. General biography; or, Lives, critical and historical, of the most eminent persons of all ages, countries, conditions, and professions, arranged according to alphabetical order. class, was the son of a citizen and advocate ofBerne, where he was born in October, accounts of his early display of talents are-as extraordinary as almost any upon in his fifth year he was accustomed towrite down all the new words which he heard inthe course of the day. At the age of ten he couldtranslate from the Greek, ami compiled, forhis own use, a Chaldaie grammar, and a Greekand Hebrew dic
. General biography; or, Lives, critical and historical, of the most eminent persons of all ages, countries, conditions, and professions, arranged according to alphabetical order. class, was the son of a citizen and advocate ofBerne, where he was born in October, accounts of his early display of talents are-as extraordinary as almost any upon in his fifth year he was accustomed towrite down all the new words which he heard inthe course of the day. At the age of ten he couldtranslate from the Greek, ami compiled, forhis own use, a Chaldaie grammar, and a Greekand Hebrew dictionary. He also, about thatperiod, abridged from L>ayle and Moreri abovetwo lives; and he composed inLatin verse, a satire upon his preceptor, a manof great harshness and severity. At his fathers-death, in 1721, he was removed from domestictuition to the public school, and placed in aclass far beyond his age. In 1723 he was sometime in the house of a physician at Bienne, forthe study of philosophy. At this place com-menced the practice which he continued throughlife, and which was the foundation of his im»mcnse literary collections—that of always read-. II A J. ( 19 ) IJ A L ijig wirh tlie pen in his hand, making extractsof every thing memorable in liis author, andadding his own judgment of tlie work. At thisplace, als3, the surrounding beauties of natureawakened in him a poetic , tlic pa-rent of many compositions in German verse,Mhich were the preludes of his maturer pro-ductions. Ilitiicrto his destination had beenunfixed, and iiis studios desultory, but he nowmade election of the medical profession. Atthe close of that year he went to the universityof Tubingen; and tiicre, as he says, while yetalmost a boy, practised himself in the dissectionof brute animals under Duvernoi. He also ob-tained a taste of a better philosophy than thatof Descartes, which he had hitherto here gave a proof of the strength of his mindto resist juvenile t
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1810, booksubjectbiography, bookyear18
