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tions to the top of his class. In his twelfth year, he reached the upper school, and here first his extraordinary memory began to display itself. At the same time, he translated certain portions of Ovid and Virgil into English verse, and he composed a dramatic piece on the story of Meleager. He was particularly celebrated, it may be added, for his knowledge of Latin prosody.

When he had reached the age of fifteen, his old master was succeeded by Dr. Sumner, who immediately took him under his patronage. From this time his habits and acquirements are characterised as follows, by the pen of his schoolfellow Sir John Parnell.

The boyish period of life is not, usually, marked by extraordinary anecdote: but small circumstances become interesting, when we can trace in them the rudiments of talents and virtues subsequently renounced. He gave early proofs of his possessing very eminent abilities. His industry was singular, and his love of literature was the result of disposition, not of submission to control. He excelled, principally, in his knowledge of the Greek language. His compositions were distinguished by his precise application of every word agreeably to the most strict classical authority. The choruses of Sophocles he imitated so successfully, that his writings seemed to be original Greek compositions; and he wrote even the characters of that language with great correctness.* His passion for study prevented his joining in those amusements, which occupied the time of his school

*This regard for calligraphy, extended however to every language within the wide range of his comprehension, characterised the late Professor Porson, whom it is better to pass over in silence, than to commend briefly.

fellows, but it induced no other singularity in his manners: they were mild, conciliating, and cheerful. When I first knew him (adds his friend) about the year 1761, he amused himself with the study of botany, and in collecting fossils. In general, the same pursuits, which gave employment to his mature understanding, were the first objects of his early attention and in like manner the inflexible decision of mind, the enthusiastic love of liberty, and the uniform spirit of benevolence which characterised his youth, were the guiding principle of his more advanced life.

It may not be without it's advantage to younger readers to be informed, how this illustrious boy, destined to be a still more illustrious man, employed his leisure-hours. In his first Harrow vacations, he acquired from his mother the rudiments of drawing. In his twelfth year, he gave a remarkable instance of the powers of his memory, by writing down the whole of Shakspeare's 'Tempest' from his own recollection. Beside his voluntary translations from Ovid and Virgil, and his 'Meleager,' he learned French and arithmetic, and studied Italian during his holidays. When in the upper school, he made himself acquainted with the Arabic characters, and attained so much of the Hebrew, as enabled him to read some of the Psalms. His sight being affected by his great application, during the last months of his stay at Harrow, he employed the intervals in the study of chess, by practising the games of Philidor!

The time now approached, when he was to leave school; and his destination in life became a subject of solicitude with his mother. Some of her friends recommended the profession of the law, and advised

his being initiated into it in a special pleader's office: but the expense deterred the parent; and the barbarous language, in which the science was clothed, prejudiced the son. These reasons, strengthened by the wishes of Dr. Sumner, prevailed in favour of the University; and upon Oxford, with some hesitation, the choice was at last fixed. In 1764, therefore, he was removed to University College..

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At Oxford, he experienced in the outset that disappointment, which all boys elevated by the fame of a great school, and sanguinely anticipating it's extension, are usually doomed to encounter. After a residence of a few months, he was elected one of the four scholars on the foundation of Sir Simon Bennet. now began to indulge that passion for Oriental literature, which he subsequently carried to so high a degree; and, by the help of a native of Aleppo,* he acquired the pronunciation of Arabic. These occupations, with his Greek studies, quickly reconciled him to his new situation; and he received that countenance from his tutors, which facilitated the advantageous employment of his time. To the study of the Arabic he, next, added that of the Persic; and his progress in languages was already astonishing.

After a year, fearful of encroaching too far on the slender income of his mother, he accepted the situa

* This man, Mirza by name (who, though no scholar, could speak and write the vulgar Arabic with fluency) he had discovered in London, and maintained in Oxford at an expense which his income could but ill afford. In severe application, and nights devoted to study, he perhaps was not altogether unequalled: but in this instance, by the enthusiasm with which he prosecuted his passion for knowledge, he surely surpassed every rival.

tion of tutor to Viscount Althorpe.* In this capacity he spent part of the year at Wimbledon Park, and part in London, and was in both places introduced to the society and the admiration of the great. Here, too, he first formed an acquaintance with Miss Shipley, subsequently Lady Jones: and here, not unambitious of fashionable accomplishments, he took the opportu nity of acquiring the arts of dancing and fencing. Lord Spencer's library, likewise, afforded him inexhaustible entertainment and instruction; and in it, in his twenty first year, he began his Commentaries on Asiatic Poetry. He was elected Fellow of his college, August 7, 1766.

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In 1767, he attended the Spencer family on a journey to Spa: and at the close of the same year conceived the resolution, which subsequently fixed him to the profession of the bar, from reading Fortescue's Treatise De Laudibus Legum Angliæ.

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In 1768, Mr. Sutton, Under Secretary of State, at

* Now Earl Spencer-a pupil in political, literary, and moral respects worthy of his teacher. Can a higher panegyric be pronounced? To this station he was recommended by that ele gant scholar and correct judge of men and of books, Dr. Shipley, subsequently Bishop of St. Asaph, who knew him only by his school-compositions, particularly a Greek oration. He had himself, it is said, first attracted the notice of Stephen Poyntz, Esq., governor to William Duke of Cumberland and father of the Dowager Lady Spencer, in a similar manner, by his Luctus' on the death of Queen Caroline, in the Oxford collection. At his house he first saw Miss Mordaunt (afterward Mrs. Shipley) cousin of Mrs. Poyntz, and a descendent of an Earl of Peterborough.

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The literary glory of England. With it's more ancient portion the world have recently been made acquainted by the accurate bibliographer, Mr. Dibdin, in his Bibliotheca Spenceriana.'

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the desire of the King of Denmark, induced him to undertake the Life of Nadir Shah from an Eastern MS. into French. It was only by much importunity however, and particularly by suggesting that his Danish Majesty might be obliged, to the disgrace of this country, to carry his manuscript into France, that the negotiator* gained his point. Unwilling to be thought churlish and morose (says his noble biogra pher) and eager for reputation, he undertook the work. The task would have been far easier to him, if he had been directed to finish it in Latin; for the acquisition of a French stile was infinitely more tedious, and it was necessary to have every chapter corrected by a native of France, before it could be offered to the discerning eye of the public; since in every language there are certain peculiarities of idiom, and nice shades of meaning, which a foreigner can never attain to perfection.

This most disagreeable task' (as he himself pro-. nounces it) he achieved within a twelvemonth, though it was not published till 1770. He added to it a Treatise on Oriental Poetry, composed in French, a work which no other person in England could then have produced.

As his royal employer had particularly desired that the whole translation might be perfectly lite ral, and the Oriental images accurately preserved," he had been laid under such severe restraint in his version, that he subjoined the Treatise to prove what

Mr. Jones advised the offering of it to Major Dow, who had already distinguished himself by his translation of a Persian history; but that gentleman excused himself, on account of his numerous engagements.

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