By this method of conversation, in which new words were every day
introduced, his ear had been somewhat accustomed to the inflections
and variations of the Latin tongue, he began to attempt to speak like
his father, and was in a short time drawn on, by imperceptible
degrees, to speak Latin, intermixed with other languages.
Thus, when he was but four years old, he spoke every day French to his
mother, Latin to his father, and high Dutch to the maid, without any
perplexity to himself, or any confusion of one language with another.
P. 377. _He is no stranger to biblical criticism._
Having now gained such a degree of skill in the Hebrew language, as to
be able to compose in it, both in prose and verse, he was extremely
desirous of reading the rabbins; and having borrowed of the
neighbouring clergy, and the jews of Schwabach, all the books which
they could supply him, he prevailed on his father to buy him the great
rabbinical Bible, published at Amsterdam, in four tomes, folio, 1728,
and read it with that accuracy and attention which appears, by the
account of it written by him to his favourite M. le Maitre, inserted
in the beginning of the twenty-sixth volume of the Bibliotheque
germanique.
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