John, a Franciscan friar, commonly called Doctor Subtilis, was born in the year 1274; but whether in England, Scotland, or Ireland, hath long been a matter of dispute among the learned of each nation. Dempster, Mackenzie, and other Scottish writers, assert positively that he was born at Dunf, a town in Scotland, about 15 miles from Berwick; and, to secure him more effectually, Mackenzie makes him descended from the Dunfes in the Mers. Maccaughwell, an Irish author, who wrote the life of this Duns Scotus, proves him to have been born at Down in the province of Ulster in Ireland: but Leland, Bale, Camden, and Pits, assure us, that he was born at Dunstone in the parish of Emildune, near Alawick in Northumberland; and this opinion is rendered probable by the following conclusion of his manuscript works in the library of Merton college in Oxford.—"Here end the writings of that subtile doctor of the university of Paris, John Duns, who was born in a certain village, in the parish of Emildune, called Dunston, in the county of Northumberland." We are told, that when a boy, he became accidentally known to two Franciscan friars; who, finding him to be a youth of very extraordinary capacity, took him to their convent at Newcastle, and afterwards persuaded him to become one of their fraternity. From thence he was sent to Oxford, where he was made fellow of Merton college and professor of divinity; and Mackenzie says, that not less than 30,000 students came to Oxford to hear his lectures. His fame was now become so universal, that the general of his order commanded him to go to Paris, that the students of that university might also profit from his lectures. He went to Paris in the year 1304, where he was honoured first with the degree of bachelor, then of doctor of divinity, and in 1307 was appointed regent of the divinity schools: during his residence here, the famous controversy about the Immaculate conception of the virgin Mary arose. Albertus Magnus maintained that she was born in original sin. Scotus advanced 200 arguments in support of the contrary opinion, and convinced the university of Paris that she was really conceived immaculate. This important nonsense, however, continued to be disputed till the year 1466, after the council of Basil, when the university of Paris made a decree, that no student, who did not believe the immaculate conception, should be admitted to a degree. Our author had not been above a year at Paris, when the same general of the Franciscans ordered him to remove to Cologne; where he was received with great pomp and ceremony by the magistrates and nobles of that city, and where he died of an apoplecty soon after his arrival, in the year 1308, in the 34th year of his age. Some writers have reported, that Scotus was buried in an epileptic fit; and that, upon removing his bones, he appeared to have turned himself in his coffin. This Doctor Subtilis was doubtless one of the first wranglers of his time, admirably well versed in scholastic divinity, and a most indefatigable scribbler; but the misfortune is, that all his huge volumes do not contain a single page worth the perusal of a rational being. He was the author of a new sect of schoolmen called Scotifts; who opposed the opinions of the Thomists, so called from St Thomas Aquinas. The reader will find a more particular account of Scotus in the Franciscan Martyrology, published at Paris in 1638. He was a most voluminous writer; his works making 12 vols. folio, as published at Lyons by Luke Wadding, 1639.