JULY.

MEMOIR OF RICHARD ROBERT JONES.

(With a Portrait.)

AMONG the eccentric characters of the present day, there are few more extraordinary than the subject of this memoir. His appearance is not more singular, than his talents are remarkable; and the success with which he has cultivated his abilities in a peculiar department, will long preserve his name from oblivion, and distinguish him from the common fate that awaits the general mass of mankind.

Dr. Blair, speaking of genius, says, that the term "is used to signify that talent or aptitude, which we receive from nature, for excelling in any one thing whatever. Accordingly, we speak of a genius for mathematics, as well as a genius for poetry; or a genius for war, for politics, or for any mechanical employment. This talent, or aptitude, for excelling in any one particular, is received from nature; and though it may be greatly improved by art and study, it cannot by them alone be acquired. As genius is a higher faculty than taste, it is more limited in the sphere of its operations. While we find many persons who have an excellent taste in several of the polite arts, such as music, poetry, painting, and eloquence, all together; it is much more rare to meet with one who is an excellent performer in all these arts. Indeed, an universal genius, or one who is equally and indifferently turned towards several different professions and arts, is not likely to excel in any. The rays must converge to a point, in order to glow intensely."

Although the principles thus advanced by Dr. Blair have been disputed, they receive a strong confirmation from the character before us; and so striking is the delineation, that if Richard had sat for the picture, it could not have been taken with more exactness. This fact will be fully established by the subseqent peculiarities which his 91.-VOL. VIII.

1826.

life affords, for the principal part of which we are indebted to a small volume published in 1822 by some benevolent individuals in Liverpool, with the laudable design that the profits, if any, should be appropriated to his pecuniary assistance. The success of their exertions we can only gather from the fact, that his condition still remains unimproved, and consequently that their wishes to serve him have not been realized.

The father of this extraordinary individual was Robert Jones, who resided at Aberdaron, a little sea-port on the wildest part of the Welsh coast, He was by trade a carpenter; but, availing himself of his situation, he sometimes employed himself in fishing, and at other times made a voyage in a small boat from Aberdaron to Liverpool. By his wife, Margaret Richards, he had three sons and a daughter; of which sons, Richard, the object of our present inquiry, was the second. He was born in the year 1780. Deriving his Christian name from the maiden name of his mother, and his surname from the Christian name of his father, he was called Richard Roberts, by which name he was known till of late years, when, dropping the s from Roberts, he assumed also the surname of his father, and now calls himself Richard Robert Jones.

Although his constitutional defects, and particularly the weakness of his eye-sight, disqualified him in some degree from bodily labour, the circumstances of his parents did not permit him to be idle, and accordingly his father attempted to bring him up to his own business. In the expectation he had formed of assistance from this quarter, he was, however, disappointed. From some cause not easy to be accounted for, Richard imbibed a taste for the acquisition of languages, the faculty of which he possessed in an extraordinary degree. Whether this faculty was the sponta

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