Almost a century later the great American transcendentalist, Emerson, prophesied a rise of Orientalism in England, and he lived to see his words come true. But in the days when Warren Hastings was striving to make his way in London as an author, the influence of the East upon literature, upon scholarship, upon thought, was scarcely perceptible. People read indeed the "Arabian Nights" in M. Galland's delightful version; read the Persian tales of Petit de la Croix; read all the translations of the many sham Oriental tales which the popularity of Galland and Petit de la Croix had called for in Paris, and which the Parisian writers were ready to supply. But serious Oriental scholarship can hardly be said to have existed in England. Sir William Jones was the only Englishman of {255} distinction who was earnestly devoted to Eastern studies; but his Persian Grammar, which was in some degree the foundation-stone of Persian scholarship in England, had not yet appeared, and Sir William Jones was still writing to Reviczki those delightful letters in which he raves about the poetry of the Arabs and the Persians. Thus the scholarship of Warren Hastings placed him in an exceedingly small minority among Englishmen of letters. Hastings was not the man to be alarmed or discouraged by finding himself in a minority. He was as impassioned an admirer of Persian poetry as Sir William Jones; he considered that the Persian language should be included in the studies of all well-educated men; he dreamed of animating the waning fires of Oriental learning at Oxford. He had a vision in his mind of a new scholarship, to be called into being by the generosity of the East India Company. He thought of Englishmen becoming as familiar with the deeds of Rustum as with the wrath of Achilles, as intimate with the Ghazels of Hafiz as with the Odes of Horace. He seems to have visited Dr. Johnson in the hope of securing him as an ally in his scheme. The scheme came to nothing, but the learning, the literary taste, and scholarly ambition of Hastings made a strong impression upon Johnson, who entertained a stately regard for the young man from India.