lified to guide the taste of the elegant, and correct the errors of the learned.

To elucidate the life, occupations, and opinions of Sir William Jones, was the principal object which I had in view, in the felection of the letters now prefented to the public; fome have been inferted, as calculated in my opinion to afford entertainment to the reader. I am very fenfible that many of these letters relate to topics not generally interesting engaged in literary pursuits from his earliest youth, extending and cultivating them with ardour during his life, and never lofing fight of them under any accumulation of business, the letters of Sir William Jones neceffarily refer to habits fo dear to him, and fo long established; and I must request the reader to carry this remark with him to the perufal of his correfpondence throughout, and particularly of the letters written by him. in Bengal, which frequently relate to Indian literature, as well as to fubjects and occupations peculiar to that country.

The Memoirs and Appendix contain fome original compofitions of Sir William Jones, which have not hitherto been published; they are not of equal importance with those of which the public are in poffeffion; there are still more, which I have not ventured to print.

It would have been eafy to have enlarged the fize of these volumes, but having no ambition to extend them beyond their proper limits, I have confined them as closely as I could to the object of them, that of elucidating the life and opinions of Sir William Jones. With this rule conftantly in my recollection, I have avoided differtations on the events of the times; the notice which I have taken of characters incidentally mentioned, is brief and explanatory only; and I have fuppreffed many obfervations, which would have added more to the bulk of the Memoirs, than to the information or entertainment of the reader.

I have now given fuch explanation on the fubject of the Memoirs, as appeared to me

neceffary; but I cannot conclude the Preface, without mentioning fome information which materially affects an important paffage in thefe Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 249, and which I received from Bengal, long after it had been printed.

The paffage alluded to, is stated to be an exact translation from one of the mythological books of the Hindûs; it first appeared in a note annexed by Sir William Jones, to an Effay on Egypt and the Nile, in the 3d vol. of the Afiatic Researches, by Lieutenant (now Captain) Wilford, and relates to Noah (under the designation of Satyavrata) and his three fons.

Captain Wilford has fince had the mortification and regret to discover, that he was imposed upon by a learned Hindû, who affifted his investigations, that the Purana, in which he actually and carefully read the paffage which he communicated to Sir William Jones, as an extract from it, does not contain it, and that it was interpolated by the dextrous introduction of a forged sheet, difco

loured, and prepared for the purpose of deception, and which having ferved this purpofe, was afterwards withdrawn.

The uncommon anxiety of Captain Wilford to re-examine all the authorities quoted in his effay, led to the detection of the impofition, and he immediately determined to publish it to the world, in another effay which he was then preparing, and which I understand to be now printing in Bengal. To guard against the effects of any accident which might prevent the execution of this determination, he communicated the circumftance to his friends, that it might eventually be made known to the public, and in the explanation now fubmitted to them, I only anticipate the folicitude of Captain Wilford, to expose the impofition which has been practifed on him *.

* The particulars of the imposition practised upon him by the pandit, whom he employed in making extracts from the books of the Hindûs, are detailed by Captain Wilford, in the introduction to a work now printing in Bengal, under the title of An ESSAY on the

In vol. ii. p. 175, of the Memoirs, the reader will find mention of an unfuccessful

SACRED ISLES in the West, with other Essays connected with that Work.

The

In the course of collating the Sanscrit authorities quoted or referred to, in this Essay, he discovered some discolorations in the manuscripts, which led to suspicions of deception, which examination fully verified. discovery naturally excited an apprehension, that a similar imposition had been practised upon him, with respect to his former Essay on Egypt and the Nile, and he had the mortification to find it well grounded. His first step was to inform his friends of it, either verbally, or by letters, that he might secure at least the credit of the first disclosure.

"The forgeries of the pandit, (Captain Wilford ob"serves,) were of three kinds: in the first, a word or

two only was altered. In the second, were such le"gends, as had undergone a more material alteration; "and in the third, all those which he had written from memory.

"With regard to those of the first class, when he "found that I was resolved to make a collation of the "manuscript, he began to adulterate and disfigure his 66 own manuscript, mine, and the manuscripts of the "college, by erasing the original name of the country, " and putting that of Egypt or of Swetam in its place. "To prevent my detecting those of the second class, "which were not numerous, but of the greatest import66 ance in their nature, (and as books in India are not "bound as in Europe, and every leaf is loose,) he took << out one or two leaves, and substituted others with an