About this time there was a wonderful boy, who, since, developed into a good Civil Engineer. The earliest notice I can find of him is in a Newspaper of March 4, 1814. "There is now at Moretonhamstead, Devonshire, a boy only seven and a half years old, of a most astonishing genius; indeed, as a Calculator, quite a prodigy. A gentleman asked him how many eyes and toes six score of bullocks had, and how many minutes in a year, each of which questions he answered with the same ease and quickness. Another person put many difficult questions to him in arithmetic, to the whole of which he immediately replied correctly. The boy cannot account how he does it, and, till within a few weeks, did not know a figure. His name is Bidder, and his father is a mason at the above place." We hear of him again in October, 1819. "A singular phenomenon appeared in the metropolis this month, a boy of the name of George Bidder, solved the most difficult questions in arithmetic by mental calculation, in less time than could be accomplished by the most skilful by the ordinary operation; and what was more remarkable he did not work by common arithmetical rules, but by a process entirely his own." Among the musical composers who were then living may be named Sir Henry R. Bishop, Dr. Calcott, Muzio Clementi, Dr. Crotch, Charles Dibdin, Thomas Greatorex, Thomas Kelly, Vincent Novello, John Parry, Cipriani Potter, and Samuel Wesley. Medical Science had emerged from the empiricism in which it had so long been shrouded: and to this era belong some great names, both in Medicine and Surgery. Still, the Pharmacopoeia was a great deal too redundant, and the family doctor was pompous, and not too learned. Doctors and Clergymen still stuck to their wigs--Barristers and Judges still do to theirs--and he could not be worth his salt as a physician, unless he carried a gold-headed cane, often with a round ball a-top, which was a relic of the time when it contained some aromatic mixture, which he smelt, in order to guard himself against contagion. Among eminent medical men and surgeons of those days, first in alphabetical order is that clever old bear, John Abernethy, whose brusque sayings have been so often quoted. Joseph Constantine Carpue, who distinguished himself by making false flesh noses, which he covered with skin let down from the forehead. Sir Richard Croft, who attended the Princess Charlotte in her confinement, and whose death so preyed upon his mind that, about three months afterwards, he committed suicide by shooting himself. Sir Henry Halford, who was physician in ordinary to George IV., and whom we have seen, in conjunction with that illustrious monarch, examining the bodies of Henry VIII. and Charles I.; and Dr. Jenner, whose connection with Vaccination every one knows. [Illustration: A Physician.] [Illustration: "I shall endeavour in a short, but eloquent, discourse, to remove the vulgar prejudices imbibed by a narrow education."] [Illustration: