out, weighed thirty-six pounds, and when compared with tame ones, was considered small for the size of the animal. After he fell, a number of the villagers came about us, and were rejoiced at the death of their formidable enemy, and assured us, that during the last four or five years, he had killed nearly fifty men. Indeed, the knowledge of the mischief he had occasioned, was the only thing which could reconcile us to the death of so noble an animal. Colonel San old and very keen Indian sportsman, declared, that he had never seen or heard of any thing equal to this day's sport."

TIGER IN HIS DEN.

While the British army was lying at Agoda, near Goa, in the East Indies, in 1809, a report was one morning brought to the cantonments, that a large Cheetur had been seen on the rocks near the sea. About nine o'clock, a number of horses and men assembled at the spot where it was said to have been seen, when, after some search, the animal was discovered to be in the recess of an immense rock; dogs were sent in, in the hopes of starting him, but without effect, having returned with several wounds.

Finding it impossible to dislodge the animal by such means, Lieutenant Evan Davies, of the 7th regiment, attempted to enter the den, but was obliged to return, finding the passage extremely narrow and dark. He attempted it, however, a second time, with a pick-axe in his hand, with which he removed some obstructions that were in the way. Having proceeded a few yards he heard a noise, which he conceived to be that of the animal. He then returned, and communicated with Lieutenant Threw, of the Artillery, who also went in the same distance, and was of the same opinion. What course to pursue was doubtful; some proposed to blow up the rock, others smoking him out. At length a port-fire was tied to the end of a bamboo, and introduced into a small crevice which led towards the den. Lieut. Davies went on his hands and knees down the narrow passage which led to it; and by the light of his torch, he was enabled to discover the animal. Having returned, he said he could kill him with a pistol; which being procured, he again entered the cave and fired: but without success, owing to the awkward situation in which he was placed, with his left hand only at liberty. He next went with a musket and bayonet, and wounded the animal in the loins ; but was obliged to retreat as quick as the narrow passage would allow, the tiger having rushed forward, and forced the musket back towards the mouth of the den. Lieut. Davies next procured a rifle, with which he again foretd his way into

VOL. II.

11

the cave, and taking a deliberate aim at the tiger's head, fired, and put an end to his existence. The gallant officer afterwards fastened a strong rope round the neck of the tiger, by which he was dragged out, to the no small satisfaction of a numerous crowd of spectators. The animal measured seven feet in length.

EXTRAORDINARY POWERS OF MIND, OR MEMORYANECDOTES OF EMINENT PERSONS, &c.

THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON.

Although the progress of Crichton in his studies during the early period of his youth, cannot now be very satisfactorily traced; yet to prove that it must have been of unequalled rapidity, it is only necessary to state his attainments before he had reached his twentieth year. He had gone through the whole circle of the sciences, and could speak and write to perfection in twelve different languages. Nor had he neglected the ornamental branches of education; for he had likewise improved himself in riding, dancing, and singing, and was a skilful performer on all sorts of instruments. He appears to have first visited Paris when about the age of eighteen, and of his transactions at that place, the following account is given. He caused six placards to be fixed on all the gates of the schools, halls, and colleges of the University, and on all the entrances to the houses of the most renowned literary characters in that city, inviting all those who were well versed in any art or science, to dispute with him in the college of Navarre that day six weeks, when he would meet them, and be ready to answer in any art or science, and in any of these twelve languages, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, English, Dutch, Flemish, and Sclavonian; and this either in verse or prose, at the discretion of the disputant.

Crichton, during the intermediate time, appeared to devote his whole attention to feats of arms, field sports, or domestic games; but when the day appointed arrived, he appeared in the college of Navarre, and acquitted himself most successfully in the disputation, which lasted from nine o'clock in the morning till six at night. At length the president, after extolling him highly for the many rare and excellent endowments which God and nature had bestowed upon him, rose from his chair, and, accompanied by four of the most eminent professors of the University, gave him a diamond ring and a purse full of gold, as a testimony of their respect and admiration. The whole exhibition ended with repeated acclamations and

cheers from the spectators. The young disputant was henceforward called the "Admirable Crichton."

HUNGARIAN PRODIGY.

Sigismund Maxim. Wilh. Otto von Praun, the son of a captain of cavalry in the Austrian service, was born at Tyrnau in Hungary, on the 1st of June, 1811. When but an infant, he showed a singular desire for instruction, and in his second year he had acquired such a readiness in the knowledge of his letters, in reading, and in decyphering prints of subjects from general and natural history, that on the 1st of November, 1813, when but two years and five months old, he was deemed qualified to enter the second form of the principal national school of Tyrnau. Having attended the school about ten months, on the 26th of August, 1814, he was examined with the rest of the pupils; and bore away the highest prize from seventy of his juvenile competitors, in reading and writing German, in Hungarian orthography, his catechism, and drawing. On the examination of the 17th of March, 1815, this child, who had then attained the age of three years and three quarters, was again pronounced the greatest proficient among the one hundred and twenty-four pupils of his form, in reading the German, Hungarian, and Latin languages, in arithmetic, and his catechism. This infant prodigy has excited still greater attention, from the extraordinary and more rapid progress he has made in music. From his second year he had studied the violin with so much success, that after the examination of the 17th of March, he astonished those who were assembled to hear him, namely, the magistracy, all the teachers of the principal national schools, and a number of amateurs of music, by taking the leading part in a duet and trio of Pleyel's. This he repeated on the 13th of April following, at a party given by Prince Schwartzenburgh at Tyrnau, before a numerous circle of nobility. Nor is the, progress he has made in acquiring foreign languages, fencing, and drawing, inferior to his other advancements. During the summer of 1815, this boy gave a public concert at Vienna, where the astonishment and admiration of all present were unbounded; the produce of it he bestowed on the Invalid Fund.

ROBERT CHARLES DALLAS.

"Wonder writes the tale."

ODE TO WELLINGTON.

The poetical biography of Britain presents no instance of early excellence more remarkable, than the living one to whom public fame, as well as private esteem, has called upon

us to dedicate these anecdotes of Youth. If we turn over the earlier works of our poets, from Chaucer to Byron; if we examine more especially those of Cowley and Chatterton, two of the most eminent instances of juvenile poetical talent of which this country can boast, we shall meet with nothing more astonishing than the effusions of Robert Charles Dallas, the youngest son of Sir George Dallas, Bart.

The melody of verse seems to have come as naturally to this blossom of our age, as speech itself. While as yet no more than seven years of age, his infant hands are said to have been familiar with the lyre; and ere he had reached thirteen, he had presented to the world a volume of poems, which have challenged the admiration even of criticism itself!

The earliest productions in this published collection are stated to have been written at the age of eleven; but we have been told by a gentleman of eminence in the literary world, that he remembers having heard young Dallas, when less than nine years of age, recite with great sweetness and force of diction, some pretty verses, founded on the story of Phaton, which he had written about a year before. The pieces which stand in the published collections first in point of date, are two eulogies, one on his nephew, George Parker, son of the late gallant Sir Peter Parker, Bart.: the other on his own brother George, who mortally wounded himself while crossing a hedge in shooting, and died under the agonies of a lock-jaw. The young author has strikingly exemplified in these pieces the justness of the poetical canon,

"si vis me flere, dolendum est Primum tibi."

His heart appears to have felt more deeply on these occasions, than on any other which inspired his muse; and in none has he been more felicitous in depicting what he felt. The reader cannot have a more striking proof of the genius of the author, than by an example or two selected from these elegies.

FROM THE ELEGY ON HIS NEPHEW.

"The little flow'r with placid eye,

That loves to gaze on beauty's grave,
And seems to mourn with fragrant sigh,
The charms of him no charms can save ;
Beneath the waving cypress gloom

Shall still adorn this sacred spot;
And e'en in death, its latest bloom

Shall sweetly breathe, Forget me not.”

FROM THE ELEGY ON HIS BROTHER.

"Oh deign, blest shade! though now enshrined on high,
My muse to favour from the ethereal sky!

Let one kind glance, one heav'nly smile, approve

This frail memorial of a brother's love;

Whose numbers, weak, in mournful cadence flow,
To soothe the anguish of parental woe;
To dry the drops that dim a father's eyes,
And hush a mother's deep bewailing sighs;

To ease the pang that rends thy brother's heart,
From whence, till death, thy image ne'er shall part;
To shrine thy mem'ry with her early lays,

And stamp thy virtue deathless as thy praise."

In a person of any age, the elegant simplicity of diction, and perfect propriety of conception, which distinguish these verses, would be deserving of commendation; but when we take into account that they are the production of a boy not more than eleven years of age-that they are but the blossoms of a flower which has yet " to bring forth its fruit in due season," it is impossible not to wonder while we admire.

The next production of young Dallas was dramatic-a tragedy, in three acts, entitled Saluzzo; or the Tyrant Punished. A favourable specimen of this drama is given in the published collection; but some remarkable circumstances connected with it are not before the public eye; and trusting not to offend the modesty which withheld them, we shall beg leave to supply them, from an authority on which we have every reason to place the fullest reliance.

After the play had been composed, the young author, being on a visit during the holidays, at the house of a friend of his father's, in Hampshire, obtained permission to have it privately acted. The principal character he undertook himself. The subordinate ones were to be performed by young relations and friends. The parlour of the house he converted, with much ingenuity, into a little theatre, having curtains, scenes, stage doors, &c. ; manager, prompter, actor, and author young Dallas was all these at once, and as yet, not twelve years of age.

;

"Conceive," says the friend to whom we are indebted for these particulars, "a little boy not four feet nine inches high, who never received the slightest dramatic instruction; a stranger to declamation; who never heard Kemble, Kean, nay, who never saw a tragedy, nor faced a company to deliver a speech, as I am well assured was the case, deeming himself equal to playing the first character in a play of his own composition, and fearlessly undertaking it, as if intuitively conscious of his powers, and marshalling the whole dramatis personæ himself. When the curtain drew up, he had not spoken five sentences, before he evinced his extraordinary powers. His voice, his air, his tread of the stage, but above all, the ease and grace of his action, surprised every one. There was