The other (the Pedagogue) admonished me, saying that people spend too much time on worldly vanity and thus, unfortunately, neglect spiritual matters. Many a man, he added, is ruined by an excessive hankering after learning. Both of them expressed surprise that the Royal Society should have called on a mere student to do this job, as if the Society had thought it impossible to find a competent man in the north to undertake it. Either of them would have been glad to take on the task. But, in my judgment, they were certainly “asses at the lyre” – a saying that has never been more apt than here.3