a man's birth is an occurrence respecting the date of which he is not the very best authority, he usually gets his information from those who are. Besides, it was no uncommon thing at that time to defer the christening of children for a much longer period. The education of his early childhood was most likely altogether conducted at home, but it is certain that, while yet very young, he was sent to the Grammar School at Wolverhampton. Here he received the principal part of his education, and though the records are somewhat meagre, yet they tend to show that at an early age he manifested abilities, both general and peculiar, which were indicative of no ordinary mind; and which, though they do not necessarily prefigure the future eminence at which he arrived, were sufficiently suggestive of the probability that, whatever his career might be, he would occupy a distinguished position. CHAPTER II. "Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields beloved in vain, Where once my careless childhood stray'd MANKIND naturally feel an interest in the boyhood of men of genius. But it often happens that very little attention is paid to early indications, and, when observed, it is certain that they are often interpreted very falsely. Nothing more emphatically suggests how much we have to learn on this subject, than the obscurity which so often hangs over the earlier years of distinguished men. At school, a number of variable organizations are subjected to very much the same order of influences; the necessity for generalization affords little opportunity for individual analysis. The main road is broad and conventional; there is little scope for bypaths, even should the master have the penetration to perceive, in individual cases, the expediency of such selection. Hence the quickening of those impulses, on which the development of character so much depends, is greatly a matter of uncertainty. The moment boys leave school, on the contrary, this uniformity of external influences is replaced by an interminable diversity, at home scarcely two boys being subjected to exactly the same. Thus, in many instances, it would be easier to deduce the character of the boy from the man, than to have predicted the man from the boy. The evidences of the one are present to us, those of the other may have been entirely unelicited, unobserved, or forgotten. We can not wonder, then, that expectation shouldhave been so often disappointed in the boy, or that excellences little dreamed of should have been developed in the man. Dryden, who, regarded in the triple capacity of poet, prose writer, and critic, is hardly second to any English author, took no honor at the University. Swift, perhaps our best writer of pure English, whose talents proved scarcely less versatile and extraordinary than they had appeared restricted and deficient, was "plucked" for his degree in Dublin, and only obtained his recommendation to Oxford "speciali gratia," as it was termed. The phrase, however, being obviously equivocal, and used only in the bad sense at Dublin, was, fortunately for Swift, interpreted in a good sense at Oxford, a misapprehension which Swift, of course, was at no pains to remove. Sheridan was remarkable for his readiness and wit; as a writer, he showed considerable powers of sustained thought also. He had an habitual eloquence, and on one occasion delivered an oration before one of the most distinguished audiences that the world ever saw,* with an effect which seems to have rivaled the most successful efforts of Cicero, or even Demosthenes. Yet he had shown so little capacity as a boy, that he was presented to a tutor by his own mother with the complimentary accompaniment that he was an incorrigible dunce. Some boys live on encouragement, others seem to work best up stream. Niebuhr, the traveler, the father of a son no less illustrious, with any thing but an originally acute mind, seems to have overcome every disadvantage which the almost constant absence of opportunity could combine. Those who are curious in such matters might easily multiply examples of the foregoing description, and add others where-as in the case of Galileo, Newton, Wren, and many others- the predictions suggested by early physical organization proved as erroneous as the intellectual indications to which we have just adverted. The truth is, we have a great deal to learn on the subject of mind, although there is no want of materials for instruction. Medicine and surgery are not the only branches of knowledge which require the aid of strictly inductive inquiry. In all, the materials (facts) are abundant. * We allude to his first speech on the trial of Warren Hastings. In Abernethy there was a polarity of character, an individuality, a positiveness of type, which would have made the boy a tolerably intelligible outline of the future man. The evidence is imperfect; it is chiefly drawn from the recollections of a living few, who, though living, have become the men of former days; but still the evidence all inclines one way. We can quite imagine a little boy, "careless in his dress, not slovenly," with his hands in his pockets, some morning about the year 1774, standing under the sunny side of the wall at Wolverhampton Grammar School;* his pockets containing, perhaps, a few shillings, some halfpence, and a knife with the point broken, a pencil, together with a tolerably accurate sketch of "Old Robertson's" wig-this article, as shown in an accredited portraitt now lying before us, was one of those enormous by-gone bushes which represented a sort of impenetrable fence round the cranium, as if to guard the precious material within-the said boy just finishing a story to his laughing companions, though no sign of fun appeared in him, save a little curl of the lip, and a smile which would creep out of the corner of his eye in spite of him. I have had the good fortune to find no less than three school-fellows of Abernethy who are still living: John Fowler, Esq., of Datchet, a gentleman whom I have had the pleasure of knowing for many years, and who enjoys in hon * Wolverhampton School, founded by Sir Stephen Jermyn, Alder man and Knight of the City of London, in the reign of Henry VIII., for the " Instruction of youth in morals and learning." Many distinguished men were educated at the school, as Abernethy, Mr. Tork fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Sir William Congreve, and oth The present head master is the Rev. W. White. + Kindly sent us by Mr. Fowler, of Datchet. ers. orable retirement at his country seat, at the age of eighty-two, the perfect possession of all his faculties; William Thacker, Esq., of Muchall, about two miles from Wolverhampton, who is in his eighty-fifth year; T. Tummins, Esq., of King Street, Wolverhampton, who is in his eighty-seventh year, school-fellows. To these gentlemen, and to J. Wynn, Esq., also of Wolverhampton, I am principally indebted for the few reminiscences I have been able to collect of the boyish days of Abernethy. The information which I gained from Mr. Fowler he gave me himself; he also kindly procured me a long letter from Mr. Wynn. The reminiscences of Mr. Tummins and Mr. Thacker I have obtained through the very courteous and kind assistance of the Rev. W. White, the present distinguished head master of the Wolverhampton School. To all of these gentlemen I can not too strongly express my thanks for the prompt and kind manner in which they have replied to all the inquiries which have been addressed to them. The following are the principal facts which their letters contain, or the conclusions they justify. Abernethy must have gone to Wolverhampton when very young probably, I should say certainly before 1774. He was brought by Dr. Robertson from London with another pupil, "his friend Thomas ;" and the "two Londoners" boarded with Dr. Robertson. When Mr. Fowler went there in 1778, Abernethy was high up in the school, and ultimately got to the head of the senior form. He must have left Wolverhampton certainly not later than 1778, because Dr. Robertson resigned the head mastership in that year; and we know that in the following year, 1779, |