Runick, Hebrew, Bengali, Hindi, Turkish; _twelve_ others, in fine, he had studied least perfectly; but he considered all these attainable; namely Tibetan, Pali, Palavi, Deri, Russian, Syriac, Ethiopic, Coptic, Welsh, Swedish, Dutch, and Chinese.[185] Now, as Lord Teignmouth[186] describes him as perfectly familiar with Spanish, Portuguese, and German, three languages which he has himself placed on the list of languages, “less critically studied, but intelligible with the aid of a dictionary,” it may fairly be believed that this estimate is, to say the least, a sufficiently modest one; and that his acquaintance even with the languages of the third class was by no means superficial, we may infer from another memorandum preserved by Lord Teignmouth from which we find that he had studied the grammars of two at least of the number, namely: Russian and Welsh. His biographer, however, unfortunately enters into no details as to his power of speaking languages; but he is said by the writer of the notice in the _Biographie Universelle_ to have spoken eight languages as perfectly as his native English. In contrast with successes so brilliant as these, the comparatively humble career of the other British Orientalists named in conjunction with Sir William Jones, will appear tame and uninteresting. William Marsden was born in Dublin, 1754; and, after having completed the ordinary classical studies, was sent out to Bencoolen in the island of Sumatra, at the early age of sixteen. The extraordinary facility which he exhibited for acquiring the Malay languages led to his rapid advancement. He was named first under-secretary, and afterwards chief secretary of the Island; and, before his return in 1779, he had accumulated the materials for the exceedingly valuable work on Sumatra which he published in 1782. Marsden held several important appointments after his return,[187] and he employed every interval of his official duties in literary pursuits. He was a thorough master of Sanscrit, and all its kindred languages; but he must be described, nevertheless, rather as a book-learned, than a practical linguist. His Essay on the Polynesian or East Insular languages, tracing their connexion with each other, and their common relations with Sanscrit, is still a standard source of information on this interesting ethnological question. Henry Thomas Colebrooke,[188] well known by his numerous contributions to Oriental literature, especially in the Asiatic Journal, was also an official of the East India Company, whose employment he entered, while still very young, as a civil servant. Colebrooke was well versed, not only in the Indian languages, but also in those of the Hebrew and cognate races; and his early education in France gave him a greater familiarity with French and other modern tongues than is often found to accompany the more profound linguistic studies.