ed; that he gave
proofs of knowledge above the reach of man; and that a hundred years
passed without food or sleep, would not be sufficient for the attainment
of his learning. After a disputation of nine hours, he was presented by
the president and professors with a diamond and a purse of gold, and
dismissed with repeated acclamations.

From Paris he went away to Rome, where he made the same challenge, and
had in the presence of the pope and cardinals the same success.
Afterwards he contracted at Venice an acquaintance with Aldus Manutius,
by whom he was introduced to the learned of that city: then visited
Padua, where he engaged in another publick disputation, beginning his
performance with an extemporal poem in praise of the city and the
assembly then present, and concluding with an oration equally
unpremeditated in commendation of ignorance.

He afterwards published another challenge, in which he declared himself
ready to detect the errours of Aristotle and all his commentators,
either in the common forms of logick, or in any which his antagonists
should propose of a hundred different kinds of verse.

These acquisitions of learning, however stupendous, were not gained at
the expense of any pleasure which youth generally indulges, or by the
omission of any accomplishment in which it becomes a gentleman to excel:
he practised in great perfection the arts of drawing and painting, he
was an eminent performer in both vocal and instrumental musick, he
danced with uncommon gracefulness, and, on the day after his disputation
at Paris, exhibited his skill in horsemanship before the court of
France, where at a publick match of tilting, he bore away the ring upon
his lance fifteen times together.

He excelled likewise in domestic games of less dignity and reputation:
and in the interval between his challenge and disputation at Paris, he
spent so much of his time at cards, dice, and tennis, that a lampoon was
fixed upon the gate of the Sorbonne, directing those that would see this
monster of erudition, to look for him at the tavern.

So extensive was his acquaintance with life and manners, that in an
Italian comedy composed by himself, and exhibited before the court of
Mantua, he is said to have personated fifteen different characters; in
all which he might succeed without great difficulty, since he had such
power of retention, that once hearing an oration of an hour, he would
repeat it exactly, and in the recital follow th