[128] Dr. Edmund Castell offers a remarkable instance to illustrate
our present investigation. He more than devoted his life to
his "Lexicon Heptaglotton." It is not possible, if there are
tears that are to be bestowed on the afflictions of learned
men, to read his pathetic address to Charles II., and forbear.
He laments the seventeen years of incredible pains, during
which he thought himself idle when he had not devoted sixteen
or eighteen hours a day to this labour; that he had expended
all his inheritance (it is said more than twelve thousand
pounds); that it had broken his constitution, and left him
blind as well as poor. When this invaluable Polyglott was
published, the copies remained unsold in his hands; for the
learned Castell had anticipated the curiosity and knowledge of
the public by a full century. He had so completely devoted
himself to oriental studies, that they had a very remarkable
consequence, for he had totally forgotten his own language,
and could scarcely spell a single word. This appears in some
of his English Letters, preserved by Mr. Nichols in his
valuable "Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century," vol.
iv. Five hundred of these Lexicons, unsold at the time of his
death, were placed by Dr. Castell's niece in a room so little
regarded, that scarcely one complete copy escaped the rats,
and "the whole load of learned rags sold only for seven
pounds." The work at this moment would find purchasers, I
believe, at forty or fifty pounds.--The learned SALE, who
first gave the world a genuine version of the Koran, and who
had so zealously laboured in forming that "Universal History"
which was the pride of our country, pursued his studies
through a life of want--and this great orientalist (I grieve
to degrade the memoirs of a man of learning by such
mortifications), when he quitted his studies too often wanted
a change of linen, and often wandered in the streets in search
of some compassionate friend who would supply him with the
meal of the day!
[129] The following are extracts from Ockley's letters to the Earl of
Oxford, which I copy from the originals:--
"_Cambridge Castle, May 2, 1717._
"I am here in the prison for debt, which must needs be an
unavoidable consequence of the distractions in my family.
I enjoy more repose, indeed, here, than I have tasted
these many years, but the circumstance of a family obliges
me to go out as soon as I can."
"_Cambridge, Sept. 7, 1717._
"I have at last found leisure in my confinement to finish
my Saracen history, which I might have hoped for in vain
in my perplexed circumstances."