the father was not born to be an astronomer, he flogged his son severely.  The youth was found weeping in the streets by a man of science, who, when he discovered in a boy of ten years of age a passion for contemplating the stars at night, and one, too, who had discovered an observatory in a steeple, decided that the seal of Nature had impressed itself on the genius of that boy.  Relieving the parent from the son, and the son from the parent, he assisted the young LA CAILLE in his passionate pursuit, and the event completely justified the prediction.  How children feel a predisposition for the studies of astronomy, or mechanics, or architecture, or natural history, is that secret in nature we have not guessed.  There may be a virgin thought as well as a virgin habit—­nature before education—­which first opens the mind, and ever afterwards is shaping its tender folds.  Accidents may occur to call it forth, but thousands of youths have found themselves in parallel situations with SMEATON, FERGUSON, and LA CAILLE, without experiencing their energies.

The case of CLAIRON, the great French tragic actress, who seems to have been an actress before she saw a theatre, deserves attention.  This female, destined to be a sublime tragedian, was of the lowest extraction; the daughter of a violent and illiterate woman, who, with blows and menaces, was driving about the child all day to manual labour.  “I know not,” says Clairon, “whence I derive my disgust, but I could not bear the idea to be a mere workwoman, or to remain inactive in a corner.”  In her eleventh year, being locked up in a room as a punishment, with the windows fastened, she climbed upon a chair to look about her.  A new object instantly absorbed her attention.  In the house opposite she observed a celebrated actress amidst her family; her daughter was performing her dancing lesson:  the girl Clairon, the future Melpomene, was struck by the influence of this graceful and affectionate scene.  “All my little being collected itself into my eyes; I lost not a single motion; as soon as the lesson ended, all the family applauded, and the mother embraced the daughter.  The difference of her fate and mine filled me with profound grief; my tears hindered me from seeing any longer, and when the palpitations of my heart allowed me to re-ascend the chair, all had disappeared.”  This scene was a discovery; from that moment Clairon knew no rest, and rejoiced when she could get her mother to confine her in that room.  The happy girl was a divinity to the unhappy one, whose susceptible genius imitated her in every gesture and every motion; and Clairon soon showed the effect of her ardent studies.  She betrayed in the common intercourse of life, all the graces she had taught herself; she charmed her friends, and even softened her barbarous mother; in a word, the enthusiastic girl was an actress without knowing what an actress was.