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PDFComplains 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
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
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
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
