G70 DE AUGMENTIS SC1ENTIARUM 



CAPUT III. 



De Fundamentis, et Officio Rhetoricce. Appendices tres Rhe- 

 toriccB, qua ad Promptuariam tantummodo pertinent ; Colores 

 Boni et Mali, tarn Simplicis quam Comparati; Antitheta 

 Rerum ; Formulae minores Orationis. 



VENIMUS jam ad Doctrinam de Illustratione Sermonis. Ea 

 est, quae Khetorica dicitur, sive Oratoria : scientia certe et in 

 se egregia, et egregie a scriptoribus exculta. Eloquent] a au- 

 tem, si quis vere rem aestimet, sapientia proculdubio est inferior. 

 Videmus enim quanto intervallo haec illam post se relinquat, 

 in verbis quibus allocutus est Mosem Deus, cum ille munus 

 sibi delatum propter defectum elocutionis recusasset; Habes 

 Aaronem, ille erit tibi vice oratoris, tu vero ei vice Dei. 1 At 

 fructu et populari existimatione, sapientia eloquentiae cedit. 

 Ita enim Salomon, Sapiens corde appelldbitur prudens, sed dulcis 



each column might represent a complete alphabet, and the proposition " a mouse is 

 a small rodent " would stand for a word of three letters. With more columns 

 longer words might be spelt, &c., &c. It is obvious that in this case the truth or 

 falsehood of the propositions used would be of little or no moment. 



Lully's art was, it is said, revealed to him by an angel, after he had taken the reso- 

 lution of giving up the world and of devoting himself to studies for which his previous 

 way of life had unfitted him. Cornelius Agrippa, who had himself written an exposition 

 of it, thus condemns it in the De Vanit. et Incert. Scient. c. 9. : " Hoc autem admonere 

 vos oportet, hanc artem ad pompam ingenii et doctrinse ostentationem potius quam 

 ad comparandam eruditionem valere, ac longe plus habere audaciae quam efficaciae." 

 Though much cannot be said in favour of his method, yet Lully himself is one of the 

 most remarkable persons of the middle ages. The story of his renouncing the world 

 in consequence of the intense revulsion of feeling produced by the sudden extinction 

 of a passionate love is well known ; whether authentic or not, it is a striking illustration 

 of the solemn words of Peter Damiani : " Quid ergo sit caro doceat ipsa caro." 

 Lully says of himself: " I was married, I had begotten children, I was tolerably rich, I 

 was wanton and worldly. All this with a willing mind did I forsake, that I might 

 further God's glory and the public good, and exalt the holy faith ; I learnt Arabic ; 

 many times went I forth to preach to the Saracens ; for the faith's sake I was made 

 prisoner and kept in bonds and beaten ; forty and five years have I laboured to stir 

 up the rulers of the Church and Christian princes to take heed to the public good ; 

 now am I old, now am I poor, yet in the same mind still, by God's help, will so con- 

 tinue to my life's end." Accordingly he went again to Africa, and, preaching the 

 Gospel, was on the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul stoned and left half-dead. Some 

 Genoese merchants put him on board their ship and there he died, and was buried in 

 his native island of Majorca in 1315. See Antonio, Bibl. Hisp. Vet. vol. ii. p. 123. 

 See, with respect to Lully in general, and particularly as to the charge of heterodoxy 

 made against him, Perroquet, Apologie de la Vie et des Ecritz du lien heureux Raymond 

 LuUy. 



The foolish story, still occasionally repeated, of Raymond Lully having made gold for 

 Edward the Third, is sufficiently refuted* by the date of his death, which occurred, ac- 

 cording to authority which there is no reason to doubt, while Edward the Third was a 

 child, and nearly thirty years before the coinage of the nobles said to have been 

 made of Lully's gold. Camden is, I am afraid, responsible for the currency of the 

 story, which in Selden's Table Talk seems to be transferred from LuUy to Ripley. 



Exod. iv. 16. 



