Ixxx 



Note M. Page Ivi. 



PETER S. DU PONCEAU, LL. D. 



A few passages from Mr. Pickering's interesting notice of tlie life and character 

 of his most distinguished literary and personal friend cannot be out of place here.* 

 They were doubtless first attracted to each other by their rare erudition, but their 

 friendship was cemented by that purity of heart and delicacy of taste and of feeling 

 in which they so entirely sympathized. Their correspondence, which was com- 

 menced in 1818, and terminated only by death, was as intimate and delightful as 

 it was learned. 



Mr. Du Ponceau died in April, 1843. " To the writer of this notice," says Mr. 

 Pickering, " for whom he had long cherished an affection almost parental, his 

 death is an irreparable loss ; a long-tried friend and counsellor is no more ! " 



" Mr. Du Ponceau was born on the third day of June, 1760, in the Isle of Re, 

 which lies a few miles from the coast of La Vendee, in France." His philological 

 genius, like Mr. Pickering's, discovered itself very early, and in his case appears 

 to have determined his lot in life. " As the smallest circumstances in the his- 

 toiy of such minds as his," continues Mr. Pickering, " cannot but be interesting, 

 we will here add, — we have heard him state, that, while a child of only six years 

 of age, his curiosity to know something of the English language was intensely ex- 

 cited by his accidentally meeting with a single torn leaf of an English book, in 

 which he discovered the strange letters k and w, — for such they were to a child 

 who had never seen them in any book in his own language ; and this circumstance, 

 trifling as it may appear, first directed his attention to our language. At that time, 

 General Conway, who was afterwards somewhat conspicuous, during the American 

 Revolution, as a member of the British House of Commons, had the command of 

 a regiment stationed in the Isle of R^, and, being struck with the remarkable 

 points of character in a child of so tender an age, and with his aptitude for the 

 study of languages, obligingly took pains to instruct him in English ; and such 

 was his progress, that in a very short time he was able to read Milton, Shakspeare, 

 and other English classics, whose works are far beyond the grasp of ordinan.- 

 youthful minds. As he proceeded, he became so delighted with the great English 



* First published in the Boston Courier, April 8. 1843. 



