I have long thought that the word “learic” was an invention of modern limerick scholars desperate to find a way to justify the word “limerick,” whose origin as it is applied to Edward Lear’s nonsenses is mysterious, but here is a section from an 1899 book,  Idyls of Killowen: A Soggarth’s Secular Verses (London: James Bowden, 1899), by Matthew Russell, S.J.

Thanks to Doug Harris for sending me the link.