There are many, indeed, who can speak Greek and Arabic and
Hebrew, but scarcely any who know the principles of the grammar so as to
teach it, for I have tried very many."[19]
In his treatise entitled "Compendium Studii Philosophiae," which is
printed in this volume for the first time, he adds in relation to this
subject,--"Teachers are not wanting, because there are Jews everywhere,
and their tongue is the same in substance with the Arabic and the
Chaldean, though they differ in mode.... Nor would it be much, for the
sake of the great advantage of learning Greek, to go to Italy, where the
clergy and the people in many places are purely Greek; moreover, bishops
and archbishops and rich men and elders might send thither for books,
and for one or for more persons who know Greek, as Lord Robert, the
sainted Bishop of Lincoln,[20] did indeed do,--and some of those [whom
he brought over] still survive in England."[21] The ignorance of the
most noted clerks and lecturers of his day is over and over again the
subject of Bacon's indignant remonstrance. They were utterly unable to
correct the mistakes with which the translations of ancient works were
full.
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