Of this astonishing youth, we have no information except what is
furnished by the following account, extracted from Mr. Evelyn's diary,
of 1689, very shortly after the landing of William III. in England.
"I dined," says Mr. Evelyn, "at the Admiralty, where a child of twelve
years old was brought in, the son of Dr. Clench, of the most prodigious
maturity of knowledge, for I cannot call it altogether memory, but
something more extraordinary. Mr. Pepys and myself examined him, not in
any method, but with promiscuous questions, which required judgment and
discernment, to answer so readily and pertinently.
"There was not anything in chronology, history, geography, the several
systems of astronomy, courses of the stars, longitude, latitude,
doctrine of the spheres, courses and sources of rivers, creeks, harbors,
eminent cities, boundaries of countries, not only in Europe, but in
every part of the earth, which he did not readily resolve, and
demonstrate his knowledge of, readily drawing with a pen anything he
would describe.
"He was able not only to repeat the most famous things which are left us
in any of the Greek or Roman histories, monarchies, republics, wars,
colonies, exploits by sea and land, but all the Sacred Scriptures of the
Old and New Testaments; the succession of all the monarchies,
Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman; with all the lower emperors,
popes, heresiarchs, and councils; what they were called about; what they
determined; or in the controversy about Easter; the tenets of the
Sabellians, Arians, Nestorians; and the difference between St. Cyprian
and Stephen about re-baptization; the schisms.
"We leaped from that to other things totally different,--to Olympic
years and synchronisms; we asked him questions which could not be
answered without considerable meditation and judgment; nay, of some
particulars of the civil wars; of the digest and code. He gave a
stupendous account of both natural and moral philosophy, and even of
metaphysics.
"Having thus exhausted ourselves, rather than this wonderful child, or
angel rather, for he was as beautiful and lovely in countenance as in
knowledge, we concluded with asking him, if, in all he had ever heard or
read of, he had ever met with anything which was like the expedition of
the Prince of Orange, with so small a force, as to obtain three kingdoms
without any contest. After a little thought, he told us that he knew of
nothing that resembled it, so much as the coming of Constantine the
Great out of Great Britain, through France and Italy, so tedious a
march, to meet Maxentius, whom he overthrew at Pons Melvius, with very
little conflict, and at the very gates of Rome, which he entered, and
was received with triumph, and obtained the empire not of three kingdoms
only, but of the then known world.
"He was perfect in the Latin authors, spoke French naturally, and gave
us a description of France, Italy, Savoy and Spain, anciently and
modernly divided; as also of ancient Greece, Scythia, and the northern
countries and tracts.
"He answered our questions without any set or formal repetitions, as one
who had learned things without book, but as if he minded other things,
going about the room, and toying with a parrot, seeming to be full of
play, of a lively, sprightly temper, always smiling, and exceedingly
pleasant; without the least levity, rudeness, or childishness."
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