“Nisi Lyra lyrasset,
Totus mundus delirasset.”¹
¹ See the Fundamental Principles of Modern Judaism Investigated,
p. 241. _Geschichteder hebräischen Sprache und Schrift_,
p. 105.
Wickliife has also profited much by De Lyra’s writings: he used them
frequently when translating the Bible. Indeed, his writings were
formerly very famous. Pope, in giving a catalogue of Bay’s library, in
his Dunciad, finds――
“De Lyra there a dreadful front extend.”
It appears that soon after the banishment of the Jews from this country,
De Lyra embraced Christianity in Paris. The French biographers have a
particular talent of Frenchifying any learned man who passes through the
towns and streets of France. Accordingly, L’Advocat, in his biographical
dictionary, made a Frenchman of him. But that is disproved by the
title-page of one of De Lyra’s own works,¹ in which he gives England as
his native country.
¹ Brathering’s 8vo. edition of Lyra’s Disputations against the
Jews. See Appendix K.