than on my admiration. Mr. De Croufaz, the adverfary of Bayle and Pope is not diflinguifhed by lively fancy or profound reflection; and even in his own country, at the end of a few years, his name and writings are almoft obliterated. But his philofophy had been formed in the fchool of Locke, his divinity in that of Limborch and LeClerc; in a long and laborious life, feveral generations of pupils were taught to think, and even to write; his leffons refcued the academy of Laufanne from Calviniftic prejudice; and he had the rare merit of diffufing a more liberal (pirit among the clergy and people of the Pays de Vaud. His fyftem of logic, which in the last editions has fwelled to fix tedious and prolix volumes, may be praised as a clear and methodical abridgement of the art of reafoning, from our fimple ideas to the most complex operations of the human understanding. This fyftem ftudied, and meditated, and abftracted, till I have obtained the free command of an univerfal inftrument, which I foon prefumed to exercife on my catholic opinions. Pavilliard was not unmindful that his first task, his most important duty, was to reclaim me from the errors of popery. The intermixture of fects has rendered the Swifs clergy acute and learned on the topics of controverfy; and I have fome of his letters in which he celebrates the dexterity of his attack, and my gradual conceffions, after a firm and wellmanaged defence. I was willing, and I am now willing, to allow him a handsome share of the honour of my converfion yet I muft obferve, that it was principally effected by my private reflections; and I fill I remember my folitary transport at the difcovery of a philofophical argument against the doctrine of tranfubftantiation; that the text of fcripture, which feems to inculcate the real prefence is attefted only by real prefence itfelf is difproved by a fingle fense our fight; while the three of our fenfes-the fight, the touch, and the tafte. The various articles of the Romish creed difap peared like a dream; and after a full conviction, on Chriftmas-day 1754, I received the facrament in the church of Laufanue. It was here that I fufpended my religious inquiries, acquiefcing with implicit belief in the tenets and myfte ries, which are adopted by the ge neral confent of catholics and pro testants. fanne, during the firft eighteen or Such, from my arrival at Lautwenty months (July 1753-March 1755), were my useful ftudies, the foundation of all my future improvements. But every man who rifes above the common level has from his teachers; the fecond, more received two educations; the first perfonal and important, from himfelf. He will not, like the fanatics of the laft age, define the moment of grace; but he cannot forget the æra of his life, in which his mind has expanded to its proper form and dimenfions. My worthy defty to difcern how far he could tutor had the good fenfe and mobe ufeful. As foon as he felt that I advanced beyond his fpeed and meature, he wifely left me to my genius; and the hours of letfon bour of the whole morning, and were foon loft in the voluntary lafometimes of the whole day. The defire of prolonging my time, gradually confirmed the falutary habit of of early rifing; to which I have always adhered, with fome regard to feafons and fituations; but it is happy for my eyes and my health, that my temperate ardour has never been feduced to treipals on the hours of the night. During the laft three years of my refidence at Laufanne, I may atlume the merit of ferious and folid application; but I am tempted to diftinguith the Jut eight months of the year 1755, as the period of the most extraordinary diligence and rapid progrefs. In my French and Latin tranilations I adopted an excellent method, which, from my own fuccefs, I would recommend to the imitation of students. I chofe fome claffic writer, fuch as Cicero and Vertot, and moft approved for purity and elegance of ftyle. I tranflated, for inftance, an epiftle of Cicero iuto French; and after throwing it afide, till the words and phrafes were obliterated from my memory, I re-tranflated my French into fuch Latin as I could find; and then compared each fentence of my imperfect verfion, with the cafe, the grace, the propriety of the Roman orator. A fimilar experiment was made on feveral pages of the Revolutions of Vertot; I turned them into Latin, returned them after a fufficient interval into my own French, and again ferutinized the refemblance and diffimiJitude of the copy and the original. By degrees I was lefs afhamed, by d-grees I was more fatisfied with myself; and I pericyered in the practice of thefe double tranflations, which filled feveral books, til I had acquired the knowledge of both idioms, and the command at leaft of a correct style. This pleful exercite of writing was ac companied and fucceeded by the more pleafing occupation of reading the beft authors. The perufal of the Roman claffics was at once my exercife and reward. Dr. Middieton's Hiftory, which I then appreciated above its true value, naturally directed me to the writings of Cicero. The moft perfect editions, that of Olivet, which may adorn the thelves of the rich, that of Ernefli, which thould lie on the table of the learned, were not in my power. For the familiar epifiles I ufed the text and English commentary of bifhop Rofs: but my general edition was that of Verbergius, publithed at Amfterdam in two large volumes in folio, with an indifferent choice of various notes. I read with application and pleasure, all the epifiles, all the orations, and the most important treatifes of thetorie and philofophy; and as I read, Iapplauded the obfervation of Quintillian, that every student may judge of his own proficiency, by the fatisfaction which he receives from the Roman orator. I tafied the beauties of language, I breathed the spirit of freedom, and I imbibed from his precepts and examples the public and private fenfe of a man. Cicero in Latin, and Xenophon in Greek, are indeed the two ancients whom I would firft propole to a liberal fcholar; not only for the merit of their style and fentiments, but for the admirable letions which may be applied almoit to every fituation of public and private life. Cicero's Epittles may in particular afford the models of every form of correfpondence, from the carelets effufions of tenderness and friendship, to the wellguarded declaration of difcreet and dignified refentment. After finith ing this great author, a library of eloquence and reafon, I formed a more extenfive plan of reviewing the Latin claffics, under the four divifions of, 1. hiftorians, 2. poets, 3. orators, and 4. philofophers, in a chronological feries, from the days of Plautus and Salluft, to the decline of the language and empire of Rome; and this plan, in the latt twenty-seven months of my refidence at Laufanne (January, 1756 -April, 1758), I nearly accomplithed. Nor was this review, however rapid, either hafty or fuperficial. I indulged myfelf in a fecond and even a third perufal of Terence, Virgil, Horace, Tacitus, &c. and ftudied to imbibe the sense and fpirit moft congenial to my own. I never fuffered a difficult or corrupt paffage to escape, till I had viewed it in every light of which it was fufceptible: though often difappointed, I always confulted the moft learned or ingenious commentators, Torrentius and Dacier on Horace, Catrou and Servius on Virgil, Lipfius on Tacitus, Mezeriac on Ovid, &c. and in the ardour of my enquiries, I embraced a large circle of hiftorical and critical erudition. My abftracts of each book were made in the French language: my obfervations often branched into particular effays; and I can ftill read, without contempt, a differtation of eight folio pages on eight lines (287-294) of the fourth Georgic of Virgil. Mr. Deyverdun, my friend, whofe name will be frequently repeated, had joined with equal zeal, though not with equal perfeverance, in the fame undertaking. To him every thought, every compofition, was inftantly communicated; with him I enjoyed the benefits of a free con verfation on the topics of our com mon ftudies. But it is fcarcely poffible for a mind endowed with any active curiofity to be long converfant with the Latin claffics, without afpiring to know the Greek originals, whom they celebrate as their mafters, and of whom they fo warmly recommend the ftudy and imitation: --Vos exemplaria Græca Nocturnâ verfate manu, verfate diurnå. It was now that I regretted the early years which had been wafted in fickness or idlene fs, or mere idle reading; that I condemned the perverfe method of our fchoolmafters, who, by firft teaching the mother language, might defcend with fo much eafe and perfpicuity to the origin and etymology of a derivative idiom. In the nineteenth year of my age I determined to fupply this defect; and the leffons of Pavilliard again contributed to fmooth the entrance of the way, the Greek alphabet, the grammar, and the pronunciation according to the French accent. At my earneft requeft we prefumed to open the Iliad; and I had the pleafure of, beholding, though darkly and through a glafs, the true image of Homer, whom I had long fince admired in an Englith drefs. After my tutor had left me to myself, I worked my way through about half the Iliad, and afterwards interpreted alone a large portion of Xenophon and Herodotus. But my ardour, deftitute of aid and emulation, was gradually cooled, and, from the barren tafk of fearching words in a lexicon, I withdrew to the free and familiar converfation of Virgil and Tacitus. Yet in my refidence at Laufanne I had laid a folid foundation, which enabled enabled me, in a more propitious feafon, to profecute the ftudy of Grecian literature. From a blind idea of the ufefalnefs of fuch abftract science, my father had been defirous, and even preffing, that I fhould devote fome time to the mathematics; nor could I refufe to comply with fo reafonable a wish. During two winters I attended the private lectures of monfieur de Tray torrens, who explained the elements of algebra and geometry, as far as the conic fections of the marquis de l'Hôpital, and appeared satisfied with my diligence and improvement. But as my childish propenfity for numbers and calculations was totally extinet, I was content to receive the paffive impretion of my profeffor's lectures, without any active exercife of my own powers. As foon as I understood the principles, I relinquished for ever the pursuit of the mathematics; nor can I lament that I defifted, before my mind was hardened by the habit of rigid de monftration, fo deftructive of the finer feelings of moral evidence, which muft, however, determine the actions and opinions of our lives. I liftened with more pleafure to the propofal of ftudying the law of nature and nations, which was taught in the academy of Laufanne by Mr. Vicat, a profeffor of fome learning and reputation. But, inftead of attending his public or private courfe, I preferred in my clofet the leffons of his matters, and my own reafon. Without being difgufted by Grotius or Puffendorf, i ftudied in their writings the duties of a man, the rights of a citizen, the theory of juflice (it is, alas! a theory), and the laws of peace or war, which have had fome VOL. XXXVIII. influence on the practice of modern Europe. My fatigues were alleviated by the good fenfe of their commentator Barbeyrac. Locke's Treatife of Government inftructed me in the knowledge of whig principles, which are rather founded in reafon than experience; but my delight was in the frequent perufal of Montefquieu, whofe energy of ftyle, and boldnefs of hypothefis, were powerful to awaken and ftimulate the genius of the age. The logic of de Croufaz had prepared me to engage with his mafter Locke, and his antagonist Bayle; of whom the former may be ufed as a bridle, and the latter applied as a spur, tơ the curiofity of a young philofopher. According to the nature of their refpective works, the fchools of argument and objection, I carefully went through the Effay on Human Underftanding, and occafionally confulted the most interefting articles of the Philofophic Dictionary. In the infancy of my reafon I turned over, as an idle amufement, the mott ferious andimportant treatife: in its maturity, the moft trifling performance could not exercife my tatte or judgment; and more than once I have been led by a novel into a deep and instructive train of thinking. But I cannot forbear to mention three particular books, fince they may have remotely contributed to form the hiftorian of the Roman empire. 1. From the Provincial Letters of Pafcal, which almost every year I have perufed with new pleafure, I learned to manage the weapon of grave and temperate irony, even on fubjects of ecclefiaftical folemnity. 2. 2. The Life of Julian, by the Abbe de la Bleterie, first introduced me to the man and the times; and I Z fhould fhould be glad to recover my firft effay on the truth of the miracle which ftopped the re-building of the Temple of Jerufalem. 3. In Giannone's Civil Hiftory of Naples, I obferved with a critical eye the progrefs and abuse of facerdo. tal power, and the revolutions of Italy in the darker ages. This va-. rious reading, which I now conducted with difcretion, was digefted, according to the precept and model of Mr. Locke, into a large common-place book; a practice, however, which I do not ftrenuoufly recommend. The action of the pen will doubtless imprint an idea on the mind as well as on the paper: but I much queftion whether the benefits of this laborious method are adequate to the wafte of time; and I must agree with Dr. Johnfon, (Idler, No. 74,) that what is twice read, is commonly better remembered, than what is transcribed." Account of Solomon Geffner, Author of the Death of Abel, &c. THIS very pleafing writer was born at Zurich, on the 1ft of April, 1730. In his youth, little expectations could be formed of him, as he then displayed none of the talents for which he was afterwards diftinguifhed. His parents faw nothing to afford them much hope, though Simlar, a man of fome learning, affured his father, that the boy had talents which, though now hid, would fooner or later fhew themfelves, and elevate him far above his fchool-fellows. As he had made to little progrefs at Zurich, he was fent to Berg, and put under the care of a clergyman, where retirement and the picturefque fcenery around him laid the founda. I tion for the change of his character. After a two year's refidence at Berg, he returned home to his father, who was a bookfeller at Zurich, and whofe fhop was reforted to by fuch men of genius as were then in that city; here his poetical talents in fome flight degree dif played themfelves, though not in fuch a manner as to prevent his father from fending him to Berlin, in the year 1749, to qualify him for his own bufinefs. Here he was employed in the bufiness of the fhop; but he foon became diffatisfied with his mode of life; he eloped from his mafter and hired a chamber for himself. To reduce him to order, his parents, according to the ufual mode in fuch cases, withheld every fupply of money. He refolved, however, to be inde pendent; hut himfelf up in his chamber; and, after fome weeks, went to his friend Hempel, a celebrated artist, whom he requested to return with him to his lodgings. There he fhewed his apartments covered with fresh landscapes, which our poet had painted with fweet oil, and by which he hoped to make his fortune: The fhrugging up of the shoulders of his friend concluded with an affurance, that though his works were not likely to be held in high eftimation in their prefent ftate, fome expecta tions might be raised from them, if he continued the fame applica tion for ten years. Luckily for our young artift his parents relented, and he was permitted to spend his time as he liked at Berlin. Here he formed acquaintance with artifts and men of letters; Kraufe, Hempel, Ramler, Sulzer, were his companions; Ramler was his friend, from the fineness |