Then some ale to cool the wind-pipes, and a venison pie and a keg of oysters and some oranges contributed by the R.S., and Oldenburg did a quick sort of the mail – one pile containing the latest doings of the Hotel Montmor salon in Paris, a couple of letters from Huygens, a short manuscript from Spinoza, a large pile of ravings sent in by miscellaneous cranks, and a Leibniz-mound. 'This damned German will never shut up!' Oldenburg grunted – which, since Oldenburg was himself a notoriously prolix German, was actually a jest at his own expense. 'Let me see . . . Leibniz proposes to found a Societas Eruditorum that will gather in young Vagabonds and raise them up to be an army of Natural Philosophers to overawe the Jesuits . . . here are his thoughts on free will versus predestination . . . it would be great sport to get him in an argument with Spinoza . . . he asks me here whether I'm aware Comenius has died . . . says he's ready to pick up the faltering torch of Pansophism * . . . . here's a light, easy-to-read analysis of how the bad Latin used by Continental scholars leads to faulty thinking, and in turn to religious schism, war, bad philosophy . . .'