bed, he assembled his children together to fix upon a successor to the throne. On asking his eldest son if he should like to be emperor, he answered, that he was too weak to support so great a burden. The second made a similar answer. But when he put the question to young Kang Hi, who was not quite seven years of age, he replied, "Give me the empire to govern, and you shall see how I will acquit myself." The em peror was much pleased with this bold and simple answer, "He is a boy of courage," said Cham Chi. "Let him be emperor." CHARLES IX. OF FRANCE. This prince was only ten years of age when he was crowned. His mother, Catherine de Medicis, mentioning her apprehensions that the fatigue of the ceremony might be perhaps too much for him; he replied, "Madam, I will very willingly undergo as much fatigue, as often as you have a crown to bestow upon me." When the Constable de Montmorenci died, the young prince, then only seventeen, did not immediately name another person to that high office, saying, "I will carry my own sword in future." And to his mother, who wished to keep him under her own direction, he said, "That he would no longer be kept in a box, like the old jewels of the crown." 'THE CHOICE. A Quaker residing at Paris, was waited on by four of his workmen in order to make their compliments, and ask for their usual new year's gifts. "Well, my friends," said the Quaker, "here are your gifts; choose fifteen francs or the Bible." "I dont know how to read," said the first, "so I take the fifteen francs." "I can read," said the second, "but I have 'pressing wants." He took the fifteen francs. The third also made the same choice. He now came to the fourth, a young lad of about thirteen or four teen. The Quaker looked at him with an air of goodness. "Will you too take these three pieces, which you may obtain at any time by your labor and industry?" "As you say the book is good, I will take it, and read from it to my mother," replied the boy. He took the Bible, opened it, and found between the leaves a gold piece of forty francs. The others hung down their heads, and the Quaker told them he was sorry they had not made a better choice. The Abbé de Rance, afterward a celebrated monk of La Trappe, made such a rapid proficiency in Greek, that at the age of twelve he translated Anacreon, and published it with learned notes. He was very little older when he was appointed to a considerable benefice. Some persons at court murmuring at the advancement of so young an Abbé, Caussin, the Jesuit, was directed by the king to examine him. When the little Abbé came to court, Caussin had Homer lying before him, and desired De Rance to read a passage which casually presented itself. The boy read it immediately in French; the Jesuit could not credit such an extraordinary facility, but thought he had looked at the Latin version printed in the same page; and covering the Latin with his gloves, was surprised to hear the lad explain the Greek as before. The Jesuit astonished, exclaimed, "Habes lynceos oculos: " "You have lynx eyes, my son, for you can see through a pair of gloves." PRESENCE OF MIND. In the insurrection headed by Wat Tyler, Richard the Second owed the preservation of his life to his intrepidity and presence of mind. In the meeting at Smithfield, when the insurgents saw their leader fall by the sword of the Lord Mayor, Walworth, they drew their bows to revenge his fall. Richard, then only fourteen years of age, galloped up to the archers, and exclaimed, "What are you doing, my lieges? Tyler was a traitor; come with me, and I will be your leader." Wavering and disconcerted, they followed him into the fields at Islington, and falling on their knees, begged for mercy. This monarch gave several other proofs of his courage at an early age. SIR PHILIP SYDNEY. "When I was yet a child, no childish play To me was pleasing; all my mind was set Serious to learn and know, and thence to do, What might be public good: myself I thought Born to that end; born to promote all truth, All righteous things." Paradise regained. Sir Philip Sydney was one of the brightest ornaments of Queen Elizabeth's court. In early youth he discovered the strongest marks of genius and understanding. Sir Fulk Greville, Lord Brook, who was his intimate friend, says of him, though I lived with him and knew him from a child, yet I never knew him other than a man, with such steadiness of mind, lovely and familiar gravity, as carried grace and reverence above greater years. His talk was ever of knowledge; and his very play tended to enrich his mind." CHRISTMAS PIE. An eminent preacher of the present day had, when a boy, committed some offence, for which his father had decreed as a punishment, that he should be excluded from the family table on Christmas day. When the young delinquent saw the vast culinary preparations made for the feast from which he was debarred, he was moved less with envy, than with a contempt for the sort of punishment which had been imposed on him; but mixing in his disposition a good deal of the satiric with the serious, he resolved not to be without his joke on the occasion. He contrived to obtain secret access to a veal pasty, on which the cook had exhausted all her skill, and carefully taking off the cover, so as to avoid any mark of fracture or disturbance, he took out the greater part of the meat, and filling up the dish with a quantity of grass, replaced the cover as it was. The company met, and the dish was served up to them in this state: it fell to the lot of the young wag's father to break up the pie, and his surprise on doing so may be more easily conceived than described. Stirring the grass about in a fit of rising indignation, his fork encountered a small slip of paper, on taking out which, he read on it these words: "All flesh is grass!" SECRET WELL KEPT. It was originally customary for the senators of Rome to take their sons along with them into the senate. On one occasion, Papyrius Prætextatus having accompanied his father thither, heard an affair of great importance discussed, the determination of which was deferred till the following day, the strictest injunctions being given, that in the mean time no one should divulge a syllable of the matter in hand. When young Papyrius went home, his mother asked him, "What the fathers had done that day in the senate?" He answered, "that it was a secret which he could not disclose." The curiosity of the lady was only the more stimulated by this denial, and she pressed the boy so hard, that to get rid of her importunity, he was driven to make use of the following pleasant fiction. "It was," saith he, "debated in the senate, which would be more advantageous to the commonwealth, that one man should have two wives, or that one woman should have two husbands?" The lady, wonderfully stirred by this singular piece of information, instantly left the house, and told what she had discovered to a number of ladies, among whom the projected change in their condition was discussed with no small degree of vehemence and alarm. Having so deep an interest in the decision of the question, they thought it but right that the senate should know their feelings respecting it; and next day accordingly they went in a body, and surrounding the doors of the senate, cried out with vast clamor, "That rather than one man should marry two women, one woman should marry two men." The senators were in great astonishment at this strange cry; and sent out to know what the women meant? On this, young Papyrius stepped forth, and told them what his mother had desired to know, and how he had contrived to answer her. The senators were much amused with the youth's explanation; and after sending away the women, with an assurance that nothing was at present intended to be done in the affair to which they alluded, they marked their sense of young Papyrius's wit and secrecy, by passing an order, that in future, no son of a senator should be admitted to their meetings, Papyrius excepted. THUCYDIDES. "Altho' to write be lesser than to do, While Thucydides was yet a boy, he heard Herodotus recite his histories at the Olympic Games, and is said to have wept exceedingly. -The "Father of Historians" observing how much the boy was moved, congratulated his father, Clorus, on having a child of such promise, and advised him to spare no pains in his education. The result showed how just Herodotus was in his anticipations. The young Thucydides lived to be one of the best historians Greece ever had. GAMING REPROVED. "Hush, pretty boy, thy hopes might have been better; "T is lost at dice, what ancient honor won; Hard, when the father plays away the son!" Yorkshire Tragedy. Gon Joannes Gonzaga having lost at dice a large sum of money, his son Alexander, who was present, could not help heaving a deep sigh. zaga observing this, said to the by-standers, "Alexander the Great hearing of a victory that his father had gained, is reported to have shown himself very sad at the news, as fearing that there would be nothing left for him to conquer; but my son Alexander is afflicted at my loss, as fearing that there will be nothing left for him to lose." "Yes," replied the youth smartly; "and had Philip lost his all, Alexander would never have had the means of conquering anything." DR. WATTS. It was so natural for Dr. Watts, when a child, to speak in rhyme, that even at the very time he wished to avoid it, he could not. His father was displeased at this propensity, and threatened to whip him if he did not leave off making verses. One day, when he was about to put his threat in execution, the child burst out into tears, and on his knees said, "Pray, father, do some pity take, LORD HOWE Admiral Earl Howe, when a youth, served on board the Burford, Captain Lushington. This vessel made an unsuccessful attack on the town of La Guita, in which the captain was killed.-The attempt having failed, a court-martial was held relative to the conduct of the Burford.Young Howe was particularly called upon for his evidence. He gave it in a clear and collected manner, till he came to relate the death of his capta in. He could then proceed no further; but burst into tears, and retired. "HE NEVER TOLD A LIE.” Mr. Park, in his Travels through Africa, redates that a party of armed Moors having made a predatory attack on the flocks of a village at which he was stopping, a youth of the place was mortally wounded in the affray. The natives placed him on horseback and conducted him home, while his mother preceded the mournful group, proclaiming all the excellent qualities of her boy, and by her clasped hands and streaming eyes, discovered the inward bitterness of her soul. The quality for which she chiefly praised the boy formed of itself an epitaph so noble, that even civilized life could not aspire to a higher. "He never," said she with pathetic energy, never, never, told a lie." 46 INFANT HERO. "From the gay sire, whose trembling hand Scott. This poetical description given by Mr. Scott, of the gathering of the Clan Alpin, in Balquhidder, by the order of Roderick Dhu, was realized on a far greater scale, and in the prosecution of a nobler purpose, in the Tyrol, during the late war. Not only the women engaged in the great cause, and guarded the prisoners that were taken, but the little children, whose age would not permit them to bear arms, still lingered about the ranks of their fathers, and sought by any little offices to render themselves useful in the common cause. One of these, a son of Speckbacher, a Tyrolese leader, and the companion of Hofer, a boy of ten years of age, followed his father into the battle, and continued by his side in the hottest of the fire. He was several times desired by his father to retire; and at length, when he was obliged to obey, he ascended a little rising ground, where the balls from the French struck, and gathering them in his hat, carried them to such of his countrymen as he understood were in want of ammunition. HOGARTH. Hogarth's youth was rather unpromising. He was bound apprentice to a mean engraver of arms on plate; but did not remain long in this occupation, before an accidental circumstance discovered the impulse of his genius, and that it was directed to painting. One Sunday he set out with two or three of his companions on an excursion to Highgate. The weather being hot, they went into a public house, where they had not been long before a quarrel arose between two persons in the room, one of whom struck the other on the head with a quart pot, and cut him very much. Hogarth drew out his pencil, and produced an extremely ludicrous picture of the scene. What rendered this piece the more pleasing was, that it exhibited an exact likeness of the man, with the portrait of his antagonist, and the figures in caricature of the persons gathered round him. THE PAGE. Frederick the Great one day ringing his bell, but nobody coming, he opened the door of the antichamber, and found his page sleeping on a chair. In going to awaken him, he saw a written paper hanging out of his pocket. This excited the king's curiosity and attention; he drew it out, and found it to be a letter from the page's mother, wherein she thanked her son for his kind assistance in sending part of his wages; for which Heaven would certainly reward him, if he continued faithful to his majesty. The king immediately fetched a rouleau of ducats, and slipped it, with the letter, into the page's pocket. Soon after he rung the bell and awoke the page, who made his appearance. "Surely you have been asleep," said the king. The boy stammered part of an excuse and part of a confession, and putting his hand in his pocket, found, to his surprise, the roll of ducats. He drew it out, pale and trembling, but unable to speak a syllable. "What is the matter?" said the king. "Alas! your majesty," said the page, falling on his knees," my ruin is intended: I know nothing of this money." "Why," said the king, "whenever fortune does come, she comes sleeping; you may send it to your mother, with my. compliments, and assure her I will provide for you both." This scene has produced a comedy, by Professor Engle, entitled, "The Noble Youth." HANDEL. The father of Handel had destined him to the study of the law, but he evinced very early a propensity to music, which nothing could re strain. He was strictly forbidden to touch any musical instrument; but notwithstanding this injunction, he found means to get a clarichord privately conveyed to a room at the top of the house, to which he constantly stole when the family were asleep. While he was yet under seven years of age, he went with his father to the court of Saxe-Weisenfels, to the prince of which his half-brother was valet-de-chambre. His father had refused to let young Handel accompany him, but he followed the chaise on foot, and by his entreaties was taken into the chaise and carried to court. Here playing one day on the organ in the church after the service was over, he attracted the notice of the duke, who induced the father to suffer him to study music. At the age of nine years, he began to compose the church service for voices and instruments, and from that time actually composed a service every week, for three years successively. When only fourteen, he went to Berlin, where Buononcini, a leading composer attached to the Opera, affected a contempt for so mere a child as Handel; and to put his talents to the test, composed a cantata in the chromatic style, difficult in every respect, and such as he thought would puzzle even a master; but Handel treated the composition as a trifle, and executed it at once with a truth and accuracy that was astonishing. Before he had reached his fifteenth year, Handel had composed three operas; the first Almeria, which was performed at Hamburgh thirty nights successively; Florinda and Nerone, the other two, were equally successful. He now by his talents and industry was enabled to yield some assistance to his mother, who was left a widow. By the persuasions of the Prince of Tuscany, he was induced to go to Florence, where he was received with the most marked attention by the court. Here, when still only eighteen years of age, he composed the opera of Rodrigo, for which he received one hundred sequins, and a service of plate. The following year he went to Venice, where he was first discovered at a masquerade, while playing on a harpsichord in his visor. Scarlatri was there, and affirmed, "that it was either the little Saxon, or the devil." While at Venice he composed, in three weeks, the opera of Agrippina, which was played twentyseven nights without interruption. The theatre almost at every pause resounded with shouts and acclamations of Vive il caro Sassone. Such was the early success of this immortal composer, who died possessed of an ample fortune, acquired solely by his talents. MOZART. The accounts of this admirable composer's early proficiency in music are almost incredible. He began the piano at three years of age; his first delight was almost scientific; he used to spend his first hours in looking for thirds, and felt charmed with their harmony. At five years old, he began to invent little pieces of such ingenuity, that his father used to write them down. He was a creature of universal sensibility, a natural enthusiast, from his infancy fond, melancholy, and tearful. When scarcely able to walk, his first question to the friends who took him on their knee was, whether they loved him, and a negative always made him weep. His mind was all alive; and whatever touched it, made it palpitate throughout. When he was taught the rudiments of arithmetic, the walls and tables of his bed-chamber were found covered with figures. But the piano was the grand object of his devotion. At six years old, this singular child commenced with his father and sister (two years older than himself) one of those musical tours common in Germany, and performed at Munich before the Elector, to the great admiration of the most musical court on the continent. His ear now signalized itself by detecting the most minute irregularities in the orchestra; but its refinement was almost a disease: a discord tortured him; he conceived a horror of the trumpet, except as a simple accompaniment; and suffered from it so keenly, that his father, to correct what he looked on as the effect of ignorant terror, one day desired a trumpet to be blown in his apartment. The child entreated him not to make the experiment; but the trumpet sounded. Mozart suddenly turned pale, fell on the floor, and was going into convulsions, when the trumpeter was sent out of the room. When only seven years old he taught himself the violin; and thus, by the united effort of genius and industry, mastered the most difficult of all instruments. From Munich he went to Vienna, Paris, and London. His reception in the British metropolis was such as the curious give to novelty, the scientific to intelligence, and the great to what administers to stately pleasure. He was flattered, honored, and rewarded. Handel had then made the organ popular, and Mozart took the way of popularity. His execution, which on the piano had astonished the English musicians, was, on the organ, brought in aid of his genius, and he overcame all rivalry. On his departure from England, he gave a farewell concert, of which all the symphonies were composed by himself. This was the career of a child nine years old! With the strengthening of his frame, the acuteness of his ear became less painful; the trumpet had lost its terrors for him at ten years old; and before he had completed that period, he distinguished the dedication of the Church of the Orphans at Vienna by the composition of a mass, motets, and a trumpet duet; and acted as director of the concert. This detail of years is minute; but who will object to reckoning the steps by which genius climbs to fame? Mozart had now traversed the great kingdoms of the earth, and seen all that could be shown to him of European wealth and regal grandeur. He had yet to see the kingdom of European genius. Italy was an untried land, and he went at once to its capital. He was present at the Miserere, which seems to have been then performed with an effect unequalled since. The singers had been forbidden to give a copy of the score. Mozart bore it away in his memory, and wrote it down. This is still quoted among musicians as a miracle of remembrance; but it may be more truly quoted as an evidence of the power which diligence and determination give to the mind. Mozart was not remarkable for memory; what he did, all men may do; but the same triumph is to be purchased only by the same exertion. The impression of this day lasted during life; his style was changed; he at once adopted a solemn reverence for Handel, whom he called "The Thunderbolt," and softened the fury of his inspiration by the taste of Boccherini. He now made a grand advance in his profession, and composed an opera, "Mithridates," which was played twenty nights at Milan. His father, who had some knowledge of music, used to play the harp to his wife's singing, while the infant Haydn imitated a violin and bow with two pieces of wood, and thus took part in this quiet family concert. When of sufficient age, he was placed among the choir of boys in the cathedral of Vienna. His duties as a singer occupied only two hours in the day, but Haydn practised in general sixteen, and sometimes eighteen hours. He was wont to speak in rapturous terms of the delight he received from the combinations of sound; even when he was playing with his companions, he was never able to resist the harmony of the organ in the cathedral. Haydn now began to think of composition, but could not obtain lessons from any of the able professors of Vienna. He was thus thrown on his own resources, yet still despaired not. He bought an old treatise on harmony at a stall; and devoting himself to the study of it with all the zeal of genius, speedily acquired a mastery of the principles of the art, and ere long became one of its brightest ornaments. FAMILY SCENE. In September, 1789, a little boy, about five years old, the son of a man named Freemantle, in St. Thomas' Church-yard, Salisbury, being at play by the dam of the town-mill, fell into the water; his sister, a child of nine years of age, with an affection that would have done honor to riper years, instantly plunged in to his assistance. They both sunk, and in sight of their mother! The poor woman, distracted with horror at the prospect of instant death to her children, braved the flood to save them; she rose with one under each arm, and by her cries happily brought her husband, who instantly swam to their assistance, and brought them all three safe ashore. CHILD'S PRAYER. A little girl, of five years of age, was equally fond of her mother and grandmother. On the birthday of the latter her mother said to her, "My dear you must pray to God to bless your grandmamma, and that she may live to be very old." The child looked with some surprise at her mother, who perceiving it, said, “Well, will you not pray to God to bless your grandmamma, and that she may become very old?" "Ah, mamma!" said the child, "she is very old already, I will rather pray that she may become young." GOLDSMITH. Dr. Goldsmith was always plain in his appearance; but when a boy he had suffered so much from the small-pox, that he was considered particularly ugly. When he was about seven years old, a fiddler, who reckoned himself a wit, happened to be playing in Mr. GoldEmith's house. During a pause between two sets of country dances, little Oliver surprised the party by jumping up suddenly, and dancing round the room. ance of the ill-favoured child, the fiddler exclaimed, "Esop!" and the company burst into laughter; when Oliver turned to them with a smile, and repeated the following couplet : Struck with the grotesque appear "Heralds proclaim aloud, all saying, See Æsop dancing, and his monkey playing." GALLANT MIDSHIPMAN. In the year 1757, the Antelope, commanded by Captain Hood, engaged two French men-ofwar off Brest. During the engagement, a young gentleman on board the Antelope, only sixteen years of age, while gallantly assisting on the quarter-deck, had both his legs shot off, and was carried below to the surgeon. Hearing the ship's crew cheering, he flourished his hand over his head, and with his latest breath uttered an huzza to the honor of the British navy. OPIE. This celebrated painter was indebted to Dr. Walcott (Peter Pindar) who found him laboring in a saw-pit, for first bringing him forward. -When he was first heard of, his fame rested on a very humble foundation. He was asked what he had painted to acquire him the village reputation he enjoyed! His answer was, "I ha' painted Duke William from the signs; and stars, and sich like things, for the boys' kites." Walcott told him, some time after, that he should paint portraits as the most profitable employ"So I ha'; I ha' painted farmer so and So, and neighbor such a one, &c. wi' their wives, and their eight or ten children." "And how much do you receive?" "Why farmer so and So, said it were but right to encourage genus, and so he ga' me half-a-guinea!" "Why, sir, you should get at least half-a-guinea for every head." "Oh, na'! that winna do; it would ruin the country." So strikingly humble and characteristic were the first steps of Opie. ment. SHERIDAN. Richard Brinsley Sheridan gave almost no promise in his childhood of those splendid talents by which he was afterwards distinguished. When about seven years of age, he was committed, along with his brother, to the care of Mr. Samuel Whyte, who with these two boys com menced an academy which afterward became celebrated. When Mrs. Sheridan carried the boys to the house of Mr. Whyte, she took occasion to advert to the necessity of patience in the arduous profession which he had embraced; adding, "these boys will be your tutors in that re spect; I have hitherto been their only instruct er, and they have sufficiently exercised mine; for two such impenetrable dunces I never met with." It was the illustrious Samuel Parr who, when under twenty years of age, and an undermaster at Harrow School, first discovered the latent genius of Sheridan, and by judicious cultivation ripened it into maturity. |