PRECOCITY OF GUIZOT. 



243 



KING EDWARD VI. 



Though considerable talents and 

 attainments have not always been 

 associated with eminent stations, a 

 goodly number of the great are to 

 be found in the list of those who 

 have been richly endowed by their 

 Creator, and have diligently im- 

 proved his gifts. The young King 

 Edward VI. stands among the most 

 prominent of these examples. 



This amiable prince was born in 

 1537, at Hampton Court. His mo- 

 ther was Jane Seymour, the third 

 wife of Henry VIII. At the early 

 age of six years, he was committed 

 to the care of Sir Anthony Cook, 

 and other learned preceptors, who 

 were intent on his improvement in 

 spiritual knowledge, as well as in 

 science and learning. The manner 

 in which these gentlemen performed 

 their duties, and in which the prince 

 improved, may be ascertained from 

 an account written by William 

 Thomas, a learned man, who was 

 afterwards clerk of the council. 

 He says 



"If ye knew the towardness of 

 that young prince, your hearts 

 would melt to hear him named, 

 and your stomach abhor the ma- 

 lice of them that would him ill. 

 The beautifulest creature that liv- 

 eth under the sun, the wittiest, the 

 most amiable, and the gentlest 

 tiling of all the world. Such a 

 capacity in learning the things 

 taught him by his schoolmaster, 

 that it is a wonder to hearsay. 

 And, finally, he hath such a grace 

 of posture, and gesture in gravity, 

 when he comes into a presence, that 

 it should seem he were already a 

 father, and yet passes he not the 

 age of ten years. A. thing, un- 

 doubtedly, much rather to be seen 

 than believed." 



In his ninth year he wrote let- 

 ters in Latin and French ; and in 

 the British Museum are themes 

 and orations in Latin, which he 



then composed. Curio, the Ita- 

 lian reformer, told his tutors, " that 

 by their united prayers, counsels, 

 and industry, they had formed a 

 king of the highest, even divine 

 hopes." 



His ardent attachment and re- 

 verence to the Holy Scriptures are 

 well known ; and Foxe tells us that 

 " he was not wanting in diligence 

 to receive whatever his instructors 

 would teach him. So that, in the 

 midst of all his play and recrea- 

 tion, he would always keep the 

 hours appointed to study, using 

 the same with much attention, till 

 time called him again from his book 

 to pastime. 



" In this, his study and keeping 

 of his hours, he so profited, that 

 Cranmer, beholding his toward- 

 ness, his readiness in both tongues, 

 in translating from Greek to Latin, 

 from Latin to Greek again, in de- 

 claiming with his schoolfellows, 

 without help of his teachers, and 

 that extempore, wept for joy, de- 

 claring to Dr. Cox, his schoolmas- 

 ter, that he would never have 

 thought it to have been in the 

 prince, except he had seen it him- 

 self." 



He became acquainted with seven 

 languages, and well understood lo- 

 gic and theology. 



PRECOCITY OF GUIZOT. 



Guizot, the distinguished French 

 statesman and historian, gave early 

 promise of his great talents. He 

 is called by a French writer "a 

 child who had nochildhood." When 

 only seven years of age, young 

 Guizot was placed at the gymna- 

 sium of Geneva, and devoted his 

 whole soul to study. His first and 

 only playthings were books ; and 

 at the end of four years the scholar 

 was able to read, in their respective 

 languages, the works of Thucy- 

 dides and Demosthenes, of Cicero 

 and Tacitus, of Dante and Alfieri, 

 of Schiller and Goethe, of Gibbon 



