s America was when made known by Columbus. Its riches had been
accumulating during thousands of years, waiting till the fortunate man
should arrive, destined to reveal to our age the barbaric pearl and gold
of the gorgeous East,--the true wealth of Ormus and of Ind.

Sir William Jones came well equipped for his task. Some men are born
philologians, loving _words_ for their own sake,--men to whom the devious
paths of language are open highways; who, as Lord Bacon says, "have come
forth from the second general curse, which was the confusion of tongues,
by the art of grammar." Sir William Jones was one of these, perhaps the
greatest of them. A paper in his own handwriting tells us that he knew
critically eight languages,--English, Latin, French, Italian, Greek,
Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit; less perfectly eight others,--Spanish,
Portuguese, German, Runic, Hebrew, Bengali, Hindi, Turkish; and was
moderately familiar with twelve more,--Tibetian, Pali, Phalavi, Deri,
Russian, Syriac, Ethiopic, Coptic, Welsh, Swedish, Dutch, and Chinese.
There have been, perhaps, other scholars who have known as many tongues as
this. But usually they are crushed by their own accumulations, and we
never hear of their accomplishing anything. Sir William Jones was not one
of these, "deep versed in books, and shallow in himself." Language was his
instrument, but knowledge his aim. So, when he had mastered Sanskrit and
other Oriental languages, he rendered into English not only Sakuntala, but
a far more important work, "The Laws of Manu"; "almost the only work in
Sanskrit," says Max Muller, "the early date of which, assigned to it by
Sir William Jones from the first, has not been assailed." He also
translated from the Sanskrit the fables of Hitopadesa, extracts from the
Vedas, and shorter pieces. He formed a society in Calcutta for the study
of Oriental literature, was its first president, and contributed numerous
essays, all valuable, to its periodical, the "Asiatic Researches." He
wrote a grammar of the Persian language, and translated from Persian into
French the history of Nadir Shah. From the Arabic he also translated many
pieces, and among them the Seven Poems suspended in the temple at Mecca,
which, in their subjects and style, seem an Arabic anticipation of Walt
Whitman. He wrote in Latin a Book of Commentaries on Asiatic Poetry, in
English several works on the Mohammedan and Civil Law, with a translation
of the Greek Orations of Isaeus. As