The historian says that "at twelve his industry was above the capacity and his mind beyond the reache of his Contemporaries." Who were the contemporaries alluded to? Those of his own age, or those who were living at the time? A boy of twelve, he excelled others in his great industry and the wide range of his mind. This industry appears to have accompanied him through life, for Rawley states that "he would ever interlace a moderate relaxation of his mind with his studies, as walking or taking the air abroad in his coach or some other befitting recreation; and yet he would lose no time, inasmuch as upon the first and immediate return he would fall to reading again, and so suffer no movement of time to slip from him without some present improvement." It is a remarkable fact on which too much stress cannot be laid that in the two Lives of Bacon, scanty as they are, by contemporary writers, his exceptional industry is pointed out. There are certainly no visible fruits of this industry. Although there is no definite information as to what was the state of Francis Bacon's education at twelve, there is testimony as to that of some of his contemporaries. Three instances will suffice. Philip Melancthon (whose family name was Schwartzerd) was born in 1497. His education was at an early age directed by his maternal grandfather, John Reuter. After a short stay at a public school at Bretten he was removed to the academy at Pforzheim. Here, under the tutorship of John Reuchlin, an elegant scholar and teacher of languages, he acquired the taste for Greek literature in which he subsequently became so distinguished. Here his genius for composition asserted itself. Amongst other poetical essays in which he indulged when eleven years of age, he wrote a humorous piece in the form of a comedy, which he dedicated to his kind friend and instructor, Reuchlin, in whose presence it was performed by the schoolfellows of the youthful author. After a residence of two years at Pforzheim, Philip matriculated at the University of Heidelberg on the 13th October, 1509, being eleven years and nine months old. Young as he was, he appears to have been employed to compose most of the harangues that were delivered in the University, besides writing some pieces for the professors themselves. Here, at this early age, he composed his "Rudiments of the Greek Language," which were afterwards published. Agrippa d'Aubigné was born in 1550 and died in 1630. At six years of age he read Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. When ten years he translated the Crito. Italian and Spanish were at his command. Thomas Bodley was born in 1544 and died in 1612. In the short autobiography which he left he makes the following statement as to how far his education had advanced when his father decided to fix his abode in the city of Geneva in 1556:--