Knew more than forty of them do As far as words and terms could go. 135 All which he understood by rote, 140 And, as occafion ferv'd, would quote : That which was which he could nor tell; For th' other, as great clerks have done. 145 Where entity and quiddity, The ghosts of defunct bodies fly; of the Pyrrhonian opinion. The word is derived from the Greek σxinτeodai, quod eft, confiderare, fpeculari. 143 He could reduce, etc.] The old philofophers thought to extract notions out of natural things, as chymifts do fpirits and effences; and when they had refined them into the niceft fubtilties, gave them as infignificant names, as those operators do their extractions: but, as Seneca fays, the fubtiller things are rendered, they are but the nearer to nothing. So are all their definitions of things by acts, the nearer to nonfenfe. 147 Where truth, etc.] Some authors have mistaken truth for a real thing, when it is nothing but a right method of putting those notions or images of things, in the understanding of man, into the fame ftate and order, that their originals hold in nature; and therefore Ariftole fays, Unumquodque ficut fe habet fecundum effe, ita fe habet fecundum veritatem. Met. 1. 2. 148 Like words congeal'd, etc.] Some report, that in Nova Zembla, and Greenland, men's words are wont to be frozen in the air, and at the thaw may be heard. 151 In School-divinity as able 141 In School-divinity as able, As he that hight Irrefragable, etc.] Here again is another alteration of three or four lines, as I think for the worse. Some specific epithets were added to the title of fome famous doctors, as Angelicus, Seraphicus, Irrefragabilis, Subtilis, etc. Vide Voffii Etymolog. Baillet Jugemens de Scavans, and Possevin's Apparatus. 153 A fecond Thomas, or at once, To name them all, another Duns, Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican friar, was born in 1224, ftudied at Cologne and Paris. He new modelled the fchooldivinity, and was therefore called the Angelic Doctor, and Eagle of Divines. The most illuftrious perfons of his time were ambitious of his friendship, and put a high value on his merits, fo that they offered him bishoprics, which he refused with as much ardor as others feck after them. He died in the fiftieth year of his age, and was canonized by pope John XXII. We have his works in 18 volumes, fe veral times printed. Johannes Dunfcotus was a very learned man, who lived about the end of the thirteenth, and beginning of the fourteenth century. The English and Scots ftrive which of them fhall have the honour of his birth. The English fay he was born in Northumberland; the Scots allege he was born at Duns in the Merfe, the neighbouring county to Northumberland, and hence was called Dunfcotus: Moreri, Buchanan, and other Scots hiftorians, are of this opinion, and for proof cite his epitaph; Scotia me genuit, Anglia fufcepit, Gallia edocuit, Germania tenet. He died at Cologne, Novemb. 8. 1308. ment to Dr. Cave's Hiftoria Literaria, he is In the fupple faid to be ex 155 Profound in all the nominal He could raise fcruples dark and nice, 165 As if divinity had catch'd The itch, on purpose to be scratch'd; traordinary learned in phyfics, metaphyfics, mathematics, and astronomy; that his fame was fo great when at Oxford, that that 30000 fcholars came thither to hear his lectures : when at Paris his arguments and authority carried it for the immaculate conception of the blessed virgin; fo that they appointed a festival on that account, and would admit no fcholars to degrees, but fuch as were of this mind. He was a great oppofer of Thomas Aquinas's doctrine, and, for being a very acute logician, was called Doctor Subtilis, which was the reafon alfo, that an old punfter always called him the Lathy Doctor. which was Sorbon was the first and most 158 As tough as, etc.] confiderable college of the university of Paris; founded in the reign of St. Lewis by Robert Sorbon, which name is fometimes given the whole university of Paris, founded about the year 741, by Charlemaigne, at the perfuafion of the learned Alcuin, who was one of the first profeffors there; fince which time it has been very famous. This college has been rebuilt with an extraordinary magnificence, at the charge of cardinal Richlieu, and contains lodgings for 36 doctors, who are called the Society of Sorbon. Those which are received among them, before they have received their doctor's degree, are only faid to be of the Hofpitality of Sorbon. Claud. Hemeraus de Acad. Parif. Spond. in Annal. Or, like a mountebank, did wound 175 And, as he was difpos'd could prove it, 173 He knew, etc.] There is nothing more ridiculous than the various opinions of authors about the feat of paradife: Sir Walter Ralegh has taken a great deal of pains to collect them, in the beginning of his Hiftory of the World; where those who are unfatisfied may be fully informed. 180 By a High Dutch, etc.] Gorophius Becanus endeavours to prove, that High-Dutch was the language that Adam and Eve spoke in paradife. 181 If either of, etc.] Adam and Eve being made, and not conceived and formed in the womb, had no navels, as some learned men have supposed, because they had no need of them. 182 Who first made, etc.] Mufic is faid to be invented by Pythagoras, who first found out the proportion of notes, from the founds of hanımers upon an anvil. C In proper terms fuch as men fmatter, 190 To match his learning and his wit: For he was of that stubborn crew And prove their doctrine orthodox As if they worshipp'd God for fpite. |