Took a journey to Cambridge, and challenged any to dispute with them there, in the public schools, on the two following questions:—“An jus Civile sit Medicina præstantius?” In English as much as to say, Which does most execution, Civil Law or Medicine?—a nice point, truly. But the other formed the subject of serious argumentation, and ran thus:—“An mulier condemnata, bis ruptis loqueis, sit tertio suspendenda?” Ridley, the Bishop and martyr, then a young man, student or Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, is said to have been one of the opponents on this interesting occasion, and administered the flagellæ linguæ with such happy effect to one of these pert pretenders to logic lore, that the other durst not set his wit upon him. The Oxford sophistry had so much
CORRUPTED THE LATIN TONGUE
There, says Wood, that the purity thereof being lost among the scholars, “their speaking became barbarous, and derived so constantly to their successors, that barbarous speaking of Latin was commonly styled by many
‘Oxoniensis loquenti mos.’
The Latin of the schools, in the present day, is none of the purest at either University. A certain Cambridge Divine, a Professor, who was a senior wrangler, and is justly celebrated for his learning and great ability, one day presiding at an act in Arts, upon a dog straying into the school, and putting in for a share of the logic with a howl at the audience, the Moderator exclaimed, “Verte canem ex.” There have, however, been fine displays of pure Latinity in the schools of both; and it appears
THE OXONIANS SURPASSED ARISTOTLE
At a very early period, not only in the art of logic itself, but in their manner of applying it: for in the beginning of 1517, says Wood, about the latter end of Lent (a fatal time for the most part to the Oxonians,) a sore discord fell out between the Cistercian and Benedictine monks, concerning several philosophical points discussed by them in the schools. But their arguments being at length flung aside, they decided the controversy by blows, which, with sore scandal, continued a considerable time. At length the Benedictines rallying up what forces they could procure, they beset the Cistercians, and by force of arms made them fly and betake themselves to their hostels. In fact, he says, by the use of logic, and the trivial arts, the Oxford sophists, in the time of Lent, broke the king’s peace, so that the University privileges were several times suspended, and in danger of being lessened or taken away. Through the corrupt use of it, “the Parva Logicalia, and other minute matters of Aristotle, many things of that noble author have been so changed from their original, by the screwing in and adding many impertinent things, that Tho. Nashe (in his book, ‘Have at you to Saffron Walden,’) hath verily thought, that if Aristotle had risen out of his grave, and disputed with the sophisters, they would not only have baffled him with their sophistry, but with his own logic, which they had disguised, and he composed without any impurity or corruption. It may well be said, that in this day they have done no more than what Tom Nashe’s beloved Dick Harvey did afterwards at Cambridge, that is to say,
HE SET ARISTOTLE WITH HIS HEELS UPWARDS ON THE SCHOOL GATES,
With ass’s ears on his head,—a thing that Tom would ‘in perpetuam rei memoriam,’ record and never have done with. Wilson, in his Memorabilia Cantabrigiæ, says of this said Tom Nash, that he was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he resided seven years, was at the fatal repast of the pickled herrings with the poet Green, and, in 1597, was either confined or otherwise troubled for a comedy on the Isle of Dogs (extant in the MSS. of Oldys,) though he wrote but the first act, and the players without his knowledge supplied the rest. He was a man of humour, a bitter satirist, and no contemptible poet; and more effectually discouraged and non-plused the notorious anti-prelate and astrologer, Will Harvey, and his adherents, than all the serious writers that attacked them. There is a good character of him, says Oldys, in The return from Parnassus, or Scourge of Simony, which was publicly acted by the students of St. John’s, in 1606, wherein