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[Illustration: CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

Fourth Series

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.

NO. 716.      SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1877.      PRICE 1½_d._]




YOUTHFUL PRODIGIES.


A curious question has more than once been asked: have the most
remarkable works, in the various kinds of literary labour, been
produced in the flush of youth or the calmness of age? Are men
better fitted for vigorous exercise of the mind in the first half
or the second half of their existence? The spring and elasticity of
temperament, the warmth of feeling, the hopeful aspirations, the
activity of vital energy, the longing to throw the thoughts into some
kind of words or of music--all tempt one, at a first glance, to say
that early authorship is more probable than later.

Certainly the examples of young authorship are neither few nor
unimportant. Of course we may take Tristram Shandy's authority with
as many grains of allowance as we please; but the marvels told in his
colloquy are unique. Yorick declared that Vincent Quirinus, before he
was eight years old, pasted up in the public schools of Rome more than
four thousand five hundred theses on abstruse questions, and defended
them against all opponents. Mr Shandy capped this by citing one erudite
man who learned all the sciences and liberal arts without being taught
any of them.

Isaac D'Israeli, in his _Curiosities of Literature_, notices many
curious examples; and the subject was taken up by a pleasant writer
in the _Globe_ newspaper, a few months ago. Pope wrote some of his
_Pastorals_ at sixteen; and a large number of his works, including
the translation of Homer, were thrown off before he reached thirty.
Edgar Poe wrote his _Helen_, remarkable for its beauty of style, when
scarcely more than eleven years old. Cowley at fifteen published
his _Poetic Blossoms_; while his _Pyramus and Thisbe_, though not
published till his sixteenth year, is said to have been written when
he was only ten. Lord Bacon planned his great work, the _Novum Organum
Scientiarum_, when only sixteen, although the writing was the work of
maturer years. The late Bishop Thirlwall wrote his _Primitiæ_ when a
boy of only eleven years of age; he was one of the few who wrote both
early and late, a wonderful example of long-continued mental activity.
Dr Watts almost _thought_ in verse when a boy. Crabbe wrote both early
and late, but not much in middle life; he published his first poem at
twenty, and his _Village_ before thirty; then a silence of twenty years
was followed by a renewal of literary labour. Charlotte Bronté wrote
in very early life, 'because she could not help it.' Chatterton, the
scapegrace who applied so much of his marvellous powers to dishonest
or lying purposes, wrote minor pieces of poetry at fifteen, and soon
afterwards a pretended pedigree of a Bristol family. At sixteen he
published the alleged plays and poems of Rowley, described by him
as a priest or monk of the fifteenth century; at about seventeen he
brought forward some pretended old parchments, made to appear soiled
and timeworn, containing a fictitious description of an old bridge at
Bristol; and then wrote biographies of Bristol artists who never lived.
Coming to London, he wrote many satirical and political papers for the
press; and ended his extraordinary life before he had completed his
eighteenth year.

As a child (never so old as what we should call a 'lad'), Christian
Heineker was one of the most singular of whom we find record. He was
born at Lübeck about a century and a half ago. When only ten months old
he could (if we are to believe the accounts of him) repeat every word
said to him; at twelve months he knew much of Plutarch by heart; at
two years he knew the greater part of the Bible; at three could answer
most questions in universal history and geography (as then taught),
and began to learn French and Latin; before four he began theology and
church history, and expressed argumentative opinions thereon. This
precocious little pedant died before he had completed his fifth year.

The late John Stuart Mill 'had no recollection of the time when he
began to learn Greek;' but was told it was when he was only three years
old. Adanson began at thirteen to write notes on the Natural Histories
of Aristotle and Pliny. The calculating boys--Vito Mangiamele,
Jedediah Buxton, Zerah Colburn, and George Parker Bidder--illustrate a
remarkable phase of early mental activity.

On the other hand, many authors have produced their best works late
in life, and have begun new studies at an age when the majority long
for mental leisure. Izaak Walton wrote some of his most