He appears, from the narrative of Dr.

Gibbons, to have been neither indigent nor illiterate.

Ifaac, the eldest of nine children, was given to books from his infancy; and began, we are told, to learn Latin when he was four years old, I fuppofe, at home. He was afterwards taught Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, by Mr. Pinhorne, a clergyman, mafter of the Free-school at Southampton, to whom the gratitude of his fcholar afterwards infcribed a Latin ode.

His proficiency at school was so confpicuous, that a fubfcription was propofed for his fupport at the University; but he declared his refolution to take his lot with the Diffenters. Such he

was

was as every Chriftian Church would re

joice to have adopted.

He therefore repaired in 1690 to an academy taught by Mr. Rowe, where he had for his companions and fellowftudents Mr. Hughes the poet, and Dr. Hort, afterwards archbishop of Tuam. Some Latin Effays, fuppofed to have been written as exercifes at this academy, fhew a degree of knowledge, both philofophical and theological, such as very few attain by a much longer courfe of study.

He was, as he hints in his Mifcellanies, a maker of verfes from fifteen to fifty; and in his youth he appears to have paid attention to Latin poetry. His verfes to his brother, in the glyconick

measure, written when he was feventeen, are remarkably easy and elegant. Some of his other odes are deformed by the Pindarick folly then prevailing, and are written with fuch neglect of all metrical rules as is without example among the ancients; but his diction, though perhaps not always exactly pure, has fuch copiousness and fplendour as fhews that he was but at a very little distance from excellence.

His method of ftudy was to imprefs the contents of his books upon his memory by abridging them, and by interleaving them to amplify one system with fupplements from another.

With the congregation of his tutor Mr. Rowe, who were, I believe, Independents,

1

pendents, he communicated in his nine

teenth year.

At the age of twenty he left the academy, and spent two years in ftudy and devotion at the house of his father, who treated him with great tendernefs; and had the happiness, indulged to few parents, of living to fee his fon eminent for literature and venerable for piety.

He was then entertained by Sir John Hartop five years, as domeftick tutor to his fon; and in that time particularly devoted himself to the ftudy of the Holy Scriptures; and being chofen affiftant to Dr. Chauncey, preached the first time on the birth-day that compleated his twenty fourth year; probably confidering that as the day of a fecond nativity, A 3

by

by which he entered on a new period of

existence.

In about three years he fucceeded Dr. Chauncey; but, foon after his entrance on his charge, he was feized by a dangerous illness, which funk him to fuch weakness, that the congregation thought an affiftant neceffary, and appointed Mr. Price. His health then returned gradually, and he performed his duty, till (1712) he was feized by a fever of fuch violence and continuance, that, from the feeblenefs which it brought upon him, he never perfectly recovered.

This calamitous ftate made the compaffion of his friends neceffary, and drew upon him the attention of Sir Tho

mas