But this, as well as a man's subsisting upon vegetables not prepared by fire, must appear incredible to those whose notions of the human species are so confined, as to believe that man was always in the state we now see him in at present in Europe.

I am sorry that you can hear no more of the gentleman from Africa, who knew something of the orang-outang. He resembles very much what Peter was; only he is in a stage of human nature a little farther advanced, for he walks upright, uses a stick for a weapon, builds huts, and lives in some kind of society; and, being born of parents that have been wild since the beginning of the world, he is very much stronger and bigger than Peter ever was, who certainly is come of parents such as we are, but being exposed very early, and leading a savage life till he was.fifteen, I do not wonder at what you tell me of his being so much stronger and nimbler than the men of this country.

I am glad to hear that Peter has not employed your thoughts so much, but that both your metaphysics and philology go on. Your Chrestomathia Philosophica will be of admirable use to those who desire to study the ancient philosophy in good earnest. The Isagoge of Porphyry was intended, as the title denotes, for an introduction to philosophy; but you should publish along with it Ammonius Hermeias's Commentary upon it. These two, diligently studied, will be sufficient to give a lad some general idea of logic, which is the found

ation of all philosophy; for without logic there is no philosophy.

You have my leave to send to Mr. Gebelen what I have written upon the Pyramids of Egypt; though I doubt he is not so much a Greek scholar as to profit by it. I have dipped but little into his book; but, from what I have seen of it, I would not advise you to bestow much time upon it; for it appears to me to be a perfect dream, and, I think, the dream of a sick man. You will be much better employed in speculating upon the origin and formation of the Greek language; but I would have you keep to the language, and its grammatical structure, and not seek in it what you certainly will not find, I mean philosophy. I have not got from Mr. Caddel the packet you mention; but, as he is careful, I suppose it will come.

I shall be glad to hear from you as often as is convenient; in the mean time I am, with great regard and esteem,

Your obliged and faithful humble servant,
JAMES BURNett.

THE SAME TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR,

I HAD the favour of your letter, and your packet by Mr. Horner, whom I have not seen, but have desired to inquire after him. I am glad to hear that you have been so busy, though unsuccessfully,

in the matter of the Poetical Professorship, in which I learn, with pleasure, that Dr. Jackson stood by you. I beg you would offer my best compliments to him. You need not, I think, doubt of academical preferment, if you continue as zealous as you seem to be in promoting Greek learning and Greek philosophy. I approve much of your Chrestomathia, which you have begun, very properly, with Porphyry's Introduction; — an Introduction, as I think, not only to Aristotle's Categories, but to all philosophy. What you have sent me of it is, I think, very well and very accurately printed. He is an author whom it is a pleasure to read for the style, which is both elegant and accurately philosophical; and it will instruct the young student, more than any thing I know, in the language of ancient philosophy, which a man may be a very good Greek scholar, and yet not understand; though I think he will be the better Greek scholar for understanding it, as I have shown in some of my notes, particularly in one of them, where I have corrected a very improper translation in a very important passage in the beginning of St. John's Gospel, where the doctrine of the Trinity is laid down, which, by the leave or without the leave of Dr. Priestley, I think a fundamental doctrine of Christianity. In this work of I think you yours, should collect all the Locrian Remnants, as Milton calls them; not only those that are to be collected from Simplicius, and other commentators upon

Aristotle, and which have never been published by themselves, but also those which have been already published by Gale in his Opuscula Mythologica,

a book that is become rare, and, I believe, almost out of print; for be assured you have, in those fragments, the substance of all the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, which certainly came from the Pythagorean school, as certainly as that school came from Egypt, not from Tartary or Siberia, as a late French dreamer, whose book I have seen, would persuade us. You take the true way to restore the ancient philosophy, by publishing such valuable remains of it; for the greatest merit both of Mr. Harris's work and mine, is introducing the young student of philosophy to an acquaintance with such authors. In the publication of them you will find abundance of work for your acumen criticum, as I have shown in some of my notes.

I shall print, with your permission, the account you sent me of the wild boy, by way of Appendix to the volume which I have now in hand; and I shall add something further, in the same Appendix, about the orang-outang, whom I consider as a man of the same kind with Peter, but something more advanced in the arts of civility, therefore more

docile, and more intelligent.

I am ever, with great regard and esteem,

Your most faithful and

obedient humble servant,

Edinburgh, Nov. 2. 1783.

JAMES BURNett.

CHAP. VIII.

TAKES Orders.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. WIND

HAM.-MR. ROBERTS'S DESCRIPTION OF HIS PURSUITS,

ETC. AT OXFORD.

1784.

THE preceding pages have placed Mr. Burgess before my readers as an eminent scholar, and as standing deservedly high in the esteem and affection of his contemporaries. They are henceforth to view him as discharging the sacred functions of the clerical office. He was ordained both to deacon's and to priest's orders in the year 1784, by Dr. Cornwall, Bishop of Winchester.

When he was in his seventy-ninth year, circumstances led the author, in the course of an interesting conversation he had with the Bishop on the subject of his ordination, to inquire how far his actuating motives on that occasion corresponded with the high and holy tenor of his ordination vows. This question came home to the feelings of one whose views of the object and end of the Christian ministry were truly elevated; and who, in examining candidates for orders, was in the habit of probing not only their proficiency in learning, but their inspiring motives, and the depth and sincerity of their