Bri. We'll part 'em, if you please.
Mir. No, they're entail'd to 'em. Seek to deprive an honest noble Spirit, your eldest Son, Sir, and your very Image, (but he's so like you, that he fares the worse for't) because he loves his Book, and dotes on that, and only studies how to know things excellent, above the reach of such course Brains as yours, such muddy Fancies, that never will know farther than when to cut your Vines, and cozen Merchants, and choak your hidebound Tenants with musty Harvests.
Bri. You go too fast.
Mir. I'am not come to my pace yet. Because h'has made his study all his pleasure, and is retir'd into his Contemplation, not medling with the dirt and chaff of Nature, that makes the spirit of the mind mud too; therefore must he be flung from his inheritance? must he be dispossess'd, and Monsieur Gingle-boy his younger Brother—
Bri. You forget your self.
Mir. Because h'has been at Court, and learn'd new Tongues, and how to speak a tedious piece of nothing; to vary his face as Sea-men do their compass, to worship Images of gold and silver, and fall before the She- calves of the season; therefore must he jump into his Brother's Land?
Bri. Have you done yet, and have you spoke enough in praise of Learning, Sir?
Mir. Never enough.
Bri. But, Brother, do you know what Learning is?
Mir. It is not to be a Justice of Peace as you are, and palter out your time i'th' penal Statutes. To hear the curious Tenets controverted between a Protestant Constable, and Jesuite Cobler; to pick Natural Philosophy out of Bawdry, when your Worship's pleas'd to correctifie a Lady; nor 'tis not the main Moral of blind Justice, (which is deep Learning) when your Worships Tenants bring a light cause, and heavy Hens before ye, both fat and feeble, a Goose or Pig; and then you'll sit like equity with both hands weighing indifferently the state o'th' question. These are your Quodlibets, but no Learning, Brother.