william t. costello, sj - The School of Literature, Communication, and ...

THE FRAMEWORK OF SCHOLASTICISM 29
Virginem dotatam Equation make of pretty maid
Et glebam sequestratam
Simul comparare
Aureos montes
With sequestered meadow glade,
Or to add some golden mountains
To my hoard of silver fountains;
Argenteos fontes This, mathematics true,
In mappa possessionis
Et retentionis
Not to fancy due.
Conglomerare
Mathematica e vera
Et plusquam chimaera. 65
Not all variers were as nimble as Fuller in
gracefully "railing
upon the point/' and a final example from an eminent source
shows a more typical heavy-handedness. The prevarication be-
longs to the worthy James Duport, who plays upon the subject:
"Gold can be produced by chemical art." 66 Duport qualifies as
discreetly ribald when he begins: *
'Salve te . . . vos qui propter
gravitatem videmini Patres, et vos qui propter levitatem estis . . ."
Then, punning upon the Aristotelian principles of origin, that
is, generation, corruption, and privation, Duport says that, while
meretricious gold is produced by the act of generation, such gold
is spurious and adulterate. Next, a pseudocitation from Aristotle:
". . . from the loooth Book of Meteorominerals, the chapter next
after the last," is followed by a dig at the medical profession in
syllogistic form: "Gold is produced either by art or by science.
Yet, not by science, for it is easily produced without science, as
in the case of a doctor, who, if he have practice, can produce
gold without science. Therefore, it remains that gold is produced
by art."
Another locus communis for the prevaricator's humor was pa-
pistry. Duport describes a series of experiments for the easy production
of gold, the first being: "Let a man take a grain of merits,
ten ounces of absolutions, six pounds of indulgences, together
with a fascicle of reliquaries, oil, salt, saliva, well-mixt, and let
all be poured upon the hair of a Cardinal and cooked together
in holy water upon the fire of purgatory, which is kept going by
the incendiary Jesuits by their spirit of sedition, and so boiled
until reduced to nothing. Then will be extracted the finest gold
by the art of chemistry." 67 Finally, prevarication humor turned
often enough upon the other university. On July 10, 1652, Master
Morland of Wadham College, Oxford, turning the other's cheek-
iness, says: "The Cantabrigians call us Oxonians boys: we gener-