than fifty years old, to take his first lessons in Latin from his son's tutor, in order to be able to read some mathematical works written in that language which he wished to consult. Another French mathematician, the ingenious PAUCTON, idleness and dissipation, he chanced one day, upon going into a bookseller's shop, to open a volume on geometry, the figures in which attracted his attention and excited his curiosity so much that he determined to study the work. This was the beginning of his fond-whose Metrology, or treatise on ness both for mathematics and weights and measures, although for reading; and he soon grew first published nearly half a censo much attached to his new tury ago, is still considered one occupation, that he abandoned of the most valuable extant, his old habits entirely, and had, owing to the poverty of his now spent every hour in study, parents, scarcely received any or in watching the stars, by education at all till after he had means of instruments of his reached his eighteenth year. own invention, from the top He was at last noticed by a of an old tower in his father's charitable ecclesiastic, who gave house. This mode of employ-him lessons for about two years; ing his time obtained for him at first, it is said, among his ignorant and astonished neighbours, the reputation of being a magician. He was afterwards sent by his father to complete his studies at Paris, where he was introduced to Reaumur, the celebrated naturalist (whose work on insects is still regarded as a philosophical guide to the student of entomology), and the inventor of the thermometer known by his name; and he soon became, under Reaumur's guidance, an adept in the different departments of his favourite science. It is a curious circumstance, however, and shows at once his ardour in the pursuit of knowledge, and the penalty he was long afterwards obliged to pay for his early negligence, that he actually submitted, when more after which he completed his studies at Nantz. Paucton eventually obtained the professorship of mathematics at Strasburg; but his labours here must have been but indifferently recompensed, for when the city was threatened with a blockade by the Austrians, and the magistrates had issued orders that every inhabitant who could not supply himself beforehand with a sufficient store of provisions for the siege should quit the place, Paucton, being too poor to afford the necessary outlay, was obliged to take his departure with his wife and three children. He was afterwards, however, patronized by the French Government, and had the prospect of passing his latter days in comfortable circumstances, when he died in 1768, at the age of sixty-two. We shall at present mention only another example. JOHN above forty years of age, he OGILBY, the well-known trans- made such progress in Latin lator of Homer, was originally that he was soon considered a dancing-master. He had in a condition to undertake a apprenticed himself to that pro- poetical translation of Virgil. fession on finding himself re- This work made its appearance duced to depend upon his own in the year 1650. A second resources, by the imprisonment edition of it was printed a few of his father for debt in the years after, with great pomp of King's Bench. Having suc- typography and embellishments. cecded in this pursuit, he was Such was its success that the very soon able to release his industrious and enterprising father, which he did, very much translator actually proceeded, to his credit, with the first money although now in his fifty-fourth he procured. An accident, how- year, to commence the study of ever, put an end to his dancing, Greek, in order that he might and he was left again without match his version of the Æneid any permanent means of sub- by others of the Iliad and the sistence. In the circumstances, Odyssey. In due time both the first thing he did was to appeared; and Ogilby, who had open a small theatre in Dublin; in the meanwhile established but just when he had fairly himself a second time in Dublin, established it, and had reason in the management of a new to hope that it would succeed, theatre, was in the enjoyment the rebellion of 1641 broke out, of greater prosperity than ever, and not only swept away all his when, having unfortunately dislittle property, but repeatedly posed of his Irish property, and put even his life in jeopardy. returned to take up his resiHe at last found his way back dence in London just before to London, in a state of com- the great fire of 1666, he was plete destitution; but although left by that dreadful event once he had never received any re- more entirely destitute. With gular education, he had before unconquerable courage and perthis made a few attempts at severance, however, he set to verse-making, and in his extre- work afresh with his translations mity he bethought him of turn- and other literary enterprises, ing his talent in this way, which and was again so successful as certainly was not great, to some to be eventually enabled to reaccount. He immediately com- build his house, which had been menced his studies, which he burned down, and to establish was enabled to pursue chiefly, a printing-press; in the employit is said, through the liberal ment of which he took every assistance of some members of opportunity of indulging that the University of Cambridge; taste for splendid typography to and although then considerably | which his first works had owed He worst injuries of fortune. Ogilby was no great poet, although his translations were very popular when they first appeared; but his Homer, we ought to men so much of their success. was now also appointed cosmographer and geographic printer to Charles II.; and at last, at the age of seventy-six, terminated a life remarkable for its vicissi-tion, had the honour of being tudes, and not uninstructive as an evidence both of the respectable proficiency in literature which may be acquired by those who begin their education late in life, and also of what may be done by a stout heart and indefatigable activity in repairing the one of the first books that kindled the young imagination of Pope, who, however, in the preface to his own translation of the Iliad, describes the poetry of his predecessor and early favourite as too mean for criticism.' EARLY AGE OF GREAT MEN-SHORT TERM OF THEIR LIVES--SIR ISAAC NEWTON-GREGORY-TORRICELLI-PASCAL-WILLIAM COWPER-ROBERT BURNS-LORD BYRON-SYDNEY OTWAY -COLLINS-MOZART-RAPHAEL-CORREGGIO-POLITIAN MIRANDOLA. CONSIDERABLE as are the disadvantages which those persons have to contend with who begin their acquaintance with books only late in life, it ought not to be forgotten, on the other hand, that all the chances of the race are not against them. The time they have lost, and are anxious to redeem, of itself gives a stimulus that will make up for many disadvantages. Then, although they have not yet learned much from books, they have nevertheless learned of necessity a great deal from other sources; and they come to their studies, too, with faculties which, if not quite so pliant as those of childhood, have much more vigour and comprehension. And as for the comparative shortness of the space which they may reasonably count upon as being still left to them for their new pursuit, after the years they have already spent, as it were, in sleep, we would remark | that in a right view of the subject this is truly a little matter. Its Between the ultimate point of discovery, and the place we now occupy on the ascent towards it, the steps are so inconceivably many, that, with regard to us, they may be most truly described as interminable. So far as we have experience, or can conceive, of knowledge, it is an expanse ever widening before us and around us. horizon seems not only always as distant as ever, but always becoming more distant the more we strive to approach it. For every one discovery is merely the opening of a road to other discoveries, and the lifting of us at the same time to a new eminence, from which we see a broader domain than before, both of the known and of the unknown. It is the attainment of a comparatively small portion of knowledge only that even the longest life can com pass; and the shortest is sufficient for the attainment of some portion. In other words, the pleasure belonging to the acquisition of knowledge is one which all may enjoy who choose, let the time of life at which they commence the pursuit of it be what it may. In so far, therefore, as we are to be allured by this temptation, it matters not, as we have said, whether we find ourselves in the morning or in the evening of our days when we would yield ourselves up to its influence. If we were even certain that we had but a few years longer to live, it would still offer, for what leisure we could spare from other duties, the most delightful as well as the most ennobling of all occupations. Such considerations we would address to the generality of those whose attention may not have been attracted to literature till late in life. But even to him who feels within himself the ambition, and something of the power, of high intellectual achievement, and only regrets that so many of his years have been lost in other pursuits before he has had any opportunity of turning to this, we would say that the field in which he longs to distinguish himself is still open for his admission, and its best prizes waiting to be won by him, if only his ardour and courage do not fail. When there is a real superiority of faculties, it is wonderful how much has often been accom plished even in a very few years devotedly given to the pursuit of eminence. Some of the greatest men that ever lived have either died early, or might have done so for their fame. NEWTON himself had completed many of his grand discoveries, and laid the foundation of all of them, before he had reached his twenty-fifth year, and, although he lived to a great age, may be said to have finished all that was brilliant in his career at the early period of forty-five. After this, it has been remarked that he wrote nothing, except some further explanations and developments of what he had previously published. But to go to other great names: JAMES GREGORY, the celebrated inventor of the reflecting telescope, was suddenly struck blind in his thirty-seventh year, while observing the satellites of Jupiter, and died a few days after. TORRICELLI, whose famous discovery of the barometer we have already mentioned, and who had deservedly acquired the reputation of being in every respect one of the greatest natural philosophers of his time after the world had lost the illustrious Galileo, died at the age of thirty-nine. PASCAL, who first showed the true use and value of Torricelli's discovery in determining the weight of the atmosphere, and who has ever been accounted, for his eminence both in science and in literature, one of the chief glories of France, as he would |