He had fuch plenty, as fuffic'd To make fome think him circumcis'd; 'Tis many a pious Chriftian's cafe. He was in Logic a great critic, A hair 'twixt fouth, and fouth-weft fide; Confute, change hands, and still confute; He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl, And that a Lord may be an owl; A calf an Alderman, a goose a Justice, 65 70 75 And rooks Committee-Men, or Trustees. He'd run in debt by disputation, And pay with ratiocination. All this by fyllogism true, In mood and figure, he would do. For Rhetoric, he could not ope For all a Rhetorician's rules Teach nothing but to name his tools. His ordinary rate of speech In loftiness of found was rich; A Babylonish dialect, Which learned pedants much affect ; Of patch'd and piebald languages: 80 85 90 95 'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin, As if h'had talk'd three parts in one; Which made fome think, when he did gabble, Or Cerberus himself pronounce A leafh of languages at once. As if his stock would ne'er be fpent: Was hard enough to touch them on; 105 110 VOL. I. That had the orator, who once Did fill his mouth with pebble ftones In Mathematics he was greater Befide, he was a fhrewd Philosopher, And had read ev'ry text and gloss over: Whate'er the crabbed'ft author hath, He understood b’implicit faith : 115 120 125 130 Whatever Sceptic could enquire for; 135 That which was which he could not tell; 140 For th'other, as great clerks have done. And knew their natures by abstracts; The ghost of defunct bodies fly; 145 |