"The good-natured old hag told me several other circumstances, relative to this curious transaction, which, as there is an Englishman in company, it will be prudent to pass over in silence: but I cannot help mentioning one thing which she told me as a very great secret. You know, says she to me, that the English have more religions among them than any other nation in Europe, and that there is more teaching and sermonizing with them than in any other country. The fact is this; it matters not who gets up to teach them, the hard words of the Greek were not sufficiently {219} boiled, and whenever they get into a sentence, the poor people's brains are turned, and they know no more what the preacher is talking about, than if he harangued them in Arabic. Take my word for it if you please; but if not, when you get to England, desire the bettermost sort of people that you are acquainted with to read to you an act of parliament, which of course is written in the clearest and plainest style in which anything can be written, and you will find that not one in ten will be able to make tolerable sense of it. The language would have been an excellent language, if it had not been for the council of Nice, and the words had been well boiled. "Here the company burst out into a fit of laughter. The Englishman got up and shook hands with the Swede: _si non e vero_, said he, _e ben trovato_.[476] But, however I may laugh at it here, I would not advise you to tell this story on the other side of the water. So here's a bumper to Old England for ever, and God save the king." ON YOUTHFUL PRODIGIES. The accounts given of extraordinary children and adolescents frequently defy credence.[477] I will give two well-attested instances.