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PDFA 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
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
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
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
And knew their natures by abstracts;
Where entity and quiddity, 145
The ghosts of defunct bodies fly;
Where
Like words
He knew what’s what, and that’s as high
As metaphysic wit can fly; 150
In school-divinity as able
As
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
