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his studies with any other diversion than that of walking and conversation. He eat little flesh, and lived almost wholly upon milk, tea, bread, fruits, and sweetmeats.

facility in every thing that he undertook, being | dancing, nor the sports of the field, nor relieved able without premeditation to translate one language into another. He was no imitator, but struck out new tracts, and formed original systems. He had a quickness of apprehension, and firmness of memory, which enabled him to read with incredible rapidity, and at the same time to retain what he read, so as to be able to recollect and apply it. He turned over volumes in an instant, and selected what was useful for his purpose. He seldom made extracts, except of books which he could not procure when he might want them a second time, being always able to find in any author, with great expedition, what he had once read. He read over, in one winter, twenty vast folios; and the catalogue of books which he had borrowed, comprised fortyone pages in quarto, the writing close, and the titles abridged. He was a constant reader of literary journals.

With regard to common life he had some peculiarities. He could not bear music, and if he was ever engaged at play could not attend to it. He neither loved wine nor entertainments, nor

He had great vivacity in his imagination, and ardour in his desires, which the easy method of his education had never repressed; he therefore conversed among those who had gained his confidence with great freedom, but his favourites were not numerous, and to others he was always reserved and silent, without the least inclination to discover his sentiments or display his learning. He never fixed his choice upon any employment, nor confined his views to any profession, being desirous of nothing but knowledge, and entirely untainted with avarice or ambition. He preserved himself always independent, and was never known to be guilty of a lie. His constant application to learning suppressed those passions which betray others of his age to irregularities, and excluded all those temptations to which men are exposed by idleness or common amusements.

MORIN.*

LEWIS MORIN was born at Mans, on the 11th of July, 1635, of parents eminent for their piety. He was the eldest of sixteen children, a family to which their estate bore no proportion, and which, in persons less resigned to Providence, would have caused great uneasiness and anxiety. His parents omitted nothing in his education, which religion requires, and which their fortune could supply. Botany was the study that appeared to have taken possession of his inclination, as soon as the bent of his genius could be discovered. A countryman, who supplied the apothecaries of the place, was his first master, and was paid by him for his instructions with the little money that he could procure, or that which was given him to buy something to eat after dinner. This abstinence and generosity discovered themselves with his passion for botany, and the gratification of a desire indifferent in itself was procured by the exercise of two virtues.

• Translated from an eloge by Fontenelle, and first printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1741.

He was soon master of all his instructor's knowledge, and was obliged to enlarge his acquaintance with plants, by observing them himself in the neighbourhood of Mans. Having finished his grammatical studies, he was sent to learn philosophy at Paris, whither he travelled on foot like a student in botany, and was careful not to lose such an opportunity of improvement.

When his course of philosophy was completed, he was determined, by his love of botany, to the profession of physic, and from that time engaged in a course of life, which was never exceeded either by the ostentation of a philosopher, or the severity of an anchoret; for he confined himself to bread and water, and at most allowed himself no indulgence beyond fruits. By this method, he preserved a constant freedom and serenity of spirits, always equally proper for study; for his soul had no pretences to complain of being overwhelmed with matter.

This regimen, extraordinary as it was, had many advantages; for it preserved his health, an advantage which very few sufficiently regard; it gave him an authority to preach diet and abstinence to his patients; and it made him rich

without the assistance of fortune; rich, not for himself, but for the poor, who were the only persons benefited by that artificial affluence, which, of all others, is most difficult to acquire. It is easy to imagine, that, while he practised in the midst of Paris the severe temperance of a hermit, Paris differed no otherwise, with regard to him, from a hermitage, than as it supplied him with books and the conversation of learned men.

In 1662, he was admitted doctor of physic. About that time Dr. Fagon, Dr. Longuet, and Dr. Galois, all eminent for their skill in botany, were employed in drawing up a catalogue of the plants in the Royal Garden, which was published in 1665, under the name of Dr. Vallot, then first physician: during the prosecution of this work, Dr. Morin was often consulted, and from these conversations it was that Dr. Fagon conceived a particular esteem of him, which he always continued to retain.

After having practised physic some years, he was admitted Expectant at the Hotel Dieu, where he was regularly to have been made Pensionary physician upon the first vacancy; but mere unassisted merit advances slowly, if, what is not very common, it advances at all. Morin had no acquaintance with the arts necessary to carry on schemes of preferment; the moderation of his desires preserved him from the necessity of studying them, and the privacy of his life debarred him from any opportunity.

At last, however, justice was done him in spite of artifice and partiality; but his advancement added nothing to his condition, except the power of more extensive charity; for all the money which he received as a salary, he put into the chest of the hospital, always, as he imagined, without being observed. Not content with serving the poor for nothing, he paid them for being served.

His reputation rose so high in Paris, that Mademoiselle de Guise was desirous to make him her physician; but it was not without difficulty that he was prevailed upon by his friend, Dr. Dodart, to accept the place. He was by this new advancement laid under the necessity of keeping a chariot, an equipage very unsuitable to his temper; but while he complied with those exterior appearances which the public had a right to demand from him, he remitted nothing of his former austerity in the more private and essential parts of his life, which he had always the power of regulating according to his own disposition.

In two years and a half the Princess fell sick, and was despaired of by Morin, who was a great master of prognostics. At the time when she thought herself in no danger, he pronounced her death inevitable; a declaration to the highest degree disagreeable, but which was made

more easy to him than to any other by his piety and artless simplicity. Nor did his sincerity produce any ill consequences to himself; for the Princess, affected by his zeal, taking a ring from her finger, gave it him as the last pledge of her affection, and rewarded him still more to his satisfaction, by preparing for death with a true christian piety. She left him by will a yearly pension of two thousand livres, which was always regularly paid him.

No sooner was the Princess dead, but he freed himself from the incumbrance of his chariot, and retired to St. Victor without a servant; baving, however, augmented his daily allowance with a little rice boiled in water.

Dodart, who had undertaken the charge of being ambitious on his account, procured him, at the restoration of the academy in 1699, to be nominated associate botanist; not knowing, what he would doubtless have been pleased with the knowledge of, that he introduced into that assembly the man that was to succeed him in his place of Pensionary.

Dr. Morin was not one who had upon his hands the labour of adapting himself to the duties of his condition, but always found himself naturally adapted to them. He had, therefore, no difficulty in being constant at the assemblies of the academy, notwithstanding the distance of places, while he had strength enough to support the journey. But his regimen was not equally effectual to produce vigour as to prevent distempers; and being 64 years old at his admission, he could not continue his assiduity more than a year after the death of Dodart, whom he succeeded in 1707.

When Mr. Tournefort went to pursue his botanical inquiries in the Levant, he desired Dr. Morin to supply his place of Demonstrator of the Plants in the Royal Garden, and rewarded him for the trouble, by inscribing to him a new plant which he brought from the east, by the name of Morina Orientalis, as he named others the Dodarto, the Fagonne, the Bignonne, the Phelipee. These are compliments proper to be made by the botanists, not only to those of their own rank, but to the greatest persons; for a plant is a monument of a more durable nature than a medal or an obelisk; and yet, as a proof that even these vehicles are not always sufficient to transmit to futurity the name conjoined with them, the Nicotiana is now scarcely known by any other name than that of tobacco.

Dr. Morin, advancing far in age, was now forced to take a servant, and, what was yet a more essential alteration, prevailed upon himself to take an ounce of wine a-day, which he measured with the same exactness as a medicine bordering upon poison. He quitted at the same time all his practice in the city, and confined it to the poor of his neighbourhood, and his visits to the Hotel Dieu; but his weakness increas

ing, he was forced to increase his quantity of wine, which yet he always continued to adjust by weight.*

At 78, his legs could carry him no longer, and he scarcely left his bed; but his intellects continued unimpaired, except in the last six months of his life. He expired, or to use a more proper term, went out, on the 1st of March, 1714, at the age of 80 years, without any distemper, and merely for want of strength, having enjoyed by the benefit of his regimen a long and healthy life, and a gentle and easy death.

This extraordinary regimen was but part of the daily regulation of his life, of which all the offices were carried on with a regularity and exactness nearly approaching to that of the planetary motions.

He went to bed at seven, and rose at two, throughout the year. He spent in the morning three hours at his devotions, and went to the Hotel Dieu in the summer between five and six, and in the winter between six and seven, hearing mass for the most part at Notre Dame. After his return he read the holy scripture, dined at eleven, and when it was fair weather walked till two in the royal garden, where he examined the new plants, and gratified his earliest and strongest passion. For the remaining part of the day, if he had no poor to visit, he shut himself up, and read books of literature or physic, but chiefly physic, as the duty of his

profession required. This likewise was the time he received visits, if any were paid him. He often used this expression, Those that come to see me, do me honour; those that stay away, do me a favour." It is easy to conceive that a man of this temper was not crowded with salutations: there was only now and then an Antony that would pay Paul a visit.

Among his papers was found a Greek and Latin index to Hippocrates, more copious and exact than that of Pini, which he had finished only a year before his death. Such a work required the assiduity and patience of a hermit.

There is likewise a journal of the weather, kept without interruption, for more than forty years, in which he has accurately set down the state of the barometer and thermometer, the dryness and moisture of the air, the variations of the wind in the course of the day, the rain, the thunders, and even the sudden storms, in a very commodious and concise method, which exhibits in little room, a great train of differ ent observations. What numbers of such remarks had escaped a man less uniform in his life, and whose attention had been extended to common objects!

All the estate which he left is a collection of medals, another of herbs, and a library rated at two thousand crowns; which make it evident that he spent much more upon his mind than upon his body.

BURMA N.t

PETER BURMAN was born at Utrecht, on the 26th day of June, 1668. The family from which he descended has for several generations

produced men of great eminence for piety and learning; and his father, who was professor of divinity in the university, and pastor of the city of Utrecht, was equally celebrated for the strictness of his life, the efficacy and orthodoxy of his sermons, and the learning and perspicuity of his academical lectures.

• The practice of Dr. Morin is forbidden, I believe, by every writer that has left rules for the preservation of health, and is directly opposite to that of Conaro, who by his regimen repaired a broken constitution, and protracted his life, without any painful infirmities, or any decay of his intellectual abilities, couraged by the genius of this son not to have

to

more than a hundred years; it is generally agreed, that as men advance in years, they ought to take lighter sustenance, and in less quantities; and reason seems easily to discover that as the concoctive powers grow weaker, they ought to labour less. Orig. Edit.

✦ First printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1742.-N.

From the assistance and instruction which such a father would doubtless have been en

• This is an instance of the disposition generally found in writers of lives, to exalt every common occurrence and action into wonder. Are not in. dexes daily written by men who neither receive nor expect any loud applauses for their labours? Orig. Edit.

omitted, he was unhappily cut off at eleven yours of age, being at that time by his father's death thrown entirely under the care of his mother, by whose diligence, piety, and prudence, his education was so regulated, that he had scarcely any reason, but filial tenderness, to regret the loss of his father.

He was about this time sent to the public school of Utrecht to be instructed in the learned languages; and it will convey no common idea of his capacity and industry to relate, that he had passed through the classes, and was admitted into the university in his thirteenth year.

his father inclined him to superintend his studies with more than common attention, which was soon confirmed and increased by his discoveries of the genius of his pupil, and his observation of his diligence.

One of the qualities which contributed eminently to qualify Grævius for an instructor of youth, was the sagacity by which he readily discovered the predominant faculty of each pupil, and the peculiar designation by which nature had allotted him to any species of literature, and by which he was soon able to determine, that Burman was remarkably adapted to classical studies, and predict the great advances that he would make, by industriously pursuing the di

Animated by the encouragement of a tutor so celebrated, he continued the vigour of his application, and, for several years, not only åttended the lectures of Grævius, but made use of every other opportunity of improvement, with such diligence as might justly be expected to produce an uncommon proficiency.

This account of the rapidity of his progress in the first part of his studies is so stupendous, that though it is attested by his friend, Dr. Oster-rection of his genius. dyke, of whom it cannot be reasonably suspected that he is himself deceived, or that he can desire to deceive others, it must be allowed far to exceed the limits of probability, if it be considered, with regard to the methods of education practised in our country, where it is not uncommon for the highest genius, and most comprehensive capacity, to be entangled for ten years, in those thorny paths of literature, which Burman is represented to have passed in less than two; and we must doubtless confess the most skilful of our masters much excelled by the address of the Dutch teachers, or the abilities of our greatest scholars far surpassed by those of Burman.

But, to reduce this narrative to credibility, it is necessary that admiration should give place to inquiry, and that it be discovered what proficiency in literature is expected from a student, requesting to be admitted into a Dutch university. It is to be observed that in the universities of foreign countries, they have professors of philology, or humanity, whose employment is to instruct the younger classes in grammar, rhetoric, and languages; nor do they engage in the study of philosophy, till they have passed through a course of philological lectures and exercises, to which, in some places, two years are commonly allotted.

The English scheme of education, which with regard to academical studies is more rigorous, and sets literary honours at a higher price than that of any other country, exacts from the youth, who are initiated in our colleges, a degree of philological knowledge sufficient to qualify them for lectures in philosophy, which are read to them in Latin, and to enable them to proceed in other studies without assistance; so that it may be conjectured, that Burman, at his entrance into the university, had no such skill in languages, nor such ability of composition, as are frequently to be met with in the higher classes of an English school; nor was perhaps more than moderately skilled in Latin, and taught the first rudiments of Greek.

In the university he was committed to the care of the learned Grævius, whose regard for

Having thus attained a sufficient degree of classical knowledge to qualify him for inquiries into other sciences, he applied himself to the study of the law, and published a dissertation, "De Vicesimâ Hæreditatum," which he publicly defended, under the professor Van Muyden, with such learning and elo uence, as procured him great applause.

Imagining, then, that the conversation of other men of learning, might be of use towards his farther improvement, and rightly judging that notions formed in any single seminary are for the greatest part contracted and partial; he went to Leyden, where he studied philosophy for a year, under M. de Volder, whose celebrity was so great, that the schools assigned to the sciences, which it was his province to teach, were not sufficient, though very spacious, to contain the audience that crowded his lectures from all parts of Europe.

Yet he did not suffer himself to be engrossed by philosophical disquisitions, to the neglect of those studies in which he was more early engaged, and to which he was perhaps by nature better adapted; for he attended at the same time Ryckius's explanations of Tacitus, and James Gronovius's lectures on the Greek writers, and has often been heard to acknowledge, at an advanced age, the assistance which he received from them.

Having thus passed a year at Leyden with great advantage, he returned to Utrecht, and once more applied himself to philological studies, by the assistance of Grævius, whose early hopes of his genius were now raised to a full confidence of that excellence, at which he afterwards arrived.

At Utrecht, in March, 1688, in the twentieth year of his age, he was advanced to the degree

of doctor of laws; on which occasion he publish- | upon questions of literature, with the learned ed a learned dissertation, “ De Transactionibus," and defended it with his usual eloquence, learning, and success.

men of that place, and of gratifying his curiosity with a more familiar knowledge of those writers whose works he admired, but with a view more important, of visiting the libraries, and making those inquiries which might be of advantage to his darling study.

The vacation of the university allowed him to

The attainment of this honour was far from having upon Burman that effect which has been too often observed to be produced in others, who, having in their own opinion no higher object of ambition, have relapsed into idleness and secu-stay at Paris but six weeks, which he employed rity, and spent the rest of their lives in a lazy enjoyment of their academical dignities. Burman aspired to farther improvements, and, not satisfied with the opportunities of literary conversation which Utrecht afforded, travelled into Switzerland and Germany, where he gained an increase both of fame and learning.

with so much dexterity and industry, that he had searched the principal libraries, collated a great number of manuscripts and printed copies, and brought back a great treasure of curious observations.

In this visit to Paris he contracted an acquaintance, among other learned men, with the celebrated Father Montfaucon; with whom he conversed, at his first interview, with no other character but that of a traveller; but their discourse turning upon ancient learning, the stranger soon gave such proofs of his attainments, that Montfaucon declared him a very uncommon traveller, and confessed his curiosity to know his

At his return from this excursion, he engaged in the practice of the law, and pleaded several causes with such reputation, as might be hoped by a man who had joined to his knowledge of the law, the embellishments of polite literature, and the strict ratiocination of true philosophy, and who was able to employ on every occasion the graces of eloquence and the power of argu-name; which he no sooner heard, than he rose mentation.

While Burman was hastening to high reputation in the courts of justice, and to those riches and honours which always follow it, he was summoned in 1691, by the magistrates of Utrecht, to undertake the charge of collector of the tenths, an office in that place of great honour, and which he accepted therefore as a proof of their confidence and esteem.

While he was engaged in this employment, he married Eve Clotterboke, a young lady of a good family, and uncommon genius and beauty, by whom he had ten children, of which eight died young; and only two sons, Francis and Caspar, lived to console their mother for their father's death.

Neither public business nor domestic cares detained Burman from the prosecution of his literary inquiries; by which he so much endeared himself to Grævius, that he was recommended by him to the regard of the university of Utrecht, and accordingly, in 1696, was chosen professor of eloquence and history, to which was added, after some time, the professorship of the Greek language, and afterwards that of politics; so various did they conceive his abilities, and so extensive his knowledge.

At his entrance upon this new province, he pronounced an oration upon eloquence and poetry.

from his seat, and embracing him with the utmost ardour, expressed his satisfaction at having seen the man whose productions of various kinds he had so often praised; and, as a real proof of his regard, offered not only to procure him an immediate admission to all the libraries of Paris, but to those in remoter provinces, which are not generally open to strangers, and undertook to ease the expenses of his journey by procuring him entertainment in all the monasteries of his order.

This favour Burman was hindered from accepting, by the necessity of returning to Utrecht at the usual time of beginning a new course of lectures, to which there was always so great a concourse of students, as much increased the dignity and fame of the university in which he taught.

He had already extended, to distant parts, his reputation for knowledge of ancient history by a treatise "de Vectigalibus Populi Romani," on the revenues of the Romans; and for his skill in Greek learning, and in ancient coins, by a tract called "Jupiter Fulgurator;" and after his return from Paris, he published "Phædrus," first with the notes of various commentators, and afterwards with his own. He printed many poems, made many orations upon different subjects, and procured an impression of the epistles of Gulius and Sanavius.

While he was thus employed, the professorHaving now more frequent opportunities of ships of history, eloquence, and the Greek landisplaying his learning, he arose, in a short time,guage, became vacant at Leyden, by the death of to a high reputation, of which the great number of his auditors was a sufficient proof, and which the proficiency of his pupils showed not to be accidental or undeserved.

In 1714 he formed a resolution of visiting Paris, not only for the sake of conferring in person,

Perizonius, which Burman's reputation incited the curators of the university to offer him upon very generous terms, and which, after some struggles with his fonduess for his native place, his friends, and his colleagues, he was prevailed on to accept, finding the solicitations from Ley

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