vanity profess myself equal to the labour of it;—and I cannot but know that the qualifications required, even in the low degree in which I possess them, are not often found united in the same person.” The proposal of course was eagerly accepted. That he should have acquired the necessary acquaintance, first with the language, then with the law, in the space of four years and a half, is sufficiently remarkable; and the method in which he proposed to execute it will startle those who know the enervating influence of a tropical climate. “I should be able,” he says, “if my health continued firm, to translate every morning, before any other business is begun, as much as the lawyers could compile, and the writers copy, in the preceding day.” The quantity of work which Jones did in India was indeed astonishing; but he was a severe economistof time, and even his hours of recreation were rendered serviceable to the increase of knowledge. Botany especially was a favourite pursuit of his more leisure hours; and his correspondence with Banks and others shows at once the zeal with which, when duty would permit, he followed that fascinating science, and the readiness with which he communicated his own discoveries to his friends, and laboured to answer their inquiries. Nor did he neglect poetry. Several odes to Hindoo deities, originally published in the Asiatic Miscellany, will be found in his works; and these, with an elegant and cultivated fancy, display considerable power of composition. He projected a more serious undertaking,—an epic poem, of which a Phœnician colonist of Britain was to be the hero, and the Hindoo mythology was to furnish the machinery: the whole being an allegorical panegyric on the British constitution, and furnishing the character of a perfect King of England. But the extravagant fictions of the Hindoo religion have never proved permanently popular in an English dress; and there is no reason to regret that this scheme never advanced beyond its first sketch. The author made a more acceptable present to European literature in translating ‘Sacontala, or the Fatal Ring,’ a very ancient Indian drama, which contains a lively, simple, and pleasing picture of the manners of Hindustan at a remote age. It is ascribed to the first century before Christ.

For a catalogue of Sir W. Jones’s works, we must refer to the edition published by Lady Jones. We have only noticed a few of the most important: to which are to be added, the series of anniversary discourses addressed to the Asiatic Society, and the translation of the ‘Ordinances of Menu.’ The former, eleven in number, treat of the History, Antiquities, Arts, &c. of Asia, and more especially of the origin and connection of the chief nations among whom that quarter of the globe is divided. His last work was the translation of the ‘Ordinances of Menu,’ “a system of duties” (we quote from the translator’s preface) “religious and civil, and of law in all its branches, which the Hindoos firmly believe to have been promulged in the beginning of time by Menu, son or grandson of Brahma, or, in plain language, the first of created beings, and not the oldest only, but the holiest of legislators: a system so comprehensive, and so minutely exact, that it may be considered as the Institutes of Hindoo law, preparatory to the copious Digest which has lately been compiled by Pundits of eminent learning.” This was his last work. It was begun in 1786, though not completed and published till 1794, a short time before the author’s death.

The private history of Sir William Jones, during the period of his life which was spent in India, affords very little scope for narration. During his first summer he nearly fell a victim to the climate; but an absence of seven months spent in travelling recruited his strength, and after his return to Calcutta, in February, 1785, he seemed to be acclimated, and suffered little from serious illness till his last fatal attack. His domestic habits are thus described by his biographer, Lord Teignmouth. “The largest portion of each year was devoted to his professional duties and studies; and all the time that could be saved from these important avocations was dedicated to the cultivation of science and literature. While business required the daily attendance of Sir W. Jones in Calcutta, his usual residence was on the banks of the Ganges, at the distance of five miles from the court; to this spot he returned every evening after sunset, and in the morning rose so early as to reach his apartments in town by walking, at the first appearance of the dawn. The intervening period of each morning, until the opening of the court, was regularly allotted and applied to distinct studies. He passed the months of vacation at his retirement at Crishnagur (a villa about fifty miles from Calcutta) in his usual pursuits.” Those portions of his correspondence which are preserved in Lord Teignmouth’s life may be read with pleasure; and indeed constitute the chief interest of the latter part of the work. Busy, tranquil, and cheerful, his life afforded little of material for the biographer: and but for the impaired health of his wife, his residence in India would have been one of almost unmixed happiness. Lady Jones was compelled to embark for England in December, 1793. The mere desire of increasing a fortune, which he professed to find already large enough for his moderate wishes, would not have tempted Sir William Jones to remain alone in Bengal: but he felt an earnest desire to complete the great work on Hindoo Law, which he had originated; and no apprehension was felt on his account, as his constitution seemed to have become inured to the climate. But in the following spring he was attacked by inflammation of the liver, which ran its fatal course with unusual rapidity. He died, April 27, 1794. The ‘Digest,’ to which he had thus sacrificed his life, was completed by Mr. Colebrooke, and published in 1800.

Blameless in his domestic relations, consistent and enlightened in his political views, an honest and indefatigable magistrate, few men have gone through life with more credit, or as far as it is possible to form an opinion, with more happiness than Sir William Jones. As a scholar, the circumstances of his life being considered, his acquirementswere extraordinary; and in this light the most remarkable feature of his character was his singular facility in learning languages. A list, preserved in his own handwriting, thus classes those with which he was in any degree acquainted; they are twenty-eight in number. “Eight languages studied critically—English, Latin, French, Italian, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Sanscrit. Eight studied less perfectly, but all intelligible with a dictionary—Spanish, Portuguese, German, Runic, Hebrew, Bengali, Hindi, Turkish. Twelve studied less perfectly, but all attainable: Thibetian, Pâli, Pahlair, Deri, Russian, Syriac, Ethiopic, Coptic, Welsh, Swedish, Dutch, Chinese.” Besides law, which as his profession, was his chief business through life, his writings embrace a vast variety of subjects in the several classes of philology, botany, zoology, poetry original and translated, political discussion, geography, mythology, astronomy as applied to chronology, and history, especially that of the Asiatic nations. And the praise of ‘adorning everything that he touched’ is singularly due to him, for the elegance of his style, and his power of throwing interest over the dry and uncertain inquiries in which he took such delight. As far as England is concerned, he was our great pioneer in Eastern learning; and if later scholars, profiting in part by his labours, have found reason to dissent from his opinions, it is to be recollected, as far as our estimate of his powers is concerned, that most men, who have obtained eminence in this recondite department of literature, have done so by the devotion of their undivided powers: what Jones accomplished was performed, on the contrary, in the intervals of those official labours, to which the best hours and energies of his life were, as his first point of duty, devoted. What he had meditated, if life and leisure had been granted, may be inferred from the list of ‘Desiderata,’ which his biographer (vol. ii., p. 301, it is not said on what authority) regards as exhibiting his own literary projects. The following emphatic panegyric, conceived in the warm language which affection naturally indulges in on such an occasion, has been pronounced on him by his friend and school-fellow, Dr. Bennet, Bishop of Cloyne. “I knew him from the early age of eight or nine, and he was always an uncommon boy. Great abilities, great particularity of thinking, fondness for writing verses and plays of various kinds, and a degree of integrity and manly courage, of which I remember many instances, distinguished him even at that period. I loved and revered him, and though one or two years older than he was, was always instructed by him from my earliest age. In a word, I can only say of this wonderful man, that he had more virtues and less faults than I ever yet saw in any human being; and that the goodness of his head, admirable as itwas, was exceeded by that of his heart. I have never ceased to admire him from the moment I first saw him, and my esteem for his great qualities and regret for his loss will only end with my life.”

Due honours were paid after death to this great man. The Court of Directors placed a statue of him in St. Paul’s cathedral; and Lady Jones erected a monument to him in the ante-chapel of University College, Oxford. In conformity with his own expressed opinion, that “the best monument that can be erected to a man of literary talent, is a good edition of his works,” she caused them to be collected and printed in 1799, in six quarto volumes. They have been reprinted in octavo. A life of Sir William Jones was afterwards written by Lord Teignmouth, his intimate friend in India, at Lady Jones’s request. There is a memoir in the Annual Obituary for 1817, which is chiefly devoted to set forth the political opinions of Sir William Jones, in a stronger light than seemed fitting to his noble biographer.

[Statue of Sir W. Jones, by John Bacon, R.A., in St. Paul’s.]

Engraved by Robt. Hart.ROUSSEAU.From an original Picture by Latour, in the possession of M. Bordes, at Paris.Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street.

ROUSSEAU.

Back to Index Next