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And wisely tell what hour o'th day
The Clock does strike, by Algebra.

Beside he was a shrewd Philosopher;
And had read every Text and gloss over:
What e're the crabbed'st Author hath
He understood b'implicit Faith,
What ever Sceptick could inquere for;
For every why he had a wherefore:
Knew more then 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 might 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 could reduce all things to Acts
And knew their Natures by Abstracts,
Where Entity and Quiddity

The Ghosts of defunct Bodies flie;
Where Truth in Person does appear,

Like words congeal'd in Northern Air.
He knew what's what, and that's as high
As Metaphyfick wit can fly.
In School Divinity as able
As he that hight Irrefragable;
Profound in all the Nominal

And real ways beyond them all,
And with as delicate a Hand

Could twist as tough a Rope of Sand,

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And weave fine Cobwebs, fit for skull
That's empty when the Moon is full;
Such as take Lodgings in a Head
That's to be lett unfurnished.

He could raise Scruples dark and nice,
And after solve 'em in a trice:
As if Divinity had catch'd

The Itch, of purpose to be scratch'd;
Or, like a Mountebank, did wound
And stab her self with doubts profound,
Onely to shew 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,
Could tell in what degree it lies:

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What Adam dreamt 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 Musick malleable:
Whether the Serpent at the fall
Had cloven Feet, or none at all,
All this without a Gloss or Comment,
He would unriddle in a moment

In proper terms, such as men smatter
When they throw out and miss the matter.

Samuel Butler.

120

NOTES.

LOVE POEMS.

p. 1. The good-morrow.

1. 4. The seaven sleepers den'. The seven young men of Ephesus who during the persecution of Diocletian took refuge in a cavern, and having fallen asleep were there entombed (A. D. 250), but were found alive in 479, in the reign of Theodosius. See Baring-Gould's Lives of the Saints.

1. 20. If our two loves be one', &c. If our two loves are one, dissolution is impossible; and the same is true if though two they are always alike. What is simple, as God or the soul, cannot be dissolved; nor compounds, e. g. the heavenly bodies, between whose elements there is no contrariety. 'Non enim invenitur corruptio, nisi ubi invenitur contrarietas; generationes enim et corruptiones ex contrariis et in contraria sunt' (Aquinas). 'Too good for mere wit. It contains a deep practical truth, this triplet (Coleridge).

p. 5. Sweetest love, I do not goe.

Il. 6-8. What is probably another arrangement of these lines by the author is found in later editions:

At the last must part 'tis best,

Thus to use myself in jest

By fained deaths to die.

p. 7. Aire and Angels.

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1. 19. Ev'ry thy haire', i. e. 'thy every hair' and 'even thy least hair'. In common use with the superlative;

I say such love is never blind; but rather

Alive to every the minutest spot.

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Browning, Paracelsus.

11. 23-4. face, and wings Of aire'. Angels who appeared to

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men did so by assuming' a body of thickened air, like mist (Aquinas, Summa Theol. i. 51. 2).

p. 8. The Anniversarie.

18. ‘inmates', i. e. 'lodgers', not members of the family; sometimes foreigners, strangers'.

So spake the Enemie of Mankind, enclos'd
In Serpent, Inmate bad.

Paradise Lost, ix. 494–5.

1. 22. 'wee no more', &c.: 'wee' is the MS. reading, 'now' that of the editions. 'In heaven we shall indeed be blest, happy ; but so will all, equally happy; whereas here on earth we are kings ruling one another, the best of kings ruling the best of subjects.' 'Sir, that all who are happy are equally happy is not A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has not capacity for equal happiness with a philosopher' (Boswell, Johnson).

true.

p.

P. 9. Twicknam garden. Addressed probably to the Duchess of Bedford, who lived at Twickenham, Donne's patroness and the object of some of his most fervid but enigmatic verses. Compare A Nocturnall upon St. Lucies Day.

1. i. 'Blasted with sighs', &c. "The very stones of the Chapel,' he wrote once when preaching in Lent to very small congregations, 'break out into foliage and fruit-I am the only dead thing who can bring forth nothing alive' (Cowley Evangelist, May 1918. Father Congreve). 'Surrounded', i. e. overflow'd.

1. 17. 'groane', so MSS.; the editions read 'grow'. The reference is to the superstition that the mandrake groaned or shrieked when torn up with a fatal effect to the hearer.

1. 18. Or a stone fountaine', &c.

Nè già mai neve sotto al sol disparve
Come io senti' me tutto venir meno
E farmi una fontana a piè d'un faggio;
Gran tempo umido tenni quel viaggio.
Chi udì mai d'uom vero nascer fonte?
Petrarch, Canz. xxiii. 115 f.

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