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The Famous
HISTORY
OF THE LEARNED
FRIAR BACON.
CHAP.I.
Friar Bacon’s birth and parentage, and by what means he came to be so great a scholar. How the King sent for him from Oxford, and in what wonderful manner he pleased the King’s five senses: Also the comical pranks he played with a courtier sent to fetch him.
THE famous friar Bacon whose name has spread through the world, was born in Lancashire; his father’s name was Ralph Bacon, and his name Roger. From his infancy he was observed to have a profound pregnant wit; he grew up, a great reader of books, and desirous of learning, which to admiration he took so fast, that his schoolmaster could teach him no further; and being
