this early age that he was first attacked by that melancholy
which gradually assumed entire dominion over him, and throughout life
remained a most prominent feature in his character. When only seven
years of age, he made an attempt to poison himself by eating some
noxious herbs, being impelled to this strange action by an undefined
desire to die. He was well punished for his silliness by being made very
unwell, and by being, moreover, shut up in his room for some days. No
punishment for his youthful transgressions was, however, so effectual as
being sent in a nightcap to a neighboring church. "Who knows," says he,
"whether I am not indebted to that blessed nightcap for having turned
out one of the most truthful men I ever knew?"

In 1758, his paternal uncle and guardian, seeing what little progress he
was making, determined to send him to the Turin Academy, and accordingly
he started in the month of July.

"I cried (he says, in his autobiography) during the whole of the first
stage. On arriving at the post-house, I got out of the carriage while
the horses were being changed, and feeling thirsty, instead of asking
for a glass, or requesting any body to fetch me some water, I marched up
to the horse-trough, dipped the corner of my cap in the water, and drank
to my heart's content. The postilions, seeing this, told my attendant,
who ran up and began rating me soundly; but I told him that travellers
ought to accustom themselves to such things, and that no good soldier
would drink in any other manner. Where I fished up these Achilles-like
ideas I know not, as my mother had always educated me with the greatest
tenderness, and with really ludicrous care for my health."

He describes his character at this period, where he ends what he calls
the epoch of childhood, and begins that of adolescence, as having been
as follows:

"I was taciturn and placid for the most part, but occasionally very
talkative and lively; in fact, I generally ran from one extreme to
another. I was obstinate and restive when force was exerted, most docile
under kind treatment; restrained more by fear of being scolded than by
any thing else; susceptible of shame even to excess, and inflexible when
rubbed against the grain."

He entered the Academy on the 1st of August. It was a magnificent
quadrangular building, of which two of the sides were occupied by the
King's Theatre and the Royal Archives; another side was appropriated to
the younger students,