that my reputation should last? Say that it was to be as durable as that of the authors whose works I have published, (and more I cannot expect) what is this in comparison of the time previous to my existence, when men knew me not? or to the time after my decease, when no vestige of me shall remain? But suppose that my name was to abide, even to the end of the world, what good could that do me? I have a long time been known, known even to fame, and yet have remained necessitous, despised, and very very poor. It was not my reputation, no, certainly it was not my reputation, but the wonderful providence of God, which placed me in my present circumstances, after many fruitless pursuits, and at the instant when I was upon the brink of ruin.

Fame then, once more, has nothing to do with the business. I yield to the desires of friends, who have never long desired, any thing of me in vain ;-after all, the narrative will be an imperfect one, with many voids in it. I have forgot a great deal; indeed, my true life is in my works, but how few of these have I been able to publish! The rest of them will go with me, the way of all flesh. The substance of them, however, is in my head, and that quiets me. Nay, as to what I have published, how much of it is there in the Actis Eruditorum, and in other journals, which I myself have forgotten. I cannot, with truth, say whether many of these are mine or another person's. There must be void places in literature as in house-keeping; for dogs, cats, and sparrows must live as well as their betters.

Οιωνοισι κύνεσσι θ' έλωρια ταυτα γενεσθω.

I was born December 25, 1716, at Zorbig, a small town near Leipsick-All that I know of my ancestors is, that my grandfather was an innkeeper in the village of Sietch, near Landsberg, in Austria. I stayed at school at Zorbig till I was ten years old; then removed to Soschen, when a gentleman, to whom I dedicated my remarks on the Tusculan questions, as a small sign of my gratitude, brought me very forward.

From thence I went to school at Halle. Here I met with two misfortunes; the first was, that the professors who had the teaching of me knew nothing of Latin; the second was, the long time it was then the custom to spend at prayers. For a time nothing could be so eager at this as I was myself,

but when the heat was over, and I came into the world, I was little better than a naturalist. Of this great leap, from one end to the other, over so great a hole, I have not quite got the better to this day.

At Easter 1733, I removed to the university of Leipsick, where my timidity rendered me an Auto-didact, a state of which I experienced all the inconveniences; for instead of attending to Greek, mathematicks, and polite literature, I gave myself in an evil hour to Rabbinical learning, and in the end nothing would serve but I must learn Arabick.

There is a kind of parsimoniousness in my character, which in itself, perhaps, is not increditable, but exposes to great inconveniences, when it is not under the guidance of sound philosophy. I wonder now to myself at the economy with which I contrived to live during the five years I stayed here; for all I got from home was two hundred dollars, and with these I contrived not only to live, but to purchase most of the Arabick books then extant. In 1736 I had read them all.

The last year, indeed, I got a scholarship of twenty dollars a year, which I might have enjoyed longer, but that in 1738, I determined to go to Holland; from this journey into a foreign country, without any money, nothing could preserve my yet unexperienced mind.

Leyden I must and would see; to the Arabick manuscripts there I sacrificed every present prospect, and every future hope. Dearly, full dearly, have I paid for my folly.

I have been the martyr of Arabian literature. But I did not think so then; on the contrary, I hungered after the treasures of Warneri. In vain my friends remonstrated; reason called me back, but I was deaf to her remonstrances, as I have been all my life. It has ever been my fate to lay plans without any prospect whatever of getting through, and so it was on the present occasion. I knew nobody, nobody knew me, and I had no money. The consequences of this journey were, that I have often wished I had either never gone into Holland, or had never left it.

I went from Leipsick to Lunenburg in the common waggon, which the mechanicks of the country travel in, and do not remember ever to have been merrier in my life than I was on this short journey. From Lunenburg I went by the Elbe to Hamburg, Here I visited Reimarus. He received me coolly

at first, and shook his head at my prospects; but when he found I had read some good books, and had a little of the right learning chout me, he gave me letters, and became my fast friend; nor did the worthy men of Hamburg send me pennyless on my way.

I was well received at Amsterdam by a friend of my mother's, who had married a linen-draper there.

The next day I visited Dorville, to whom I had brought a letter of recommendation from professor Wolfe. He offered me six hundred florins a year to live with him, and be his amanuensis; but I told him I was not come to Holland to make my fortune, which I could have done much better in my own country, but to look for Arabick manuscripts; he seemed surprised, and a little angry at this answer, from a man who had not a shilling; but afterwards we were very good friends, though I wonder how we did so well together, for we were much of the same temper, hasty, passionate, and self-willed. He gave me a letter to Peter Burman, and he and I came together again, after he had had Santorock, Quintus Icilius, and the now far famous Rhunchen.

From Dorville I went to Leyden, and delivered my letters to Schultens and Sgravesande. By these I was told that there was no provision in Holland for strangers, that it was vacation time, that the scholars were all gone, and the library quite inaccessible. This was sad news, but I made shift to pick up a livelihood, by being corrector of the press for Alberti's Hesychius, and giving a few lessons when I could get them. At length I got introduced to Schultens, who allowed me to come and copy the long hunted for MSS. at his house, where I gave lessons of Arabick to his son. At the desire of Schultens, I applied myself to the Arabick poets, and published an edition of the Moallakat in 1740; but we did not quite agree about some passages in it, and this laid the foundation of the misunderstanding between us. In the mean time, however, I made a catalogue of Arabick MSS. in the Leyden library, a work which cost me some months, and for which I received a reward of nine guilders (eighteen shillings) from the curators!

Hitherto, however, I went on very well, but now my misfortunes began. Upon Burman's intention to reprint his Petronius; the correction of the press fell upon me. Burman was

old and bedridden-I made some alterations in the first volume, which was printed in his life, with which he was well pleased; but he happening to die, I took some greater liberties with Petronius's text in the second, and this set all Bs. friends against me. Peter Burman, the son, wrote a preface to expose my shame; my scholars fell off; Dorville broke with me, and yet-But this is not the place to make my apology, which will be found in the Acta Eruditorum.

A little before this, I had refused the place of corrector to the school of Campen, vacant by Valkenar's coming to Leyden. Whether I did well or ill God only knows-Had I accepted it I should, probably, have been now a professor at some of the Dutch universities. I suffered severely for not having done it-God, however, has at length extricated me; but let it be a warning to young men not to despise the first call he gives them; it may be long enough, as was my case, before they have a second.

As I soon saw there was nothing to be done in divinity, I took to studying physick. For this purpose I attended Gaubius Albinus, and Van-Royen, and cut up dead bodies at my own rooms. By this means I soon became a very good theorist in physick, and intended to commence practice when I returned to my own country; but, I do not know how, straightness of circumstances, oddness of humour, and the love of Arabick, always kept me from it. I am now thankful that it was so; for if I had killed a single man without being conscious to myself of having intended it, I could never have forgiven myself. And I should have been an autodidact in this as well as in every thing else.

Two things now happened which determined me to quit Holland. The one was, that having said that if any thing was to be done in Arabick it was not by Schultens method of applying it only to theological purposes, but by reading the history, philosophy, &c. it came to his ears, and made him very angry.

The other was, that happening to write a thesis for my degree, in defence of some propositions taken from the Arabian physicians; I tacked some corollaries to them, which Schultens, and the theological faculty together, thought had a tendency towards materialism. This occasioned a debate of an hour,

whether I should have my degree, however I got it, and on the 10th of June 1746, bad adieu to Holland.

in

Much loved Holland! How often do I think of thee, with pleasing recollection. Ah! would to God, that I had either never seen thee, or never left thee; or that at least I had made a better and wiser use of thee. Thou didst behave to me as a true mother-have I been a grateful son to thee? O, that my conscience could say yes to that question. God give thee my stead, that which my folly, want of feeling, and want of knowledge of what was genuine gratitude, has made thee miss. God bless thee, and make it go well with thee, thou honoured land; habitation of liberty, and sincerity. I enjoyed much happiness by thee-I have learned much good in thee-Next to God thou hast made me all I have been since I left thee-All I can do, to shew my gratitude, is to pray for thee-God take thee under his protection-God cover thee with his shield-God support and increase thy commerce, manufactures, liberty, science, and all that is valuable, and praise-worthy in thee. O, that I could see thee once more in my life-O, that I could at least thoroughly make up matters with thee!-An arrow went through my soul when I was forced to leave thee; my heart was broken as I was torn from thee. How often did I look back on thee, with streaming eyes, till thy towers and palaces vanished from my sight; even now, thou art never long distant from my thoughts; but the painful, as well as the pleasing hours I spent in thee, rise to my phantasy, and help me to go through my tedious days, and sleepless nights. So things goGod takes his gifts from us when we know not their value, or misuse them. My sins and forgetfulness of him bereaved me of my paradise. They struck me with blindness, so that I knew not (or rather knew too late, but would not use) the means of happiness his providence had opened for me.

That, however, is over, and it only remains to tell how I lived with Dorville, and what I did for him.

I translated, into Latin, some small French tracts, which he inserted in his Miscellanea Critica. I made collections from MSS. or other literary curiosities, for him. I transcribed, into his Muratori, from Gruter, Reinesius, Gudius, and others, the inscriptions which Muratori himself had published in a careless, slovenly manner. I translated his Charito into Latin, and