expedition, he took with him Il Palermino d'Inghilterra, to refresh his
knowledge of the language. To this taste he had been heard to impute his
unsettled disposition, and his averseness from the choice of any
profession. One of the most singular qualities of his mind was the
rapidity with which it was able to seize and master almost any subject,
however abstruse or novel, that was offered to its speculation. To this
quickness of apprehension was joined an extraordinary power of memory,
so that he was able to recall at pleasure most passages of a book, which
had once strongly impressed him. In his sixty-fourth year, he attempted
to acquire the low Dutch language. He had a perpetual thirst of
knowledge; and six months before his death requested Dr. Burney to teach
him the scale of music. "Teach me," said Johnson to him, "at least, the
alphabet of your language." What he knew, he loved to communicate.
According to that description of the stu-[**possibly "student"--rest of
word(s) missing in original] in Chaucer,

Gladly would he teach, and gladly learn.

These endowments were accompanied with a copiousness of words, in which
it would be difficult to name any writer except Barrow that has
surpassed him. Yet his prose style is very far from affording a model
that can safely be proposed for our imitation. He seems to exert his
powers of intellect and of language indiscriminately, and with equal
effort, on the smallest and the most important occasions; and the effect
is something similar to that of a Chinese painting, in which, though all
the objects separately taken are accurately described, yet the whole is
entirely wanting in a proper relief of perspective. What is observed by
Milton of the conduct of life, may be applied to composition, "that
there is a scale of higher and lower duties," and he who confuses it
will infallibly fall short of that proportion which is necessary to