ARTICLE XLIV.

THE PHRENOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION OF ELIHU BURRITT, THE LEARNED BLACKSMITH, ILLUSTRATED WITH A LIKENESS.

*

THE mental characteristics of this remarkable man are so extraor dinary, that, Phrenology being true, we have a right to expect his phrenological organization to be correspondingly developed, and examination * This likeness was copied from the People's Journal. NO. IX.

VOL. IX.

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shows that it is so.

What his intellectual capacities and characteristics are, will be seen from the accompanying letters of Mr. B. and Dr. Nelson.

From the Southern Literary Messenger.

THE LEARNED BLACKSMITH.

We invite the attention of the public to the subjoined communication of Dr. Nelson, of this city, accompanied by a letter to him from Mr. Burritt, already distinguished by Governor Everett as the learned blacksmith of Massachusetts. Mr. Burritt's extraordinary acquirements, under the peculiar circumstances of his life, are only equalled by the modesty with which he shrinks from notoriety. We doubt whether there is a parallel instance on record, of the same application to mental improvement, under such striking disadvantages. The most learned linguist now living, we believe, is Mezzofanti, the Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of Bologna, in Italy. He is said to speak and write fluently, eighteen ancient and modern languages, and twenty-two different dialects of Europe; but Mezzofanti has not been obliged to labor one third of his time at the anvil for subsistence. Lord Byron said of him, "he is a monster of languages- the Briareus of parts of speech - a walking polyglot; and one who ought to have existed at the time of the tower of Babel, as universal interpreter." What would Lord Byron have said to the self-taught Massachusetts linguist, whose wonderful acquisitions have been treasured up amid toil and poverty, and in those intervals which are usually devoted to repose or recreation? If any of our readers should be incredulous in this matter, we need only refer them to the address of Governor Everett, and also to the personal testimony and observation of Dr. Nelson, of whom it may be said that no declaration of ours is necessary to entitle his statements to the fullest confidence.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER :

With a few friends, who have seen the following communication, I entirely concur in the opinion that it ought to be given to the public. It is a brilliant, an unsurpassed example, of what may be achieved by persevering application to study. To all persons, especially to the young mechanics of our country, it may prove a beacon of light to guide them to higher destinies, by, a diligent improvement of their "little fragments of time."

Of the verity of the statement made by the writer, there cannot be a doubt. In the summer of 1838, Governor Everett, of Massachusetts, in an address to an association of mechanics in Boston, took occasion to inention that a blacksmith of that State had, by his unaided industry, made himself acquainted with FIFTY LANGUAGES. In July of the following year, I was passing through Worcester, the place of his present resi dence, and gratified my curiosity by calling to see him. Like any other son of Vulcan, Mr. Burritt was at his anvil. I introduced myself to him, observing that I had read with great pleasure, and with unfeigned astonishment, an account of him by the Governor of his State, which had induced me to take the liberty of paying him a visit. He very modestly replied that the Governor had done him more than justice. It was true, he said, that he could read about fifty languages, but he had

not studied them all critically. Yankee curiosity had induced him to look at the Latin grammar; he became interested in it, persevered, and finally acquired a thorough knowledge of that language. He then studied the Greek with equal care. A perfect acquaintance with these languages had enabled him to read with facility the Italian, the French, the Spanish, and Portuguese. The Russian, to which he was then devot. ing his "odd moments," he said was the most difficult of any he had undertaken.

I expressed my surprise at his youthful appearance. He informed me that he was but TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OF AGE, to which statement I gave ready credence; that he had been constantly engaged at his trade, from boyhood to that hour, and that his education previous to his appren. ticeship had been very slender.

Mr. Burritt removed from a village near Hartford, in Connecticut, where he was born, and where he learned his trade, to Worcester, to enjoy the benefit of an antiquarian library, stored with rare books, to which the trustees gave him daily access. "Yes, sir," said he, "I now have the key to that library," showing it as if it were the most precious jewel, the real key to knowledge; "and there I go every day and study eight hours. I work eight hours, and the other eight I am obliged to devote to animal comforts and repose."

The stage drove up, and I most reluctantly left him, exacting, however, a promise that he would write me some account of himself, of his past and present studies.

The following is the first, but not the only letter, he has done me the favor to write. I have assurance that Mr. Burritt would not be so false to his professions as to object to its publicity. But I am equally well assured that it will give him more pain than pleasure.

RICHMOND, February 4, 1840

TH. NELSON.

WORCESTER, Mass., December 10, 1839. DEAR SIR-I sit down to write to you, under a lively apprehension that you will accept of no apology that I can make for my long silence. But before you impute to me indifference or neglect, I beg you, my dear sir, to consider the peculiar nature of my occupations, to reflect that my time is not at my disposal, and that my leisure moments are such as I can steal away from the hours which my arduous manual labors would incline me to allow to repose. I deferred writing some time, thinking to address you a letter on your return from the Springs; but the nature of my business became such, in the fall, that I was compelled to labor both night and day up to the present time, which is the first leisure hour I have had for several months. I cannot but be gratefully affected by the benevolent interest which you manifest in my pursuits, both in our interview in Worcester, and in the letter for which I am indebted to your courtesy and kind consideration. I thank you most cordially for those expressions of good will. They are peculiarly gratifying, coming as they do from one whose personal acquaintance I have not long had the means and pleasure of enjoying; a fact which proves, I fear, that I have been thrust before the world very immaturely. An accidental allusion to my history and pursuits, which I made, unthinkingly, in a letter to a

friend, was, to my unspeakable surprise, brought before the public as a rather ostentatious debut on my part to the world; and I find myself involved in a species of notoriety, not at all in consonance with my feelings. Those who have been acquainted with my character from my youth up, will give me credit for sincerity, when I say that it never entered my heart to blazon forth any acquisition of my own. I had, until the unfortunate denoument which I have mentioned, pursued the even tenor of my way unnoticed, even among my brethren and kindred. None of them ever thought that I had any particular GENIUS, as it is called; I never thought so myself. All that I have accomplished, or expect or hope to accomplish, has been and will be by that plodding, patient, persevering process of accretion which builds the ant-heap, particle by particle, thought by thought, fact by fact. And if I ever was actuated by ambition, its highest and farthest aspiration reached no farther than the hope to set before the YOUNG men of my country an example in employing those fragments of time called "odd moments." And, sir, I should esteem it an honor of costlier water than the tiara encircling a monarch's brow, if my future activity and attainments should encourage American WORKING-MEN to be proud and jealous of the credentials which God has given them to every eminence and immunity in the empire of mind. These are the views and sentiments with which I have sat down night by night, for years, with blistered hands and brightening hope, to studies which I hoped might be serviceable to that class of community to which I am proud to belong. This is my AMBITION. This is the goal of my aspirations. But not only the PRIZE, but the whole COURSE, lies before me, perhaps beyond my reach. "I count myself not yet to have attained to any thing worthy of public notice or private mention; what I MAY DO is for Providence to determine.

As you expressed a desire in your letter for some account of my past and present pursuits, I shall hope to gratify you on this point, and also rectify a misapprehension which you, with many others, may have entertained of my acquirements. With regard to my attention to the languages, a study of which I am not so fond as of mathematics, I have tried, by a kind of practical and philosophical process, to contract such a familiar acquaintance with the head of a family of languages as to introduce me to the other members of the same family. Thus, studying the Hebrew very critically, I became readily acquainted with its cognate languages, among the principal of which are the Syriac, Chaldaic, Arabic, Samaratan, Ethiopic, etc. The languages of Europe occupied my attention immediately after I had finished my classics; and I studied French, Spanish, Italian, and German, under native teachers. Afterward, I pursued the Portuguese, Flemish, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Welsh, Gælic, Celtic. I then ventured on farther east into the Russian empire, and the Sclavonic opened to me about a dozen of the languages spoken in that vast domain, between which the affinity is as marked as that between the Spanish and Portuguese. Besides those, I have attended to many different European dialects still in vogue. I am now trying to push on eastward as fast as my means will permit, hoping to discover still farther analogies among the oriental languages, which will assist my progress. I must now close this hasty, though long letter, with the assurance of my most sincere respect and esteem. ELIHU BURRITT.

TO TH. NELSON, M. D.

The ORGANS which should be developed, in order to confer these capabilities, are Individuality, Eventuality, Form, Size, Locality and Comparison, aided by Language, Order, and the mental motive temperament. Language, many would suppose, should rank first; but a close analysis of his mental powers shows us that this is not the case. He does not speak, but only READS these languages. Nor is he a fluent speaker or ready writer, though he is fair in both these respects. He knows the rules, grammatical construction, forms of words, etc., of these languages, and these functions are performed mainly by Individuality, Eventuality, Locality, Form, Size, and Comparison, and all these organs are enormous.

In 1841, L. N. Fowler took a cast of his head, from which we write this phrenological delineation. As large a development of Form as he possesses, I have rarely ever seen, and the power it confers of retaining the SHAPES of letters and words, constitutes his principal aid in his lingual pursuits. Besides recalling single words, it enables him to remember synonymous words, and those which have a kindred origin, both in individual dialects and in different languages; and hence that facility which he mentions, of learning generic languages, after he knows one of a family.

Recollection of the DEFINITIONS of words depends on Eventuality, another of those powers so remarkable in his character. This organ should therefore be prodigious; and so it is. I have never seen its equal. The coincidence between head and character is therefore PERFECT in this respect, also.

In addition to the aid rendered by Eventuality, in his lingual pursuits, this organ confers a retentiveness of historical and literary memory, probably unequalled in the world. What he knows once, he knows always. No man living, probably, has at command an amount of general knowledge and matter of fact information, ranging from the earliest history of the world all along down to the present time, to compare with his. He apparently knows EVERY thing, another coincidence between his extraordinary Eventuality in head and character. Let the opposers of our science either answer this fact, or else admit its phrenological conclusion.

That passionate thirst after knowledge which induced him to put forth such energetic efforts to acquire it, has a kindred origin-immense Eventuality.

Language is fully developed, yet does not compare in size with these other organs; and accordingly, though he is a good writer, and lectures well from memory, and even speaks well extemporarily, yet he is often equalled, and even excelled, in these respects.

The retreating of his forehead at Causality, is quite apparent, and consequently he is neither deep nor profound. Still, he is practical,