language, and fcience of tactics, which opened a new field of study and obfervation. I diligently read, and meditated, the Mémoires Militaires of Quintus Icilius, (Mr. Guichardt,) the only writer who has united the merits of a profeffor and a veteran, The difcipline and evolutions of a modern battalion gave me a clearer notion of the phalanx and the legion; and the captain of the Hampshire grena diers (the reader may fmile) has not been useless to the hiftorian of the Roman empire. A youth of any spirit is fired even by the play of arms, and in the first fallies of my enthusiasm I had seriously attempted to embrace the regular profeffion of a foldier. But this military fever was cooled by the enjoyment of our mimic Bellona, who foon unveiled to my eyes her naked deformity. How often did I figh for my proper ftation in fociety and letters. How often (a proud comparison) did I repeat the complaint of Cicero in the command of a provincial army: "Clitellæ "bovi funt impofitæ. Eft incredibile quam me "negotii tædeat. Non habet fatis magnum cam«Ε pum ille tibi non ignotus curfus animi; & induf triæ meæ præclara opera ceffat. Lucem, libros, ur"bem, domum, vos defidero. Sed feram, ut potero; "fit modo annuum. Si prorogatur, actum eft ". From a fervice without danger I might indeed have retired without difgrace; but as often as I hinted a wifh of refigning, my fetters were rivetted by the friendly intreaties of the colonel, the parental author. rity of the major, and my own regard for the honor and welfare of the battalion. When I felt that my perfonal escape was impracticable, I bowed my neck to the yoke: my fervitude was protracted far beyond the annual patience of Cicero; and it was not till after the preliminaries of peace that I received my difcharge, from the act of government which difembodied the militia. When I complain of the lofs of time, justice to my felf and to the militia must throw the greateft part of that reproach on the first feven or eight months, while I was obliged to learn as well as to teach. The diffipation of Blandford, and the disputes of Portsmouth, confumed the hours which were not employed in the field; and amid the perpetual burry of an inn, a barrack, or a guard-room, all literary ideas were banished from my mind. After this long faft, the longeft which I have ever known, I once more tafted at Dover the pleasures of reading and thinking; and the hungry appetite with which I opened a volume of Tully's philofophical works is ftill present to my memory. The last review of my Effay before its publication, had prompted me to investigate the nature of the gods; my inquiries led me to the Hiftoire Critique du Manichéifme of Beaufobre, who difcuffes many deep queftions of Pagan and Chriftian theology: and from this rich treasury of facts and opinions, I deduced my own confequences, beyond the holy circle of the author. After this recovery I never relapsed into indolence; and my example might prove, that in the life most averse to study, fome hours may be stolen, fome minutes may be fnatched. Amidft the tumult of Winchester camp I fometimes thought and read in my tent; in the more fettled quarters of the Devizes, Blandford, and Southampton, I always fecured a feparate lodging, and the neceffary books; and in the fummer of 1762, while the new militia was raifing, I enjoyed at Beriton two or three months of literary repofe ". In forming a new plan of study, I hefitated between the mathematics and the Greek language: both of which I had neglected fince my return from Laufanne. I confulted a learned and friendly mathematician, Mr. George Scott, a pupil of de Moivre; and his map of a country which I have never explored, may perhaps be more ferviceable to others". As foon as I had given the preference to Greek, the example of Scaliger and my own reafon determined me on the choice of Homer, the father of poetry, and the Bible of the ancients: but Scaliger ran through the Iliad in one-and-twenty days; and I was not diffatisfied with my own diligence for performing the fame labor in an equal number of weeks. After the firft difficulties were. furmounted, the language of nature and harmony foon became eafy and familiar, and each day I failed upon the ocean with a brifker gale and a more steady course. Ἐν δ' άνεμος πρῆσεν μέσον ἱςίον, 'αμφὶ δὲ κῦμα 33 In the study of a poet who has fince become the moft intimate of my friends, I fucceffively applied many paffages and fragments of Greek writers; and among these I shall notice a life of Homer, in the Opufcula Mythologica of Gale, feveral books of the geography of Strabo, and the entire treatife of Longinus, which, from the title and the ftyle, is equally worthy of the epithet of fublime. My grammatical skill was improved, my vocabulary was enlarged; and in the militia I acquired a juft and indelible knowledge of the firft of languages. On every march, in every journey, Horace was always in my pocket, and often in my hand: but I fhould not mention his two critical epiftles, the amufement of a morning, had they not been accompanied by the elaborate commentary of Dr. Hurd, now Bishop of Worcester. On the interefting fubjects of compofition and imitation of epic and dramatic poetry, I prefumed to think for myfelf; and thirty closewritten pages in folio could fcarcely comprife my full and free difcuffion of the sense of the master and the pedantry of the fervant ". After his oracle Dr. Johnson, my friend Sir Joshua Reynolds denies all original genius, any natural propenfity of the mind to one art or fcience rather than another. Without engaging in a metaphyfical or rather verbal dispute, I know, by experience, that from my early youth I aspired to the character of a hiftorian. While I ferved in the militia, before and after the publication of my essay, this idea ripened in my mind; nor can I paint in more lively colors the feelings of the moment, than by tranfcribing fome paffages, under their respective dates, from a journal which I kept at that time. Beriton, April 14, 1761. (In a fhort excurfion from Dover.) Having thought of feveral fubjects for a hif "torical compofition, I chose the expedition of "Charles VIII. of France into Italy. I read two "memoirs of Mr. de Foncemagne in the Academy * of Inscriptions (tom. xvii. p. 539–607.), and "abftracted them. I likewife finished this day a "differtation, in which I examine the right of "Charles VIII. to the crown of Naples, and the "rival claims of the House of Anjou and Arragon: "it confifts of ten folio pages, befides large Beriton, August 4, 1761. (In a week's excurfion from Winchester camp.) "After having long revolved fubjects for my "intended hiftorical effay, I renounced my first "thought of the expedition of Charles VIII. as too ec remote from us, and rather an introduction to 66 great events; than great and important in itself. I "fucceffively chofe and rejected the crufade of "Richard the Firft, the barons' wars against John "and Henry the Third, the hiftory of Edward the "Black Prince, the lives and comparisons of Henry "V. and the Emperor Titus, the life of Sir Philip Sidney, and that of the Marquis of Montrose. "At length I have fixed on Sir Walter Raleigh for my hero. His eventful story is varied by the "characters of the foldier and failor, the courtier "and historian; and it may afford fuch a fund of "materials as I defire, which have not yet been "properly manufactured. At prefent I cannot attempt the execution of this work. Free leifure, and "the opportunity of confulting many books, both 66 |