I dined at the Admiralty, where was brought in a child not twelve years old, the son of one 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[Pg 286] 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 and bearings of countries, not only in Europe, but in any other part of the earth, which he did not readily resolve and demonstrate his knowledge of, readily drawing out 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 stories of the Old and New Testament; the succession of all the monarchies, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, 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 Gnostics, Sabellians, Arians, Nestorians; the difference between St. Cyprian and Stephen about re-baptism, the schisms. We leaped from that to other things totally different, to Olympic years, and synchronisms; we asked him questions which could not be resolved without considerable meditation and judgment, nay of some particulars of the Civil Laws, of the Digest and Code. He gave a stupendous account of both natural and moral philosophy, and even in 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 read or heard of, he had ever met with anything which was like this expedition of the Prince of Orange, with so small a force to obtain three great kingdoms without any contest. After a little thought, he told us that he knew of nothing which did more resemble it than the coming of Constantine the Great out of Britain, through France and Italy, so tedious a march, to meet Maxentius, whom he overthrew at Pons Milvius 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 all the then known world. He was perfect in the Latin authors, spoke French naturally, and gave us a description of France, Italy, Savoy, Spain,[Pg 287] ancient and modernly divided; as also of ancient Greece, Scythia, and northern countries and tracts: we left questioning further. He did this 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 there, and as he was at dinner (tanquam aliua agens, as it were) seeming to be full of play, of a lively, sprightly temper, always smiling, and exceedingly pleasant, without the least levity, rudeness, or childishness.
His father assured us he never imposed anything to charge his memory by causing him to get things by heart, not even the rules of grammar; but his tutor (who was a Frenchman) read to him, first in French, then in Latin; that he usually played among other boys four or five hours every day, and that he was as earnest at his play as at his study. He was perfect in arithmetic, and now newly entered into Greek. In sum (horresco referens), I had read of divers forward and precocious youths, and some I have known, but I never did either hear or read of anything like to this sweet child, if it be right to call him child who has more knowledge than most men in the world. I counseled his father not to set his heart too much on this jewel,
"Immodicis brevis est ætas, et rara senectus,"
as I myself learned by sad experience in my most dear child Richard, many years since, who, dying before he was six years old, was both in shape and countenance and pregnancy of learning, next to a prodigy.