While he thus devoured Books, it came to pass that Books devoured him. His weak Body would not bear the Toils, and Hours, which he used himself unto; and his Neglect of Moderate Exercise, joined with his Excess of Immoderate Lucubration, soon destroyed the Digestion which his Blood should have had in the last Elaboration of it: by that time sixteen Winters had snowed upon him, he began to be Distempered, with many Pains and Ails, especially in some of his Joints, which at last were the Gates of Death unto him; not without such very afflictive touches of Melancholy, too, as made him sometimes to Write himself, Deodatus Melancholicus. This was his way of living, shall I say, or of Dying? And the success of this Diligence was according to the Temper of it Great. When he was but Twelve Years Old he was admitted into the College, by strict Examiners: And many Months after this passed not, before he had accurately gone over all the Old Testament in Hebrew, as well as the New in Greek, besides his going through all the Liberal Sciences, before many other designers for Philosophy do so much as begin to look into them. He Commenced Bachelor of Arts, at the Age of ⟨p. 6⟩Sixteen, and in the Act entertained the Auditory with an Hebrew Oration, which gave a good Account of the Academical Affairs among the ancient Jews. Indeed the Hebrew Language was become so Familiar with him, as if (to use the Expression which one had in an Ingenious Elegy upon his Death) he had apprehended it should quickly become the only Language which he should have occasion for. His Second Degree after seven years being in the College, he took just before Death gave him a Third, which last was a promotion infinitely beyond either of the former. He then maintained for his Position, Datur Vacuum; and by his Discourse upon it (as well as by other Memorials and Experiments left behind him in Manuscripts) he gave a specimen of his Intimate Acquaintance with the Corpuscularian (and only right) Philosophy. By this time he had informed himself like another Mirandula, and was admirably capable of arguing about, almost every Subject that fell within the Concernments of a Learned Man. Not only Philosophy but also Divinity did he now own a Body of: The Difficulties of the Mathematics he had particularly overcome, and the abstruse parts both of Arithmetic and Astronomy, were grasped in his Knowledge.
While he thus devoured Books, it came to pass that Books devoured him. His weak Body would not bear the Toils, and Hours, which he used himself unto; and his Neglect of Moderate Exercise, joyned with his Excess of Immoderate Lucubration, soon destroyed the Digestion which his Blood should have had in the last Elaboration of it: by that time sixteen Winters had snow'd upon him, he began to be Distempered, with many Pains and Ailes, especially in some of his Joynts, which at last were the Gates of Death unto him; not without such very afflictive touches of Melancholy, too, as made him sometimes to Write himself, Deodatus Melancholicus. This was his way of living, shall I say, or of Dying? And the success of this Diligence was according to the Temper of it Great. When he was but Twelve Years Old he was admitted into the Colledge, by strict Examiners: And many Months after this passed not, before he had accurately gone over all the Old Testament in Hebrew, as well as the New in Greek, besides his going through all the Liberal Sciences, before many other designers for Philosophy do so much as begin to look into them. He Commenced Batchelour of Arts, at the Age of ⟨p. 6⟩Sixteen, and in the Act entertained the Auditory with an Hebrew Oration, which gave a good Account of the Academical Affairs among the ancient Jews. Indeed the Hebrew Language was become so Familiar with him, as if (to use the Expression which one had in an Ingenious Elegy upon his Death) he had apprehended it should quickly become the only Language which he should have ocasion for. His Second Degree after seven years being in the Colledge, he took just before Death gave him a Third, which last was a promotion infinitely beyond either of the former. He then maintained for his Position, Datur Vacuum; and by his Discourse upon it (as well as by other Memorials and Experiments left behind him in Manuscripts) he gave a specimen of his Intimate Acquaintance with the Corpuscularian (and only right) Philosophy. By this time he had informed himself like another Mirandula, and was admirably capable of arguing about, almost every Subject that fell within the Concernments of a Learned Man. Not only Philosophy but also Divinity did he now own a Body of: The Difficulties of the Mathematicks he had particularly overcome, and the abstruse parts both of Arithmetick and Astronomy, were grasped in his Knowledge.
