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 spend their lives in cultivating, to the neglect of more valuable studies, and which they seem to regard as the highest perfection of human nature.
What applauses are due to an old age, wasted in a scrupulous attention to particular accents and etymologies, may appear, says his father, by seeing how little time is required to arrive at such an eminence in these studies as many, even of these venerable doctors, have not attained, for want of rational methods and regular application.
This censure is, doubtless, just, upon those who spend too much of their lives upon useless niceties, or who appear to labour without making any progress; but, as the knowledge of language is necessary, and a minute accuracy sometimes requisite, they are by no means to be blamed, who, in compliance with the particular bent of their own minds, make the difficulties of dead languages their chief study, and arrive at excellence proportionate to their application, since it was to the labour of such men that his son was indebted for his own learning.
The first languages which Barretier learned were the French, German, and Latin, which he was taught, not in the common way, by a multitude of definitions, rules, and exceptions, which fatigue the attention and burden the memory, without any use proportionate to the time which they require, and the disgust which they create. The method by which he was instructed was easy and expeditious, and, therefore, pleasing. He learned them all in the same manner, and almost at the same time, by conversing in them indifferently with his father.
The other languages, of which he was master, he learned by a method yet more uncommon. The only book which he made use of was the Bible, which his father laid before him in the language that he then proposed to learn, accompanied with a translation, being taught, by degrees, the inflections of nouns and verbs. This method, says his father, made the Latin more familiar to him, in his fourth year, than any other language.
When he was near the end of his sixth year, he entered upon the study of the Old Testament, in its original language, beginning with the book of Genesis, to which his father confined him for six months; after which he read cursorily over the rest of the historical books, in which he found very little difficulty, and then applied himself to the study of the poetical writers, and the prophets, which he read over so often, with so close an attention, and so happy a memory, that he could not only translate them, without a moment’s hesitation, into Latin or French, but turn, with the same facility, the translations into the original language in his tenth year.
Growing, at length, weary of being confined to a book which he could almost entirely repeat, he deviated, by stealth, into other studies, and, as his translation of Benjamin is a sufficient evidence, he read a multitude of writers, of various kinds. In his twelfth year he applied more particularly to the study of the fathers, and councils of the six first centuries, and began to make a regular collection of their canons. He read every author in the original, having discovered so much negligence or ignorance in most translations, that he paid no regard to their authority.
Thus he continued his studies, neither drawn aside by pleasures nor discouraged by difficulties. The greatest obstacle to his improvement was want of books, with which his narrow fortune could not liberally supply him; so that he was obliged to borrow the greatest part of those which his studies required, and to return them when he had read them, without being able to consult them occasionally, or to recur to them when his memory should fail him.
It is observable, that neither his diligence, unintermitted as it was, nor his want of books, a want of which he was, in the highest degree, sensible, ever produced in him that asperity, which a long and recluse life, without any circumstance of disquiet, frequently creates. He was always gay, lively, and facetious; a temper which contributed much to recommend his learning, and which some students, much superiour in age, would consult their ease, their reputation, and their interest, by copying from him.
In the year 1735 he published Anti-Artemonius; sive, initium evangelii S. Joannis adversus Artemonium vindicatum; and attained such a degree of reputation, that not only the publick, but princes, who are commonly the last by whom merit is distinguished, began to interest themselves in his success; for, the same year, the king of Prussia, who had heard of his early advances in literature, on account of a scheme for discovering the longitude, which had been sent to the Royal society of Berlin, and which was transmitted afterwards by him to Paris and London, engaged to take care of his fortune, having received further proofs of his abilities at his own court.
Mr. Barretier, being promoted to the cure of the church of Stetin, was obliged to travel with his son thither, from Schwabach, through Leipsic and Berlin, a journey very agreeable to his son, as it would furnish him with new opportunities of improving his knowledge, and extending his acquaintance among men of letters. For this purpose they stayed some time at Leipsic, and then travelled to Halle, where young Barretier so distinguished himself in his conversation with the professors of the university, that they offered him his degree of doctor in philosophy, a dignity correspondent to that of master of arts among us. Barretier drew up, that night, some positions in philosophy, and the mathematicks, which he sent immediately to the press, and defended, the next day, in a crowded auditory, with so much wit, spirit, presence of thought, and strength of reason, that the whole university was delighted and amazed; he was then admitted to his degree, and attended by the whole concourse to his lodgings, with compliments and acclamations.
His theses, or philosophical positions, which he printed in compliance with the practice of that university, ran through several editions in a few weeks, and no testimony of regard was wanting, that could contribute to animate him in his progress.
When they arrived at Berlin, the king ordered him to be brought into his presence, and was so much pleased with his conversation, that he sent for him almost every day during his stay at Berlin; and diverted himself with engaging him in conversations upon a multitude of subjects, and in disputes with learned men; on all which occasions he acquitted himself so happily, that the king formed the highest ideas of his capacity, and future eminence. And thinking, perhaps with reason, that active life was the noblest sphere of a great genius, he recommended to him the study of modern history, the customs of nations, and those parts of learning, that are of use in publick transactions and civil employments, declaring, that such abilities, properly cultivated, might exalt him, in ten years, to be the greatest minister of state in Europe.
Barretier, whether we attribute it to his moderation or inexperience, was not dazzled by the prospect of such high promotion, but answered, that he was too much pleased with science and quiet, to leave them for such inextricable studies, or such harassing fatigues. A resolution so unpleasing to the king, that his father attributes to it the delay of those favours which they had hopes of receiving, the king having, as he observes, determined to employ him in the ministry.
It is not impossible that paternal affection might suggest to Mr. Barretier some false conceptions of the king’s design; for he infers, from the introduction of his son to the young princes, and the caresses which he received from them, that the king intended him for their preceptor; a scheme, says he, which some other resolution happily destroyed.
Whatever was originally intended, and by whatever means these intentions were frustrated, Barretier, after having been treated with the highest regard by the whole royal family, was dismissed with a present of two hundred crowns; and his father, instead of being fixed at Stetin, was made pastor of the French church at Halle; a place more commodious for study, to which they retired; Barretier being first admitted i
nto the Royal society at Berlin, and recommended, by the king, to the university at Halle.
At Halle he continued his studies with his usual application and success, and, either by his own reflections, or the persuasions of his father, was prevailed upon to give up his own inclinations to those of the king, and direct his inquiries to those subjects that had been recommended by him.
He continued to add new acquisitions to his learning, and to increase his reputation by new performances, till, in the beginning of his nineteenth year, his health began to decline, and his indisposition, which, being not alarming or violent, was, perhaps, not at first sufficiently regarded, increased by slow degrees for eighteen months, during which he spent days among his books, and neither neglected his studies, nor left his gaiety, till his distemper, ten days before his death, deprived him of the use of his limbs: he then prepared himself for his end, without fear or emotion, and, on the 5th of October, 1740, resigned his soul into the hands of his saviour, with confidence and tranquillity.
In the Magazine for 1742 appeared the following
ADDITIONAL ACCOUNT of the LIFE OF JOHN PHILIP BARRETIER .
“As the nature of our collections requires that our accounts of remarkable persons and transactions should be early, our readers must necessarily pardon us, if they are often not complete, and allow us to be sufficiently studious of their satisfaction, if we correct our errours, and supply our defects from subsequent intelligence, where the importance of the subject merits an extraordinary attention, or when we have any peculiar opportunities of procuring information. The particulars here inserted we thought proper to annex, by way of note, to the following passages, quoted from the magazine for December, 1740, and for February, 1741.”
P. 377. At the age of nine years he not only was master of five languages.
French, which was the native language of his mother, was that which he learned first, mixed, by living in Germany, with some words of the language of the country. After some time, his father took care to introduce, in his conversation with him, some words of Latin, in such a manner that he might discover the meaning of them by the connexion of the sentence, or the occasion on which they were used, without discovering that he had any intention of instructing him, or that any new attainment was proposed.
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 Bibliothéque germanique.
These writers were read by him, as other young persons peruse romances or novels, only from a puerile desire of amusement; for he had so little veneration for them, even while he studied them with most eagerness, that he often diverted his parents with recounting their fables and chimeras.
P. 381. In his twelfth year he applied more particularly to the study of the fathers.
His father being somewhat uneasy to observe so much time spent by him on rabbinical trifles, thought it necessary now to recall him to the study of the Greek language, which he had of late neglected, but to which he returned with so much ardour, that, in a short time, he was able to read Greek with the same facility as French or Latin.
He then engaged in the perusal of the Greek fathers, and councils of the first three or four centuries; and undertook, at his father’s desire, to confute a treatise of Samuel Crellius, in which, under the name of Artemonius, he has endeavoured to substitute, in the beginning of St. John’s gospel, a reading different from that which is at present received, and less favourable to the orthodox doctrine of the divinity of our Saviour.
This task was undertaken by Barretier with great ardour, and prosecuted by him with suitable application, for he not only drew up a formal confutation of Artemonius, but made large collections from the earliest writers, relating to the history of heresies, which he proposed at first to have published as preliminaries to his book, but, finding the introduction grew at last to a greater bulk than the book itself, he determined to publish it apart.
While he was engrossed by these inquiries, accident threw a pair of globes into his hands, in October, 1734, by which his curiosity was so much exalted, that he laid aside his Artemonius, and applied himself to geography and astronomy. In ten days he was able to solve all the problems in the doctrine of the globes, and had attained ideas so clear and strong of all the systems, as well ancient as modern, that he began to think of making new discoveries; and for that purpose, laying aside, for a time, all searches into antiquity, he employed his utmost interest to procure books of astronomy and of mathematicks, and made such a progress in three or four months, that he seemed to have spent his whole life upon that study; for he not only made an astrolabe, and drew up astronomical tables, but invented new methods of calculation, or such at least as appeared new to him, because they were not mentioned in the books which he had then an opportunity of reading; and it is a sufficient proof, both of the rapidity of his progress, and the extent of his views, that in three months after his first sight of a pair of globes, he formed schemes for finding the longitude, which he sent, in January, 1735, to the Royal society at London.
His scheme, being recommended to the society by the queen, was considered by them with a degree of attention which, perhaps, would not have been bestowed upon the attempt of a mathematician so young, had he not been dignified with so illustrious a patronage. But it was soon found, that, for want of books, he had imagined himself the inventor of methods already in common use, and that he proposed no means of discovering the longitude, but such as had been already tried and found insufficient. Such will be very frequently the fate of those, whose fortune either condemns them to study without the necessary assistance from libraries, or who, in too much haste, publish their discoveries.
This attempt exhibited, however, such a specimen of his capacity for mathematical learning, and such a proof of an early proficiency, that the Royal society of Berlin admitted him as one of their members in
1735.
P. 381. Princes, who are commonly the last.
Barretier, had been distinguished much more early by the margravin of Anspach, who, in 1726, sent for his father and mother to the court, where their son, whom they carried with them, presented her with a letter in French, and addressed another in Latin to the young prince; who afterwards, in 1734, granted him the privilege of borrowing books from the libraries of Anspach, together with an annual pension of fifty florins, which he enjoyed for four years.
In this place it may not be improper to recount some honours conferred upon him, which, if distinctions are to be rated by the knowledge of those who bestow them, may be considered as more valuable than those which he received from princes.
In June, 1731, he was initiated in the university of Altdorft, and at the end of the year 1732, the synod of the reformed churches, held at Christian Erlang, admitted him to be present at their consultations, and to preserve the memory of so extraordinary a transaction, as the reception of a boy of eleven years into an ecclesiastical council, recorded it in a particular article of the acts of the synod.
&
nbsp; P. 383. He was too much pleased with science and quiet.
Astronomy was always Barretier’s favourite study, and so much engrossed his thoughts, that he did not willingly converse on any other subject; nor was he so well pleased with the civilities of the greatest persons, as with the conversation of the mathematicians. An astronomical observation was sufficient to withhold him from court, or to call him away abruptly from the most illustrious assemblies; nor was there any hope of enjoying his company, without inviting some professor to keep him in temper, and engage him in discourse; nor was it possible, without this expedient, to prevail upon him to sit for his picture.
Ibid. At Halle he continued his studies.
Mr. Barretier returned, on the 28th of April, 1735, to Halle, where he continued the remaining part of his life, of which it may not be improper to give a more particular account.
At his settlement in the university, he determined to exert his privileges as master of arts, and to read publick lectures to the students; a design from which his father could not dissuade him, though he did not approve it; so certainly do honours or preferments, too soon conferred, infatuate the greatest capacities. He published an invitation to three lectures; one critical on the book of Job, another on astronomy, and a third upon ancient ecclesiastical history. But of this employment he was soon made weary by the petulance of his auditors, the fatigue which it occasioned, and the interruption of his studies which it produced, and, therefore, in a fortnight, he desisted wholly from his lectures, and never afterwards resumed them.
He then applied himself to the study of the law, almost against his own inclination, which, however, he conquered so far as to become a regular attendant on the lectures on that science, but spent all his other time upon different studies.
The first year of his residence at Halle was spent upon natural philosophy and mathematicks; and scarcely any author, ancient or modern, that has treated on those parts of learning was neglected by him, nor was he satisfied with the knowledge of what had been discovered by others, but made new observations, and drew up immense calculations for his own use.
Complete Works of Samuel Johnson Page 525
