mens, 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.

CXLVIII.

To John Wilmot, Esq.

Sept. 20, 1789.

EVERY sentence in your letter gave me great pleasure, and particularly the pleasing and just account of your truly venerable father. Lady Jones, after the first pang for the loss of hers, resigned herself with true piety to the will of God: she is very weak, and always ill during the heats. I have been, ever since my seasoning, as they call it, perfectly well, notwithstanding incessant business seven hours in a day, for four or five months in a year, and unremitted application, during the vacations, to a vast and interesting study-a complete knowledge of In

dia-which I can only attain in the country itself: and I do not mean to stay in the country longer than the last year of the eighteenth century. I rejoice that the king is well; but take no interest in the contests of your aristocratical factions. The time never was, when I would have enlisted under the banners of any faction; though I might have carried a pair of colours, if I had not spurned them, in either legion. My party is that of the whole people, and my principles, which the law taught me, are only to be changed by a change of existence.

CXLIX.

To Mr. Justice Hyde.

Oct. 20, 1789.

THOUGH I hope, my dear sir, to be with you almost as soon as this letter; yet I write it because it is the last that I shall write to any one for the next eleven months; and I feel so light, after the completion of my severe epistolary task, that I am disposed to play a voluntary. I have answered fifty very long letters from Europe, aud a multitude of short ones; among the rest, I had one from the chief baron, who desires his remembrance to you, by the title of his old and worthy friend: another from Master Wilmot, informs me that his father, sir Eardley, had nearly ended his eightieth year, with as good health,

and as clear intellects, as he ever had in the prime of life. When I express a hope of seeing you in two or three days, it is only a hope; for I shall affront the mandarin at Chiusura,* if I do not make my annual visit to him: now I can only visit him at night; and the wind and tide may delay me, as they did last year. In all events, I shall be with you, if I live, before the end of the week, as I am preparing to go on board my pinnace. Besides my annuities of Europe letters, which I pay at this season, I have been winding up all the odds and ends of all my private or literary concerns, and shall think of nothing, for eleven months to come, but law, European or Indian. I have written four papers for our expiring Society, on very curious subjects, and have prepared materials for a discourse on the Chinese: the society is a puny, rickety child, and must be fed with pap; nor shall it die by my fault; but die it must, for I cannot alone support it. In my youthful days, I was always ready to join in a dance or a concert; but I could never bring myself to dance a solitary hornpipe, or to play a solo. When I see Titsingh, (who, by the way, will never write any thing for us as long as his own Batavian society subsists) I will procure full information concerning the pincushion rice, and will report it to you. Lady Jones is as usual, and sends her best remembrance. I, too, am as usual, and as ever,

Dear sir, your faithful, &c.

WILLIAM JONES.

* Mr. Titsingh, governor of Chinsura.

CL.

To J. Shore, Esq.

Oct. 20, 1789.

YOUR approbation of Sacontala,* gives, at least, as much pleasure to the translator as you had from the perusal of it, and would encourage me to translate more dramas, if I were not resolved to devote all my time to law, European and Indian.

The idea of your happiness (and few men have a brighter prospect of it than yourself) reconciles me to our approaching separation, though it must be very long: for I will not see England, while the interested factions, which distract it, leave the legislature no time for the great operations which are essential for public felicity; while patriotic virtues are derided as visionary; and while the rancour of contending parties fills with thorns those particular societies, in which I hoped to gather nothing but roses. I am sorry (for the metaphor brings to my mind the Bostani Kheiyal†) that the garden of fancy should have as many weeds as that

The Indian drama of Sacontala, or the Fatal Ring, translated by sir W. Jones.-See his Works, vol. ix. †The Garden of Fancy; the title of an Eastern romance in Persian, in sixteen quarto volumes.

of politics. Serajélhak pronounced it, with emphasis, a wonderful work; and a young Mussulman assured me, that it comprised all the finest inventions of India and Persia. The work will probably mend as it proceeds.

We must spare ourselves the pain of taking a formal leave: so farewell. May you live happy in a free country!

I am, &c.

CLI.

From Baron Reviczki.*

London, June 30, 1789.

By the Vestal frigate, which was to convey lord Cathcart to China, I wrote an answer to your elegant Persian letter, which I received through Mr. Elmsley: it was a most agreeable proof to me, that I was still honoured with a place in your remembrance, notwithstanding the distance which separates us. I have since learned, that colonel Cathcart died on the voyage; and as the Vestal, in consequence of this event, returned to England, I am

• Written in French.