of preternatural knowledge. In an age of so much dogmatism he
first laid down the grand principle of Bacon, that experiment and
observation must be the guides to just theory in the investigation of
nature. If any doubt could be harbored, not as to the right of
Leonardo da Vinci to stand as the first name of the fifteenth century,
which is beyond all doubt, but as to his originality in so many
discoveries, which probably no one man, especially in such
circumstances, has ever made, it must be by an hypothesis not very
untenable, that some parts of physical science had already attained a
height which mere books do not record."

It seems at first sight almost incomprehensible that, thus endowed as
a philosopher, mechanic, inventor, discoverer, the fame of Leonardo
should now rest on the works he has left as a painter. We cannot,
within these limits, attempt to explain why and how it is that as the
man of science he has been naturally and necessarily left behind by
the onward march of intellectual progress, while as the poet-painter
he still survives as a presence and a power. We must proceed at once
to give some account of him in the character in which he exists to us
and for us--that of the great artist.

Leonardo was born at Vinci, near Florence, in the Lower Val d'Arno, on
the borders of the territory of Pistoia. His father, Piero da Vinci,
was an advocate of Florence--not rich, but in independent
circumstances, and possessed of estates in land. The singular talents
of his son induced Piero to give him, from an early age, the advantage
of the best instructors. As a child he distinguished himself by his
proficiency in arithmetic and mathematics. Music he studied early, as
a science as well as an art. He invented a species of lyre for
himself, and sung his own poetical compositions to his own music, both
being frequently extemporaneous. But his favorite pursuit was the art
of design in all its branches; he modelled in clay or wax, or
attempted to draw every object which struck his fancy. His father sent
him to study under Andrea Verrocchio, famous as a sculptor, chaser in
metal, and painter. Andrea, who was an excellent and correct designer,
but a bad and hard colorist, was soon after engaged to paint a picture
of the baptism of our Saviour. He employed Leonardo, then a youth, to
execute one of the angels; this he did with so much softness and
richness of color, that it far surpassed the rest of the picture; and
Verrocch