The Logicians

See here two cavillers,
Would-be unravellers
Of abstruse theory and questions mystical
In tête-à-tête,
And deep debate,
Wrangling according to form syllogistical.

Glowing and ruddy
The light streams in upon their deep brown study,
And settles on our bald logician's skull:
But still his meditative eye looks dull
And muddy,
For he is gazing inwardly, like Plato;
But to the world without
And things about,
His eye is blind as that of a potato:
In fact, logicians
See but by syllogisms--taste and smell
By propositions;
And never let the common dray-horse senses
Draw inferences.
How wise his brow! how eloquent his nose!
The feature of itself is a negation!
How gravely double is his chin, that shows
Double deliberation;
His scornful lip forestalls the confutation!
O this is he that wisely with a major
And minor proves a greengage is no gauger!--
By help of ergo,
That cheese of sage will make no mite the sager,
And Taurus is no bull to toss up Virgo!
O this is he that logically tore his
Dog into dogmas--following Aristotle--
Cut up his cap into ten categories,
And cork'd an abstract conjuror in a bottle!
O this is he that disembodied matter,
And proved that incorporeal corporations
Put nothing in no platter,
And for mock turtle only supp'd sensations!
O this is he that palpably decided,
With grave and mathematical precision
How often atoms may be subdivided
By long division;
O this is he that show'd I is not I,
And made a ghost of personal identity;
Proved "Ipse" absent by an alibi,
And frisking in some other person's entity;
He sounded all philosophies in truth,
Whether old schemes or only supplemental;--
And had, by virtue of his wisdom-tooth,
A dental knowledge of the transcendental!

The other is a shrewd severer wight,
Sharp argument hath worn him nigh the bone:
For why? he never let dispute alone,
A logical knight-errant,
That wrangled ever--morning, noon, and night,
From night to morn; he had no wife apparent
But Barbara Celárent!
Woe unto him he caught in a dilemma,
For on the point of his two fingers full
He took the luckless wight, and gave with them a
Most deadly toss, like any baited bull.
Woe unto him that ever dared to breathe
A sophism in his angry ear! for that
He took ferociously between his teeth,
And shook it--like a terrier with a rat!--
In fact old Controversy ne'er begat
One half so cruel
And dangerous as he, in verbal duel!
No one had ever so complete a fame
As a debater;
And for art logical his name was greater
Than Dr. Watts's name!--

Look how they sit together!
Two bitter desperate antagonists,
Licking each other with their tongues, like fists,
Merely to settle whether
This world of ours had ever a beginning--
Whether created,
Vaguely undated,
Or time had any finger in its spinning:
When, lo!--for they are sitting at the basement--
A hand, like that upon Belshazzar's wall,
Lets fall
A written paper through the open casement.

"O foolish wits! (thus runs the document)
To twist your brains into a double knot
On such a barren question! Be content
That there is such a fair and pleasant spot
For your enjoyment as this verdant earth.
Go eat and drink, and give your hearts to mirth,
For vainly ye contend;
Before you can decide about its birth,
The world will have an end!"

LITTLE O'P.--AN AFRICAN FACT.

It was July the First, and the great hill of Howth
Was bearing by compass sow-west and by south,
And the name of the ship was the Peggy of Cork,
Well freighted with bacon and butter and pork.
Now, this ship had a captain, Macmorris by name,
And little O'Patrick was mate of the same;
For Bristol they sailed, but by nautical scope,
They contrived to be lost by the Cape of Good Hope.
Of all the Cork boys that the vessel could boast,
Only little O'P. made a swim to the coast;
And when he revived from a sort of a trance,
He saw a big Black with a very long lance.
Says the savage, says he, in some Hottentot tongue,
"Bash Kuku my gimmel bo gumborry bung!"
Then blew a long shell, to the fright of our elf,
And down came a hundred as black as himself.
They brought with them guattul, and pieces of klam,
The first was like beef, and the second like lamb;
"Don't I know," said O'P., "what the wretches are at?
They're intending to eat me as soon as I'm fat!"
In terror of coming to pan, spit, or pot,
His rations of jarbul he suffered to rot;
He would not touch purry or doolberry-lik,
But kept himself growing as thin as a stick.
Though broiling the climate, and parching with drouth,
He would not let chobbery enter his mouth,
But kicked down the krug shell, tho' sweetened with natt,--
"I an't to be pisoned the likes of a rat!"
At last the great Joddry got quite in a rage,
And cried, "O mi pitticum dambally nage!
The chobbery take, and put back on the shelf,
Or give me the krug shell, I'll drink it myself!
The doolberry-lik is the best to be had,
And the purry (I chewed it myself) is not bad;
The jarbul is fresh, for I saw it cut out,
And the Bok that it came from is grazing about.
My jumbo! but run off to Billery Nang,
And tell her to put on her jigger and tang,
And go with the Bloss to the man of the sea,
And say that she comes as his Wulwul from me."
Now Billery Nang was as Black as a sweep,
With thick curly hair like the wool of a sheep,
And the moment he spied her, said little O'P.,
"Sure the Divil is dead, and his Widow's at me!"
But when, in the blaze of her Hottentot charms,
She came to accept him for life in her arms,
And stretched her thick lips to a broad grin of love,
A Raven preparing to bill like a Dove,
With a soul full of dread he declined the grim bliss,
Stopped her Molyneux arms, and eluded her kiss;
At last, fairly foiled, she gave up the attack,
And Joddry began to look blacker than black;
"By Mumbo! by Jumbo!--why here is a man,
That won't be made happy, do all that I can;
He will not be married, lodged, clad, and well fed,
Let the Rham take his shangwang and chop off his head!"

THE ASSISTANT DRAPERS' PETITION.

Pity the sorrows of a class of men,
Who, though they bow to fashion and frivolity;
No fancied claims or woes fictitious pen,
But wrongs ell-wide, and of a lasting quality.

Oppress'd and discontented with our lot,
Amongst the clamorous we take our station
A host of Ribbon Men--yet is there not
One piece of Irish in our agitation.

We do revere Her Majesty the Queen;
We venerate our Glorious Constitution:
We joy King William's advent should have been,
And only want a Counter Resolution.

Tis not Lord Russell and his final measure,
'Tis not Lord Melbourne's counsel to the throne,
Tis not this Bill, or that, gives us displeasure,
The measures we dislike are all our own.

The Cash Law the "Great Western" loves to name,
The tone our foreign policy pervading;
The Corn Laws--none of these we care to blame,
Our evils we refer to over-trading.

By Tax or Tithe our murmurs are not drawn;
We reverence the Church--but hang the cloth!
We love her ministers--but curse the lawn!
We have, alas! too much to do with both!

We love the sex:--to serve them is a bliss!
We trust they find us civil, never surly;
All that we hope of female friends is this,
That their last linen may be wanted early.

Ah! who can tell the miseries of men
That serve the very cheapest shops in town?
Till faint and weary, they leave off at ten,
Knock'd up by ladies beating of 'em down!

But has not Hamlet his opinion given--
O Hamlet had a heart for Drapers' servants!
"That custom is"--say custom after seven--
"More honour'd in the breach than the observance."

O come then, gentle ladies, come in time,
O'erwhelm our counters, and unload our shelves;
Torment us all until the seventh chime,
But let us have the remnant to ourselves!

We wish of knowledge to lay in a stock,
And not remain in ignorance incurable;--
To study Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Locke,
And other fabrics that have proved so durable.

We long for thoughts of intellectual kind,
And not to go bewilder'd to our beds;
With stuff and fustian taking up the mind,
And pins and needles running in our heads!

For oh! the brain gets very dull and dry,
Selling from morn till night for cash or credit;
Or with a vacant face and vacant eye,
Watching cheap prints that Knight did never edit.

Till sick with toil, and lassitude extreme,
We often think when we are dull and vapoury,
The bliss of Paradise was so supreme,
Because that Adam did not deal in drapery.