for the passion of _curiosity_ is as intense a faculty, or instinct, with
some casts of mind, as is that of _invention_ with poets and painters: I
confess that to me it is _genius_ in a form in which genius has not yet
been suspected to appear. One of the biographers of Sir HANS SLOANE
expresses himself in this manner:--"Our author's _thirst_ for knowledge
seems to have been _born_ with him, so that his _Cabinet of Rarities_ may
be said to have commenced with _his being_." This strange metaphorical
style has only confused an obscure truth. SLOANE, early in life, felt an
irresistible impulse which inspired him with the most enlarged views of
the productions of nature, and he exulted in their accomplishment; for in
his will he has solemnly recorded, that his collections were the fruits of
his early devotion, _having had from my youth a strong inclination to the
study of plants and all other productions of nature_. The vehement passion
of PEIRESC for knowledge, according to accounts which Gassendi received
from old men who had known him as a child, broke out as soon as he had
been taught his alphabet; for then his delight was to be handling books
and papers, and his perpetual inquiries after their contents obliged
them to invent something to quiet the child's insatiable curiosity,
who was hurt when told that he had not the capacity to understand them. He
did not study as an ordinary scholar, for he never read but with
perpetual researches. At ten years of age, his passion for the studies of
antiquity was kindled at the sight of some ancient coins dug up in his
neighbourhood; then that vehement passion for knowledge "began to burn
like fire in a forest," as Gassendi happily describes the fervour and
amplitude of the mind of this man of vast learning. Bayle, who was an
experienced judge in the history of genius, observes on two friars, one of
whom was haunted by a strong disposition to _genealogical_, and the other
to _geographical_ pursuits, that, "let a man do what he will, if nature
incline us to certain things, there is no preventing the gratification of
our desire, though it lies hid under a monk's frock." It is not,