and expeditious, and therefore pleasing. Heceived further proofs of his abilities at his own: learned them all in the same manner, and almost court. at the same time, by conversing in them indifferently with his father.

Mr. Barretier, being promoted to the cure of the church of Stetin, was obliged to travel with. The other languages, of which he was master, his son thither from Schwabach, through Leiphe learned by a method yet more uncommon. sic and Berlin, a journey very agreeable to his The only book which he made use of was the son, as it would furnish him with new opportuBible, which his father laid before him in the lan- nities of improving his knowledge, and extending guage that he then proposed to learn, accompanied his acquaintance among men of letters. For with a translation, being taught by degrees the this purpose they stayed some time at Leipsic, inflections of nouns and verbs. This method, and then travelled to Hall, where young Barretier says his father, made the Latin more familiar to so distinguished himself in his conversation with him in his fourth year than any other language. the professors of the university, that they offered When he was near the end of his sixth year, him his degree of doctor in philosophy, a dignity he entered upon the study of the Old Testament correspondent to that of master of arts among in its original language, beginning with the book us. Barretier drew up that night some positions of Genesis, to which his father confined him for in philosophy, and the mathematics, which he six months; after which he read cursorily over sent immediately to the press, and defended the the rest of the historical books, in which he found next day in a crowded auditory, with so much very little difficulty, and then applied himself to wit, spirit, presence of thought and strength of the study of the poetical writers, and the pro- reason, that the whole university was delighted phets, which he read over so often, with so close and amazed; he was then admitted to his degree, an attention and so happy a memory, that he and attended by the whole concourse to his could not only translate them without a moment's lodgings, with compliments and acclamations. hesitation into Latin or French, but turn with the His Thesis or philosophical positions, which he same facility the translations into the original lan-printed in compliance with the practice of that guage in his tenth year. university, ran through several editions in a few weeks, and no testimony of regard was wanting that could contribute to animate him in his progress.

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 particularly to the study of the fathers, and councils 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."

In the year 1735, he published Anti-Artemonius, sive Initium Evangelii S. Joannis, adversus Artemonium vindicatum, and attained such a degree of reputation, that not only the public, but princes, who are commonly the last by whom merit is distinguished, began to interest themselves in 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

When they arrived at Berlin, the king ordered him to be brought into his presence, and was so much pleased with his conversation, that he sent for him almost every day during his stay at Berlin; and diverted himself with engaging him in conversations upon a multitude of subjects, and in disputes with learned men; on all which occasions he acquitted himself so happily, that the king formed the highest ideas of his capacity, and future eminence. And thinking perhaps with reason, that active life was the noblest sphere of a great genius, he recommended to him the study of modern history, the customs of nations, and those parts of learning that are of use in public transactions and civil employments, declaring that such abilities properly cultivated might exalt him, in ten years, to be the greatest minister of state in Europe. Barretier, whether we attribute it to his moderation or inexperience, was not dazzled by the prospect of such high promotion, but answered, that he was too much pleased with science and quiet, to leave them for such mextricable studies, or such harassing fatigues. A resolution so unpleasing to the king, that his father attributes to it the delay of those favours which they had hopes of receiving, the king having, as he observed, determined to employ him in the ministry.

It is not impossible that paternal affection might suggest to Mr. Barretier some false conceptions of the king's design; for he infers from the introduction of his son to the young princes, and the caresses which he received from them, that the king intended him for their preceptor, a scheme, says he, which some other resolution happily destroyed.

Whatever was originally intended, and by whatever means these intentions were frustrated, Barretier, after having been treated with the highest regard by the whole royal family, was dismissed with a present of two hundred crowns; and his father instead of being fixed at Stetin, was made pastor of the French church at Hall;

a place more commodious for study, to which they retired; Barretier being first admitted into the Royal Society at Berlin, and recommended by the king to the university at Hall.

At Hall he continued his studies with his usual application and success, and, either by his own reflections or the persuasions of his father, was prevailed upon to give up his own inclinations to those of the king, and direct his inquiries to those subjects that had been recommended by him.

He continued to add new acquisitions to his learning, and to increase his reputation by new performances, till, in the beginning of his nineteenth year, his health began to decline, and his indisposition, which, being not alarming or violent, was perhaps not at first sufficiently regarded, increased by slow degrees for eighteen months, during which he spent days among his books, and neither neglected his studies, nor left his gayety, till his distemper, ten days before his death, deprived him of the use of his limbs: he then prepared himself for his end, without fear or emotion, and on the fifth of October, 1740, resigned his soul into the hands of his Saviour, with confidence and tranquillity.

In the Magazine for 1742, appeared the following
ADDITIONAL ACCOUNT of the LIFE OF JOHN
PHILIP BARRETIER.*

"As the nature of our Collections requires that our accounts of remarkable persons and transactions should be early, our readers must necessarily pardon us, if they are often not complete, and allow us to be sufficiently studious of their satisfaction, if we correct our errors, and supply our defects from subsequent intelligence, where the importance of the subject merits an extraordinary attention, or when we have any peculiar opportunities of procuring information. The particulars here inserted we thought proper to annex by way of note to the following passages, quoted from the Magazine for December 1740, and for February 1741."

P. 340. At the age of nine years he not only was master of five languages.

French, which was the native language of his mother, was that which he learned first, mixed by living in Germany, with some words of the language of the country. After some time his father took care to introduce in his conversation with him some words of Latin, in such a manner that he might discover the meaning of them by the connexion of the sentence, or the occasion on which they were used, without discovering that he had any intention of instructing him, or that any new attainment was proposed.

P. 340. He is no stranger to biblical criticism. 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, 1729, 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. P. 341. In his twelfth year he applied more particularly 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 recall him to the study of the Greek language, which he had of late neglected, but to which he returned with 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 much exalted, that he laid aside his Artemonius, 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 began 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 The passages referred to in the preceding pages are in three months after his first sight of a pair of printed in Italics

By this method of conversation, in which new words were every day introduced, his ear had been somewhat accustomed to the inflections and variations of the Latin tongue, he began to attempt to speak like his father, and was in a short time drawn on by imperceptible degrees to speak Latin, intermixed with other languages.

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.

globes, he formed schemes for finding the longi

tude, which he sent, in Jan. 1735, to the Royal | nours or preferments, too soon conferred, infatuSociety at London.

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 dignified with so illustrious a patronage. But it was soon found, that for want of books he had 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. 341. 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.

ate 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 employment he was soon made weary by the petulance of his auditors, the fatigue which it occasioned, and the interruption of his studies which it produced, and therefore, in a fortnight, he desisted wholly from his lectures, and never afterwards resumed them.

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.

The first year of his residence at Hall was spent upon natural philosophy and mathematics; 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.

He then returned to ecclesiastical history, and began to retouch his "Account of Heresies," 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.

He afterwards was wholly absorbed in application to polite literature, and read not only a 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 June 1731, he was initiated in the university of Altdorft, and at the end of the year 1732, the In 1737, he resumed his design of finding a cersynod of the reformed churches, held at Christian tain method of discovering the longitude, which Erlang, admitted him to be present at their con- he imagined himself to have attained by exact obsultations, and to preserve the memory of so ex-servations of the declination and inclination of the traordinary 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.

P. 341. He was too much pleased with science and quiet.

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 Astronomy was always Barretier's favourite Academy of Sciences, that his method was but study, and so much engrossed his thoughts, that very little different from one that had been prohe did not willingly converse on any other sub-posed by M. de la Croix, and which was ingeject; nor was he so well pleased with the civilities nious but ineffectual. 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. 342. At Hall he continued his studies. Mr. Barretier returned, on the 29th 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.

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 ho

Mr. Barretier, finding his invention already in the possession of two men eminent for mathemati cal 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 deciphering the hieroglyphics, and explaining their astronomy; but this design was interrupted by his death. P. 342. Confidence and tranquillity

Thus died Barretier, in the 20th year of his age, having given a proof how much may be performed in so short a time by indefatigable diligence. He was not only master of many languages, but skilled almost in every science, and capable of distinguishing himself in every profession 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.

the writing close, and the titles abridged. Ho 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 dancing, nor the sports of the field, nor relieved

walking and conversation. He eat little flesh, and lived almost wholly upon milk, tea, bread, fruits, and sweetmeats.

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 writers of all ages, he reasoned and determined for himself, having a mind at once comprehensive and delicate, active and attentive. He was able to reason with the metaphysicians on the most ab-his studies with any other diversion than that of struse questions, or to enliven the most unpleasing subjects by the gayety of his fancy. He wrote with great elegance and dignity of style, and had the peculiar felicity of readiness and facility in every thing that he undertook, being 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 forty-one pages in quarto,

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.

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 over

His parents omitted nothing in his education, which religion requires, and which their fortune could supply. Botany was the study that ap-whelmed with matter. peared 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.

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

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

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; having, 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.

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 momment 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 increasing, 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 30 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 tl.e 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.

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 The practice of Dr. Morin is forbidden, I believe, in being constant at the assemblies of the acade- by every writer that has left rules for the preservation of my, notwithstanding the distance of places, while health, and is directly opposite to that of Conaro, who by his regimen repaired a broken constitution, and pro he had strength enough to support the journey. tracted his life, without any painful infirmities, or any But his regimen was not equally effectual to pro- decay of his intellectual abilities, to more than a hundred duce vigour as to prevent distempers; and being years; it is generally agreed, that as men advance in 64 years old at his admission, he could not con-years, they ought to take lighter susten ince, and in lees tinue his assiduity more than a year after the death of Dodart, whom he succeeded in 1707.

quantities; and reason seems easily to discover that an the concoctive powers grow weaker, they ought to labour less.-Orig. Edit.