the common schoole of the colledge of Navarre,[261] where, (at the prefixed time), he should, (God willing), be ready to answer to what should be propounded to him concerning any science, liberal art, discipline, or faculty, practical or theoretick, not excluding the theological nor jurisprudential habits, though grounded but upon the testimonies of God and man, and that in any of these twelve languages,[262] Hebrew, Syriack, Arabick, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, English, Dutch, Flemish, and Sclavonian, in either verse or prose, at the discretion of the disputant; which high enterprise and hardy undertaking, by way of challenge to the learndst men in the world, damped the wits of many able scholars to consider whether it was the attempt of a fanatick spirit, or lofty designe of a well-poised judgment; yet after a few days enquiry concerning him, when information was got of his incomparable endowments, all the choicest and most profound philosophers, mathematicians, naturalists, mediciners, alchymists, apothecaries, surgeons, doctors of both civil and canon law, and divines both for controversies and positive doctrine, together with the primest grammarians, rhetoricians, logicians, and others, professors of other arts and disciplines at Paris, plyed their studys in their private cels for the space of a moneth, exceeding hard, and with huge paines and labor set all their braines awork how to contrive the knurriest arguments, and most difficult questions could be devised, thereby to puzzle him in the resolving of them, meander him in his answers, put him out of his medium, and drive him to a _non plus_; nor did they forget to premonish the ablest there of forraign nations not to be unprepared to dispute with him in their own material dialects, and that sometimes metrically, sometimes otherwayes, _pro libitu_.[263] All this while the Admirable Scot, (for so from thenceforth he was called), minding more his hawking, hunting, tilting, vaulting, riding of well-managed horses, tossing of the pike, handling of the musket, flourishing of colours, dancing, fencing, swimming, jumping, throwing of the bar, playing at tennis, baloon, or long catch; and sometimes at the house games of dice, cards, playing at the chess, billiards, trou-madam, and other such like chamber sports, singing, playing on the lute and other musical instruments, masking, balling, reveling; and, which did most of all divert, or rather distract him from his speculations and serious employments, being more addicted to, and plying closer the courting of handsome ladyes, and a jovial cup in the company of bacchanalian blades, then [than] the forecasting how to avoid, shun, and escape the snares, grins [gins?], and nets of the hard, obscure, and hidden arguments, ridles, and demands, to be made, framed, and woven by the professors, doctors, and others of that thrice-renowned university. There arose upon him an aspersion of too great proness to such like