No cat has _two_ tails.
A cat has _one_ tail _more_ than no cat.
_Ergo_--A cat has three tails.
The following song (in the true spirit of a non-reading man) is from
the pen of a learned seceding Cantab, the late Dr. John Disney, who,
after graduating at Peter-House, Cambridge, LL.B., and for some time
officiating as a minister of the Established Church, resigned a living
"for conscience sake," and closed his career as Minister of the
Unitarian Chapel, in Essex-street, Strand:--
Come, my good College lads! and attend to my lays,
I'll show you the folly of poring o'er books;
For all you get by it is mere empty praise,
Or a poor meagre fellowship, and sour looks.
_Chorus._
Then lay by your books, lads, and never repine;
And cram not your attics,
With dry mathematics,
But moisten your clay with a bumper of wine.
The first of mechanics was old Archimedes,
Who play'd with Rome's ships as we'd play cup and ball,
To play the same game I can't see where the need is,
Or why we should fag mathematics at all.
Then lay by your books, lads, &c.
Great Newton found out the binomial law,
To raise X -|- Y to the power of B;
Found the distance of planets that he never saw,
And we most probably never shall see.
Then lay by your books, lads, &c.
Let Whiston and Ditton star-gazing enjoy,
And taste all the sweets mathematics can give;
Let us for our time find a better employ,
And knowing life's sweets, let us learn how to live.
Then lay by your books, lads, &c.
These men _ex absurdo_, conclusions may draw,
Perpetual motion they never could find;
Not one of the set, lads, can balance a straw,
And longitude seeking is hunting the wind.
Then lay by your books, lads, &c.
If we study at all, let us study the means
To make ourselves friends, and to keep them when made;
Learn to value the blessings kind heaven ordains,
To make others happy, let that be our trade.
_Finale._
Let each day be better than each day before,
Without pain or sorrow,
To-day or to-morrow,
May we live, my good lads, to see many days more.
* * * * *