For rhetoric, he could not ope
His mouth, but out there flew a trope;
And when he happened to break off
I' th' middle of his speech, or cough,
H' had hard words, ready to show 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 show 't his speech
In loftiness of sound was rich;
A Babylonish dialect,
Which learned pedants much affect:
It was a party-coloured dress
Of patch'd and pye-ball'd languages;
'T was 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;
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 as 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,
The ignorant for current took 'em,
That had the orator who once
Did fill his mouth with pebble-stones
When he harangu'd but known his phrase,
He would have us'd no other ways.
In mathematics he was greater
Then 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 shrewd 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 every 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 must 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 cou'd reduce all things to acts,
And knew their natures by abstracts;
Where entity and quiddity,
The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly;
Where Truth in persons does appear,
Like words congeal'd in northern air.
He knew what's what, and that's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly.
In school divinity as able,
As he that hight, Irrefragable;
A second Thomas, or at once
To name them all, another Duns:
Profound in all the Nominal
And Real ways beyond them all;
For he a rope of sand could twist
As tough as learned Sorbonist:
And weave fine cobwebs, fit for scull:
That's empty when the moon is full:
Such as 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
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
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,
Cou'd 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,
In proper terms such as men smatter, When they throw out and miss the matter. For his religion it was fit
To match his learning and his wit;
'T was Presbyterian true blue,
For he was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true church militant:
Such as do build their faith upon
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 carried 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.
Still so perverse and opposite,
As if they worshipp'd God for spite.
The self-same thing they will abhor
way, and long another for.
Free-will they one way disavow,
Another, nothing else allow.
XV. THE CHARACTER OF A SMALL POET.
From Butler's "Characters", a series of satirical portraits akin to those of Theophrastus.
HE Small Poet is one that would fain make himself that which nature never meant. him; like a fanatic that inspires himself with his own whimsies. He sets up haberdasher of small poetry, with a very small stock and no credit. He believes it is invention enough to find out other men's wit; and whatsoever he lights upon, either in books or company, he makes bold with as his own. This he puts together so untowardly, that you may perceive his own wit as the rickets, by the swelling disproportion of the joints. You may know his wit not to be natural, 't is so unquiet and troublesome in him: for as those that have money but seldom, are always shaking their pockets when they have it, so does he, when he thinks he has got something that will make him appear witty. He is a perpetual talker; and you may know by the freedom of his discourse that he came lightly by it, as thieves spend freely what they get. He is like an Italian thief, that never robs but he murders, to prevent discovery; so sure is he to cry down the man from whom he purloins, that his petty larceny of wit may pass unsuspected. He appears so over-concerned in all men's wits, as if they were but disparagements of his own; and cries down all they do, as if they were encroachments upon him. He takes jests from the owners and breaks them, as justices do false weights, and pots that want measure. When he meets with anything that is very good, he changes it into small money, like three groats for a shilling, to serve several occasions. He dis
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