Note 5 — Chapter III
Reading edition
From what has been already mentioned of the life of our Phralaong, we may see that many particulars regarding his birth and his childhood have been described with sufficient accuracy; but little or nothing is said of his adolescence, at least until the age of sixteen, when he gets united to the famous and youthful Yathaudara. In common with many other great men, almost all the years of the private life of this celebrated and extraordinary personage are wrapped up in a complete obscurity. We may conclude from his great proficiency in the knowledge of those sciences and attainments befitting his high situation, he was not remiss, since he was enabled to set at defiance the greatest masters of those days. In the midst of pleasures he knew how to devote the best part of his time to study, unless we suppose that science was infused into his mind by no exertion of his own. The Burmese have a regular mania for dividing with a mathematical precision what at first appears to admit of no such division. Virtues, vices, sciences, arts, &c., all, in a word, are subjected to a rigorous division, which, if arbitrary in itself, has the great advantage of conferring a substantial help to the memory.