He afterwards published another challenge, in
which he declared himself ready to detect the errours
of Aristotle and all his commentators, either
in the common forms of logick, or in any which his
antagonists should propose of a hundred different
kinds of verse.
These acquisitions of learning, however
stupendous, were not gained at the expense of any pleasure
which youth generally indulges, or by the omission
of any accomplishment in which it becomes a gentleman
to excel: he practised in great perfection the
arts of drawing and painting, he was an eminent
performer in both vocal and instrumental musick, he
danced with uncommon gracefulness, and, on the day
after his disputation at Paris, exhibited his skill in
horsemanship before the court of France, where at a
publick match of tilting, he bore away the ring upon
his lance fifteen times together.
He excelled likewise in domestic games of less
dignity and reputation: and in the interval between
his challenge and disputation at Paris, he spent so
much of his time at cards, dice, and tennis, that a
lampoon was fixed upon the gate of the Sorbonne,
directing those that would see this monster of
erudition, to look for him at the tavern.
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