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 a lawyer, a judge, a student of natural history, his ardor of study was equally apparent.  He presented to the Royal Society in London a large collection of valuable Oriental manuscripts, and left a long list of studies in Sanskrit to be pursued by those who should come after him.  His generous nature showed itself in his opposition to slavery and the slave-trade, and his open sympathy with the American Revolution.  His correspondence was large, including such names as those of Benjamin Franklin, Sir Joseph Banks, Lord Monboddo, Gibbon, Warren Hastings, Dr. Price, Edmund Burke, and Dr. Parr.  Such a man ought to be remembered, especially by all who take an interest in the studies to which he has opened the way, for he was one who had a right to speak of himself, as he has spoken in these lines:—­