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trines in the tract, though I shall certainly not preach them to the Indians, who must and will be governed by absolute power, yet I shall go through life with a persuasion, that they are just and ra tional; that substantial freedom is both the danghter and parent of virtue; and that virtue is the only source of public and private felicity. Fare

wel.

LETTER XX.

SIR WILLIAM JONES TO SIR JOSEPH BANKS.

Sept. 17, 1789.

DEAR SIR JOSEPH, THE season for paying my annual epistolary rents being returned with the rough gales of the autumnal equinox, I am eager to offer my tribute where it is most due, to my best landlord, who, instead of claiming, like the India company, sixteen shillings in the pound for the neat profits of my farm (I speak correctly, though metaphorically), voluntarily offers me indulgencies, even if I should run in arrears.

You have received, I trust, the pods of the finest Dacca cotton, with which the commercial resident at that station supplied me, and which I sent by different conveyances, some inclosed to yourself, some to sir George Young, and some by private hands. But I have always found it safer to send letters and small parcels by the public packet, than by careless and inconsiderate individuals. I am not partial to the pryangu, which I now find is its true name; but Mr. Shore found

benefit from it, and procured the fresh plants from Arracan, which died unluckily in their way to Calcutta. But seriously, it deserves a longer trial before its tonic virtues, if it have any, can be ascertained. It is certainly not so fine a bitter as camomile or columbo root.

I wish politics at the devil, but hope that, when the king recovered, science revived. It gives me great pain to know, that party as it is called (I call it faction, because I hold party to be grounded on principles, and faction on self-interest, which excludes all principle) has found its way into a literary club, who meet reciprocally to impart and receive new ideas. I have deep-rooted political principles, which the law taught me: but I should never think of introducing them among men of science; and if, on my return to Europe ten or twelve years hence, I should not find more science than politics in the club, my seat in it will be at the service of any politician who may wish to be one of the party.

An intimate friend of Mr. Blane has written to him, at my request, for the newly discovered fragrant grass; and should the plants be sent before the last ships of the season sail, they shall be sent to you. Whether they be the nard of the ancients, I must doubt, because we have sweet grasses here of innumerable species; and Reuben Burrow brought me an odoriferous grass from the place where the Ganges enters India, and where it covers whole acres, and perfumes the whole country. From his account of it, I suspect it to be Mr. Blane's; but I could make nothing of the dry specimens, except that they differed widely from the

Jatamansi, which I am persuaded is the Indian nard of Ptolemy. I can only procure the dry Jatamansi, but if I can get the stalks, roots, and flowers from Butan, I will send them to you. Since the death of Koenig, we are in great want of a professed botanist. I have twice read with rapture the "Philosophia Botanica," and have Murray's edition of the "Genera et Species Plantarum" always with me; but, as I am no lynx, like Linnæus, I cannot examine minute blossoms, especially those of grasses.

We are far advanced in the second volume of our "Transactions."

LETTER XXI.

SIR WILLIAM JONES TO SIR J. MACPHERSON, BART.

Chrishna-nagur, Oct. 15, 1790.

I GIVE you hearty thanks for your postscript, which (as you enjoin secresy) I will only allude to ambiguously, lest this letter should fall into other hands than yours. Be assured, that what I am going to say does not proceed from an imperfect sense of your kindness, but really I want no addition to my fortune, which is enough for me; and if the whole legislature of Britain were to offer me a different station from that which I now fill, should most gratefully and respectfully decline it. The character of an ambitious judge is, in my opinion, very dangerous to public justice; and if I were a sole legislator, it should be enacted, that every judge, as well as every bishop, should re

main for life in the place which he first accepted. This is not the language of a cynic, but of a man who loves his friends, his country, and mankind who knows the short duration of human life, recollects that he has lived four-and-forty years, and has learned to be contented. Of public affairs you will receive better intelligence than I am able to give you. My private life is similar to that which you remember: seven hours a day on an average are occupied by my duties as a magistrate, and one hour to the new Indian digest, and for one hour in the evening I read aloud to lady Jones. We are now travelling to the sources of the Nile with Mr. Bruce, whose work is very interesting and important. The second volume of the "Asiatic Transactions" is printed, and the third ready for the press. I jabber Sanscrit every day with the pundits, and hope, before I leave India, to understand it as well as I do Latin. Among my letters I find one directed to you; I have unsealed it; and though it only shows that I was not inattentive to the note with which you favoured me on the eve of your departure, yet I annex it because it was yours, though brought back by my servant.

The latter part of will it raise melancholy ideas; but death, if we look at it firmly, is only a change of place; every departure of a friend is a sort of death; and we are all continually dying and reviving. We shall all meet: I hope to meet you again in India; but wherever we meet, I expect to see you well and happy. None of your friends ean wish for your health and happiness more ardently than, my dear sir, &c.

SIR,

LETTER XXII.

DAVID HUME, ESQ. TO

Edinburgh, Aug. 16, 1760. I AM not surprised to find by your letter, that Mr. Gray should have entertained suspicions with regard to the authenticity of these fragments of our Highland poetry. The first time I was shown the copies of some of them in manuscript, by our friend John Home, I was inclined to be a little incredulous on that head; but Mr. Home removed my scruples, by informing me of the manner in which he procured them from Mr. Macpherson, the translator. These two gentlemen were drinking the waters together at Moffat last autumn; when their conversation fell upon Highland poetry, which Mr. Macpherson extolled very highly. Our friend, who knew him to be a good scholar, and a man of taste, found his curiosity excited; and asked whether he had ever translated any of them? Mr. Macpherson replied that he never had attempted any such thing; and doubted whether it was possible to transfuse such beauties into our language; but for Mr. Home's satisfaction, and in order to give him a general notion of the strain of that wild poetry, he would endeavour to turn one of them into English. He accordingly brought him one next day; which our friend was so much pleased with, that he never ceased soliciting Mr. Macpherson till he insensibly produced that small volume which has been published.

After this volume was in every body's hands,

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