224
HUDIBRAS.
[PART II.
He knew whats'ever's to be known,
But much more than he knew would own.
What med'cine 'twas that Paracelsus[1]
Could make a man with, as he tells us; 300
What figur'd slates are best to make,
On wat'ry surface duck or drake;[2]
What bowling-stones, in running race
Upon a board, have swiftest pace;
Whether a pulse beat in the black 305
List of a dappled louse's back;[3]
If systole or diastole move
Quickest when he's in wrath, or love;[4]
When two of them do run a race,
Whether they gallop, trot, or pace; 310
How many scores a flea will jump,
Of his own length, from head to rump,[5]
Which Socrates and Chærephon
In vain assay'd so long agone;
Whether his snout a perfect nose is, 315
And not an elephant's proboscis;[6]
- ↑ Paracelsus was born in 1493, in Switzerland; and studied medicine, but devoted himself most to astrology and alchemy. He professed to have discovered the philosopher's stone, and the elixir of life, but nevertheless died in poverty. One of his doctrines was that man might be generated without connexion of the sexes, an idea which was humorously but coarsely ridiculed by Rabelais, book ii. ch. 27, where he speaks of begetting 53,000 little men with a single f.
- ↑ Intimating that Sidrophel was a smatterer in natural philosophy, and knew something of the laws of motion and gravity, though all he arrived at was but child's play, such as making ducks and drakes on the water, &c.
- ↑ It was the fashion with the wits of our author's time to ridicule the Transactions of the Royal Society, and Dr Hooke in particular, whose Micrographia is here particularly referred to. Hooke was an admirable and laborious practical philosopher, but in his writings betrays much credulity and deficiency of method.
- ↑ Systole (the contraction) and diastole (the dilatation) of the heart, are the motions by means of which the circulation of the blood is effected; and the passions of the mind have a sensible influence on the animal economy.
- ↑ Aristophanes (Clouds, Act i. sc. 24), introduces a scholar of Socrates describing the method in which Socrates, and his friend Chærephon, endeavoured to ascertain how many lengths of its own feet a flea will jump, not, as our author says, how many lengths of its body. Both Plato and Xenophon allude to this ridicule of their master.
- ↑ The lancets and sucker of the flea were a very favourite object of our earlier microscopists; and they are still popular.
