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THE LIFE OF

SIR WILLIAM JONES.

[A. D. 1746, to 1794.]

His father was the celebrated philosopher and mathematician, who so eminently distinguished himself in the commencement of the last century; and a short, but more accurate sketch of his life than has hitherto appeared, may be acceptable to the lovers of

science.

Mr. William Jones was born in the year 1680, in Anglesea ;his parents were yeomen, or little farmers on that island, and he there received the best education they were able to afford; but the industrious exertion of vigorous intellectual powers, supplied the defects of inadequate instruction, and laid the foundation of his future fame and fortune. From his earliest years Mr. Jones dis-> covered a propensity to mathematical studies, and having cultivated them with assiduity, he began his career in life, by teaching mathematics on board a man of war; and in this situation, he attracted the notice, and obtained the friendship of lord Anson. He afterwards established himself as a teacher of mathematics in, London, where at the age of twenty-six, he published his Synop-sis Palmariorum Matheseos, a decisive proof of his early and consummate proficiency in his favorite science.

The private character of Mr. Jones was respectable; his manners were agreeable and inviting; and these qualities not only contributed to enlarge the circle of his friends, whom his established reputation for science had attracted, but also to secure their attachment to him.

Among others who honored him with their esteem, I am authorized to mention the great and virtuous lord Hardwicke. He' was also introduced to the friendship of lord Parker, (afterwards president of the royal society), which terminated only with his life; and amongst other distinguished characters in the annals of science

and literature, the names of sir Isaac Newton, Halley, Mead, and Samuel Johnson, may be enumerated as the intimate friends of Mr. Jones.

After the retirement of lord Macclesfield to Sherborne-castle, Mr. Jones resided with his lordship as a member of his family, and instructed them in the sciences. In this situation, he had the misfortune to lose the greatest part of his property, the accumulation of industry and economy, by the failure of a banker; but the friendship of lord Macclesfield diminished the weight of the loss, by procuring for him a sinecure place of considerable emolu

ment.

In this retreat, he became acquainted with Miss Mary Nix, the youngest daughter of George Nix, a cabinet-maker of London, who, although of low extraction, had raised himself to eminence in his profession; and from the honest and pleasant frankness of his conversation, was admitted to the tables of the great, and to the intimacy of lord Macclesfield. The acquaintance of Mr. Jones with Miss Nix terminated in marriage, and from this union sprang three children; the last of whom, the late sir William Jones, was born in London, on the eve of the festival of St. Michael, in the year 1746: the first son, George, died in his infancy; and the second child, a daughter, Mary, who was born in 1736, married Mr. Rainsford, a merchant, retired from business in opulent circumstances. This lady perished miserably, in the year 1802, in consequence of an accident from her clothes catching fire.

Mr. Jones survived the birth of his son William but three years: he was attacked with a disorder, which the sagacity of Dr. Mead, who attended him with the anxiety of an affectionate friend, immediately discovered to be a polypus in the heart, and wholly incurable. He died soon after, in July 1749, leaving behind him a great reputation, and moderate property.

The care of the education of William now devolved upon his mother, who in many respects, was eminently qualified for the task. Her character, as delienated by her husband, with some what of mathematical precision, is this:" that she was virtuous without blemish, generous without extravagance, frugal but not niggard, cheerful but not giddy, close but not sullen, ingenious

but not conceited, of spirit but not passionate, of her company cautious, in her friendship trusty, to her parents dutiful, and to her husband ever faithful, loving, and obedient." She had, by nature, a strong understanding, which was improved by his conversation and instruction. Under his tuition, she became a considerable proficient in algebra; and with a view to qualify herself for the office of preceptor to her sister's son, who was destined to a maritime profession, made herself perfect in trigonometry, and the theory of navigation.

In the plan adopted by Mrs. Jones for the instruction of her son, she proposed to reject the severity of discipline, and to lead his mind, insensibly, to knowledge and exertion, by exciting his curiosity, and directing it to useful objects. To his incessant importunities for information, on casual topics of conversation, which she watchfully stimulated, she constantly replied, read, and you will know; a maxim, to the observance of which he always acknowledged himself indebted for his future attainments. By this method, his desire to learn became as eager as her wish to teach and such was her talent of instruction, and his facility of retain ning it, that in his fourth year, he was able to read, distinctly and rapidly any English book. She particularly attended, at the same time, to the cultivation of his memory, by making him learn and repeat some of the popular speeches in Shakespeare, and the best of Gay's Fables.

In this year of his life, Jones providentally escaped from two accidents, one of which had nearly proved fatal to his sight, the other to his life. Being left alone in a room, in attempting to scrape some soot from a chimney, he fell into the fire, and his clothes were instantly in flames: his cries brought the servants to his assistance, and he was preserved with some difficulty; but his face, neck, and arms were much burnt. A short time afterwards, when his attendants were putting on his clothes, which were imprudently fastened with hooks: he struggled, either in play or in some childish pet, and a hook was fixed in his right eye. By due care, under the directions of Dr. Mead, whose friendship with his family continued unabated after his father's death, the wound was healed, but the eye was, so much weakened, that the sight of it ever remained imperfect.

His propensity to reading which had begun to display itself, was, for a time, checked by these accidents; but the habit was acquired, and after his recovery, he indulged it without restraint, by perusing eagerly any books that came in his way, and with an attention proportioned to his ability to comprehend them. In his fifth year, as he was one morning turning over the leaves of a Bible, in his mother's closet, his attention was forcibly arrested by the sublime description of the angel in the tenth chapter of the Apocalypse; and the impression which his imagination received from it was never effaced. At a period of maturer judgment, he considered the passage as equal in sublimity to any in the inspired. writers, and far superior to any that could be produced from mere human compositions; and he was fond of retracing and mentioning the rapture which he felt when he first read it. In his sixth year, by the assistance of a friend, he was initiated in the rudiments of the Latin grammar, and he committed some passages of it to memory; but the dull elements of a new language, having nothing to captivate his childish attention, he made little progress in it; nor was he encouraged to perseverance by his mother, who intending him for a public education, was unwilling to perplex his mind with the study of a dead language, before he had acquired a competent knowledge of his native tongue.

At Michaelmas, 1753, in the close of his seventh year, he was placed at Harrow school, of which the worthy and amiable Dr. Thackeray was then head-master. The amusements and occupations of a school-boy are of little importance to the public; yet it cannot be uninteresting, or uninstructive, to trace the progress of a youth of genius or abilities, from his earliest efforts to that proficiency in universal literature which he afterwards attained. During the two first years of his residence at Harrow, he was rather remarked for diligence and application, than for the superiority of his talents, or the extent of his acquistions; and his attenion was almost equally divided between his books and a little garden, the cultivation and embellishment of which occupied all his leisure hours. His faculties, however, necessarily gained strength by exercises; and during his school vacations, the sedulity of a fond parent was without in

termission, exerted to improve his knowledge of his own language., She also taught him the rudiments of drawing, in which she excelled.

In his ninth year he had the misfortune to break his thigh-bone in a scramble with his school-fellows, and this accident detained him from school twelve months. After his relief from pain, however, the period of his confinement was not suffered to pass in indolence; his mother was his constant companion, and amused him daily with the perusal of such English authors as she deemed adapted to his taste and capacity. The juvenile poems of Pope, and Dryden's translation of the Eneid, afforded him incessant delight, and excited his poetical talents, which displayed themselves in the compilation of verses in imitation of his favorite authors. But his progress in classical learning, during this interval, was altogether suspended; for although he might have availed himself of the prof. fered instruction of a friend, in whose house he resided, to acquire the rudiments of Latin, he was then so unable to comprehend its utility, and had so little relish for it, that he was left unrestrained to pursue his juvenile occupations and amusements; and the little which he had gained in his first two years, was nearly lost, in the third.

On his return to school, he was however placed in the same class which he would have attained if the progress of his studies had not been interrupted. He was, of course, far behind his fellow-labourers of the same standing, who erroneously ascribed his insufficiency to laziness or dullness; while the master, who had raised him to a situation above his powers, required exertions of which he was incapable; and corporal punishment and degradation were applied for the non-performance of tasks which he had neverbeen instructed to furnish. But, in truth, he far excelled his school-fellows in general, both in diligence and quickness of ap-. prehension; nor was he of a temper to submit to imputations which he knew to be unmerited. Punishment failed to produce the intended effect; but his emulation was roused. He devoted himself.. incessantly to the perusal of various elementary treatises, which had never been explained, nor even recommended to him; and having thus acquired principles, he applied them with such skill, and success, that in a few months, he not only recovered the sta- .