is
reputation through Europe, for an extraordinary proficiency in the
languages of India. Later scholars speak lightly of this multifarious
knowledge, and nothing can be more probable, than that attainment of
_many_ languages, with any approach to their fluent use, is beyond the
power of man. But his diligence was exemplary, his memory retentive,
and his understanding accomplished by classical knowledge; with those
qualities, much might be done in any pursuit; and though modern
orientalists protest against the superficiality of his acquirements,
their variety has been admitted, and still remain unrivaled.

Jones had his fits of despondency, like less fortunate men, and
concludes his letter, by intimating a speculation, not unlike that of
Burke himself in his earlier time:--"As for me, I should either settle
as a lawyer at Philadelphia, whither I have been invited, or retire on
my small independence to Oxford; if I had not in England a very strong
attachment, and many dear friends."

One of Burke's most anxious efforts was to make his son Richard a
statesman. The efforts were unsuccessful. Richard was a good son, and
willing to second the desires of his father; but nature had decided
otherwise, and he remained honest and amiable, but without advancing a
step. Burke first sent him on a kind of semi-embassy to the
headquarters of the emigrant princes at Coblentz, and he there
carried on a semi-negotiation. But success was not to be the fate of
any thing connected with these unfortunate men, and failure was
scarcely a demerit, from its universality. The next experiment was
sending him as a species of private envoy to the Irish Roman
Catholics; but there his failure was even more conspicuous, though
perhaps it was equally inevitable. Burke's imagination was at once his
unrivaled gift and his perpetual impediment. Like a lover, his eye was
no sooner caught, than he invested its charmer with all conceivable
attractions. This susceptibility made him irresistible in a cause
worthy of his powers, but plunged him into difficulties where the
object was inferior to his capacity, and unworthy of his heart. His
early admiration of Fox, of Whiggism, and Reform, was the rapture of
an innamorato. He could discover no defects; he disdained all doubts
as a dishonourable scepticism, and challenged all obstacles, as
evidences of his energy, and trophies of his success. His prosecution
of Hastings, a bold piece of patriot honesty, rapidly f