"aliquâ parte prodeffet." I could not yet find leifure or courage to renew the purfuit of the Greek language, excepting by reading the leffons of the Old and New Testament every Sunday, when I attended the family to church. The feries of my Latin authors was lefs ftrenuously completed; but the acquifition, by inheritance or purchase, of the best editions of Cicero, Quintilian, Livy, Tacitus, Ovid, &c. afforded a fair profpect, which I feldom neglected. I perfevered in the useful method of abstracts and obfervations; and a single example may fuffice, of a note which had almoft fwelled into a work. The folution of a paffage of Livy (xxxviii. 38 ) involved me in the dry and dark treatises of Greaves, Arbuthnot, Hooper, Bernard, Eifenfchmidt, Gronovius, La Barré, Freret, &c.; and in my French effay (chap. 20.) I ridiculously fend the reader to my own manufcript remarks on the weights, coins, and measures of the ancients, which were abruptly terminated by the militia drum.

As I am now entering on a more ample field of fociety and study, I can only hope to avoid a vain and prolix garrulity, by over-looking the vulgar crowd of my acquaintance, and confining myfelf to fuch intimate friends among books and men, as are best entitled to my notice by their own merit and reputation, or by the deep impreffion which they have left on my mind. Yet I will embrace this occafion of recommending to the young ftudent a practice, which about this time I myself adopted. After glancing my eye over the defign and order of a new book, I fufpended the perusal till I had finished the talk of felf-examination, till I had revolved, in a

folitary walk, all that I knew or believed, or had thought on the fubject of the whole work, or of fome particular chapter: I was then qualified to dif cern how much the author added to my original ftock; and I was fometimes fatisfied by the agree ment, I was sometimes armed by the oppofition, of our ideas. The favorite companions of my leifure were our English writers fince the Revolution: they breathe the spirit of reafon and liberty; and they most feasonably contributed to restore the purity of my own language, which had been corrupted by the long use of a foreign idiom. By the judicious advice of Mr. Mallet, I was directed to the writings of Swift and Addifon; wit and fimplicity are their common attributes: but the ftyle of Swift is fupported by manly original vigor; that of Addifon is adorned by the female graces of elegance and mildness. The old reproach, that no British altars had been raised to the muse of hiftory, was recently difproved by the first performances of Robertfon and Hume, the hiftories of Scotland and of the Stuarts. I will affume the prefumption of faying, that I was not unworthy to read them nor will I difguife my different feelings in the repeated perufals. The perfect compofition, the nervous language, the well-turned periods of Dr. Robertfon, inflamed me to the ambitious hope that I might one day tread in his footsteps: the calm philofophy, the careless inimitable beauties of his friend and rival, often forced me to close the volume with a mixed fenfation of delight and defpair.

The defign of my firft work, the Effay on the Study of Literature, was fuggefted by a refinement

of vanity, the defire of justifying and praising the object of a favorite purfuit. In France, to which my ideas were confined, the learning and language of Greece and Rome were neglected by a philofophic age. The guardian of thofe ftudies, the Academy of Infcriptions, was degraded to the lowest rank among the three royal focieties of Paris: the new appellation of Erudits was contemptuously applied to the fucceffors of Lipfius and Cafaubon; and I was provoked to hear (fee M. d'Alembert Discours préliminaire à l'Encyclopédie) that the exercife of the memory, their fole merit, had been fuperfeded by the nobler faculties of the imagination and the judgment. I was ambitious of proving by my own example, as well as by my precepts, that all the faculties of the mind may be exercifed and displayed by the ftudy of ancient literature: I began to felect and adorn the various proofs and illuftrations which had offered themselves in reading the claffics; and the first pages or chapters of my effay were compofed before my departure from Laufanne. The hurry of the journey, and of the first weeks of my English life, fufpended all thoughts of ferious application: but my object was ever before my eyes; and no more than ten days, from the first to the eleventh of July, were fuffered to elapfe after my fummer establishment at Beriton. My effay was finished in about fix weeks; and as foon as a fair copy had been tranfcribed by one of the French prifoners at Petersfield, I looked round for a critic and judge of my first performance. A writer can feldom be content with the doubtful recompence of folitary approbation; but a youth ignorant of the

world, and of himself, must defire to weigh his talents in fome fcales lefs partial than his own: my conduct was natural, my motive laudable, my choice of Dr. Maty judicious and fortunate. By defcent and education Dr. Maty, though born in Holland, might be confidered as a Frenchman; but he was fixed in London by the practice of phyfic, and an office in the British Museum. His reputation was juftly founded on the eighteen volumes of the Journal Britannique, which he had fupported, almost alone, with perfe verance and fuccefs. This humble though useful labor, which had once been dignified by the genius of Bayle and the learning of Le Clerc, was not dif. graced by the tafte, the knowledge, and the judgment of Maty: he exhibits a candid and pleasing view of the ftate of literature in England during a period of fix years (January 1750 December 1755); and, far different from his angry fon, he handles the rod of criticifm with the tenderness and reluctance of a parent. The author of the Journal Britannique fometimes afpires to the character of a poet and philofopher: his ftyle is pure and elegant; and in his virtues, or even in his defects, he may be ranked as one of the laft difciples of the fchool of Fontenelle. His answer to my first letter was prompt and polite: after a careful examination he returned my manufcript, with fome animadverfion and much applaufe; and when I vifited London in the enfuing winter, we difcuffed the defign and execution in feveral free and familiar converfations. In a fhort excurfion to Beriton I reviewed my effay, according to his friendly advice; and after fuppreffing a third, adding a third, and

altering a third, I confummated my firft labor by a fhort preface, which is dated February 3d, 1759. Yet I ftill fhrunk from the prefs with the terrors of virgin modefty: the manufcript was fafely depofited in my defk; and as my attention was engaged by new objects, the delay might have been prolonged till I had fulfilled the precept of Horace, "nonumque

prematur in annum." Father Sirmond, a learned jefuit, was ftill more rigid, fince he advised a young friend to expect the mature age of fifty, before he gave himself or his writings to the public (Olivet Hiftoire de l'Académie Françoife, tom. ii. p. 143.). The counfel was fingular; but it is ftill more fingular that it should have been approved by the example of the author. Sirmond was himself fifty-five years of age when he published (in 1614) his first work, an edition of Sidonius Apollinaris, with many valu able annotations: (fee his life, before the great edition of his works in five volumes folio, Paris, 1696, é Typographiâ Regiâ ).

Two years elapfed in filence: but in the spring of 1761 I yielded to the authority of a parent, and complied, like a pious fon, with the wifh of my own heart". My private refolves were influenced by the ftate of Europe. About this time the belligerent powers had made and accepted overtures of peace; our English plenipotentiaries were named to affift at the Congress of Augsburgh, which never met: I wifhed to attend them as a gentleman or a fecretary; and my father fondly believed that the proof of fome literary talents might introduce me to public notice, and fecond the recommendations of my friends. After