Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/57

CANTO I.] He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl, And that a Lord may be an owl, A calf an Alderman, a goose a Justice, And rooks, Committee-men and Trustees. He'd run in debt by disputation, And pay with ratiocination. All this by syllogism, true In mood and figure, he would do.
 * For Rhetoric, he could not ope

His mouth, but out there flew a trope; And when he happen'd to break off I' th' middle of his speech, or cough, H' had hard words,ready to show why, And tell what rules he did it by; Else, when with greatest art he spoke, You'd think he talk'd like other folk, For all a Rhetorician's rules Teach nothing but to name his tools. But when he pleased to show 't, his speech In loftiness of sound was rich;