The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-03-25

deauX university In three years. He
entered 1t at II ana left II at u. e1-
changing the tutelage of the school
for that cf his father. n Latin and
Crek scholar Of great reputation. Here
Joseph entered upon his marvellous ca
reer OF conquest among the languages
and acquired fourteen, which was
about all. David Hume. at IA. had
chosen his occupation. 1t should De
literature. and though 1t cost great ef-
fort to keep that resolution, he did So
1t is remarkable that Hume should
have begun so early that keen ana:y-
sis Of human nature that character
lied his work. Ills entire after life
seems to rest on the base Of his fonr-
reenth year AS writer Of history.
Hume outranks either Scaii2sr or Br-
chanan, but IL below Buchanan ana
still further below Scaliger as schol.
ar. For downright scholarship these
two men are possibly uneaua!ed.
Dante Is known nv II poet. the writer
of the Divine Comedy" and is moth
ing else There Il no manifestation,
however, in his fourteenth year that
shadowed forth ''rhe Inferno. He
wcs then exclusively student Of
science and literature, and filled his
head with whatever came his way that
was worth knowing. But this was
really the preparation for his poem.
for Dante could never have made such
intelligent applications of his imagery
without the reference OF other minds
than his own. We see. then, two
branches of Dante's life--that of the
poet well known. that of the scholar
little known-that converge in his
fourteenth year Dante had no. in
structor' after he left Latini, and that
he should have risen by his own eXer-
tlon to the eminence Of one of the most
learned men in Italy is as creditable To
him as his great poem.
THOMAS CARLYLE.
Another boy who marched TO college
at "A and was great as Il man was
Thomas Carlyle. He then entered Ed
inburgh university. Hume had left
this same institution just at the same
age that Carlyle went into II, and both
Of them at this time began their eX-
haustive course of reading which
made them historians. More daring
than Emerson. Carlyle would lay his
own foundation. and when he had
lived to be 5G, four times IA. the pre-
else age at which he stood at his zen
ith he had left behind him great
freshness and vigor years thereafter,
losing much OF it's strength at 70.
When Charles James Fox was II he
left the Latin school at Eton, but for
n widely different purpose from that
for which Dante, Buchanan. Scaliger
and David Hume left their schools at
the same age. These boys plunged
into the exEaustless reservoirs of
learning that had been fed from the
minds of all the past. Young Fox,
however, was not without ambition.
He sought notoriety and won it, and
he won 1t quickly, for he soon became
known as one of the worst profigates
in England. Strange that his father
should have counseled and Influenced
such a career. Certainly his four
teenth year was most memorable, for
in it he stepped from the calm, pure
solitudes of Eton to the discordant
hell of Spa, and from that he went to
worse, reaching depth of almost ir-
reparable degradation. How different
was 1t with Napoleon. who went from
his provincial school at Brienne when
lad of IA to enter the great school at
Paris. and from there to the army,
which made him emperor of France,
and practically of Europe. At twice
IA. 2S. he whipped the Austrians at
MOntenotte, and ON that battle, he said
rested his empire and his nobility.
Seven years afterward he was en-
perOr.
DA VINCI.
The manifestation of Da Vincis ge-
nuis when child of IA was so great as
to make Verocchio, his master, to
abandon his art in despair and when
No, h.1 c..
than VerocchiO he, too, was outdOne
by Michael Angelo at II, who had then
been but three years under tuition,
having been placed with the celebrat-
ed Ghirlandajo when he was II years
old. Here he caught that blend of
style which makes beautiful the
strong. When Da Vinci saw himself
surpassed he took 1t easy, and merely
said that Ghirlandajo's method was
superior to that of VerOcchio The
name Raphael became more glorious
than Angelo. and Angelo sought to be
revenged by bringing out Piombo as n
pupil, who painted the Bandinelli por-
trait, said to be the equal of anything
Raphael ever did, except his Portrait
of an Old Man." Sebastian could new
er rival this; he was too lazy to work.
and so the greatest art died with Ra-
phael. At the age of 20. five times Il.
Michael Angelo was preparing for his
design of the new st. Peters.
Gerald Massey says Of his fourteenth
year: Till then had often wondered
why I had lived at ALL" 1t was then
that he discovered the world of mind
in the book stalls of London, and set
about writing poetry. Petrarch, when
IA, was taken from the University of
Montpelier and placed with Pistola at
Bologna to study canon law. He, too.
took to writing verses when then gave
promise of his ultimately rivalling his
Virgil, though he never did.
His poetry was not remarkable, but
his learning was the wonder of Flor
ence Perhaps there never lived o boy
who knew as much at a as did Loren
20. Shelley did not think himself a
poet at this age. but then wrote
novel called 'HastroZZi,' which is
only worth referring to as his first cx
preston. TimOthy Dwight. like Lo-
renzO, was more scholarly than poetic.
When he was half way up to his four
teenth year it Is said that he studied
through Lilly's Latin grammar
twice. At any rate he was far enough
advanced at II to so into Yale college
leSe. and there was copernicus. in
whose fourteenth year dates the origin
OF the wonderful revolution In astrOn-
omy that he effected 1t was at this
age that he attended the mathematical
and Astronomical lectures Of Albert
i5,udzawski at Cracow, and was made
with the works Of John
OTHER EXAMPLES.
In the lives Of Margaret Fuller and
Harriet MartiEeau the fourteenth year
is more important. There was never n
more thoroughly educated woman than
Margaret FULLER, and she was only Il
when she left boarding school and re-
turned home to enter upon that course
Of serious and severe reading which
Won her he distinction of the most
learned woman of her time. The range
of her research. mere child that she
was embodied not less than twenty au-