SIR WILLIAM ROWAN HAMILTON.
[To THE EDITOR Or THE " EPECTATOR."] SIR,—There are few, if any, no-.v living who can speak to having witnessed the amazing instance of precocity exhibited by Sir William Rowan Hamilton as a child. When about nine years -old, I was taken by my father to the house of his old friend " Archy Hamilton," William's father, in Dominick Street, Dublin for an evening tea. The son, William, was brought in, to show off the progress he had made, not only in languages, but in the facility with which he could read the characters, Greek and Hebrew especially, however placed before him. The Hebrew Psalter, placed upside-down, was read with as much ease as if it were in its right position before him.
Later on in life, when Astronomer-Royal, evenings were spent with him at the Observatory, Dunsink, near Dublin, where his -chief pleasure consisted in inviting us up to the meridian to view the stars, and this with a simplicity of manner that was charming, and with a total unconsciousness of his marvellous intellectual powers. I was led to understand, when first we met, that he and I were born on the same day, month, and year; but I find froin the book you have reviewed that he had the start of me by three days, while I have laboured ever since with the disadvantage, on my side, of not having been born under the .same horoscope with him.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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