Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/290

272 reliqui locum nec templum, in quibus philosophi consueverunt componere et reponere sua opera secreta quod non visitavi; nec aliquem peritissimum quem credidi habere aliquam noticiam de scripturis philosophicis quem non exquisivi: quousque veni ad oraculum solis, quod construxerat Esculapides pro se. In quo inveni quemdam virum solitarium abstinentem, studentem in philosophia peritissimum, ingenio excellentissimum, cui me humiliavi in quantum potui, servivi diligenter, et supplicavi devote ut mihi ostenderet secreta scripta illius oraculi: qui mihi libenter tradidit. Et inter cetera desideratum opus inveni, propter quod ad illum locum iveram, et tempore longissimo laboraveram. Quo habito a ad propria cum gaudio remeavi. Inde referens gracias multis modis creatori, et ad peticionem regis illustrissimi laboravi: studens [inter liu., vel studiis] et transtuli primo ipsum de lingua Greca in Caldeam, et de hac in pro et de hac. Arabicam. In primis igitur, sicut inveni in isto codice, transtuli librum peritissimum Aristotelis, in quo libro respondetur ad peticionem regis Alexandri sub hac forma.

I have been directed to this passage by a remark of Anthony à Wood that 'the said John, whether Scotus, or Erigena, or Patricius (for by all those names he is written by authors), was one of great learning in his time, and much respected by kings for his parts. Roger Bacon, a great critic in authors, gives him by the name of Patricius, the character of a most skilful and faithful interpretor of the tongues, and to whose memory we are indebted for some true copies of certain works of Aristotle.' Wood then translates from the Corpus manuscript the passage, which I have given above in the original, and which he supposed to be by Roger Bacon because the glosses in the volume are ascribed to him. The extract however is taken not from the glosses, but from the text itself; a text which might as well have been quoted from one of the printed editions, so that Roger Bacon's name should not have been introduced into the matter at all. As it is, Bacon has been treated for centuries as the author of a fiction of which, so far as I can trace, the proper credit