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3 Narratives of a kind like the ensuing, however curious in themselves, call for more indulgence, than the fastidiousness of critical authority is accustomed to extend, unless they throw additional light on some principles, either useful to the investigation of science, or conducive to the interests of common life.

The influence of premature talents upon the stability of the corporeal frame, while it must often have been a subject of deep contemplation to the philosopher, has no less often made the heart of a parent to tremble, and his eye to look with dismay at the promise, which reason as well as natural pride would have hailed with joy. A very few weeks after the event, which gave occasion to the following pages, a gentleman, better known in the field of science and politics, than in the circle of domestic charities, indulged himself in a summary of the treatment, by means of which parental vanity is led to baffle its own hopes, and to exhaust the sap of life in the very springtime of its