‘I was not train’d in Academic bowers; And to those learned streams I nothing owe, Which copious from those fair twin founts do flow: Mine have been any thing but studious hours. Yet can I fancy, wandering ‘mid thy towers, Myself a nursling, Granta, of thy lap. My brow seems tightening with the Doctor’s cap; And I walk gowned; feel unusual powers. Strange forms of logic clothe my admiring speech; Old Ramus’ ghost is busy at my brain, And my skull teems with notions infinite: Be still, ye reeds of Camus, while I teach Truths which transcend the searching schoolmen’s vein; And half had stagger’d that stout Stagyrite.[28] Thus it is that our treasure always lies, where our knowledge does not; and fortunately enough perhaps; for the empire of imagination is wider and more prolific than that of experience. The author of the old play, whoever he was, appears to have belonged to that class of mortals, who, as Fielding has it, feed upon their own hearts; who are egotists the wrong way, ‘made desperate by too quick a sense of constant infelicity;’ and have the same intense uneasy consciousness of their own defects that most men have self-complacency in their supposed advantages. Thus venting the dribblets of his spleen still upon himself, he prompts the Page to say, ‘A mere scholar is a creature that can strike fire in the morning at his tinder-box, put on a pair of lined slippers, sit reuming till dinner, and then go to his meat when the bell rings; one that hath a peculiar gift in a cough, and a licence to spit: or if you will have him defined by negatives, he is one that cannot make a good leg, one that cannot eat a mess of broth cleanly, one that cannot ride a horse without spur-galling, one that cannot salute a woman, and look on her directly, one that cannot——’ If I was not afraid of being tedious, I might here give the examination of Signor Immerito, a raw ignorant clown (whose father has purchased him a living) by Sir Roderick and the Recorder, which throws considerable light on the state of wit and humour, as well as of ecclesiastical patronage in the reign of Elizabeth. It is to be recollected, that one of the titles of this play is A Scourge for Simony. ‘_Rec._ For as much as nature has done her part in making you a handsome likely man—in the next place some art is requisite for the perfection of nature: for the trial whereof, at the request of my worshipful friend, I will in some sort propound questions fit to be resolved by one of your profession. Say what is a person, that was never at the university? _Im._ A person that was never in the university, is a living creature that can eat a tythe pig. _Rec._ Very well answered: but you should have added—and must be officious to his patron. Write down that answer, to shew his learning in logic.