Than Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater
For he, by Geometrick scale,
Could take the size of Pots of Ale;
Resolve by Signs and Tangents streight,
If Bread or Butter wanted weight;
And wisely tell what hour o’ th’ day
The Clock doth strike, by Algebra.
—Butler, Samuel.
Hudibras, Part 1, canto 1, lines 119-126.
[2119]. I have often been surprised that Mathematics, the quintessence of truth, should have found admirers so few and so languid. Frequent considerations and minute scrutiny have at length unravelled the cause; viz. that though Reason is feasted, Imagination is starved; whilst Reason is luxuriating in its proper Paradise, Imagination is wearily travelling on a dreary desert.—Coleridge, Samuel.