attainments:--

"I remember an Author in the World some years ago, who was generally
upbraided with Ignorance, and called an 'Illiterate Fellow,' by some of
the _Beau-Monde_ of the last Age...."

"I happened to come into this Person's Study once, and I found him busy
translating a Description of the Course of the River Boristhenes, out of
_Bleau's_ Geography, written in _Spanish_. Another Time I found him
translating some Latin Paragraphs out _of Leubinitz Theatri Cometici_,
being a learned Discourse upon Comets; and that I might see whether it
was genuine, I looked on some part of it that he had finished, and found
by it that he understood the Latin very well, and had perfectly taken
the sense of that difficult Author. In short, I found he understood the
_Latin_, the _Spanish_, the _Italian_, and could read the _Greek_, and I
knew before that he spoke _French_ fluently--_yet this Man was no
Scholar_."

"As to Science, on another Occasion, I heard him dispute (in such a
manner as surprised me) upon the motions of the Heavenly Bodies, the
Distance, Magnitude, Revolutions, and especially the Influences of the
Planets, the Nature and probable Revolutions of Comets, the excellency
of the New Philosophy, and the like; _but this Man was no Scholar_."

"In Geography and History he had all the World at his Finger's ends. He
talked of the most distant Countries with an inimitable Exactness; and
changing from one Place to another, the Company thought, of every Place
or Country he named, that certainly he must have been born there. He
knew not only where every Thing was, but what everybody did in every
Part of the World; I mean, what Businesses, what Trade, what