[108] See works of sir W. J. pp. 413. 432. 437.
[109] De Potter’s Transl. of Æschylus, Prometheus chained. In the Greek origin. v. 447-456.
[110] Voltaire, whose genius sir W. Jones knew how to appreciate, said: “Glorifions-nous de ce que les vérités les plus importantes sont devenues des lieux communs pour les Européens, mais ne nous en moquons pas, et sachons avoir quelque reconnaissance pour les anciens legislateurs qui nous les ont, les premiers, appris.”
[111] See Transact. of the R. A. S. of Great Brit. and Irel., vol. III. part I. p. 524 et seq. Remarks on the Zand language and the Zand-Avesta. This able tract is chiefly a comment upon Erskine’s Memoir On the sacred book and religion of the Parsis, in the Transact. of the Lit. Soc. of Bombay, vol. II. p. 295.
[112] Sir W. J. says (see his Works, vol. III. p. 116) that, according to his conviction, the dialect of the Guebrs, which they pretend to be that of Zertusht, of which Bahman, a Guebr and his Persian reader, gave him a variety of written specimens, is a late invention of their priests. What language does he mean? certainly not that of the Zand-Avesta, of which he speaks in particular, and states (ibid., p. 118) “the language of the Zand was at least a dialect of the Sanscrit, approaching, perhaps, as nearly to it as the Prácrit, or other popular idioms, which we know to have been spoken in India two thousand years ago.”
[113] Sir W. J.’s Works, vol. V. pp. 414-415.
[114] Anquetil composed a number of Memoirs, read to the French Institut and preserved in their printed records. He published, in 1771, three quarto volumes upon his voyages to, in, and from India, and the Works of Zoroaster; in 1798, L’Inde en rapport avec l’Europe; in 1799, La Legislation orientale, ou le despotisme considéré dans la Turquie, la Perse et l’Indostane. An epistle which he placed before his Latin translation of Dara Shuko’s Persian Upanishad, and addressed to the Brahmans of India, contained, as it were, his religious and political testament. He declares his nourishment to have been reduced, like that of an abstemious ascetic, living, even in winter, without fire; and sleeping in a bed without feathers or sheets. His juvenile boast of “personal beauty” was expiated by total neglect of his body, left “with linen unchanged and unwashed;” his aspirations to “a vast extent of learning” had subsided into patient and most persevering studies. But, disdaining to accept gifts and pensions, even from government, he preserved his absolute liberty, and blessed his poverty, “as the salvation of his soul and body, the rampart of morality and of religion; a friend of all men; victorious over the allurements of the world” he tended towards the Supreme Being. Well may virtues so rare efface other human failings of Anquetil du Perron. He died, in his seventy-fourth year, in 1805.—(See Histoire et Mémoires de l’Institut royal de France. Classe d’Histoire et de Littérature anciennes, tome III. 1818.)
[115] See Transl., vol. I. pp. [351-353].
[116] Works, vol. III. p. 115.