35 That knaves do
work with, call'd a fool,
And offer to lay wagers that
As
MONTAIGNE,
playing with his cat,
Complains she thought him
but an ass,
Much more she wou'd Sir HUDIBRAS; 40 (For that's the
name our valiant knight
To all his challenges did write).
But they're
mistaken very much,
'Tis plain enough he was no such;
We grant,
although he had much wit, 45 H' was very shy of using it;
As being
loth to wear it out,
And therefore bore it not about,
Unless on
holy-days, or so,
As men their best apparel do. 50 Beside, 'tis known
he could speak GREEK
As naturally as pigs squeek;
That LATIN
was no more difficile,
Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle:
Being rich
in both, he never scanted 55 His bounty unto such as wanted;
But
much of either would afford
To many, that had not one word.
For
Hebrew roots, although they're found
To flourish most in barren
ground, 60 He had such plenty, as suffic'd
To make some think
him circumcis'd;
And truly so, he was, perhaps,
Not as a proselyte,
but for claps.
He was in LOGIC a great critic, 65 Profoundly skill'd in analytic;
He could distinguish, and divide
A hair 'twixt south, and
south-west side:
On either which he would dispute,
Confute,
change hands, and still confute, 70 He'd undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a man's no horse;
He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a lord may be an owl,
A calf an alderman, a goose a justice,
75 And rooks Committee-men and Trustees.
He'd run in debt by
disputation,
And pay with ratiocination.
All this by syllogism, true
In mood and figure, he would do. 80 For RHETORIC, he could not
ope
His mouth, but out there flew a trope;
And when he happen'd to
break off
I' th' middle of his speech, or cough,
H' had hard
words,ready to show why, 85 And tell what rules he did it by;
Else,
when with greatest art he spoke,
You'd think he talk'd like other folk,
For all a rhetorician's rules
Teach nothing but to name his tools. 90
His ordinary rate of speech
In loftiness of sound was rich;
A
Babylonish dialect,
Which learned pedants much affect.
It was a
parti-colour'd dress 95 Of patch'd and pie-bald languages;
'Twas
English cut on Greek and Latin,
Like fustian heretofore on satin;
It
had an odd promiscuous tone,
As if h' had talk'd three parts in one;
100 Which made some think, when he did gabble,
Th' had heard three
labourers of Babel;
Or CERBERUS himself pronounce
A leash
of languages at once.
This he as volubly would vent 105 As if his
stock would ne'er be spent:
And truly, to support that charge,
He
had supplies as vast and large;
For he cou'd coin, or counterfeit
New words, with little or no wit: 110 Words so debas'd and hard, no
stone
Was hard enough to touch them on;
And when with hasty
noise he spoke 'em,
The ignorant for current took 'em;
That had the
orator, who once 115 Did fill his mouth with pebble stones
When he harangu'd, but known his phrase
He would have us'd no
other ways.
In MATHEMATICKS he was greater
Than
TYCHO BRAHE, or ERRA PATER: 120 For he, by geometric scale,
Could take the size of pots of ale;
Resolve, by sines and tangents
straight,
If bread or butter wanted weight,
And wisely tell what
hour o' th' day 125 The clock does strike by algebra.
Beside, he was a
shrewd PHILOSOPHER,
And had read ev'ry text and gloss over;
Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath,
He understood b' implicit faith:
130 Whatever sceptic could inquire for,
For ev'ry why he had a
wherefore;
Knew more than forty of them do,
As far as words and
terms cou'd go.
All which he understood by rote, 135 And, as
occasion serv'd, would quote;
No matter whether right or wrong,
They might be either said or sung.
His notions fitted things so well,
That which was which he could not tell; 140 But oftentimes mistook th'
one
For th' other, as great clerks have done.
He could reduce all
things to acts,
And knew their natures by abstracts;
Where entity
and quiddity, 145 The ghosts of defunct bodies fly;
Where truth
in person does appear,
Like words congeal'd in northern air.
He
knew what's what, and that's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly; 150
In school-divinity as able
As he that hight, Irrefragable;
A
second THOMAS, or, at once,
To name them all, another
DUNCE:
Profound in all the Nominal 155 And Real ways, beyond
them all:
For he a rope of sand cou'd twist
As tough as learned
SORBONIST;
And weave fine cobwebs, fit for skull
That's empty
when the moon is full; 160 Such as take lodgings in a head
That's to
be let unfurnished.
He could raise scruples dark and nice,
And after
solve 'em in a trice;
As if Divinity had catch'd 165 The itch, on
purpose to be scratch'd;
Or, like a mountebank, did wound
And stab
herself with doubts profound,
Only to show with how small pain
The sores of Faith are cur'd again; 170 Although by woeful proof we
find,
They always leave a scar behind.
He knew the seat of
Paradise,
Could
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