nscribed his Persian
grammar. He had already begun a dictionary of that language, with
illustrations of the principal words from celebrated writers, a work of
vast labour, which he resolved not to prosecute without the assurance of
an adequate remuneration from the East India Company. At the entreaty of
Dr. Glasse, he now dedicated some portion of his time to religious
inquiry. The result was a conviction of the truth of Christianity, in
his belief of which, it is said, he had hitherto been unconfirmed. In
the winter he made a second visit to the Continent with the family of
his noble patron. After a longer stay at Paris, than was agreeable to
him, they passed down the Rhine to Lyons, and thence proceeded by
Marseilles, Frejus, and Antibes, to Nice. At the last of these places
they resided long enough to allow of his returning to his studies, which
were divided between the arts of music and painting; the mathematics;
and military tactics; a science of which he thought no Briton could,
without disgrace, be ignorant. He also wrote a treatise on education;
and begun a tragedy entitled Soliman, on the murder of the son of that
monarch by the treachery of his step-mother. Of the latter, although it
appears from one of his letters that he had completed it, no traces were
found among his papers, except a prefatory discourse too unfinished to
meet the public eye. The subject has been treated by Champfort, a late
French writer, and one of the best among Racine's school, in a play
called Mustapha and Zeangir. I do not recollect, and have not now the
means of ascertaining, whether that fine drama, the Solimano of Prospero
Bonarelli is founded on the same tragic incident in the Turkish History.

An excursion which he had meditated to Florence, Rome, and Naples, he
was under the necessity of postponing to a future occasion. On his way
back he diverged to Geneva, in hopes of seeing Voltaire; but was
disappointed, as the Frenchman excused himself, on account of age and
sickness, from conversing with a stranger. At Paris he succeeded by the
help of some previous knowledge of the Chinese character, and by means
of Couplet's Version of the Works of Confucius, in construing a poem by
that writer, from a selection in the king's library, and sent a literal
version of it to his friend Reviczki. From the French capital the party
returned through Spa to England. During their short residence at Spa he
sketched the plan of an epic poem, on the di