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180
Hereditary Genius
his age if his talent in communicating truths had been more in proportion to his
talent in discovering them. He was Prussian Ambassador at Rome.
F. Carsten Niebuhr, a celebrated traveller and writer on Arabia. His father had been
a farmer. Both parents died when he was a child, and he had to work as a
labourer, and was almost uneducated, till aet. 21. Thenceforward he zealously
educated himself. Died aet. 82.
[S.] Marcus, a high official in the Prussian civil service.
Palgrave, Sir Francis; historian and antiquary, especially of the Anglo-Saxon
“period. Married a Dawson-Turner (See HOOKER in “SCIENCE “).
S. Francis; literature and art (“Golden Treasury”).
S. Giffard; orientalist and traveller in Arabia.
Porson, Richard; eminent Greek scholar and critic. From childhood, his mother used
to say, whatever Richard did, was done in a superior manner. He spun better
yarn than his brothers or sisters, and yet he had always a book lying open
before him while he was spinning. Before he could write, he had taught himself,
from an old book, as far as the cube root in arithmetic. As he grew up his
memory became stupendous. He had unwearied application, great acuteness,
strong sound sense, a lively perception both of the beautiful and the ludicrous,
and a most pure and inflexible sense of truth. He had great bodily strength; was
often known to walk from Cambridge to London, a distance of fifty-two miles,
to attend his club in the evening, not being able to afford the coach fare. Got
drunk occasionally, as was not an infrequent custom in his day, but he ended
by doing so habitually.
F. A weaver and parish clerk, a man of excellent sense and great natural powers of
arithmetic.
f. A housemaid at the clergyman's, who read his books on the sly. He found her one
day at Shakespeare, and discovered, to his amazement, that she had a sound
knowledge of the book, and of very much else, so he helped her as he best
could. She had a remarkable memory.
B. Thomas. In the opinion of Dr. Davy, the then Master of Caius College,
Cambridge, who was intimately acquainted
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