advice which would have exasperated a normal parent to the boxing point.
There were few normal parents left, however, at this period, to stem the tide of infantile precocity. Child-study was dawning as a new and fascinating pursuit upon the English world; and the babes of Britain responded nobly to the demands made upon their incapacity. Miss Anna Seward lisped Milton at three, “recited poetical passages, with eyes brimming with delight,” at five, and versified her favourite psalms at nine. Her father, who viewed these alarming symptoms with delight, was so ill-advised as to offer her, when she was ten, a whole half-crown, if she would write a poem on Spring; whereupon she “swiftly penned” twenty-five lines, which have been preserved to an ungrateful world, and which shadow forth the painful prolixity of future days. At four years of age, little Hannah More was already composing verses with ominous ease. At five, she “struck mute” the respected clergyman of the parish by her exhaustive knowledge of the catechism. At eight, we are told her talents “were of such a manifestly superior order that her father did not scruple to combine with the study of Latin some elementary instruction in mathematics; a fact which her readers might very naturally infer from the clear and logical cast of her argumentative writings.”
It is not altogether easy to trace the connection between Miss More’s early sums and her argumentative writings; but, as an illustration of her logical mind, I may venture to quote a “characteristic” anecdote, reverently told by her biographer, Mr. Thompson. A young lady, whose sketches showed an unusual degree of talent, was visiting in Bristol; and her work was warmly admired by Miss Mary, Miss Sally, Miss Elizabeth, and Miss Patty More. Hannah alone withheld all word of commendation, sitting in stony silence whenever the drawings were produced; until one day she found the artist hard at work, putting a new binding on a petticoat. Then, “fixing her brilliant eyes with an expression of entire approbation upon the girl, she said: ‘Now, my dear, that I find you can employ yourself usefully, I will no longer forbear to express my admiration of your drawings.’”
Only an early familiarity with the multiplication table could have made so ruthless a logician.
If Dr. Johnson, being childless, found other people’s children in his way, how fared the bachelors and spinsters who, as time went on, were confronted by a host of infant prodigies; who heard little Anna Letitia Aikin—afterwards Mrs. Barbauld—read “as well as most women” at two and a half years of age; and little Anna Maria Porter declaim Shakespeare “with precision of emphasis and firmness of voice” at five; and little Alphonso Hayley recite a Greek ode at six. We wonder if anybody ever went twice to homes that harboured childhood; and we sympathize with Miss Ferrier’s bitterness of soul, when she describes a family dinner at which Eliza’s sampler and Alexander’s copy-book are handed round to the guests, and Anthony stands up and repeats “My name is Norval” from beginning to end, and William Pitt is prevailed upon to sing the whole of “God save the King.” It was also a pleasant fashion of the time to write eulogies on one’s kith and kin. Sisters celebrated their brothers’ talents in affectionate verse, and fathers confided to the world what marvellous children they had. Even Dr. Burney, a man of sense, poetizes thus on his daughter Susan:—
Nor did her intellectual powers require
The usual aid of labour to inspire
Her soul with prudence, wisdom, and a taste
Unerring in refinement, sound and chaste.
This was fortunate for Susan, as most young people of the period were compelled to labour hard. There was a ghastly pretence on the part of parents that children loved their tasks, and that to keep them employed was to keep them happy. Sir William Pepys persuaded himself without much difficulty that little William, who had weak eyes and nervous headaches, relished Ovid and Virgil. A wonderful and terrible letter written in 1786 by the Baroness de Bode, an Englishwoman married to a German and living at Deux-Ponts, lays bare the process by which ordinary children were converted into the required miracles of precocity. Her eldest boys, aged eight and nine, appear to have been the principal victims. The business of their tutor was to see that they were “fully employed,” and this is an account of their day.