Still later in life, when a reaction had set in, and the indiscriminate admiration of Sir W. Jones had given way to an equally indiscriminate depreciation of his merits, Colebrooke, who was then the most competent judge, writes to his father:-- “As for the other point you mention, the use of a translation by Wilkins, without acknowledgment, I can bear testimony that Sir W. Jones’s own labors in Manu sufficed without the aid of a translation. He had carried an interlineary Latin version through all the difficult chapters; he had read the original three times through, and he had carefully studied the commentaries. This I know, because it appears clearly so from the copies of Manu and his commentators which Sir William used, and which I have seen. I must think that he paid a sufficient compliment to Wilkins, when he said, that without his aid he should never have learned Sanskrit. I observe with regret a growing disposition, here and in England, to depreciate Sir W. Jones’s merits. It has not hitherto shown itself beyond private circles and conversation. Should the same disposition be manifested in print, I shall think myself bound to bear public testimony to his attainments in Sanskrit.” Such candid appreciation of the merits of Sir W. Jones, conveyed in a private letter, and coming from the pen of the only person then competent to judge both of the strong and the weak points in the scholarship of Sir William Jones, ought to caution us against any inconsiderate judgment. Yet we do not hesitate to declare that, as Sanskrit scholars, Sir William Jones and Colebrooke cannot be compared. Sir William had explored a few fields only, Colebrooke had surveyed almost the whole domain of Sanskrit literature. Sir William was able to read fragments of epic poetry, a play, and the laws of Manu. But the really difficult works, the grammatical treatises and commentaries, the philosophical systems, and, before all, the immense literature of the Vedic period, were never seriously approached by him. Sir William Jones reminds us sometimes of the dashing and impatient general who tries to take every fortress by bombardment or by storm, while Colebrooke never trusts to anything but a regular siege. They will both retain places of honor in our literary Walhallas. But ask any librarian, and he will say that at the present day the collected works of Sir W. Jones are hardly ever consulted by Sanskrit scholars, while Colebrooke’s essays are even now passing through a new edition, and we hope Sir Edward Colebrooke will one day give the world a complete edition of his father’s works. APPENDIX. COMPARATIVE VIEW OF SANSKRIT AND OTHER LANGUAGES, By T. H. Colebrooke. Oxford, September, 1874.