Born. Died. Galileo 1564 1642. Kepler 1571 1630. Bacon 1561 1626. Newton 1642[2] 1727.] [Footnote 2: The same year that Galileo died.] [Footnote 3: Born. Died. Priestly 1733 1804. Galvani 1737 1798. Volta 1745 1826. Lavoisier 1743 1794. Crauford 1749 1795. Hunter 1728 1793. Davy 1778 1829.] [Footnote 4: The valvular contrivances in the veins and heart, which showed that the blood could move in only one direction, had been either observed, described, or their effects respectively remarked on, by Paul, Sylvius, Michael Servetus, Realdus Columbus, Andreas Cesalpinus, and especially by Fabricius ab Aquapendente, of whom Harvey was a pupil.] [Footnote 5: In a polite letter which I recently received from a distinguished pupil of Abernethy's (Dr. Butter, of Plymouth), I find that James Abernethy died of apoplexy, at Plymouth.] CHAPTER II. "Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields beloved in vain, Where once my careless childhood stray'd, A stranger yet to pain." GRAY. Mankind naturally feel an interest in the boyhood of men of genius; but it often happens that very little attention is paid to early indications; and, when observed, it is certain that they are often interpreted very falsely. Nothing more emphatically suggests how much we have to learn on this subject, than the obscurity which so often hangs over the earlier years of distinguished men. At school, a number of variable organizations are subjected to very much the same influences; the necessity for generalization affords little opportunity for individual analysis. The main road is broad and familiar; there is no time for indulging in bye-paths, even should the master have the penetration to perceive, in individual cases, the expediency of such selection. Hence the quickening of those impulses, on which the development of character so much depends, is greatly a matter of uncertainty. The moment boys leave school, on the contrary, this uniformity of external influences is replaced by an interminable diversity; at home, scarcely two boys being subjected to exactly the same. Thus, in many instances, it would be easier to deduce the character of the boy from the man, than to have predicted the man from the boy. The evidences of the one are present to us, those of the other may have been entirely unelicited, unobserved, or forgotten. We cannot wonder, then, that expectation should have been so often disappointed in the boy, or that excellences little dreamt of should have been developed in the man.