The other languages, of which he was master, he learned by a method yet more uncommon. The only book which he made use of was the Bible, which his father laid before him in the language that he then proposed to learn, accompanied with a translation, being taught, by degrees, the inflections of nouns and verbs. This method, says his father, made the Latin more familiar to him, in his fourth year, than any other language. When he was near the end of his sixth year, he entered upon the study of the Old Testament, in its original language, beginning with the book of Genesis, to which his father confined him for six months; after which he read cursorily over the rest of the historical books, in which he found very little difficulty, and then applied himself to the study of the poetical writers, and the prophets, which he read over so often, with so close an attention, and so happy a memory, that he could not only translate them, without a moment's hesitation, into Latin or French, but turn, with the same facility, the translations into the original language in his tenth year. Growing, at length, weary of being confined to a book which he could almost entirely repeat, he deviated, by stealth, into other studies, and, as his translation of Benjamin is a sufficient evidence, he read a multitude of writers, of various kinds. _In his twelfth year he applied more particularly to the study of the fathers_, and councils of the six first centuries, and began to make a regular collection of their canons. He read every author in the original, having discovered so much negligence or ignorance in most translations, that he paid no regard to their authority. Thus he continued his studies, neither drawn aside by pleasures nor discouraged by difficulties. The greatest obstacle to his improvement was want of books, with which his narrow fortune could not liberally supply him; so that he was obliged to borrow the greatest part of those which his studies required, and to return them when he had read them, without being able to consult them occasionally, or to recur to them when his memory should fail him. It is observable, that neither his diligence, unintermitted as it was, nor his want of books, a want of which he was, in the highest degree, sensible, ever produced in him that asperity, which a long and recluse life, without any circumstance of disquiet, frequently creates. He was always gay, lively, and facetious; a temper which contributed much to recommend his learning, and which some students, much superiour in age, would consult their ease, their reputation, and their interest, by copying from him.