discussing. Two volumes of the "Letters of the Learned" to Maglia becchi were published at Florence in 1745, and they form but a small part of those that were addressed to him during his long life, from every part of Europe, by persons who wished to avail themselves of the aid of his universal learning. Upon almost any subject, we are told, on which he was consulted, he could not only state what any particular author had said of it, but in many cases could quote the very words employed, naming, at the same time, the volume, the page, and the column in which they were to be found. Authors and printers were generally wont to send him all the works which they published—a sure method, if they contained anything valuable, of getting them, as it were, advertised over the world of letters, since literary men were everywhere in communication with Magliabecchi, and he would not fail, if the new book deserved his recommendation, to mention its merits to such of his correspondents as it was likely to interest. He had a sort of short-hand method of reading, by wnich he contrived to get over a great many volumes in little time, and which every person will be in some degree able to understand who has been much in the habit of looking over new books. His way, we are told, was to look first to the title-page, then to dip into the preface, dedication, or other preliminary matter, and, finally, to go over the divisions or chapters; after which, being so completely in possession as he was of all that former writers had said upon the subject treated of, he was very nearly as much master of the contents of the new work, as if he had perused it in the ordinary fashion. Of course, if this cursory inspection gave him reason to believe that there was in any part of it matter really new and important, he would examine it more particularly before he laid it down. At all events, it is certain that, although thus expeditiously acquired, his knowledge was the very reverse of superficial. The reverence with which he was regarded by the greatest scholars of his time proves this. The dexterity, if we may so call it, which he attained in the art of acquiring such knowledge as can be communicated by books was in great part the result of the exclusiveness with which he devoted his life to that object. He might be said literally to live in his library; for in fact he both slept and took his meals in the midst of his books. Three hard eggs and a draught of water formed his common repast; and a sort of cradle, which he had made for the purpose, served him both for his elbow-chair during the day, and for a bed at night. He never travelled more than a few miles from Florence; but all the great libraries in the world were nevertheless nearly as well known to him as his own. "One day," says Mr. Spence, "the Grand Duke sent for him, after he was his librarian, to ask him whether he could get for him a book which was particularly scarce. 'No, Sir,' answered Maglia becchi, it is impossible, for there is but one in the world; that is in the Grand Seignor's library at Constantinople,

and is the seventh book on the second shelf, on the right hand as you go in.'" This is not to be taken as a proof of the extraordinary memory of Maglia becchi; for, the book in question being a remarkable one, it is not at all wonderful that the circumstance, which, in point of fact, principally made it so, should have been distinctly remembered by him: but the familiar style in which he alludes to the localities of the Sultan's library-speaking of it in the easy, off-hand manner of a person in the habit of being there every day of his life-shows the hold that everything about it had taken of his fancy, and how entirely books were his world.

We are too apt, perhaps, to underrate Magliabecchi, as a mere helluo librorum, or book glutton. Probably few men have passed their lives with more enjoyment to themselves, and, at the same time, more serviceably in regard to others. His powers of mind, wonderful as they were in certain respects, do not seem to have been such as qualified him for profound and original thinking, or for enlarging the boundaries of human knowledge. He did what he was best fitted to do well, when he devoted himself to the accumulation of a multifarious learning for his own gratification, and the benefit of all who needed his assistance. In choosing this province for himself, he certainly chose that which no one else could have occupied so successfully.

The Rev. Joseph Spence, whom we have already mentioned more than once in these pages, has written a little volume, which he entitles, "A Parallel, in the manner of Plutarch, between a most celebrated man of Florence, and one, scarce ever heard of, in England." The celebrated Florentine is Magliabecchi; and our obscure countryman, with whom he is compared, is a person of the name of ROBERT HILL. Hill, as Spence informs us, was born in 1699, at Miswell, near Tring, in Hertfordshire, of parents in humble life, who had scarcely been married a year when his father died. Five years after this event his mother was married a second time to a tailor at Buckingham; but upon removing to that town she left Robert at Miswell, in charge of his grandmother. The old woman herself taught him to read, and afterwards sent him to school for seven or eight weeks to learn writing, which was all the school education he ever received. He then went to reside with an uncle who lived at Tring Grove, by whom he was employed to drive the plough, and do other country work. At last, when he was about fifteen years of age, it was resolved to bind him an apprentice to his father-inlaw, the tailor. With him he remained for the usual period of seven years, in which time he learned that business. In the year 1716, he chanced to get hold of an imperfect Latin Accidence and Grammar, and about three-fourths of a Littleton's Dictionary. He had already begun to be a great reader, purchasing candles for himself with what money he could procure, and sitting up at his books a great part of the

night, the only time when he had any leisure; but these acquisitions gave additional force to a desire he had for some time felt to learn Latin, originally excited, as he declared, by some epitaphs in that language in the church, which his curiosity made him wish very much to be able to read. Next year, however, he was sent back to Tring Grove, in consequence of the small-pox raging in Buckingham; and, in the hurry of departure, he left his Latin books behind him. It was a year and a quarter before he returned to Buckingham, and during that interval he was employed in keeping his uncle's sheep, an occupation in which he said he was very happy, as, to use his own expression, “he could lie under a hedge and read all day long." The only books he had with him were the "Practice of Piety," the "Whole Duty of Man," and a French Grammar, which he read so often through, that at last he had them almost all by heart. When he got back to Buckingham, however, he found his old Latin Grammar; and this set him anew on his classical studies. Here he derived considerable assistance from some of his young companions, who were attending the Free Grammar School of the place, and whom he used to bribe to help him over his difficulties, by doing for them in return any little service in his power. He considered himself very well paid for running on a message by being told the English of some Latin word, which he had not been able to find in his dictionary. In this way he enabled himself, before the expiration of his apprenticeship, to read a great part of a Latin Testament, which he had purchased, as well as of a Cæsar, which some one had given him.

On getting over his apprenticeship, he married, and set up in business for himself. Soon after, a gentleman by whom he was employed gave him a Homer and a Greek Testament; upon which, as he could not bear to have a book in his possession which he was unable to read, he resolved to learn Greek. Accordingly he imparted his scheme to a young gentleman to whom he was known, and received from him a grammar of the language, and a promise of his assistance, Hill engaging to teach him to fish in return for his literary instructions.

His family beginning now to increase, he bethought him of adding something to his income by his book-knowledge; and in the year 1724, he opened a school for reading, writing, and arithmetic, which he continued to teach for six or seven years. By his own account, however, he was not at first very well prepared for some of the duties of his new employment. Soon after he had entered upon it, a scholar came to him wishing to receive lessons in arithmetic, who had already advanced as far as decimal fractions. Poor Hill himself had at this time got no further than what he calls “a little way into division;" and he was at first in no small consternation: however, he hit upon a plan of managing the matter which answered well enough. To consume the time, he set his pupil, by way of preliminary exercise, to copy a series of tables, which

had some apparent relation to the subject of his intended studies. They must have been tolerably voluminous, for we are told they occupied the patient writer six weeks, although it may be supposed his master was not very importunate in urging him through the task. Meanwhile, however, Hill made the best use he could of the respite he had obtained for himself by this stratagem; and by sitting up frequently nearly the whole night, after his day's work was over, he contrived, by the time the copying of the tables was finished, to be a small degree in advance of his pupil.

After he had been married for seven or eight years his wife died; but in two years he married again. This second match turned out very unfortunate; his wife, who appears to have been a worthless person, having in a short time run him so much in debt, that he found it necessary to leave the place, and thus to effect his escape at once from her and his creditors. After this he led, for several years, a wandering life; continuing, however, as he travelled through the country, both to work at his business and to pursue his studies. He was now seized with a violent desire to learn Hebrew, in consequence of meeting with some quotations in that language in a book which he was perusing; but for a long time he could not find a grammar he could make anything of, although he bought and tried a great many; and at last he got so out of humour at his ill success, that he disposed of them all again, and gave up his design. His desire to learn the language, however, soon returned; and, having bought a lot of thirteen Hebrew books for as many shillings, he was lucky enough to find among them a grammar (Stennit's) which he was able to understand; and, having in this way got over the first difficulties of the study, he went on with great ease.

It was twelve years after he parted from his wife before he returned to Buckingham, which he did at last, on hearing accidentally that she had been two or three years dead. Soon after his return, he married a third time, and once more resumed a domestic and settled life.

This was in the year 1747. Till now he had, according to his own account, concealed his literary acquirements; but about this time he attracted the notice of a clergyman in the neighbourhood of Buckingham, who had chanced to put a question to him, which he answered in such a way as to discover his scholarship. His clerical friend, some time after the commencement of their acquaintance, put into his hands Bishop Clayton's "Essay on Spirit ;" and Hill, having read the book, wrote a series of remarks on it, which were published in the year 1753. This was his first attempt at authorship. He afterwards sent to the press several other productions on theological subjects, of which one entitled "Criticisms on the Book of Job," in five sheets, was the largest. When Spence first met Hill, which was at the house of the clergyman just mentioned, he was in great poverty, and struggling hard to obtain a

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subsistence for himself and his family. Bad times had made employment scarce; and "this," says Spence, "has reduced him so very low, that I have been informed that he has passed many and many whole days in this and the former year without tasting anything but water and tobacco. He has a wife and four small children, the eldest of them not above eight years old; and what bread they could get he often spared from his own hunger to help towards satisfying theirs." Spence's principal object in publishing his little work was to raise a subscription for the poor scholar who was its subject; and who, notwithstanding some errors by which part of his life was marked, appears to have been upon the whole a person of much worth of character, and well deserving of public sympathy and encouragement. It is believed that the effect of this appeal was to relieve him, for the rest of his days, from the difficulties under which he was at this time suffering. He continued to live at Buckingham for about twenty years after his remarkable acquirements had in this way been made known to the world, having died there in the year 1777.

Hill was evidently not a person of any uncommon extent of talent or quickness of apprehension; and it is this peculiarity that chiefly makes his example interesting and instructive. His story teaches us what the mere love and persevering pursuit of knowledge may accomplish, even where there is no extraordinary degree of mental power to make up for the want of a regular education. All his acquirements were made laboriously and slowly. As he himself stated, he had been seven years in learning Latin, and fourteen in learning Greek; and, although he declared he could teach any person Hebrew in six weeks, his own difficulties, we have just seen, in the acquisition of the elements of that tongue, had been far from inconsiderable. Everything yielded, however, to his invincible perseverance, and to a zeal which no labour could damp or exhaust. "When I was saying to him," writes Spence, “among other things, that I was afraid his studies must have broken in upon his other business too much, he said that sometimes they had a little; but that his usual way had been to sit up very deep into the nights, or else to rise by two or three in the morning, on purpose to get time for reading, without prejudicing himself in his trade." Although of a weakly constitution, he had in this way, we are told, accustomed himself to do very well with only two or three hours of sleep in the twenty-four, and he lived to be seventy-eight.

Nearly contemporary with Hill was HENRY WILD, another learned ailor, who had also acquired an extraordinary knowledge of languages chiefly by his own unassisted efforts. Wild, who was born in 1684, had been at the grammar-school of Norwich for several years when a boy; but, upon leaving it, was bound apprentice to a tailor in the same city, with whom he served first for seven years under his indenture, and then