writer's imagination was jaded in quest of an expedient, it was marvellous indeed, if supernatural power was incompetent to furnish one. Brown justly exploded this antique novelty, and as before remarked, if his agents are allowed to act, his novel. ties partake nothing of the incredible. He never himself, regarded his novels in a serious light; he considered them as the sportive effusions of his juvenile pen, and yet these composi tions, written on the spur of the occasion, and when written abandoned by their author without regret, have been read, republished in England, and admired. Like hardy children, disclaimed by their parent, and thrown on the world for support, they have bravely scrambled through every opposing obstacle, and hardily acquired competence and reputation for themselves. But Brown's peculiar and characteristic merits, are founded on a much broader base. Almost every science has received the tribute of his pen, and the same characteristic novelty is attendant on whatever he wrote. Questions of literature or policy, that had been the debate of public writers until ingenuity itself seemed exhausted, and if we may be allowed the expression, worn to the bone in the research, when touched by his pen, started up with some glittering novelty of appearance, and received a sort of resuscitation from the touch. The public read, always amused, always delighted, and oftentimes convinced, when they had entertained a firm belief that not only argument, but what was by far more copious and redundant, abuse also had been exhausted. It was the peculiar trait of this writer, to take a ground of investigation exclusively his own. Such was the strength aud luminous perspicuity of his style, such his plausible arrangement of facts, such his skill and adroitness in maintaining his position, whatever that position was, that those not convinced by his argument, found it difficult either to question his hypothesis, or to resist his deductions. The fortress was often strong and impregnable to assault, although the country which it commanded was not always worth the skill and ingenuity manifested in the construction of the engineer. In those occasional sallies of a mind always exuberant, never did the motto applied by Horne Tooke, to the productions of Junius, more forcibly apply, "materies superat

pen; and

at opus." These may be called the truant pastime of his even in the recreative moments of the author's mind, we dis cerned the vigour and elasticity of its sinews. The games of Greece and Rome were unquestionably political institutions. By those mock encounters, the youth acquired a hardihood of muscle, skill, dexterity, and strength for attack or defence, whenever their country demanded services more hazardous and important. With this view, Brown seems in his lighter essays, to have disciplined and invigorated his genius. He thought whatever was done, should be well done; that the intrinsic and comparative insignificance of the task to be performed, was no apology for want of skill and dexterity in the artist. Pastime was thus employed to the invigoration of his genius, to render it subservient for exercise more arduous and impracticable. His country had already began to reap the benefit of such talents so disciplined; his mind, to use Shakspeare's beautiful expression was now "flowing in more formal majesty." The cloud which had oppressed his early years had now become splendid and luminous, and rapidly departing before the rising beams, when suddenly the orb became dark in the meridian maturity of his blaze. I propose, Mr. Editor, to examine this point more at large in a subsequent number of your miscellany.

A. R.

N. B. A biography of Charles B. Brown, and a selection from his manuscripts, are about to be published. The profits of the work will be exclusively applied to the family of the deceased. The work will be comprised in two volumes. We have not the smallest doubt that the pen of a writer, whose works are deemed worthy of a publication in England, will receive a liberal patronage in his native country.

ZERAH COLBURN.

DURING Several weeks, we have repeatedly received astonishing and almost incredible accounts of the mathematical powers of a child living in Vermont. Within the last month, he has been exhibited in this place, and we have had frequent and ample opportunities for examining him; and have besides, collected from the father, and from respectable gentlemen in that part of the country where this prodigy was born, the following account of his birth and education.

Zerah Colburn was born at Cabot in the county of Caledonia, and state of Vermont, on the first day of September 1804. In the early part of his infancy, and until he was a year old, his parents considered him very much inferior to the rest of their children, and sometimes fearfully anticipated all the trouble and sorrow attendant on the maintenance of an idiot. By degrees he seemed to improve, and they began to conceive better hopes; but, he was more than two years old before he was supposed to possess that degree of intelligence which usually falls to the share of our species. After this, his progress became more apparent; and although all who saw him declared he was very eccentric in his manners and amusements, yet all acknowledged that he was shrewd and intelligent. No one, however, had yet discovered in him any inclination to the combinations of arithmetic, and no one remembers that he ever made any inquiries about numbers, or their use. As he always lived in a frontier town of Vermont, where education meets with little encouragement, and as his father's resources were few and trifling, he had received no instruction, and was in fact ignorant of the first rudiments of reading. It was, therefore, with unqualified astonishment, that his father overheard him multiplying different sums merely for his own amusement; and on investigating the extent of his powers, found he could multiply any two numbers under one hundred. This happened about the beginning of last August. Immediately on this discovery, the father sent him to a woman's school, such as is usually kept in our back settlements during the summer season. There he remained until the latter

part of September, and was taught to read a little; but is still completely ignorant of figures and our method of using them. The want of artificial symbols does not, however, seem to embarrass him in the least. Instead of them, he employs their names, and without any other assistance, performs mentally all the common operations in the four fundamental rules of arithmetic. He can add a column of figures four in height and three in width. He can subtract five figures and divide four. He can multiply any number under one thousand by any number under one hundred, or a series of three questions each of whose factors do not exceed one hundred. He has also learnt by inquiry several of the different kinds of measure, and now reduces miles to rods and feet, and years to days, hours, &c. His most remarkable operation is that of discovering the several multiples of a given number; and this he does with such astonishing rapidity, that the hearer cannot note them down so fast as he utters them:-Ex. gr. when asked what numbers multiplied together will produce 1224, he replied instantly, 2 x 612, 4 x 306, 8 X 153, 3 × 408, 6 × 204, 12 × 102, 24 × 51, 9 ×136, 18 × 68, 36 × 34, and 17 × 72. In this, and similar operations, he probably discovers the two first factors by division, and afterwards multiplies and divides these factors to procure the next set and so on until the series is exhausted, when he recurs to the original number, and making a new division, proceeds as before. multiplication he finds the multiples of one factor and multiplies them successively into the other. Thus, in multiplying 32 by 156, instead of taking the common mode, he says, 13 × 32 = 416 X 12 = 4992; because 12 × 13 =156. But if the hundreds proposed will not suffer this process, he first multiplies the hundreds, and then the tens, and discovers the aggregate by addition. His facility in multiplication arises in a great measure from the extent of his table, which, instead of comprising only one hundred and forty-four combinations, probably comprises ten thousand, as he evidently answers all questions whose factors are less than one hundred, from recollection, and not from computation. His memory is prodigious, and appears capable of almost indefinite cultivation. In his general disposition, he is uncommonly docile and affectionate, although he discovers considera

In

Music excites His person is

ble pride of opinion, and is chagrined when detected in an error. He is remarkably inquisitive, and is never satisfied with a superficial examination of any new object or fact. him powerfully; and next to this, pictures. strong and well proportioned except his head, which is much larger than usual. This circumstance has raised suspicions, that he had been subject to the rickets; a disorder which has been supposed sometimes to produce a prematurity of talents; but the father declares, that the child has always been healthy, and particularly denies that he ever discovered any appearances of this disease.

Considering all these circumstances, the present appears to be an unparalleled instance of the early development of mind. It is preposterous to compare him with the admirable Critton or the blind Dydimus; because their faculties were drawn forth by the usual artifices of education; while the youth of this child, the ignorance of his parents, and their relative situation in society, preclude the possibility of his having attained his present powers by any use of the ordinary means of improvement. It is certain, therefore, that he has made himself what he now is, the most astonishing instance of premature skill in arithmetical combinations that the world ever saw.

Boston, December 15, 1810.

Monthly Anthology.

BRISTOL MINERAL WATERS.

THE accurate analysis of whatever is received either for the purposes of pleasure or health, into the human system, at once enlarges the empire of Curiosity and of Use. To swallow huge doses of unknown substances, without any investigation of their properties, or modus operandi, is the characteristic of vulgar Credulity, governed by impudent Empiricism. To detect the latent qualities of the three kingdoms, to explore the secrets of medicine, and, above all, to be familiar with the magic of chymistry is the part of a philosophical patient, and a liberal scholar.