Archimedes, though an excellent
engineer, when Syracuse was lost, was found in his study, intoxicated with
speculations; and another great, learned philosopher, like a fool or
frantic, when being in a bath, he leaped out naked among the people, and
cried, 'I have found it, I have found it,' having hit then upon an
extraordinary conclusion in geometry. There is a famous tale of Thomas
Aquinas, the angelical doctor, and of Bonadventure, the seraphical doctor,
of whom Alexander Hales, our countryman, reports, that these great clerks
were invited to dinner by the French King, on purpose to observe their
humours, and being brought to the room where the table was laid, the first
fell to eating of bread as hard as he could drive, at last, breaking out
of a brown study, he cried out '_Conclusum est contra Manichaeos;_' the
other fell a gazing upon the Queen, and the King asking him how he liked
her, he answered, 'Oh, sir, if an earthly Queen be so beautiful, what
shall we think of the Queen of Heaven?' The latter was the better courtier
of the two.
"My Lord, I know none in this age more capable to sit in the chair, and
censure what is true learning, and what _not_, than yourself; therefore,
in speaking of this subject to your Lordship, I fear to have committed the
same error as Phormio did, in discoursing of war before Hannibal.
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