328] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1706. 
The long recess between the 
Trinity and Michaeimas terms 
‘empties the colleges of Oxford, as 
was as the courts of Westminster. 
I spent at my father’s house at Bu- 
ritor’in Hampshire, the tw6 months 
of Angust and September, It is 
whimsical enough, that as soon as 
I left Magdalen college, my taste 
for books began to revive ; but it 
was the same blind and boyish taste 
for the pursuit of exotic history. 
Unprovided with original learning, 
unformed in the habits of thinking, 
unskilled in the arts of composition, 
I resolved—to write a book. ‘The 
titlé of this first essay, The Age of 
Sesostris, was perhaps suggested 
by Voltaire’s Age of Lewis XIV. 
which was new and popular; but 
my sole object was to investigate 
the “probable date of the life and 
reign of the conqueror of Asia. I 
was then enamoured of Sir John 
Marsham’s Canon Chronicus ; an 
elaborate work, of whose merits 
and defeéts I was not yet qualified 
to judge. According to his spe- 
cious, though narrow plan, I settled 
my hero about the time of Solo- 
mon, in the tenth century before 
the Christian @ra. 1t was there- 
fore incumbent on me, unless I 
would adopt Sir Isaac Newton’s 
shorter chronology, to remove a 
formidable -objeétion ; and my so- 
lution,. for a youth of fifteen, is not 
devoid of ingenuity. In his’ ver- 
version of the sacred books, Mane- 
tho the high priest has identified 
Sethosis, or Sesostris, with the elder 
brother of Danaus, who landed in 
Greece, according to the Parian 
Marble, fifteen hundred and ten 
years before Christ. But in my 
supposition the high priest is guilty 
of a voluntary error ; flattery is the 
prolific parent of falsehood, Ma- 
netho’s Fiistary of Egypt is dedi. 
eated to Prs'emy 'Philad=Iphus, who 
derived ayfibulous or illegitimate 
pedigree from the “Macedonian 
kings of the race of Hercules: Da- 
naus is the ancestor of Hercules ; 
and afier the failure ef the eldet 
branch, his descendants, the Pro- 
lemies,'are the sole representatives 
of the royal family, and may claim 
by ipheritance the kingdom which 
they hold by-conguest. Such were 
my juvenile discoveries ; at a riper 
age, I no longer presume to connect 
the Greek, the Jewish, and the 
Egyptian antiquities, which are lost 
in a distant cloud. Nor is this the 
only instance, in which the belief 
and knowledge of the child are su- 
perseded by the more rational ig- 
norance of the man. During my 
stay at Buriton, my infant-labour 
was diligently prosecuted, without 
much inierruption from company or 
country diversions ; and I already 
heard the music of public applanse. 
he discovery of my own weakness 
was the first symptom of taste. On 
my return to Oxford, the age of 
Sesostris was wisely relinquished ; 
but the imperfect sheets remained 
twenty years at the bottom of a 
drawer, till, in a general clearance 
of papers (Novemper 1772) they 
were committed to the flames. 
After the departure of Dr. Wal- 
degrave, I was transferred with 
his other pupils, to his academi- 
cal heir, whose literary charaéter 
did not command the ‘respeét of 
the college. Dr. **** well remem: 
bered that he had a ‘salary to re- 
ceive, and only forgot that he had a 
duty to perform. Instead of guiding 
the studies, and watching over the 
behaviour of his disciple, I was 
never summoned “to attend even 
the ceremony of a’ leéture.; -and, 
excepting 
