white bear backwards and forwards
through half a dozen pages, he closed
the book for good an' all, -- and in a
kind of triumph redelivered it into Trim's
hand, with a nod to lay it upon the 'scru-
toire where he found it. -- Tristram
said he, shall be made to conjugate every
word in the dictionary, backwards and
forwards the same way ; -- every word,
Yorick, by this means, you see, is con-
verted into a thesis or an hypothesis ; --
every thesis and hypothesis have an off-
B 2 spring
spring of propositions ; -- and each pro-
position has its own consequences and
conclusions ; every one of which leads
the mind on again, into fresh tracks of
enquiries and doubtings. -- The force
of this engine, added my father, is in-
credible, in opening a child's head. --
'Tis enough, brother Shandy, cried my
uncle Toby, to burst it into a thousand
splinters. --
I presume, said Yorick, smiling, -- it
must be owing to this, -- (for let logi-
cians say what they will, it is not to be
accounted for sufficiently from the bare
use of the ten predicaments) -- That
the famous Vincent Quirino, amongst the
many other astonishing feats of his child-
hood, of which the Cardinal Bembo has
given the world so exact a story, -- should
be able to paste up in the publick schools
5 at
at Rome, so early as in the eighth year of
his age, no less than four thousand, five
hundred, and sixty different theses, upon
the most abstruse points of the most ab-
struse theology ; -- and to defend and
maintain them in such sort, as to cramp
and dumbfound his opponents. --
What is that, cried my father, to what
is told us of Alphonsus Tostatus, who,
almost in his nurse's arms, learned all
the sciences and liberal arts without be-
ing taught any one of them ? -- What
shall we say of the great Piereskius ? --
That's the very man, cried my uncle
Toby, I once told you of, brother Shandy,
who walked a matter of five hundred
miles, reckoning from Paris to Schevling,
and from Schevling back again, merely
to see Stevinus's flying chariot. -- He
was a very great man ! added my uncle
Toby ; (meaning Stevinus) -- He was so ;
B 3 bro-
brother Toby, said my father, (meaning
Piereskius) -- and had multiplied his
ideas so fast, and increased his know-
ledge to such a prodigious stock, that,
if we may give credit to an anecdote
concerning him, which we cannot with-
hold here, without shaking the authority
of all anecdotes whatever -- at seven years
of age, his father committed entirely to
his care the education of his younger bro-
ther, a boy of five years old, -- with the sole
management of all his concerns. -- Was the
father as wise as the son ? quoth my uncle
Toby : -- I should think not, said Yorick : --
But what are these, continued my father --
(breaking out in a kind of enthusiasm)
-- what are these, to those prodigies of
childhood in Grotius, Scioppius, Heinsius,
Politian, Pascal, Joseph Scaliger, Fer-
dinand de Cordouè, and others -- some of
which left off their substantial forms at
nine
nine years old, or sooner, and went on
reasoning without them ; -- others went
through their classics at seven ; -- wrote
tragedies at eight ; -- Ferdinand de Cor-
douè was so wise at nine, -- 'twas thought
the devil was in him ; -- and at Venice
gave such proofs of his knowledge and
goodness, that the monks imagined he
was Antichrist, or nothing. -- Others
were masters of fourteen languages at
ten, -- finished the course of their rheto-
ric, poetry, logic, and ethics at eleven,
-- put forth their commentaries upon
Servius and Martianus Capella at twelve,
-- and at thirteen received their degrees
in philosophy, laws and divinity : --
But you forget the great Lipsius, quoth
Yorick, who composed a work * the day
he
* Nons aurions quelque intérêt, says Baillet, de
montrer qu'il n'a rien de ridicule s'il étoit vérita-
B 4 ble,
he was born ; -- They should have
wiped it up, said my uncle Toby, and
said no more about it.
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