And gave him his rabinical degree,
Unknown to foreign university.—P. [237.]
Oates pretended to have taken his doctor's degree at Salamanca, where it is shrewdly suspected he never was; at least where he certainly never took orders. The Tory libels of the time contain innumerable girds concerning this degree. There is, in the Luttrel Collection, "An Address from Salamanca to her (unknown) offspring, Dr T. O." Dryden often alludes to the circumstance; thus, in the epilogue to "Mithridates," acted 1681-2,
Shall we take orders? that will parts require;
Our colleges give no degrees for hire.—
Would Salamanca were a little nigher!
And Corah might for Agag's murder call,
In terms as coarse as Samuel used to Saul.—P. [237.]
In the first book of Samuel, chap. xv., the reader will find the reproaches with which that prophet loaded Saul, for sparing, contrary to God's commandment, Agag, king of the Amalekites; concluding with the awful denunciation, that for his disobedience the Lord had rejected him from being king over Israel.