LATE INSTRUCTION.
Socrates in his old age, learned to play upon a musical instrument. Cato, aged 80, began to learn Greek; and Plutarch, in his old age, acquired Latin. John Gelida, of Valentia, in Spain, did not begin the study of belles-lettres, until he was 40 years old.
Henry Spelman, having in his youth neglected the sciences, resumed them at the age of 50, with extraordinary success.
Fairfax, after having been the general of the parliamentary army in England, went to Oxford, and took his degree as Doctor-of-Law. Colbert, when minister, and almost 60 years of age, returned to his Latin and his law, in a situation where the neglect of one, if not both, might have been thought excusable; and Mons. Le Tellier, chancellor of France, reverted to the learning of logic that he might dispute with his grand-children.
Sir John Davies, at the age of 25, produced a poem on "The Immortality of the Soul," and in his 62nd year, as Mr. Thomas Campbell facetiously observes, when a judge and a statesman, another on dancing.