A Few Illustrious Dunces.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 22, 29 May 1902, Page 6

A Few Illustrious Dunces.

I.v rea'ii g b ogrnphies of eminent n en, one is surprised to learn what (fioat thi>;j>H have bee-i aihieved by men who, in youth, were pronounc. d riu ces Histories of their caie^rs are full of encouragement to timid, si U'-diHlurbid beginner- in life. Among the iilustru us du-ioev — dull, and even stupid boys, but most successful men — were Justus von Lie'tug, culled ' Booby Liebeg ' by his schoolmate 1 -, whi>, when he rep'ie-l to a question by his teacher, said that he intended to be a chemist, and provoked a burst of derision from the whole si-hool, yet lived to becoti.e one of the greatest chemists of the liineteent'i century ; lominuso Guidi, the great painter — the precursor of R ipr a-I— whose works were studied by the latter and by Micha- 1 Aol'olo and by Leonardo de Vinci, yet who was known as ' Heavy Tom ' when a b.>y ; Thomas Cnatterton, who was sent home iroun school as -a fool, of whom nothing can be made'; Ir&ac Barrow, a quick tempered, pugnacious, and idle boy at school, but in manhood a celebrated mathematician ; Dean Swift, 'plucked' at Dublin University ; Richard B. Sheridan, the brilliant wit, plaj writer, and orator, but ' an incorrigible dunce ' at echool ; John Howard, the noted philanthropist; and even William Jones, who, besides writing various legal and other eolid works, distinguished himself aw a judge in India, and at his death, at the early age of 48 years, had mastered 28 languages. Last, but not least— perhaps the most marvellous blookhead of all the long roll— was Walter Scott, of whom his teacher, Profesßor Andrew Dilztjll, said that 'dunce he is and dunce he will remain,' and who, vi-utiug the school when at the zenith of his fame, asked to see its dunce, and when taken to him gave him a half-sovereign, saying : 'There, tike that for keeping my seat warm.'