the relative proportions of numbers and their progressive denominations, he does not remember; but to this he has applied the whole force of his mind, and upon this his attention is constantly fixed, so that he frequently takes no cognizance of external objects, and when he does, it is only with respect to their numbers. The same attention of his mind appears as well by what he hears as by what he sees. If any space of time is mentioned, he will soon after say, that it is so many minutes; and if any distance of way, he will assign the number of hair's breadths, without any question having been asked, or any calculation expected by the company.

By this method he has greatly increased the power of his memory, with respect to figures, and stored up several common products in his mind, to which he can have immediate recourse; as the number of minutes in a year, of hair's breadths in a mile, and many others. When he once comprehends a question, which is not without difficulty and time, he begins to work with amazing facility, and will leave a long question half wrought, and, at the end of several months, resume it, beginning where he left off, and proceeding regularly till it is completed.

His memory would certainly have been equally retentive, with respect to other objects, if he had attended to other objects with equal diligence; but his perpetual application to figures has prevented the smallest acquisition of any other knowledge, and his mind seems to have retained fewer ideas than that of a boy ten years old, in the same class of life. He has been sometimes asked, on his return from church, whether he remembered the text, or any part of the sermon; but it never appeared that he brought away one sentence. His mind, upon a closer examination, being found to have been busied, even during divine service, in its favourite operation, either dividing some time, or some space, into the smallest known parts, or resolv ing some question that had been given him as a test of his abilities. His power of abstraction is so great that no noise interrupts him; and, if he is asked any question, he immediately replies, and returns again to his calculation, without any confusion, or the loss of more time than his answer required. His method of working is peculiar to himself, and by no means the shortest or the clearest, as will appear by the following example :

He was required to multiply 456 by 378, which he had completed as soon as a person in company had produced the product in the common way; and upon being requested to

work it audibly, that his method might be known, he mul tiplied 456 first by 5, which produced 2280, which he again multiplied by 20, and found the product, 45,600, which was the multiplicand multiplied by 100'; this product he again multiplied by 3, which produced 136,800, which was the sum of the multiplicand multiplied by 300; it remained therefore to multiply it by 78, which he effected by multiplying 2280 (the product of the multiplicand multiplied by 5) by 15; 5 times 15 being 75; this product being $4,200, he added to the 136,800, which was the multiplicand multiplied by 300, and this produced 171,000, which was 375 times 456; to complete his operation, therefore, he multiplied 456 by 3, which produced 1368, and having added this number to 171,000, he found the product of 456 multiplied by 378 to be 172,3568.

Thus it appears that his arithmetic is perfectly his own, and that he is so little acquainted with the common rules as to multiply 456 first by 5, and the product by 20, to find what sum it would produce multiplied by 100, whereas, if he had added two noughts to the figures, he would have obtained it at once.

The only objects of Jedediah's curiosity, except figures, were the king and royal family, and his desire to see them was so strong, that in the beginning of the spring, he walked to London on purpose, but at last returned disappointed, the king having just removed to Kensington, as Jedediah came into London. He was, however, introduced to the Royal Society, whom he called the volk of the Siety Court the gentlemen who were present asked him several questions in arithmetic, to prove his abilities, and dismissed him with a handsome gratuity.

During his residence in London he was carried to see King Richard III. performed at Drury-lane playhouse, and it was expected either that the novelty and the splendor of the show would have fixed him in astonishment, or kept his imagination in a continual hurry; or that his passions would, in some degree, have been touched by the power of action, if he had not perfectly understood the dialogue; but Jedediah's mind was employed in the playhouse just as it was employed at church. During the dance he fixed his attention upon the number of steps; he declared after a fine piece of music, that the innumerable sounds produced by the instruments had perplexed him beyond measure, and he attended even to Mr. Garrick only to count the words that he uttered, in which, he says, he perfectly succeeded. Jedediah is now safely returned to the place of his birth,

where, if his enjoyments are few, his wishes do not seem to be more; he applies to his labour, by which he subsists, with cheerfulness; he regrets nothing that he left behind him in London, and it is still his opinion, that a slice of rusty bacon affords the most delicious repast.

1754, June.

IX. Account of Robert Hill, the learned Tailor of Buckingham.

MR. URBAN,

As I was, with many others, much entertained with your memoirs of Jedediah Buxton, I send you an account of a man who has risen much higher from the same level, and whose mind, if in one instance it is less retentive, is yet much more remarkable for the variety and vigour of its operations, and the multitude of ideas which it contains.

Robert Hill was born at Tring, in Hertfordshire, where an old relation having taught him his letters, he learned to read by himself at home. This acquisition was so remarkable in a child, that he was, for the first time, sent to school, but was, by some accident, prevented from going there longer than seven weeks, during which time, however he learned to write. When he was about fourteen years of age; he was put apprentice to a stay-maker and tailor, at Buckingham; but his desire of knowledge being still predominant, he contrived to gratify it under every possible disadvantage. With the first money that he could scrape toge ther he purchased Beza's Latin Testament, and a Latin Grammar. He then applied to the boys at the free school, and got himself employed by them, to run on errands, or to render them such other service as was in his power, have ing always first stipulated, that in return they should tell him the English of the Latin words in some rule of his Grammar. In proportion to the knowledge he acquired, he became more sensible of what was yet wanting; and as soon as he was able, he added a Gradus to his Testament and Grammar, by which he was assisted in his pronunciation. As there are few difficulties insurmountable by persevering labour, Hill, at the expiration of his apprenticeship, had not only learned his trade, but could read and understand several Latin authors tolerably well.

He was now known to the neighbouring gentlemen, one

of whom, upon the death of his son, gave him some of his books, and among others there happened to be a Greek Testament. This was a new object of curiosity, and not being able to rest while he had a book in his possession which he could not read, he immediately applied himself to learn Greek. In this arduous task he received some assistance fron a young gentleman at Buckingham, and in about three years he began to read a Greek author with some pleasure. The same restless curiosity and desire of knowledge, which thus attached him to books, induced him not to follow his business at home, but to travel the country, as an itinerary mender of clothes and stays; but in this state of poverty and dissipation, he was still a hard student, and when he was four and thirty years of age he began to learn Hebrew.

The first book that he read for this purpose happened to be Shindler's Grammar; but as all books that are written to instruct those who have no master, in the first rudiments of science, suppose many things to be known which they ought to teach, Hill found several deficiences in Shindler, which he was at a loss to supply; and after much labour and much contrivance, he thought, if he could, in his peregrinations, associate himself with some Jew, who, like himself, was travelling the country for a subsistence, he might take the same route, and should be able to get such instruction as he wanted. This project he immediately put in execution, and finding an itinerant Jew at Oakingham, he communicated his scheme, and stated his difficulties. The Jew was very ready to assist him, but Hill found him not able; this inability, however, he supposed to be accidental, and therefore applied himself to many others, but to all with as little success. To Hill, however, nothing was less eligible than to relinquish his purpose, he, therefore, had recourse to other Hebrew Grammars, of which he read eleven, some answered his purpose best in one particular and some in another, but not any one of them contained all that he expected to find, though he thinks, upon the whole, Mayer's is the best. After he had thus acquired the knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and made himself acquainted with whatever such travels as his could produce to his observation, almost constantly studying half the night that he might pursue his journey and his business in the day, he returned to Buckingham, where he still continues buried in obscurity, and scarcely subsisting by his labour; but perfectly contented with his condition, extremely modest and diffident in his discourse, and without any new

fangled notions in religion, which generally distinguish a smatterer in learning.*

1754, Sept.

X. Account of Henry Wild, the learned Tailor of Norwich.

MR. HENRY WILD, professor of the oriental languages, was born in the city of Norwich, and educated there at a grammar school, and almost fitted for the University; but his friends wanting fortune and interest to maintain him there, bound him an apprentice to a tailor, with whom he served out the term of seven years; after which he worked as a journeyman seven years more. About the end of the

last seven years, he was seized with a fever and ague, which continued two or three years, and reduced him at last so Jow, as to disable him from working at his trade. In this situation, he amused himself with some old books of controversial divinity, wherein he found great stress laid on the Hebrew original of several texts of scripture. Though he had almost lost his school learning, his curiosity and strong desire of knowledge excited him to attempt to make himself master of it. He was obliged at first to make use of an English Hebrew grammar and lexicon, but by degrees he recovered the language he had learned at school. As his health was re-established, he divided his time between the business of his profession, and his studies, which last employed the greatest part of his nights. Thus self-taught and assisted only by his own great genius, by dint of continual application, and almost unparalleled industry, he added the knowledge of all, or the much greater part, of the ori ental languages, to that of Hebrew. But still he laboured in obscurity, till, at length, he was accidentally discovered

to the world.

The late worthy Dr. Prideaux, dean of Norwich, a name justly celebrated in the learned world, was offered some Arabic MSS. in parchment, by a bookseller of that city.

[* He wrote, 1. "Remarks on Berkeley's Essay on Spirit.'" . "The Character of a Jew." 3. "Criticisms on Job;" and died at Buckingham, in July, 1777, aged 78. According to his own account, he was seven years acquiring Latin, twice as much in learning Greek, but Hebrew he found so easy that it cost him little time. E.]