Chapter VII: Part 7

The two first folio editions are in great request among book-collectors, and, owing to their scarcity, fetch high prices at auctions. They have nothing to recommend them either as to accuracy or elegance of typography, but are really valuable for the various readings which they contain. The best modern editions are those of Johnson and Steevens, and Malone. The last edition is the posthumous one of Malone, edited by Boswell, and little room is left for any farther elucidation of our great dramatist, as far as verbal criticism is concerned. But for the higher branches of criticism, the works of such a poet are as inexhaustible as those of Homer; and if his fame be equally immortal, its fate is more singular. However ardent may be the admiration of Homer on the part of modern scholars, and however profound their investigation of his merits, far from pretending to discoveries unknown to the Grecian critics and philosophers, they support their own views by constant references to the ancients; but Shakspeare has found his most elaborate, and with certain drawbacks, his best critics, among foreigners. In England Shakspeare is the idol of those who read either for the amusement of the imagination, or as students not of poetical or metaphysical, but of every-day nature; and his English editors have rather criticised down to the level of such readers, than aimed at ripening their taste, or elevating their conceptions. We find eminent men among them, such as Pope, Warburton, and Johnson, yet none well qualified to perform the highest functions of a commentator. Johnson’s Preface is highly valued for the justness of his general criticism, and his vindication of the poet on the score of the unities is triumphantly conclusive. But his remarks at the end of each play are so jejune and superficial, that short as they are, no reader perhaps ever wished them longer. One cannot help wondering that the acute, and in many instances profound, though sometimes partial, critic of Cowley, Milton, Dryden, Pope and Gray, should have skimmed so lightly over the surface of Shakspeare. Not so his German translators and critics. No sooner did the Germans take up the study of English literature, than they selected Shakspeare on whom to try their powers; and they are thought to have dived deeper into his mind than have his own countrymen, with their apparently better opportunities. Nor is this wonderful: for they have regarded the poet not merely as the minister of amusement to an admiring audience, but as a metaphysical philosopher of nature’s forming, possessed of deepest insight into the complex motives which move the hearts, and stimulate the actions of mankind. And seeking with a reverent attention to trace the workings of the _maker’s_ mind (for in this instance there is a peculiar propriety in translating the Greek word _poet_) they have succeeded in furnishing profound and satisfactory explanations of much that less intellectual critics had treated as instances of the author’s irregular and capricious genius. In this, as in other branches of German literature, Goëthe stands pre-eminent: and the translation of his ‘Wilhelm Meister’ has placed within the reach of all readers a series of original and masterly criticisms, especially on that stumbling-block of commentators, the character of Hamlet. We may quote as a specimen his exposition of the principle upon which the anomalies of the Prince of Denmark’s conduct are to be solved. “It is clear to me that Shakspeare’s intention was to exhibit the effects of a great action, imposed as a duty upon a mind too feeble for its accomplishment. In this case I find the character consistent throughout. Here is an oak tree planted in a china vase, proper only to receive the most delicate flowers. The roots strike out and the vessel flies to pieces. A pure, noble, highly moral disposition, but without that energy of soul which constitutes the hero, sinks under a load which it can neither support nor endure to abandon altogether. _All_ his obligations are sacred to him; but this alone is above his powers! An impossibility is required at his hands; not an impossibility in itself, but that which is so to him. Observe, how he turns, shifts, hesitates, advances, and recedes;—how he is continually reminded and reminding himself of his real commission, which he nevertheless in the end seems almost entirely to lose sight of, and this without ever recovering his former tranquillity!” How different this from the praise of _variety_ allowed to this tragedy by Johnson, to “the pretended madness, causing mirth,” without any adequate cause for feigning it, and the objection that through the whole piece he is “rather an instrument than an agent!”

Malone’s “attempt to ascertain the order in which the plays of Shakspeare were written” occupies 180 pages. Where so many words are necessary, the arrangement to be justified may not be very certain; but that of Malone is generally received. It runs thus: The First Part of King Henry VI., 1589. Second and Third Parts, Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1591. Comedy of Errors, 1592. King Richard II. and III., 1593. Love’s Labour’s Lost, Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1594. Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, King John, 1596. First Part of King Henry IV., 1597. Second Part, All’s well that ends well, 1598. King Henry V., As You like it, 1599. Much ado about Nothing, Hamlet, 1600. Merry Wives of Windsor, 1601. Troilus and Cressida, 1602. Measure for Measure, King Henry VIII., 1603. Othello, 1604. King Lear, 1605. Macbeth, 1606. Twelfth Night, Julius Cæsar, 1607. Antony and Cleopatra, 1608. Cymbeline, 1609. Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, 1610. Winter’s Tale, 1611. Tempest, 1612. Except the placing of the historical plays in separate succession, the order of Malone’s edition follows the above dates. Previous editions arranged the plays as comedies, histories, and tragedies, beginning with the Tempest, the last written, and ending with Othello. We must add to the list of plays ascribed to Shakspeare, and included in the editions of his works, Pericles and Titus Andronicus, which are now acknowledged not to be the composition of Shakspeare, though perhaps retouched by him. The Yorkshire Tragedy, Lord Cromwell, and others, have still less right to bear the honour of his name.

]

_Engraved by B. Holl._

EULER.

_From a Picture by A. Lorgna in the Collection of the Institute of
France._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

EULER.

Leonard Euler[7] was born at Basle, April 15, 1707. His father was the clergyman of Reichen, near Basle, and had himself been a pupil of James Bernouilli. He intended his son for his own profession, and after having been himself his first instructor in mathematics, sent him to the university of Basle. John Bernouilli was at this time Professor, and his sons, Nicolas and Daniel, two more of the _eight_ Bernouillis known to the history of science, were under him. With the sons Euler contracted an intimate friendship; and obtained such a degree of favour even with their father, that the latter gave him a private lesson weekly, upon points more advanced than those treated in the public course. This was a strong mark of favour from John Bernouilli, who was of an unamiable disposition, jealous of his brother, of his son, and finally of almost every one who displayed a superior talent for mathematics. Euler at first turned his attention to theology, in accordance with the wishes of his father, but this was not of long continuance. At the age of nineteen, besides obtaining a degree from his University, he had merited the notice of the Academy of Sciences for a memoir on some points of naval architecture. In the same year, he was an unsuccessful candidate for a Professorship at Basle, an unlucky event, M. Condorcet observes, for his country, inasmuch as a few days afterwards he left it for Russia, and never returned. His friends the Bernouillis (Nicolas and Daniel) had, two years before, accepted invitations from the Empress Catherine; and he followed them in hopes of obtaining employment and subsistence at St. Petersburgh. But by the time he arrived, both Nicolas Bernouilli and the Empress were dead, the Academy of St. Petersburgh was left without a patron, and Euler, a nameless stranger, could not for a long time obtain any settled avocation. How he maintained himself we are not told; but he was upon the point of entering the Russian service as a sailor, when his prospects brightened, and he obtained the place of Professor of Natural Philosophy. In 1733 he succeeded Daniel Bernouilli, who returned to his own country, as Professor of Mathematics. In the same year he married a young lady named Gsell, the daughter of an artist of Basle, who had emigrated to Russia in the reign of Peter the Great.

Footnote 7:

We have followed the _éloge_ of Condorcet as to facts and dates. We
should have preferred that of M. Fuss, but have not had the
opportunity of seeing it. The mere biographical details of Euler’s
life are, however, of the simplest character.

The despotism of the Russian government could not please the republican born; but circumstances obliged him to endure it till 1741, when he quitted Petersburgh for Berlin on the invitation of Frederic the Great. To the necessity for continual reserve and government of the tongue which was necessary in the Russian capital has been attributed his love of silence and study, which exceeded all that is related of any of his contemporaries. The mother of Frederic, who was as much attached to the conversation of distinguished men as the King himself, could never obtain more than a few syllables from Euler at any one time. On her asking the reason why he would not speak, he is said to have replied, “Madam, I have lived in a country where men who speak are hanged.”

Euler remained at Berlin till 1766. In 1761 he lost his mother, who had resided with him for eleven years. During this time he was not considered as having abandoned his Russian engagements, and a part of his salary was regularly paid. When the Russians invaded Brandenburg in 1760, a farm belonging to him was destroyed, but he was immediately more than reimbursed, by the order of the Empress Elizabeth. On the invitation of that princess he consented to return to Petersburgh in 1766. He had for some years suffered from weakness in the eyes; and not long after his return to Russia he became so nearly blind, that he could distinguish nothing except very large letters marked with chalk on a slate. In this state he continued for the remainder of his life; and by constant exercise he acquired a power of recollection, whether of mathematical formulæ or figures, which would be totally incredible, if it were not supported by strong evidence. He formed in his head, and retained in his memory, a table of the first six powers of all numbers up to 100, containing about 3000 figures. Two of his pupils had summed seventeen terms of a converging series, and differed by a unit in the fiftieth decimal of the result; Euler decided between them correctly by a mental calculation[8]. His chief amusement during his deprivation was the formation of artificial magnets, and the instruction of one of his grandchildren in mathematics. His studies were in no degree relaxed by it. In 1771 Euler’s house was destroyed by fire, together with a considerable part of the city. He was himself saved by a fellow-countryman named Grimm, and his manuscripts were also rescued. In 1776 he married the aunt of his first wife. No other event worthy of special notice occurred before his death, which took place suddenly, September 7, 1783. He had been employed in calculating the laws of the ascent of balloons, which were then newly introduced; he afterwards dined with his family and M. Lexell, his pupil, conversed with them on the newly-discovered planet of Herschel, and was amusing himself with one of his grandchildren; suddenly the pipe which he held in his hand dropped on the ground, and it was found that[9] “life and calculation were at an end.” He had thirteen children, of whom only three survived him; one of them, John Albert Euler, was known as a mathematician.

Footnote 8:

We suspect some mistake in this account, which is constantly given. A
very surprising story ought to be consistent: now it is difficult to
believe that any series which was actually employed in practice (and
people do not sum series to fifty places for amusement) would converge
so quickly, as to give fifty places in seventeen terms. The well-known
series for the base of Napier’s logarithms is called a rapidly
converging series, and gives about fifteen places in seventeen terms.
We cannot help thinking, either that Euler settled one disputed term
only, or that there is some mistake about the number of figures.

Footnote 9:

Il cessa de calculer et de vivre.—CONDORCET.

Of the scientific character of Euler it is impossible to speak in detail, since even the _resumé_ of M. Condorcet, which is much longer than any account we can here insert, is meagre in the extreme; and we imagine that the reader would form no idea whatsoever of the man we are describing, from any brief enumeration of discoveries for which we should be able to allow room. In more than fifty years of incessant thought, Euler wrote thirty separate works and more than seven hundred memoirs: which could not altogether be contained in forty large quarto volumes. These writings embrace every existing branch of mathematics, and almost every conceivable application of them, to such an extent, that there is no one among mathematicians, past or present, who can be placed near to Euler in the enormous variety of the subjects which he treated. And the contents of these volumes are without exception the original fruit of his own brain; seeing that he left no subject as he found it. He is not a diffuse writer, except in giving a large number of examples, and this renders him in some respects the most instructive of all writers. His works are full of the most original thoughts developed in the most original manner; so that they have been a mine of information for his successors, which is even now far from being exhausted. Let a student be employed upon any subject connected with mathematics, however remotely, and he has discovered but little if he has not found out that Euler was there before him.

Of all mathematical writers, Euler is one of the most simple, and this in a manner which renders his writings not by any means a sound preparation for future investigations. Difficulties seem to have disappeared in the progress, or never to have been encountered; and the student is rather made to feel that Euler could take him anywhere, than furnished with the means of providing for himself, when his guide shall have left him. Hence the writings of others, in every way inferior to Euler in elegance and simplicity, are to be preferred, and have been preferred, for the formation of mathematical power.

Euler is to be measured by the assistance which he gave to his immediate successors, and here it is well known that he paved the way for the research of others in a more effectual manner than any of his contemporaries. The incessant repetition of his name in later authors is sufficient authority for this assertion. His writings are the first in which the modern analysis is uniformly the instrument of investigation. His predecessors, James and John Bernouilli, had perhaps the largest share in bringing the infinitesimal analysis of Newton and Leibnitz to the state of power required for extensive application. To Euler (besides important extensions) belongs the distinct merit of showing how to apply it to physical investigations, in conjunction with D’Alembert, who ran a splendid and contemporary career of a similar character in this respect. But though it would be perhaps admitted that there are individual results of the latter which exceed anything done by the former, in generality of application, there is no comparison whatsoever between the extent of the labours of the two.

Euler was a man of a simple, reserved, and benevolent mind; with a strong sense of devotion, and a decided religious habit, according to the Calvinism of the Established Church of his country. At the court of Frederic, he himself conducted the devotions of his family every evening; a practice which then and there implied much moral courage, and insensibility to ridicule. But he possessed humour, for when he was asked to calculate the horoscope of one of the Russian princes, he quietly suggested that it was the official duty of the astronomer, and imposed the duty upon a colleague, who doubtless did not feel very much flattered by the application.

There are few men whom the usual biographical formulæ as to moral character and habits would better fit than Euler, according to every account which has appeared of him. But such praises are no distinction; and it will be more to the purpose to state that the only occasion in which he was betrayed into printing a word which his eulogists have regretted, was in the dispute between Maupertuis and himself against others on the principle known by the name of _least action_, one of the warmest and most angry discussions which ever took place.

Perhaps it is to the quiet abstraction of his life that he owed the perpetuity of his tenure of investigation. Many eminent mathematical discoverers have run the brilliant part of their career while comparatively young. Euler “ceased to calculate and to live” at once. But it may be that this was a part of his natural constitution, and a distinct feature of his mind. The nature of his writings rather confirms the latter supposition. There is the same difference between them and those of others, that there is between conversation and oratory. He seems to be moving in his natural element, where others are swimming for their lives.

The best works of Euler for a young mathematician to read, in order to get an idea of his style and methods, are the ‘_Analysis Infinitorum_,’ and the ‘_Treatise on the Integral Calculus_.’

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 competence which 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 of the 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, who were 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 economist of 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 acquirements were 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 it was, 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.

]

_Engraved by Rob^t. 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.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, the son of a watch-maker at Geneva, was born June 28, 1712. His mother dying while he was yet a child, his father took a second wife; and he himself was placed at school at the village of Bossey, near Geneva, where he learnt but little, and was afterwards apprenticed to an engraver, a coarse, brutal man, whose treatment of him tended to sour a temper already wilful and morose. He became addicted to idleness, pilfering, and lying. The fear of punishment for some act of especial misconduct induced him to run away from his master, and he wandered into Savoy, where finding himself totally destitute, he applied to the Bishop of Annecy, on the plea of wishing to be instructed in the Catholic religion. The bishop recommended him to Madame de Warens, a Swiss lady, herself a convert to Catholicism, who lived at Annecy. She received the boy kindly, relieved his present wants, and afforded him the means of proceeding to Turin, where he entered the College of Catechumens, and after going through a preparatory course of instruction, abjured the reformed religion, and became a Catholic. But as he refused to enter into holy orders, on leaving the college he was again thrown upon his own resources. He became a domestic servant; but his want of self-control and discretion rendered him very unfit for his employment: and in 1730 he returned to the house of Madame de Warens, who received him kindly, and afforded him support and protection during the next ten years. Of his foolish, profligate, and ungrateful course of life during this period, we have neither space nor wish to give an account: after many absences, and many returns, Rousseau quitted her finally in 1740, receiving letters of introduction to some persons at Lyons. Tutor, musician, and private secretary to the French Ambassador, his restless temper and versatile mind led him successively from Lyons to Paris and Venice. From the last-named city he returned to Paris in 1745; and alighting at an obscure inn, met with a servant girl, Therese Levasseur, with whom he formed a connexion which lasted all the rest of his life. He tried to compose music for the stage, but did not succeed in his attempts. He was next employed as a clerk in the office of M. Dupin, Fermier-général, but did not remain long in his new employment. In 1748 he became acquainted with Madame d’Epinay, who proved afterwards one of his steadiest and kindest friends. He frequented the society also of D’Alembert, Diderot, and Condillac, and he was engaged to write the articles on music for the Encyclopédie, which he did very ill, as he himself acknowledges. One day he saw by chance in an advertisement, that a prize had been offered by the Academy of Dijon, for the best essay on the question, Whether the progress of sciences and of the arts has been favourable to the morals of mankind? He at once resolved to write for the prize, and apparently without having ever before considered the subject, made up his mind to take the negative side of the question. Diderot encouraged, but did not, as has been commonly said, originate this determination. He supported his position, that science, literature, and art, have been fatal to the virtues and happiness of mankind, with a glowing eloquence; and the Academy awarded him the prize. His success confirmed him in a turn for paradox and exaggeration; and he seems to have adopted, as a general principle, the doctrine that the extreme opposite to wrong must necessarily be right. At the same time his reputation as an author became established, and in a few years after his first essay, he was acknowledged to be one of the most, or rather the most, eloquent writer among his contemporaries. Meantime he persevered in his attempts at musical composition, and wrote ‘Le Devin du Village,’ an opera which was played before the king at the Court Theatre of Fontainebleau, and met with the royal approbation. Rousseau was in one of the boxes with a gentleman belonging to the court. The king having expressed a desire to see the composer of the opera, Rousseau became alarmed or ashamed at the slovenly condition of his dress, and instead of repairing to the royal presence, he ran out of the house and hastened back to Paris. Naturally shy, he possessed neither ease of manners nor facility of address, and he could never throughout life subdue his own acute feeling of these deficiencies; a feeling which of course tended to perpetuate and increase his awkwardness. This was the secret spring of most of his eccentricities. In order to hide his imperfections, he resorted to the plan of affecting to disregard manners altogether; he put on the appearance of a cynic, of a misanthropist, which he was not in reality.

It was about the year 1750, soon after writing his dissertation for the Dijon prize, that he made a total change in his habits and mode of living. He gave up all refinement about his dress, laid aside his sword, bag, and silk stockings, sold his watch, but kept his linen apparel, which, however, was stolen from him shortly after. He spent one half of the day in copying music as a means of subsistence, and he found constant employment. Several persons who knew his circumstances offered him three or four times the value of his labour, but he would never accept more than the usual remuneration. In 1753 he wrote his ‘Lettre sur la Musique Française,’ in which he asserted that the French had no music deserving the name, that they could not possibly have any, and then added, that “were they ever to have any it would be all the worse for them;” a sentence unintelligible to his readers, and probably to himself also. When years after this he heard Gluck, with whose music he was delighted, he observed to some one, “this man is setting French words to very good music, as if on purpose to contradict me;” and upon this reflection he broke off acquaintance with Gluck. However, his letter on French music sorely wounded the national vanity, and he was exposed to a sort of petty persecution in consequence of it. Rousseau wrote next his letter to D’Alembert, ‘sur les Spectacles,’ which led to a controversy between them. He wrote also the ‘Discours sur l’Origine de l’Inégalité parmi les Hommes,’ for another prize of the Academy of Dijon, with a dedication to the magistrates of his native town Geneva, which was much admired as a specimen of dignified eloquence. The discourse itself is composed in his accustomed paradoxical vein. He maintains that men are not intended to be sociable beings; that they have a natural bias for a solitary existence; that the condition of the savage, untutored and free in his native wilds, is the natural and proper state of man; and that every system of society is an infraction of man’s rights, and a subversion of the order of nature. He assumes that men are all born equal by nature, disregarding the daily evidence of the contrary, in respect both of their physical and moral powers. His idea of the equal rights of men, which he afterwards developed in the ‘Contrat Social,’ instead of being founded upon enlightened reason, religion, and morality, rests upon the base of his favourite theory, of man’s equality in a state of nature; while we know from experience, that those savage tribes who approach nearest to this imaginary natural state, acknowledge no other right than that of the strongest. Most of Rousseau’s paradoxes proceed from the false position assumed in his first dissertation, that a savage, unsocial state, is the very perfection of man’s existence.

After the publication of this discourse Rousseau repaired to Geneva, where he was well received by his countrymen. He there abjured Catholicism and resumed the profession of the reformed religion. But he soon returned to Paris; and, at the invitation of Madame d’Epinay, in 1756, took up his residence at the house called L’Hermitage, in the valley of Montmorency, near Paris. It was in this pleasant retirement that he began his celebrated novel ‘Julie, ou la Nouvelle Heloïse,’ which he finished in 1759. As a work of imagination and invention it is little worth; but as a model of impassioned eloquence, it will be admired as long as the French language shall continue to be spoken or read by men. Rousseau, while he wrote it, was himself under the influence of a passion which he had conceived for the beautiful Madame d’Houdetot, Madame d’Epinay’s sister-in-law, a love totally hopeless and ridiculous on his part, but which no doubt inspired him while engaged in the composition of this work. When it appeared, many people, especially women, thought that Julie was a real living object of his attachment, and the supposition being favourable to the popularity of the book and its author, Rousseau was not very anxious to undeceive them. He esteemed the fourth portion of the work the best. “The first two parts are but the desultory verbiage of feverish excitement, and yet I could never alter them after I had once written them. The fifth and the sixth are comparatively weak, but I let them remain out of consideration of their moral utility.... My imagination cannot embellish the objects I see; it must create its own objects. If I am to paint the spring, I must do it in winter; if to describe a landscape, I must be shut up within walls: were I confined in the Bastille, I should then write best on the charms of liberty. I never could write as a matter of business, I can only do it through impulse or passion.” (Rousseau’s ‘Notes to the Nouvelle Heloïse,’ in Mercier and Le Tourneur’s edition.) He had great difficulty in constructing his periods; he turned them and he altered them repeatedly in his head, often while in bed, before he attempted to put them on paper.