As being loth to wear it out,
And therefore bore it not about,
Unless on holy-days, or so,
As men their best apparel do. 50
Beside, 'tis known he could speak Greek
As naturally as pigs squeak;[1]
That Latin was no more difficile,
Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle:
Being rich in both, he never scanted 55
His bounty unto 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,[2] 60
He had such plenty, as sufficed
To make some think him circumcised;
And truly so, perhaps, he was
'Tis many a pious Christian's case.[3]
He was in Logic a great critic, 65
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,[4] 70
He'd undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a man's no horse;
- ↑
"He Greek and Latin speaks with greater ease
Than hogs eat acorns, and tame pigeons peas."
Cranfield's Panegyric on Tom Coriate. - ↑ Alluding probably to a notion promulgated by Echard and Sir Thomas Browne, that as Hebrew is the primitive language of man, children, if removed from all society, "brought up in a wood, and suckled by a wolf," would, at four years old, instinctively speak Hebrew. Some students in Hebrew (especially John Ryland, the friend of Robert Hull) have been very angry with these lines, and assert that they have done more to prevent the study of that language, than all the professors have done to promote it.
- ↑ In the first editions this couplet was differently expressed.
And truly so he was perhaps,
Not as a proselyte, but for claps. - ↑ Carneades, the academic, having one day disputed at Rome very copiously in praise of justice, refuted every word on the morrow, by a train of contrary arguments.—Something similar is said of Cardinal Perron.
