, one of the most eminent physicians and philosophers of the eighteenth
, one of the most eminent physicians and philosophers of the eighteenth century, was born at Berne, Oct. 16, 1708. He was the son of Nicholas de Haller, an advocate of considerable distinction in his profession, who had a numerous family. Albert was the youngest of five sons. From the commencement of his education, he discovered a great capacity for literature of every kind; to forward the progress of his studies, his father took into his family a private tutor, named Abraham Billodz; but such was the discipline employed by this pedagogue, that the accidental sight of him at any subsequent period of life, excited in Haller those painful recollections, of which all may have some idea who have been tutored with rigid severity. The progress of Haller’s studies, however, at the earliest periods of life, was rapid almost beyond belief. When other children were beginning only to read, he was studying Bayle and Moreri, and at nine years of age he was able to translate Greek, and was beginning to learn Hebrew. Not long after this, however, the course of his education was somewhat interrupted by the death of his father, which happened when he was in the thirteenth year of his age. After this he was sent to the public school at Berne, where he exhibited many specimens of early and uncommon genius. He was distinguished for his knowledge in the Greek and Latin languages, but principally 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.