own. Before she was
six, she had learned French and German, and then she began geometry;
and after receiving ten lessons, she was able to answer very difficult
questions. The English, Italian, Swedish, and Dutch languages were next
acquired, with singular rapidity; and before she was fourteen, she knew
Latin and Greek, and had become a good classical scholar. Besides her
knowledge of languages, she made herself acquainted with almost every
branch of polite literature, as well as many of the sciences, particularly
mathematics. She also attained great proficiency in mineralogy; and,
during a sojourn of six weeks in the Hartz Forest, she visited the deepest
mines, in the common habit of a labourer, and examined the whole process
of the work. Her surprising talents becoming the general topic of
conversation, she was proposed, by the great Orientalist Michaelis, as
a proper subject for academical honours. The Philosophical Faculty, of
which the Professor was Dean, was deemed the fittest; and a day was
fixed for her examination, in presence of all the Professors. She was
introduced by Michaelis himself, and distinguished, as a lady, with the
highest seat. Several questions were first proposed to her in mathematics;
all of which she answered to satisfaction. After this, she gave a free
translation of the thirty-seventh Ode of the first Book of Horace, and
explained it. She was then examined in various branches of art and
science, when she displayed a thorough knowledge of the subjects. The
examination lasted two hours and a half; and at the end, the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy was unanimously conferred upon her, and she was
crowned with a wreath of laurel by Fraulein Michaelis, at the request of
the Professors.

* * * * *

A HARD HIT AT POPE.

Pope was one evening at Button's Coffee-house, where he and a set of
literati had got poring over a Latin manuscript, in which they had found
a passage that none of them could comprehend. A young officer, who heard
their conference, begged that he might be permitted to look at the
passage. "Oh," said Pope, sarcastically, "by all means; pray let the
young gentleman look at it." Upon which the officer took up the manuscript,
and, considering it awhile, said there only wanted a note of interrogation
to make the whole intelligible: which was really the case. "And pray,
Master," says Pope with a sneer, "what is a _note of interrogation_?"--"A
note of in