Witworm

What hast thou done With thy poor innocent self […]Thus to come forth, so suddenly, a wit-worm?

Sentimental misses long for poetry— dandies crave the latest fashions— politicasters fatten on battles and revolutions— witworms want anecdotes— censors snap at editorial paragraphs— gossips devour scandal— merchants derive sustenance from ship-news, and hypochondriacs from death— old maids and bachelors smack their labia over the marriages — weather-wises look out for squalls, and pinchfists and pickpockets for the state of stocks — and so on cum multis aliis — ad infinitum.

"By the flesh-hook of Satan!" cried I, "thou are as merry a witworm as ever waged war against dumpishness. […]

Such a course, however, when a neighbor is at hand, with leisure, and of the same spirit, would be recommendable to none, save only to those witlings, and witsnappers, and witworms, whose jests, though highly appreciable to themselves, will not pass current among the throng.

... the calembour, the scintillating jokesmith and jesting witworm who sets the table in a roar, and lays them in the aisles.

Oh, yes, you must definitely be a witworm!

What would he do were he confronted not with an example, but with the thing itself? Turn to a powder, like any other witworm? Oxenstierna had small use for scholars.