’Tis strange how like a very dunce,

Man — with his bumps upon his sconce,

Has lived so long, and yet no knowledge he

Has had, till lately, of Phrenology —

A science that by simple dint of

Head-combing he should find a hint of,

When scratching o’er those little poll-hills,

The faculties throw up like mole-hills;

A science that, in very spite

Of all his teeth, ne’er came to light,

For though he knew his skull had grinders,

Still there turned up no organ finders,

Still sages wrote, and ages fled,

And no man’s head came in his head —

Not even the pate of Erra Pater,

Knew aught about its pia mater.

At last great Dr. Gall bestirs him —

I don’t know but it might be Spurzheim —

Tho’ native of a dull and slow land,

And makes partition of our Poll-land;

At our Acquisitiveness guesses,

And all those necessary nesses

Indicative of human habits,

All burrowing in the head like rabbits.

Thus Veneration, he made known,

Had got a lodging at the Crown;

And Music (see Deville’s example)

A set of chambers in the Temple;

That Language taught the tongues close by,

And took in pupils thro’ the eye,

Close by his neighbor Computation,

Who taught the eyebrows numeration.

The science thus — to speak in fit

Terms — having struggled from its nit,

Was seized on by a swarm of Scotchmen

Those scientifical hotch-potch men,

Who have at least a penny dip,

And wallop in all doctorship,

Just as in making broth they smatter

By bobbing twenty things in water:

These men, I say, made quick appliance

And close, to phrenologic science;

For of all learned themes whatever,

That schools and colleges deliver,

There’s none they love so near the bodles,

As analysing their own noddles;

Thus in a trice each northern blockhead

Had got his fingers in his shock head,

And of his bumps was babbling yet worse

Than poor Miss Capulet’s dry wet-nurse;

Till having been sufficient rangers

Of their own heads, they took to strangers’.

And found in Presbyterians’ polls

The things they hated in their souls!

For Presbyterians hear with passion

Of organs joined with veneration.

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