Note 93 — XIV.

However learned a Pundit might be in philology, philosophy, logic and theology, he is lamentably deficient in scientific knowledge, notably in geography and ethnology. With a view to test the knowledge of his Pundit on those two subjects, Bishop Middleton was said to have once asked him two very simple questions, (1) whence are the English come? (2) what is their origin? The reply of the Pundit was somewhat to the following effect: The English are come somewhere from Lunka or Ceylon (the imaginary land of cannibals), and they are of mixed origin, sprung from monkey and cannibal, because they jabber like monkeys, and sit like them on chairs with their legs hanging down,—an attitude peculiar to the monkey species,—and they eat like cannibals half-boiled beef, pork, mutton, &c. Childish as the reply was, the pious Bishop, however, with his wonted benignity, smiled and corrected his error.