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entreaties of her child for information, | cation of time and talents.
which she watchfully stimulated, she
constantly replied, Read, and you will
know;" and by this method his desire
to learn became as eager as her wish to
teach; and in his fourth year he was
able to read distinctly and rapidly any
English work. His future eminence is
to be partly ascribed to the advantages
he was thus permitted to enjoy, as it is
to the uncommon talents with which he
was gifted; and through life he cherished
for his mother the tenderest affection and
most filial respect.

In his fifth year, as William Jones 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 Revelation; and the impression he received from it was never effaced. In the full maturity of his judgment, he considered the passage as equal in sublimity to any in the inspired writings, and far superior to all merely human compositions; and he was fond of retracing and mentioning the rapture with which he first read it.

About two years after, he was sent to Harrow school, where he was long under the care of the amiable Dr. Thackeray. One of his schoolfellows was Bennet, afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, who said, "I knew him from the early age of eight or nine, and he was always an uncommon boy. Great abilities; great particularity of thinking; fondness for writing verses of various kinds; and a degree of integrity and manly courage, of which I remember many instances, distinguished him even at that period. I loved and revered him, and though one or two years older than he was, I was always instructed by him from my earliest age. It was a singular trait in the character of Dr. Thackeray, that he never applauded the best compositions of his scholars, from a notion that praise only tended to make them vain or idle. But the opinion that he gave of Jones in private was, that he was a boy of so very active a mind, that if he were left naked and friendless on Salisbury Plain, he would, nevertheless, find the road to fame and riches.

He afterwards went to the university of Oxford, where his partiality for oriental literature began to display itself: and if his acquisitions at this period be compared with his years, few instances will be found of a more successful appli

It is also worthy of observation, that he was as much indebted to his great industry and attention to method, for his attainments, as to his superior capacity. In his nineteenth year he was recommended as private tutor to Lord Althorpe, then seven years old, afterwards the late Earl Spencer. While at Harrow, the residence of his noble pupil, he was induced to peruse Beveridge's "Private Thoughts on Religion" with considerable attention; and he was particularly struck by one passage, in which the writer argues, that a profession of Christianity merely because our countrymen profess it, without candid inquiry and sincere conviction, would be no better reason for our faith, than the Mohammedans have for theirs. He was thus, it appears, led to reflect with more seriousness than he had ever before on the subject of religion, and to examine the grounds on which the Bible has been received as the word of God.

Mr. Jones subsequently resigned his tutorship, and determined to devote himself to the study and practice of the law. He still, however, gave much attention to literature; and his "Commentary on Asiatic Poetry" was received with admiration and applause by the learned of our own country, and by the oriental scholars of Europe in general. In March, 1783, he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William, in Bengal, and received the honour of knighthood.

It is pleasing to find this eminent man associating with those who expressed their detestation of slavery, with its innumerable horrors. His sentiments on that question are thus recorded:

--

"I pass with haste by the coast of Africa, whence my mind turns with indignation at the abominable traffic in the human species, from which a part of our countrymen dare to derive their most inauspicious wealth. Sugar, it has been said, would be dear if it were not worked by blacks in the western islands; as if the most laborious, the most dangerous works were not carried on in every country, but chiefly in England, by free men; in fact, they are so carried on, with infinitely more advantage, for there is an alacrity in a consciousness of freedom, and a gloomy sullen indolence in a consciousness of slavery. But let sugar be as dear as it may, it is better to eat none-to eat honey, if sweetness only be