§26. Sir William Jones. VIII. Southey. Vol. 11. The Period of the French Revolution. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume XI. The Period of the French Revolution.

VIII. Southey.

§ 26. Sir William Jones.

Sir William Jones, who, in a life which did not reach the half century, accumulated a singular amount of learning and of well-deserved distinction, was more of an orientalist and of a jurist than of a poet. But he managed to write two pieces—the Ode in imitation of Alcaeus, “What constitutes a state?” and the beautiful epigram From the Persian, “On parent knees a naked new-born child”—which have fixed themselves in literary history, and, what is better, in memories really literary. If there is in these at least as much of the scholar as of the poet, it can only be wished that we had more examples of the combination of such scholarship with such poetry.