Of argument, a man's no horse; He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl, And that a lord may be an owl; A calf an alderman, a goose a justice, And rooks committee-men and trustees, 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 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; 'Twas 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;