XXXIV. But if I was to give my opinion which of the nations of Europe should be preferred to the rest, with respect to their penetration, I should incline to the sentiment of Heidegger a German author, who concedes this advantage to the English. It is certain that Great Britain, since literature, arts, and sciences, were first cultivated in it, has produced a copious harvest of authors of the first class. The recital of those only, which have arisen in that country, out of the Benedictine and Seraphic orders of religious, would be tedious and tiresome. But I cannot forbear to mention, that we are indebted to each of these two orders, for three stars of the first magnitude. To the Benedictine, for the venerable Bede, the famous Alcuinus, and the celebrated Calculator Suiset. To the Seraphic, for Alexander de Ales, the subtil Scotus, and his disciple William Ocman. Cardanus in his Treatise (de Subtilit. lib. 16. de Scient.) graduates among the twelve most acute geniuses of the world, the subtil Scotus and the Calculator Suiset, in the fourth and fifth rank, of whom he says: _Barbaros ingenio nobis haud esse inferiores, quandoquidem sub Brumæ cœlo, divisa toto orbe Britannia duos tam clari ingeniique viros emisserit._ XXXV. Neither should we conceal, that at the time when the other nations of Europe scarce knew what the mathematics meant, the two beforementioned orders of Religious exhibited two illustrious English mathematicians; Roger Bacon, and Oliver of Malmsbury; of the first of whom, the vulgar feigned the same tale, they did of Albertus Magnus, that is, that he had made a brazen head, which answered all questions that were put to it. The other was not less famous than he, of whom John Pitseus relates, that he had invented some machinery, by the help of which he was enabled to fly, although he never could attain at doing it, for above the distance of about a hundred and twenty yards at a time; but that was doing more, than any other man ever did before him.