, Sir, I must beg your pardon for that, for tho' I am very loath to have any Dispute with you, yet I must take the liberty to tell you it was nine when I saw him at
St. James's
. When Men of this Genius are pretty far gone in Learning they will put you to prove that Snow is white, and when you are upon that Topick can say that there is really no such thing as Colour in Nature; in a Word, they can turn what little Knowledge they have into a ready Capacity of raising Doubts; into a Capacity of being always frivolous and always unanswerable. It was of two Disputants of this impertinent and laborious kind that the Cynick said,
One of these Fellows is Milking a Ram, and the other holds the Pail
.
On Rhetorical Invention
.