His learning is like those letters on a coach, where, many being writ
together, no one appears plain. When the King happens to be at the
university and degrees run like wine in conduits at public triumphs, he
is sure to have his share; and though he be as free to choose his
learning as his faculty, yet, like St. Austin's soul, _Creando
infunditur, infundendo creatur_. Nero was the first emperor of his
calling, though it be not much for his credit. He is like an elephant
that, though he cannot swim, yet of all creatures most delights to walk
along a river's side; and as, in law, things that appear not and things
that are not are all one, so he had rather not be than not appear. The
top of his ambition is to have his picture graved in brass and published
upon walls, if he has no work of his own to face with it. His want of
judgment inclines him naturally to the most extravagant undertakings,
like that of making old dogs young, telling how many persons there are
in a room by knocking at a door, stopping up of words in bottles, &c. He
is like his books, that contain much knowledge, but know nothing
themselves. He is but an index of things and words, that can direct
where they are to be spoken with, but no farther. He appears a great man
among the ignorant, and, like a figure in arithmetic, is so much the
more as it stands before ciphers that are nothing of themselves. He
calls himself an antisocordist, a name unknown to former ages, but
spawned by the pedantry of the present.
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