Being rich in both, he never scanted
His bounty into 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,
He had such plenty, as suffic'd
To make some think him circumcis'd;
And truly so he was, perhaps
Nor as a prosylete, but for claps.
He was in logic a great critic,
Profoundly skill'd in analytic;
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.
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;
And rooks committee-men and trustees.
A calf an alderman, a goose a justice,
He'd run in debt by disputation,
And pay with ratiocination :
All this by syllogism, true
In mood and figure he would do.
For rhetoric, he could not ope
His mouth, but out their flew a trope;
And when he happen'd to break off
I' th' middle of his speech or cough,
II' had hard words, ready to shew why,
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.
But, when he pleas'd to shew't, his speech
In loftiness of sound was rich;
A Babylonish dialect,
Which learned pedants much affect:
It was a party-colour'd dress
Of patch'd and py-ball'd languages:
'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin, Like fustian heretofore on satin.
It had an odd promiscuous tone,
As if he had talk'd three parts in one;
Which made some think, when he did gabble,
Th' had heard three labourers of Babel;
Or Cerberus himself pronounce
A leash of languages at once,
This he as volubly would vent
As if his stock would ne'er be spent;
And truly to support that charge,
He had supplies as vast and large:
For he could coin or counterfeit
New words, with little or no wit;
Words so debas'd and hard, no stone
Was hard enough to touch them on:
And when with hasty noise he spoke 'em,
In mathematics he was greater
Than Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater:
For he, by geometric scale,
Could take the size of pots of ale;
Resolve by sines and tangents, straight,
If bread and butter wanted weight;
And wisely tell what hour o' th' day
The clock does strike, by algebra.
Beside, he was a shrew'd philosopher,
And had read ev'ry text and gloss over;
Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath,
He understood b' implicit faith:
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 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, fly;,
Where Truth in person does appear,
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,
Could 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,
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 carry'd on,
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended.
For nothing else but to be mended.
A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies:
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss:
More peevish, cross, and splenetic,
Than dog distract, or monkey sick;
That with more care keep holiday
The wrong, than others the right way:
Compound for sins they are inclin❜d to, By damning those they have no mind to; 7 Still so perverse and opposite,
As if they worshipp'd God for spite.
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for:
Free-will they one way disavow,
Another, nothing else allow.
All piety consists therein
In them, in other men all sin.
Rather than fail, they will defy
That which they love most tenderly;
Quarrel with minc'd pies, and disparage
Their best and dearest friend, plumb-porridge;
Fat pig and goose itself oppose,
And blaspheme custard through the nose.
Th' apostles of this fierce religion,
Like Mahomet's, were ass and widgeon;
To whom our Knight, by fast instinct
Of wit and temper, was so linkt,
As if hypochrisy and nonsense
Had got th' advowson of his conscience.
Thus was he gifted and accouter'd,
We mean on the inside, not the outward.
That next of all we shall discuss:
Then listen, Sirs, it follows thus:
His tawny beard was th' equal grace
Both of his wisdom and his face;
In cut and die so like a tile,
A sudden view it would beguile:
The upper part thereof was whey,
The nether orange mix'd with grey.
This hairy meteor did denounce
The fall of sceptres and of crowns:
With grisly type did represent
Declining age of government;
And tell with hieroglyphic spade,
Its own grave and the state's were made.
Like Samson's heart-breakers, it
In time to make a nation rue;
|