He had always accustomed himself to that exercise; and, having prac tised it with assiduity (even before the loss of sight, which afterwards rendered it a matter of necessity), he is an instance to what an astonishing degree it may be acquired, and how much it improves the intellectual powers. No other discipline is so effectual in strengthening the faculty of attention: it gives a facility of apprehension, an accuracy and steadiness to the conceptions; and (what is a still more valuable acquisition) it habituates the mind to arrangement in its reasonings and reflections." It is not intended to draw a comparison between the humble, though astonishing, efforts of this infant prodigy and the gigantic powers of that illustrious character to whom a reference has just been made: yet we may be permitted to hope and expect that those wonderful talents, which are so conspicuous at this early age, may, by a suitable education, be consider ably improved and extended; and that some new light will eventually be thrown upon those subjects, for the elucidation of which his mind appears to be peculiarly formed by nature, since he enters into the world with all those powers and faculties which are not even at tainable by the most eminent at a more advanced period of life. Every mathematician must be aware of the im: ortant advantages which have sometimes been derived from the most simple and trifling circumstances; the full effect of which has not always been evident at first sight. To mention one singular instance of this kind. The very simple improvement of expressing the powers and roots of quantities by means of indices, introduced a new and general arithmetic of exponents: and this algorithm of powers led the way to the invention of logarithms, by means of which, all arithmetical computations are so much facilitated and abridged. Perhaps this child possesses a knowledge of some more important properties connected with this subject; and although he is incapable at present of giving any satisfactory account of the state of his mind, or of communicating to others the knowledge which it is so evident he does possess, yet there is every reason to believe that, when his mind is more cultivated, and his ideas more expanded, he will be able not only to divulge the mode by which he at present operates, but also point out some new sources of information on this interesting sub. ject. The case is certainly one of great novelty and importance: and every literary character, and every friend to science, must be anxious to see the experiment fairly tried, as to the effect which a suitable education may produce on a mind constituted as his appears to be. With this view a number of gentlemen have taken the child under their patronage, and have formed ✰ themselves into a committee for the purpose of superintending his education. Application has been made to a gentleman of science, well known for his mathematical abilities, who has consented to take the child under his immediate tuition: the committee, therefore, propose to withdraw him, for the present, from public exhibition, in order that he may fully devoté himself to his studies. But whe ther ther they shall be able wholly to accomplish the object they have in view, will depend upon the assist ance which they may receive from the public. ACCOUNT OF SELDEN'S CELEBRATED WORK. MAR CLAUSUM. From Dr. Aikin's Lives of Selden and Usher. In 1634, the Dutch had almost monopolized the northern fisheries; and discussions having heen entered into concerning their right of frequenting, and taking herrings on, the British shores, it was recollected that Selden many years before had written a treatise to assert the English dominion of the sea. Of the composition of this work, which, under the title of Mare Clausum, was first published în 1636, the history merits a detail. The illustrious Grotius, as early as 1609, had published a work entitled "Mare Liberum," in order to establish the right of the Dutch to navigate to the East Indies, in opposition to the exclusive claim of the Portuguese. Some years afterwards, Selden, among bis various studies, engaged in a refutation of the principles of this performance; for although the "Mare Clausum" is not avowedly an an swer to the "Mare Liberum," the contrasted title evidently shews that the author had that work in view. At the time when Selden's History of Tythes had brought him into disgrace with King James, the Admiral of England having heard of his writing on the subject of the dominion of the sea, probably with the intention of do ing him service, mentioned the circumstance to the King, who ordered him to prepare the work for publication Selden obeyed, and in the sum ber of 1618 presented a fair copy to his Majesty, who, at er perusing it, gave it to the Admiral in order to be examined by Si; Henry Marten, president of the He read and court of admiralty. approved it, and the manu-cript was returned to the Adiniral, who took Selden with his book to the King's closet for the royal imprimatur. James was just about tơ sign it, when he observed, "I recollect something is said here concerning the northern sea which may perhaps displease my brother of Denmark, and I would not now have him offended, because I owe him a large sum of money, and am going to borrow a greater." It was therefore returned to the author for alteration. When this was effected, the work was for some time under the inspection of the Earl of Pembroke; but at length the King and his ministers seem to have lost all interest in it, and the papers were suffered to lie above fifteen years forgotten in Selden's cabinet. It was hinted to him, as one cause of this neglect, that some offic.ous persons had insinuated to the Admiral, that certain things in the treatise appeared to restrict the jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court; and also, that the King himself fancied that the mention made in it of certain treaties with foreign powers might prove prejudicial to his views. In the subsequent reign other subjects fully occupied Selden's attention, as well as that of the court; and it was not till the spring of 1035 that, the King's maritime rights being called into question in discussions with the Dutch, some men of rank about the royal person who had formerly heard of the work, persuaded his Majesty to command its publication. The manuscript was therefore corrected and revised by the author, and having been inspected by the King and some of the council, was sent to the press in that year. The preceding account is given at large by Selden in his Vindiciae Maris Clausi, by way of refutation of what he considered as a gross calumny advanced by Theodore Graswinckel, in his Maris Liberi Vindiciæ adversus Petrum Baptistum Burgum, Ligustici maritimi Dominii Assertorem." That writer, after quoting from Burgos the information that " Selden has lately published an entire work on the Dominion of the British Sea," added, "Non mirum: virorum enim ille inter seculi nostri primicerios numerandus, et meliore fortuna dignus, fati sui infelicitate, carceris se non digni colonus erat. Hinc ut exiret, seque libertati amissæ redonandum sperare daretur, animum ad scribendum appulit, et Id sibi negotii credidit solum dari set fabulas. Neque talia agitantem successus destituit." (No wonder: for that person, who may be numbered among the first characters of our age, and was worthy a better for tune, through the rigour of his fate became the inhabitant of an unmerited prison. That he might be released from this confinement, and hope to recover his lost liber ty, he applied himself to writing, VOL. LIV. and "Thought it his sole business to invent fables which might be pleasing to his master"-nor did his efforts fail of success.) By this narrative, therefore, and that of his different imprisonments, he makes it clear that the compösition of this work was anterior to his first confinement, and its pub lication posterior to his final enlargement, with which it had no concern. Whether or not in its revision he made additions to favour the purposes of the court at that time, could only be known from a comparison of the two manuscripts. The work bears the following title: Mare Clausum, seu de Dominio Maris, Libri duo. Primo, Mare, e Jure Naturæ seu Gentium, omnium hominum non esse commune, sed dominii privati seu pròprietatis capax, pariter ac Teliurem, demonstratur. Secundo, serinissimum Magne Britanniae regem Maris circumflui ut individue atque perpetuæ Imperii Britannici appendicis, dominum esse, asseritur. (The Closed Sea; or, on the Dominion of the Sea, two Books. In the first, it is demonstrated that the Sea, from the Law of Nature or of Nations, is not common to all men, but is the subject of property equally with the land. In the second, the King of Great Britain is asserted to be Lord of the circumfluent Sea, as an inseparable and perpetual appendage of the British empire.) It is dedicated to King Charles; and the preface is dated from the Inner Temple, Nov. 4, 1635. In the first part, Selden lays his foundation deep in disquisitions on the nature of right and dominion; 2 L and and then proceeds to give examples of maritime dominion assert ed and exercised by different na. tions in ancient and modern bistory. In several of these, however, he will probably appear to have confounded naval power with maritime dominion, especially in the instances of the Greek states which are said Jaλaccoxparem, which word, as he acknowledges, often means no more than to possess a superiority by sea. And in point of fact, the dominion of the sea, historically considered, will perhaps be found to import no more than the power alternately possessed by different states, of ruling in the portions of sea adjacent to their own coasts, and dictating to their neighbours such conditions of navigating them as they thought expedient. In this view, there are abundant instances of the assertion of such a dominion, which has been acquiesced in only so long as it was supported by a powerful navy. The second part, in which British maritime dominion is attempt ed to be established, begins with a quadripartite division of the British as according to the four cardinal points; and proceeds to show the right of soverignty exercised in all these at different periods. A dominion over these parts of the Surrounding ocean is traced from hand to hand in the Roman, Saxon, and Norman times, as accompany ing the several changes in territorial power. The office and jurisdiction of Admiral of England are deduced from ancient diplomas; and arguments are brought to prove, that the admirals of the opposite coast of France did not pre tend to the same authority in the Channel with those of England. The permission of transit and of fishery granted by the English kings at different periods to strapgers, is adduced as a cogent proof of the British sovereignty in these seas; which is confirmed by the rules and limits assigned in them to foreigners at war with each other, but mutually in amity with England. The assumption or incidental mention of this maritime dominion of our kings in their charters and public records, and its recognition in our law books, are adverted to as additional testimonies of the existence of such a claim; and the same is regarded as acquiesced in by foreign nations in the ancient and established custom of striking sail to English ships of war in the surrounding waters. After the production of further proofs of a similar kind, the book concludes with a distinct consideration of the dominion of the King of Great Britain in the Irish and Scottish seas; and the author sums up the whole in the following passage. After quoting some very apposite lines of Grotius's complimentary address to King James on his accession to the crown of England (in which the flattery of the poet seems to have got the better of the prudence of the politician), ending with harbours of the neighbouring transmarine princes are the southern and eastern bounds of the British maritime empire; but that in the vast and open northern and western ocean they are to be fixed beyond those wide-spreading seas which are occupied by England, Scotland, and Ireland." Such are the general contents of a book which afforded an additional proof of the learning and deep research of the author, as well as of his attachment to the honour of his country; and was considered, on this side of the water, as fully establishing the British claim 'to maritime dominion. So important was it deemed in this view, that it received a public sanction from the King and council, who adopted it as a most valuable record and declaration of the national rights. The following entry was made in the minutes of the privycouncil, dated March 26, 1636: "His Majesty this day in council taking into consideration a book lately published by John Selden, Esq. intituled Mare Clausum seu de Dominio Maris, written by the King's command, which he hath done with great industry, learning, and judgment, and hath asserted the right of the crown of England to the dominion of the British seas; the King requires one of the said books to be kept in the council chest, another in the court of Exchequer, and a third in the court of Admiralty, as faithful and strong evidence to the dominion of the British seas." It was not, however, to be expected that arguments in support of the exclusive claims of one na tion should be readily acquiesced in by those against whom they were asserted; and accordingly it has been held in Holland and other countries on the continent, that Selden by no means refuted the principles of the "Mare Liberum," and that he was fully answered by posterior writers. In such a controversy, the philosopher will perhaps find that precedents have been made to serve instead of principles, and that acts of power have been represented as assertions of right; the jurist will be unwilling to admit into the code of national law any article that militates against the fundamental principle of equality and reciprocity between nations; while the politician will be inclined to smile at the importance attached to argumentative justifications of claims, which can never be made good in practice but by such a preponderance of force as would give them effect without any argument. It is certain, that the more able Great Britain has become to assert her maritime empire by force of arms, the less solicitous she has been to avail herself of supposed rights derived from remote antiquity, which, if disputed, could not be established without compulsory means. A passage relative to this work, derogatory to Selden's character as a patriot, in Bishop Nicolson's "Historical Library," has been properly noticed and refuted by Dr. Wilkins. That writer says, "'Tis very plain that when the author penn'd this book, he was not such an inveterate enemy to the prerogative doctrine of ship money as afterwards: for he professedly asserts that, in defence of their sovereignty at sea, our kings constantly prac tised the levying great sums on their subjects, without the concur 2 L2 renco |