Page:Historical account of Lisbon college.djvu/45

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF LISBON COLLEGE.
35

as explained by the context were free from error, and it was unfair to judge of an author's sentiments by a few isolated sentences. The plea, though deemed evasive by some of his accusers, was admitted by the Archbishop of Paris.

These contests and the troubles attending them, did not interrupt Dr. Sergeant in his missionary labours, nor prevent him from giving many proofs of his love for his Mother College. For the trifling salary of £10, he transacted the College affairs in England during the last forty years of his life, and by the liberal donations he was instrumental in procuring for it, contributed not a little to its support. After a long life of continual labours and exertions in the cause of truth, death came to him whilst holding his pen in his hand in 1707, in the eighty-fourth year of his age, and the fifty-seventh of his priesthood.

The College possesses his portrait with the following motto:

"Sine fictione didici et sine invidia communico."

A comparative sketch of the two illustrious men whose memoirs have just been given, drawn by the pen of Dr. Russell, the Bishop of Vizeu in Portugal, who was their contemporary at College and was therefore intimately acquainted with them, will doubtless be of interest. A copy of the original, in Latin, is inserted in the Annals of the College, of which the following is a translation:

"In their temper and genius there was little resemblance. In Sergeant appeared a lively imagination; in Godden, imagination tempered by an accurate judgement. In Poetry and the Belles Lettres, in every kind of verse as well as in prose, Sergeant displayed a peculiar and happy dexterity. Godden with equal abilities for every species of literature, was in his Humanity studies more than a match for all his companions, in those of Philosophy and Theology decidedly their superior.

"Sergeant, dissatisfied with the beaten track of Aris-