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.
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