PHILOLOGY AXD LINGUISTS. 



125 



Y.rhen, at length, collecting his 

 papers together, he put them in his 

 pocket, and swallowing the half pint 

 of brandy as if it had been water, 

 went out of the coffee-house. The 

 stranger was so much struck by all 

 he had observed, particularly at the 

 facility with which such a quantity 

 of spirits was taken, that he could 

 not forbear to ask the waiter who 

 that gentleman was ? The man re- 

 plied, " Pshaw ! don't you know 

 him ? Why, that's Sheridan ; he's 

 going now to the House of Com- 

 mons." It will be remembered that 

 in the course of this debate Mr. 

 Sheridan made one of the finest 

 speeches ever delivered by him, 

 alike remarkable for keenness of 

 argument and brilliancy of wit, and 

 this under the influence of a potion 

 that would wholly have deprived 

 most men of their faculties. 



The following anecdote of Sheri- 

 dan was related by one of the oldest 

 surviving friends and followers of 

 Fox. This gentleman and Sheri- 

 dan had dined together at Bellamy's. 



Sheridan, having taken his allow- 

 ance, said as usual, " Now I shall go 

 down and see what's doing in the 

 house ;" which in reality meant, and 

 was always so interpreted by who- 

 ever dined in his company, " I have 

 drank enough ; my share of the 

 business is done ; now do yours ; 

 call ! for the bill, and pay it." The 

 bill having been settled by Sheri- 

 dan's friend, the latter, hearing 

 that Sheridan was " up," felt curious 

 to know what he could possibly be 

 at, knowing the state in which he 

 had just departed. Accordingly, 

 he entered the house, and, to his no 

 small astonishment, found Sheridan 

 in a fit of most fervent oratory, 

 thundering forth the follor/ing 

 well-known passage : " Give them 

 a corrupt House of Lords ; give 

 them a venal House of Commons ; 

 give them a tyrannical prince ; 

 give them a truckling court ; and 

 let me have but an unfettered press, 

 and I will defy them to encroach a 

 hair's-breadth upon the liberties of 

 England ! " 



PHILOLOGY AND LINGUISTS, 



SIB WILLIAM JOXES. 



That wonderful scholdr, Sir Wil- 

 liam Jones, who, in addition to 

 great acquirements in various other 

 departments of knowledge, had 

 made himself acquainted with no 

 fewer than twenty-eight different 

 languages, was studying the gram- 

 mars of several of the Oriental dia- 

 lects up till within a week of his 

 lamented death. At an earlier 

 period of his life, when he was in 

 his thirty-third year, he had re- 

 uolved, as appears from a scheme of 

 study found among his papers, " to 

 learn no more rudiments of any 

 kind, but to perfect himself in, first, 

 twelve languages, as the means of 

 acquiring accurate knowledge of 

 history, arts, and sciences." These 



were the Greek, Latin, Italian, 

 French, Spanish, Portuguese, He- 

 brew, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, 

 German, and English. When he 

 was afterwards induced, however, 

 from the situation he held in India, 

 to devote himself more especially 

 to Oriental learning, he extended 

 his researches a great way even be- 

 yond these ample limits. In addi- 

 tion to the tongues already enu- 

 merated, he made himself not only 

 completely master of Sanscrit, as 

 well as less completely of Hindos- 

 tanee and Bengalee, but to a con- 

 siderable extent, also, of the other 

 Indian dialects, called the Thibe- 

 tian, the Pali, the Phaluvi, and the 

 Deri ; to which are to be added, 

 among the IIUI^MM^C.S which he de- 

 scribes himself to have studied least 



