John Philip Baratiere was a most extraordinary instance of the early and
rapid exertion of mental faculties. He was the son of Francis Baratiere,
minister of the French church at Schwoback, near Nuremberg, where he was
born, January 10, 1721. The French was his mother tongue, and German was
the language of the people around him. His father talked to him in
Latin, and with this he became familiar; so that, without knowing the
rules of grammar, he, at four years of age, talked French to his mother,
Latin to his father, and High Dutch to the servants and neighboring
children, without mixing or confounding the respective languages.
About the middle of his fifth year, he acquired a knowledge of the
Greek: so that in fifteen months he perfectly understood all the Greek
books in the Old and New Testament, which he translated into Latin. When
five years and eight months old, he entered upon Hebrew; and in three
years more, was so expert in the Hebrew text, that, from a Bible without
points, he could give the sense of the original in Latin or French, or
translate, extempore, the Latin or French versions into Hebrew. He
composed a dictionary of rare and difficult Hebrew words; and about his
tenth year, amused himself, for twelve months, with the rabbinical
writers.
He now obtained a knowledge of the Chaldaic, Syriac and Arabic; and
acquired a taste for divinity and ecclesiastical antiquity, by studying
the Greek fathers of the first four ages of the church. In the midst of
these occupations, a pair of globes coming into his possession, he
could, in eight or ten days, resolve all the problems upon them; and in
January, 1735, at the age of fourteen, he devised his project for the
discovery of the longitude, which he communicated to the Royal Society
of London, and the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin!
In June, 1731, he was matriculated in the university of Altorf; and at
the close of 1732, he was presented by his father at the meeting of the
reformed churches of the circle, at Franconia; who, astonished at his
wonderful talents, admitted him to assist in the deliberations of the
synod; and, to preserve the memory of so singular an event, it was
registered in their acts. In 1734, the Margrave of Brandenburg, Anspach,
granted this young scholar a pension of fifty florins; and his father
receiving a call to the French church at Stettin, in Pomerania, young
Baratiere was, on the journey, admitted master of arts. At Berlin, he
was honored with several conversations with the king of Prussia, and was
received into the Royal Academy.
Towards the close of his life, he acquired a considerable taste for
medals, inscriptions, and antiquities, metaphysical inquiries, and
experimental philosophy. He wrote several essays and dissertations; made
astronomical remarks and laborious calculations; took great pains
towards a history of the heresies of the Anti-Trinitarians, and of the
thirty years' war in Germany. His last publication, which appeared in
1740, was on the succession of the bishops of Rome. The final work he
engaged in, and for which he had gathered large materials, was Inquiries
concerning the Egyptian Antiquities. But the substance of this blazing
meteor was now almost exhausted; he was always weak and sickly, and died
October 5th, 1740, aged nineteen years, eight months, and sixteen days.
Baratiere published eleven different pieces, and left twenty-six
manuscripts, on various subjects, the contents of which may be seen in
his Life, written by Mr. Formey, professor of philosophy at Berlin.
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