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 | Poems on Affairs of State |  |
The haughty Pedant, swoln with Frothy Name
Of Learned Man, big with his Classick Fame;
A thousand Books read o're and o're again,
Does word for word most perfectly retain,
Heap'd in the Lumber-Office of his Brain;
Yet this cram'd Skull, this undigested Mass,
Does very often prove an arrant Ass;
Believes all Knowledge is to Books confin'd,
That reading only can inform the Mind;
That Sense must Err, and Reason ramble wide,
If Sacred Aristotle ben't their Guide.
Of Learned Man, big with his Classick Fame;
A thousand Books read o're and o're again,
Does word for word most perfectly retain,
Heap'd in the Lumber-Office of his Brain;
Yet this cram'd Skull, this undigested Mass,
Does very often prove an arrant Ass;
Believes all Knowledge is to Books confin'd,
That reading only can inform the Mind;
That Sense must Err, and Reason ramble wide,
If Sacred Aristotle ben't their Guide.
| Poems on Affairs of State | |