than Pondours, who beset these coursers of spirit not inferior to Xanthus and Podarges, and stung them to madness; when, disdaining the master's hand, he turned them short into a hedge, threw some of them, as he meant to do; and leaping down, seized the bridles of the leaders, which afforded time for your sisters to get out safe and sound, their honour, in point of courage, intact, as well as their bones; for they are celebrated not a little on their composure in this alarming situation. I rejoice that your time passes to your mind in the evacuated seat of the Muses. However, knowing that those heavenly ladies (unlike the London fair) delight most, and spread their choicest charms and treasures, in sweet retired solitude, I won't wonder that their true votary is happy to be alone with them. Mr. Pretyman will by no means spoil company, and I wish you joy of his return. How many commons have you lost of late? What fences have you broken? and in what lord of the manor's pond have any strays of science been found, since the famous adventure of catching the horses with such admirable address and alacrity? I beg my affectionate compliments to Mr. Wilson, and hope you will both beware of an enclosed country for the future. Little James is still with us, doing penance for the high living so well described to you in Mrs. Pain's excellent epistle. All loves follow my sweet boy in more abundance than I have time or ability to express.

I desire my best compliments to the kind and obliging master, who loves Cicero and you.

THE EARL OF CHATHAM TO THE HON. W. PITT.

Hayes, Sept. 22, 1777.

How can I address my reviving pen so well as by addressing a few lines to the hope and comfort of my life, my dear William? You will have pleasure to see, under my own hand, that I mend every day, and that I am all but well. I have been this morning to Campden Place, and sustained most manfully a visit, and all the idle talk thereof, for about an hour by Mr. Norman's clock, and returned home, untired, to dinner, where I eat like a farmer. Lord Mahon has confounded, not convinced, the incorrigible soidisant Dr. Wilson. Dr. Franklin's lightning, rebel as he is, stands proved the more innocent; and Wilson's nobs must yield to the pointed conductors. On Friday, Lord Mahon's indefatigable spirit is to exhibit another incendium to lord mayor, foreign ministers, and all lovers of philosophy and the good of society; and means to illuminate the horizon with a little bonfire of twelve hundred fagots and a double edifice. Had our dear friend been born sooner, Nero and the second Charles could never have amused themselves by reducing to ashes the two noblest cities in the world. My hand begins to demand repose, so with my best compliments to Aristotle, Homer, Thucydides, Xenophon, not forgetting the Civilians, and the Law of Nations' tribe. Adieu, my dearest William. Your ever most affectionate father,

СНАТНАМ,

WILLIAM JONES, ESQ. TO ROBERT ORME, ESQ. Duke Street, June 26th, 1773.

DEAR SIR,

I WAS never less pleased with the study of the law than at this moment, when my attendance at Westminster Hall prevents me from thanking you in person for your most elegant and acceptable present, which shall ever be preserved amongst my literary treasures. Your history is not one of those books which a man reads once in a cursory manner, and then throws aside for ever; there is no end of reading and approving of it, nor shall I ever desist giving myself that pleasure to the last year of my life. You may rely on this testimony, as it comes from one who not only was never guilty of flattery, but like Cæsar's wife, would never suffer himself to be suspected of it.

It is much to be regretted that the historical pieces of Lucceius are not preserved to us: by a letter or two of his, which are extant, he seems to have been a man of exquisite parts and taste. Cicero declares himself charmed with his way of writing, which makes me think that his works would have been far preferable to those of Sallust and Tacitus, whom I cannot help considering as the first corrupters of the Roman language and eloquence, As to our language, if yourself, and perhaps Lord Lyttleton, had not restored it to its native simplicity, we should soon have been reduced to a new dialect, &c. &c. I have been for the last five weeks at Oxford, where I took the degree of Master of Arts in the regular course. I was

much pressed to speak at the ensuing encænia; but when I had taken the pains to prepare an oration, in which there was nothing that could offend the most obsequious courtier, the persons who had urged me to write it were disappointed at not finding it a slavish compliment to the ministers, and exhorted me not to deliver it in the theatre without a great deal of softening, which determined me not to speak at all; but as I am pleased with the composition, which is written wholly in the manner of the ancients, I shall print a few copies for my friends. See the loquacity of us writers; you honour me with three kind and indulgent lines, and I send you in return as many rambling pages: but when friends cannot converse in person, they have no resource but conversing at a distance. I am, with great truth, most sincerely yours,

W. JONES.

WILLIAM JONES, ESQ. TO MR. GIBBON.

DEAR SIR,

Lamb's Buildings, June 30th, 1781. I HAVE more than once sought, without having been so fortunate as to obtain a proper oppor tunity of thanking you very sincerely for the elegant compliment which you pay me, in a work abounding in elegance of all kinds.

My Seven Arabian Poets will see the light before next winter, and be proud to wait upon you in their English dress. Their wild productions will, I flatter myself, be thought interesting,

and not venerable merely on account of their antiquity.

In the mean while, let me request you to honour me with accepting a copy of a law tract, which is not yet published; the subject is so generally important, that I make no apology for sending you a professional work.

You must pardon my inveterate hatred of C. Octavianus, basely surnamed Augustus. I feel myself unable to forgive the death of Cicero, which, if he did not promote, he might have prevented. Besides, even Mecænas knew the cruelty of his disposition, and ventured to reproach him with it. In short, I have not Christian charity for him.

With regard to Asiatic letters, a necessary attention to my profession will compel me wholly and eternally to abandon them, unless Lord North (to whom I am already under no small obligation) should think me worthy to concur in the improved administration of justice in Bengal, and should appoint me to supply the vacancy on the India bench. Were that appointment to take place this year, I should probably travel, for speed, through part of Egypt and Arabia, and should be able, in my way, to procure many eastern tracts of literature and jurisprudence. I might become a good Mahomedan lawyer before I reached Calcutta, and, in my vacations, should find leisure to explain, in my native language, whatever the Arabs, Persians, and Turks have written on science, history, and the fine arts.

My happiness by no means depends on obtaining this appointment, as I am in easy circumstances