masters are illuminated by the three trivials and some by the
four quadrivials and some by both the trivials and the
quadrivials.

Now the three trivials are grammar, which teaches clearly the
agreement of speech; and starting from that, the youth who holds
on to his first teaching makes a beginning whereby he may obtain
a deeper taste of the profundities of other knowledge also; the
second is rhetoric, which by the charm of its colors adorns as
with pearls the subject matter, and ennobles grammar, and instils
acceptably into the ears of men that which is heard; the third is
logic by means of which the method of skilful deductive reasoning
is assigned to the individual sciences, without which the powers
of all the sciences are quiescent, and by whose addition all the
sciences are regularly organized. (The letter ends with a similar
description of the quadrivials.)[82]


2. TWO OXFORD LETTERS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

(1) OXFORD UNIVERSITY TO THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, ACKNOWLEDGING A GIFT OF
BOOKS. (1439.)

Most illustrious, most cultured and magnificent Prince, the
enduring value of the benefits you have conferred on the English
nation, and the meritorious deeds of your most powerful Highness
in its behalf can never die, but, with distinguished fame
destined to endure, will flourish with ever-renewed praise and
happy remembrance. How delightful it certainly is for us to
reflect upon these again and again! Among the rest, however, that