Our young gentleman, upon inquiry, found that this animosity had
sprung from a dispute that happened upon the ramparts, touching
the strength of the fortification, which the doctor, according to
custom, undervalued, because it was a modern work; saying, that
by the help of the military engines used among the ancients, and a
few thousands of pioneers, he would engage to take it in less than
ten days after he should sit down before it. The North Briton, who
was as great a pedant as the physician, having studied fortification,
and made himself master of Caesar's Commentaries and Polybius,
with the observations of Folard, affirmed, that all the methods of
besieging practised by the ancients would be utterly ineffectual
against such a plan as that of the citadel of Lisle; and began to
compare the vineae, aggeres, arietes, scorpiones, and catapultae of
the Romans, with the trenches, mines, batteries, and mortars used
in the present art of war. The republican, finding himself attacked
upon what he thought his strong side, summoned all his learning
to his aid; and, describing the famous siege of Plateae, happened
to misquote a passage of Thucydides, in which he was corrected by
the other, who, having been educated for the church, was also a
connoisseur in the Greek language.
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