confessed to have, at least, the merit of a great and noble design, and to have deserved gratitude and honour.  How much more then is due to Mr. Barretier, who has succeeded in what they have only attempted? for to prolong life, and improve it, are nearly the same.  If to have all that riches can purchase, is to be rich; if to do all that can be done in a long time, is to live long; he is equally a benefactor to mankind, who teaches them to protract the duration, or shorten the business of life.

That there are few things more worthy our curiosity than this method, by which the father assisted the genius of the son, every man will be convinced, that considers the early proficiency at which it enabled him to arrive; such a proficiency as no one has yet reached at the same age, and to which it is, therefore, probable, that every advantageous circumstance concurred.

At the age of nine years he not only was master of five languages, an attainment in itself almost incredible, but understood, says his father, the holy writers, better in their original tongues, than in his own.  If he means, by this assertion, that he knew the sense of many passages in the original, which were obscure in the translation, the account, however wonderful, may be admitted; but if he intends to tell his correspondent, that his son was better acquainted with the two languages of the Bible than with his own, he must be allowed to speak hyperbolically, or to admit, that his son had somewhat neglected the study of his native language; or we must own, that the fondness of a parent has transported him into some natural exaggerations.

Part of this letter I am tempted to suppress, being unwilling to demand the belief of others to that which appears incredible to myself; but as my incredulity may, perhaps, be the product rather of prejudice than reason, as envy may beget a disinclination to admit so immense a superiority, and as an account is not to be immediately censured as false, merely because it is wonderful, I shall proceed to give the rest of his father’s relation, from his letter of the 3rd of March, 1729-30.  He speaks, continues he, German, Latin, and French, equally well.  He can, by laying before him a translation, read any of the books of the Old or New Testament, in its original language, without hesitation or perplexity. He is no stranger to biblical criticism or philosophy, nor unacquainted with ancient and modern geography, and is qualified to support a conversation with learned men, who frequently visit and correspond with him.

In his eleventh year, he not only published a learned letter in Latin, but translated the travels of rabbi Benjamin from the Hebrew into French, which he illustrated with notes, and accompanied with dissertations; a work in which his father, as he himself declares, could give him little assistance, as he did not understand the rabbinical dialect.

The reason for which his father engaged him in this work, was only to prevail upon him to write a fairer hand than he had hitherto accustomed himself to do, by giving him hopes, that, if he should translate some little author, and offer a fair copy of his version to some bookseller, he might, in return for it, have other books which he wanted and could not afford to purchase.