lessness even of talents and knowledge, when separated from moral principle*.

There is an English translation of the Scriptures, in two volumes folio, which was published at London in 1765, and, although not distinguished by much elegance, is held in considerable esteem for its general accuracy and closeness to the original. This was the work of a person of the name of ANTHONY Purver, who, at the time when it appeared, was a schoolmaster at Andover, but had been almost entirely selfeducated. Having been born (about the year 1702) in low life, he had been originally apprenticed to a shoemaker, by whom, however, he was employed as a shepherd, an occupation which afforded him considerable leisure for reading and study. In the course of time, he acquired, with scarcely any assistance, a very considerable knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. It was the accidental perusal of a book, in which some errors were pointed out in the common translation of the Bible, that first awakened in him a desire to make himself acquainted with the two sacred tongues. Purver, who died in 1777, was a Quaker; and his version of the Scriptures, which was the labour of thirty years of his life, was published at the expense of the eminent Dr. Fothergill,† who was himself also a member of that religious body.

There has lately appeared in the newspapers an account of a scholar in humble life, who died some time since in London, and whose attainments seem

*For the trial of Eugene Aram, see Howell's State Trials.

Dr. Fothergill gave Purver £1000 for the copy of his translation (an attempt had before been made to publish it in numbers), and also carried it, at his own expense, through the press. Purver afterwards revised the work for a second edition, which, however, has not yet appeared. See Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary.

to have been as extensive, and as entirely the result of his own exertions in quest of knowledge, as those of any one of the individuals we have yet mentioned. JOSEPH PENDRELL had received at school nothing more than the ordinary education in English reading and writing, and at an early age was apprenticed by his father to a shoemaker, which business he followed until his death. He had, when young, a great taste for books; but was first led to the more learned studies in which he eventually made so much progress, by the following accident:-Stopping at a book-stall one day, he laid hold of a book of arithmetic, marked fourpence; he purchased it, and availed himself of his leisure hours at home in making himself master of the subject. At the end of the volume, he found a short introduction to the mathematics. This stimulated him to make farther purchases of scientific works; and in this way he gradually proceeded from the elements to the highest departments of mathematical learning. When a journeyman, he made every possible saving in order to purchase books. He found there were many valuable writers on his favourite subject in French: this determined him to study that language, for which purpose he procured a grammar, a book of exercises, and a dictionary, and he persevered until he was able to read the French writers with ease. In the same manner, he proceeded to acquire the Latin and Greek languages, of the latter of which he made himself master so far as to have little difficulty in reading the Septuagint, or any other common prose work. He had formed a large collection of classical books, many of which he purchased at the auction-rooms in King Street, Covent Garden, formerly belonging to Paterson, the celebrated bookauctioneer,* in whose time they formed a favourite * See page 189.

resort of literary men. Pendrell did not, however, avail himself of any opportunity of becoming known to the literary characters he was accustomed to meet here. On the contrary, he always shunned notice, and made it a practice invariably to conceal his name when a lot was knocked down to him. He had often met in these rooms the learned Bishop Lowth, who frequently fell into conversation with him, as they sometimes happened to meet before the sale began. The Bishop was much interested with his conversation, and one day asked Paterson who he was; on which Paterson took the first opportunity to inquire his name, acquainting him, at the same time, who the person was that felt interested in his favour. The poor shoemaker, however, from extreme diffidence, declined telling Paterson his name, although the introduction to the Bishop, of which an opportunity was thus given him, might probably have drawn him from obscurity and led to some improvement of his humble circumstances. Pendrell's knowledge of mathematical science was profound and extensive, embracing fortification, navigation, astronomy, and all the different departments of natural philosophy. He was also familiar with our poetical literature; and had a thorough acquaintance with most English writers in the department of the belles lettres. He resided for several years before his death at Gray's-buildings, Duke-street, Manchester-square, and died in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He was descended, it is supposed, from the Pendrell who concealed Charles II. after the battle of Worcester.

CHAPTER XXI.

Force of Application. Dr. Alexander Murray.

WITH the exception of Magliabecchi, the names we have as yet mentioned under our present head have been those of persons whose acquirements, although most honourable to themselves, and well entitled to our admiration, when the circumstances in which they were made are considered, have yet hardly been such as to secure for their possessors any permanent place in the annals of the learned. They are remembered not so much on account of what they accomplished, as on account of the disadvantages under which it was accomplished. But he whom we are now to introduce, while the narrative of his progress from obscurity to distinction presents to us as praiseworthy a struggle with adverse circumstances as is anywhere else recorded, had taken his rank, even before his premature death, among the scholars of his time; and although suddenly arrested when in the very speed of his career, has bequeathed something of himself in his works to posterity. We speak of the late Dr. ALEXANDER MURRAY, the celebrated orientalist; nor are there many more interesting histories than his in the whole range of literary biography. Happily the earlier portion of it, with which we have principally to do, has

2 I

been sketched by his own pen *with characteristic naïveté ; and we are thus in possession both of a very full, and of a perfectly trustworthy detail of every thing we can desire to know respecting him. This piece of autobiography, which is prefixed to Dr. Murray's posthumous work, The History of European Languages,' is, we believe, comparatively but little known to ordinary readers; and both for this reason, and from its value as an illustration of our subject, we shall allot as much space as can be afforded to an abstract of it.

There

are one or two other sources, from which a few additional particulars, with regard to Dr. Murray, may be gathered, and to which we shall occasionally refer.

He was born in the parish of Minnigaff, in the shire of Kirkcudbright, on the 22d of October, 1775. His father was at this time nearly seventy years of age, and had been a shepherd all his life, as his own father, and probably his ancestors for many generations, had also been. Alexander's mother was also the daughter of a shepherd, and was the old man's second wife; several sons, whom he had by a former marriage, being all brought up to the same primitive occupation. This modern patriarch died in the year 1797, at the age of ninety-one; and he appears to have been a man of considerable natural sagacity, and possessed, at least, of the simple scholarship of which the Scottish peasant is rarely destitute.

It was from his father that Alexander received

* In a letter to the Rev. Mr. Maitland, minister of Minnigaff, written in 1812,-evidently a hasty composition, as it bears to be, and intended only for the eye of a friend, but more beautiful and touching in its unlaboured, and, sometimes, even incorrect simplicity of phrase and manner, than any less natural eloquence could have made it.