SIR JOHN BOWRING.
Reading edition
O Bowring, man of many tongues, (All over tongues like rumour) This tributary verse belongs To paint his learned humour; All kinds of gabs he talks, I wis, From Latin down to Scottish; As fluent as a parrot is, But far more Polly-glottish! No grammar too abstruse he meets However dark and verby,— He gossips Greek about the streets, And often Russ—in urbe—: Strange tongues whate’er you do them call, In short the man is able To tell you what’s o’clock in all The dialects of Babel. Take him on ‘Change; try Portuguese, The Moorish and the Spanish, Polish, Hungarian, Tyrolese, The Swedish and the Danish; Try him with these and fifty such, His skill will ne’er diminish, Although you should begin in Dutch And end (like me) in Finnish.
