He who translated this poem into a European language, and communicated it to modern readers, was Sir William Jones, one of the few first-class scholars whom the world has produced. In him was joined a marvellous gift of language with a love for truth and beauty, which detected by an infallible instinct what was worth knowing, in the mighty maze of Oriental literature. He had also the rare good fortune of being the first to discover this domain of literature in Asia, unknown to the West till he came to reveal it. The vast realm of Hindoo, Chinese, and Persian genius was as much a new continent to Europe, when discovered by Sir William Jones, as America was when made known by Columbus. Its riches had been accumulating during thousands of years, waiting till the fortunate man should arrive, destined to reveal to our age the barbaric pearl and gold of the gorgeous East,--the true wealth of Ormus and of Ind. Sir William Jones came well equipped for his task. Some men are born philologians, loving _words_ for their own sake,--men to whom the devious paths of language are open highways; who, as Lord Bacon says, "have come forth from the second general curse, which was the confusion of tongues, by the art of grammar." Sir William Jones was one of these, perhaps the greatest of them. A paper in his own handwriting tells us that he knew critically eight languages,--English, Latin, French, Italian, Greek, Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit; less perfectly eight others,--Spanish, Portuguese, German, Runic, Hebrew, Bengali, Hindi, Turkish; and was moderately familiar with twelve more,--Tibetian, Pâli, Phalavi, Deri, Russian, Syriac, Ethiopic, Coptic, Welsh, Swedish, Dutch, and Chinese. There have been, perhaps, other scholars who have known as many tongues as this. But usually they are crushed by their own accumulations, and we never hear of their accomplishing anything. Sir William Jones was not one of these, "deep versed in books, and shallow in himself." Language was his instrument, but knowledge his aim. So, when he had mastered Sanskrit and other Oriental languages, he rendered into English not only Sákuntalá, but a far more important work, "The Laws of Manu"; "almost the only work in Sanskrit," says Max Müller, "the early date of which, assigned to it by Sir William Jones from the first, has not been assailed." He also translated from the Sanskrit the fables of Hitopadesa, extracts from the Vedas, and shorter pieces. He formed a society in Calcutta for the study of Oriental literature, was its first president, and contributed numerous essays, all valuable, to its periodical, the "Asiatic Researches." He wrote a grammar of the Persian language, and translated from Persian into French the history of Nadir Shah. From the Arabic he also translated many pieces, and among them the Seven Poems suspended in the temple at Mecca, which, in their subjects and style, seem an Arabic anticipation of Walt Whitman.