The predisposition of genius has declared itself in painters and poets, who were such before they understood the nature of colours and the arts of verse; and this vehement propensity, so mysteriously constitutional, may be traced in other intellectual characters besides those which belong to the class of imagination. It was said that PITT was _born_ a minister; the late Dr. SHAW I always considered as one _born_ a naturalist, and I know a great literary antiquary who seems to me to have been also _born_ such; for the passion of _curiosity_ is as intense a faculty, or instinct, with some casts of mind, as is that of _invention_ with poets and painters: I confess that to me it is _genius_ in a form in which genius has not yet been suspected to appear. One of the biographers of Sir HANS SLOANE expresses himself in this manner:--"Our author's _thirst_ for knowledge seems to have been _born_ with him, so that his _Cabinet of Rarities_ may be said to have commenced with _his being_." This strange metaphorical style has only confused an obscure truth. SLOANE, early in life, felt an irresistible impulse which inspired him with the most enlarged views of the productions of nature, and he exulted in their accomplishment; for in his will he has solemnly recorded, that his collections were the fruits of his early devotion, _having had from my youth a strong inclination to the study of plants and all other productions of nature_. The vehement passion of PEIRESC for knowledge, according to accounts which Gassendi received from old men who had known him as a child, broke out as soon as he had been taught his alphabet; for then his delight was to be handling books and papers, and his perpetual inquiries after their contents obliged them to invent something to quiet the child's insatiable curiosity, who was hurt when told that he had not the capacity to understand them. He did not study as an ordinary scholar, for he never read but with perpetual researches. At ten years of age, his passion for the studies of antiquity was kindled at the sight of some ancient coins dug up in his neighbourhood; then that vehement passion for knowledge "began to burn like fire in a forest," as Gassendi happily describes the fervour and amplitude of the mind of this man of vast learning. Bayle, who was an experienced judge in the history of genius, observes on two friars, one of whom was haunted by a strong disposition to _genealogical_, and the other to _geographical_ pursuits, that, "let a man do what he will, if nature incline us to certain things, there is no preventing the gratification of our desire, though it lies hid under a monk's frock." It is not, therefore, as the world is apt to imagine, only poets and painters for whom is reserved this restless and impetuous propensity for their particular pursuits; I claim it for the man of science as well as for the man of imagination. And I confess that I consider this strong bent of the