 and that was all, to prove the truth of an
observation made by a long sojourner in that country; -- namely, »That nature
was neither very lavish, nor was she very stingy in her gifts of genius and
capacity to its inhabitants; - but, like a discreet parent, was moderately kind
to them all; observing such an equal tenor in the distribution of her favours,
as to bring them, in those points, pretty near to a level with each other; so
that you will meet with few instances in that kingdom of refin'd parts; but a
great deal of good plain houshold understanding amongst all ranks of people, of
which every body has a share;« which is, I think, very right.
    With us, you see, the case is quite different; - we are all ups and downs in
this matter; - you are a great genius; - or 'tis fifty to one, Sir, you are a
great dunce and a blockhead; - not that there is a total want of intermediate
steps, - no, - we are not so irregular as that comes to; - but the two extremes
are more common, and in a greater degree in this unsettled island, where nature,
in her gifts and dispositions of this kind, is most whimsical and capricious;
fortune herself not being more so in the bequest of her goods and chattels than
she.
    This is all that ever stagger'd my faith in regard to Yorick's extraction,
who, by what I can remember of him, and by all the accounts I could ever get of
him, seem'd not to have had one single drop of Danish blood in his whole crasis;
in nine hundred years, it might possibly have all run out: -- I will not
philosophize one moment with you about it; for happen how it would, the fact was
this: - That instead of that cold phlegm and exact regularity of sense and
humours, you would have look'd for, in one so extracted; - he was, on the
contrary, as mercurial and sublimated a composition, - as heteroclite a creature
in all his declensions; -- with as much life and whim, and gaité de coeur about
him, as the kindliest climate could have engendered and put together. With all
this sail, poor Yorick carried not one ounce of ballast; he was utterly
unpractised in the world; and, at the age of twenty-six, knew just about as well
how to steer his course in it, as a romping, unsuspicious girl of
