THE

NEW UNIVERSAL

BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY,

AND

AMERICAN REMEMBRANCER

OF

DEPARTED MERIT:

CONTAINING

COMPLETE AND IMPARTIAL
ACCOUNTS OF THE LIVES AND WRITINGS

OF THE

MOST EMINENT PERSONS IN EVERY NATION,

BUT MORE ESPECIALLY OF

Those who have signalized themselves in America.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

Embellished with a number of PORTRAITS of the most diftinguished
characters, engraved from original drawings.

By JAMES GARDIE, A M.

VOL., ILL

NEW-YORK:

Printed and Published by PAUL R. JOHNSON,
AT THE LITERARY PRINTING-OFFICE No. 29

1802.

Gold-Street,

[COPY-RIGHT SECURED ACCORDING TO LAW.]

EMMET

COLLECTION

HALLER, (ALBERT VAN) an eminent physician, was born at Bern, on the 16th October 1708. From his infancy, he shewed a very great genius for literature of every kind, and according to the accounts which are given us, the progress of his studies at the earliest periods of life, was rapid, almost beyond belief. When other children were only beginning to read, he was studying Boyle and Moreri, and at nine years of age, he was able to translate Greek, and was beginning the study of the Hebrew,

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Not long after this, however, the course of his edu cation was somewhat interrupted by the death of his father, an event which happened when he was in the 13th year of his age. After this, he was sent to the public school at Bern, where he exhibited many spe. cimens of early and uncommon genius. He was greatly distinguished for his knowledge in the Greek and Latin languages; but he was chiefly remarkable for his poetical genius, and his essays of this kind, which were published in the German language, were read and admired throughout the whole empire.