the wear and tare of twenty-two years; and I feel ihocked
at the remark of the elegant Delaney, who obferves, | that
it is generally agreed among wife men, that few great
* attempts, at left in the learned way, have ever been
wifely undertaken and happily executed after that period !.’
I cannot defend the wifdom: yet, from the good fortune
o f my life, I will attempt the execution.
It will be formed upon the model o f my Introduction
to the A r c t i c Z o o l o g y , imitating, as far as my talents will
admit, the great examples left by the difciples of the L in-
nalan fchool, and the folid writings of the liberal and communicative
race o f the hyperborean learned, fitted by climate
to affiduous ftudy, and to retain the immenfenefs o f
their knowlege, when acquired. T he Torrid Zone generally
enervates the body and mind. The divine particle
melts away, and every idea is too often loft in irrefiftible-
indolence.
Yet there are two writers, to whom I muft own the
higheft obligations, who felt no degeneracy by the influence
o f climate. Their thoughts are as firm and colleded as i f
they had been braced by the fteady froft of the north;
The firft is James Rennel Efquire, late Major of Engineers
and Surveyor General in Bengal, The effects of his,
labors,.
labors, more immediately applied to the national fervice,
have been productive of others, which have proved the
brighteft elucidations o f a country, till after the year 1757,
little more than the object of conqueft, and now and then,—
rarely indeed, of fordid adventure. Mr. Rennel's Map of
Hindoofian, or the Mogul Empire, and the attendant Memoir,
are unparalleled convictions of the accuracy of the
author in the ftudy of geography, in which no rival dare
difpute the palm of merit. I cannot exprefs the obligations
my prefent Work is under to his labors.- I underftand that
there is another o f the fame nature, but far more extenfive—
perhaps in the prefs— every fuccefs attend the labors of his
pen.
T pede faufto,
Grandia laturus meritorum praemia-----
The other writer I allude to is the celebrated Sir W i l l
i a m J o n e s . The fubjecfts o f that true genius were favored
by A p o l l o himfelf, being as fublime and elegant as
thofe over which that deity peculiarly prefided. The
S u n , whofe character might melt away the powers of
feeble Genii, lerved only to exalt his ftrength of mind,
as its beams are feigned to give additional brilliancy to the
diamond in its mine. The reader will not wonder that
a 2 I make