earnestness, acquired with hard labour, or it would lie barren for ever!"

So there was nothing left to William Jones but to follow his mother's advice; and he lived long enough to prove its excellence, and to ascribe to it the whole success of his too short life.

He was about ten years old at the time when our story commences. A terrible accident, the breaking of his thigh-bone, which made him lame and a prisoner to the sofa for months, gave him ample leisure to indulge his passion for reading, for which he had been remarkable from a very early age. His enthusiasm for poetry had induced his mother to get him such books as Dryden's Translation of the Æneid,' and Pope's Juvenile Poems,' and many a long hour was passed by the sick lad in attempting to write verses in imitation of his favourites. Mrs. Jones being herself a woman of extraordinary ability and cultivated taste, would help him to pass the weary time by reading aloud passages from Shakespeare and from others of our English dramatists; so that the twelve months lost for Harrow were not entirely wasted to the little boy.

William Jones was born in London, in the year 1746. His father died while he was still a child of three years old. This loss, so great a misfortune generally to all children, and especially to boys, Mrs. Jones endeavoured to mitigate to the utmost, by devoting herself entirely to the care and education of her little son. It has become quite a common-place remark, how materially the early training of a mother often affects the future destiny of men of genius. The influence and confidence gained by that best of

friends' has been known, not only to direct and sustain a man through all the varied changes of his youth, but to accompany him to the grave, though absence and a lapse of years may have severed for ever the two individuals thus bound together.

It was thus with Mrs. Jones and her son. Kindling the latent spark of ambition in his young mind, she yet showed him how imperfectly genius would work, unless aided by the good tools of industry and perseverance. Read and know' meant work, and be rewarded.' We shall now see how William Jones followed out the oft-repeated axiom.

6

as shown by the other hough they had had the

The good and learned Dr. Thackeray was at this time head-master of Harrow School; and thither, as soon as health and strength were somewhat restored, William Jones was sent to resume his studies. There began his first trials. The master in whose class Jones was placed, made no allowance for the twelve months spent in comparative idleness; and, with a curious want of common sense, expected from his pupil the same proficiency lads under his tuition, benefit of a whole year's instruction in advance of Jones. With extreme harshness, he soon made the lad aware that he was expected to know without being taught, and that, unless his lessons were better prepared, severe punishment would be his portion. Jones cared little for the threatened chastisement; but the injustice of the rebuke stung him to the quick. There was but one thing to be done. If no one would teach him, he must teach himself; he would show his tutor his mistake in a very decided

manner.

Collecting all the elementary treatises which he could lay hold of, and shutting himself up while his companions were at play, he resolutely worked almost day and night until he had mastered his ignorance. The old place was regained gloriously; prize after prize rewarded his industry and perseverance, and verses in imitation of Ovid were written, such as no boy in the lower school had ever before attempted.

This was the lad of whom Dr. Thackeray declared 'that he was a boy of so active a mind that, were he left naked and friendless on Salisbury Plain, he would nevertheless find the road to riches and fame.'

The start once made, Jones aspired to keep the lead, and was removed to the upper school at twelve years of age. A little anecdote is related of him at this time, which bears testimony, not only to the naturally retentive power of his memory, but to the thoroughness with which he took up any particular line of reading.

It was proposed by his schoolfellows, that they should act a play among themselves for their own amusement, and by Jones's advice The Tempest' was the piece chosen. Unfortunately, there was not a copy of Shakespeare' to be found; and the plan would necessarily have been relinquished, had not Jones proposed to write out the whole of the play from memory. This was done with sufficient accuracy at least to gratify his schoolfellows; and Jones bimself acted the part of Prospero.

But we must not linger over these boyish days, creditable as they are to a man of whom it was said by one of his schoolmates-William Benet, Bishop of Cloyne That the goodness of his head, admirable

as it was, was exceeded by that of his heart.' He seems to have endeared himself alike to masters and boys, and, unlike the generality of good boys,' to have made few enemies at school. It was impossible not to respect him for his unwearied diligence and the true love he displayed for knowledge of all kinds; while the holidays gained for the boys, as rewards of his industry, made him a general favourite. Dr. Sumner, a man of very high attainments and reputation, succeeded Dr. Thackeray at Harrow, when Jones was about fifteen years of age; and a friendship and confidence sprung up between master and pupil which ended only with the death of the former. It was with mutual feelings of regret, therefore, that they separated when Jones was about seventeen, in order that he might matriculate as a student of Oxford.

This was in the spring of 1764; and he was entered at University College. The Alma Mater,' of which, some years later, he was so staunch a champion, defending her in print in a French letter against the attacks of M. Anquetil du Perron, in 1771, seems to have disappointed him greatly on first acquaintance. His own classical attainments and general knowledge were far above the average of those of most young men; and while at Harrow the progress of his mind. was watched and stimulated by the distinguished man at the head of the school. Expecting, therefore, his biographer tells us, 'to find a Sumner or Askew in every Master of Arts,' his enthusiasm received a check in being directed by men, one of whom he describes, as reading Locke with his pupils, and very carefully passing over every passage in which that

great logician derides the old system.' It would not be impossible to find that worthy tutor's match in the present day in ye ancient citie of learning;' but let us hope such instances of narrow-minded erudition are rare. Perhaps it was the example of the cramping influence of pursuing one line of study alone, which determined young Jones to extend his search after knowledge in all directions, and vary his acquirements as far as possible.

While yet a boy of fourteen, he had occupied the time spent in holidays at home, in refreshing his recollection of the works of the old English Dramatists; reading Shakespeare and Milton with enthusiasm. During one vacation, he had also made himself master of French and Italian; and had even commenced Hebrew and Arabic. He now only required time to perfect himself in the two last-named languages; and, thanks to his own industry and love of study, time and opportunity soon presented themselves. He had been at Oxford but a few months on the 31st October 1764, when he obtained a scholarship on the foundation of Sir Simon Bennett. His manifest desire to improve himself, and his uncommon application, induced his tutors to exempt him, on his obtaining the scholarship, from his attendance on the usual lectures; the routine of which was irksome, especially as he felt he could learn nothing new from them. His time was, therefore, his own, and no one who knew William Jones ever dreamed that it would be wasted or mis-spent. His vacations were usually passed in London, where he is said to have become a pupil of Angelo, in order to make himself a good fencer. He was fond of active bodily