over;
  Whate’er the crabbed’st author hath,
  He understood b’ implicit faith: 
  Whatever sceptic could inquire for,
  For every why he had a wherefore,
  Knew more than forty of them do,
  As far as words and terms could go. 
  All which he understood by rote,
  And as occasion serv’d, would quote: 
  No matter whether right or wrong,
  They must be either said or sung. 
  His notions fitted things so well,
  That which was which he could not tell;
  But oftentimes mistook the one
  For th’ other, as great clerks have done. 
  He cou’d reduce all things to acts,
  And knew their natures by abstracts;
  Where entity and quiddity,
  The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly;
  Where Truth in persons does appear,
  Like words congeal’d in northern air. 
  He knew what’s what, and that’s as high
  As metaphysic wit can fly. 
  In school divinity as able,
  As he that hight, Irrefragable;
  A second Thomas, or at once
  To name them all, another Duns: 
  Profound in all the Nominal
  And Real ways beyond them all;
  For he a rope of sand could twist
  As tough as learned Sorbonist: 
  And weave fine cobwebs, fit for scull;
  That’s empty when the moon is full: 
  Such as 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
  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;
  Although by woful proof we find,
  They always leave a scar behind. 
  He knew the seat of paradise,
  Cou’d tell in what degree it lies;
  And, as he was dispos’d could prove it,
  Below the moon, or else above it. 
  What Adam dream’d of when his bride
  Came from her closet in his side;
  Whether the devil tempted her
  By a High-Dutch interpreter;
  If either of them had a navel;
  Who first made music malleable;
  Whether the serpent, at the fall,
  Had cloven feet, or none at all;
  All this without a gloss or comment,
  He could unriddle in a moment,
  In proper terms such as men smatter,
  When they throw out and miss the matter. 
    For his religion it was fit
  To match his learning and his wit;
  ’Twas Presbyterian true blue,
  For he was of that stubborn crew
  Of errant saints, whom all men grant
  To be the true church militant: 
  Such as do build their faith upon
  The holy text of pike and gun;
  Decide all controversies by
  Infallible artillery;
  And prove their doctrine orthodox
  By apostolic blows and knocks;
  Call fire, and sword, and desolation,
  A godly thorough reformation,
  Which always must be carried on,