"THE DEVIL AMONG THE SCHOLARS."
ΤΙ ΚΑΚΟΝ Ὁ ΓΕΛΩΣ;
Chrysostom. Homil. in Epist. ad Hebræos.
BUT, whither have these gentle ones, The rosy nymphs and black-eyed nuns, With all of Cupid's wild romancing, Led my truant brains a dancing? Instead of wise encomiastics
Upon the Doctors and Scholastics, Polymaths and Polyhistors,
Polyglotts and-all their sisters,
The instant I have got the whim in,
Off I fly with nuns and women,
1 The volume has already been so unnecessarily protracted, that I give but
an extract from this Poem, and shall, for the present, suppress the notes.
Like epic poets, ne'er at ease Until I've stol'n "in medias res!"
So have I known a hopeful youth Sit down, in quest of lore and truth, With tomes, sufficient to confound him, Like Tohu Bohu, heap'd around him, Mamurra stuck to Theophrastus, And Galen tumbling o'er Bombastus! When lo! while all that's learn'd and wise
Absorbs the boy, he lifts his eyes,
And through the window of his study Beholds a virgin fair and ruddy,
With eyes, as brightly turn'd upon him, as The angel's were on Hieronymus,
Saying, 'twas just as sweet to kiss her-oh! Far more sweet than reading Cicero ! Quick fly the folios, widely scatter'd, Old Homer's laurell'd brow is batter'd, And Sappho's skin to Tully's leather, All are confus'd and tost together! Raptur'd he quits each dozing sage, Oh woman! for thy lovelier page:
Sweet book! unlike the books of art, Whose errors are thy fairest part; In whom, the dear errata column Is the best page in all the volume!
But, to begin my subject rhyme- 'Twas just about this devilish time, When scarce there happen'd any frolics, That were not done by Diabolics,
A cold and loveless son of Lucifer,
Who woman scorn'd, nor knew the use of her, A branch of Dagon's family, (Which Dagon, whether He or She, Is a dispute that vastly better is Referr'd to Scaliger et cæteris,) Finding that, in this cage of fools, The wisest sots adorn the schools, Took it at once his head Satanic in, Το grow a great scholastic mannikin, A doctor, quite as learn'd and fine as Scotus John or Tom Aquinas, Lully, Hales irrefragabilis,
Or any doctor of the rabble is!
In languages, the Polyglotts, Compar'd to him, were Babel sots; He chatter'd more than ever Jew did, Sanhedrim and priest included, Priest and holy Sanhedrim
Were one-and-seventy fools to him! But chief the learned dæmon felt a Zeal so strong for gamma, delta, That, all for Greek and learning's glory, He nightly tippled “ Græco more,” And never paid a bill or balance Except upon the Grecian Kalends,
From whence your scholars, when they want tick, Say, to be At-tick's to be on tick!
In logics, he was quite Ho Panu 2! Knew as much as ever man knew. He fought the combat syllogistic With so much skill and art eristic,
That though you were the learned Stagyrite, At once upon the hip he had you right! Sometimes indeed his speculations Were view'd as dangerous innovations.
As thus-the Doctor's house did harbour a Sweet blooming girl, whose name was Barbara : Oft, when his heart was in a merry key, He taught this maid his esoterica,
And sometimes, as a cure for hectics, Would lecture her in dialectics.
How far their zeal let him and her go Before they came to sealing Ergo, Or how they placed the medius terminus, Our chronicles do not determine us; But so it was-by some confusion In this their logical prælusion,
The Doctor wholly spoil'd, they say,
The figure of young Barbara;
And thus, by many a snare sophistic, And enthymeme paralogistic, Beguil❜d a maid, who could not give, To save her life, a negative 5.
The first figure of simple syllogisms, to which Barbara belongs, together with Celarent, Darii, and Ferio.
5 Because the three propositions in the mood of Barbara are universal affirmatives.
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