Diotimos Reading Desk

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Reading language

P. B.’s Commendatory Poem

On the Author’s Vindication and Reply to the Scurvy, Scribbling, Scolding Alazonomastix

It was well that he attacked you, for your foe Could otherwise not have struck so much to your advantage. What he calls ignorance is depth of meaning; He thinks no skill exists beyond common “fense.” Had Bacon lived in this unknowing age And seen experience laughed at on the stage, What tempests would have risen in his blood To support an art which Nature has made good?

Do you think knowledge comes to you innately, Like preaching suddenly into your head? Certainly not: you are a simpler brother. Shame! I must raise the alarm against you with a hue and cry. What are you? Where from? A Presbyterian, surely: An academic rat, holy and pure. As for your soul—and Plato tells you so— You have spoiled that, and plastered Plato too. Just like I. T., your poet, who supplies you With fancies from Cleveland, from beginning to end, And not one rightly applied. You misconstrue The Stagirite’s philosophy and make His logic magical; whatever is unknown Is conjuration, frothy and high-flown. When arguments arise, you grow hoarse at once: You do not know the proper course of topical argument. Shall you and I dispute the whole matter, In practice or in theory?

What? Is my learned friend not permitted To develop his reason towards its highest end? Or shall we envy him because he has more Of Nature’s favours entered to his credit? Tell me seriously: do you think it right To believe everything Aristotle wrote? Though he was blinded, experience can Part the clouds and make a clearer man. If Digby once sees your abusive strain, He will think you atoms not yet formed into a brain. Then into the pot you go! Ah, there is the loss: There is no elixir in you; you are all dross. Sing another song, then, you who censure Our transmigration of embodied souls. Yet you are a Platonist, unable to tell Where these mysterious spirits have their dwelling. So Ambrose threw obscure Persius to the ground: A blind contempt, because he was profound! Look closer, man: can you still not distinguish Between the highest and the lowest wit? When Cynthia hastens to watery Tethys, We do not know what treasures she sees there, What pearls in crystal streams. She sends us Only her influence, and lends A kindly, abundant light. But you, poor trapped rat, Like Scythian dogs, bark at the moon. Great, rare Eugenius, do not delay Your course because his dirt lies in your way. Stain your white skin for once, and do not be Trapped like ermines by this scheme of smearing. Rise to your full meridian; let your star Create a red-letter entry in our calendar, And we shall offer anthems at your shrine As long as dates can give a name to time.

P. B., Master of Arts of Oxford.

17.The poem is a separate contribution signed P. B., rather than an unmarked continuation of Vaughan’s own address. Its abuse of Alazonomastix and its praise of Eugenius are both retained.

18.The modern verse preserves the sequence and number of lines without claiming to reproduce the original rhyme. Native print gives “Common Fense,” with an F distinct from “Sense” in the preceding line. The modern reading retains “fense”: it may evoke fencing or argumentative defence, but a print variant of “sense” also remains possible. The edition does not settle that uncertainty by assigning a physical action to the line.

19.The poem changes its addressee from Eugenius to the opponent. Its sectarian and academic insults remain part of the historical verse.

20.“The Stagirite” names Aristotle. “Topic Course” belongs to the vocabulary of argument and disputation; the modern reading keeps this connection without inventing a particular college exercise. I. T. and Cleveland remain the names or initials supplied by the verse.

21.Metempsychosis is the migration or transmigration of souls. The poem explicitly speaks of embodied souls and uses the phrase within its dispute about philosophical understanding.

22.Cynthia is the moon in the poem’s image, while watery Tethys supplies the sea. “Margarits” are pearls. These unseen treasures and the influence sent to observers prepare the later comparison with barking at the moon.

23.The ermine comparison turns the staining of a white coat into a trap. The closing “Rubric” is rendered as a red-letter calendar entry: the poet imagines Eugenius being honoured with an enduring commemorative date.

24.A. M. abbreviates the Latin title Master of Arts; Oxoniens. gives an Oxford affiliation. The signature P. B. is preserved without expanding the initials to an unproved personal identity.