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In his eleventh year, he not only published a learned letter in Latin, but translated the travels of rabbi Benjamin from the Hebrew into French, which he illustrated with notes, and accompanied with dissertations; a work in which his father, as he himself declares, could give him little assistance, as he did not understand the rabbinical dialect.

The reason for which his father engaged him in this work, was only to prevail upon him to write a fairer hand than he had hitherto accustomed himself to do, by giving him hopes, that, if he should translate some little author, and offer a fair copy of his version to some bookseller, he might, in return for it, have other books which he wanted and could not afford to purchase.

Incited by this expectation, he fixed upon the travels of rabbi Benjamin, as most proper for his purpose, being a book neither bulky nor common, and in one month completed his translation, applying only one or two hours a day to that particular task. In another month, he drew up the principal notes; and, in the third, wrote some dissertations upon particular passages which seemed to require a larger examination.

These notes contain so many curious remarks and inquiries, out of the common road of learning, and afford so many instances of penetration, judgment, and accuracy, that the reader finds, in every page, some reason to persuade him that they cannot possibly be the work of a child, but of a man long accustomed to these studies, enlightened by reflection, and dextrous, by long practice, in the use of books. Yet, that it is the performance of a boy thus young, is not only proved by the testimony of his father, but by the concurrent evidence of Mr. le Maitre, his associate in the church of Schwabach, who not only asserts his claim to this work, but affirms, that he heard him, at six years of age, explain the Hebrew text, as if it had been his native language; so that the fact is not to be doubted without, a degree of incredulity, which it will not be very easy to defend.

This copy was, however, far from being written with the neatness which his father desired; nor did the booksellers, to whom it was offered, make proposals very agreeable to the expectations of the young translator; but, after having examined the performance in their manner, and determined to print it upon conditions not very advantageous, returned it to be transcribed, that the printers might not be embarrassed with a copy so difficult to read.

Barretier was now advanced to the latter end of his twelfth year, and had made great advances in his studies, notwithstanding an obstinate tumour in his left hand, which gave him great pain, and obliged him to a tedious and troublesome method of cure; and reading over his performance, was so far from contenting himself with barely transcribing it, that he altered the greatest part of the notes, new-modelled the dissertations, and augmented the book to twice its former bulk.

The few touches which his father bestowed upon the revisal of the book, though they are minutely set down by him in the preface, are so inconsiderable, that it is not necessary to mention them; and it may be much more agreeable, as well as useful, to exhibit the short account which he there gives of the method by which he enabled his son to show, so early, how easy an attainment is the knowledge of the languages, a knowledge which some men spend their lives in cultivating, to the neglect of more valuable studies, and which they seem to regard as the highest perfection of human nature.

What applauses are due to an old age, wasted in a scrupulous attention to particular accents and etymologies, may appear, says his father, by seeing how little time is required to arrive at such an eminence in these studies as many, even of these venerable doctors, have not attained, for want of rational methods and regular application.