assisted the genius of the son, every man will for his purpose, being a book neither bulky nor be convinced, that considers the early proficiency common, and in one month completed his transat which it enabled him to arrive; such a pro-lation, applying only one or two hours a-day to ficiency as no one has yet reached at the same that particular task. In another month he age, and to which it is therefore probable that drew up the principal notes; and, in the third, every advantageous circumstance concurred. wrote some dissertations upon particular pasAt the age of nine years, he not only was master sages, which seemed to require a larger examof five languages, an attainment in itself almost ination. incredible, but understood, says his father, the holy writers, better in their original tongues than in his own. If he means by this assertion, that he knew the sense of many passages in the original, which were obseure in the translation, the account, however wonderful, may be admitted; but if he intends to tell his correspondent, that his son was better acquainted with the two languages of the Bible than with his own, he must be allowed to speak hyperbolically, or to admit that his son had somewhat neglected the study of his native language; or we must own, that the fondness of a parent has transported him into some natural exaggerations.

Part of this letter I am tempted to suppress, being unwilling to demand the belief of others to that which appears incredible to myself; but as my incredulity may, perhaps, be the product rather of prejudice than reason, as envy may beget a disinclination to admit so immense a superiority, and as an account is not to be immediately censured as false, merely because it is wonderful, I shall proceed to give the rest of his father's relation, from his letter of the 3d of March, 1729-30. He speaks, continues he, German, Latin, and French, equally well. He can, by laying before him a translation, read any of the books of the Old or New Testament in its original language, without hesitation or perplexity. He is no stranger to biblical criticism or philosophy, nor unacquainted with ancient and modern geography, and is qualified to support a conversation with learned men, who frequently visit and correspond with him.

In his eleventh year, he not only published a learned letter in Latin, but translated the travels of Rabbi Benjamin from the Hebrew into French, which he illustrated with notes, and accompanied with dissertations; a work in which his father as he himself declares, could give him little assistance, as he did not understand the rabbinical dialect.

The reason for which his father engaged him in this work, was only to prevail upon him to write a fairer hand than he had hitherto accustomed himself to do, by giving him hopes, that, if he should translate some little author, and offer a fair copy of his version to some bookseller, he might in return for it, have other books which he wanted and could not afford to purchase.

Incited by this expectation, he fixed upon the "Travels of Rabbi Benjamin," as most proper

These notes contain so many curious remarks and inquiries, out of the common road of learning, and afford so many instances of penetration, judgment, and accuracy, that the reader finds in every page some reason to persuade him that they cannot possibly be the work of a child, but of a man long accustomed to these studies, enlightened by reflection, and dexterous by long practice in the use of books. Yet, that it is the performance of a boy thus young, is not only proved by the testimony of his father, but by the concurrent evidence of Mr. Le Maitre, his associate in the church of Schwabach, who not only asserts his claim to this work, but affirms that he heard him at six years of age explain the Hebrew text as if it had been his native language; so that the fact is not to be doubted without a degree of incredulity, which it will not be very easy to defend.

This copy was, however, far from being written with the neatness which his father desired; nor did the booksellers, to whom it was offered, make proposals very agreeable to the expectations of the young translator; but after having examined the performance in their manner, and determined to print it upon conditions not very advantageous, returned it to be transcribed, that the printers might not be embarrassed with a copy so difficult to read.

Barretier was now advanced to the latter end of his twelfth year, and had made great advances in his studies, notwithstanding an obstinate tumour in his left hand, which gave him great pain, and obliged him to a tedious and troublesome method of cure; and reading over his performance, was so far from contenting himself with barely transcribing it, that he altered the greatest part of the notes, new-modelled the dissertations, and augmented the book to twice its former bulk.

The few touches which his father bestowed upon the revisal of the book, though they are minutely set down by him in the preface, are so inconsiderable that it is not necessary to mention them; and it may be much more agreeable, as well as useful, to exhibit the short account which he there gives of the method by which he enabled his son to show so early how easy an attainment is the knowledge of the languages, a knowledge which some men spend their lives in cultivating, to the neglect of more valuable studies, and which they seem to regard as the highest perfection of human nature.

What applauses are due to an old age, wasted

in a scrupulous attention to particular accents | particularly to the study of the fathers, and counand etymologies, may appear, says his father, by seeing how little time is required to arrive at such an eminence in these studies as many even of these venerable doctors have not attained, for want of rational methods and regular application.

This censure is doubtless just upon those who spend too much of their lives upon useless niceties, or who appear to labour without making any progress; but as the knowledge of language is necessary, and a minute accuracy sometimes requisite, they are by no means to be blamed, who, in compliance with the particular bent of their own minds, make the difficulties of dead languages their chief study, and arrive at excellence proportionate to their application, since it was to the labour of such men that his son was indebted for his own learning.

cils of the six first centuries, and began to make a regular collection of their canons. He read every author in the original, having discovered so much negligence or ignorance in most translations, that he paid no regard to their authority.

Thus he continued his studies, neither drawn aside by pleasures nor discouraged by difficulties. The greatest obstacle to his improvement was want of books, with which his narrow fortune could not liberally supply him; so that he was obliged to borrow the greatest part of those which his studies required, and to return them when he had read them, without being able to consult them occasionally, or to recur to them when his memory should fail him.

It is observable, that neither his diligence, unintermitted as it was, nor his want of books, a want of which he was in the highest degree sensible, ever produced in him that asperity, which a long and recluse life, without any circumstance of disquiet frequently creates. He was always gay, lively, and facetious, a temper which contributed much to recommend his learning, and which some students much superior in age would consult their ease, their reputation, and their interest, by copying from him.

The first languages which Barretier learned were the French, German, and Latin, which he was taught not in the common way by a multitude of definitions, rules, and exceptions, which fatigue the attention and burden the memory, without any use proportionate to the time which they require, and the disgust which they create. The method by which he was instructed was easy and expeditious, and therefore In the year 1735, he published Anti-Ariemopleasing. He learned them all in the same nius, sive Initium Evangelii S. Joannis, adversus manner, and almost at the same time, by con- | Artemonium vindicatum, and attained such a deversing in them indifferently with his father. gree of reputation, that not only the public, but The other languages, of which he was master,princes, who are commonly the last by whom merit he learned by a method yet more uncommon. is distinguished, began to interest themselves in The only book which he made use of was the Bible, which his father laid before him in the language that he then proposed to learn, accompanied with a translation, being taught by degrees the inflections of nouns and verbs. This method, says his father, made the Latin more familiar to him in his fourth year than any other language.

When he was near the end of his sixth year, he entered upon the study of the Old Testament in its original language, beginning with the book of Genesis, to which his father confined him for six months; after which he read cursorily over the rest of the historical books, in which he found very little difficulty, and then applied himself to the study of the poetical writers, and the prophets, which he read over so often, with so close an attention and so happy a memory, that he could not only translate them without a moment's hesitation into Latin or French, but turn with the same facility the translations into the original language in his tenth year.

Growing at length weary of being confined to a book which he could almost entirely repeat, he deviated by stealth into other studies, and, as his translation of Benjamin is a sufficient evidence, he read a multitude of writers of various kinds. In his twelfth year he applied more

his success, for the same year the king of Prussia, who had heard of his early advances in literature, on account of a scheme for discovering the longitude, which had been sent to the Royal Society of Berlin, and which was transmitted afterwards by him to Paris and London, engaged to take care of his fortune, having re ceived further proofs of his abilities at his own court.

Mr. Barretier, being promoted to the cure of the church of Stetin, was obliged to travel with his son thither from Schwabach, through Leipsic and Berlin, a journey very agreeable to his son, as it would furnish him with new opportunities of improving his knowledge, and extending his acquaintance among men of letters. For this purpose they stayed some time at Leipsic, and then travelled to Hall, where young Barretier so distinguished himself in his conversation with the professors of the university, that they offered him his degree of doctor in philosophy, a dignity correspondent to that of master of arts among us. Barretier drew up that night some positions in philosophy, and the mathematics, which he sent immediately to the press, and defended the next day in a crowded auditory, with so much wit, spirit, presence of thought, and strength of reason, that the whole university was delighted and amazed; he was U

Thus, when he was but four years old, he spoke every day French to his mother, Latin to his father, and High Dutch to the maid, without any perplexity to himself, or any confusion of one language with another.

P. 152. He is no stranger to biblical

cism.

nius, and applied himself to geography and astronomy. In ten days he was able to solve all the problems in the doctrine of the globes, and had attained ideas so clear and strong of all the systems, as well ancient as modern, that he becriti-gan to think of making new discoveries; and for that purpose, laying aside for a time all searches into antiquity, he employed his utmost interest to procure books of astronomy and of mathematics, and made such a progress in three or four months, that he seemed to have spent his whole life upon that study; for he not only made an astrolabe, and drew up astronomical tables but invented new methods of calculation, or such at least as appeared new to him because they were not mentioned in the books which he had then an opportunity of reading, and it is a sufficient proof both of the rapidity of his progress, and the extent of his views, that in three months after his first sight of a pair of globes, he formed schemes for finding the longitude, which he sent, in Jan. 1735, to the Royal Society at London.

Having now gained such a degree of skill in the Hebrew language as to be able to compose in it both in prose and verse, he was extremely desirous of reading the Rabbins; and having borrowed of the neighbouring clergy, and the Jews of Schwabach, all the books which they could supply him, he prevailed on his father to buy him the great Rabbinical Bible, published at Amsterdam in four tomes, folio, 1728, and read it with that accuracy and attention which appears by the account of it written by him to his favourite, M. Le Maitre, inserted in the beginning of the 26th volume of the Bibliotheque Germanique.

These writers were read by him, as other young persons peruse romances or novels, only from a puerile desire of amusement; for he had so little veneration for them, even while he studied them with most eagerness, that he often diverted his parents with recounting their fables and chimeras.

His scheme being recommended to the Society by the Queen, was considered by them with a degree of attention which, perhaps would not have been bestowed upon the attempt of a mathematician so young, had he not been P. 153. In his twelfth year he applied more par- dignified with so illustrious a patronage. But ticularly to the study of the Fathers.

His father being somewhat uneasy to observe so much time spent by him on Rabbinical trifles, thought it necessary now to recal him to the study of the Greek language, which he had of late neglected, but to which he returned wh, so much ardour, that in a short time he was able to read Greek with the same facility as French or Latin.

He then engaged in the perusal of the Greek fathers, and councils of the first three or four centuries and undertook, at his father's desire, to confute a treatise of Samuel Crellius, in which, under the name of Artemonius, he has endeavoured to substitute, in the beginning of St. John's gospel, a reading different from that which is at present received, and less favourable to the orthodox doctrine of the divinity of our Saviour.

This task was undertaken by Barretier with great ardour, and prosecuted by him with suitable application, for he not only drew up a formal confutation of Artemonius, but made large collections from the earliest writers, relating to the history of heresies which he proposed at first to have published as preliminaries to his book, but, finding the introduction grew at last to a greater bulk than the book itself, he determined to publish it apart.

While he was engrossed by these inquiries, accident threw a pair of globes into his hands in October, 1734, by which his curiosity was so pauch exalted, that he laid aside his Artemo

it was soon found, that for want of books he kad imagined himself the inventor of methods already in common use, and that he proposed no means of discovering the longitude, but such as had been already tried and found insufficient. Such will be very frequently the fate of those whose fortune either condemns them to study without the necessary assistance from libraries, or who in too much haste publish their discoveries.

This attempt exhibited, however, such a specimen of his capacity for mathematical learning, and such a proof of an early proficiency, that the Royal Society of Berlin admitted him as one of their members, in 1735.

P. 153. Princes, who are commonly the last.

Barretier had been distinguished much more early by the Margravine of Anspach, who, in 1726, sent for his father and mother to the court, where their son, whom they carried with them, presented her with a letter in French, and addressed another in Latin to the young prince; who afterwards, in 1734, granted him the privilege of borrowing books from the libraries of Anspach, together with an annual pension of fifty florins, which he enjoyed for four years

In this place it may not be improper to recount some honours conferred upon him, which, if distinctions are to be rated by the knowledge of those who bestow them, may be considered as more valuable than those which he received from princes.

which he had begun at Schwabach: on this occasion he read the primitive writers with great accuracy, and formed a project of regulating the chronology of those ages; which produced a "Chronological Dissertation on the succession of the Bishops of Rome, from St. Peter to Victor," printed in Latin at Utrecht, 1740.

In June 1731, he was initiated in the univer- | began to retouch his "Account of Heresies,' sity of Altdorft, and at the end of the year 1732, the synod of the reformed churches, held at Christian Erlang, admitted him to be present at their consultations, and to preserve the memory of so extraordinary a transaction, as the reception of a boy of eleven years into an ecclesiastical council, recorded it in a particular article of the acts of the synod.

He afterwards was wholly absorbed in appli

P. 154. He was too much pleased with science cation to polite literature, and read not only a and quiet.

Astronomy was always Barretier's favourite study, and so much engrossed his thoughts, that he did not willingly converse on any other subject; nor was he so well pleased with the civilities of the greatest persons, as with the conversation of the mathematicians. An astronomical observation was sufficient to withhold him from court, or to call him away abruptly from the most illustrious assemblies; nor was there any hope of enjoying his company without inviting some professor to keep him in temper, and engage him in discourse; nor was it possible, without this expedient, to prevail upon him to sit for his picture.

P. 154. At Hall he continued his studies. Mr. Barretier returned, on the 28th of April, 1735, to Hall, where he continued the remaining part of his life, of which it may not be improper to give a more particular account.

multitude of writers in the Greek and Latin, but in the German, Dutch, French, Italian, English, and Arabic languages, and in the last year of his life he was engrossed by the study of inscriptions, medals, and antiquities of all nations. In 1737, he resumed his design of finding a certain method of discovering the longitude, which he imagined himself to have attained by exact observations of the declination and inclination of the needle, and sent to the Academy of Sciences, and to the Royal Society of London, at the same time, an account of his schemes; to which it was first answered by the Royal Society, that it appeared the same with one which Mr. Whiston had laid before them; and afterwards by the Academy of Sciences, that his method was but very little different from one that had been proposed by M. de la Croix, and which was ingenious but ineffectual.

Mr. Barretier, finding his invention already in the possession of two men eminent for mathematical knowledge, desisted from all inquiries after the longitude, and engaged in an examination of the Egyptian antiquities, which he proposed to free from their present obscurity, by decyphering the hieroglyphics, and explaining their astronomy; but this design was interrupted by his death.

P. 154. Confidence and tranquillity.

At his settlement in the university, he determined to exert his privileges as master of arts, and to read public lectures to the students; a design from which his father could not dissuade him, though he did not approve it; so certainly do honours or preferments, too soon conferred, infatuate the greatest capacities. He published an invitation to three lectures, one critical on the book of Job, another on astronomy, and a third upon ancient ecclesiastical history. But of this Thus died Barretier, in the 20th year of his employment he was soon made weary by the pe-age, having given a proof how much may be pertulance of his auditors, the fatigue which it oc- formed in so short a time by indefatigable dilicasioned, and the interruption of his studies gence. He was not only master of many lanwhich it produced, and therefore, in a fortnight, guages, but skilled almost in every science, and he desisted wholly from his lectures, and never capable of distinguishing himself in every proafterwards resumed them. fession except that of physic, from which he had been discouraged by remarking the diversity of opinions among those who had been consulted concerning his own disorders.

He then applied himself to the study of the law, almost against his own inclination, which, however, he conquered so far as to become a regular attendant on the lectures on that science, but spent all his other time upon different studies.

His learning, however vast, had not depressed or overburdened his natural faculties, for his genius always appeared predominant; and when he inquired into the various opinions of the wri

The first year of his residence at Hall was spent upon natural philosophy and mathema-ters of all ages, he reasoned and determined for tics; and scarcely any author, ancient or modern, that has treated on those parts of learning was neglected by him, nor was he satisfied with the knowledge of what had been discovered by others, but made new observations, and drew up immense calculations for his own use.

himself, having a mind at once comprehensive and delicate, active and attentive. He was able to reason with the metaphysicians on the most abstruse questions, or to enliven the most unpleasing subjects by the gayety of his fancy. He wrote with great elegance and dignity of style, He then returned to ecclesiastical history, and and had the peculiar felicity of readiness and