The best works of Euler for a young mathematician to read, in order to get an idea of his style and methods, are the ‘_Analysis Infinitorum_,’ and the ‘_Treatise on the Integral Calculus_.’ [Illustration] SIR W. JONES. William Jones, the most accomplished Oriental scholar of the last century, an upright magistrate, and eminent benefactor of the native subjects of our Indian dominions, was born in London on Michaelmas Eve, 1746. His father, a man esteemed by his contemporaries, a skilful mathematician, and the friend of Newton, died in July, 1749. His mother then devoted herself entirely to the education of this her only surviving son; and to her careful and judicious culture of his infant years, bestowed indeed upon a happy soil, is to be ascribed the early development of that thirst for learning and faculty of profitable application, which enabled Jones to accumulate in a short and busy life a quantity and variety of abstruse knowledge, such as the same age does not often see equalled. To the end of her life he acknowledged and repaid her care and affection by ardent love and unchanging filial respect. When only seven years old, he was sent to Harrow. His progress, slow at first, afterwards became most rapid; and the head master, Dr. Thackeray, a man not given to praise, spoke of him as “a boy of so active a mind, that if he were left naked and friendless on Salisbury Plain he would find the way to fame and riches.” At the time of his quitting school, besides a much deeper acquaintance with the classical languages than usually falls to the lot of a schoolboy, Jones had acquired the French and Italian languages, had commenced the study of Hebrew, and (a thing only worth mention as indicative of his tastes) had made himself acquainted with the Arabic letters. Botany, the collection of fossils, and composition in English verse, were his favourite amusements at this period. March 16, 1764, he was entered as a student of University College, Oxford. He was elected a scholar on the Bennett foundation, October 30, 1764; and fellow on the same foundation, August 7, 1766, before he was of standing to proceed to the degree of B.A., which he took in 1768. At an early period of his residence he applied in earnest [Illustration: _Engraved by J. Posselwhite._ SIR WILLIAM JONES. _From the Picture in the Hall of University College, Oxford._ Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._ ] to the study of Arabic; and his zeal was such, that, though habitually self-denying, and anxious not to trespass on his mother’s slender income, he maintained at Oxford, at his own expense, a Syrian, with whom he had become acquainted in London, for the benefit to be derived from his instruction. From the Arabic he proceeded to learn the Persian language.