Of his study and dilygence in holy scrypture

ERom thensforth he gaue him selfe day & nyght moost feruently to the studyes of scrypture in whiche he wrote many noble bokes: which well testyfye bothe his angylyke wyt / his ardent laboure / and his profoūde erudicyon of whiche bokes some we haue & some as an inestimable treasure we haue loste. Grete lybraries hit is incredible to cōsydre with how meruelouse c[…]leryte he red them ouer / and wrote out what hym liked: of y• olde fathers of y• chyrch / so gret knowlege he had as hit were harde for hym to haue y• hath lyued longe & all his lyfe hath done nothyng els but red them. Of these newer dyuynes so good iugement he had y• it myght appere there were nothynge in ony of thē y• were vnknowen to him / but all thynge as rype as though he had all theyr werkes euer before his eyen / but of all these new doctours he specyaliy cōmendeth saynt Thomas as hym y• enforseth hym selfe in a sure piller of truth / he was very quick / wise / & subtyl in dispicions & had grete felicite therin while he had y• hye stomak. But now a grete while he had bode suche conflictes farewell: and euery daye more & more hated them / and so gretely abhored them: that when hercules Estenlis duke of ferrare: fyrst by messengers and after by hym selfe: desyred hym to dispute at ferrare: bycause the generall chapytre of freres prechours was holden there / longe hit was or he coude be brought therto: but at the instant request of the duke whiche very syngulerly loued him he came thyder where he so behaued hymselfe y• was wōdre […]o beholde how all y• audyence reioyced to here hym for hit were not possyble for a man to vtter neyther more cō nynge nor more cōnyngely. But hit was a commune sayenge with hym y• suche altercacyons were for a logition and not merely for a phylosophre / he sayd also that suche disputacyons gretely ꝓfited as were exercised with a peasyble mynde to thenserchynge of the treuth in secrete cōpany without grete audyence: but he sayd that those dispicions dyd grete hurte: y• were holden openly to the stentaciō of lernynge & to wynne the fauoure of the cōmune people & the cōmendacyon of fooles. He thought that vtterly hit coulde vnneth be but that with the desyre of worshyp (whiche these gasynge dysputers gape after) there is with an inseparable bonde annexed the appetite of his cōfusyon & rebuke whome they argue with / whiche appetyte is a dedly wounde to y• soule / & a mortall poyson to charite there was nothing passed hym of those capicions soteltes & cauilacions of sophystrye / nor agayn there was nothyng y• he more hated & abhored cōsyderyng that they serued of nought but to y• shamyng of suche other folke as were in very seyence moche better lerned and in those trifles ignoraūt. And y• vnto thensercherchynge of y• treuth (to which he gaue contynuall laboure) they profyted lytell or nought.