Professor Freeman In His "Norman Conquest" Described Gerald As "The
Father Of Comparative Philology," And In The Preface To His
Edition
of the last volume of Gerald's works in the Rolls Series, he calls
him "one of the most learned
Men of a learned age," "the universal
scholar." His range of subjects is indeed marvellous even for an
age when to be a "universal scholar" was not so hopeless of
attainment as it has since become. Professor Brewer, his earliest
editor in the Rolls Series, is struck by the same characteristic.
"Geography, history, ethics, divinity, canon law, biography, natural
history, epistolary correspondence, and poetry employed his pen by
turns, and in all these departments of literature he has left
memorials of his ability." Without being Ciceronian, his Latin was
far better than that of his contemporaries. He was steeped in the
classics, and he had, as Professor Freeman remarks, "mastered more
languages than most men of his time, and had looked at them with an
approach to a scientific view which still fewer men of his time
shared with him." He quotes Welsh, English, Irish, French, German,
Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, and with four or five of these languages
at least he had an intimate, scholarly acquaintance. His judgment
of men and things may not always have been sound, but he was a
shrewd observer of contemporary events. "The cleverest critic of
the life of his time" is the verdict of Mr. Reginald Poole. {3} He
changed his opinions often:
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