[5] Superbiam pomposis.
[6] Religionem ubi bene viventi non timetur stimulus mortis.
Which said story coming to the knowledge of certain Oxonians, about the year 1173 (as an obscure note which I have seen tells me,) it fell out, that as one of them was answering for his degree in his school, which he had hired, the opponent dealt so maliciously with him, that he stood up and spake before the auditory thus: ‘Profectò, profectò, &c.’ ‘Truly, truly, sir sophister, if you proceed thus, I protest before this assembly I will not answer; pray, sir, remember Mr. Silo’s scholar at Paris,’—intimating thereby, that if he did not cease from vain babblings, purgatory, or a greater punishment, should be his end. Had such examples been often tendered to them (adds Wood, with real bowels of compassion,) as they were to the Parisians, especially that which happened to one Simon Churney, or Thurney, or Tourney (Fuller says, Thurway, a Cornish man,) an English Theologist there (who was suddenly struck dumb, because he vainly gloried that he, in his disputations, could be equally for or against the Divine truth,) it might have worked more on their affections; but this being a single relation, it could not long be wondered at.” After these logical marvels, Anthony gives us the following instance of
A VICE-CHANCELLOR’S BEING LACONIC.
“Dr. Prideaux, when he resigned the office of Vice-Chancellor, 22nd July, 1626 (which is never done without an oration spoken from the chair in the convocation, containing for the most part an account of the acts done in the time of their magistrateship,) spoke only the aforesaid metres, ‘Linquo coax,’ &c., supposing there was more matter in them than the best speech he could make, frustrating thereby the great hopes of the Academicians of an eloquent oration.”
“Oxford hath been so famous for sophistry, and hath used such a particular way in the reading and learning it,” adds Wood, in treating of the schools, “that it hath often been styled—
‘SOPHISTRIA SECUNDUM USUM OXON.’
So famous, also, for subtlety of logicians, that no place hath excelled it.” This great subtlety, however, would seem, in a degree, to have departed from our sister of Oxford in 1532, when, they say,