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nious artist, Harrison never acquired any acquaintance with literature; and a little work, which he published in his old age, in explanation of some of his ideas on the construction of time-pieces, is miserably ill-written. He died in London, in 1776, at the age of eighty-three.

Of these, and all such instances, it may safely be remarked that, far from proving the inutility of scientific acquirements, they only show how far, in one particular line, natural genius can carry its possessors without cultivation; and make us regret their having wanted those helps which, even in that line, would have carried them so much farther.

CHAPTER XX.

Knowledge of Languages. Magliabecchi; Hill; Wild; Aram; Purver; Pendrell.

Ir mechanical invention does not necessarily imply much study of books, and may seem, on that account, a province of intellectual exertion fitted for persons who have not enjoyed the advantages of a regular education, as being one in which natural sagacity and ingenuity, as much as literary attainments, are requisite to ensure advancement, the same thing can hardly be said of another department, in which selftaught genius has frequently made extraordinary progress; we mean the study of languages. This is the sort of knowledge, indeed, which, in common parlance, is more peculiarly called learning. Its acquisition, in the circumstances alluded to, can only be the result of a love for, and familiarity with, books, and of what we may call the literary habit thoroughly formed.

There are three purposes for which languages may be studied, independently of their gratifying that general desire of information which makes both the acquirement and the possession of all knowledge delightful. One use, and an infinitely important one, to be made of the knowledge of languages, is the study of that intellectual mechanism by which they have been formed, and of which they present us, as it were, with the impress or picture. Another department of philosophy to which this knowledge is a key, is that relating to the early his

tory of our race, and the origin of the different nations by whom the earth is peopled-a subject to many parts of which we have no other guide than the evidence of language, but upon which this evidence, skilfully interpreted, may be made to throw the surest of all light. But the motive which most generally induces the student to seek an acquaintance with foreign or ancient tongues, is, of course, that he may be able to read the books written in them, and thus obtain access to worlds of intellectual treasure, from which he would be otherwise entirely, or almost entirely, shut out; for no satisfactory knowledge of any foreign literature is to be acquired through translations. Of many works translations do not exist, or are not accessible, when the original is; and of many there can be no adequate translation. The man whose knowledge of the literature of another age or country is confined to translations, is in the situation of the untravelled reader, who may, indeed, learn something of foreign lands from the descriptions of those who have visited them; but a person familiar with the language of another people has that sort of access to their literature, which he would have to the general knowledge of their country and their manners who was in possession of one of the talismans of eastern fiction, by which he could transport himself thither at a wish.

Perhaps the greatest reader that ever lived was the famous ANTONIO MAGLIABECCHI, of whose latinized name, Antonius Magliabbechius, some one formed the anagram,-Is unus bibliotheca magna— Himself a great library. He was born at Florence, in 1633, and, according to one account, commenced his career as a scholar in a very curious manner; for having, it is affirmed, been apprenticed by his parents, who were extremely poor, to a seller of pot-herbs, he used to take the greatest delight, although he could

not read a word, in poring over the leaves of old books in which his master wrapped his commodities; till having been one day observed at this sort of study by a bookseller who lived in the neighbourhood, that person offered to take him into his service. The proposal was instantly accepted by Magliabecchi, who could conceive no greater happiness than an occupation which would surround him with his beloved books. So keen, it is added, was the interest which he took in his new employment, that in two or three days he knew the place of every volume in the shop, and could find any one, when asked for, more readily than his master himself. After a short time he had learnt to read; and then every moment of his leisure was devoted to this new pleasure. Such is the story which Mr. Spence has told us, on the authority, as he states, of a Florentine gentleman well acquainted with Magliabecchi and his family. The Italian writer, Marmi, however, who, having been librarian to the Grand Duke of Florence, was, for many years, an intimate friend of Magliabecchi, has, in a life which he has written of him, given a different account of his early years. His mother, according to Marmi, had him instructed both in the art of design and in Latin when he was a boy, after which she apprenticed him to a goldsmith. Whether his master was a goldsmith or a bookseller, it is agreed, on all hands, that, during the time of his apprenticeship, Magliabecchi had already begun those extraordinary acquisitions which made him at length the most learned man of his age. The fame of his ardour for study, and extensive knowledge, at length procured him the notice of some of the Florentine literati; and having been introduced at court, he was appointed by the Grand Duke keeper of one of his libraries. In this situation he remained till his death, in 1714, at the age of eighty-one.

Many wonderful stories are told of the extensive reading and retentive memory of Magliabecchi. It has been said, among other things, that a manuscript of a work of some length, which, at the request of the author, he had read, having been accidentally lost, was actually recovered by being taken down from his recitation. This, however, as Mr. Spence observes, is doubtless a very wild exaggeration it amounts, evidently, if true, to nothing less than a proof that Magliabecchi's memory was such as to retain everything, without exception, to which his attention was ever called. But of what he read really worth recollecting, he undoubtedly recollected a great deal. He was, indeed, a library of reference upon all sorts of subjects for the other literary men of his time, who were wont to apply to him whenever they wanted to know what had been already written upon any matter which they were engaged in studying or discussing. Two volumes of the Letters of the Learned' to Magliabecchi were published at Florence in 1745, and they form but a small part of those that were addressed to him during his long life, from every part of Europe, by persons who wished to avail themselves of the aid of his universal learning. Upon almost any subject, we are told, on which he was consulted, he could not only state what any particular author had said of it, but in many cases could quote the very words employed, naming, at the same time, the volume, the page, and the column in which they were to be found. Authors and printers were generally wont to send him all the works which they published-a sure method, if they contained any thing valuable, of getting them, as it were, advertised over the world of letters, since literary men were every where in communication with Magliabecchi; and he would not fail, if the new book deserved his recommenda

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