A very few--geniuses, we call them--have this marked in an unusual degree, and very early in life.
Madame de Stael was engrossed in political philosophy at an age when other girls are dressing dolls.

Mozart, when but four years old, played the clavichord and composed minuets and other pieces still extant.

The little Chalmers, with solemn air and earnest gestures, would preach often from a stool in the nursery.

Goethe wrote tragedies at twelve, and Grotius published an able philosophical work before he was fifteen.

Pope "lisped in numbers." Chatterton wrote good poems at eleven, and Cowley published a volume of poetry in his sixteenth year.
Thomas Lawrence and Benjamin West drew likenesses almost as soon as they could walk.