VERNET'S PRECOCITY.
The wonderful stories told about the early exhibitions of genius in many celebrated painters are really true with respect to Joseph Vernet. In his infancy, he exhibited the most extraordinary passion for painting. He himself has related, that on his return from Italy, his mother gave him some drawings which he had executed at the age of five years, when he was rewarded by being allowed to use the pencils he had tried to purloin. Before he was fifteen, he painted frieze-panels, fire-screens, coach-panels, sedan chair-panels, and the like, whenever he could get a commission; he also gave proof of that facility of conceiving and executing, which was one of the characteristics of his genius.