Now, don't imagine, my dear Lisardo, that this anguish of heart proceeded from his leaving behind all the woodbines, and apple-trees, and singing birds, which were wont to gratify his senses near the said cell, and which he could readily meet with in another clime!--No, no: this monody is the genuine language of a bibliomaniac, upon being compelled to take a long adieu of his choicest _book-treasures_, stored in some secretly-cut recess of his hermitage; and of which neither his patron, nor his illustrious predecessor, Bede, had ever dreamt of the existence of copies! But it is time to think of Johannes SCOTUS ERIGENA; the most facetious wag of his times, notwithstanding his sirname of the _Wise_. "While Great Britain (says Bale) was a prey to intestine wars, our philosopher was travelling quietly abroad amidst the academic bowers of Greece;"[236] and there I suppose he acquired, with his knowledge of the Greek language, a taste for book-collecting and punning.[237] He was in truth a marvellous man; as we may gather from the eulogy of him by Brucker.[238] [Footnote 236: Freely translated from his _Script. Brytan. Illustr._, p. 124.] [Footnote 237: Scot's celebrated reply to his patron and admirer, Charles the Bald, was first made a popular story, I believe, among the "wise speeches" in _Camden's Remaines_, where it is thus told: "Johannes Erigena, surnamed Scotus, a man renowned for learning, sitting at the table, in respect of his learning, with Charles the Bauld, Emperor and King of France, behaved himselfe as a slovenly scholler, nothing courtly; whereupon the Emperor asked him merrily, _Quid interest inter Scotum et Sotum_? (what is there between a Scot and a Sot?) He merrily, but yet malapertly answered, '_Mensa_'--(the table): as though the emperor were the Sot and he the Scot." p. 236. _Roger Hoveden_ is quoted as the authority; but one would like to know where Hoveden got his information, if Scotus has not mentioned the anecdote in his own works? Since Camden's time, this facetious story has been told by almost every historian and annalist.] [Footnote 238: _Hist. Philosoph._, tom. 3, 616: as referred to and quoted by Dr. Henry; whose account of our book-champion, although less valuable than Mackenzie's, is exceedingly interesting.] In his celebrated work upon predestination, he maintained that "material fire is no part of the torments of the damned;"[239] a very singular notion in those times of frightful superstition, when the minds of men were harrowed into despair by descriptions of hell's torments--and I notice it here merely because I should like to be informed in what curious book the said John Scotus Erigena acquired the said notion? Let us now proceed to ALFRED; whose bust, I see, adorns that department of Lorenzo's library which is devoted to English History.