JONES. 
companion on the circuit, when he was While he was in this situation also, he en- 
Ohief Justice ; and this nobleman, when tered into a matrimonial connection from 
he afterwards held the Great Seal, availed 
himself of the opportunity to testify his re- 
gard for the merit and character of his 
friend, by conferring upon him the office of 
secretary for the peace. He was also 
introduced to the friendship of Lord Parker, 
(afterwards President of the Royal Society) 
which terminated only with his death ; and 
amongst other distinguished characters in 
the annals of science and literature, the 
names of Sir Isaac Newton, Haliey, Mead, 
and Samuel Johnson, may be enumerated 
as the intimate friends of Mr. Jones. By 
Sir Isaac Newton he was treated with parti- 
cular regard and confidence ; and having 
afterwards found among some papers of 
Collins which fell into his hands, a tract of 
Newton’s, entitled, “ Analysis per quanti- 
tatum Series, Fluxiones, ac differentias : 
cum Enumeratione Linearum tertii Ordi- 
nes;” with the consent and assistance of 
that great man, he ushered it into the world, 
accompanied by other pieces on analytical 
subjects in 1711, quarto. 
By being thus the means of preserving 
some of Newton’s papers, which might 
have otherwise been lost, he secured to his 
friend the honour of having applied the me- 
thod of infinite series to all sorts of curves, 
some time before Mercator had published 
his “ Quadrature of the Hyperbola,” by a 
similar method. And its appearance at a 
time when the dispute ran high between 
Leibnitz and the friends of Newton, con- 
cerning the invention of fluxions, contri- 
buting to the decision of the question in fa- 
vour of our illustrious countryman. 
Mr. Jones was elected a member, and 
afterwards a Vice-President of the Royal 
Society. After the retirement of Lord 
Macclesfield to Sherborne Castle, Mr. Jones 
resided with his Lordship as a member of 
his family, and instructed him in the sci- 
ences. While he was in this situation, he 
had the misfortune to lose the greatest part 
of his property, the accumulation of indus- 
try and economy, by the failure of a banker ; 
but the friendship of Lord Macclesfield 
diminished the weight of the loss, by pro- 
curing for him a sinecure place of consider- 
able emolument. From the same noble- 
man he had the offer of a more lucrative 
situation ; but he declined the acceptance 
of it, as it'-required a more close official at- 
tendance than was agreeable to his temper, 
or compatible with his attachment to scien- 
tific pursuits. 
VOL. III. 
which sprang three children, the last of 
whom was the late Sir William Jones. Mr, 
Jones survived the birth of this son only 
three years, being attacked with a disorder, 
which the sagacity of Dr. Mead, who at- 
tended him with the anxiety of an affec- 
tionate friend, immediately discovered to 
be a polypus of the heart, and wholly in- 
curable. He died in July 1749, when 
about sixty-nine years of age, leavifff be- 
hind him a great reputation and moderate 
property. 
“ fie history of men of letters,” says 
Lord Teignmouth, from whom we have 
chiefly extracted the preceding particulars, 
“ is too often a melancholy detail of human 
misery, exhibiting the unavailing struggles 
of genius and learning against penury, and 
life consumed in fruitless expectation of 
patronage and reward. We contemplate 
with satisfaction the reverse of this picture 
in the history of Mr. Jones, as we trace him 
in his progress from obscurity to distinction, 
and in his participation of the friendship and 
beneficence of the first characters of the 
times. Nor is it less grateful to remark, 
that the attachment of his professed friends 
did not expire with his life ; after a proper 
interval they visited his widow, and vied in 
their offers of service to her ; amongst others, 
to whom she was particularly obliged, I 
mention with respect Mr. Baker, author of 
a treatise on the improved microscope, who 
afforded her important assistance, in ar- 
ranging the collection of shells, fossils, and 
other curiosities, left by her deceased 
husband, and in disposing of them to the 
best advantage.” 
Mr. Jones’s papers in the Philos. Trans, 
are, “ A/Compendious Disposition ofEqua- 
tions for exhibiting the Relations of Go- 
niometrical Lines,” in the forty-fourth vo- 
lume ; “ A Tract on Logarithms,” in the 
sixty-first; “An Account of tlie Person 
killed by Lightning in Tottenham-court 
Chapel, and its Effects on the Building,” in 
the sixty-second ; and “ Properties of the 
Conic Sections, deduced by a Compendious 
Method,” in the sixty-third volume. These 
pieces, and indeed all his works, are distin- 
guished by remarkable neatness, brevity, 
accuracy, arid perspicuity. If, however, 
Mr. Nichols is not deceived in his informa- 
tion, the world has been deprived of his last 
and most laborious work, which he lived to 
complete, but not to see it printed. It 
was a work of the same nature with his 
S s 
