You have a treasure in that noble boy, said Wilson; but I hope, my good friend, he will not be suffered to go on any longer without education, because he can play upon the Jew’s-harp without a master. Don’t be offended with me, if I seem to step out of my office, when I speak to one of your great knowledge in the learned languages, but I presume you hardly can expect your grandson to understand Greek and Latin, unless he has a teacher. Perhaps not, replied De Lancaster; yet, if it were so to happen, it would not be the first wonder of the sort, that hath come to pass. It is well known what prodigies of learning have started up into notice, even in their infant years, and possessed themselves of arts, sciences and languages, without being ever put into the trammels of a teacher. Indeed! cried the colonel. Assuredly, replied the assertor, though it may not have fallen in your way to be certified of the fact. I could, if necessary, adduce a host of witnesses to attest the wonders, that have been effected by the human genius, unassisted with instruction; but as your profession, Colonel Wilson, has probably occupied too much of your attention to allow of your turning your thoughts to enquiries of this cast, the things I might relate of Lipsius, of Quirino, Alphonsus Tostatus and many others of equal celebrity might appear to you incredible. Very likely, interjected the colonel. Yet are they, every one, supported by irrefragable authorities. The mind of man, my friend, is in itself a miracle, and persons, who have been predestined to extraordinary occasions, have been born under extraordinary circumstances, as was the case with Luther, who, whilst he was yet an infant at the breast, maintained a Latin thesis against the Pope’s infallibility, which gave rise to the saying, that he sucked in controversy with his mother’s milk. My very good and learned friend, said Wilson, that you have somewhere crossed upon this idle legend, amongst the boundless mass of books that you have consulted I am well persuaded; but that you will commit your excellent understanding by stating it in serious proof of the question we are upon I am loth to suppose. When I believe your account of Luther’s coming into the world with a square cap and gown, I will believe his thesis at the breast, and, when I believe that, I will not dispute the story of the prolific lady, who was delivered of three hundred and sixty-five children at a birth.