Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/Retaliation

Retaliation.

A few years since, at some provincial college
(Places which always rhyme, if nothing else, with knowledge),
A wight was educated, whose discerning,
When added to an extraordinary mass of learning,
Distinguished him on every occasion,
As worthy of a first-rate situation,
Above his fellow-scholars, and his fellow-men,
Thus thought a genius—ergo, he grew lazy,
Ergo, grew poor—what then?
Pressed by privation,
Ergo, he grew crazy.

He'd strut about the street sometimes, and speak,
In English incoherently, 'tis true;
But in the learned languages, Latin and Greek,
His wits were sound again; and well he knew
How to interpret them in darkest mood,
And prove in answering that he understood.
Thus through his madness sometimes shone
A glance of wit,
Like light through darkness; and for one
Witness the following hit.
He had another
Old academic brother,
Who, though well learned, had too much sense
To think of living by his wits; and hence
Set up in business as a seller
(Industrious fellow!)
Of brittle glasses
And earthenware,
With vessels rare,
Procured from Staffordshire and other places.

One day, while raining fast as it could pour,
The shopman, standing just within his door,
Perceived our crazy scholar passing by,
With not a thread upon him dry.
Not wet himself, wishing to have some sport,
And scholar-like retort,
He hailed him in the Latin tongue,
And flung
A query, which, to those who do not know,
Is rendered into English just below.
Pluit tantum,
Nescio quantum,
Scisne tu?
That it rains hard I am aware,
How much it rains I cannot swear,
Pray, sir, can you?

The crazed man turned, and flung a huge stone, dashing
Through window-panes, producing direful crashing;
And further, gave his tit for tat, in
The following doggrel Latin:
Fregi tot,
Nescio quot
Scisne tu?
A heap of things are gone to pot,
How many truly I know not,
Pray, sir, do you?