"Nor would I have you think, sir, that the ecclesiastical sciences were the only that he had applied to. A couple of anecdotes I am going to relate, and which I could hardly have believed had I not been witness to them, will prove to you that every kind of information was reunited in his intellect, without the smallest confusion.
"Monsieur de Conzie, after his translation from the bishopric of St. Omer's to that of Arras, invited him to come and see him there. My brother vicars and myself sought one day for a question which he should not be able to answer, and thought we had found one. Accordingly, we asked him what was the name of a pear called, in French, _bon Chrétien_, before the coming of Christ, and Christianity. _There are_, answered he, _two systems on that point_; and then quotes as two modern naturalists, sets forth their opinions, and unfolds to us the authorities with which they backed them. I had the curiosity to ascertain one of those quotations, and found it accurate to a tittle.
"A few days after, the bishop of Arras, having his drawing-room filled with company, Mr. President was announced. The bystanders thinking it to be the first president of the council d'Artois, opened him a gangway to come at the prelate; they behold a priest enter, whom, by his bashful and modest looks, they take for some country curate, and, by a simultaneous motion, they close up the passage which they had made. The bishop, who had already descried his dear president of the English college, perceived also the motion and resolved to put the authors of it to the blush. He observed in one corner of the room a group of military men; he goes up to them, and, finding they were conversing upon the question keenly debated at that time, whether in battle the _thin order_, observed in our days, be preferable to the _deep_ order of the ancients; he called to Mr. Butler, and asked him what he thought of it. I then heard that amazing man talk on the art of war with the modest tone of a school-boy, and the depth of the most consummate military man. I observed admiration in the countenance of all those officers; and saw several of them, who, being too far off, stood up upon chairs to hear and see him. They altogether put to him questions upon questions, and each of his answers caused fresh applause.