Complete Works of Samuel Johnson, page 526
He then returned to ecclesiastical history, and began to retouch his Account of Heresies, which he had begun at Schwabach: on this occasion he read the primitive writers with great accuracy, and formed a project of regulating the chronology of those ages; which produced a Chrono-logical Dissertation on the succession of the Bishops of Rome, from St. Peter to Victor, printed in Latin at Utrecht, 1740.
He afterwards was wholly absorbed in application to polite literature, and read not only a multitude of writers in the Greek and Latin, but in the German, Dutch, French, Italian, English, and Arabick languages, and, in the last year of his life, he was engrossed by the study of inscriptions, medals, and antiquities of all nations.
In 1737 he resumed his design of finding a certain method of discovering the longitude, which he imagined himself to have attained by exact observations of the declination and inclination of the needle, and sent to the academy of sciences, and to the Royal society of London, at the same time, an account of his schemes; to which it was first answered by the Royal society, that it appeared the same with one which Mr. Whiston had laid before them; and afterwards by the academy of sciences, that his method was but very little different from one that had been proposed by M. de la Croix, and which was ingenious, but ineffectual.
Mr. Barretier, finding his invention already in the possession of two men eminent for mathematical knowledge, desisted from all inquiries after the longitude, and engaged in an examination of the Egyptian antiquities, which he proposed to free from their present obscurity, by deciphering the hieroglyphicks, and explaining their astronomy; but this design was interrupted by his death.
P. 384. Confidence and tranquillity.
Thus died Barretier, in the 20th year of his age, having given a proof how much may be performed in so short a time by indefatigable diligence. He was not only master of many languages, but skilled almost in every science, and capable of distinguishing himself in every profession, except that of physick, from which he had been discouraged by remarking the diversity of opinions among those who had been consulted concerning his own disorders.
His learning, however vast, had not depressed or overburdened his natural faculties, for his genius always appeared predominant; and when he inquired into the various opinions of the writers of all ages, he reasoned and determined for himself, having a mind at once comprehensive and delicate, active and attentive. He was able to reason with the metaphysicians on the most abstruse questions, or to enliven the most unpleasing subjects by the gaiety of his fancy. He wrote with great elegance and dignity of style, and had the peculiar felicity of readiness and facility in every thing that he undertook, being able, without premeditation, to translate one language into another. He was no imitator, but struck out new tracks, and formed original systems. He had a quickness of apprehension, and firmness of memory, which enabled him to read with incredible rapidity, and, at the same time, to retain what he read, so as to be able to recollect and apply it. He turned over volumes in an instant, and selected what was useful for his purpose. He seldom made extracts, except of books which he could not procure when he might want them a second time, being always able to find in any author, with great expedition, what he had once read. He read over, in one winter, twenty vast folios; and the catalogue of books which he had borrowed, comprised forty-one pages in quarto, the writing close, and the titles abridged. He was a constant reader of literary journals.
With regard to common life he had some peculiarities. He could not bear musick, and if he was ever engaged at play could not attend to it. He neither loved wine nor entertainments, nor dancing, nor the sports of the field, nor relieved his studies with any other diversion than that of walking and conversation. He eat little flesh, and lived almost wholly upon milk, tea, bread, fruits, and sweetmeats.
He had great vivacity in his imagination, and ardour in his desires, which the easy method of his education had never repressed; he, therefore, conversed among those who had gained his confidence with great freedom, but his favourites were not numerous, and to others he was always reserved and silent, without the least inclination to discover his sentiments, or display his learning. He never fixed his choice upon any employment, nor confined his views to any profession, being desirous of nothing but knowledge, and entirely untainted with avarice or ambition. He preserved himself always independent, and was never known to be guilty of a lie. His constant application to learning suppressed those passions which betray others of his age to irregularities, and excluded all those temptations to which men are exposed by idleness or common amusements.
MORIN .
Lewis Morin was born at Mans, on the 11th of July, 1635, of parents eminent for their piety. He was the eldest of sixteen children; a family to which their estate bore no proportion, and which, in persons less resigned to providence, would have caused great uneasiness and anxiety.
His parents omitted nothing in his education, which religion requires, and which their fortune could supply. Botany was the study that appeared to have taken possession of his inclination, as soon as the bent of his genius could be discovered. A countryman, who supplied the apothecaries of the place, was his first master, and was paid by him for his instructions with the little money that he could procure, or that which was given him to buy something to eat after dinner. Thus abstinence and generosity discovered themselves with his passion for botany, and the gratification of a desire indifferent in itself, was procured by the exercise of two virtues.
He was soon master of all his instructer’s knowledge, and was obliged to enlarge his acquaintance with plants, by observing them himself in the neighbourhood of Mans. Having finished his grammatical studies, he was sent to learn philosophy at Paris, whither he travelled on foot like a student in botany, and was careful not to lose such an opportunity of improvement.
When his course of philosophy was completed, he was determined, by his love of botany, to the profession of physick, and, from that time, engaged in a course of life, which was never exceeded, either by the ostentation of a philosopher, or the severity of an anchoret; for he confined himself to bread and water, and, at most, allowed himself no indulgence beyond fruits. By this method, he preserved a constant freedom and serenity of spirits, always equally proper for study; for his soul had no pretences to complain of being overwhelmed with matter. This regimen, extraordinary as it was, had many advantages; for it preserved his health, an advantage which very few sufficiently regard; it gave him an authority to preach diet and abstinence to his patients; and it made him rich without the assistance of fortune; rich, not for himself, but for the poor, who were the only persons benefited by that artificial affluence, which, of all others, is most difficult to acquire. It is easy to imagine, that, while he practised in the midst of Paris the severe temperance of a hermit, Paris differed no otherwise, with regard to him, from a hermitage, than as it supplied him with books and the conversation of learned men.
In 1662, he was admitted doctor of physick. About that time Dr. Fagon, Dr. Longuet, and Dr. Galois, all eminent for their skill in botany, were employed in drawing up a catalogue of the plants in the Royal garden, which was published in 1665, under the name of Dr. Vallot, then first physician: during the prosecution of this work, Dr. Morin was often consulted, and from those conversations it was that Dr. Fagon conceived a particular esteem of him, which he always continued to retain.
After having practised physick some years, he was admitted expectant at the Hôtel-Dieu, where he was regularly to have been made pensionary physician upon the first vacancy; but mere unassisted merit advances slowly, if, what is not very common, it advances at all. Morin had no acquaintance with the arts necessary to carry on schemes of preferment; the moderation of his desires preserved him from the necessity of studying them, and the privacy of his life debarred him from any opportunity. At last, however, justice was done him, in spite of artifice and partiality; but his advancement added nothing to his condition, except the power of more extensive charity; for all the money which he received, as a salary, he put into the chest of the hospital, always, as he imagined, without being observed. Not content with serving the poor for nothing, he paid them for being served.
His reputation rose so high in Paris, that mademoiselle de Guise was desirous to make him her physician; but it was not without difficulty that he was prevailed upon by his friend, Dr. Dodart, to accept the place. He was by this new advancement laid under the necessity of keeping a chariot, an equipage very unsuitable to his temper; but while he complied with those exterior appearances, which the publick had a right to demand from him, he remitted nothing of his former austerity, in the more private and essential parts of his life, which he had always the power of regulating according to his own disposition.
In two years and a half the princess fell sick, and was despaired of by Morin, who was a great master of prognosticks. At the time when she thought herself in no danger he pronounced her death inevitable; a declaration to the highest degree disagreeable, but which was made more easy to him than to any other, by his piety and artless simplicity. Nor did his sincerity produce any ill consequences to himself; for the princess, affected by his zeal, taking a ring from her finger, gave it him, as the last pledge of her affection, and rewarded him still more to his satisfaction, by preparing for death with a true Christian piety. She left him, by will, a yearly pension of two thousand livres, which was always regularly paid him.
No sooner was the princess dead, but he freed himself from the encumbrance of his chariot, and retired to St. Victor, without a servant; having, however, augmented his daily allowance with a little rice, boiled in water. Dodart, who had undertaken the charge of being ambitious on his account, procured him, at the restoration of the academy, in 1699, to be nominated associate botanist; not knowing, what he would doubtless have been pleased with the knowledge of, that he introduced into that assembly the man that was to succeed him in his place of pensionary.
Dr. Morin was not one who had upon his hands the labour of adapting himself to the duties of his condition, but always found himself naturally adapted to them. He had, therefore, no difficulty in being constant at the assemblies of the academy, notwithstanding the distance of places, while he had strength enough to support the journey. But his regimen was not equally effectual to produce vigour as to prevent distempers; and, being sixty-four years old at his admission, he could not continue his assiduity more than a year after the death of Dodart, whom he succeeded in 1707.
When Mr. Tournefort went to pursue his botanical inquiries in the Levant, he desired Dr. Morin to supply his place of demonstrator of the plants in the Royal garden, and rewarded him for the trouble, by inscribing to him a new plant, which he brought from the east, by the name of Morina orientalis, as he named others the Do-darto, the Fagonne, the Bignonne, the Phelipée. These are compliments proper to be made by the botanists, not only to those of their own rank, but to the greatest persons; for a plant is a monument of a more durable nature than a medal or an obelisk; and yet, as a proof that even these vehicles are not always sufficient to transmit to futurity the name conjoined with them, the Nicotiana is now scarcely known by any other name than that of tobacco.
Dr. Morin, advancing far in age, was now forced to take a servant, and, what was yet a more essential alteration, prevailed upon himself to take an ounce of wine a day, which he measured with the same exactness as a medicine bordering upon poison. He quitted, at the same time, all his practice in the city, and confined it to the poor of his neighbourhood, and his visits to the Hôtel-Dieu; but his weakness increasing, he was forced to increase his quantity of wine, which yet he always continued to adjust by weight .
At seventy-eight his legs could carry him no longer, and he scarcely left his bed; but his intellects continued unimpaired, except in the last six months of his life. He expired, or, to use a more proper term, went out, on the 1st of March, 1714, at the age of eighty years, without any distemper, and merely for want of strength, having enjoyed, by the benefit of his regimen, a long and healthy life, and a gentle and easy death.
This extraordinary regimen was but part of the daily regulation of his life, of which all the offices were carried on with a regularity and exactness nearly approaching to that of the planetary motions.
He went to bed at seven, and rose at two, throughout the year. He spent, in the morning, three hours at his devotions, and went to the Hôtel-Dieu, in the summer, between five and six, and, in the winter, between six and seven, hearing mass, for the most part, at Notre Dame. After his return he read the holy scripture, dined at eleven, and, when it was fair weather, walked till two in the Royal garden, where he examined the new plants, and gratified his earliest and strongest passion. For the remaining part of the day, if he had no poor to visit, he shut himself up, and read books of literature or physick, but chiefly physick, as the duty of his profession required. This, likewise, was the time he received visits, if any were paid him. He often used this expression: “Those that come to see me, do me honour; those that stay away, do me a favour.” It is easy to conceive, that a man of this temper was not crowded with salutations: there was only now and then an Antony that would pay Paul a visit.
Among his papers was found a Greek and Latin index to Hippocrates, more copious and exact than that of Pini, which he had finished only a year before his death. Such a work required the assiduity and patience of a hermit . There is, likewise, a journal of the weather, kept without interruption, for more than forty years, in which he has accurately set down the state of the barometer and thermometer, the dryness and moisture of the air, the variations of the wind in the course of the day, the rain, the thunders, and even the sudden storms, in a very commodious and concise method, which exhibits, in a little room, a great train of different observations. What numbers of such remarks had escaped a man less uniform in his life, and whose attention had been extended to common objects!
All the estate which he left is a collection of medals, another of herbs, and a library rated at two thousand crowns; which make it evident that he spent much more upon his mind than upon his body.
BURMAN .
Peter Burman was born at Utrecht, on the 26th day of June, 1668. The family from which he descended has, for several generations, produced men of great eminence for piety and learning; and his father, who was professor of divinity in the university, and pastor of the city of Utrech’t, was equally celebrated for the strictness of his life, the efficacy and orthodoxy of his sermons, and the learning and perspicuity of his academical lectures.
From the assistance and instruction which such a father would doubtless have been encouraged by the genius of this son not to have omitted, he was unhappily cut off at eleven years of age, being at that time, by his father’s death, thrown entirely under the care of his mother, by whose diligence, piety, and prudence, his education was so regulated, that he had scarcely any reason, but filial tenderness, to regret the loss of his father.
He was, about this time, sent to the publick school of Utrecht, to be instructed in the learned languages; and it will convey no common idea of his capacity and industry to relate, that he had passed through the classes, and was admitted into the university in his thirteenth year.
This account of the rapidity of his progress in the first part of his studies is so stupendous, that, though it is attested by his friend, Dr. Osterdyke, of whom it cannot be reasonably suspected that he is himself deceived, or that he can desire to deceive others, it must be allowed far to exceed the limits of probability, if it be considered, with regard to the methods of education practised in our country, where it is not uncommon for the highest genius, and most comprehensive capacity, to be entangled for ten years, in those thorny paths of literature, which Burman is represented to have passed in less than two; and we must, doubtless, confess the most skilful of our masters much excelled by the address of the Dutch teachers, or the abilities of our greatest scholars far surpassed by those of Burinan.
But, to reduce this narrative to credibility, it is necessary that admiration should give place to inquiry, and that it be discovered what proficiency in literature is expected from a student, requesting to be admitted into a Dutch university. It is to be observed, that in the universities of foreign countries, they have professors of philology, or humanity, whose employment is to instruct the younger classes in grammar, rhetorick, and languages; nor do they engage in the study of philosophy, till they have passed through a course of philological lectures and exercises, to which, in some places, two years are commonly allotted.
The English scheme of education, which, with regard to academical studies, is more rigorous, and sets literary honours at a higher price than that of any other country, exacts from the youth, who are initiated in our colleges, a degree of philological knowledge sufficient to qualify them for lectures in philosophy, which are read to them in Latin, and to enable them to proceed in other studies without assistance; so that it may be conjectured, that Burman, at his entrance into the university, had no such skill in languages, nor such ability of composition, as are frequently to be met with in the higher classes of an English school; nor was, perhaps, more than moderately skilled in Latin, and taught the first rudiments of Greek.
In the university he was committed to the care of the learned Grævius, whose regard for his father inclined him to superintend his studies with more than common attention, which was soon confirmed and increased by his discoveries of the genius of his pupil, and his observation of his diligence.
One of the qualities which contributed eminently to qualify Grævius for an instructor of youth, was the sagacity by which he readily discovered the predominant faculty of each pupil, and the peculiar designation by which nature had allotted him to any species of literature, and by which he was soon able to determine, that Burman was remarkably adapted to classical studies, and predict the great advances that he would make, by industriously pursuing the direction of his genius.
