The celebrated MARMONTEL benefit as before, by getting was born of parents who one or other of his old combelonged to the humblest rank panions to report to him the of the people, and was in- master's remarks on the lesson debted for the elements of of every day as it was read; education to the charity of a until his father, finding the priest. The late French General contest with nature likely in HOCHE, who distinguished him- this case to turn out a vain self in the wars of the Revolu- one, at last consented that he tion, was originally a stable- should proceed to the univerboy. While in that situation, sity. He had been but a short and after having enlisted in time, however, at Cambridge, the army, which he did at the when his father died; and this age of sixteen, he used to work event leaving him almost liteat any employment he could rally penniless, compelled him find during the day, to get with a heavy heart to bid faremoney to buy books, which he well also to this new theatre would often spend the greater of his ambition. Yet these part of the night in reading. cruel disappointments, and a LAGRANGE, the French trans- long succession of other lator of Lucretius, was so poor struggles with indigence and while attending the university, misfortune, by which they were that his only food for the day followed, did not prevent Parr was a little bread which he from attaining eventually the carried with him from home distinction he merited, and in the morning, and used to becoming one of the greatest eat in an alley, or the vestibule scholars of his time. Such of a church, during the intervals early difficulties form often, between the different classes. indeed, the very influences to Dr. JOHNSON was indebted for which no small portion of the his maintenance at college to future eminence of their victims the scanty aid of a wealthy is to be attributed. The late individual, who professed to illustrious mathematician Lakeep him there as a companion grange used to say, that he to his son. The late learned certainly never should have Dr. PARR, after having, at the been the mathematician he had early age of fourteen, distin- turned out, if he had been born guished himself above all his to a fortune, instead of having schoolfellows at Harrow, was had to make his own way to taken from school by his father, one. who wished to initiate him in his own business of a surgeon and apothecary. Young Parr, however, continued still to pursue his studies with as much It is related of the painter Joseph Ribera, commonly called Lo SPAGNOLETTO, that after having for some time pursued his art at Rome in great indi gence, he was patronized by one of the cardinals, who, giving him apartments in his palace, enabled him to live at his ease; but that after a while, finding himself growing indolent amidst his new comforts and luxuries, he actually withdrew himself from their corrupting influence, and voluntarily returned to poverty and labour thus exhibiting the choice of Hercules in real life, and verifying the beautiful fiction of Xenophon. preparing the work, to which he is said to have devoted eighteen hours a day for seventeen years. MILES DAVIES, a writer on antiquities in the earlier part of last century, and some of whose works show considerable learning, is said to have hawked his productions himself from door to door. A work entitled Essays on the most important Subjects of Natural and Revealed Religion, which appeared at Edinburgh in 1772, was both Many of the devotees of composed and printed by JAMES literature have pursued the TYTLER, while he resided in objects upon which their hearts the Sanctuary of Holyrood were set with a resolution House, without ever having which no difficulties seem to been written, the sentences behave had any effect in alarming ing merely formed in the first or impairing. The French instance in the mind of the Polyglot Bible of 1645, in ten author, and then directly put volumes folio, was the under- in types. This reminds us of taking of an advocate of Paris, what Franklin tells us of GUY MICHEL LE JAY, who, Keimer, the first master with having spent his fortune on its whom he served at Philacompletion, declined the over- delphia, whom he found, on tures of Cardinal Richelieu to being introduced to him, emrepay part of the expenditure ployed in printing an elegy on on condition of the work being a young poet of the place, who allowed to come forth in his had recently died. 'Keimer,' name, preferring to submit to says he, 'made verses too, poverty rather than to share but very indifferently. He with any one the glory of so could not be said to write great an enterprise. Our own them, for his method was to countryman, the most learned compose them in the types Dr. EDMUND CASTELL, ex- directly out of his head; there pended his whole his whole fortune, being no copy, but one pair amounting to twelve thousand of cases, and the elegy propounds, on his Lexicon Hepta-bably requiring all the letter, glotton, which appeared in 1669 no one could help him.' as a companion to Bishop Walton's Polyglot Bible; and he, besides, lost his sight in But perhaps the most extraordinary instance of literary industry and perseverance on record is afforded us in the history of a work entitled A System of Divinity, by the Rev. WILLIAM DAVY, B.A., a clergyman of the Church of England. Davy was born in 1743, near Chudleigh in Devonshire, where his father resided on a small farm, his own freehold. From a very early age he gave proofs of a mechanical genius, and when only eight years old he cut out with a knife and put together the parts of a small mill, after the model of one that was then building in the neighbourhood, the progress made in constructing which he used to observe narrowly every day, while he proceeded with equal regularity in the completion of his own little work. When the large mill was finished, it was found not to work exactly as it ought to have done, and the defect at first eluded the detection even of the builder. It is said that while they were endeavouring to ascertain what was wrong, the young self-taught architect made his appearance, and, observing that his mill went perfectly well, pointed out, after an examination of a few minutes, both the defect and the remedy. Being intended for the Church, he was placed at the Exeter Grammar School; and here he distinguished himself by his proficiency in classical learning, while he still retained his early attachment to mechanical pursuits, and exercised his talents in the construction of several curious and ingenious articles. At the age of eighteen, he entered at Oxford, where he took the degree of B.A. at the usual time. It was during his residence at the university that he conceived the idea of compiling a system of divinity, to consist of selections from the best writers; and began to collect, in a common-place book, such passages as he thought would suit his purpose. On leaving college, he was ordained to the curacy of Moreton, in the diocese of Exeter, and not long after he removed to the adjoining curacy of Lustleigh, with a salary of £40 a year. In the year 1786, he published, by subscription, six volumes of sermons, by way of introduction to his intended work; but this proved an unfortunate speculation, many of the subscribers forgetting to pay for their copies, and he remained in consequence indebted to his printer above a hundred pounds. This bad success, however, did not discourage him; he pursued his literary researches and completed the work. But when his manuscript was finished, he found that, from its extent, it would cost two thousand pounds to get it printed. In these circumstances he again contemplated publication by subscription, and issued his proposals accordingly; but the names he collected were too few to induce any bookseller to risk the expense of an impression of the |