wo hours a day to that particular task. In another month, he
drew up the principal notes; and, in the third, wrote some
dissertations upon particular passages which seemed to require a
larger examination.

These notes contain so many curious remarks and inquiries, out of the
common road of learning, and afford so many instances of penetration,
judgment, and accuracy, that the reader finds, in every page, some
reason to persuade him that they cannot possibly be the work of a
child, but of a man long accustomed to these studies, enlightened by
reflection, and dextrous, by long practice, in the use of books. Yet,
that it is the performance of a boy thus young, is not only proved by
the testimony of his father, but by the concurrent evidence of Mr. le
Maitre, his associate in the church of Schwabach, who not only asserts
his claim to this work, but affirms, that he heard him, at six years
of age, explain the Hebrew text, as if it had been his native
language; so that the fact is not to be doubted without, a degree of
incredulity, which it will not be very easy to defend.

This copy was, however, far from being written with the neatness which
his father desired; nor did the booksellers, to whom it was offered,
make proposals very agreeable to the expectations of the young
translator; but, after having examined the performance in their
manner, and determined to print it upon conditions not very
advantageous, returned it to be transcribed, that the printers might
not be embarrassed with a copy so difficult to read.

Barretier was now advanced to the latter end of his twelfth year, and
had made great advances in his studies, notwithstanding an obstinate
tumour in his left hand, which gave him great pain, and obliged him to
a tedious and troublesome method of cure; and reading over his
performance, was so far from contenting himself with barely
transcribing it, that he altered the greatest part of the notes,
new-modelled the dissertations, and augmented the book to twice its
former bulk.

The few touches which his father bestowed upon the revisal of the
book, though they are minutely set down by him in the preface, are so
inconsiderable, that it is not necessary to mention them; and it may
be much more agreeable, as well as useful, to exhibit the short
account which he there gives of the method by which he enabled his son
to show, so early, how easy an attainment is the knowledge of the
languages, a knowledge which some men