WHEN my father had danced his 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 ’scrutoire, 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 converted
into a thesis or an hypothesis;—every thesis and hypothesis have an
off-spring of propositions;—and each proposition 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 incredible 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
logicians 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 childhood, of which the Cardinal _Bembo_ has given the world so
exact a story,—should be able to paste up in the public schools at
_Rome_, so early as in the eighth year of his age, no less than four
thousand five hundred and fifty different theses, upon the most
abstruse points of the most abstruse 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 being 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 _Shevling_, and from
_Shevling_ back again, merely to see _Stevinus_’s flying chariot.——He
was a very great man! added my uncle _Toby_ (meaning _Stevinus_)—He was
so, brother _Toby_, said my father (meaning _Piereskius_)——and had
multiplied his ideas so fast, and increased his knowledge to such a
prodigious stock, that, if we may give credit to an anecdote concerning
him, which we cannot withhold 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 brother, 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,
Ferdinand de Cordouè_, and others—some of which left off their
_substantial forms_ at nine years old, or sooner, and went on reasoning
without them;—others went through their classics at seven;—wrote
tragedies at eight;—_Ferdinand de Cordouè_ 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 rhetoric, 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[30] the day he was born:——They should have wiped it up,
said my uncle _Toby_, and said no more about it.
[30] Nous aurions quelque interêt, says _Baillet_, de montrer qu’il
n’a rien de ridicule s’il étoit veritable, au moins dans le sens
énigmatique que _Nicius Erythræus_ a tâ hé de lui donner. Cet auteur
dit que pour comprendre comme _Lipse_, il a pû composer un ouvrage le
premier jour de sa vie, il faut s’imaginer, que ce premier jour n’est
pas celui de sa naissance charnelle, mais celui au quel il a commencé
d’user de la raison; il veut que ç’ait été à l’âge de _neuf_ ans; et
il nous veut persuader que ce fut en cet âge, que _Lipse_ fit un
poëme.——Le tour est ingénieux, &c. &c.