Your body no more will neigh and will kick,
The point of the spur must eternally prick;
Whoever contrived a thing with such skill,
To keep spurring a horse to make him stand still!
One of the most extravagant works projected on the subject of the Virgin
Mary was the following:--The prior of a convent in Paris had
reiteratedly entreated Varillas the historian to examine a work composed
by one of the monks; and of which--not being himself addicted to
letters--he wished to be governed by his opinion. Varillas at length
yielded to the entreaties of the prior; and to regale the critic, they
laid on two tables for his inspection seven enormous volumes in folio.
This rather disheartened our reviewer: but greater was his astonishment,
when, having opened the first volume, he found its title to be _Summa
Dei-paræ_; and as Saint Thomas had made a _Sum_, or System of Theology,
so our monk had formed a _System_ of the _Virgin_! He immediately
comprehended the design of our good father, who had laboured on this
work full thirty years, and who boasted he had treated _Three Thousand_
Questions concerning the Virgin! of which he flattered himself not a
single one had ever yet been imagined by any one but himself!
Perhaps a more extraordinary design was never known. Varillas, pressed
to give his judgment on this work, advised the prior with great prudence
and good-nature to amuse the honest old monk with the hope of printing
these seven folios, but always to start some new difficulties; for it
would be inhuman to occasion so deep a chagrin to a man who had reached
his seventy-fourth year, as to inform him of the nature of his favourite
occupations; and that after his death he should throw the seven folios
into the fire.