Portland Gazette, And Maine Advertiser

Literary Prodigy.-The following account is extracted from the Moniteur of the 28th of last May, under the head of Kingdom of Westphalia:
GOTTINGEN, MAY 20.
For these eight months we have had among the students of our university, a boy who is ten years and a half old, who is a real phenomenon. The name of this young savant is CHARLES WITTE. He understands the languages, history, geography, and literature, as well ancient as modern; at the age of eight years he possessed, besides his mother tongue, Greek, Latin, French, English and Italian to such a degree of perfection, that he could not only translate currently the Aeneid of Virgil, and the Iliad of Homer, but could besides speak, with an astonishing facility, all the living languages which we have just mentioned. Of this he last year gave such satisfactory proofs, in a publick examination, which he underwent at the University of Leipsic, that that body honoured him with a diploma.
Till his arrival at Gottingen this child had no other instructor than his father, the clergyman Witte. His majesty the king of Westphalia, deigns that he should continue to direct the studies of his son to their termination, has granted him a pension, which has enabled him to quit his pastoral functions, and accompany his pupil to our University. The young Witte is no prodigy in philosophy: he is engaged in a course of mathematics, physics, and metaphysics, and with the most happy disposition for all the scientific pursuits.