Yet let it not your anxious Mind perturb
Should Grammar's Law your Diction fail to curb:
Be comforted: it is like Tacitus:
Tis mostly done by leaving out the Verb.
VII
Mark well the Point: and thus your Answer fit
That you thereto all Reference omit,
But argue still about it and about
Of This, and That, and T'Other—not of It.
VIII
Say, why should You upon your proper Hook
Dilate on Things which whoso cares to look
Will find, in Libraries or otherwhere,
Already stated in a printed Book?
IX
Keep clear of Facts: the Fool who deals in those
A Mucker he inevitably goes:
The dusty Don who looks your Paper o'er
He knows about it all—or thinks he knows.
X
A Pipe, a Teapot, and a Pencil blue,
A Crib, perchance a Lexicon—and You
Beside him singing in a Wilderness
Of Suppositions palpably untrue—