326] 
less detighted with the heauties of 
Stourhead, than with discovering 
in the lib ary a common book, the 
Continuation of Echard’s Roman 
History, which is indeed executed 
with more skill and taste than the 
previous work. To me the reigns 
of the successors of Constantine 
were absolutely new; and I was 
immersed in the passage of the 
Goths over the Danube, when the 
summons of the dinner-be!l reluc- 
tantly dragged me from my intel- 
leGtual feast. This transient glance 
served rather to irritate than to ap- 
pease my curiosity ; and as soon as 
I returned to Bath I procured the 
second and third volumes of How- 
el’s History of the World, which 
exhibit the Byzantine period on a 
Jarger scale, Mahomet and his Sa- 
racens soon fixed my attention; 
and some instinét of criticism di- 
reéted me_to the genuine sources. 
Simon Ockley, an original in every 
sense, first opened.my eyes; and I 
was led from one book to another, 
till I had ranged round the circle of 
oriental history. Before I was six- 
teen, I had exhausted all that could 
be learned in English of the Arabs 
and Persians, the Vartarsand Turks; 
and the same ardour urged me to 
guess at the French of D’Herbelot, 
and to construe the barbarous La. 
tin of Pocock’s Abulfaragious. Such 
vague and multifarious’ reading 
could not teach me to think, towrite, 
or to att; and the only principle 
that darted a ray of light into the 
indigested chaos, was an early 
and rational application to the or- 
der of time and place. The maps 
ef Cellarius and Wells imprinted 
in my mind the pitture of ancient 
geography: from Stranchius I im- 
bibed the elements of chronology : 
the Tables of Helvicus and Ander- 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1706. 
son, the Annals of Usher and Pri- 
deaux, distinguished the connexion 
of events, and engraved the multi. 
tude of names and dates in a clear 
and indelible series. But in the 
discussion of the first ages f over- 
leaped the bounds of modesty and 
use. In my childish balance I pre- 
sumed to weigh the systems of Sca- 
liger and Petavius, of Marsham 
and Newton, which [ could seldom 
study in the originals; and my 
sleep has been disturbed by the dif- 
ficulty of reconciling the Septuagint 
with the Hebrew computation, I 
arrived at Oxford with a stock of 
erudition that might have puzzled 
a dottor, and a degree of tgnorance, 
of which a school-boy would have 
been ashamed. rr 
To the university of Oxford I 
acknowledge no oligations ; and 
she will as eheerfully renounce me 
for a son, as I am willing to dis. 
claim her for a mother. I spent 
fourteen months at Magdalen Col- 
lege ; they proved the fourteen 
months the most idle and unprofita- 
ble of my whole life: the reader will 
pronounce between the school and 
the scholar; but I cannot affeé to 
believe that naturé had disqualified 
me for all literary pursvits. The 
specious and ready excuse of my 
tender age, imperfeét preparation, 
and hasty departure, may doubtless 
be alleged ; nordo I wish todefraud 
such excuses of their proper weight, 
Yet in my sixteenth year I was not 
devoid of capacity or application ; 
even my childish reading had dis- 
played an carly though blind pro- 
pensity for books ; and the shallow 
flood might have been taught to 
flow in a deep channel and a clear 
stream. In the discipline of a well 
constituted academy, under the 
guidance of skilful and vigilant pro- 
fessors, 
7 
