Lives of the English Poets: From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of Johnson's LivesCary, Henry Francis
General
Lives of the English Poets: From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of Johnson's Lives
Cary, Henry Francis
Poets, English -- Biography
In the summer of the ensuing year, Jones accompanied his pupil to the
school at Harrow. During his residence there he transcribed his Persian
grammar. He had already begun a dictionary of that language, with
illustrations of the principal words from celebrated writers, a work of
vast labour, which he resolved not to prosecute without the assurance of
an adequate remuneration from the East India Company. At the entreaty of
Dr. Glasse, he now dedicated some portion of his time to religious
inquiry. The result was a conviction of the truth of Christianity, in
his belief of which, it is said, he had hitherto been unconfirmed. In
the winter he made a second visit to the Continent with the family of
his noble patron. After a longer stay at Paris, than was agreeable to
him, they passed down the Rhine to Lyons, and thence proceeded by
Marseilles, Frejus, and Antibes, to Nice. At the last of these places
they resided long enough to allow of his returning to his studies, which
were divided between the arts of music and painting; the mathematics;
and military tactics; a science of which he thought no Briton could,
without disgrace, be ignorant. He also wrote a treatise on education;
and begun a tragedy entitled Soliman, on the murder of the son of that
monarch by the treachery of his step-mother. Of the latter, although it
appears from one of his letters that he had completed it, no traces were
found among his papers, except a prefatory discourse too unfinished to
meet the public eye. The subject has been treated by Champfort, a late
French writer, and one of the best among Racine's school, in a play
called Mustapha and Zeangir. I do not recollect, and have not now the
means of ascertaining, whether that fine drama, the Solimano of Prospero
Bonarelli is founded on the same tragic incident in the Turkish History.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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