this occasion Jones was applied to by one of the
under secretaries to the Duke of Grafton, to gratify the wishes of the
Danish monarch. The task was so little to his mind that he would have
excused himself from engaging in it; and he accordingly suggested Major
Dow, a gentleman already distinguished by his translations from the
Persic, as one fit to be employed; but he likewise pleading his other
numerous occupations as a reason for not undertaking this, and the
application to Jones being renewed, with an intimation that it would be
disgraceful to the country if the King should be compelled to take the
manuscript into France, he was at length stimulated to a compliance. At
the expiration of a twelvemonth, during which interval it had been more
than once eagerly demanded, the work was accomplished. The publication
of it was completed in 1770, and forty copies were transmitted to the
court of Denmark. To the History was appended a treatise on Oriental
poetry, written also in French. One of the chief difficulties imposed on
the translator had been the necessity of using that language in the
version, of which it could not be expected that he should possess an
entire command; but to obviate this inconvenience, he called in the aid
of a Frenchman, who corrected the inaccuracies in the diction. Christian
expressed himself well satisfied with the manner in which his intentions
had been fulfilled: but a diploma constituting the translator a member
of the Royal Society at Copenhagen, together with an earnest
recommendation of him to the regard of his own sovereign, were the sole
rewards of his labour. Of the history he afterwards published an
abridgment in English.

The predilection he had conceived for the Muses of the East, whom, with
the blind idolatry of a lover, he exalted above those of Greece and
Rome, was further strengthened by his intercourse with an illustrious
foreigner, whom they had almost as much captivated. The person, with
whom this similarity of taste connected him, was Charles Reviczki,
afterwards imperial minister at Warsaw, and ambassador at the English
court with the title of Count. Their correspondence, which turns
principally on the object of their common pursuits, and is written in
the French and Latin languages, commenced in 1768. At this time he took
his degree of Bachelor of Arts.

In the summer of the ensuing year, Jones accompanied his pupil to the
school at Harrow. During his residence there he tra