138 
Atthecommencementof the revolution, 
Duperron, a stranger to ambition and in- 
trigue, thought of nothing but the reform 
of abuses; he published a work under the 
title of La Dignté du Commerce § de Vé- 
tat du Commercont. At any other time, 
this work would have been well received, 
but as political, and not mercantile, inter- 
ests engaged the attention of all classes 
of society at that time, it was scarcely no- 
ticed. Resolving not to have the morti- 
fication of witnessing the succeeding trou- 
bles of his country, he shut himself up 
in his library, and appeared no longer in 
public at the Academy, of which he had 
hitherto been an assiduous member, and 
dropt all correspondence even with his 
most intimate friends. 
Deprived of every kind of income, he 
was obliged at intervals to dispose of 
many of his bouks, to pay the rent for 
the rest, and to supply himself with the 
‘ cominon necessaries of life ; but having for 
a length of time accustomed himself, to 
abstemiousness and even to privation, he 
Considered himself the only happy man 
atthattimein France. Hethus estranged 
himself from every thing but thought, by 
which he traversed India and lived anidst 
the Brahmins. Affected by the evils which 
‘the cupidity of Europeans had loaded 
that.rich but unhappy country, he endea- 
voured, but in vain, to persuade them, in 
a work which he published in 1796, under 
the title of L’ Inde en rapport avec L’ Ev- 
rope, that it was to their interest to build 
warchouses instead of batteries, and send 
out merchants instead of soldiers ; to estab. 
lish a connection cemented by confidence, 
and not authority founded upon force, 
and maintained by injustice and tyranny. 
It was Anquetil’s intention to have gone 
to India to study the Sanserit language, 
but being prevented by the war, he still 
resolved to turn his retirement to account, 
by studying that language and translating 
the Vedas and other sacred writings of 
_the Brahmins, by the help of a dicticnary 
which he had procured from Cardinal An- 
tonelli: but, despairing of success from ° 
the insufficiency of his means, he gave 
up this projet, and undertook to translate 
trom the Persian Recveit des Oupnekhat, 
or Upanischada, or Secrets not to be re- 
veuled, 
Although it was not a translation from 
the original Sanscrit, and the Persian au- 
thor has sometimes intermixed the Indian 
and Mussulinan ideas, stil} Anqueti! has 
_tendered considerable service to litera- 
ture, in. enabling us to, appreciate the 
greater part of the philosophical and relis 
| Memoirs of Angquetil Duperron. 
[Sept. 1, 
gious dogmas of the Brahmins, and the 
doctrine contained in the Vedas. His 
translation was made in Latin, that he 
might:the more closely adhere to the Per- 
sian phrases, and mystic obscurity of the 
‘original, In this he has in many parts 
too well succeeded; and in spite of the 
Numerous explanatory and instructive 
notes by which he has endeavoured to 
enlighten the extravagance of mythology, 
aud the ridiculous allegories, it requires’ 
#strong application to comprehend and 
follow the chaiv of ideas. Some of hig 
remarks ave foreign to the work itself, 
and are evidently the effusion of a recluse, 
strongly tinctured with the weakness and 
folly of human nature, Anquetil Duper- 
ron appears to have intermixed, in a mian~ 
ner, his own philosophical and religious 
ideas, and givena compleat picture of his - 
moral and philosophical life, in the episle 
which he addresses to the Brahmzins, to 
induce them to translate the ancient In- 
dian writing into Persic:—“ Bread and 
cheese (said she), to the value of four 
French sous, or the twelfth part of a ru- 
pee, and water from the well, form my 
daily food; I lve without fire eyen in 
winter, I sleep without even a bed or 
bed-clothes; neither do I change or wash 
my linen. I subsist on the fruits of my 
literary works, without income, revenue, 
or pension. I have neither wife, ‘chil. 
dren, nor servants. Having no estates, I 
have no tie to this world. Alone, but 
entirely free, I am in friendship with all 
mankind. In this simple state, at war- 
fare with my senses, I either triumph 
over worldly attractions, or I despise 
them. Looking up with veneration to 
that supreme and perfect being, drawing 
near my end, I wait with impatience for 
the dissotution of. my body.”—There does 
hot appear the least exagveration 1 this 
account which he gives of himself; all 
those who were intimate with him give 
just the same descriptionof his way of life, 
His passion for the most perfect indepen- 
dence accustomed hiin, from his youth, to 
an austere regimen, which he ever after- 
wards observed, and inspired him with a 
love of poverty, which he looked upon as 
the firm support of virtue. * Oh, poverty, 
too much despised (said he, in one of 
his remarks), thou art the protector of 
soul and body, and the bulwark of mora- 
lity and religion!” He was too frank and 
ingenuous to feign any virtue or senti- 
ment, and thereare too many proofsof his 
Sincerity and disinterestedness to leave 
even a goubt of it. On the suppressipn 
of a journal {yom which he received a 
’ pension, 
