As his Studies have lain chiefly in Languages, explaining Texts of Scripture, and controverfial Divinity: he himself is not unfond of difputing. In particular, he thinks the Followers of Mr. Hutchinson wrong in almost every thing they advance; and faid, "He would go fo far, and al"moft with as much Pleasure, as he came to fee "me, to difpute with a Hutchinfonian." And his Journey to me was near fixty Miles; and that, poor Man! on Foot.

Though the Relation who first instructed him, and furnished him with the few Books he had at Tring-Grove, was an Anabaptift; he himself is, and always has been, a moft zealous Son of the Church of England; and feems to think, that any thing's being inferted in our Liturgy, or any Points being held by our Church, is a fufficient Argument of itself, for its being true..

Poetry has now and then come in for Part of his Diverfion in reading; and in particular, he had a Horace, and the Epiftles of Ovid, among his Books very early: But among them all his chief Acquaintance have been Homer, Virgil and Ogilby; and yet as to Homer, he had gone no farther than his Iliad (1758); which he had read over many Times. The firft Day after he came to me, he defired to fee the Odyssey; which I put into his Hands, both in the Original, and in Mr. Pope's Translation. He was charmed with them both;

but

but faid, "He did not know how it was, but that "it read finer to him in the latter, than in Homer "himself." On this he was defirous of reading some more of Mr. Pope: I pointed him to the Effay on Criticism; this charmed him still more; and he called it, "The wifeft Poem he had ever "read in his whole Life." Before our parting, I made him a Prefent of one or two Poems, and above a hundred Weight of Fathers and polemic Divinity. I dare fay he will go over every Line of them; and indeed, he declared that I had now furnished him with reading, at his leifure Hours from Work, for these seven Years.

It was but laft April that he was with me; fo having brought down the little Circumftances of his Life almoft to the prefent Time, I have nothing more to add, than the Comparison between him and Magliabechi: Which, to say the Truth, was the principal, and almoft only Reafon, for my writing their Lives.

THE

WOW as to the two Perfons whom I have chofen to compare together, in the Manner of that great and good Philofopher Plutarch; and who do not yield more in Dignity to the great Lawgivers, and Generals and Heroes, which are usually the Subject of his Enquiries, than I do in Abilities to fo celebrated a Writer among the Antients: We may observe however, in the first Place, in Commendation of both of them, that they were of low Birth; and acquired whatever they did acquire, almost without any Assistance from their Parents, and entirely without the common Helps of Education. Magliabechi

Magliabechi feems to have never been at any School at all; and Hill was at one only for two Months. They were their own School-Masters; and almoft as untaught and unaffisted as the Saxon Peasant [o], of whom we have lately had so full an Account in feveral of our public Papers.

Then again there is something extremely odd in each of them, in the Beginning of their Application to Study. Hill has no fooner got a Latin Book, into his Poffeffion, than he endeavours to learn Latin ; that every Day he is Master of a Greek Book, he attempts that much more difficult Language; and the bare feeing a few Hebrew Paffages quoted, fets him upon a third. But Magliabechi's Beginning is yet stranger: For nothing can be more unaccountable than his Fondnefs of looking fo much on printed Paper, before he could tell any one Letter from another; and, as far as I ever heard, without any Attempt, or Thoughts, at first, of distinguishing them.

They are alike too in the Eagerness of the Purfuit, and the Intenseness of their Application, when once they had begun. Hill was happy in lying under his Hedge, and reading all Day: And Magliabechi lolled and read, for many Days, together, in his Cradle. In the Procefs of his Studies, Hill was forced often to rob himself of a great Part of the Reft, more particularly wanted for one of his weakly

[] John Ludwig, of Coffedaude; a Village, in the Neigbour food of Drefden.

Confti

Conftitution, to carry on his Enquiries; and I have heard him fay, that he came to think three or four Hours Sleep 'very fufficient for a Night, after he had used himself to it for fome Years. Magliabechi was not obliged to follow the fame Practice; his Bufinefs gave him more Time for it, in the Day; and very little of that did he pass, without his Eyes being fixed on fome Book or other.

The Success of Mr. Hill in acquiring the three learned Languages, in the Manner he did, is very extraordinary: But the Extent of Magliabechi's Acquifitions is abfolutely amazing; by the Accounts given of him, he had read almost every thing, remembered all he had read, and had each Part of it at Hand to produce whenever he was confulted about it.

I doubt not but that it is the fame with the Faculties of the Mind, as it is with the Limbs of the Body, which ever is exercised much more than the reft. It is a common Obfervation, and generally holds through the whole Sett, that a Chairman's Legs will be more muscular in Proportion than his Arms; and a Rower's Arms will be more mufcular than his Legs: Juft in the fame Manner, if one Man was to exercise his Imagination only [which I fear may have been the Cafe with fome of our Poets], that will grow ftronger and stronger, but his Judgment will become feeble; if another was to exercife only his Judgment, as happens too often among the Mathematicians, the Powers of his

Imagination