tmost esteem for Des Cartes, and considered his principles as the
bulwark of orthodoxy, that he appeared in vindication of his darling
author, and spoke of the injury done him with the utmost vehemence,
declaring little less than that the cartesian system and the Christian
must inevitably stand and fall together; and that to say that we were
ignorant of the principles of things, was not only to enlist among the
skepticks, but to sink into atheism itself.

So far can prejudice darken the understanding, as to make it consider
precarious systems as the chief support of sacred and invariable
truth.

This treatment of Boerhaave was so far resented by the governours of
his university, that they procured from Franeker a recantation of the
invective that had been thrown out against him: this was not only
complied with, but offers were made him of more ample satisfaction; to
which he returned an answer not less to his honour than the victory he
gained, "that he should think himself sufficiently compensated, if his
adversary received no further molestation on his account."

So far was this weak and injudicious attack from shaking a reputation
not casually raised by fashion or caprice, but founded upon solid
merit, that the same year his correspondence was desired upon botany
and natural philosophy by the academy of sciences at Paris, of which
he was, upon the death of count Marsigli, in the year 1728, elected a
member.

Nor were the French the only nation by which this great man was
courted and distinguished; for, two years after, he was elected fellow
of our Royal society.

It cannot be doubted but, thus caressed and honoured with the highest
and most publick marks of esteem by other nations, he became more
celebrated in the university; for Boerhaave was not one of those
learned men, of whom the world has seen too many, that disgrace their
studies by their vices, and, by unaccountable weaknesses, make
themselves ridiculous at home, while their writings procure them the
veneration of distant countries, where their learning is known, but
not their follies.

Not that his countrymen can be charged with being insensible of his
excellencies, till other nations taught them to admire him; for, in
1718, he was chosen to succeed Le Mort in the professorship of
chymistry; on which occasion he pronounced an oration, "De chemia
errores suos expurgante," in which he treated that science with an
elegance of style not often to be found