Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/441

Rh came into the world with an irreparable obstacle in the organs of vision, or was deprived of his sight in his infancy, so as to have been prevented from receiving the instructions which are bestowed on children from the earliest dawn of reason, and are continued, with a constant application, during their literary progress, at a time when the external means of collecting information preserve all their vigour. In despight of these invincible impediments, by which the channels of wisdom were choked, he was a prodigy of intelligence and comprehension. It was sufficient for him to hear a theme, however lofty, to be enabled to descant on it, and to bestow on it every illustration of which it was susceptible. He was delighted when the theologians expounded to him the most abstruse points of their profession; and repeated, without study or hesitation, what he had acquired without difficulty. When, at his request, the students conferred together on the subjects of their tasks, he instantly became more effectually master of them than were those by whom they had been communicated.

But what rendered his talent most conspicuous was versification. Without any other knowledge of the poetic art than that which he derived from Nature, he expressed himself in verse at once fluent, natural, beautiful, and copious. He proposed to himself subjects, and gave them extemporaneously in harmonious poetry. Without stop or interruption, he varied the kinds of metre at his own pleasure, or at the request of those who were present. The sublime theological, philosophical, philological, and historical points which he learned in conversation, flowed from his mouth, without quitting the company, in the richest vein of composition. Alone, he framed a comedy,