Welsh Journals

WELSH PIONEERS. Sir William Jones. By Professor O. H. Fynes-Clinton. SIR William Jones, the eighteenth century linguist and orientalist, who is chiefly remembered to-day as the pioneer of Sans- krit learning in Europe, was born at Westminster on September 28th, 1746. His father, William Jones, son of Siôn Siors, i.e., John George, was born in 1680 in the parish of Llanfihangel Tre'r Beirdd in Anglesey, and removed afterwards to Tyddyn Bach ("Gwalch- mai" in Enwogion M6n gives the name of the tenement as "Clymwr") in the parish of Llan- babo. He was sent to a charity school in the adjoining parish of Llanfechell. There he developed a taste for mathematics and attracted the notice of Lord Bulkeley, who took him to London. He began his career there by teaching mathematics on board a man-of-war. In his twenty-second year he published "A New Com- pendium of the Whole Art of Navigation." He was present at the capture of Vigo in the same year (1702) and, on his return, set up as a teacher of mathematics in London. In 1706 he published his Synopsis palmariorum Matheseos which, though practically only a syllabus, is a masterly work. Through this and other publi- cations he soon established a wide reputation. He was mathematical tutor to Philip Yorke, after- wards Lord Hardwicke; to Thomas Parker, afterwards Earl of Macclesfield and Lord Chan- cellor, and to his son, George Parker, afterwards president of the Royal Society. He was on intimate terms with Sir Isaac Newton, Halley, Mead and Dr. Johnson. He was treated with particular regard by Sir Isaac Newton, and was the editor of some of his works under the title of "Analysis, per quantitatum series, fluxiones, ac differentias cum enumeratione linearum tertii ordinis." He became a member of the Royal Society in 1712, and later vice-president. He married Mary Nix, youngest daughter of George Nix, a London cabinet maker. He had three children the first son, George, died in infancy; the second, Mary, was born in 1736 and married a merchant of the name of Rainsford. In 1802 she was accidentally burnt to death through her clothes catching fire. William, his third and youngest child, was only three years old at the death of his father, which took place in 1743, and consequently the care of his educa- tion devolved entirely upon his mother, a lady of exceptional ability. At Michaelmas, 1753, at the close of his seventh year he was entered at Harrow. la spite of an accident two years later, which kept him at home for a year, so extraordinary was his capacity and so rapid his progress that he quickly made himself a reputation. His biographer* informs us that, apparently before attaining his fifteenth year "he translated into English verse several of the epistles of Ovid, all the pastorals of Virgil, and composed a dramatic piece on the story of Meleager." During his leisure hours he also contrived to learn French and Italian as well as the rudiments of Arabic and Hebrew At the beginning of his career at Oxford, at the age of seventeen, he was engaged in preparing for the press, at the advice of Dr. Sumner, who had suc- ceeded Dr. Thackeray as head master of Harrow two years before, "his Greek and Latin com- positions, including a comedy, written in the language and measures of Aristophanes." Though this project was afterwards given up, it affords an indication of the extraordinary ex- tent and early development of his genius. No wonder that his name was long remembered at Harrow as a prodigy of learning. On March 15th, 1764, he was entered as a commoner at University College, Oxford, but was elected a scholar in October of the same year. He now began to devote himself in earnest to the study of Arabic, and in order to obtain a knowledge of the spoken language, he employed a certain Syrian called Mirza, a native of Aleppo, whom he had met by chance in Lon- don, and induced to accompany him to Oxford, where for several months he maintained him out of his slender resources. He proceeded after- wards to the study of Persian, improved his knowledge of Hebrew and gained some knowledge of Chinese, and all this without neglecting his classical studies, for "he perused with great assiduity all the Greek poets and historians of note, and the entire works of Plato and Lucan, with a vast apparatus of commentaries on them." "His college tutors," his biographer further in- forms us, "who saw that all his hours were devoted to improvement, dispensed with his attendance at their lectures, alleging with equal truth and civility, that he could employ his time to more advantage." Dependent as he was, however, upon his mother's insufficient income, it became necessary to find further means of support. On the strength of the brilliant reputation he had brought with him from Harrow he was, in 1765, appointed private tutor to Lord Althorpe, only son of the first Earl Spencer, a boy then just seven years old, and entered on his new duties in the summer of that year. His connection with the Spencer family, which lasted for five years, proved of the greatest advantage to him. The post occupied him only during his vacations and he continued regularly to keep his terms at The Works of Sir William Jones, with the life of the author. by Lord Teignmouth, London, 1807,