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Ibid. At Halle he continued his studies.

Mr. Barretier returned, on the 28th of April, 1735, to Halle, where he continued the remaining part of his life, of which it may not be improper to give a more particular account.

At his settlement in the university, he determined to exert his privileges as master of arts, and to read publick lectures to the students; a design from which his father could not dissuade him, though he did not approve it; so certainly do honours or preferments, too soon conferred, infatuate the greatest capacities. He published an invitation to three lectures; one critical on the book of Job, another on astronomy, and a third upon ancient ecclesiastical history. But of this employment he was soon made weary by the petulance of his auditors, the fatigue which it occasioned, and the interruption of his studies which it produced, and, therefore, in a fortnight, he desisted wholly from his lectures, and never afterwards resumed them.

He then applied himself to the study of the law, almost against his own inclination, which, however, he conquered so far as to become a regular attendant on the lectures on that science, but spent all his other time upon different studies.

The first year of his residence at Halle was spent upon natural philosophy and mathematicks; and scarcely any author, ancient or modern, that has treated on those parts of learning was neglected by him, nor was he satisfied with the knowledge of what had been discovered by others, but made new observations, and drew up immense calculations for his own use.

He then returned to ecclesiastical history, and began to retouch his Account of Heresies, which he had begun at Schwabach: on this occasion he read the primitive writers with great accuracy, and formed a project of regulating the chronology of those ages; which produced a Chrono-logical Dissertation on the succession of the Bishops of Rome, from St. Peter to Victor, printed in Latin at Utrecht, 1740.

He afterwards was wholly absorbed in application to polite literature, and read not only a multitude of writers in the Greek and Latin, but in the German, Dutch, French, Italian, English, and Arabick languages, and, in the last year of his life, he was engrossed by the study of inscriptions, medals, and antiquities of all nations.

In 1737 he resumed his design of finding a certain method of discovering the longitude, which he imagined himself to have attained by exact observations of the declination and inclination of the needle, and sent to the academy of sciences, and to the Royal society of London, at the same time, an account of his schemes; to which it was first answered by the Royal society, that it appeared the same with one which Mr. Whiston had laid before them; and afterwards by the academy of sciences, that his method was but very little different from one that had been proposed by M. de la Croix, and which was ingenious, but ineffectual.

Mr. Barretier, finding his invention already in the possession of two men eminent for mathematical knowledge, desisted from all inquiries after the longitude, and engaged in an examination of the Egyptian antiquities, which he proposed to free from their present obscurity, by deciphering the hieroglyphicks, and explaining their astronomy; but this design was interrupted by his death.

P. 384. Confidence and tranquillity.

Thus died Barretier, in the 20th year of his age, having given a proof how much may be performed in so short a time by indefatigable diligence. He was not only master of many languages, but skilled almost in every science, and capable of distinguishing himself in every profession, except that of physick, from which he had been discouraged by remarking the diversity of opinions among those who had been consulted concerning his own disorders.

His learning, however vast, had not depressed or overburdened his natural faculties, for his genius always appeared predominant; and when he inquired into the various opinions of the writers of all ages, he reasoned and determined for himself, having a mind at once comprehensive and delicate, active and attentive. He was able to reason with the metaphysicians on the most abstruse questions, or to enliven the most unpleasing subjects by the gaiety of his fancy. He wrote with great elegance and dignity of style, and had the peculiar felicity of readiness and facility in every thing that he undertook, being able, without premeditation, to translate one language into another. He was no imitator, but struck out new tracks, and formed original systems. He had a quickness of apprehension, and firmness of memory, which enabled him to read with incredible rapidity, and, at the same time, to retain what he read, so as to be able to recollect and apply it. He turned over volumes in an instant, and selected what was useful for his purpose. He seldom made extracts, except of books which he could not procure when he might want them a second time, being always able to find in any author, with great expedition, what he had once read. He read over, in one winter, twenty vast folios; and the catalogue of books which he had borrowed, comprised forty-one pages in quarto, the writing close, and the titles abridged. He was a constant reader of literary journals.

With regard to common life he had some peculiarities. He could not bear musick, and if he was ever engaged at play could not attend to it. He neither loved wine nor entertainments, nor dancing, nor the sports of the field, nor relieved his studies with any other diversion than that of walking and conversation. He eat little flesh, and lived almost wholly upon milk, tea, bread, fruits, and sweetmeats.

He had great vivacity in his imagination, and ardour in his desires, which the easy method of his education had never repressed; he, therefore, conversed among those who had gained his confidence with great freedom, but his favourites were not numerous, and to others he was always reserved and silent, without the least inclination to discover his sentiments, or display his learning. He never fixed his choice upon any employment, nor confined his views to any profession, being desirous of nothing but knowledge, and entirely untainted with avarice or ambition. He preserved himself always independent, and was never known to be guilty of a lie. His constant application to learning suppressed those passions which betray others of his age to irregularities, and excluded all those temptations to which men are exposed by idleness or common amusements.