3434234Hudibras — Part II, Canto IISamuel Butler (1612-1680)
PART II. CANTO II.
ARGUMENT.
The Knight and Squire in hot dispute,
Within an ace of falling out,
Are parted with a sudden fright
Of strange alarm, and stranger sight;
With which adventuring to stickle,
They're sent away in nasty pickle.
PART II. CANTO II.
'IS strange how some men's tempers suit,
Like bawd and brandy, with dispute,[1]
That for their own opinions stand fast.
Only to have them claw'd and canvast.
That keep their consciences in cases,[2]5
As fiddlers do their crowds and bases,[3]
Ne'er to be us'd but when they're bent
To play a fit for argument.[4]
Make true and false, unjust and just.
Of no use but to be discust; 10
Dispute and set a paradox,
Like a straight boot, upon the stocks,[5]
And stretch if more unmercifully,
Than Helmont, Montaigne, White, or Tully.[6]
R. Cooper sculpt.
John Baptist Van Helmont.
From a Print prefixed to his Works, 1682.
R. Cooper sculpt.
Thomas White.
From a Print by Vertue.
So th' ancient Stoics in the Porch,15
With fierce dispute maintain'd their church,
Beat out their brains in fight and study,
To prove that virtue is a body;[7]
That bonum is an animal,
Made good with stout polemic brawl;20
In which some hundreds on the place
Were slain outright,[8] and many a face
Retrench'd of nose, and eyes, and beard,
To maintain what their sect averr'd.
All which the Knight and Squire in wrath, 25
Had like t' have suffer'd for their faith;
Each striving to make good his own,
As by the sequel shall be shown. The sun had long since, in the lap[9]
Of Thetis, taken out his nap, 30
And like a lobster boil'd, the morn
From black to red began to turn;[10]
When Hudibras, whom thoughts and aching
'Twixt sleeping kept all night and waking,
Began to rouse his drowsy eyes,35
And from his couch prepar'd to rise;
Resolving to despatch the deed
He vow'd to do with trusty speed:
But first, with knocking loud and bawling,
He rous'd the Squire, in truckle lolling;[11]40
And after many circumstances,
Which vulgar authors in romances
Do use to spend their time and wits on,
To make impertinent description,
They got, with much ado, to horse,45
And to the castle bent their course,
In which he to the dame before
To suffer whipping-duty swore:[12]
Where now arriv'd, and half unharnest,
To carry on the work in earnest,50
He stopp'd and paus'd upon the sudden,
And with a serious forehead plodding,[13]
Sprung a new scruple in his head,
Which first he scratch'd, and after said;
Whether it be direct infringing55
An oath, if I should wave this swingeing,
And what I've sworn to bear, forbear,
And so b' equivocation swear;[14]
Or whether 't be a lesser sin
To be forsworn, than act the thing,60
Are deep and subtle points, which must,
T' inform my conscience, be discust;
In which to err a tittle may
To errors infinite make way:
And therefore I desire to know65
Thy judgment, ere we further go. Quoth Ralpho, Since you do injoin't,
I shall enlarge upon the point;
And, for my own part, do not doubt
Th' affirmative may be made out.70
But first, to state the case aright,
For best advantage of our light;
And thus 'tis, whether 't be a sin,
To claw and curry our own skin,
Greater or less than to forbear.75
And that you are forsworn forswear.
But first, o' th' first: The inward man,
And outward, like a clan and clan.
Have always been at daggers-drawing,
And one another clapper-clawing:[15]80
Not that they really cuff or fence.
But in a spiritual mystic sense;
Which to mistake, and make them squabble,
In literal fray's abominable;
'Tis heathenish, in frequent use,85
With Pagans and apostate Jews,
To offer sacrifice of bridewells,[16]
Like modern Indians to their idols;[17]
And mongrel Christian of our times,
That expiate less with greater crimes, 90
And call the foul abomination,
Contrition and Mortification.
Is't not enough we're bruis'd and kicked
With sinful members of the wicked;
Our vessels, that are sanctify'd, 95
Profan'd and curry'd back and side;
But we must claw ourselves with shameful
And heathen stripes, by their example?
Which, were there nothing to forbid it,
Is impious, because they did it: 100
This therefore may be justly reckon'd
A heinous sin. Now to the second;
That Saints may claim a dispensation
To swear and forswear on occasion,
I doubt not but it will appear 105
With pregnant light: the point is clear.
Oaths are but words, and words but wind,[18]
Too feeble implements to bind;
And hold with deeds proportion, so
As shadows to a substance do. 110
Then when they strive for place, 'tis fit
The weaker vessel should submit.
Although your church be opposite
To ours, as Black Friars are to White,
In rule and order, yet I grant 115
You are a reformado saint;[19]
And what the saints do claim as due,
You may pretend a title to:
But saints, whom oaths or vows oblige,
Know little of their privilege; 120
Further, I mean, than carrying on
Some self-advantage of their own:
For if the devil, to serve his turn,
Can tell truth; why the saints should scorn,
When it serves theirs, to swear and lie, 125
I think there's little reason why:
Else h' has a greater power than they,
Which 'twere impiety to say,
We're not commanded to forbear,
Indefinitely, at all to swear;130
But to swear idly, and in vain,
Without self-interest or gain.
For breaking of an oath and lying,
Is but a kind of self-denying,
A saint-like virtue; and from hence 135
Some have broke oaths by Providence.[20]
Some, to the glory of the Lord,
Perjur'd themselves, and broke their word:[21]
And this the constant rule and practice
Of all our late apostles' acts is.140
Was not the Cause at first begun
With perjury, and carried on?
Was there an oath the godly took,
But in due time and place they broke?[22]
Did we not bring our oaths in first,145
Before our plate, to have them burst.
And cast in litter models, for
The present use of church and war?
Did not our worthies of the House,
Before they broke the peace, break vows?150
For having freed us first from both
Th' Alleg'ance and Suprem'cy oath,[23]
Did they not next compel the nation
To take, and break the Protestation?[24]
To swear, and after to recant,[25]155
The Solemn League and Covenant?[26]
To take th' Engagement, and disclaim it.[27]
Enforc'd by those who first did frame it?
R. Cooper sculpt.
Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.
From an Original Picture in the Possession of the Revd. Devereux Baldwin.
Did they not swear, at first, to fight[28]
For the king's safety and his right? 160
And after march'd to find him out,
And charg'd him home with horse and foot?
And yet still had the confidence
To swear it was in his defence?
Did they not swear to live and die165
With Essex, and straight laid him by?[29]
If that were all, for some have swore
As false as they, if th' did no more.[30]
Did they not swear to maintain law,
In which that swearing made a flaw?170
For Protestant religion vow,
That did that vowing disallow?
For privilege of Parliament.
In which that swearing made a rent?
And since, of all the three, not one[31]175
Is left in being, 'tis well known.
Did they not swear, in express words,
To prop and back the House of Lords?
And after turn'd out the whole house-full
Of peers, as dang'rous and unuseful.[32]180
So Cromwell, with deep oaths and vows,
Swore all the Commons out o' th' House;[33]
Vow'd that the red-coats would disband,
Ay, marry wou'd they, at their command;
And troll'd them on, and swore and swore,185
Till th' army turn'd them out of door.
This tells us plainly what they thought,
That oaths and swearing go for nought;[34]
And that by them th' were only meant
To serve for an expedient.[35]190
What was the Public Faith found out for,[36]
But to slur men of what they fought for?
The Public Faith, which ev'ry one
Is bound t' observe, yet kept by none;[37]
And if that go for nothing, why195
Should private faith have such a tie?
Oaths were not purpos'd, more than law,
To keep the good and just in awe,[38]
But to confine the bad and sinful,
Like mortal cattle in a pinfold. 200
A saint's of th' heav'nly realm a peer;[39]
And as no peer is bound to swear,
But on the gospel of his honour,
Of which he may dispose as owner,
It follows, tho' the thing be forgery205
And false th' affirm, it is no perjury,
But a mere ceremony, and a breach
Of nothing, but a form of speech,
And goes for no more when 'tis took
Than mere saluting of the book.[40]210
Suppose the Scriptures are of force,
They're but commissions of course,[41]
And saints have freedom to digress,
But vary from 'em as they please;
Or misinterpret them by private215
Instructions, to all aims they drive at.
Then why should we ourselves abridge,
And curtail our own privilege?
Quakers, that like to lanthorns, bear
Their light within them, will not swear;220
Their gospel is an accidence,
By which they construe conscience,[42]
And hold no sin so deeply red
As that of breaking Priscian's head,[43]
The head and founder of their order,225
That stirring hats held worse than murder;[44]
These thinking they're oblig'd to troth
In swearing, will not take an oath;
Like mules, who if they've not the will
To keep their own pace, stand stock still;[45]230
But they are weak, and little know
What free-born consciences may do.
'Tis the temptation of the devil
That makes all human actions evil:
For saints may do the same thing by235
The spirit, in sincerity,
Which other men are tempted to,
And at the devil's instance do;
And yet the actions be contrary,
Just as the saints and wicked vary.240
For as on land there is no beast
But in some fish at sea's exprest;[46]
So in the wicked there's no vice,
Of which the saints have not a spice;
And yet that thing that's pious in245
The one, in th' other is a sin.[47]
Is't not ridiculous, and nonsense,
A saint should be a slave to conscience?
That ought to be above such fancies,
As far as above ordinances?[48]250
She's of the wicked, as I guess,[49]
B' her looks, her language, and her dress:
And tho', like constables, we search
For false wares one another's church;
Yet all of us hold this for true,255
No faith is to the wicked due.[50]
For truth is precious and divine,
Too rich a pearl for carnal swine. Quoth Hudibras, All this is true,
Yet 'tis not fit that all men knew260
Those mysteries and revelations:[51]
And therefore topical evasions
Of subtle turns, and shifts of sense.
Serve best with th' wicked for pretence;
Such as the learned Jesuits use,[52]265
And Presbyterians, for excuse
Against the Protestants, when th' happen
To find their churches taken napping.
As thus: a breach of oath is duple,
And either way admits a scruple,270
And may be, ex parte of the maker,
More criminal than the injur'd taker;
For he that strains too far a vow,
Will break it, like an o'er-bent bow:
And he that made, and forc'd it, broke it,275
Not he that for convenience took it.
A broken oath is, quatenus oath,
As sound t' all purposes of troth,
As broken laws are ne'er the worse,
Nay, 'till they're broken, have no force.280
What's justice to a man, or laws,
That never comes within their claws?
They have no pow'r, but to admonish;
Cannot control, coerce, or punish,
Until they're broken, and then touch285
Those only that do make them such.
Beside, no engagement is allow'd,
By men in prison made, for good;[53]
For when they're set at liberty,
They're from th' engagement too set free.290
The Rabbins write, when any Jew
Did make to God or man a vow,
Which afterwards he found untoward,
And stubborn to be kept, or too hard;
Any three other Jews o' th' nation295
Might free him from the obligation:[54]
And have not two saints power to use
A greater privilege than three Jews?[55]
The court of conscience, which in man
Should be supreme and sovereign,300
Is't fit should be subordinate
To ev'ry petty court i' th' state,
And have less power than the lesser,
To deal with perjury at pleasure?
Have its proceedings disallow'd, or305
Allow'd, at fancy of Pie-powder?[56]
Tell all it does, or does not know,
For swearing ex officio?[57]
Be forc'd t' impeach a broken hedge,
And pigs unring'd at vis. franc, pledge?[58]310
Discover thieves, and bawds, recusants,
Priests, witches, eves-droppers, and nuisance:
Tell who did play at games unlawful,
And who fill'd pots of ale but half-full;
And have no pow'r at all, nor shift,315
To help itself at a dead lift?
Why should not conscience have vacation
As well as other courts o' th' nation?
Have equal power to adjourn,
Appoint appearance and retorn?320
And make as nice distinctions serve
To split a case; as those that carve.
Invoking cuckolds' names, hit joints?[59]
Why should not tricks as slight, do points?
Is not th' High Court of Justice sworn325
To just that law that serves their turn?[60]
Make their own jealousies high treason,
And fix them whomsoe'er they please on?
Cannot the learned counsel there
Make laws in any shape appear?330
Mould 'em as witches do their clay,
When they make pictures to destroy?[61]
And vex them into any form
That fits their purpose to do harm?
Rack them until they do confess,[62]335
Impeach of treason whom they please,
And most perfidiously condemn
Those that engag'd their lives for them?[63]
And yet do nothing in their own sense
But what they ought by oath and conscience.340
Can they not juggle, and with slight
Conveyance play with wrong and right;
And sell their blasts of wind as dear,[64]
As Lapland witches bottled air?[65]
Will not fear, favour, bribe, and grudge,345
The same case sev'ral ways adjudge?
As seamen, with the self-same gale,
Will sev'ral different courses sail;
As when the sea breaks o'er its bounds,[66]
And overflows the level grounds,350
Those banks and dams, that, like a screen,
Did keep it out, now keep it in;
So when tyrannical usurpation[67]
Invades the freedom of a nation,
The laws o' th' land that were intended355
To keep it out, are made defend it.
Does not in Chanc'ry ev'ry man swear
What makes best for him in his answer?[68]
Is not the rinding up witnesses,[69]
And nicking, more than half the bus'ness?360
Por Matnesses, like watches, go
Just as they're set, too fast or slow;
And where in conscience they're strait-lac'd,
'Tis ten to one that side is cast.
Do not your juries give their verdict365
As if they felt the cause, not heard it?
And as they please make matter o' fact
Run all on one side as they're packt?
Nature has made man's breast no windores,
To publish what he does within-doors;370
Nor what dark secrets there inhabit,
Unless his own rash folly blab it.
If oaths can do a man no good
In his own bus'ness, why they shou'd
In other matters do him hurt,375
I think there's little reason for't.
He that imposes an oath makes it,[70]
Not he that for convenience takes it:
Then how can any man be said
To break an oath he never made?380
These reasons may perhaps look oddly
To th' wicked, tho' they evince the godly;
But if they will not serve to clear
My honour, I am ne'er the near.
Honour is like that glassy bubble,385
That finds philosophers such trouble;
Whose least part crack'd, the whole does fly,
And wits are crack'd to find out why.[71]
Quoth Ralpho, Honour's but a word
To swear by only in a lord:[72]390
In other men 'tis but a huff
To vapour with, instead of proof;
That like a wen looks big and swells,
Is senseless, and just nothing else.[73] Let it, quoth he, be what it will,395
It has the world's opinion still.
But as men are not wise, that run
The slightest hazard they may shun;
There may a medium be found out
To clear to all the world the doubt;400
And that is, if a man may do't,
By proxy whipp'd, or substitute.[74] Though nice and dark the point appear,
Quoth Ralph, it may hold up and clear.
That sinners may supply the place405
Of suffering saints, is a plain case.
Justice gives sentence, many times,
On one man for another's crimes.
Our brethren of New England use
Choice malefactors to excuse,[75]410
And hang the guiltless in their stead,
Of whom the churches have less need.
As lately 't happen'd: in a town
There liv'd a cobler, and but one,
That out of doctrine could cut use, 415
And mend men's lives as well as shoes.
This precious brother having slain,
In times of peace, an Indian,
Not out of malice, but mere zeal,[76]
Because he was an infidel, 420
The mighty Tottipottimoy[77]
Sent to our elders an envoy,
Complaining sorely of the breach
Of league, held forth by brother Patch,
Against the articles in force425
Between both churches, his and ours;
For which he crav'd the saints to render
Into his hands, or hang th' offender:
But they maturely having weigh'd
They had no more but him o' th' trade;430
A man that serv'd them in a double
Capacity, to teach and cobble;
Resolv'd to spare him: yet to do
The Indian Hoghan Moghan too
Impartial justice, in his stead did 435
Hang an old weaver that was bed-rid:
Then wherefore may not you be skipp'd,
And in your room another whipp'd?
For all philosophers, but the Sceptic,[78]
Hold whipping may be sympathetic.440 It is enough, quoth Hudibras,
Thou hast resolv'd, and clear'd the case;
And canst, in conscience, not refuse,
From thy own doctrine, to raise use:[79]
I know thou wilt not, for my sake, 445
Be tender-conscienc'd of thy back:
Then strip thee of thy carnal jerkin,
And give thy outward fellow a firking;
For when thy vessel is new hoop'd,
All leaks of sinning will be stopp'd. 450 Quoth Ralpho, You mistake the matter.
For in all scruples of this nature,
No man includes himself, nor turns
The point upon his own concerns.
As no man of his own self catches 455
The itch, or amorous French achès;[80]
So no man does himself convince,
By his own doctrine, of his sins:
And though all cry down self, none means
His own self in a literal sense: 460
Besides, it is not only foppish,
But vile, idolatrous, and popish,
For one man out of his own skin
To firk and whip another's sin;[81]
As pedants out of school-boys' breeches465
Do claw and curry their own itches.[82]
But in this case it is profane,
And sinful too, because in vain;
For we must take our oaths upon it
You did the deed, when I have done it. 470 Quoth Hudibras, That's answer'd soon;
Give us the whip, we'll lay it on. Quoth Ralpho, That you may swear true,
'Twere properer that I whipp'd you;
For when with your consent 'tis done,475
The act is really your own. Quoth Hudibras, It is in vain,
I see, to argue 'gainst the grain;
Or, like the stars, incline men to
What they're averse themselves to do: 480
For when disputes are weary'd out,
'Tis interest still resolves the doubt:
But since no reason can confute ye,
I'll try to force you to your duty;
For so it is, howe'er you mince it; 485
As, ere we part, I shall evince it,
And curry, if you stand out, whether [83]
You will or no, your stubborn leather.
Canst thou refuse to bear thy part
1' th' public work, base as thou art? 490
To higgle thus, for a few blows,[84]
To gain thy Knight an op'lent spouse,
Whose wealth his bowels yearn to purchase,
Merely for th' int'rest of the churches?
And when he has it in his claws, 495
Will not be hide-bound to the Cause;
BISHOP EDMUND BONNER
R. Cooper sculpt.
BISHOP EDMUND BONNER.
From a Cut in Fox's Martyrology.
Nor shalt thou find him a curmudgin,[85]
If thou dispatch it without grudging:
If not, resolve, before we go,
That you and I must pull a crow.[86]500 Ye 'ad best, quoth Ralpho, as the ancients[87]
Say wisely, have a care o' th' main chance,
And look before you, ere you leap;
For as you sow y' are like to reap:
And were y' as good as George-a-green,[88]505
I should make bold to turn agen;
Nor am I doubtful of the issue
In a just quarrel, as mine is so.
Is 't fitting for a man of honour
To whip the saints, like Bishop Bonner?[89]510
A knight t' usurp the beadle's office,
For which y' are like to raise brave trophies?
But I advise you, not for fear,
But for your own sake, to forbear;
And for the churches, which may chance515
From hence, to spring a variance,
And raise among themselves new scruples,
Whom common danger hardly couples,
Remember how in arms and politics,
We still have worsted all your holy tricks;[90]520
Trepann'd your party with intrigue,
And took your grandees down a peg;
New-modell'd the army, and cashier'd
All that to Legion Smec adher'd;[91]
Made a mere utensil o' your church,525
And after left it in the lurch;
A scaffold to build up our own,
And when w' had done with 't, pull'd it down;
Capoch'd[92] your rabbins of the Synod,[93]
And snapp'd their canons with a why-not.530
Grave synod-men, that were rever'd
For solid face, and depth of beard,
Their Classic model prov'd a maggot,
Their Direct'ry an Indian pagod;[94]
And drown'd their discipline like a kitten,535
On which they'd been so long a sitting;[95]
Decry'd it as a holy cheat,
Grown out of date, and obsolete,
And all the saints of the first grass,[96]
As castling foals of Balaam's ass.540 At this the Knight grew high in chafe,
And staring furiously on Ralph,
He trembled, and look'd pale with ire,[97]
Like ashes first, then red as fire.
Have I, quoth he, been ta'en in fight,545
And for so many moons lain by 't,
And when all other means did fail,
Have been exchang'd for tubs of ale?[98]
Not but they thought me worth a ransom
Much more consid'rable and handsome;550
But for their own sakes, and for fear
They were not safe, when I was there;
Now to be baffled by a scoundrel,
An upstart sect'ry, and a mungrel,[99]
Such as breed out of peccant humours555
Of our own church, like wens or tumours,
And like a maggot in a sore,
Wou'd that which gave it life devour;
It never shall be done or said:
With that he seiz'd upon his blade;[100]560
And Ralpho too, as quick and bold,
Upon his basket-hilt laid hold,
With equal readiness prepar'd,
To draw and stand upon his guard.
When both were parted on the sudden,565
With hideous clamour, and a loud one,
As if all sorts of noise had been
Contracted into one loud din;
Or that some Member to be chosen,
Had got the odds above a thousand;570
And, by the greatness of his noise,
Prov'd fittest for his country's choice.
This strange surprisal put the Knight
And wrathful Squire into a fright;
And tho' they stood prepar'd, with fatal575
Impetuous rancour, to join battle,
Both thought it was the wisest course
To wave the fight, and mount to horse;
And to secure, by swift retreating,
Themselves from danger of worse beating;580
Yet neither of them would disparage,
By utt'ring of his mind, his courage,
Which made them stoutly keep their ground,
With horror and disdain wind-bound. And now the cause of all their fear[101]585
By slow degrees approach'd so near,
They might distinguish different noise[102]
Of horns, and pans, and dogs, and boys,
And kettle-drums, whose sullen dub
Sounds like the hooping of a tub:590
But when the sight appear'd in view,
They found it was an antique show;
A triumph, that for pomp and state,
Did proudest Romans emulate:[103]
For as the aldermen of Rome595
Their foes at training overcome,
And not enlarging territory,
As some, mistaken, write in story,[104]
Being mounted in their best array,
Upon a car, and who but they?600
And follow'd with a world of tall lads,
That merry ditties troll'd, and ballads,[105]
Did ride with many a good-morrow,
Crying, Hey for our town, thro' the borough;
So when this triumph drew so nigh, 605
They might particulars descry,
They never saw two things so pat,
To all respects, as this and that.
First he that led the cavalcate,[106]
Wore a sow-gelder's flagellate, 610
On which he blew as strong a levet,[107]
As well-feed lawyer on his brev'ate,
When over one another's heads
They charge, three ranks at once, like Sweads:[108]
Next pans and kettles of all keys, 615
From trebles down to double base;
And after them upon a nag,
That might pass for a fore-hand stag,
A cornet rode, and on his staff,
A smock display'd did proudly wave. 620
Then bagpipes of the loudest drones,
With snuffling broken-winded tones;
Whose blasts of air in pockets shut,
Sound filthier than from the gut,
And make a viler noise than swine625
In windy weather, when they whine.
Next one upon a pair of panniers,
Full fraught with that which, for good manners,
Shall here be nameless, mix'd with grains,
Which he dispens'd among the swains,630
And busily upon the crowd
At random round about bestow'd.
Then mounted on a horned horse,
One bore at gauntlet and gilt spurs,
Ty'd to the pommel of a long sword635
He held revers'd, the point turn'd downward.
Next after, on a raw-bon'd steed,
The conqueror's standard-bearer rid,
And bore aloft before the champion
A petticoat display'd, and rampant;[109]640
Near whom the Amazon triumphant,
Bestrid her beast, and on the rump on't
Sat face to tail, and bum to bum,
The warrior whilom overcome;
Arm'd with a spindle and a distaff,645
Which, as he rode, she made him twist off;
And when he loiter'd, o'er her shoulder
Chastised the reformado soldier.[110]
Before the dame, and round about,
March'd whifflers, and staffiers on foot.[111]650
With lackies, grooms, valets, and pages.
In fit and proper equipages;
Of whom some torches bore, solve links,
Before the proud virago-minx.
That was both madam and a don.[112]655
Like Nero's Sporus;[113] or Pope Joan;
R. Cooper sculpt.
THOMAS GOODWIN D.D.
From a Print by R. White.
And at fit periods the whole rout
Set up their throats with clam'rous shout.
The Knight transported, and the Squire,
Put up their weapons and their ire;660
And Hudibras, who us'd to ponder
On such sights with judicious wonder,
Could hold no longer, to impart
His an'madversions, for his heart. Quoth he, In all my life till now,665
I ne'er saw so profane a show;[114]
It is a paganish invention,
Which heathen writers often mention:
And he, who made it, had read Goodwin,[115]
Or Ross, or Cælius Rhodogine,[116]670
With all the Grecian Speeds and Stows,[117]
That best describe those ancient shows;
And has observ'd all fit decorums
We find describ'd by old historians:[118]
For, as the Roman conqueror, 675
That put an end to foreign war,
Ent'ring the town in triumph for it,
Bore a slave with him in his chariot;[119]
So this insulting female brave
Carries behind her here a slave: 680
And as the ancients long ago,
When they in field defy'd the foe,
Hung out their mantles della guerre,[120]
So her proud standard-bearer here,
Waves on his spear, in dreadful manner, 685
A Tyrian petticoat for banner.[121]
Next links and torches, heretofore
Still borne before the emperor:
And, as in antique triumphs, eggs
Were borne for mystical intrigues;[122]690
There's one with truncheon, like a ladle,
That carries eggs too, fresh or adle:
And still at random, as he goes,
Among the rabble-rout bestows. Quoth Ralpho, You mistake the matter; 695
For all th' antiquity you smatter
Is but a riding, us'd of course
When the grey mare's the better horse;[123]
When o'er the breeches greedy women
Fight, to extend their vast dominion, 700
And in the cause impatient Grizel
Has drubb'd her husband with bull's pizzle,
And brought him under covert baron,[124]
To turn her vassal with a murrain;
When wives their sexes shift, like hares,[125]705
And ride their husbands like night-mares;
And they, in mortal battle vanquish'd,
Are of their charter disenfranchis'd,
And by the right of war, like gills,[126]
Condemn'd to distaff, horns, and wheels:[127]710
For when men by their wives are cow'd,
Their horns of course are understood. Quoth Hudibras, Thou still giv'st sentence
Impertinently, and against sense:
'Tis not the least disparagement 715
To be defeated by th' event,
Nor to be beaten by main force;
That does not make a man the worse,
Altho' his shoulders, with battoon,
Be claw'd, and cudgell'd to some tune; 720
A tailor's 'prentice has no hard
Measure, that's bang'd with a true yard;
But to turn tail, or run away,
And without blows give up the day;
Or to surrender ere the assault, 725
That's no man's fortune, but his fault;
And renders men of honour less
Than all th' adversity of success;
And only unto such this show
Of horns and petticoats is due. 730
There is a lesser profanation,
Like that the Romans call'd ovation:[128]
For as ovation was allow'd
For conquest purchas'd without blood;
So men decree those lesser shows 735
For vict'ry gotten without blows.
By dint of sharp hard words, which some
Give battle with, and overcome;
These mounted in a chair-curule,
Which moderns call a cucking-stool,[129]740
March proudly to the river's side,
And o'er the waves in triumph ride;
Like dukes of Venice, who are said
The Adriatic sea to wed;[130]
And have a gentler wife[131] than those 745
For whom the state decrees those shows.
But both are heathenish, and come
From th' whores of Babylon and Rome,
And by the saints should be withstood,
As antichristian and lewd; 750
And we, as such, should now contribute
Our utmost strugglings to prohibit.[132] This said, they both advanc'd,[133] and rode
A dog-trot through the bawling crowd
T' attack the leader, and still prest 755
'Till they approach'd him breast to breast:
Then Hudibras, with face and hand,
Made signs for silence; which obtain'd,
What means, quoth he, this devil's procession
With men of orthodox profession? 760
'Tis ethnique and idolatrous,
From heathenism deriv'd to us.
Does not the whore of Bab'lon ride
Upon her horned beast astride,
Like this proud dame, who either is 765
A type of her, or she of this?
Are things of superstitious function
Fit to be us'd in gospel sun-shine?
It is an antichristian opera[134]
Much us'd in midnight times of popery; 770
A running after self-inventions
Of wicked and profane intentions;
To scandalize that sex for scolding,
To whom the saints are so beholden.
Women, who were our first apostles,[135]775
Without whose aid w' had all been lost else;
Women, that left no stone unturn'd
In which the Cause might be concern'd;
Brought in their children's spoons and whistles,[136]
To purchase swords, carbines, and pistols: 780
Their husbands, cullies, and sweethearts,
To take the saints' and church's parts;
Drew several gifted brethren in,
That for the bishops would have been,
And fix'd them constant to the Party, 785
With motives powerful and hearty:
Their husbands robb'd and made hard shifts
T' administer unto their gifts
All they could rap, and rend,[137] and pilfer,
To scraps and ends of gold and silver; 790
Rubb'd down the teachers, tir'd and spent
With holding forth for Parliament;[138]
Pamper'd and edify' d their zeal
With marrow puddings many a meal:
Enabled them, with store of meat, 795
On controverted points to eat:[139]
And cramm'd them till their guts did ache,
With caudle, custard, and plum-cake.
AV^hat have they done, or what left undone,
That might advance the Cause at London? 800
March' d rank and file, with drum and ensign,
T' entrench the city for defence in;
Rais'd rampires with their own soft hands,[140]
To put the enemy to stands;
Prom ladies down to oyster-wenches 805
Labour'd like pioneers in trenches,
Pell to their pick-axes and tools,
And help'd the men to dig like moles?
Have not the handmaids of the city[141]
Chose of their members a committee, 810
For raising of a common purse
Out of their wages, to raise horse?
And do they not as triers sit[142]
To judge what officers are fit?
Have they——At that an egg let fly, 815
Hit him directly o'er the eye,
And running down his cheek, besmear'd,
With orange-tawny[143] slime, his beard;
But beard and slime be'ng of one hue,
The wound the less appear'd in view. 820
Then he that on the panniers rode
Let fly on th' other side a load,
And quickly charg'd again, gave fully,
In Ralpho's face, another volley.
The Knight was startled with the smell, 825
And for his sword began to feel;
And Ralpho, smother'd with the sink,
Grasp'd his, when one that bore a link,
O' the sudden clapp'd his flaming cudgel.
Like linstock, to the horse's touch-hole;[144]830
And straight another, with his flambeau,
Gave Ralpho, o'er the eyes, a damn'd blow.
The beasts began to kick and fling,
And forc'd the rout to make a ring;
Thro' which they quickly broke their way, 835
And brought them off from further fray;
And tho' disorder'd in retreat,
Each of them stoutly kept his seat;
For quitting both their swords and reins,
They grasp'd with all their strength the manes; 840
And, to avoid the foe's pursuit,
With spurring put their cattle to't,
And till all four were out of wind,
And danger too, ne'er look'd behind.[145]
After they'd paus'd awhile, supplying 845
Their spirits, spent with fight and flying,
And Hudibras recruited force
Of lungs, for action or discourse: Quoth he, That man is sure to lose
That fouls his hands with dirty foes: 850
For where no honour's to be gain'd,
'Tis thrown away in be'ng maintain'd:
'Twas ill for us we had to do
With so dishon'rable a foe:
For tho' the law of arms doth bar 855
The use of venom'd shot in war,[146]
Yet by the nauseous smell, and noisome,
Their case-shot savours strong of poison;
And, doubtless, have been chew'd with teeth
Of some that had a stinking breath; 860
Else when we put it to the push,
They had not giv'n us such a brush:
But as those poltroons that fling dirt,
Do but defile, but cannot hurt;
So all the honour they have won, 865
Or we have lost, is much at one.
'Twas well we made so resolute
A brave retreat, without pursuit;[147]
For if we had not, we had sped
Much worse, to be in triumph led;870
Than which the ancients held no state
Of man's life more unfortunate.
But if this bold adventure e'er
Do chance to reach the widow's ear,
It may, being destin'd to assert875
Her sex's honour, reach her heart:
And as such homely treats, they say,
Portend good fortune,[148] so this may.
Vespasian being daub'd with dirt[149]
Was destin'd to the empire for't;[150]880
And from a scavenger did come
To be a mighty prince in Rome:
And why may not this foul address
Presage in love the same success?
Then let us straight, to cleanse our wounds,885
Advance in quest of nearest ponds;
And after, as we first design'd,
Swear I've perform'd what she enjoin'd.[151]
↑That is, some men love disputing, as a bawd loves brandy.
↑The old phrase was, to play a fit of mirth: the word fit often occurs in ancient ballads and metrical romances: it is generally applied to music, and signifies a division or part, for the convenience of the performers.
↑Van Helmont (the elder) was an eminent physician and naturalist, a warm opposer of the principles of Aristotle and Galen, and an enthusiastic student of chemistry; born at Brussels, in 1588, and died 1664. His son, born in 1618, died 1699, was likewise versed in physic and chemistry, and celebrated for his paradoxes, Michael de Montaigne was born at Perigord, of a good family, 1533, died 1592. He was carefully but fancifully educated by his father, awakened every morning by strains of soft music, taught Latin by conversation, and Greek as an amusement. His Essays, however delightful, contain abundance of paradoxes and whimsical reflections. Thomas White (or Albius) was a zealous champion of the Church of Rome and the Aristotelian philosophy, and wrote against Joseph Glanville, who printed in London, 1665, a book entitled, Scepsis Scientifica, or, Confessed Ignorance the Way to Science. He also wrote in defence of the peculiar notions of Sir Kenelm Digby, and is said to have been fond of dangerous singularities. He died in 1676. For Tully, whose character does not answer to the text, some late editions read Lully; but the former has been retained with the author's corrected edition. If Butler meant Cicero he must allude to his Stoicorum Paradoxa, in which, for the exercise of his wit, Cicero defends some of the most extravagant doctrines of the Porch.
↑The Stoics, who embraced all their doctrines as so many fixed and immutable truths from which it was infamous to depart, allowed of no incorporeal substance, no medium between body and nothing. With them accidents and qualities, virtues and vices, and the passions of the mind, were corporeal.
↑We meet with the same account in Butler's Remains, vol. ii. 242. "This had been an excellent course for the old round-headed Stoics to find out whether bonum was corpus, or virtue an animal: about which they had so many fierce encounters in their Stoa, that about 1400 lost their lives on the place, and far many more their beards and teeth and noses." Grecian history does not record these brawls; but Diogenes Laertius, in his life of Zeno, book vii. sect. 5, says, that this philosopher read his lectures in the Stoa or Portico, and hopes the place will be no more violated by civil seditions: for, adds he, when the Thirty Tyrants governed the republic, 1400 citizens were killed there; referring to the judicial murders committed there in 404-3, b. c., on the overthrow of the Athenian constitution.
↑As far as Phœbus first does rise Until in Thetis' lap he lies.Sir Arthur Gorges. See also Virgil'sGeorgics, i. 446-7.
↑Mr M. Bacon says, this simile is taken from Rabelais, who calls the lobster cardinalized, from the red habit which cardinals wear.
↑In the first edition it is duly, but is corrected to duty in the Errata to the second edition of 1664.
↑The Knight's "new scruple" is an excellent illustration of the quibbles by which unscrupulous consciences find excuses for violating oaths and promises.
↑The equivocations and mental reservations of the Jesuits were loudly complained of, and by none more than by the Sectaries. When these last came into power, the Royalists had too often an opportunity of bringing the same charge against them. Walker observes of the Independents, that they were tenable by no oaths, principles, promises, declarations, nor by any obligations or laws, divine or human. And Sanderson, in his "Obligation of Promissory Oaths," says: "They rest secure, absolving themselves from all guilt and fear of perjury; and think they have excellently provided for themselves and consciences, if, during the act of swearing, they can make any shift to defend themselves, either as the Jesuits do, with some equivocation, or mental reservation; or by forcing upon the words some subtle interpretation; or after they are sworn, they can find some loophole or artificial evasion; whereby such art may be used with the oath, that, the words remaining, the meaning may be eluded with sophism, and the sense utterly lost."
↑Alluding to the clans of Scotland, which have sometimes kept up a feud for many generations, and committed violent outrages on each other. The doctrine which the Independents and other sectaries held concerning the natural hostility between the inward and outward man, is frequently alluded to.
↑i.e. Whipping, as administered in Bridewell, and similar houses of correction.
↑The similarity of practice in this particular, between the scourging sects of heathen Indians and the flagellants of the Romish Church, is forcibly pointed out; and, at the same time, a favourite argument of the Puritans, that whatever was Romish was ipso facto sinful, is equally well ridiculed.
↑Such have "lovers' vows" always been represented. The vows of self-chastisement, from which the Knight seeks self-absolution, was a lover's vow. But the general strain of satire is against elastic consciences and easy absolution, whether catholic or sectarian. See Tibullus, Eleg. iv. 17, 18.
↑That is, as being a Presbyterian, a quondam saint, not then in the enjoyment of the pay and privileges of sainthood, as the Independents were. Reformadoes were officers degraded from their command, but who retained their rank. (Wright's Diet, sub voc.) See Part iii. c. ii. line 91.
↑That is, by the direction of the spirit, which was commonly assumed as an excuse for violating oaths. When it was first moved in the House to proceed capitally against the king, Cromwell stood up and told them: "That if any man moved this with design, he should think him the greatest traitor in the world; but since Providence and necessity had cast them upon it, he should pray to God to bless their counsels."
↑"The rebel army," says South, "in their several treaties with the king, being asked by him whether they would stand to such and such agreements and promises, still answered, that they would do as the spirit should direct them. Whereupon that blessed prince would frequently condole his hard fate, that he had to do with persons to whom the spirit dictated one thing one day, and commanded the clean contrary the next." Harrison, Carew, and others, when tried for the part they took in the king's death, professed they had acted out of conscience to the Lord.
↑The Covenanters, to accommodate their "Large Declaration" to the scruples of the Presbyterians in the matter of Episcopacy, inserted, "That the swearer is neither obliged to the meaning of the prescribed oath nor his own meaning, but as the authority shall afterwards interpret it." The swearing and unswearing, which Butler satirizes, is one of the numerous parallels between the Great Rebellion and the French Revolution, only in the latter case the oaths were taken to a far more imposing array of Constitutions. Talleyrand's oaths of this sort would have made the boldest Parliamentary swearer seem nought.
↑Though they did not in formal and express terms abrogate these oaths of allegiance and supremacy till after the king's death, yet in effect they vacated and annulled them, by administering the king's power, and substituting other oaths, protestations, and covenants.
↑In the Protestation they promised to defend the true reformed religion, as expressed in the doctrine of the Church of England; which was presently afterwards disclaimed in the Covenant. Ultimately the Covenant itself was altogether renounced by the Independents.
↑In the Solemn League and Covenant (called a league, because it was to be a bond of amity and confederation between the kingdoms of England and Scotland; and the covenant, because it was in form a covenant with God) they swore to defend the person and authority of the king, and cause the world to behold their fidelity; and that they would not, in the least, diminish his just power and greatness. The Presbyterians, who held by the Covenant so far as it upheld their church, contrived to evade this part of it by saying they had sworn to defend the person and authority of the king in support of religion and public liberty, and not when they were incompatible with each other. But the Independents, who were at last the prevailing party, utterly renounced the Covenant. Copies of the Covenant, subscribed by the Minister and Parishioners, remain in many Parochial Registers, and in some the place for the Minister's name is blank,—he, perhaps, expecting some change, in which it might not be well for him to have signed it.
↑After the death of the king a new oath, which they call the Engagement, bound every man to be true and faithful to the government then established, without a king or House of Peers.
↑Cromwell, when he first mustered his troop, sincerely enough perhaps declared that he would not deceive them by perplexed or involved expressions, in his commission, to fight "for the king and Parliament;" and that he would as soon fire his pistol at the king as at any one else.
↑When the Parliament first took up arms, and the earl of Essex was chosen general, the members of both Houses declared that they would live and die with him. Yet the chief object of the self-denying ordinance was to remove him from the command.
↑Clarendon says, that many of Essex's friends believed he was poisoned, (Vol. iii. b. 10.)
↑Namely, law, religion, and privilege of Parliament.
↑When the army began to proceed against the king, in order to keep the Lords quiet, a distinct promise was made to maintain their privileges, &c. But no sooner was the king beheaded, than it was resolved that the House of Peers was useless, and ought to be abolished, which it was accordingly.
↑After the king's party was utterly overthrown, Cromwell, who all along it is supposed aimed at the supreme power, persuaded the Parliament to send part of their army into Ireland, and to disband the rest, which the Presbyterians in the House were forward to do. And Cromwell, to lull the Parliament, called God to witness, that he was sure the army would, at their command, disband and cast their arms at their feet: and he again solemnly swore, that he had rather himself and his whole family should be consumed, than that the army should break out into sedition. The army, however, did not throw down their arms; but finding that (as they said) all they were to get for these victories was "a piece of paper," and that Parliament intended to make itself perpetual, they marched on London, and in the end, headed by Cromwell, turned the Parliament out of doors.
↑Sir Roger L'Estrange has put this into the moral of his Fable (No. 61), "that in a certain place, the people were only sworn not to dress meat in Lent, and so might do what they pleased, but," says the speaker, "for us who are bound that would be our undoing."
↑Expedient was a term often used by the sectaries. When the members of the Council of State engaged to approve of what should be done by the Commons in Parliament for the future, it was ordered to draw up an expedient for the Members to subscribe.
↑It was usual to pledge the Public Faith, as they called it, by which they meant the credit of Parliament, or their own promises, for monies borrowed, and many times never repaid. Ralph argues that if the public faith be broken with impunity, private faith could not be considered binding.
↑* "Resolved that the Public Faith be buried in everlasting forgetfulness, and that John Goodwin do preach its funeral sermon from Tothill Fields to Whitechapel;" says Sir John Birkenhead, in his "Paul's Church Yard" (Cent. 3, p. 20).
↑Butler cleverly puts this two-edged sarcasm into the mouth of one of those who turned out the peers.
↑As one in a fable of L'Estrange (pt. 2, fab. 227) says—For the swearing, what signifies the kissing of a book, with a calves' skin cover and a pasteboard stiffening betwixt a man's lips and the text?
↑This is, they strained the interpretation of Scripture to their own purposes, just as the Parliament officers took the liberty of disobeying their commissions, on pretence of private instructions or expediency. "They professed their conscience to be the rule and symbol of their faith," says Clement Walker, "and to this they conform the Scriptures, not their consciences to the Scriptures; setting the sun-dial by the clock, not the clock by the sun-dial."
↑The Quakers interpret Scripture literally, and also insist upon correctly using thou in the singular number instead of the plural you, whence Butler charges them with turning the gospel into an English Grammar, and regarding an ungrammatical conventionality as a great offence.
↑Priscian being the acknowledged authority if not the founder of grammar, it is said to break his head to use false grammar, that is, you in the singular number. George Fox, the founder of the order of Quakers, may be regarded as their Priscian. He wrote what may be called an accidence, entitled, "A Battle Door for Teachers and Professors to learn Plural and Singular," 1660, folio.
↑Nash thinks that the poet humorously supposes Priscian, who received so many blows on the head, to be exceedingly averse to taking off his hat; and therefore calls him the founder of Quakerism.
↑A merry fellow, says Bishop Parker, finding all force and proclamations vain for the dispersion of a conventicle, hit upon the stratagem of proclaiming, in the king's name, that none should depart without his leave; whereupon every one went away that it might not be said they obeyed any man.
↑Thus Dubartas: So many fishes of so many features. That in the waters we may see all creatures, Even all that on the earth are to be found, As if the world were in deep waters drown'd. This was one of the whimsical speculations with which the curious entertained themselves before the existence of scientific natural history. See Sir Thomas Browne, Vulgar Errors (Bohn's edit. p. 344).
↑The Antinomian principle was that believers or persons regenerate could not sin, though they committed the same acts which were sins in others; or, in other words, that the condition of the person determined the character of his acts, and made them good or bad, and not the acts which displayed the character of the man; so that one not previously wicked could commit no wickedness.
↑Some sectaries, especially the Seekers and Muggletonians, thought themselves so sure of salvation, that they deemed it needless to conform to ordinances, human or divine.
↑Hence it may be concluded that the widow was a royalist.
↑This is the famous popish maxim, Nulla fides servanda hereticis, here attributed to the puritan sectaries. Ralph, suspecting the widow to be a royalist, insinuates that it is not necessary to keep faith with her.
↑Private or esoteric doctrines, which may be called mysterious, mean that what is publicly professed and taught is not what the teachers mean.
↑Mr Foulis tells a good story about Jesuitical evasions; a little before the death of Queen Elizabeth, when the Jesuits were endeavouring to set aside King James, a little book was written, entitled, a Treatise on Equivocation, which was afterwards called by Garnet, Provincial of the Jesuits, a Treatise against Lying and Dissimulation, which contained the following example. In time of the plague a man goes to Coventry; at the gates he is examined upon oath whether he came from London: the traveller, though he directly came from thence, may swear positively that he did not, because he knows himself not infected, and does not endanger Coventry; which he supposes to answer the final intent of the demand. The MS. was seized by Sir Edward Coke, in Sir Thomas Tresham's chamber, in the Inner Temple, and is now in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, MS. Laud. E. 45, with the attestation in Sir Edward Coke's hand-writing, 6 December, 1605, and the following motto: Os quod mentitur occidit animam.
↑See the history of the Treaty of Newport with Charles I., for ample proof of the employment of this mode of reasoning.
↑There is a traditional doctrine among the Jews, which Maimonides asserts to have come down from Moses, though not in the written law, that if any person has made a vow, which he afterwards wishes to recall, he may go to a Rabbi, or three other men, and if he can prove to them that no injury will be sustained by any one, they may free him from its obligation.
↑Butler told one Mr Veal, that by the two saints he meant Dr Downing and Mr Marshall, who, when some of the rebels had their lives spared on condition that they would not in future bear arms against the king, were sent to dispense with the oath, and persuade them to enter again into the service.
↑The court of pie-powder takes cognizance of such disputes as arise in fairs and markets; and is so called from the old French word pied-puldreaux, which signifies a pedlar, one who gets a livelihood without a fixed or certain residence. See Blackstone's Commentaries. In the borough laws of Scotland, an alien merchant is called pied-puldreaux.
↑That is, by taking the ex officio oath; by which the parties were obliged to answer to interrogatories, even if they criminated themselves. In the conference, 1604, one of the matters complained of was the ex officio oath. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, and Archbishop Whitgift defended the oath, and the king gave a description of it, laid down the grounds upon which it stood, and justified the wisdom of the constitution.
↑Frankpledge was an institution derived from the earliest Saxon times, and based upon the principle of mutual responsibility. By it Lords of the manor had the right of requiring surety of every free-horn man of the age of 14, for his good behaviour, and they were bound for each other. After the Conquest, where frankpledge prevailed, there were periodical meetings, when it was put in exercise, and these were called the View of frankpledge {visus franciplegii). Selden says, that the View of frankpledge was not wholly unknown in his time; which shows the point of Butler's allusion to it. See Blackstone and the Law Dictionaries.
↑Our ancestors, when they found a difficulty in carving a goose, hare, or other dish, used to say in jest, that they should hit the joint if they could think of the name of a cuckold. Kyrle, the man of Ross, had always company to dine with him on market day, and a goose, if it could be procured, was one of the dishes, which he claimed the privilege of carving himself. When any guest, ignorant of the etiquette of the table, offered to save him that trouble, he would exclaim, "Hold your hand, man, if I am good for anything, it is for hitting cuckolds' joints." The British Apollo (vol. ii. No. 59, 1708) explains the origin of this saying, to be "the equal celebrity of one Thomas Webb, carver to the Lord Mayor, in the days of Charles I., both in his office, and as a cuckold."
↑The High Court of Justice was first instituted for the trial of King Charles I., but its authority was afterwards extended in regard to some of his adherents, to the year 1658. As it had no statute or precedents, its determinations were based solely on what best served the turn. Walker says, "should they vote a turd to be a rose, or Oliver's nose a ruby, they expect we should swear it and fight for it: this legislative den of thieves create new courts of justice, neither founded upon law nor prescription."
↑It was supposed that witches, by forming the image of any one in wax or clay, and sticking pins into it, or putting it to other torture, could cause the death of the person represented. Dr Dee records several such supposed enchantments.
↑It was one of the charges against the Parliament, that they had allowed the adherents of the king to be put to the rack in Ireland. The soldiers were said to have used torture to gentlemen's servants in order to extort information concerning their masters' property.
↑This they did in many instances; the most remarkable were those of Sir John Hotham and his son, who were condemned notwithstanding that they had previously shut the gates of Hull against the King, and the case of Sir Alexander Carew.
↑That is, their breath, their pleading, their arguments.
↑The witches in Lapland pretended to sell bags of wind to the sailors, which would carry them to whatever quarter they pleased. See Olaus Magnus.
↑This simile may he found in prose in Butler's Remains, vol. i. p. 298: "For as when the sea breaks over its bounds and overflows the land, those dams and banks that were made to keep it out do afterwards serve to keep it in; so when tyranny and usurpation break in upon the common right and freedom, the laws of God and of the land are abused, to support that which they were intended to oppose."
↑A hit at the common forms of Chancery practice. But Grey thinks the poet has in mind the joke propagated by Sir Roger L'Estrange, Fable 61. "A gentleman that had a suit in Chancery was called upon by his counsel to put in his answer, for fear of incurring a contempt. Well, says the Cavalier, and why is not my answer put in then? How should I draw your answer, saith the Lawyer, without knowing what you can swear? Pox on your scruples, says the client again, pray do your part of a lawyer and draw me a sufficient answer; and let me alone to do the part of a gentleman, and swear it."
↑These lines, thanks to the "vitality" of English law, are as severely satirical now as they were two hundred years ago.
↑This and the following are two of the best remembered and oftenest quoted lines of Hudibras. Sec line 275, above, where the same thought is expressed.
↑This glassy bubble is the well-known Prince Rupert's drop, so called because the prince first introduced the knowledge of it to this country. It is of common glass, in size and shape like the accompanying figure; and its peculiar properties are, that it will sustain without injury very heavy blows upon the body, D, E; but if broken at B, or C, the whole drop will burst into powder with great violence. If the tip, A, be broken off, the bubble will not burst. They are described in Beckmann's History of Inventions (Bohn's Edit. vol. ii. p. 241, &c). The cause of their peculiarities rendered them a great puzzle to the curious.
↑Peers, when they give judgment, are not sworn: they say only, upon my honour. See lines 262, 263, above.
↑We are told in the Tatler, No. 92, "that pages are chastised for the admonition of princes." See an account of Mr Murray of the bed-chamber, who was whipping-boy to King Charles I., in Burnet's Own Times (Bohn's edit. p. 99). Henry IV. of France, when absolved of his excommunication and heresy by Pope Clement VIII., received chastisement in the persons of his representatives, Messrs D'Ossat and Du Perron, afterwards Cardinals.
↑This story is asserted to be true, in the note subjoined to the early editions. A similar one is related by Grey, from Morton's English Canaan, printed 1637. A lusty young fellow was condemned to be hanged for stealing corn; but it was formally proposed in council to execute a bedridden old man in the offender's clothes, which would satisfy appearances, and preserve a useful member to society. Grey mentions likewise a letter from the committee of Stafford to Speaker Lenthall, dated Aug. 5, 1645, desiring a respite for Henry Steward, a soldier under the governor of Hartlebury Castle, and offering two Irishmen to be executed in his stead. Ralpho calls them his brethren of New England, because the inhabitants there were generally Independents.
↑Just so, says Grey, Ap Evans acted, who murdered his mother and his brother for kneeling at the Sacrament, alleging that this was idolatry.
↑This is not a real name, but merely a ludicrous imitation of the sonorous appellations of the Indian Sachems; as is the other name in line 434, below.
↑The Sceptics, who held that certainty was not attainable on any subject, and doubted sensation altogether, are here wittily satirized as refusing to assent to Ralpho's doctrine of sympathetic whipping. The philosophers who believed in it were Sir Kenelm Digby, often the theme of Butler's banter, and some then credulous members of the Royal Society.
↑A favourite expression of the sectaries of those days.
↑The old pronunciation of this word was aitches, and the late John Kemble to the day of his death insisted on so pronouncing it; for which he was frequently ridiculed.
↑A banter on the popish doctrine of satisfaction and supererogation.
↑In Spectator, No. 157, are to be found remarks illustrative of this peculiarity of pedagogues.
↑Grey observes that a contest between Don Quixote and his renowned squire appears to have furnished the pattern for this amusing falling out (see chaps. 35 and 60). But there is more intellectual subtlety in the argumentation of Butler's heroes than in the Don and Sancho.
↑See Don Quixote, chap. 68, for the like reproaches administered by the knight to his squire.
↑A niggardly churl. The derivation from couer mechant, obtained by Dr Johnson from an "unknown correspondent," and Ash's mistake in assuming this signature to be a translation of the French words, is one of the best etymological jokes extant.
↑Ralpho, like Sancho, deals largely in proverbs;—these are found and explained in Handbook of Proverbs, pp. 113, 323.
↑This is no other than the Pinder of Wakefield, who fought and beat Robin Hood, Scarlet, and Little John, all three together. See Robin Hood's Garland. The Pinder was no outlaw, as Nash supposes, but an officer to enforce the law, being the keeper of the parish pound.
↑Bishop of London in the reign of Queen Mary, who is said to have whipped the Protestants, imprisoned on account of their faith, with his own hands, till he was tired with the violence of the exercise. Hume's History of Mary, p. 378; Fox, Acts and Monuments, ed. 1576), p. 1937.
↑The Independents, by their dexterity in intrigue and getting the army on their side, outwitted and overpowered the Presbyterians, who intended simply to instal themselves in the place of the Church of England. These lines record, for the most part, plain and well-known historical facts. See Burnet and others.
↑See above, p. 124, for an explanation of the term Smectymnuus. The majority originally in favour of Presbyterianism, which was overthrown by the Independents, is ridiculed under the name of Legion.
↑So in the first editions, afterwards altered by Butler to O'er-reach'd, and again restored. Capoch'd means hood-winked. Why-not is a fanciful term used in Butler's Remains, vol. i. p. 178; and signifies the obliging a man to yield his assent.
↑These were the Assembly of Divines, whoso work was almost all undone by the supremacy of the Independents.
↑The Directory was a book drawn up by the Assembly of Divines (120 Divines and 30 Laymen) and published by authority of Parliament, containing instructions to their ministers for the regulation of public worship. It became a mere curiosity when the Independents set up freedom of worship.
↑That is, from July 1, 1643, their first meeting, to August 28, 1648, when their discipline by classes was established. The Divines of the Assembly being paid by the day, are presumed to have had an interest in prolonging their work.
↑The Presbyterians, the first sectaries that sprang up and opposed the established church.
↑These two lines are not in the first editions; but were added in 1674.
↑A contemporary note on these lines quoted by Grey, says, "The Knight was kept prisoner in Exeter, and after several changes proposed, but none accepted, was at last released for a barrel of ale, as he used upon all occasions to declare." This identifies Hudibras with a living original, assumed to be Sir Samuel Luke.
↑Thus Don Quixote to Sancho: "How now, opprobrious rascal! stinking garlic-eater! sirrah, I will take you and tie your dogship to a tree, as naked as your mother bore you." See note on lines 187, &c.
↑Grey compares this scene to the contest between Brutus and Cassius, in Shakspeare's Julius Cæsar, Act iv. History relates that the quarrel between the Presbyterians and the Independents proceeded beyond the mere clapping of hand to sword. And Cromwell's victories, all of which were summed up in Dunbar fight, were the proof of what Ralpho's "basket-hilt" could do in such a case.
↑The poet does not suffer his heroes to proceed to open violence; but ingeniously puts an end to the dispute, by introducing them to a new adventure. The drollery of the following scene is inimitable.
↑Var. "They might discern respective noise," in editions of 1664.
↑The Skimmington, a ludicrous cavalcade in derision of a husband's submitting to be beaten by his wife. It consisted generally of a man riding behind a woman, with his face to the horse's rump, holding a distaff in his hand, the woman all the while belabouring him with a ladle. The learned reader will be amused by comparing this description with the pompous account of Æmilius's triumph, as described by Plutarch, and the satirical one given by Juvenal in his tenth Satire. The details of the Skimmington are so accurately described by the poet, that he must have derived them from actual observation. See a full account of it in Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 180 (Bohn's edition).
↑Our poet mixes up together the ceremonies of enlarging the Pomœrium, a Roman triumph, a lord mayor's show, the exercising of the train-bands, and a borough election, in the most wanton spirit of burlesque poetry.
↑The vulgar, and the soldiers themselves, had at triumphal processions the liberty of abusing their general. Their invectives were commonly conveyed in metre, See Suetonius, Life of Julius Cæsar, p. 33 (Bohn's edition).
↑The words at the end of this and the next line were altered subsequently into cavalcade and flagellet, to the marring of the rhyme.
↑Levet is a blast on the trumpet, a reveillé, which used to be sounded morning and evening on shipboard.
↑This and the preceding line were added in 1674. Butler has departed from the common method of spelling the word Swedes for the sake of rhyme: in the edition of 1689, after his death, it was printed Sweeds. The Swedes appear to have been the first who practised firing by two or three ranks at a time, over each others' heads: see Sir Robert Monro's Memoirs, and Bariff's Young Artillery-man. The Swedes, under Gustavus Adolphus, were the most famous soldiers of Europe.
↑Ridiculing the terms in which heralds blazon coats of arms.
↑"A mighty whiffler 'fore the king seems to prepare his way." Henry V., Act v., chorus. There were whifflers formerly amongst the inferior officers of the corporation at Norwich. Their duty in recent times (before the date of the municipal reform Act) was to clear the way before his Worship, as he went to church on Guild-day; which they did by running and bounding about, whirling all the time with incredible agility a huge, blunt, two-handled sword. The whifflers who now attend the London companies in processions are standard-bearers and freemen carrying staves. Shaffier is a staff-bearer, or running footman, from the French Estafier.
↑See Suetonius' Life of Nero, for the particulars of his marriage with Sporus after he had been gelded (Bohn's transl. p. 357). The story of Pope Joan is too well known to need repetition. But see notes on the subject in Gibbon (Bohn's edition), vol. v. p. 420.
↑The Knight's learning leads him to see in this burlesque procession nothing but paganism, which he, as a reformer, is bound to put an end to at once.
↑Thomas Goodwin was a high Calvinistic Independent, who, dissatisfied with the terms of nonconformity in England, became for some years Pastor of an Independent congregation at Arnheim in Holland. On his return to England he was elected one of the Assembly of Divines, and in 1649, president of Magdalen College, Oxford. At the Restoration he was ejected, and died in 1679. It is however probable that Butler means Dr Thomas Godwyn, who wrote a celebrated manual of Hebrew Antiquities entitled "Moses and Aaron." Oxford, 1616, and another on Roman Antiquities, published Oxford, 1613, both of which went through many editions.
↑In the edition of 1674, altered to, I warrant him, and understood him. But the older line was restored in 1704. The name of Ross has occurred more than once before. Ludovicus Cælius Rhodoginus (L. C. Riechieri) was born at Rovigo, about 1460; and published a voluminous and learned miscellany called Lectiones Antiquæ, of which one of the editions was printed by Aldus in 1516. He died in 1525.
↑Speed and Stowe are celebrated English chroniclers. By Grecian Speeds and Stows he means, any ancient authors who have explained the antiquities and customs of Greece.
↑This is an imperfect rhyme, but in English, to an ear not critically acute, m and n sound alike. So the old savings, among the common people taken for rhyme,—A stitch in time saves nine. Tread on a worm, and it will turn.
↑See Juv. Sat. x. 42 (Bohn's transl., pp. 105 and 443).
↑The red flag; which has always been taken as a menace of battle á l'outrance.
↑A scarlet petticoat, then worn so commonly. Butler has in mind the ancient poets, who are loud in their praise of Tyrian vestments, especially Ovid, Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius.
↑In the orgies of Bacchus, and the games of Ceres, eggs were carried, and had a mystical import. In the edition of 1689, and some others, antique is spelt "antick," and perhaps was intended to signify "mimic," as well as "ancient," which is the more probable, as eggs were never used on real triumphs.
↑The wife is said in law to be covert-baron, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her lord and baron.
↑Many have been the vulgar errors concerning the sexes of hares, some of the elder naturalists pretending that they changed them annually, others that hares were hermaphrodite. See Browne'sVulgar Errors, b. iii. c. 17. But our poet here chiefly means to ridicule Dr Bulwer'sArtificial Changeling, p. 407, who cites the female patriarch of Greece, and Pope Joan of Rome.
↑Gill, in the Scotch and Irish dialect, a girl; in Wright's Glossary one of the significations is, "a wanton wench;" and so Ben Jonson, in his Gipsies Metamorphosed, uses it, "Give you all your fill,—each Jack with his Gill."
↑"Wheels" here are spinning wheels; and not those of timber-gills or drays.
↑At the greater triumph the Romans sacrificed an ox; at the lesser a sheep. Hence the name ovation.
↑Also called ducking-stool and other names. The custom of ducking female shrews in the water was common in many parts of England and Scotland. Such stools consisted of a chair affixed to the end of a long pole or lever, by which it was immersed in the water, often some stinking pool. In some places the chair was suspended by a chain or a rope, and so lowered from a bridge. For a full account of this once legal practice, see Brand's Popular Antiquities (Bohn's edit.), vol. iii. p. 103, et seq.
↑This ceremony is performed on Ascension-day. It was instituted in 1174, by Pope Alexander III., who gave the Doge a gold ring from his finger in token of the victory achieved by the Venetian fleet over Barbarossa; desiring him to commemorate the event annually by throwing a circular ring into the Adriatic. The Doge throws a ring into the sea, while repeating the words, "Desponsamus te, mare, in signum veri et perpetui dominii."
↑Butler intimates that the sea is less terrible than a scolding wife.
↑"Strugglings" was one of the cant terms for efforts.
↑Grey compares this advance of Hudibras and his squire to the attack made upon the funeral procession by Don Quixote (Part I., book ii. chap. 5).
↑By the use of this word, which bore much the same meaning that it does now, the knight not only proclaims his abhorrence of the Skimmington, but also the puritan hostility to musical and dramatic entertainments.
↑The author of the Ladies' Calling observes, in his preface, "It is a memorable attestation Christ gives to the piety of women, by making them the first witnesses of his resurrection, the prime evangelists to proclaim these glad tidings, and, as a learned man says, apostles to the apostles." Butler, of course, alludes to the zeal which the ladies manifested for the good cause. The case of Lady Monson has already been mentioned. The women and children worked with their own hands in fortifying the city of London, and other towns. The women of Coventry went by companies to fill up the quarries in the great park, that they might not harbour an enemy; and being called together with a drum, marched into the park with mattocks and spades. Annals of Coventry, MS. 1643.
↑In the reign of Richard II. a. d. 1382, Henry le Spencer, bishop of Norwich, set up the cross, and made a collection to support the cause of the enemies of Pope Clement, to which it is said ladies and other women contributed just in the manner Hudibras describes. See Part I. Canto ii. line 569, and note on line 561.
↑Dr Echard thus describes these preachers: "coiners of new phrases, drawers out of long godly words, thick pourers out of texts of Scripture, mimical squeakers and bellowers, vain-glorious admirers only of themselves, and those of their own fashioned face and gesture: such as these shall be followed and worshipped, shall have their bushels of China oranges, shall be solaced with all manner of cordial essences and elixirs, and shall be rubbed down with Holland often shillings an ell." See also Spectator, p. 46.
↑That is, to eat plentifully of dainties, of which they would sometimes controvert the lawfulness to eat at all.
↑When London was expected to be attacked, and in several sieges during the civil war, the women, even the ladies of rank and fortune, not only encouraged the men, and supplied them handsomely with provisions, but worked with their own hands in digging and raising fortifications. Lady Middlesex, Lady Foster, Lady Anne Waller, and Mrs Dunch, have been particularly celebrated for their activity. The Knight's learned harangue is here archly interrupted by the manual wit of one who hits him in the eye with a rotten egg.
↑Handmaids was a favourite expression of the puritans for women.
↑This was the sneering statement of a satire called the "Parliament of Ladies," printed in 1647. The writer says: that divers weak persons having crept into places beyond their abilities, the House determined, to the end that men of greater parts might be put into their rooms, that the Ladies Waller, Middlesex, Foster, and Mrs Danch, by reason of their great experience in soldiery, be appointed a committee of tryers for the business.
↑Bottom, the weaver (in Mids. Night's Dream), might have suggested this epithet, who asks in what heard he shall play the part of Pyramus? "whether in a perfect yellow beard, an orange-tawny beard, or a purple-in-grain heard?" Orange-tawny was the colour adopted by the Parliament troops at first, being the colours of Essex, who was Lord-general. It was, otherwise, assigned to Jews and to inferior persons. See Bacon, Essay xli.
↑Linstock, from the German Linden-stock {a lime-tree cudgel), signifies the rod of wood with a match at the end of it, used by gunners in firing cannon.
↑Presumed to be a sneer at the Earl of Argyll, who more than once fled from Montrose and never looked behind till he was out of danger, as at Inverary in 1644, Inverlochie, and Kilsyth; and in like manner from Monro at Stirling Bridge, where he did not look behind him till, after eighteen miles hard riding, he had reached the North Queen's ferry and possessed himself of a boat, whence arose the saying—"One pair of heels is worth two pairs of hands."
↑"Abusive language and fustian are as unfair in controversy as poisoned arrows or chewed bullets in battle."
↑In both editions of 1664, this line ends "—t' avoid pursuit."
↑The original of the coarse proverb here alluded to (Handbook of Proverbs, p. 131) was the glorious battle of Agincourt, when the English were so afflicted with the dysentery that most of them chose to fight naked from the girdle downward. It is thus cited in the Rump Songs, vol. ii. p. 39. There's another proverb gives the Rump for his crest, But Alderman Atkins made it a jest, That of all kinds of luck, shitten luck is the best.
↑This and the five following lines were not in the two first editions, but were added in 1674.
↑Suetonius, in the Life of Vespasian, sect., v., says, When he was ædile, Caligula, being enraged at his not taking care to keep the streets clean, ordered him to be covered with mud, which the soldiers heaped up even into the bosom of his prætexta; and there were not wanting those who foretold that at some time the state, trodden down and neglected through civil discord, would come into his guardianship, or as it were into his bosom," See Bohn's Suetonius, p. 446. But Dio Cassius, with all his superstition, acknowledges that the secret meaning of the circumstance was not discovered till after the event. Nash thinks that Butler might also have in view the following story told of Oliver Cromwell, afterward Lord Protector. When young he was invited by Sir Oliver Cromwell, his uncle and godfather, to some Christmas revels given for the entertainment of King James I,, when, indulging his love for fun, he went to the ball with his hands and clothes besmeared with excrement, to the great disgust of the company; for which outrage the master of misrule ordered him to be ducked in the horsepond. Noble's Memoirs of the Cromwell Family, vol. i. p. 98, and Bate's Elenchus Motuum,
↑The Knight resolves to wash his face and foul his conscience; he was no longer for reducing Ralpho to a whipping, but for deceiving the widow by forswearing himself.
IS strange how some men's tempers suit,
