( 2 ) 



on'i}- equally eminent for extent of learning and ele* 

 gance of diction, for Itrirngth of comprehenfion and 

 clearnefs of explanation, but alfo equally devoted from 

 their early youth to Oriental ftudies. 



With Sir William Jones, who may not impro- 

 perly be called the father, as well as firit Prefident of 

 this Society, I deem myfelf happy to have become ac- 

 quainted when he entered the univerlity, a boy jull 

 come from fchool. I had then many opportunities to 

 obferve the wonderful progrefs which he had already 

 made in the ancient Languages of /se^ro^^' ; of which 

 let one inftance fuffice. He had compofed, and brought 

 with him to Oxford a comedy written in Greek verfe, 

 of the ^^oetical povccrs whereof I will not now venture 

 to Ipeak : he himfelf appears not to have thought very 

 highly of it in that refpecl. He confidered with 

 Horace, that 



'' Memhranis intus pofttls, deJere Ticelit 

 " Qiiod no7i ediderisy* 



and in fadl he never did publifh it. But the verlifica- 

 tion afforded a wonderful example of diligence and 

 accuracy, of exuberance of ftyle, and power of expref- 

 lion in Greek. It comprifed all the different kinds of 

 metre which are to be found in the dramatick writings 

 o{ Greece ; and Do6for Thomas Somxer oiHarroiju, 

 the belt judge ofthefubjedl perhaps then in England, 

 declared after reading it, that it did not contain one 

 metrical erroiir. 



Within a very few years after this, and while the 

 mod laborious ftudent I ever knew was Itill in his mi- 

 nority, both legal and academical, an undergraduate in 

 the Univeriity, and confiderably under the age which 

 the law calls the age of difcrction, the caiual fight of a 

 folio volume filled with extracts from Jlrah'ick manu- 

 fcripts aflbrded me an opportunity of learning that 

 he had filled (in all) four fuch volumes with lirnilar 

 cxtradts, made with his own hand in the Bodleian 



library. 



