ever lived, firmly believed their authenticity, and ftrenuoufly defended their divine truth. His great aim, throughout the three volumes of Afiatic Researches, publifhed during his life, feems to have been to maintain the character of thofe writings, and to display their excellence, as fuperior to all merely human productions. He traced, from age to age, the chain of prophecies connected with the firft fentence against the serpent, and clearly faw their complete accomplishment in the Meffiah. Hence flowed his zeal to illustrate and defend, what he deemed of fuch infinite importance to the human race; and hence his name, great and celebrated as it is in the paths of fcience, ftill fhines with more diftinguished fplendor, in those of piety and devotion.

The writer of these strictures well know the high fpirit, and untainted purity of heart, which belonged to this illuftrious man. He knew him to be incapable of uttering fentiments that did not flow from the rooted conviction of that heart; and he has folid reafon for afferting, that Sir William Jones, before he left England for India, was by no means wholly free from a fceptical bias. He had full opportunity, when he refided in Afia, for inveftigating, with minute and rigid attention, all those intricate theological points that might have occafioned his doubts, in the country, and not very remote from the fcene, where the grand tranfactions, recorded in the facred annals, were performed. He did investigate them, we are affured, in the most ample manner; and the refult was not only his own complete conviction, as well as that of many other eminent fcholars, who, till then, had but flightly attended to the proofs which the annals of the great empires of Afia afford to the verity of the Hebrew hiftorian Thefe beheld, with equal furprise and admiration, the new teftimonies brought in their favour from a quarter the least expected; and, as they perufed his animated and energetic pages, renounced their doubts and errors, and became, like himfelf, not almoft, but altogether Chriftians.

The influence of virtue and piety, in exalted station, is almost boundlefs. The fceptics of Bengal began to think again of that facred book which they had read in their youth, but flighted in their more advanced years. An attentive examination of its contents foon became general among the more enlightened members of the fettlement; and if, on all minds, a thorough belief in it was not the confequence, open infidelity was, at leaft, abafhed; while the principles of morality were better understood, and the practice of it was more predominant. The character of the virtuous Cornwallis at the helm of government, and of Sir William Jones, among others, on the bench of jurifprudence, over-awed the profligate; while fru

gality and economy, both public and private, fucceeded to unbounded expence and diffipation. The poor felt the beneficial effects of this great change in their fuperiors; and the fuffering Hindoos found protectors inftead of oppreffors.

It was not, however, only in his public character that Sir William was thus eminently diftinguifhed; in private life he abundantly poffelfed all thofe qualities which adorn the man, and render the poffeffor refpected and amiable in fociety. The ardour of his friendship was only to be equalled by its fincerity, and his liberal heart glowed with univerfal benevolence As a married man, and as the head of a family, his affection, his fidelity, temperance, and regularity, rendered him a ftriking model of domeftic virtue. He poffeffed at all times a noble independence of fpirit; to maintain which, he left the Mufes, who had been the delight of his early life, for a profeffion, to the fevere duties of which, he finally fell a victim in his fortyfeventh year. When Infidelity examines the modern names which belong to the lift of her adherents, the will be puzzled to find one among them of fufficient weight to move the scale in counterpoife to that of JONES.

ARTICLE I.

The first regular article of this volume confifts of the tenth anniversary difcourfe of the deceafed prefident on Afiatic Hiftory, civil and natural. Sir William commences this difcourfe with some sensible and pertinent remarks on the folid utility arifing to fociety from fuch inveftigations into remote antiquity, as those which are the profelfed and peculiar object of their inftitution. The first and moft glorious refult of their labours, he justly obferves, to be the direct confirmation of the Mofaic accounts of the primitive world; and that teftimony he conceives to be the more honourable, because they were the confequence of impartial examination; fince, had the event of the enquiry even been hoftile to the accounts of the Hebrew legiflator, they fhould ftill, without fear, have published them

for truth is mighty, and must always, in the end, prevail." He had already, in preceding difcourfes, derived all the nations of the earth from the three great original tribes, Perfians, Arabians, and Tartars, which, migrating in different courfes from one central region, in about four centuries, eftablished very distant governments, and various modes of fociety, in different quarters of the earth. He adds a fuminary, but mafterly fketch of the route purfued by them; and of the rival contentions for empire of their defcendants, 'till the period of the rife of the Mufelman glory in Afia. After this general and rapid furvey of early hiftory, he proceeds to confider more particularly that of India; but here a dubious

twilight

twilight alone glimmers through the vaft chaos of mythology. No regular hiftory of that ancient and wonderful empire remans, or probably was ever compiled: but from Sanfcrit literature, from the numerous purañas and ancient dramas of India, many scattered rays of information are to be collected, whofe fplendor, drawn to a point by the judicious hiftorian, may tend greatly to illuminate those distant æras, in which fable and fuperftition ufurped the place of hiftoric truth. The fact fems to have been, that the Brahmins were more anxious to preferve, unbroken, the tenor of their mythology, than the chain of national events; and have fo blended the exploits of their ancient kings and heroes with the feats of their incarnate deities, Vishnu, Seeva, and the rest of that airy train, that they have involved the whole of their ancient annals in fuch a cloud of doubt and perplexity, as is fcarcely now to be diffipated. Still, however, there are certain grand events, which mythology has not been able for wholly to obfcure, but that by a diligent comparison of them with what is recorded in ancient claffical ftory, weighing well the period of the tranfactions, and other collateral circumftances, perfevering,induftry may be crowned with partial fucThe prefident exhibits a remarkable proof of his own felicity in that line of refearch, which is of very great importance to the Indian geographer and hiftorian, and as fuch, we fhall give it in his own words.

"The jurifprudence of the Hindus and Arabs, being the field which I have chofen for my peculiar toil, you cannot expect that I fhould greatly enlarge your collection of hiftorical knowledge; but I may be able to offer you fome occafional tribute, and I cannot help mentioning a discovery which accident threw in my way, though my proofs must be referved for an efflay, which I have destined for the fourth volume of your Tranfactions. To fix the fituation of that Palibothra (for there may have been several of the name) which was vifited and defcribed by Megafthenes, had always appeared a very difficult problem; for, though it could not have been Prayaga (Halabafs) where no ancient metropolis ever fteod, nor Cunyacubja (Benares) which has no epithet at all refembling the word ufed by the Greeks, nor Gaur, otherwise called Lachmanavati, which all know to be a town comparatively modern, yet we could not confidently decide that it was Pataliputra, though names and moft circumftances nearly correfpond; because that renowned capital, extended from the confluence of the Sone and the Ganges, to the fite of Patna, while Palibothra ftood at the junction of the Ganges and Erannoboas, which the accurate M. d'Anville had pronounced to be the Yamuna (Jumna) but this only difficulty was removed, when I found in a claffical Sanferit book, near two thoufand years old, that Hiranyabahu, or golden-armed, which the Greeks changed into Erannoboas, or the river with a lovely murmur, was, in fact, another name for the Sona itfelf, though Megaf

thenes,

thenes, from ignorance or inattention, has named them separately. This difcovery led to another of greater moment, for CHANDRA GUPTA, who, from a military adventurer, became, like SANDRACOTTUS, the fovereign of upper Hindustan, actually fixed the feat of his empire at PATALIYUTRA, where he received ambaffadors from foreign princes, and was no other than that very SANDRACOTTUS, who concluded a treaty with Seleucus Nicator; fo that we have folved another problem, to which we before alluded, and may, in round numbers, confider the twelve and three hundredth years before Chrift, as two certain epochs between Ráma, who conquered Silán (Ceylone) a few centuries after the Flood, and Vicramáditya, who died at Ujjayini (Ujein in Malva) fifty-feven years before the beginning of our era." P. 11.

Sir William now enters on the confideration of the natural history of the Afiatic regions, among which, animals claim his firit notice; and here, with a fenfibility that reflects the highest honour on his feelings, he sharply inveighs against the cruelties exercifed in anatomical diffections, on birds, beafts, infects, and other reptiles, to obtain that species of knowledge, which forms the principal glory of the naturalift. The Hindoos, whofe notion of the tranfmigration has preferved them from this outrage on animated nature, have, in confequence, few treatifes in this line of research. There are fome to be met with in Chinese, and in the medical dictionaries of Perfia; but they are by no means in proportion, he obferves, to the number of rare and beautiful animals, with which Afia abounds. He concludes the subject, with the following amiable sentiment : "I recommend an examination of them, on this condition only, that they be left, as much as poffible, in a state of natural freedom, or made as happy as poffible, if it be necessary to keep them confined." P. 13.

On the fubject of Afiatic minerals, he is of opinion, that much may be gleaned from the Sanfcrit books, not only becaufe the old Hindoos, from their veneration of fire, were greatly addicted to chemistry, but on account of the superstitious notions with which they were impreffed concerning the virtues of gems, and other rare ftones. It would, however, be vain for us to expect any very profound investigations, in this line, from the chemifts of Afia, when the fcience, important as it is, has but of late years been cultivated, in any great perfection, in the fchools of Europe.

In refpect to the science of botany, which he justly terms the loveliest and moft copious divifion in the hiftory of Nature; and, among the amateur: of which, his own researches have entitled him to diftinguished eminence, the vast plains, and the luxurious gardens of Afia, afford immenfe, and yet unexplored,

K

BRIT. CRIT. VOL. XI. FEB. 1798.

treasures

treasures of the vegetable kind. On this fubject, he enumerates many Arabic, Perfian, Indian, Tartar, and Chinese writers of great celebrity; and he trufts that the garden of the India. Company at Calcutta, will, in due time, by the efforts of the medical members of the fociety, be a grand ftorehoufe of all thofe choice productions of nature, the virtues and properties of which are fo highly celebrated in Sanfcrit books, that relate to the religious ceremonies and incantations with confecrated graffes, used by the ancient Brahmins. Policy, as well as the thirst of knowledge, ought to incite them to botanical enquiries, in a country where poisonous reptiles abound, whofe bite is fometimes to be cured by the application of fanative herbs alone; while moft other difeafes, incident to the human body in warm climates, experience mitigation from the extract of their falubrious juices.

The mechanical arts of India form the last head of this ufeful and learned effay. There are at Benares innumerable treatises in this line, of a molt ancient date, which is not to be wondered at, fince the Genius of India was ever commercial; and the various trades are continued down, in the fame families, through a thousand generations. Sugar and indigo were immemorially manufactured in India, indigo, indeed, is fuppofed to have derived its name from the Indus. Metallurgy and dying were connected with almost every branch of the trade of India; with their elegant works in gold, filver, and fteel; their beautiful linens; and the rich productions of their unrivalled looms. This is the fubftance of Sir William's tenth difcourfe on the hiftory, civil and natural, of Afia; he promised an eleventh, on the philofophy of Afia, which alfo he fortunately lived to finith; and it is inferted in the prefent

volume.

The fecond article of the volume under confideration is by Mr. Macdonald; on three diftinguifhed natural productions of Sumatra; its camphor, its coral, and its copper; all very important objects of eastern commerce, and deferving very particular attention from the naturalift. He fets out by correcting fome generally received errors concerning the first article difcuffed, in particular, that the camphor-oil, and the concreted fubftance, are not the produce of the fame tree; whereas it has been found, from actual obfervation, that a fingle tree, in Sumatra, afforded no lefs than three pounds of camphor in fubftance, and two gallons of the oil; and, further, that the best camphor is only to be obtained by a chemical procefs; whereas it is only the inferior fort that is thus obtained by diftillation. The camphor-tree itself is one of the Enneandria Monogynia of Linnæus ; it belongs to the genus Laurus: