THE STUDY OF SANSKRIT.

Friends of both sexes praised him as the phoenix of his time—"the most enlightened of the sons of men"—praises original: "encomiums" which a more detached, modern observer would likely temper. The correspondence and other notes of Jones, which still exist in great abundance,* present the modern reader with the image of a tireless but overly flowery amateur original: "euphuistic dilettante," referring to someone who studies a subject superficially and uses an ornate, artificial prose style rather than an earnest investigator; he was also largely lacking in both insight and passion.

As a young man, we find Jones reading and translating the works of Persian and Arabian poets into English verse, with occasional glimpses into Chinese literature. Another of his projects was a heroic epic—a kind of new Aeneid The famous Latin epic poem by Virgil—which used Phoenician gods to celebrate the excellence of the English constitution; a task he approached with considerable cleverness. During his journey to India at age thirty-seven, he drafted a list of works he hoped to write—if God granted him life—following the style of famous classical models. He listed these models clearly next to each project in his outline. Alongside this heroic epic (modeled after Homer), he planned a history of the American War of Independence (after ThucydidesAn Athenian historian (c. 460 – c. 400 BC) known for his "History of the Peloponnesian War." and PolybiusA Greek historian (c. 200 – c. 118 BC) famous for his "Histories," which covered the rise of the Roman Republic.), a philosophical and historical dialogue (after Plato), and several other similar projects.

With this feeling of absolute self-confidence, wholly untroubled by doubts, Jones arrived in India to begin the task of opening a path into the gigan-

* These were edited by his biographer, Lord Teignmouth, and are often presented in more detail than is perhaps necessary, given the overly praising original: "panegyrical" nature of the biography.