96 



indoctius, nihil insulsius, frigidius." " Unum te ob- 

 secro," Petrarch had said two hundred years before 

 (in his invectives against doctors, whom he classed 

 with astrologers, as afterwards indeed did Harvey 

 more or less), " ut ab omni consilio mearum rerum 

 tui isti Arabes arceantur atque exsulent." "De 

 medicis non modo nil sperandum sed valde etiam 

 metuendum 1 ." The doctors in their turn did not hide 

 their disdain for poets. Whether justly or unjustly, 

 the Doctors of Medicine were classed with astro- 

 logers and alchemists ; the latter of whom Harvey 

 repudiated frankly, not altogether avoiding a con- 

 tempt for chemistry itself. Clad in fine raiment, 

 with rings on their fingers and golden spurs on 

 their heels, they rode tall horses, and gave them- 

 selves pompous airs. The humanist would rather 

 pose as a believer than as an underbred infidel; 

 the Averroist protected the license of his doctrines 

 and manners by subterfuge and ironic evasion : 

 and humanist and Averroist alike stood by at the 

 burning of Bruno 2 . 



1 Contra Medicum quendam Invectivarum Libri Quatuor. 

 (Op. T. n. pp. 1086, 801. Ed. Basel, 1555, quoted Renan, Aver, 

 p. 331.) 



2 The Royal College of Physicians of London had its birth 

 in the schools of Italy; and perhaps in revolt from Averroism 



