of his
college he employed in study; and, when obliged to go abroad, he would
read as he walked along the streets. I have met him with a book under
each arm, and a third in his hands, and have been told that, travelling
one day on horseback, he fell a reading, giving the horse his full
liberty. The creature used it to eat a few ears of corn that grew on the
road-side. The owner came in haste, swearing he would be indemnified.
Mr. Butler, who knew nothing of the damage done, no sooner perceived it,
than, blushing, he said to the countryman, with his usual mildness, that
his demand was just; he then draws out a louis d'or, and gives it to the
fellow, who would have been very well satisfied with a few pence, makes
repeated apologies to him, easily obtains forgiveness, and goes on his
way.

"Notwithstanding such constant application, the extensiveness of his
knowledge was next to a prodigy. Whenever I happened to consult him on
any extraordinary question, upon which the authors most familiar to us
were silent, he would take me to the library of the abbey of St. Bertin,
would ask for old writers, whose names I was scarce acquainted with, and
point out to me, even before I had opened them, the section and chapter
in which I should find my difficulty solved.

"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 Chretien_,
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