His Latin commentary on Asiatic poetry is more valuable for the extracts from the Persian and Arabic poets, which he has brought together in it, than to be commended for anything else that it contains, or for the style in which it is written. Certain marks of hurry in the composition, which his old schoolfellow, Doctor Parr, had intimated to him with the ingenuousness of a friend and a scholar, are still apparent. He takes up implicitly with that incomplete and partial, though very ingenious system, which Burke had lately put forth in his essay on the Sublime and Beautiful. He has supported that writer's definition of Beauty by a quotation from Hermogenes. A better confirmation of his theory might have been adduced from the Philebus of Plato, in which Socrates makes the same distinction as our eloquent countryman has taken so much pains to establish between that sensation which accompanies the removal of pain or danger, and which he calls delight--and positive pleasure.[2] As the work, however, of a young man, the commentary was such as justly to raise high expectations of the writer. His style in English prose, where he had most improved it, that is, in his discourses delivered in India on Asiatic History and Literature, is opulent without being superfluous; dignified, yet not pompous or inflated. He appears intent only on conveying to others the result of his own inquiries and reflections on the most important topics, in as perspicuous a manner as possible; and the embellishments of diction come to him unbidden and unsought. His prolixity does not weary, nor his learning embarrass, the reader. If he had been more elaborate, he might have induced a suspicion of artifice; if he had been less so, the weightiness of his matter would seem to have been scarcely enough considered. But he has higher claims to the gratitude of his country, and of mankind, than either prose or poetry can give. His steady zeal in the cause of liberty, and justice, and truth, is above all praise; and will leave his name among the few --quos aequus amavit Jupiter, aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus, Dis geniti. FOOTNOTES [1] [Greek: Leimhon], a meadow. [2] [Greek: Alaethehis dhan tinas, o Sokrates, upolambanon, orthos tis dianooit an; SO. Tas peri te ta kala legomena chromata kai peri ta schaemata, kai ton osmon tas pleistas, kai tas ton phthongon, kai osa tas endeias anaisthaetous echonta kai alupous, tas plaeroseis aisthaetas kai aedeias katharas lupon paradidosi.] "What pleasures then, Socrates, may one justly conclude to be true ones?--_Soc._ Those which regard both such colours as are accounted beautiful; and figures; and many smells and sounds; and whatsoever things, when they are absent, we neither feel the want of, nor are uneasy for; but when present, we feel and enjoy without any mixture of uneasiness." He then goes on to exemplify these true pleasures in forms, colours, &c. Compare the De Rep. p. 534.