In the year 1789, Dr. Rittenhouse translated from the German of Mr. Lessing, director of the theatre at Hamburg, a tragedy called _Lucia Sampson_; which translation was printed; in the same year, by Mr. Charles Cist, of Philadelphia. In the preface to it, the translator says:—“This translation was attempted at the request of a friend; and the many virtuous sentiments and excellent lessons of morality it contains, will apologize for its being offered to the public. To young ladies it may afford useful instruction, and will, from the nature of the distress, be particularly useful to them: an elegant writer well acquainted with the human heart, has observed, that the affection of a father to his daughter unites extreme sensibility with the utmost delicacy; and this sentiment is, no doubt, in a great degree reciprocal.” Footnote 343: See Dr. Rush’s Eulog. on Ritt. ----- But these were not the whole of his philological attainments. By the dint of genius, and by that spirit of perseverance which he manifested in every thing he undertook, he overcame in a great degree the difficulties of the Latin tongue.[344] This he did for the same valuable purpose that he had in view, in learning the German, Low Dutch and French. ----- Footnote 344: The memorialist undertakes to say, on the authority of his father (the late Rev. Mr. Barton,) that our philosopher was sufficiently well versed in the Latin, to have read Newton’s _Principia_ in that language, besides studying it in his native tongue: and further, that, although he was very imperfectly acquainted with the grammatical construction of the Greek language, he had so far familiarized himself to a knowledge of its written characters and words, as enabled him to consult a lexicon; which he frequently did, for the purpose of ascertaining the true etymology of many of those technical terms, derived from the Greek, that are in common use in our language, particularly in relation to his favourite sciences. -----