of the vault of the universe, rules at once Time and Space." He ascends, he
rushes forward, farther than the chariot--

"Beyond the Husbandman who ploughs in space
And sows the suns in furrows of the skies."

He ascends those tracks of flame, where on high

"in those lists inane
Wise regulator, Number holds the reins
Of those indomitable steeds;
Number has set a bit i' the foaming mouths
Of these Leviathans, and with nervous hand
Controls them in their tracks;

Their smoking flanks beneath the yoke in vain
Quiver; their nostrils vainly void as foam
Dense tides of lava; and in vain they rear;
For Number on their mettled haunches poised
Holds them, or duly with the rein controls,
Or in their flanks buries his spur divine." (3/8.)

Later he confessed all that he owed, as a writer, to geometry, whose severe
discipline forms and exercises the mind, gives it the salutary habit of
precision and lucidity, and puts it on its guard against terms which are
incorrect or unduly vague, giving it qualities far superior to all the
"tropes of rhetoric."

It was then that he became the pupil of Requien of Avignon, the retired
botanist, a lofty but somewhat limited mind, who was hardly capable of