tury. The cheap acquifition of fo much knowledge confirmed my diflike to the study of languages; and I argued with Mrs. Porten, that, were I master of Greek and Latin, I must interpret to myself in English the thoughts of the original, and that fuch extemporary verfions must be inferior to the elaborate tranflations of profeffed fcholars; a filly fophifm, which could not easily be confuted by a perfon ignorant of any other language than her own. From the ancient I leaped to the modern world: many crude lumps of Speed, Rapin, Mezeray, Davila, Machiavel, Father Paul, Bower, &c. I devoured like fo many novels; and I swallowed with the fame voracious appetite the descriptions of India and China, of Mexico and Peru.

"My first introduction to the hiftoric fcenes, which have fince engaged fo many years of my life, must be afcribed to an accident. In the fummer of 1751, I accompanied my father, ou a vifit to Mr. Hoare's, in Wiltshire; but I was lefs delighted with the beauties of Stourhead, than with difcovering in the library a common book, the Continuation of Echard's Roman Hiftory, which is indeed executed with more skill and taste than the previous work. To me the reigns of the fucceffors of Conftantine were abfolutely new; and I was immerfed in the paffage of the Goths over the Danube, when the fummons of the dinner-bell reluctantly dragged me from my intellectual feaft. This tranfient glance ferved rather to irritate than to appeafe my curiofity; and as foon as I returned to Bath I procured the fecond and third volumes of Howel's Hiftory of the World, which exhibit the Byzantine period on a larger fcale. Mahomet and his Sa

racens foon fixed my attention ; and fome instinct of criticifm directed me to the genuine fources. Simon Ockley, an original in every fenfe, first opened my eyes; and I was led from one book to another, till I had ranged round the circle of oriental history. Before I was fixteen, I had exhausted all that could be learned in English of the Arabs and Perfians, the Tartars and Turks; and the fame ardour urged me to guess at the French of D'Herbelot, and to conftrue the barbarous Latin of Pocock's Abulfaragius. Such vague and multifarious reading could not teach me to think, to write, or to act; and the only principle, that darted a ray of light into the indigefted chaos, was an early and rational application to the order of time and place. The maps of Cellarius and Wells imprinted in my mind the picture of ancient geography: from Stranchius I imbibed the elements of chronology: the Tables of Helvicus and Anderfon, the Annals of Ufher and Pri deaux, diftinguished the connection of events, and engraved the multitude of names and dates in a clear and indelible feries. But in the difcuffion of the first ages I overleaped the bounds of modefty and use. In my childish balance I prefumed to weigh the fyftems of Scaliger and Petavius, of Martham and Newton, which I could feldom ftudy in the originals; and my sleep has been disturbed by the difficulty of reconciling the Septuagint with the Hebrew computation. I ar rived at Oxford with a stock of erudition, that might have puzzled a doctor, and a degree of ignorance, of which a school-boy would have been ashamed.”

"To the university of Oxford I acknowlege no obligation; and the will as cheerfully renounce me for

a fon,

a fon, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College; they proved the fourteen months the moft idle and unprofitable of my whole life the reader will pronounce between the school and the fcholar; but I cannot affect to believe that Nature had difqualified me for all literary purfuits. The fpecious and ready excufe of my tender age, imperfect preparation, and hafty departure, may doubtless be alleged; nor do I wish to defraud fuch excufes of their proper weight. Yet in my fixteenth year I was not devoid of capacity or application; even my childish reading had difplayed an early though blind propenfity for books; and the fhallow flood might have been taught to flow in a deep channel and a clear ftream. In the difcipline of a wellconftituted academy, under the guidance of fkilful and vigilant profeffors, I fhould gradually have rifen from tranflations to originals, from the Latin to the Greek claffics, from dead languages to living fcience; my hours would have been occupied by ufeful and agreeable ftudies, the wanderings of fancy would have been restrained, and I fhould have efcaped the temptations of idlenefs, which finally precipitated my departure from Oxford."

which were not of the first rate, had been relaxed by the climate, and he was fatisfied, like his fellows, with the flight and fuperficial difcharge of an important truft. As foon as my tutor had founded the infufficiency of his difciple in fchool-learning, he propofed that we fhould read every morning from ten to eleven the comedies of Terence. The fum of my improvement in the univerfity of Oxford is confined to three or four Latin plays; and even the ftudy of an elegant claffic, which might have been illuftrated by a comparifon of ancient and modern theatres, was reduced to a dry and literal interpretation of the author's text. During the first weeks I conftantly attended these leffons in my tutor's room; but as they appeared equally devoid of profit and pleafure, I was once tempted to try the experiment of a formal apo. logy. The apology was accepted with a fmile. I repeated the offence with lefs ceremony; the excufe was admitted with the fame indulgence: the flightest motive of laziness or indifpofition, the most trifling avocation at home or abroad, was allowed as a worthy impediment; nor did my tutor appear confcious of my abfence or neglect. Had the hour of lecture been conftantly filled, a fingle hour was a fmall portion of my academic leifure. No plan of ftudy was recommended for my ufe; no exercises were prefcribed for his infpection; and, at the moft precious feafon of youth, whole days and weeks were suffered to elapfe without labour or amufement, without advice or account. I should have liftened to the voice of reafon and of my tutor; his mild behaviour had gained my confidence. I preferred his fociety

The first tutor into whofe hands I was refigned appears to have been one of the best of the tribe: Dr. Waldegrave was a learned and and pious man, of a mild difpofition, ftrict morals, and abste. mious life, who feldom mingled in the politics or the jollity of the college. But his knowledge of the world was confined to the univerfity; his learning was of the lat, rather than of the prefent age; his temper was indolent; his faculties,

to

to that of the younger ftudents; and in our evening walks to the top of Heddington-hill, we freely con verfed on a variety of fubjects. Since the days of Pocock and Hyde, oriental learning has always been the pride of Oxford, and I once expreffed an inclination to study Arabic. His prudence difcouraged this childifh fancy; but he neglected the fair occafion of directing the ardour of a curious mind. During my abfence in the fummer vacation, Dr. Waldegrave accepted a college living at Washington in Suffex, and on my return I no longer found him at Oxford. From that time I have loft fight of my first tutor; but at the end of thirty years (1781) he was still alive; and the practice of exercise and temperance had entitled him to a healthy old age.

"The long recefs between the Trinity and Michaelmas terms empties the colleges of Oxford, as well as the courts of Weftminster. I spent, at my father's houfe at Buriton in Hampshire, the two months f Auguft and September. It is whimfical enough, that as foon as I left Magdalen College, my tafte for books began to revive; but it was the fame blind and boyish tafte for the purfuit of exotic hiftory, Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unfkilled in the arts of compofition, I refolved-to write a book. The title of this first effay, The Age of Sefoftris, was perhaps fuggefted by Voltaire's Age of Lewis XIV. which was new and popular; but my fole object was to investigate the probable date of the life and reign of the conqueror of Afia.,I was then enamoured of fir John Martham's Canon Chronicus; an elaborate work, of whofe merits and defects I was not yet qualified to judge. According to his fpe

cious, though narrow plan, I fettled my hero about the time of Solomon, in the tenth century before the Chriftian æra. It was therefore incumbent on me, unless i would adopt Sir Ifaac Newton's horter chronology, to remove a formidable objection; and my folution, for a youth of fifteen, is not devoid of ingenuity. In his ver. fion of the facred books, Manetho the high priest has identified Se thofis, or Sefoftris, with the elder brother of Danaus, who landed in Greece, according to the Parian Marble, fifteen hundred and ten years before Chrift. But in my fuppofition the high priest is guilty of a voluntary error; flattery is the prolific parent of falfehood. Manecho's Hiftory of Egypt is dedicated to Ptolemy Philadelphus, who derived a fabulous or illegitimate pe digree from the Macedonian kings of the race of Hercules. Danaus is the ancestor of Hercules; and after the failure of the elder branch, his defcendants, the Ptolemies, are the fole reprefentatives of the royal family, and may clain by inheritance the kingdom which they hold by conqueft. Such were my juves nile difcoveries; at a riper age, I no longer prefume to connect the Greek, the Jewish, and the Egyptian antiquities, which are loft in a diftant cloud. Nor is this the only inftahce, in which the belief and knowledge of the child are fuperfeded by the more rational ignorance of the man. During my ftay at Buriton, my infant-labour was diligently profecuted, without much interruption from company or coun try diverfions; and I already heard the mufic of public applaufe. The difcovery of my own weakness was the firft fymptom of taste. On my return to Oxford, the Age of Sefoftris was wifely relinquished; but

the

the imperfect sheets remained twenty years at the bottom of a drawer, till, in a general clearance of papers, (November 1772), they were committed to the flames.

"After the departure of Dr. Waldegrave, I was transferred, with his other pupils, to his academical heir, whofe literary cha racter did not command the refpect of the college. Dr. **** well remembered that he had a falary to receive, and only forgot that he had a duty to perform. Inftead of guiding the ftudies, and watching over the behaviour of his difciple, I was never fummoned to attend even the ceremony of a lecture; and, excepting one voluntary vifit to his rooms, during the eight months of his titular office, the tutor and pupil lived in the fame college as ftrangers to each other. The want of experience, of advice, and of occupation, foon betrayed me into fome improprieties of conduct, ill-chofen company, late hours, and inconfiderate expence. My growing debts might be fecret; but

my frequent abfence was vifible and fcandalous and a tour to Bath, a vifit into Buckinghamshire, and four excurfions to London in the fame winter, were coftly and dangerous frolics. They were, indeed, without a meaning, as without an excufe. The irkfomeness of a cloistered life repeatedly tempted me to wander; but my chief pleafure was that of travelling; and I was too young and bafhful to enjoy, like a manly Oxonian in town, the pleasures of London. In all thefe excurfions I eloped from Oxford; I returned to college; in a few days I eloped again, as if I had been an independent stranger in a hired lodging, without once hear ing the voice of admonition, without once feeling the hand of con1796.

trol. Yet my time was loft, my expences were multiplied, my behaviour abroad was unknown; folly as well as vice fhould have awakened the attention of my fuperiors, and my tender years would have juftified a more than ordinary degree of restraint and difcipline.

"It might at least be expected, that an ecclefiaftical fchool fhould inculcate the orthodox principles of religion. But our venerable mother had contrived to unite the oppofite extremes of bigotry and indifference: an heretic, or unbeliever, was a monster in her eyes; but the was always, or often, or fometimes, remifs in the fpiritual education of her own children. According to the ftatutes of the univerfity, every ftudent, before he is matriculated, muft fubfcribe his affent to the thirty-nine articles of the church of England, which are figned by more than read, and read by more than believe them. My infufficient age excufed me, however, from the immediate performance of this legal ceremony; and the vice-chancellor directed me to return, as foon as I fhould have accomplished my fifteenth year; recommending me, in the mean while, to the inftruction of my college. My college forgot to inftruct: I forgot to return, and was myfelf forgotten by the first magiftrate of the univerfity. Without a fingle lecture, either public or private, either chriftian or proteftant, without any academical fubfcription, without any epifcopal confirmation, I was left by the dim light of my catechifm to grope my way to the chapel and communion-table, where I was admitted, without a queftion, how far, or by what means, I might be qualified to receive the facrament. Such almoft incredible neglect was productive of the worit mifchiefs. From

D

my

my childhood I had been fond of religious difputation: my poor aunt has been often puzzled by the myfteries which the ftrove to believe; nor had the elaftic fpring been totally broken by the weight of the atmosphere of Oxford. The blind activity of idleness urged me to advance without armour into the dangerous mazes of controverfy; and at the age of fixteen, I bewildered myfelf in the errors of the church of Rome.

"The progrefs of my converfion may tend to illuftrate, at least, the hiftory of my own mind. It was not long fince Dr. Middleton's free inquiry had founded an alarm in the theological world: much ink and much gall had been fpilt in the defence of the primitive miracles; and the two dulleft of their champions were crowned with academic honours by the univerfity of Oxford. The name of Middleton was unpopular; and his profcription very naturally led me to perufe his writings, and thofe of his antagonifts. His bold criticism, which approaches the precipice of infidelity, produced on my mind a fingu lar effect; and had I perfevered in the communion of Rome, I fhould now apply to my own fortune the prediction of the Sybil,

Via prima falutis, Quod minimè reris, Graid pandetur ab urbe.

The elegance of ftyle and freedom of argument were repelled by a fhield of prejudice. Iftill revered the character, or rather the names, of the faints and fathers whom Dr. Middleton expofes; nor could he deftroy my implicit belief, that the gift of miraculous powers was continued in the church, during the first four or five centuries of chrifti anity. But I was unable to resist the weight of hiftorical evidence,

that within the fame period most of the leading doctrines of popery were already introduced in theory and practice: nor was my conclu fion abfurd, that miracles are the teft of truth, and that the church must be orthodox and pure, which was fo often approved by the vifible interpofition of the Deity. The marvellous tales which are fo boldly attefted by the Bafils and Chryfoftoms, the Auftins and Jeroms, compelled me to embrace the fupe. rior merits of celibacy, the inftitution of the monaftic life, the ufe of the fign of the crofs, of holy oil, and even of images, the invocation of faints, the worfhip of relics, the rudiments of purgatory in prayers for the dead, and the tremendous mystery of the facrifice of the body and blood of Chrift, which infenfibly fwelled into the prodigy of tranfubftantiation. In thefe difpofi. tions, and already more than half a convert, I formed an unlucky intimacy with a young gentleman of our college, whofe name I fhall spare. With a character less refolute, Mr. **** had imbibed the fame religious opinions; and fome Popifh books, I know not through what channel, were conveyed into his poffeffion. I read, I applauded, I believed: the English tranflations of two famous works of Boffuet bishop of Meaux, the Expofition of the Catholic Doctrine, and the Hiftory of the Proteftant Variations, atchieved my converfion, and I furely fell by a noble hand."

"No fooner had I fettled my new religion than I refolved to profefs myfelf a catholic. Youth is fincere and impetuous; and a momentary glow of enthusiasm had raised me above all temporal confiderations."

"In my laft excurfion to London, I addreifed myfelf to Mr. Lewis,