, the celebrated author of the " Observations on the Bills of Mortality,'
, the celebrated author of the " Observations on the Bills of Mortality,' 7 was the son of Henry Graunt of Hampshire, who being afterwards settled in Birchin-lane, London, had this child born there, April 24, 1620. Being a rigid puritan, he bred him up in all the strictness of those principles; and designing him for trade, gave him no more education than was barely necessary for that purpose; so that, with the ordinary qualifications of reading, writing, and arithmetic, he was put apprentice to a haberdasher in the city, which trade he afterwards followed, but became a freeman of the Drapers’ company. He came early into business, and in a short time grew so much into the esteem of his fellow -citizens, that he was frequently chosen arbitrator for composing differences between neighbours, and preventing law-suits. With this reputation he passed through all the offices of his ward, as far as that of a common council-man, which he held two years, and was first captain and then major of the train bands. These distinctions were the effects of a great share of good sense and probity, rendered amiable by a mild and friendly disposition; which was all that was in those days expected from a tradesman of no great birth, and of small breeding. But Graunt’s genius was far from being confined within those limits: it broke through all the disadvantages of his slender education, and enabled him to form a new and noble design, and to execute it with as much spirit as there appeared sagacity in forming it.