Præteritis fruitur, lætos aut sumit honores
Ipse sui judex, actæ benè munera vita-
Sed sua regna videns, loca nocte silentia latè,
Horret, ubi vanæ species umbræque fugaces
Et rerum volitant rare per inane figuræ.

Quid faciam? Tenebrisne pigram damnare senectam
Restat; an accingar studiis gracioribus audax?
Aut, hoc si nimium est, tandem nova Lexica poscam?

Of this picture of himself, drawn (according to Murphy) with as much truth and as firm a hand, as can be seen in the portraits of Hogarth or Sir Joshua Reynolds, a translation by that gentleman is here subjoined.

KNOW YOURSELF.

(After revising and enlarging his English Dictionary.)

· When Scaliger, whole years of labour past,
Beheld his Lexicon complete at last,
And weary of his task, with wondering eyes
Saw from words piled on words a fabric rise;
He cursed the industry, inertly strong,
In creeping toil that could persist so long-
And, “If (enraged, he cried) Heaven meant to shed
It's keenest vengeance on the guilty head,
The drudgery of words the damn'd would know,
Doom'd to write Lexicons in endless woe.'

Yes, you had cause, great Genius, to repent :
“ You lost good days that might be better spent;'
You well might grudge the hours of lingering pain,
And view your learned labours with disdain.
To you were given the large expanded mind,
The flame of genius and the taste refined:
'Twas yours on eagle wings aloft to soar,
And amidst rolling worlds the Great First Cause explore;
To fix the eras of recorded time,
And live in

every clime;

To learn whate'er the Sage with virtue fraught,
Whate'er the Muse of moral wisdom taught.
These were your quarry: these to you were known,
And the world's ample volume was your own.

Yet warn'd by me, ye pigmy wits, beware,
Nor with immortal Scaliger compare.
For me, though his example strike my view,
Oh! not for me his footsteps to pursue !
Whether first Nature, unpropitious, cold,
This clay compounded in a ruder mould;
Or the slow current, loitering at my heart,
No gleam of wit or fancy can impart-
Whate'er the cause, from me no numbers flow;
No visions warn me, and no raptures glow.
A mind, like Scaliger's, superior still,
No grief could conquer, no misfortune chill:
Though for the maze of words his native skies
He seem’d to quit, 'twas but again to rise;
To mount once more to the bright source of day,
And view the wonders of th' ethereal way.
The love of Fame his generous bosom fired;
Each Science hail'd him, and each Muse inspired:
For him the Sons of Learning trimm'd the bays,
And nations grew harmonious in his praise.

• My task perform’d, and all my labours o'er, For me what lot has Fortune now in store? The listless will succeeds, that worst disease, The rack of indolence, the sluggish ease. Care grows on care, and o'er my aching brain Black Melancholy pours her morbid train. No kind relief, no lenitive at hand, I seek at midnight clubs the social band; But midnight clubs, where wit with noise conspires, Where Comus revels and where wine inspires, Delight no more: I seek my lonely bed, And call on Sleep to sooth my languid head. But Sleep from these sad lids flies far away; I mourn all night, and dread the coming day. Exhausted, tired, I throw my eyes around, To find some vacant spot on classic ground; And soon-vain hope! I form a grand design: Languor succeeds, and all my powers decline.

If Science open not her richest vein,
Without materials all our toil is vain.
A form to rugged stone when Phidias gives,
Beneath his touch a new creation lives.
Remove his marble, and his genius dies:
With nature, then, no breathing statue vies.
• Whate'er I plan, I feel

my powers confined
By Fortune's frown, and penury of mind.
I boast no knowledge glean'd with toil and strife,
That bright reward of a well-acted life:
I view myself-while reason's feeble light
Shoots a pale glimmer through the gloom of night,
While passions, error, phantoms of the brain,
And vain opinions fill the dark domain-
A dreary void, where fears with grief combined
Waste all within, and desolate the mind.

• What then remains ? Must I, in slow decline, To mute inglorious ease old age resign; Or, bold ambition kindling in my breast, Attempt some arduous task? Or were it best, Brooding o'er Lexicons to pass the day, And in that labour drudge my life away?'

363

SIR WILLIAM JONES.*

(1746–1794.]

SIR WILLIAM JONES was the only son of William Jones, Esq. F.R.S., an eminent mathematician, of the isle of Anglesey, who had the pride of numbering among his intimate friends Newton and Halley, and died in 1749, leaving by Mary (the youngest daughter of George Nix, citizen of London) two children ; Mary, subsequently married to Mr. Rainsford, a merchant; and William, the subject of this memoir, born in London September 28, 1746.

As Mr. Jones did not long survive his son's birth, the care of his education devolved upon his mother, a woman of uncommon energy,and extraordinary talents for instruction;t and she did him justice. Rejecting the severity of discipline, and leading his mind insensibly

* AUTHORITY. Lord Teignmouth's Life of Sir W. Jones. + As a proof of her resemblance to her son, both in her capa city of acquiring knowledge and the benevolence with which she applied it to use, it may be recorded, that being intrusted with the care of a nephew designed for the sea, she made herself perfect in trigonometry and the theory of navigation, with a view of instructing him in those branches of his destined profession.

to exertion, she constantly endeavoured to excite his curiosity, and to direct it to useful objects. To his incessant importunities for information on casual topics, which she watchfully stimulated, she always replied, “ Read, and you will know;" a maxim, to the observance of which he invariably acknowledged himself indebted for his subsequent attainments. Her success was adequate to her efforts. In his fourth year, her pupil was able to read distinctly and rapidly ány English book. She particularly attended to the cultivation of his memory, by making him repeat some of the popular speeches in Shakspeare, and the best of Gay's Fables. An accident, which about this time injured one of his eyes, gave some check to his progress : but his appetite for books increased; and before he was five years of age, he was so much struck by the sublimity of the description of the Angel in the tenth chapter of the Apocalypse, as ever afterward to remember it with emotions of rapture.

At Michaelmas 1753, he was sent to HarrowSchool, then under the care of Dr. Thackeray, where at first he was remarked for industry rather than for talent. Two years afterward, in consequence of the fracture of his thigh-bone, he was detained at home for twelve months. This period he passed not in indolence, but in familiarising himself with the translations of Pope and Dryden, and in endeavouring to imitate them. Yet it operated to his disadvantage on his return to school, unjustly creating prejudices against his application or his capacity; which emulation, however, speedily excited him to overcome. Such, indeed, was his integrity and his manly courage that, neither disgusted nor depressed by this unjust usage, he quickly rose through his extraordinary exer