Magna et Nova_; and yet when ye were put to it in print, to show your inventions, all ye could say was, that the publisher should have reflected upon the wisdom of the Creator, etc., so that the Poet said well of Democritus, etc., of which I understand not the sense, except ye make yourself the summus vir, and us all the Verveces. I suppose this may be the great credit that ye say ye have labored to gain to your nation; to wit to get us all the honrable title of Wedders. No more at present, but hoping this free and ingenuous Letter shal have a good effect upon you (for I am half perswaded, that the flattery of scorners and ignorants, hath brought you to this height of imaginary learning) and that when ye come to yourself ye will thank me for my pains. I rest your humble servant.’ * * * * * To this letter Professor Sinclair in his turn very pertinently remarked, that they should not criticise his book till they had seen it, and the St Andrews’ teachers were convinced. But unfortunately in the address to the reader with which Professor Sinclair’s _Hydrostaticks_ commences, he gave expression to his wounded feelings. ‘When this Book was first committed to the press, I sent an intimation thereof to some of my friends, for their encouragement to it, a practice now common, and commendable which hath not wanted a considerable success, as witness the respect of many worthy persons, to whom I am oblidged. But there is a generation, that rather than they will encourage any new invention, set themselves by all means to detract from it and the authors of it; so grieved are they, that ought of this kind should fall into the hands of any, but their own. And therefore if the Author shall give but the title of New to his invention, though never so deservedly, they fly presently in his throat, like so many Wild-Catts, studying either to ridicule his work altogether—a trade that usually, the person of weakest abilities, and most empty heads, are better at, than learned men; like those schollars, who being nimble in putting tricks, and impostures upon their Condisciples, were dolts, as to their lesson, or else fall upon it with such snarling and carping as discover neither ingenuity, nor ingeniousness, but a sore sickness called, _Envy_.’ * * * * * Now, indeed, now was the Arch-Bedal justified, and so in hot haste he wrote that stinging book, which purported to be by Patrick Mathers (the Arch-Bedal to the University of St Andrews), but was really by Gregorie, a fact which its erudition must have made clear to Sinclair, even before that kind person, the mutual friend, had confided the fact to him. The curious thing was that with all his desire to heap ridicule upon his adversary, Gregorie only touched upon what would naturally now appear the most vulnerable point, the passage about the Devil of Glenluce.