Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/119

 who were unlearned; of those who were entire rascals; of such as wore their own hair,—of cue-preachers, cue-psalmists, cue-annalists, and so forth; of the Learned who had worn black leather breeches, of others who had worn rapiers; of the Learned who had died in their eleventh year,—in their twentieth,—twenty-first, &c.,—in their hundred and fiftieth, of which he knew no instance, unless the Beggar Thomas Parr might be adduced; of the Learned who wrote a more abominable hand than the other Learned (whereof we know only Rolfinken and his letters, which were as long as his hands ); or of the Learned who had clipt nothing from each other but the beard (whereof no instance is known, save that of Philelphus and Timotheus ).

Such by-studies did he carry on along with his official labors; but I think the State in viewing these matters is actually mad: it compares the man who is great in Philosophy and Belles-Lettres at the expense of his jog-trot officialities, to concert-clocks, which, though striking their hours in flute-melodies, are worse time-keepers than your gross, stupid steeple-clocks.

To return to St. Clara's day. Fixlein, after such mental exertions, bolted out under the music-bushes and rustling trees; and returned not again out of warm Nature, till plate and chair were already placed at the table. In the course of the repast, something occurred which a Biographer must not omit; for his mother had, by request, been wont to map out for him, during the process of mastication, the chart of his child's-world, relating all