SOME METAPHYSICAL LIMERICKS.
[To THE EDITOR OT THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Shakespears has a " metaphysical Limerick," but it is in prose. Had it been in rhyme the " Old man of Cadiz, Who asserted, `Life is what it is,' "
would have owed an apology not only to Shakespeare himself but to the "Old Hermit of Prague " for taking the words out of their mouth. Vide Twelfth Night, Act IV., Sc. ii.—Sir Toby to Olivia's Fool, "dissembling" as Sir Topes the Curate :— "Sir To: Jove bless thee, master parson.
Clown! Bones dies, Sir Toby, for as the old hermit of Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc, `That that is, is '; so 1, being master parson, am master parson; for what is that but that ? and is but is ? "
Walton Hall, Warwick.
[So also in effect Butler : " Things are what they are, and the consequences will be what they will be," &c.—ED. Spectator.]
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