BALFOUR

balfour, robert (known also as balforeus) (1550?-1625?), scottish philosopher, was educated at st andrews and the university of paris. he was for many years principal of the guienne college at bordeaux. his great work is his _commentarii in organum logicum aristotelis_ (bordeaux, 1618); the copy in the british museum contains a number of highly-eulogistic poems in honour of balfour, who is described as _graium aemulus acer_. balfour was one of the scholars who contributed to spread over europe the fame of the _praefervidum ingenium scotorum_. his contemporary, dempster, called him the "phoenix of his age, a philosopher profoundly skilled in the greek and latin languages, and a mathematician worthy of being compared with the ancients." his _cleomedis meteora_, with notes and latin translation, was reprinted at leiden as late as 1820. see dempster, _historia ecclesiastica gent. scotorum_; irving's _lives of the scottish writers_; anderson's _scottish nation_, i. 217.