sdom, or Ulyssean cunning, which
marked his mature character, Franklin raised his wharf at the expense of
another's house. His contrivances to aid his puny labourers, with his
resolution not to quit the great work till it was effected, seem to strike
out to us the invention and decision of his future character. But the
qualities which would attract the companions of a schoolboy may not be
those which are essential to fine genius. The captain or leader of his
schoolmates is not to be disregarded; but it is the sequestered boy who
may chance to be the artist or the literary character. Some facts which
have been recorded of men of genius at this period are remarkable. We are
told by Miss Stewart that JOHNSON, when a boy at the free-school, appeared
"a huge overgrown, misshapen stripling;" but was considered as a
stupendous stripling: "for even at that early period of life, Johnson
maintained his opinions with the same sturdy, dogmatical, and arrogant
fierceness." The puerile characters of Lord BOLINGBROKE and Sir ROBERT
WALPOLE, schoolfellows and rivals, were observed to prevail through their
after-life; the liveliness and brilliancy of Bolingbroke appeared in his
attacks on Walpole, whose solid and industrious qualities triumphed by
resistance. A parallel instance might be pointed out in two great
statesmen of our own days; in the wisdom of the one, and the wit of the
other--men whom nature made rivals, and time made friends or enemies, as
it happened. A curious observer, in looking over a collection of the
Cambridge poems, which were formerly composed by its students, has
remarked that "Cowley from the first was quaint, Milton sublime, and
Barrow copious." If then the characteristic disposition may reveal itself
thus early, it affords a principle which ought not to be neglected at this
obscure period of youth.

Is there then a period in youth which yields decisive marks of the
character of genius? The natures of men are as various as their fortunes.
Some, like diamonds, must wait to receive their splendour from the slow
touches of the polisher, while others, resembling pearls, appear at once
born with their beauteous lustre.

Among the inauspicious circumstances is the feebleness of the first
attempts; and we must not decide on the talents of a young man by his
first works. DRYDEN and SWIFT might have been deterred from authorship had
their earliest pieces decided their fate. SMOLLETT, before he knew which
way his geniu