As a child (never so old as what we should call a 'lad'), Christian Heineker was one of the most singular of whom we find record. He was born at Lübeck about a century and a half ago. When only ten months old he could (if we are to believe the accounts of him) repeat every word said to him; at twelve months he knew much of Plutarch by heart; at two years he knew the greater part of the Bible; at three could answer most questions in universal history and geography (as then taught), and began to learn French and Latin; before four he began theology and church history, and expressed argumentative opinions thereon. This precocious little pedant died before he had completed his fifth year.
The late John Stuart Mill 'had no recollection of the time when he began to learn Greek;' but was told it was when he was only three years old. Adanson began at thirteen to write notes on the Natural Histories of Aristotle and Pliny. The calculating boys--Vito Mangiamele, Jedediah Buxton, Zerah Colburn, and George Parker Bidder--illustrate a remarkable phase of early mental activity.
On the other hand, many authors have produced their best works late in life, and have begun new studies at an age when the majority long for mental leisure. Izaak Walton wrote some of his most interesting biographies in his eighty-fifth year, and edited a poetical work at ninety. Hobbes published his version of the _Odyssey_ at eighty-seven, and of the _Iliad_ at eighty-eight. Sir Francis Palgrave, under an assumed name, published at eighty years old a French translation of a Latin poem.
Isaac D'Israeli notes that Socrates learned to play a musical instrument in his old age; that Cato learned Greek at eighty; that Plutarch entered upon the study of Latin almost as late in life; that Theophrastus began his _Characteristics_ at ninety; that Sir Henry Spelman, a gentleman-farmer until fifty, at that age began to study law, and became an eminent jurist and antiquary; that Colbert, the distinguished statesman, resumed the study of Latin and of law at sixty; that the Marquis de Saint Audaire began to write poetry at seventy, 'verses full of fire, delicacy, and sweetness;' that Chaucer did not finish his _Canterbury Tales_ till he had reached sixty-one; that Dryden felt his powers sufficiently in their strength at sixty-eight to plan a complete translation of Homer's _Iliad_ into English verse, although circumstances prevented him from giving effect to his intentions; and (but this we must leave to the investigators who advise us to disbelieve most of the stories we hear or read concerning persons exceeding a century old) that Ludovico Monaldeschi wrote his _Memoirs_ of his own times at the extraordinary age of a hundred and fifteen!