Book Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. (Autobiographical.) MATERNAL GRANDFATHER AND GRANDMOTHER. The family from which my mother descended, and which she Chap. afterwards represented, was as ancient as that of my father, J? and had intermarried with houses famous in history. I shall have later to enter somewhat more into details on such venerable matter of pedigree; but at present I pause on the nearest branch of the tree, and content myself with brief mention of my mother's immediate parentage. Richard Warburton Lytton was among the most learned scholars of his time. He had been educated at Harrow under Dr. Parr; and the most intimate of his friends were Porter, afterwards known as the erudite Bishop of Cloyne, and the yet more eminent Sir William Jones: a modern Mirandola, whose marvellous comprehensiveness of intellectual acquirement Mr. Lytton almost rivalled, though without one effort at fame, and without one thought of the ambition which usually gives purpose and energy to the desire of knowledge. In a letter I once received from Dr. Parr (who long survived his old friend and pupil), that unquestionable judge of sound learning says of Mr. Lytton?' He was the best Latin scholar of my time, inferior only to Porson in Greek, and to Sir William Jones in Hebrew and the Oriental languages.'' ' Samuel Parr (whom Macaulay, in his essay on Warren Hastings, calls the greatest scholar of his age) was born in 1747 at Harrow-on-the-Hill. He studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1765; left the University without16 RICHARD WARBURTON LYTTOX. Book He was also profoundly acquainted with the languages and 'r? literatures of Spain, Portugal, Italy, and France; and there 1803-H were few of those departments of intellect which, once entered upon, usually concentrate the researches of a ...