Finding that some more financially profitable occupation was necessary, Jones devoted himself with his customary energy to the study of the law, and was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1774. He studied not merely the technicalities, but the philosophy, of law, and within two years had acquired so considerable a reputation that he was in 1776 appointed commissioner in bankruptcy. Besides writing an _Essay on the Law of Bailments_, which enjoyed a high reputation both in England and America, Jones translated, in 1778, the speeches of Isaeus on the Athenian right of inheritance. In 1780 he was a parliamentary candidate for the university of Oxford, but withdrew from the contest before the day of election, as he found he had no chance of success owing to his Liberal opinions, especially on the questions of the American War and of the slave trade. In 1783 was published his translation of the seven ancient Arabic poems called _Moallakât_. In the same year he was appointed judge of the supreme court of judicature at Calcutta, then "Fort William," and was knighted. Shortly after his arrival in India he founded, in January 1784, the Bengal Asiatic Society, of which he remained president till his death. Convinced as he was of the great importance of consulting the Hindu legal authorities in the original, he at once began the study of Sanskrit, and undertook, in 1788, the colossal task of compiling a digest of Hindu and Mahommedan law. This he did not live to complete, but he published the admirable beginnings of it in his _Institutes of Hindu Law, or the Ordinances of Manu_ (1794); his _Mohammedan Law of Succession to Property of Intestates_; and his _Mohammedan Law of Inheritance_ (1792). In 1789 Jones had completed his translation of Kalidasa's most famous drama, _Sakuntala_. He also translated the collection of fables entitled the _Hitopadesa_, the _Gitagovinda_, and considerable portions of the Vedas, besides editing the text of Kalidasa's poem _Ritusamhara_. He was a large contributor also to his society's volumes of _Asiatic Researches_. His unremitting literary labours, together with his heavy judicial work, told on his health after a ten years' residence in Bengal; and he died at Calcutta on the 27th of April 1794. An extraordinary linguist, knowing thirteen languages well, and having a moderate acquaintance with twenty-eight others, his range of knowledge was enormous. As a pioneer in Sanskrit learning and as founder of the Asiatic Society he rendered the language and literature of the ancient Hindus accessible to European scholars, and thus became the indirect cause of later achievements in the field of Sanskrit and comparative philology. A monument to his memory was erected by the East India Company in St Paul's, London, and a statue in Calcutta. See the _Memoir_ (1804) by Lord Teignmouth, published in the collected edition of Sir W. Jones's works.