skin of it I mend an old coat, or I make a new one. By this time the day is far spent ; I feel myself fatigued, and retire to rest. Thus what with tilling the ground and eating the fruit of it, hunting, and walking, and running, and mending old clothes, and sleeping and rising again, I can suppose an inhabitant of the primeval world so much occupied as to sigh over the shortness of life, and to find at the end of many centuries that they had all slipped through his fingers, and were passed away like a shadow. What wonder then that I, who live in a day of so much greater refinement, when there is so much more to be wanted, and wished, and to be enjoyed, should feel myself now and then pinched in point of opportunity, and at some loss for leisure to fill four sides of a sheet like this. Thus, however, it is; and if the ancient gentlemen to whom I have referred, and their complaints of the disproportion of time to the occasions they had for it, will not serve me as an excuse, I must even plead guilty, and confess that I am often in haste when I have no good reason for being so.

The Candidate's Visit.

March 29, 1784. MY DEAR FRIEND,-It being his Majesty's pleasure that I should yet have another opportunity to write before he dissolves the Parliament, I avail myself of it with all possible alacrity. I thank you for your last, which was not the less welcome for coming, like an extraordinary gazette, at a time when it was not expected.

As, when the sea is uncommonly agitated, the water finds its way into creeks and holes of rocks, which in its calmer state it never reaches, in like manner the effect of these turbulent times is felt even at Orchardside, where in general we live as undisturbed by the political element as shrimps or cockles that have been accidentally deposited in some hollow beyond the water-mark by the usual dashing of the waves. We were sitting yesterday after dinner-the two ladies and myself-very composedly, and without the least apprehension of any such intrusion, in our snug parlour, one lady knitting, the other netting, and the gentleman winding worsted, when, to our unspeakable surprise, a mob appeared before the window, a smart rap was heard at the door, the boys hallooed, and the maid announced Mr Grenville. Puss was unfortunately let out of her box, so that the candidate, with all his good friends at his heels, was refused admittance at the grand entry, and referred to the back door, as the only possible way of approach.

Candidates are creatures not very susceptible of affronts, and would rather, I suppose, climb in at a window than be absolutely excluded. In a minute the yard, the kitchen, and the parlour were filled. Mr Grenville, advancing towards me, shook me by the hand with a degree of cordiality that was extremely seducing. As soon as he and as many more as could find chairs were seated, he began to open the intent of his visit. I told him I had no vote, for which he readily gave me credit. I assured him I had no influence, which he was not equally inclined to believe, and the less, no doubt, because Mr Ashburner, the drapier, addressing himself to me at that moment, informed me that I had a great deal. Supposing that I could not be possessed of such a treasure without knowing it, I ventured to confirm my first assertion by saying that if I had any I was utterly at a loss to imagine where it could be, or wherein it consisted. Thus ended the conference. Mr Grenville

squeezed me by the hand again, kissed the ladies, and withdrew. He kissed likewise the maid in the kitchen, and seemed upon the whole a most loving, kissing, kindhearted gentleman. He is very young, genteel, and handsome. He has a pair of very good eyes in his head, which not being sufficient, as it should seem, for the many nice and difficult purposes of a senator, he has a third also, which he wore suspended by a riband from his buttonhole. The boys hallooed, the dogs barked, Puss scampered; the hero, with his long train of obsequious followers, withdrew. We made ourselves very merry with the adventure, and in a short time settled into our former tranquillity, never probably to be thus interrupted more. I thought myself, however, happy in being able to affirm truly that I had not that influence for which he sued; and for which, had I been possessed of it, with my present views of the dispute between the Crown and the Commons, I must have refused him, for he is on the side of the former. It is comfortable to be of no consequence in a world where one cannot exercise any without disobliging somebody. The town, however, seems to be much at his service, and, if he be equally successful throughout the county, he will undoubtedly gain his election. Mr Ashburner, perhaps, was a little mortified, because it was evident that I owed the honour of this visit to his misrepresentation of my importance. But had he thought proper to assure Mr Grenville that I had three heads, I should not, I suppose, have been bound to produce them.

To Lady Hesketh.

OLNEY, Feb. 9, 1786. MY DEAREST COUSIN,-I have been impatient to tell you that I am impatient to see you again. Mrs Unwin partakes with me in all my feelings upon this subject, and longs also to see you. I should have told you so by the last post, but have been so completely occupied by this tormenting specimen that it was impossible to do it. I sent the General a Letter on Monday that would distress and alarm him; I sent him another yesterday that will, I hope, quiet him again. Johnson has apologized very civilly for the multitude of his friend's strictures, and his friend has promised to confine himself in future to a comparison of me with the original [Homer], so that I doubt not we shall jog on merrily together. And now my dear, let me tell you once more that your kindness in promising us a visit has charmed us both-I shall see you again, I shall hear your voice, we shall take walks together; I will shew you my prospects, the hovel, the alcove, the Ouse, and its banks, everything that I have described. I anticipate the pleasure of those days not very far distant, and I feel a part of it at this moment. Talk not of an inn; mention it not for your life. We have never had so many visitors but we could easily accommodate them all, though we have received Unwin, and his wife, and his sister, and his son all at once. My dear, I will not let you come till the end of May or beginning of June, because before that time my greenhouse will not be ready to receive us, and it is the only pleasant room belonging to us. When the plants go out, we go in. I line it with mats, and spread the floor with mats, and there you shall sit with a bed of mignonette at your side, and a hedge of honeysuckles, roses, and jasmine; and I will make you a bouquet of myrtle every day. Sooner than the time I mention the country will not be in complete beauty. And I will tell you what you shall find at your first entrance. Imprimis, as soon as you have

entered the vestibule, if you cast a look on either side of you, you shall see on the right hand a box of my making. It is the box in which have been lodged all my Hares, and in which lodges Puss at present. But he, poor fellow, is worn out with age, and promises to die before you can see him. On the right hand stands a cupboard, the work of the same Author. It was once a dove-cage, but I transformed it. Opposite to you stands a table which I also made, but a merciless servant having scrubbed it until it became paralytic, it serves no purpose now but of ornament, and all my clean shoes stand under it. On the left hand, at the farther end of this superb vestibule you will find the door of the parlour into which I will conduct you, and where I will introduce you to Mrs Unwin (unless we should meet her before), and where we will be as happy as the day is long. Order yourself, my Cousin, to the Swan at Newport, and there you shall find me ready to conduct you to Olney.

My dear, I have told Homer what you say about Casks and Urns, and have asked him whether he is sure that it is a Cask in which Jupiter keeps his wine. He swears that it is a Cask, and that it will never be anything better than a Cask to Eternity. So if the God is content with it, we must even wonder at his taste, and be so too. Adieu my dearest, dearest Cousin, W. C.

The standard edition of Cowper's works is that by Southey, with a Memoir (15 vols. 1834-37; reprinted in Bohn's Library, 1853-54). Others are those of Grimshawe (8 vols. 1835), the Aldine (1865), and the Globe (1870). There are selections of his poems by Mrs Oliphant (1883), of his letters by Benham (1884). The AntiThelyphthora, Cowper's first publication (1781), was an anonymous and vehement attack in verse on his cousin the Rev. Martin Madan's plea in defence of polygamy as the only expedient for abating the social evil; it is omitted from many editions of the works. See Lives by Hayley (2 vols. 1803; 4th ed., much extended, 4 vols. 1812), Goldwin Smith (Men of Letters' series, 1880), and Thomas Wright (1892). For the Olney period, compare The Diary of Samuel Teedon, schoolmaster at Olney (ed. Wright, 1902). And well worth reading are Sainte-Beuve's three delightful essays on Cowper, in the eleventh volume of the Causeries du Lundi, and Mrs Browning's 'Cowper's Grave.'

Robert Lloyd (1733-64), the friend of Cowper and Churchill, was the son of an under-master at Westminster School. He distinguished himself at Trinity College, Cambridge, but was irregular in his habits; about 1756 he became an usher under his father. The wearisome routine of this life soon disgusted him, and he attempted to earn a subsistence by his literary talents. His light and easy poem, The Actor (1760), attracted some notice, and was the precursor of Churchill's Rosciad. By contributing to periodicals as essayist, poet, and stage critic, Lloyd picked up a precarious subsistence, but his means were recklessly squandered in company with Churchill and other wits upon town.' He brought out two indifferent theatrical pieces, published his poems by subscription, and edited the St James's Magazine (1762–63), to which Colman, Bonnell Thornton, and others contributed. On Lloyd's being imprisoned for debt, Churchill generously allowed him a guinea a week, as well as a servant, and endeavoured to raise a subscription to extricate him from his embarrassments. Churchill died in November 1764, and 'Lloyd,' says Southey, 'had been apprised of his danger; but when the news of his death was somewhat

abruptly announced to him as he was sitting at dinner, he was seized with a sudden sickness, and saying, "I shall follow poor Charles," took to his bed, from which he never rose again; dying, if ever man died, of a broken heart. The tragedy did not end here: Churchill's favourite sister, who is said to have possessed much of her brother's sense and spirit and genius, and to have been betrothed to Lloyd, attended him during his illness; and, sinking under the double loss, soon followed her brother and her lover to the grave.' Lloyd, in conjunction with Colman, parodied the odes of Gray and Mason, and the humour of their burlesques is not tinctured with malignity. The unlucky Lloyd, indeed, seems to have been one of the gentlest of witty observers and lively satirists, wrecked by the friendship of Churchill and the Nonsense Club. Both Churchill and Cowper copied and imitated his vivacious style.

The two following extracts are from 'The Temple of Favour' and 'The Author's Apology." Lloyd's poems are included in the collections of Anderson and Chalmers.

The Miseries of a Poet's Life.
The harlot muse, so passing gay,
Bewitches only to betray.
Though for a while with easy air
She smooths the rugged brow of care,
And laps the mind in flowery dreams,
With Fancy's transitory gleams;
Fond of the nothings she bestows,
We wake at last to real woes.
Through every age, in every place,
Consider well the poet's case;
By turns protected and caressed,
Defamed, dependent, and distressed.
The joke of wits, the bane of slaves,
The curse of fools, the butt of knaves;
Too proud to stoop for servile ends,
To lacquey rogues or flatter friends;
With prodigality to give,

Too careless of the means to live;
The bubble fame intent to gain,
And yet too lazy to maintain;
He quits the world he never prized,
Pitied by few, by more despised,
And, lost to friends, oppressed by foes,
Sinks to the nothing whence he rose.

O glorious trade! for wit's a trade,
Where men are ruined more than made!
Let crazy Lee, neglected Gay,
The shabby Otway, Dryden gray,
Those tuneful servants of the Nine-
Not that I blend their names with mine-
Repeat their lives, their works, their fame,
And teach the world some useful shame.

The Dismal Case of the Usher. Were I at once empowered to shew My utmost vengeance on my foe, To punish with extremest rigour, I could inflict no penance bigger

Than, using him as learning's tool,
To make him usher of a school.
For, not to dwell upon the toil
Of working on a barren soil,
And labouring with incessant pains,
To cultivate a blockhead's brains,
The duties there but ill befit
The love of letters, arts, or wit.
For me, it hurts me to the soul
To brook confinement or control;
Still to be pinioned down to teach
The syntax and the parts of speech;
Or, what perhaps is drudgery worse,
The links, and joints, and rules of verse;
To deal out authors by retail,
Like penny pots of Oxford ale;
Oh, 'tis a service irksome more
Than tugging at the slavish oar!
Yet such his task, a dismal truth,
Who watches o'er the bent of youth,
And while a paltry stipend earning,
He sows the richest seeds of learning,
And tills their minds with proper care,
And sees them their due produce bear;
No joys, alas! his toil beguile,
His own lies fallow all the while.
'Yet still he's on the road,' you say,
'Of learning.' Why, perhaps he may,
But turns like horses in a mill,
Nor getting on, nor standing still;
For little way his learning reaches,
Who reads no more than what he teaches.

John Newton (1725-1807), the hymn-writer and friend of Cowper, was born in London, the son of a shipmaster, and sailed with his father for six years. Impressed on board a man-of-war, he was made midshipman, but was degraded for attempted escape, and took service in a slavetrading ship. He was for some time servant to the negro mistress of a slave-trader in Sierra Leone, and his own condition was practically that of a slave. He went to sea again, and, according to his own account, led a reckless, debauched, profane, and infidel life; but in March 1748 he was converted and became a new man. Yet, strange to say, it was after this that he became mate and then master of a slave-ship, trading from Liverpool to West Africa and thence to America with slaves. He spent much time in religious exercises, kept a strict record of all his actions, and was a severe judge of his own conduct. But, like the majority of sincere and earnest Christians, his eyes were not therefore opened either to the wickedness of slavery or to a sense of the horrors of the slavetrade. It gives a curious interest to his diary to find that so good a man seems as yet to have had hardly any misgivings as to the lawfulness of the trade he was engaged in, though afterwards he became a zealous opponent of slavery and the slave-trade. After his conversion he lapsed once, for a very short time, into religious indifference (August 1748), but in Africa was revisited with affliction, which was the means, he says, 'of bring

ing him back to God.' On the next page (p. 30) of his abridged diary by Bull we find him writing:

'If you can inform me of my [lottery] ticket having turned up a great prize, the news will not be disagreeable;' and in the same letter, referring to his sister, he says: 'Thank her for the tolerably happy life I now lead, for to her only I owe it.' Again, in March 1749, addressing the same correspondent from Rio Sesters, he says: ... 'Though we have been here six months, I have not been ten days in the ship, being continually cruising about in the boats to purchase souls, for which we are obliged to take as much pains as the Jesuits are said to do in making proselytes, sometimes venturing in a little canoe through seas like mountains, sometimes travelling through the woods, often in danger from the wild beasts, and much oftener from the more wild inhabitants, scorched by the sun in the day, and chilled by the dews in the night. Providence has preserved me safe through a variety of these scenes since I saw you last, and I hope will continue so to do. Notwithstanding what I have said in relation to the difficulties I meet with here, I assure you I was never so happy in my life as I have been since I left Liverpool. I can cheerfully submit to a great deal this voyage, because I hope it will be the last I shall make in an under station, and because I hope when it is finished a satisfactory meeting with my friends will make amends. I may be deceived, but, however, I find an advantage in persuading myself for the best.'

On the coast of Sierra Leone in 1752 he holds himself bound to testify for Christ and admonish careless Christians by earnest letters, yet records with thankfulness, and evidently without disgust or horror, the success he had in putting down a serious mutiny amongst the slaves on board his ship. And a month later he writes:

'One circumstance I cannot but set down here, and which I hope I shall always take pleasure in ascribing to the blessing of the God of peace-I mean the remarkable disposition of the men-slaves I have on board, who seem for some time past to have entirely changed their tempers. I was at first continually alarmed by their almost desperate attempts to make insurrections. One of these affairs has been mentioned, but we had more afterwards; and when most quiet they were always watching for opportunity. However, from the end of February they have behaved more like children in one family than slaves in chains and irons, and are really upon all occasions more observing, obliging, and considerate than our white people. Yet in this space they would often in all likelihood have been able to do much more mischief than in former parts of the voyage.' .

He sets Wednesday, November 21st, apart for the special purpose of seeking a blessing upon his voyage, and for protection through its various difficulties and dangers. Mr Newton arrived at Liverpool, completing his second voyage in the African, on the 9th of August, having had,' he says, 'a favourable passage, and in general a comfortable sense of the presence of God through the whole, and towards the end some remarkable deliverances and answers to prayer. I had the pleasure to return thanks in the churches (at Liverpool) for an African voyage performed without any

accident, or the loss of a single man.' . . . Writing in 1763, he says: 'The reader may perhaps wonder, as I now do myself, that, knowing the state of this vile traffic to be as I have described' (the reference is to a letter in which he has been speaking of the state and circumstances of the slaves), and abounding with enormities which I have not mentioned, I did not at the time start with horror at my own employment as an agent in promoting it. Custom, example, and interest had blinded my eyes. I did it ignorantly, for I am sure had I thought of the slave trade then as I have thought of it since, no considerations would have induced me to continue in it. Though my religious views were not very clear, my conscience was very tender, and I durst not have displeased God by acting against the light of my mind. Indeed a slave ship, while on the coast, is exposed to such innumerable and continual dangers, that I was often then, and still am, astonished that any one, much more that so many, should leave the coast in safety. I was then favoured with an uncommon degree of dependence upon the providence of God, which supported me; but this confidence must have failed in a moment, and I should have been overwhelmed with distress and terror if I had known, or even suspected, that I was acting wrongly. I felt greatly the disagreeableness of the business. The office of a gaoler, and the restraints under which I was obliged to keep my prisoners, were not suitable to my feelings; but I considered it as the line of life which God in His providence had allotted me, and as a cross which I ought to bear with patience and thankfulness till He should be pleased to deliver me from it. Till then I only thought myself bound to treat the slaves under my care with gentleness, and to consult their ease and convenience so far as was consistent with the safety of the whole family of whites and blacks on board my ship.' In his Narrative Mr Newton says: 'I had often petitioned in my prayers that the Lord, in His own time, would be pleased to fix me in a more humane calling.'

He continued the African slave business till a sudden illness in August 1754 made him resign the command of a ship just about to start on another African voyage. In 1755 he became tidesurveyor at Liverpool. The 9th and 10th days of April 1756 he speaks of as days of much spiritual enjoyment; on May 4th:

'Determined this day to have a ticket in the ensuing lottery; not, I hope, with a desire of amassing money merely, but, if it should be so, of increasing my capacity for usefulness.'

His views on theatres are interesting as expressing the extreme form of hostility on the part of evangelicals of the old school :

The

'If there is any practice in this land sinful, attendance on the play-house is properly and eminently so. theatres are fountains and means of vice; I had almost said in the same manner and degree as the ordinances of the gospel are the means of grace; and I can hardly think there is a Christian upon earth who would dare to be seen there, if the nature and effects of the theatre were properly set before him. Dr Witherspoon, of Scotland, has written an excellent piece upon the Stage, or, rather, against it, which I wish every person who makes the least pretence to fear God had an opportunity of perusing. I cannot judge much more favourably of Ranelagh,

Vauxhall, and all the innumerable train of dissipations by which the god of this world blinds the eyes of multitudes, lest the light of the glorious gospel should shine in upon them.'

In 1758 he applied for holy orders, and in 1764 he was offered the curacy of Olney and ordained. Hither William Cowper came four years later, and a very close friendship sprang up. A self-devoting minister, who was to contribute largely to the evangelical revival, Newton proved a tender and sympathetic spiritual director to the morbidly sensitive poet, and strove, though with somewhat imperfect insight, to relieve his constitutional gloom. In 1779 he became rector of St Mary Woolnoth, London, and was till the end, even after he became blind, a laborious and faithful minister of the Word. His prose works, especially the Cardiphonia (1781), a selection from his letters, simple in style, sincere, fervid, and soul-searching, were long popular, but are now little read, save the autobiographical Remarkable Particulars in his own Life. But some of his Olney Hymns—280 of which were from his pen-have been taken to the heart by the English world, including, 'Approach, my soul, the mercy-seat;' 'How sweet the name of Jesus sounds ;' 'One there is, above all others;' 'Come, my soul, thy suit prepare ;' 'Glorious things of thee are spoken ;' and 'Quiet, Lord, my froward heart.' Edward Fitz-Gerald said: "His journal to his wife, written at sea, contains some of the most beautiful things I ever read-fine feeling in very fine English.'

See Life by Cecil (1808), prefixed to a collected edition of Newton's works (1816); Thomas Wright, The Town of Cowper (1886); and other works cited at Cowper.

William Hayley (1745-1820) it was, the biographer of Cowper, of whom Southey observed that 'everything about that man is good except his poetry.' Yet his poems enjoyed great popularity in their day, and on Warton's death in 1790 he was offered but declined the laureateship. Besides his principal work, The Triumphs of Temper, a poem in six cantos (1781), he wrote an Essay on History, addressed to Gibbon (1780); an Essay on Epic Poetry (1782); a still entertaining Essay on Oid Maids (1785); a Life of Milton (1796); Essays on Sculpture, addressed to Flaxman (1800); the Life of Cowper (1803); The Triumph of Music (1804); a Life of Romney (1809); and some halfdozen other works. Blake illustrated his Ballads founded on Anecdotes of Animals. Born at Chichester, and educated at Eton and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he settled in 1774 on his estate of Eartham Hall in Sussex, where he was visited by many of the eminent men of his times. His overstrained sensibility and romantic tastes exposed him to ridicule, yet he was amiable and accomplished, and a capital talker. It was through his personal application to Pitt that Cowper received his pension, and he wrote Cowper's epitaph; he seems, indeed, to have felt

a sort of melancholy pride and satisfaction in writing epitaphs on his friends. Hayley prepared Memoirs of his own life (2 vols. 4to, 1823), which he disposed of to a publisher on condition of his receiving an annuity for the rest of his life; this he enjoyed for eight years.

Inscription on the Tomb of Cowper.
Ye who with warmth the public triumph feel
Of talents dignified by sacred zeal,
Here, to devotion's bard devoutly just,
Pay your fond tribute due to Cowper's dust!
England, exulting in his spotless fame,

Ranks with her dearest sons his favourite name.
Sense, fancy, wit, suffice not all to raise
So clear a title to affection's praise :
His highest honours to the heart belong;
His virtues formed the magic of his song.

On the Tomb of Mrs Unwin. Trusting in God with all her heart and mind, This woman proved magnanimously kind; Endured affliction's desolating hail,

And watched a poet through misfortune's vale.
Her spotless dust angelic guards defend !
It is the dust of Unwin, Cowper's friend.
That single title in itself is fame,

For all who read his verse revere her name.

From 'To a Mother, on her Death.' O thou fond spirit, who with pride hast smiled, And frowned with fear on thy poetic child, Pleased, yet alarmed, when in his boyish time He sighed in numbers or he laughed in rhyme; While thy kind cautions warned him to beware Of Penury, the bard's perpetual snare ; Marking the early temper of his soul, Careless of wealth, nor fit for base control! Thou tender saint, to whom he owes much more Than ever child to parent owed before; In life's first season, when the fever's flame Shrunk to deformity his shrivelled frame, And turned each fairer image in his brain To blank confusion and her crazy train, 'Twas thine, with constant love, through lingering years, To bathe thy idiot orphan in thy tears; Day after day, and night succeeding night, To turn incessant to the hideous sight, And frequent watch, if haply at thy view Departed reason might not dawn anew; Though medicinal art, with pitying care, Could lend no aid to save thee from despair,

Thy fond maternal heart adhered to hope and prayer:
Nor prayed in vain; thy child from powers above
Received the sense to feel and bless thy love.

O might he thence receive the happy skill,
And force proportioned to his ardent will,
With truth's unfading radiance to emblaze
Thy virtues, worthy of immortal praise !
Nature, who decked thy form with beauty's flowers,
Exhausted on thy soul her finer powers;
Taught it with all her energy to feel
Love's melting softness, friendship's fervid zeal,
The generous purpose and the active thought,
With charity's diffusive spirit fraught.
There all the best of mental gifts she placed,

Vigour of judgment, purity of taste,
Superior parts without their spleenful leaven,
Kindness to earth, and confidence in heaven.
While my fond thoughts o'er all thy merits roll,
Thy praise thus gushes from my filial soul.

Sir William Jones (1746-94) earned his laurels rather as an Oriental scholar and judge, an enlightened lawyer and patriot, than as a poet. But by his mastery of an extraordinary wealth of Oriental lore he greatly widened the literary horizon of England and all European nations; he had himself exceptional skill and ease in expounding his favourite subjects; and his verse translations from Eastern tongues were in many ways memorable. Born in London, the son of an eminent mathematician, in 1753 he was sent to Harrow, where to Latin and Greek he added some knowledge of Arabic and Hebrew. Entered of University College, Oxford, in 1764, he assiduously read the Greek poets and historians, and pursued Oriental studies under the tuition of a native of Aleppo. In his nineteenth year he was made private tutor to Lord Althorp, afterwards Earl Spencer; and a fellowship at Oxford relieved the young scholar from pecuniary straits. In 1768 the king of Denmark visited England, and brought with him a Persian manuscript of the life of Nadir Shah, which Jones translated into French. In 1769 he accompanied his noble pupil to the Continent. Next year, entered a student of the Temple, he applied himself with his characteristic ardour to his new profession. He also wrote a Persian grammar, a French Traité (1770), a French Dissertation (1771), and Latin Commentaria (1774), all on Oriental poetry, and some translations, and was made F.R.S.; but finding that jurisprudence was a jealous mistress, he devoted himself for some years exclusively to his legal studies, practised at the Bar, and was appointed one of the Commissioners of Bankrupts. In 1778 he published a translation of the speeches of Isæus, and several treatises on law. He strongly opposed the American war and the slave-trade, and in 1781 he published his famous Alcaic ode. Appointed one of the judges of the supreme court at Fort William in Bengal and knighted in his thirty-seventh year, he embarked for India (1783), never to return. In the intervals of leisure from his judicial labours he worked at all manner of scientific and literary subjects, and established the Bengal Asiatic Society. His contributions to the transactions of this society on Asiatic philology, ethnology, and chronology are epoch-making. Ultimately he was able to read in twenty-eight languages. He was the first English scholar to master Sanskrit; and it was he who first emphasised its close resemblance to Greek and Latin, becoming thus one of the founders of comparative philology. He translated from the Hitopadesa and from the Sakuntala, and made versions of Hindu hymns and of parts of the Vedas. He engaged to compile a digest of Hindu and Mohammedan laws; and in 1794, to