Hudibras/Part 2/Canto 3

by Samuel Butler (1612-1680)

HUDIBRAS,

 

BY

SAMUEL BUTLER;

 

WITH VARIORUM NOTES, SELECTED PRINCIPALLY
FROM GREY AND NASH.

 

EDITED BY

HENRY G. BOHN

 

VOL. II.

WITH SIXTY TWO ADDITIONAL PORTRAITS.

 

 

LONDON:
HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
1859.

JOHN CHILDES AND SON, PRINTERS.

PART II. CANTO III.

 

 

ARGUMENT.

 
The Knight, with various doubts possest,
To win the Lady goes in quest
Of Sidrophel the Rosy-crucian,
To know the dest'nies' resolution:
With whom b'ing met, they both chop logic
About the science astrologic;
Till falling from dispute to fight,
The Conj'rer's worsted by the Knight.

PART II. CANTO III.^[1]

 

OUBTLESS the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated, as to cheat;^[2]
As lookers-on feel most delight,
That least perceive a juggler's slight,
And still the less they understand,5
The more th' admire his slight of hand.
Some with a noise, and greasy light,
Are snapt, as men catch larks by night,^[3]
Ensnar'd and hamper'd by the soul,
As nooses by the legs catch fowl.^[4]10
Some, with a med'cine and receipt,
Are drawn to nibble at the bait;^[5]

And tho' it be a two-foot trout,
'Tis with a single hair pull'd out.^[6]
⁠Others believe no voice t' an organ15
So sweet as lawyer's in his bar-gown,^[7]
Until, with subtle cobweb-cheats,
They're catch'd in knotted law, like nets;
In which, when once they are imbrangled,
The more they stir, the more they're tangled;20
And while their purses can dispute.
There's no end of th' immortal suit.
Others still gape t' anticipate
The cabinet designs of fate,
Apply to wizards, to foresee^[8]25
What shall, and what shall never be;^[9]
And as those vultures do forbode,^[10]
Believe events prove bad or good.
A flam more senseless than the roguery
Of old aruspicy and aug'ry,^[11]30
That out of garbages of cattle
Presag'd th' events of truce or battle;
From flight of birds, or chickens pecking,
Success of great'st attempts would reckon:

Tho' cheats, yet more intelligible35
Than those that with the stars do fribble.
This Hudibras by proof found true,
As in due time and place we'll shew:
For he, with beard and face made clean,
Being mounted on his steed again,40
And Ralpho got a cock-horse too,
Upon his beast, with much ado,
Advanc'd on for the widow's house,
T' acquit himself and pay his vows;
When various thoughts began to bustle45
And with his inward man to justle.^[12]
He thought what danger might accrue,
If she should find he swore untrue;
Or if his squire or he should fail,
And not be punctual in their tale,50
It might at once the ruin prove
Both of his honour, faith, and love:
But if he should forbear to go,
She might conclude he'd broke his vow;
And that he durst not now, for shame,55
Appear in court to try his claim.
This was the penn'orth of his thought,^[13]
To pass time, and uneasy trot.
Quoth he, In all my past adventures
I ne'er was set so on the tenters,60
Or taken tardy with dilemma,^[14]
That ev'ry way I turn, does hem me,
And with inextricable doubt
Besets my puzzled wits about:
For though the dame has been my bail,65
To free me from enchanted jail,
Yet, as a dog committed close
For some offence, by chance breaks loose,
And quits his clog; but all in vain,

He still draws after him his chain:^[15]70
So tho' my ancle she has quitted,
My heart continues still committed;
And like a bail'd and mainpriz'd lover,^[16]
Altho' at large I am bound over:
And when I shall appear in court75
To plead my cause, and answer for't,
Unless the judge do partial prove,
What will become of me and love?
For if in our account we vary,
Or but in circumstance miscarry:80
Or if she put me to strict proof,
And make me pull my doublet off,
To show, by evident record,
Writ on my skin, I've kept my word,
How can I e'er expect to have her,85
Having demurr'd unto her favour?
But faith, and love, and honour lost.
Shall be reduc'd t' a knight o' th' post:^[17]
Beside, that stripping may prevent
What I'm to prove by argument,90
And justify I have a tail.
And that way, too, my proof may fail.
Oh! that I could enucleate,^[18]
And solve the problems of my fate;
Or find, by necromantic art,^[19]95
How far the dest'nies take my part;
For if I were not more than certain
To win and wear her, and her fortune,

I'd go no further in this courtship,
To hazard soul, estate, and worship:100
For tho' an oath obliges not,
Where anything is to be got,^[20]
As thou hast prov'd, yet 'tis profane
And sinful when men swear in vain.
⁠Quoth Ralph, Not far from hence doth dwell105
A cunning man, hight Sidrophel,^[21]
That deals in destiny's dark counsels.
And sage opinions of the moon sells,^[22]
To whom all people far and near,
On deep importances repair:110
When brass and pewter hap to stray,^[23]
And linen slinks out of the way;
When geese and pullen are seduc'd,^[24]
And sows of sucking pigs are chows'd;^[25]
When cattle feel indisposition,115
And need th' opinion of physician;
When murrain reigns in hogs or sheep.
And chickens languish of the pip;
When yeast and outward means do fail,
And have no pow'r to work on ale;120

R. Cooper sculp^t.

Hopkins, the Witch Finder.

From a rare Print.

When butter does refuse to come,^[26]
And love proves cross and humoursome;
To him with questions, and with urine,^[27]
They for discov'ry flock, or curing.
⁠Quoth Hudibras, This Sidrophel125
I've heard of, and should like it well,
If thou canst prove the saints have freedom
To go to sorc'rers when they need 'em.
Says Ralpho, There's no doubt of that;
Those principles I've quoted late,130
Prove that the godly may allege
For anything their privilege,
And to the devil himself may go.
If they have motives thereunto:
For as there is a war between135
The devil and them, it is no sin
If they, by subtle stratagem.
Make use of him, as he does them.
Has not this present Parl'ament
A ledger to the devil sent,^[28]140
Fully empower'd to treat about
Finding revolted witches out?^[29]
And has not he, within a year,
Hang'd threescore of 'em in one shire?^[30]

Some only for not being drown'd,^[31]145
And some for sitting above ground
Whole days and nights upon their breeches,^[32]
And feeling pain, were hang'd for witches;
And some for putting knavish tricks
Upon green geese and turkey-chicks,150
Or pigs, that suddenly deceast,
Of griefs unnatural, as he guest;
Who after prov'd himself a witch,
And made a rod for his own breech.^[33]
Did not the Devil appear to Martin 155
Luther in Germany for certain?^[34]
And would have gull'd him with a trick,
But Mart. was too, too politic.
Did he not help the Dutch to purge,
At Antwerp, their cathedral church?^[35]160

R. Cooper sculp^t.

Martin Luther.

From a Picture by Holbein.

Sing catches to the saints at Mascon,^[36]
And tell them all they came to ask him?
Appear in divers shapes to Kelly,^[37]
And speak i' th' nun of Loudun's belly?^[38]
Meet with the Parliament's committee,165
At Woodstock, on a pers'nal treaty?^[39]
At Sarum take a cavalier,^[40]
I' th' Cause's service, prisoner?
As Withers, in immortal rhyme,
Has register'd to after-time.170

Do not our great reformers use
This Sidrophel to forebode news;^[41]
To write of victories next year,^[42]
And castles taken, yet i' th' air?
Of battles fought at sea, and ships 175
Sunk, two years hence? the last eclipse?^[43]
A total o'erthrow giv'n the king
In Cornwall, horse and foot, next spring?^[44]
And has not he point-blank foretold
Whats'e'er the close committee would?^[45] 180
Made Mars and Saturn for the Cause,^[46]
The moon for Fundamental Laws,
The Ram, the Bull, the Croat, declare
Against the book of Common Prayer?
The Scorpion take the Protestation, 185
And Bear engage for Reformation?
Made all the royal stars recant,
Compound, and take the Covenant?^[47]
⁠Quoth Hudibras, The case is clear
The saints may employ a conjurer, 190
As thou hast prov'd it by their practice;
No argument like matter of fact is:
And we are best of all led to
Men's principles, by what they do.

Then let us straight advance in quest 195
Of this profound gymnosophist,^[48]
And as the fates and he advise,
Pursue, or waive this enterprise.
⁠This said, he turn'd about his steed,
And eftsoons on th' adventure rid; 200
Where leave we him and Ralph awhile.
And to the Conj'rer turn our stile,
To let our reader understand
What's useful of him beforehand.
He had been long t'wards mathematics, 205
Optics, philosophy, and statics,
Magic, horoscopy, astrology,
And was old dog^[49] at physiology:
But as a dog, that turns the spit,^[50]
Bestirs himself, and plies his feet 210
To climb the wheel, but all in vain.
His own weight brings him down again;
And still he's in the self-same place
Where at his setting out he was;
So in the circle of the arts 215
Did he advance his nat'ral parts.
Till falling back still, for retreat,
He fell to juggle, cant, and cheat:^[51]
For as those fowls that live in water
Are never wet, he did but smatter; 220

Whate'er he labour'd to appear,
His understanding still was clear;^[52]
Yet none a deeper knowledge boasted,
Since old Hodge Bacon, and Bob Grosted.^[53]
Th' intelligible world he knew,^[54] 225
And all men dream on't, to be true,
That in this world there's not a wart
That has not there a counterpart;
Nov can there, on the face of ground,
An individual beard be found, 230
That has not in that foreign nation
A fellow of the self-same fashion;
So cut, so colour'd, and so curl'd,
As those are in th' inferior world.
He'd read Dee's prefaces before 235
The Devil, and Euclid o'er and o'er;^[55]
And all th' intrigues 'twixt him and Kelly,
Lescus and th' emperor, would tell ye:^[56]

R. Cooper sculp^t.

D^r. John Dee.

From an Original Picture in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

But with the moon was more familiar
Than e'er was almanack well-willer;^[57] 240
Her secrets understood so clear,
That some believ'd he had been there;
Knew when she was in fittest mood
For cutting corns, or letting blood;^[58]
When for anointing scabs and itches, 245
Or to the bum applying leeches;
When sows and bitches may be spay'd.
And in what sign best cider's made;
Whether the wane be, or increase,
Best to set garlic, or sow pease; 250
Who first found out the man i' th' moon,^[59]
That to the ancients was unknown;
How many dukes, and earls, and peers,
Are in the planetary spheres,
Their airy empire and command, 255
Their sev'ral strengths by sea and land;

What factious they 've, and what they drive at
In public vogue, or what in private;
Witb what designs and interests
Each party manages contests. 260
He made an instrument to know
If the moon shine at full or no;
That would, as soon as e'er she shone, straight
Whether 'twere day or night demonstrate;
Tell what her d'ameter to 'n inch is,^[60] 265
And prove that she's not made of green cheese.
It would demonstrate, that the Man in
The moon's a sea mediterranean;^[61]
And that it is no dog nor bitch
That stands behind him at his breech, 270
But a huge Caspian sea or lake,
With arms, which men for legs mistake;
How large a gulph his tail composes.
And what a goodly bay his nose is;
How many German leagues by th' scale 275
Cape snout's from promontory tail.
He made a planetary gin,^[62]
Which rats would run their own heads in,
And come on purpose to be taken,
Without th' expence of cheese or bacon; 280
With lute-strings he would counterfeit
Maggots, that crawl on dish of meat;^[63]
Quote moles and spots on any place
0' th' body, by the index face;^[64]

Detect lost maidenheads by sneezing, 285
Or breaking wind of dames, or pissing;^[65]
Cure warts and corns, with application
Of med'cines to th' imagination;^[66]
Fright agues into dogs, and scare,
With rhymes, the tooth-ach and catarrh;^[67] 290
Chase evil spirits away by dint
Of sickle, horseshoe, hollow flint;^[68]
Spit fire out of a walnut-shell,^[69]
Which made the Roman slaves rebel;
And fire a mine in China, here, 295
With sympathetic gunpowder.

He knew whats'ever's to be known,
But much more than he knew would own.
What med'cine 'twas that Paracelsus^[70]
Could make a man with, as he tells us; 300
What figur'd slates are best to make,
On wat'ry surface duck or drake;^[71]
What bowling-stones, in running race
Upon a board, have swiftest pace;
Whether a pulse beat in the black 305
List of a dappled louse's back;^[72]
If systole or diastole move
Quickest when he's in wrath, or love;^[73]
When two of them do run a race,
Whether they gallop, trot, or pace; 310
How many scores a flea will jump,
Of his own length, from head to rump,^[74]
Which Socrates and Chærephon
In vain assay'd so long agone;
Whether his snout a perfect nose is, 315
And not an elephant's proboscis;^[75]

R. Cooper sculp^t.

Paracelsus.

From a Print by Gaywood.

How many diff'rent specieses
Of maggots breed in rotten cheeses;
And which are next of kin to those
Engender'd in a chandler's nose; 320
Or those not seen, but understood,
That live in vinegar and wood.^[76]
⁠A paltry wretch he had, half starv'd,
That him in place of Zany serv'd,^[77]
Hight Whachum, bred to dash and draw, 325
Not wine, but more unwholesome law;
To make 'twixt words and lines huge gaps,^[78]
Wide as meridians in maps;
To squander paper and spare ink,
Or cheat men of their words, some think. 330
From this, by merited degrees,
He'd to more high advancement rise,
To be an under-conjurer,
Or journeyman astrologer:
His business was to pump and wheedle, 335
And men with their own keys unriddle;^[79]

To make them to themselves give answers,
For which they pay the necromancers;
To fetch and carry intelligence
Of whom, and what, and where, and whence, 340
And all discoveries disperse
Among th' whole pack of conjurers;
What cut-purses have left with them,
For the right owners to redeem;
And what they dare not vent, find out, 345
To gain themselves and th' art repute;
Draw figures, schemes, and horoscopes,
Of Newgate, Bridewell, brokers' shops,
Of thieves ascendant in the cart,^[80]
And find out all by rules of art: 350
Which way a serving-man, that's run
With clothes or money 'way, is gone;
Who pick'd a fob at holding-forth,^[81]
And where a watch, for half the worth,
May be redeem'd; or stolen plate 355
Restor'd at conscionable rate.^[82]
Beside all this, he serv'd his master
In quality of poetaster,
And rhymes appropriate could make
To ev'ry month i' th' almanack;^[83] 360

R. Cooper sculp^t.

Edward Kelly.

From a Print prefaced to "J. Dee's Book of Spirits" 1659.

When terms begin, and end, could tell,
With their returns, in doggerel;^[84]
When the exchequer opes and shuts,
And sow-gelder with safety cuts;
When men may eat and drink their fill, 365
And when be temp'rate if they will;
When use, and when abstain from vice,
Figs, grapes, phlebotomy, and spice.
And as in prison mean rogues beat
Hemp for the service of the great,^[85] 370
So Whachum beat his dirty brains
T' advance his master's fame and gains,
And like the devil's oracles,
Put into dogg'rel rhymes his spells,
Which, over ev'ry month's blank page 375
I' th' almanack, strange bilks presage.^[86]
He would an elegy compose
On maggots squeez'd out of his nose;
In lyric numbers write an ode on
His mistress, eating a black-pudden; 380
And, when imprison'd air escap'd her,
It puft him with poetic rapture:
His sonnets charm'd th' attentive crowd,
By wide-mouth'd mortal troll'd aloud,
That, circled with his long-ear'd guests, 385
Like Orpheus look'd among the beasts:
A carman's horse could not pass by,
But stood ty'd up to poetry:
No porter's burden pass'd along,
But serv'd for burden to his song: 390

Each window like a pill'ry appears,
With heads thrust thro' nailed by the ears;
All trades run in as to the sight
Of monsters, or their dear delight
The gallow-tree, when cutting purse 395
Breeds bus'ness for heroic verse,^[87]
Which none does hear, but would have hung
T' have been the theme of such a song.^[88]
⁠Those two together long had liv'd,
In mansion, prudently contriv'd,^[89] 400
Where neither tree nor house could bar
The free detection of a star;
And nigh an ancient obelisk
Was rais'd by him, found out by Fisk,^[90]
On which was written, not in words, 405
But hieroglyphic mute of birds,^[91]
Many rare pithy saws, concerning
The worth of astrologic learning:
Prom top of this there hung a rope,
To which he fasten'd telescope; 410
The spectacles with which the stars
He reads in smallest characters.
It happen'd as a boy, one night,
Did fly his tarsel^[92] of a kite,

The strangest long-wing'd hawk that flies, 415
That, like a bird of Paradise,
Or herald's martlet, has no legs,^[93]
Nor hatches young ones, nor lays eggs;
His train was six yards long, milk white,
At th' end of which there hung a light, 420
Enclos'd in lanthorn made of paper,
That far off like a star did appear:
This Sidrophel by chance espy'd,
And with amazement staring wide:
Bless us, quoth he, what dreadful wonder 425
Is that appears in heaven yonder?
A comet, and without a beard!
Or star, that ne'er before appear'd!^[94]
I'm certain 'tis not in the scrowl
Of all those beasts, and fish, and fowl,^[95] 430
With which, like Indian plantations,
The learned stock the constellations;^[96]

Nor those that, drawn for signs, have been
To th' houses where the planets inn.^[97]
It must be supernatural, 435
Unless it be that cannon-ball
That, shot i' the air, point-blank upright,
Was borne to that prodigious height,
That, learn'd philosophers maintain,
It ne'er came backwards down again,^[98] 440
But in the airy regions yet
Hangs, like the body o' Mahomet,^[99]
For if it be above the shade,
That by the earth's round bulk is made,
'Tis probable it may from far, 445
Appear no bullet, but a star.
⁠This said, he to his engine flew,
Plac'd near at hand, in open view,
And rais'd it, till it levell'd right
Against the glow-worm tail of kite;^[100] 450
Then peeping thro', Bless us! quoth he,
It is a planet now I see;
And if I err not, by his proper
Figure, that's like tobacco-stopper,^[101]
It should be Saturn: yes, 'tis clear 455
'Tis Saturn; but what makes him there?
He's got between the Dragon's tail,
And further leg behind o' th' Whale;^[102]
Pray heav'n divert the fatal omen,
For 'tis a prodigy not common, 460

And can no less than the world's end,^[103]
Or nature's funeral, portend.
With that, he fell again to pry
Thro' perspective more wistfully,
When, by mischance, the fatal string, 465
That kept the tow'ring fowl on wing,
Breaking, down fell the star. Well shot,
Quoth Whachum, who right wisely thought
He'd levell'd at a star, and hit it;
But Sidrophel, more subtle-witted, 470
Cry'd out. What horrible and fearful
Portent is this, to see a star fall!
It threatens nature, and the doom
Will not be long before it come!
When stars do fall, 'tis plain enough^[104] 475
The day of judgment's not far off;
As lately 'twas reveal'd to Sedgwick,^[105]
And some of ns find out by magick:
Then, since the time we have to live
In this world's shorten'd, let us strive 480
To make our best advantage of it,
And pay our losses with our profit.
⁠This feat fell out not long before
The Knight, upon the forenam'd score,
In quest of Sidrophel advancing, 485
Was now in prospect of the mansion;

Whom he discov'ring, turu'd his glass,
And found far off 'twas Hudibras.
⁠Whachum, quoth he, Look yonder, some
To try or use our art are come: 490
The one's the learned Knight;^[106] seek out,
And pump 'em, what they come about.
Whachum advanc'd with all submiss'ness
T' accost 'em, but much more their bus'ness:
He held the stirrup, while the Knight 495
From Leathern Bare-bones^[107] did alight;
And, taking from his hand the bridle,
Approach'd the dark Squire to unriddle.
He gave him first the time o' th' day,^[108]
And welcom'd him, as he might say: 500
He ask'd him whence they came, and whither
Their bus'ness lay?—Quoth Ralpho, Hither.
Did you not lose?^[109]—Quoth Ralpho, Nay.
Quoth Whachum, Sir, I meant your way?
Tour Knight—Quoth Ralpho, Is a lover, 505
And pains intol'rable doth suffer;
For lovers' hearts are not their own hearts,
Nov lights, nor lungs, and so forth downwards.
What time?—Quoth Ralpho, Sir, too long,
Three years it off and on has hung— 510
Quoth he, I meant what time o' th' day 'tis.
Quoth Ralpho, Between seven and eight 'tis.
Why then, quoth Whachum, my small art
Tells me the Dame has a hard heart,
Or great estate.—Quoth Ralph, A jointure, 515
Which makes him have so hot a mind t' her.

Meanwhile the Knight was making water,
Before he fell upon the matter:
Which having done, the Wizard steps in,
To give him a suitable reception; 520
But kept his bus'ness at a bay,
Till Whachum put him in the way;
Who having now, by Ralpho's light,
Expounded th' errand of the Knight,
And what he came to know, drew near, 525
To whisper in the Conj'rer's ear,
Which he prevented thus: What was't,
Quoth he, that I was saying last,
Before these gentlemen arriv'd?
Quoth Whachum, Venus you retriev'd^[110] 530
In opposition with Mars,
And no benign and friendly stars
T' allay the effect.^[111] Quoth Wizard, So:
In Virgo? Ha! quoth Whachum, No:^[112]
Has Saturn nothing to do in it?^[113] 535
One-tenth of's circle to a minute!
'Tis well, quoth he—Sir, you'll excuse
This rudeness I am forc'd to use;
It is a scheme, and face of heaven
As th' aspects are dispos'd this even, 540
I was contemplating upon
When you arriv'd; but now I've done.
⁠Quoth Hudibras, if I appear
Unseasonable in coming here
At such a time, to interrupt 545
Your speculations, which I hop'd
Assistance from, and come to use,
'Tis fit that I ask your excuse.

⁠By no means, Sir, quoth Sidrophel,
The stars your coming did foretell; 550
I did expect you here, and knew,
Before you spake,^[114] your business too.
⁠Quoth Hudibras, Make that appear,
And I shall credit whatsoe'er
You tell me after, on your word, 555
Howe'er unlikely, or absurd.
⁠You are in love, Sir, with a widow,
Quoth he, that does not greatly heed you,
And for three years has rid your wit
And passion, without drawing bit; 560
And now your business is to know
If you shall carry her or no.
⁠Quoth Hudibras, You're in the right,
But how the devil you come by't
I can't imagine; for the stars, 565
I'm sure, can tell no more than a horse:
Nor can their aspects, tho' you pore
Your eyes out on 'em, tell you more
Than th' oracle of sieve and sheers,^[115]
That turns as certain as the spheres; 570
But if the Devil's of your counsel,
Much may be done, my noble donzel;^[116]

And 'tis on his account I come,
To know from you my fatal doom.
⁠Quoth Sidrophel, If you suppose, 575
Sir Knight, that I am one of those,
I might suspect, and take the alarm,
Your business is but to inform:^[117]
But if it be, 'tis ne'er the near,
You have a wrong sow by the ear;^[118] 580
For I assure you, for my part,
I only deal by rules of art;
Such as are lawful, and judge by
Conclusions of astrology;
But for the Devil, know nothing by him, 585
But only this, that I defy him.
⁠Quoth he, Whatever others deem ye,
I understand your metonymy;^[119]
Your words of second-hand intention,^[120]
When things by wrongful names you mention; 590
The mystic sense of all your terms,
That are indeed but magic charms
To raise the Devil, and mean one thing,
And that is downright conjuring;
And in itself more warrantable^[121] 595
Than cheat or canting to a rabble,

Or putting tricks upon the moon,
Which by confed'racy are done.
Your ancient conjurers were wont
To make her from her sphere dismount,^[122] 600
And to their incantations stoop!
They scorn'd to pore thro' telescope,
Or idly play at bo-peep with her,
To find out cloudy or fair weather,
Which every almanack can tell, 605
Perhaps as learnedly and well
As you yourself—Then, friend I doubt
You go the furthest way about:
Your modest Indian Magician
Makes but a hole in th' earth to piss in,^[123] 610
And straight resolves all questions by't,
And seldom fails to be i' th' right.
The Rosy-crucian way's more sure
To bring the Devil to the lure;
Each of 'em has a sev'ral gin, 615
To catch intelligences in.^[124]
Some by the nose, with fumes, trepan 'em,
As Dunstan did the Devil's grannam.^[125]

R. Cooper sculp^t.

S^t. Dunstan.

From an ancient Painting in Lambeth Palace.

Others with characters and words
Catch 'em, as men in nets do birds;^[126] 620
And some with symbols, signs, and tricks,
Engrav'd in planetary nicks,^[127]
With their own influences will fetch 'em
Down from their orbs, arrest, and catch 'em;
Make 'em depose, and answer to 625
All questions, ere they let them go.
Bombastus kept a devil's bird
Shut in the pummel of his sword,^[128]
That taught him all the cunning pranks
Of past and future mountebanks. 630
Kelly did all his feats upon
The Devil's looking-glass, a stone,^[129]
Where, playing with him at bo-peep,
He solv'd all problems ne'er so deep.

Agrippa kept a Stygian pug, 635
I' th' garb and habit of a dog,^[130]
That was his tutor, and the cur
Read to th' occult philosopher,^[131]
And taught him subt'ly to maintain
All other sciences are vain.^[132] 640
⁠To this, quoth Sidrophello, Sir,
Agrippa was no conjurer,
Nor Paracelsus, no, nor Behmen;^[133]
Nor was the dog a caco-dæmon,
But a true dog that would show tricks 645
For th' emperor, and leap o'er sticks;
Would fetch and carry, was more civil
Than other dogs, but yet no devil;
And whatsoe'er he's said to do,
He went the self-same way we go. 650
As for the Rosy-cross philosophers,
Whom you will have to be but sorcerers,
What they pretend to is no more
Than Trismegistus did before,^[134]

R. Cooper sculp^t.

Jacob Behmen.

From a Print prefixed to his Works.

Pythagoras, old Zoroaster,^[135] 655
And Apollonius their master,^[136]
To whom they do confess they owe
All that they do, and all they know.
⁠Quoth Hudibras,—Alas, what is't t' us
Whether 'twere said by Trismegistus, 660
If it be nonsense, false, or mystick,
Or not intelligible, or sophistick?
'Tis not antiquity, nor author,
That makes Truth truth, altho' Time's daughter;^[137]
'Twas he that put her in the pit, 665
Before he pull'd her out of it;^[138]

And as he eats his sons, just so
He feeds upon his daughters too.^[139]
Nor does it follow, 'cause a herald
Can make a gentleman, scarce a year old,^[140] 670
To be descended of a race
Of ancient kings in a small space,
That we should all opinions hold
Authentic, that we can make old.
⁠Quoth Sidrophel, It is no part 675
Of prudence to cry down an art,
And what it may perform, deny,
Because you understand not why;
As Averrhoes play'd but a mean trick.
To damn our whole art for eccentrick,^[141] 680
For who knows all that knowledge contains?
Men dwell not on the tops of mountains,
But on their sides, or rising's seat;
So 'tis with knowledge's vast height.
Do not the hist'ries of all ages 685
Relate miraculous presages
Of strange turns in the world's affairs,
Foreseen b' astrologers, soothsayers,
Chaldeans, learn'd Grenethliacks,^[142]
And some that have writ almanacks? 690

The Median emp'ror dream'd his daughter
Had pist all Asia under water,^[143]
And that a vine, sprung from her haunches,
O'erspread his empire with its branches;
And did not soothsayers expound it, 695
As after by th' event he found it?
When Cæsar in the senate fell,
Did not the sun eclips'd foretell;
And in resentment of his slaughter,
Look'd pale for almost a year after?^[144] 700
Augustus having, b' oversight,
Put on his left shoe 'fore his right,^[145]
Had like to have been slain that day,
By soldiers mutin'ing for pay.
Are there not myriads of this sort, 705
Which stories of all times report?
Is it not ominous in all countries,
When crows and ravens croak upon trees?^[146]
The Roman senate, when within
The city walls an owl was seen,^[147] 710
Did cause their clergy, with lustrations,
Our Synod calls Humiliations,

The round-fac'd prodigy t' avert
From doing town or country hurt.
And if an owl have so much pow'r, 715
Why should not planets have much more,
That in a region far above
Inferior fowls of the air move,
And should see further, and foreknow
More than their augury below? 720
Tho' that once serv'd the polity
Of mighty states to govern by;^[148]
And this is what we take in hand,
By pow'rful art, to understand;
Which, how we have perform'd, all ages 725
Can speak th' events of our presages.
Have we not lately in the moon
Found a new world, to th' old unknown?^[149]
Discover'd sea and land, Columbus
And Magellan could never compass? 730
Made mountains with our tubes appear,
And cattle grazing on them, there?
⁠Quoth Hudibras, You lie so ope,
That I, without a telescope,
Can find your tricks out, and descry 735
Where you tell truth and where you lie:
For Anaxagoras, long agone,
Saw hills, as well as you, i' th' moon,^[150]

And held the sun was but a piece
Of red-hot iron as big as Greece;^[151] 740
Believ'd the heav'ns were made of stone,
Because the sun had voided one;^[152]
And, rather than lie would recant
Th' opinion, suffer'd banishment.
⁠But what, alas! is it to us, 745
Whether i' th' moon, men thus or thus
Do eat their porridge, cut their corns,
Or whether they have tails or horns?
What trade from thence can you advance,
But what we nearer have from France? 750
What can our travellers bring home,
That is not to be learnt at Rome?
What politics, or strange opinions,
That are not in our own dominions?
What science can be brought from thence, 755
In which we do not here commence?
What revelations, or religions,
That are not in our native regions?
Are sweating-lanterns,^[153] or screen-fans,
Made better there than they're in France? 760
Or do they teach to sing and play,
O' th' guitar there a newer way?
Can they make plays there, that shall fit
The public humour with less wit?

Write wittier dances, quainter shows, 765
Or fight with more ingenious blows?
Or does the man i' th' moon look big,
And wear a huger periwig,
Show in his gait or face more tricks,
Than our own native lunaticks?^[154] 770
But, if w' outdo him here at home,
What good of your design can come?
As wind, i' th' hypocondres pent,^[155]
Is but a blast, if downward sent;
But if it upward chance to fly, 775
Becomes new light and prophecy;^[156]
So when our speculations tend
Above their just and useful end,
Altho' they promise strange and great
Discoveries of things far fet, 780

They are but idle dreams and fancies,
And savour strongly of the ganzas.^[157]
Tell me but what's the natural cause,
Why on a sign no painter draws
The full moon ever, but the half;— 785
Resolve that with your Jacob's staff;^[158]
Or why wolves raise a hubbub at her,
And dogs howl when she shines in water;
And I shall freely give my vote,
You may know something more remote. 790
⁠At this, deep Sidrophel look'd wise,
And staring round with owl-like eyes,
He put his face into a posture
Of sapience, and began to bluster;
For having three times shook his head 795
To stir his wit up, thus he said:
Art has no mortal enemies,^[159]
Next ignorance, but owls and geese:
Those consecrated geese, in orders,
That to the Capitol were warders,^[160] 800
And being then upon patrol,
With noise alone beat off the Gaul;
Or those Athenian sceptic owls,
That will not credit their own souls,^[161]

Or any science understand, 805
Beyond the reach of eye or hand;
But measuring all things by their own
Knowledge, hold nothing's to be known:
Those wholesale critics, that in coffee-
Houses cry down all philosophy, 810
And will not know upon what ground
In nature we our doctrine found,
Altho' with pregnant evidence
We can demonstrate it to sense,
As I just now have done to you, 815
Foretelling what you came to know.
Were the stars only made to light
Robbers and burglarers by night?^[162]
To wait on drunkards, thieves, gold-finders,
And lovers solacing behind doors? 820
Or giving one another pledges
Of matrimony under hedges?
Or witches simpling, and on gibbets
Cutting from malefactors snippets?^[163]
Or from the pill'ry tips of ears 825
Of rebel-saints and perjurers?
Only to stand by, and look on,
But not know what is said or done?
Is there a constellation there
That was not born and bred up here; 830
And therefore cannot be to learn
In any inferior concern?

Were they not, during all their lives,
Most of 'em pirates, whores, and thieves?
And is it like they have not still 835
In their old practices some skill?
Is there a planet that by birth
Does not derive its house from earth;
And therefore probably must know
What is, and hath been done below? 840
Who made the Balance, or whence came
The Bull, the Lion, and the Ram?
Did not we here the Argo rig,
Make Berenice's periwig?^[164]
Whose liv'ry does the Coachman^[165] wear? 845
Or who made Cassiopeia's chair?^[166]
And therefore, as they came from hence,
With us may hold intelligence.
Plato deny'd the world can be
Govern'd without geometry,^[167] 850
For money b'ing the common scale
Of things by measure, weight, and tale,
In all th' affairs of church and state,
'Tis both the balance and the weight:
Then much less can it be without 855
Divine astrology made out,
That puts the other down in worth,
As far as heaven's above earth.
⁠These reasons, quoth the Knight, I grant
Are something more significant 860
Than any that the learned use
Upon this subject to produce;

And yet they're far from satisfactory,
T' establish and keep up your factory.
Th' Egyptians say, the sun has twice^[168] 865
Shifted his setting and his rise ;
Twice has he risen in the west,
As many times set in the east ;
But whether that be true or no,
The devil any of you know. 870
Some hold, the heavens, like a top,
Are kept by circulation up,^[169]
And were't not for their wheeling round.
They'd instantly fall to the ground :
As sage Empedocles of old,^[170] 875
And from him modern authors hold.
Plato believ'd the sun and moon
Below all other planets run.^[171]
Some Mercury, some Venus seat
Above the sun himself in height. 880

R. Cooper sculp^t.

Nicholas Copernicus.

From a scarce Print.

The learned Scaliger complain'd
'Gainst what Copernicus maintain'd,^[172]
That in twelve hundred years, and odd,^[173]
The sun had left his ancient road,
And nearer to the Earth is come, 885
'Bove fifty thousand miles from home:
Swore 'twas a most notorious flam,
And he that had so little shame
To vent such fopperies abroad,
Deserv'd to have his rump well claw'd: 890
Which Monsieur Bodin hearing, swore
That he deserv'd the rod much more,^[174]
That durst upon a truth give doom,
He knew less than the pope of Rome.^[175]
Cardan believ'd great states depend 895
Upon the tip o' th' Bear's tail's end;^[176]
That as she whisk'd it t'wards the sun,
Strow'd mighty empires up and down;

Which others say must needs be false,
Because your true bears have no tails.^[177] 900
Some say, the zodiac constellations^[178]
Have long since chang'd their antique stations^[179]
Above a sign, and prove the same
In Taurus now, once in the Ram;
Affirm'd the Trigons chopp'd and chang'd, 905
The wat'ry with the fiery rang'd;^[180]
Then how can their effects still hold
To be the same they were of old?
This, though the art were true, would make
Our modern soothsayers mistake,^[181] 910
And is one cause they tell more lies,
In figures and nativities,
Than th' old Chaldean conjurers,
In so many hundred thousand years;^[182]
Beside their nonsense in translating, 915
For want of accidence and Latin;

R. Cooper sculp^t.

Joseph Justus Scaliger.

From a Print by Edelinck.

R. Cooper sculp^t.

Jerome Cardan.

From a scarce Print.

Like Idus and Calendæ Englisht
The Quarter-days, by skilful linguist.^[183]
And yet with canting, slight, and cheat,
'Twill serve their turn to do the feat; 920
Make fools believe in their foreseeing
Of things before they are in being;
To swallow gudgeons ere they're catch'd,
And count their chickens ere they're hatch'd,^[184]
Make them the constellations prompt, 925
And give 'em back their own accompt;
But still the best to him that gives
The best price for't, or best believes.
Some towns and cities, some for brevity,
Have cast the 'versal world's nativity, 930
And made the infant stars confess,
Like fools or children, what they please.
Some calculate the hidden fates
Of monkeys, puppy-dogs, and cats;
Some running nags, and fighting-cocks, 935
Some love, trade, law-suits, and the pox:
Some take a measure of the lives
Of fathers, mothers, husbands, wives;
Make opposition, trine, and quartile,
Tell who is barren, and who fertile; 940
As if the planet's first aspect
The tender infant did infect^[185]

In soul and body, and instil
All future good and future ill;
Which in their dark fatal'ties lurking, 945
At destin'd periods fall a working,
And break out, like the hidden seeds
Of long diseases, into deeds,
In friendships, enmities, and strife,
And all th' emergencies of life: 950
No sooner does he peep into
The world, but he has done his do,
Catch'd all diseases, took all physick,
That cures or kills a man that is sick;
Marry'd his punctual dose of wives,^[186] 955
Is cuckolded, and breaks, or thrives.
There's but the twinkling of a star
Between a man of peace and war;
A thief and justice, fool and knave,
A huffing off'cer and a slave; 960
A crafty lawyer and pick-pocket,
A great philosopher and a blockhead;
A formal preacher and a player,
A learn'd physician and man-slayer:
As if men from the stars did suck 965
Old age, diseases, and ill luck,
Wit, folly, honour, virtue, vice,
Trade, travel, women, claps, and dice;
And draw, with the first air they breathe,
Battle, and murder, sudden death.^[187] 970
Are not these fine commodities
To be imported from the skies,

And vended here among the rabble,
For staple goods, and warrantable?
Like money by the Druids borrow'd, 975
⁠In th' other world to be restored.^[188]
Quoth Sidrophel, To let you know
You wrong the art and artists too:
Since arguments are lost on those
That do our principles oppose, 980
I will, altho' I've don't before.
Demonstrate to your sense once more,
And draw a figure that shall tell you
What you, perhaps, forget befell you;
By way of horary inspection,^[189] 985
Which some account our worst erection.
⁠With that, he circles draws, and squares,
With cyphers, astral characters,
Then looks 'em o'er to understand 'em,
Altho' set down hab-nab at random.^[190] 990
⁠Quoth he. This scheme of th' heavens set,
Discovers how in fight you met,
At Kingston, with a may-pole idol,^[191]
And that y' were bang'd both back and side well;

And tho' you overcame the bear, 995
The dogs beat you at Brentford fair;
Where sturdy butchers broke your noddle,
And handled you like a fop-doodle.^[192]
Quoth Hudibras, I now perceive
You are no conj'rer, by your leave; 1000
That paltry story is untrue,
And forg'd to cheat such gulls as you.
Not true? quoth he; howe'er you vapour,
I can what I affirm make appear;
Whachum shall justify 't to your face, 1005
And prove he was upon the place:
He play'd the saltinbancho's part,^[193]
Transform'd t' a Frenchman by my art;
He stole your cloak, and pick'd your pocket,
Chous'd and caldes'd you like a blockhead,^[194] 1010
And what you lost I can produce,
If you deny it, here i' the house.
Quoth Hudibras, I do believe
That argument's demonstrative;
Ralpho, bear witness, and go fetch us 1015
A constable to seize the wretches:
For tho' they're both false knaves and cheats,
Impostors, jugglers, counterfeits,
I'll make them serve for perpendic'lars,
As true as e'er were us'd by bricklayers:^[195] 1020
They're guilty, by their own confessions.
Of felony, and at the sessions,
Upon the bench I will so handle 'em,
That the vibration of this pendulum

Shall make all tailors yards of one 1025
Unanimous opinion:^[196]
A thing he long has vapour'd of,
But now shall make it out by proof.
⁠Quoth Sidrophel, I do not doubt
To find friends that will bear me out:^[197] 1030
Nor have I hazarded my art,
And neck, so long on the State's part,
To be expos'd i' th' end to suffer
By such a braggadocio huffer.^[198]
⁠Huffer! quoth Hudibras, this sword 1035
Shall down thy false throat cram that word.
Ralpho, make haste, and call an officer,
To apprehend this Stygian sophister;^[199]
Meanwhile I'll hold 'em at a bay.
Lest he and Whachum run away. 1040

⁠But Sidrophel, who from the aspect
Of Hudibras, did now erect
A figure worse portending far,
Than that of most malignant star;
Believ'd it now the fittest moment 1045
To shun the danger that might come on't,
While Hudibras was all alone,
And he and Whachum, two to one:
This being resolv'd, he spy'd by chance,
Behind the door an iron lance,^[200] 1050
That many a sturdy limb had gor'd,
And legs, and loins, and shoulders bor'd;
He snatch'd it up, and made a pass,
To make his way thro' Hudibras.
Whachum had got a fire-fork,^[201] 1055
With which he vow'd to do his work;
But Hudibras was well prepar'd.
And stoutly stood upon his guard:
He put by Sidrophello's thrust,
And in right manfully he rusht, 1060
The weapon from his gripe he wrung.
And laid him on the earth along.
Whachum his sea-coal prong threw by,
And basely turn'd his back to fly;
But Hudibras gave him a twitch 1065
As quick as lightning in the breech.
Just in the place where honour's lodg'd,^[202]
As wise philosophers have judg'd;
Because a kick in that part more
Hurts honour, than deep wounds before. 1070
⁠Quoth Hudibras, The stars determine
You are my prisoners, base vermin.
Could they not tell you so, as well
As what I came to know, foretell?

R. Cooper sculp^t.

John Booker.

From a rare Print by Hollar.

By this, what cheats you are, we find, 1075
That in your own concerns are blind.^[203]
Your lives are now at my dispose,
To be redeem'd by fine or blows:
But who his honour would defile,
To take, or sell, two lives so vile? 1080
I'll give you quarter; but your pillage,
The conqu'ring warrior's crop and tillage.
Which with his sword he reaps and plows,
That's mine, the law of arms allows.
⁠This said in haste, in haste he fell 1085
To rummaging of Sidrophel.
First, he expounded both his pockets.
And found a watch with rings and lockets,
Which had been left with him t'erect
A figure for and so detect. 1090
A copper-plate with almanacks
Engrav'd upon't, with other knacks^[204]
Of Booker's, Lilly's, Sarah Jimmers',^[205]
And blank schemes to discover nimmers;^[206]
A moon-dial, with Napier's bones,^[207] 1095
And sev'ral constellation stones,

Engrav'd in planetary hours,
That over mortals had strange powers
To make them thrive in law or trade,
And stab or poison to evade; 1100
In wit or wisdom to improve,
And be victorious in love.
Whachum had neither cross nor pile,^[208]
His plunder was not worth the while;
All which the conqu'ror did discompt, 1105
To pay for curing of his rump.
But Sidrophel, as full of tricks
As Rota-men of politics,^[209]
Straight cast about to over-reach
Th' unwary conqu'ror with a fetch, 1110
And make him glad at least to quit
His victory, and fly the pit,
Before the secular prince of darkness^[210]
Arriv'd to seize upon his carcass:
And, as a fox with hot pursuit,^[211] 1115
Chas'd through a warren, cast about
To save his credit, and among
Dead vermin on a gallows hung.

R. Cooper sculp^t.

Napier of Merchiston.

From a rare Print by Delaram.

And while the dogs ran underneath,
Escap'd, by counterfeiting death, 1120
Not out of cunning, but a train
Of atoms justling in his brain,^[212]
As learn'd philosophers give out;
So Sidrophello cast about.
And fell to 's wonted trade again, 1125
To feign himself in earnest slain:^[213]
First stretch'd out one leg, then another,
And, seeming in his breast to smother
A broken sigh, quoth he, Where am I?
Alive, or dead? or which way came I 1130
Thro' so immense a space so soon?
But now I thought myself i' th' moon;
And that a monster with huge whiskers,
More formidable than a Switzer's,
My body thro' and thro' had drill'd, 1135
And Whachum by my side had kill'd,
Had cross-examin'd both our hose,^[214]
And plunder'd all we had to lose;
Look, there he is, I see him now,
And feel the place I am run thro': 1140
And there lies Whachum by my side,
Stone dead and in his own blood dy'd,
Oh! oh! With that he fetch'd a groan,
And fell again into a swoon;
Shut both his eyes, and stopt his breath, 1145
And to the life out-acted death,
That Hudibras, to all appearing,
Believ'd him to be dead as herring.^[215]

He held it now no longer safe,
To tarry the return of Ralph, 1150
But rather leave him in the lurch:^[216]
Thought he, he has abus'd our church,^[217]
Refused to give himself one firk,
To carry on the Public work;
Despis'd our Synod-men like dirt, 1115
And made their Discipline his sport;
Divulg'd the secrets of their Classes,
And their Conventions prov'd high places;^[218]
Disparag'd their tithe-pigs, as pagan,
And set at nought their cheese and bacon; 1160
Rail'd at their Covenant,^[219] and jeer'd
Their rev'rend parsons, to my beard;
For all which scandals, to be quit
At once, this juncture falls out fit.
I'll make him henceforth to beware, 1165
And tempt my fury, if he dare:
He must, at least, hold up his hand,^[220]
By twelve freeholders to be scann'd;
Who by their skill in palmistry,^[221]
Will quickly read his destiny, 1170
And make him glad to read his lesson,
Or take a turn for't at the session:^[222]
Unless his Light and Gifts prove truer
Than ever yet they did, I'm sure;
For if he 'scape with whipping now, 1175
'Tis more than he can hope to do:

And that will disengage my conscience
Of th' obligation, in his own sense:
I'll make him now by force abide,
What he by gentle means deny'd, 1180
To give my honour satisfaction,
And right the brethren in the action.
This being resolv'd, with equal speed
And conduct, he approach'd his steed,
And with activity unwont, 1185
Essay'd the lofty beast to mount;
Which once atchiev'd, he spurr'd his palfry,
To get from th' enemy and Ralph free;
Left dangers, fears, and foes behind,
And beat, at least three lengths, the wind. 1190

 

 

accident, so accelerated or retarded, that it fell in with the predominance of a malignant constellation, this momentary influence would entirely change its nature, and bias it to all contrary ill qualities. See a fine banter on this foolish notion, in Hotspur's reply to Glendower's astrology, in Henry the Fourth, Part I. Act iii.

1. As the subject of this canto is the dispute between Hudibras and an astrologer, it is prefaced by some reflections on the credulity of men, which exposes them to the artifices of cheats and impostors, not only to such as lawyers, physicians, and divines, but even astrologers, wizards, and fortune-tellers. Dr James Young, in his Sidrophel Vapulans, etc. (p. 35), tells a good tale of an astrologer begging Pope Gregory the Seventh (who encouraged his art) to assign it a patron saint, and being left to choose for himself, did so blindfold, and laid his hand on the image of the Devil in combat with St Michael. He does not say whether the astrologer was content, or whether the Holy Father confirmed his choice.
2. This famous couplet is enlarged on by Swift, in his Tale of a Tub, in treating of the pleasures of mental delusion, where he says that the happiness of life consists in being well deceived.
3. This alludes to the morning and evening lectures, which, in those times of pretended reformation and godliness, were delivered by candle-light, in many churches, during a great part of the year. To maintain and frequent these, was deemed the greatest evidence of religion and sanctity. The gifted preachers were very loud. The simile is taken from the method of catching larks at night, in some countries, by means of a bell and a lanthorn: that is, by first alarming them, and then blinding them with a light, so that they arc easily caught.
4. Woodcocks, and some other birds, are caught in springes.
5. Are cheated by quacks who boast of nostrums and infallible receipts.
6. That is, though a man of discernment, and one as unlikely to be caught by a medicine and a receipt, as a trout two feet long to be pulled out by a single hair.
7. In the hope of success many are led into law-suits, from which they are not able to extricate themselves till they are quite ruined. See Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xxx. cap. 4, where the evil practices of lawyers in the Roman Empire are described, in terms not unsuitable to modern times.
8. Var. Run after wizards; in editions of 1664.
9. Thus Horace, in his fifth Satire, Book ii. v. 59:
   ⁠O son of great Laertes, everything
   ⁠Shall come to pass, or never, as I sing;
   ⁠For Phœbus, monarch of the tuneful Nine,
   ⁠Informs my soul, and gives me to divine.
10. Alluding to the opinion that vultures repair beforehand to the place where battles will be fought. Vultures being birds of prey, the word is here used in a double sense.
11. Aruspicy was divination by sacrifice; by the behaviour of the beast before it was slain, by the appearance of its entrails, or of the flames while it was burning. Augury was divination from appearances in the heavens, thunder, lightning, &c., also from birds, their flight, chattering, manner of feeding, &c. Cato used to say, somewhat shrewdly, that he marvelled how an augur could keep his countenance when he met a brother of the College.
12. The Knight is perpetually troubled with "cases of conscience;" this being one characteristic of the class which he typifies.
13. That is, the value of it, in allusion to the common saying—"A penny for your thoughts."
14. An argument in logic consisting of two or more propositions, so disposed that deny or admit which you will you shall be involved in difficulties.
15. Persius applies this simile to the ease of a person who is well inclined, but cannot resolve to be uniformly virtuous. See Satire V. v. 157.
    ⁠Alas! the struggling dog breaks loose in vain,
    ⁠Whose neck still drags along a trailing length of chain.
    And Petrarch has applied this simile to love.
16. Mainprized signifies one delivered by the judge into the custody of such as shall undertake to see him forthcoming at the day appointed. He had been set free from the stocks by the widow, and had bound himself to appear before her.
17. See note at p.28.
18. Explain, or open; literally, to take the kernel out of a nut.
19. Necromancy, or the black art, is the discovery of future events by communicating with the dead. It is called the black art, from the fanciful resemblance of necromancy to nigromancy, and because it was presumed that evil spirits were concerned in effecting the communication with the dead.
20. The accommodating notions of dissenters with regard to oaths have already been stated in some preceding cantos.
21. Sidrophel was no doubt intended for William Lilly, the famous astrologer and almanack maker, who, till the king's affairs declined, was a cavalier, but after the year 1645, engaged body and soul in the cause of the Parliament, and was one of the close committee to consult about the king's execution. He was consulted by the Royalists, with the king's privity, whether the king should escape from Hampton-court, whether he should sign the propositions of the Parliament, &c., and had twenty pounds for his opinion. See the Life of A. Wood, Oxford, 1772, p.101, 102, and his own Life, in which are many curious particulars. Some have thought that Sir Paul Neal was intended, which is a mistake: but Sir Paul Neal was the Sidrophel of the Heroical Epistle, printed at the end of this canto. Hight, that is, called, is from the Anglo-Saxon haten, to call.
22. i.e. the omens which he collects from the appearance of the moon.
23. Lilly professed to be above this profitable branch of his art, which he designated the shame of astrology; but he was accused of practising it, in a pamphlet written against him by Sir John Birkenhead.
24. Pullen, that is, poultry, from the French Poulet.
25. This was a new word in Butler's time, having originated in the frauds committed by a "chiaous," or messenger attached to the Turkish Embassy in 1609. See Gifford's Ben Jonson, the Alchemist, Act i. sc. 1.
26. When a country wench, says Selden in his Table Talk, cannot get her butter to come, she says the witch is in the churn.
27. Lilly's Autobiography abounds with illustrations of these lines; people of all ranks seem to have had faith in his diagnosis of their waters, as well as in his skill in "discovery."
28. That is, an ambassador. The person meant was Hopkins, the noted witch-finder for the Associated Counties.
29. That is, revolted from the Parliament.
30. It is incredible what a number of poor, sick, and decrepit wretches were put to death, under the pretence of their being witches. Hopkins occasioned threescore to be hung in one year, in the county of Suffolk. See Dr Hutchinson, p. 59. Grey says, he has seen an account of between three and four thousand that suffered in the king's dominions, from the year 1640 to the king's restoration. "In December, 1649," says Whitelock, "many witches were apprehended. The witch-trier taking a pin, and thrusting it into the skin in many parts of their bodies; if they were insensible of it, it was a circumstance of proof against them. October, 1652, sixty were accused: much malice, little proof; though they were tortured many ways to make them confess."
31. See Part II. Canto I. line 503, note.
32. One of the tests of a witch was to tie her le<rs across, and so to seat her on them that they were made to sustain the whole weight of her body, and rendered her incapable of motion. In this painful posture she would be kept during the whole of the trial, and sometimes 24 hours, without food, till she confessed.
33. Dr Hutchinson, in his Historical Essay on Witchcraft, page 66, tells us, "that the country, tired of the cruelties committed by Hopkins, tried him by his own system. They tied his thumbs and toes, as he used to do others, and threw him into the water; when he swam like the rest."
34. Luther, in his book de Missa privatâ, says he was persuaded to preach against the Mass by reasons suggested to him by the Devil, in a disputation. Melchior Adam says the Devil appeared to Luther in his own garden, in the shape of a black boar. And the Table Talk relates that when Luther was in his chamber, in the castle at Wartsburg, the Devil cracked some nuts which he had in a box upon the bed-post, tumbled empty barrels down-stairs, &c. There is still shown at this castle the mark on the wall, made by Luther's inkstand, which he hurled at the Devil's head, when he mocked the Reformer as he was busied on the translation of the Bible. But he generally rid himself of the tempter by jests, and sometimes rather unsavoury ones. See some anecdotes of Luther's belief in witchcraft in Luther's Table Talk by Hazlitt, p. 251, &c.
35. In the beginning of the civil war in Flanders, the common people at Antwerp broke into the cathedral and destroyed the ornaments. Strada, in his book de Bello Belgieo, says, that "several devils were seen to assist them; without whose aid it would have been impossible, in so short a time, to have done so much mischief."
36. Mascon is a town in Burgundy, where an unclean devil, as he was called, played his pranks in the house of Mr Perreaud, a reformed minister, ann. 1612. Sometimes he sang psalms, at others licentious verses, and frequently lampooned the Huguenots. Mr Perreaud published a circumstantial account of him in French, which at the request of Mr Boyle, who had heard the matter attested, was translated into English by Dr Peter de Moulin. The poet calls them saints, because they were of the Genevan creed.
37. See notes to lines 236-7-8. The persons here instanced made great pretensions to sanctity. On this circumstance Ralpho founds his argument for the lawfulness of the practice, that saints may converse with the devil. Casaubon informs us that Dee, who was associated with Kelly, employed himself in prayer and other acts of devotion, before he entered upon his conversation with spirits.
38. Grandier, the curate of Loudun, was ordered to be burned alive, a. d. 1631, by Judges commissioned and influenced by Richelieu; and the prioress, with half the nuns in the convent, were obliged to own themselves bewitched. Grandier was a handsome man, and very eloquent; and his real fault was that he outdid the monks in their own arts. There was, in reality, no ground but the envy and jealousy of the monks, for the charges against him. See Bayle's Dictionary, Art. Grandier; and Dr Hutchinson's Historical Essay on Witchcraft, p. 36.
39. Dr Plot, in his History of Oxfordshire, ch. viii., tells us how the devil, or some evil spirit, disturbed the commissioners at Woodstock, whither they went to value the crown lands directly after the execution of Charles I. A personal treaty had been very much desired by the king, and often pressed and petitioned for by great part of the nation; the poet insinuates that though the Parliament refused to hold a personal treaty with the king, yet they scrupled not to hold one with the devil at Woodstock. Sir Walter Scott has made the tale familiar by his novel. The whole of the attacks upon the commissioners, in the form of ghosts and evil spirits, which finally drove them from the place, were planned and in great part carried into effect by a roguish concealed loyalist, Joseph Collins, or Funny Joe, who was engaged as their Secretary, under the name of Giles Sharp.
40. Withers, who figures in Pope's Dunciad, was a puritanical officer in the Parliament army and a prolific writer of verse. He has a long story, in doggrel, of a soldier of the king's army, who being a prisoner at Salisbury, and drinking a health to the devil upon his knees, was carried away by him through a single pane of glass.
41. Lilly was employed to foretell victories on the side of the Parliament, and was well paid for his services.
42. Lilly tells us himself how he predicted a victory for the king about June, 1645, which unluckily proved to be the time of his total defeat at Naseby. He says that during Cromwell's campaign in Scotland, in one of the battles, a soldier encouraged his comrades by reading the month's prediction of victories to them, out of "Anglicus."
43. Lilly grounded lying predictions on that event. Grey says, his reputation was lost by his false prognostic of an eclipse that was to happen on the 29th of March 1652, commonly called Black Monday. But in 1656, the Royalists at Bruges were greatly inspirited by a prediction of the king's restoration in the following year, which he had communicated to one of Charles' secretaries.
44. The direct contrary happened; for the king overthrew the Parliamentarians in Cornwall.
45. The Parliament appointed a licenser of almanacks, and so prevented any from appearing which prophesied good for the Cause.
46. Made the planets and constellations side with the Parliament.
47. The author here evidently alludes to Charles, elector palatine of the Rhine, and to King Charles the Second, who both took the Covenant.
48. The Gymnosophists were a sect of philosophers in India, so called from their going with naked feet and very little clothing. They were extreme abstinents, and much respected for their superior sanctity. Butler seems to use the word as equivalent to recluse or ascetic.
49. A humorous employment of the proverbial term for an experienced or knowing person.
50. Prior's simile seems to have been suggested by this passage:
    ⁠Dear Thomas, didst thou never see
    ⁠('Tis but by way of simile)
    ⁠A squirrel spend his little rage
    ⁠In jumping round a rolling cage?
    ⁠But here or there, turn wood or wire,
    ⁠He never gets two inches higher.
    ⁠So fares it with those merry blades
    ⁠That frisk it under Pindus' shades.
51. The account here given of William Lilly agrees exactly with his Life written by himself.
52. Clear, that is, empty.
53. Roger Bacon was a Franciscan friar, who flourished in the thirteenth century, and was commonly regarded as a conjurer or practitioner of the black art, on account of his knowledge of natural science and philosophy. His Opus Majus is one of the most wonderful books of the times in which he lived. He was acquainted with the composition of gunpowder, and seems to have anticipated some of the great discoveries of later ages. Robert Grostête, bishop of Lincoln, a contemporary of Bacon, was a man of great learning, considering the times, and was declared to be a magician by the ignorant ecclesiastics. He distinguished himself by resisting the aggressions of the Papacy on the liberties of the English Church, for which he incurred the anathemas of Pope Innocent IV.
54. The intelligible world was the model or prototype of the visible world. See P. i. c. i. v. 536, and note.
55. Dr John Dee, the reputed magician, was born in London, 1527, and educated at Cambridge as a clergyman of the English Church. He enjoyed great fame during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., by his knowledge in mathematics; Tycho Brahe gives him the title of præstantissimus mathematicus, and Camden calls him nobilis mathematicus. He wrote, among other things, a preface to Euclid, and to Billingsley's Geometry, to which Butler apparently alludes. He began early to have the reputation of holding intercourse with the Devil, and on an occasion when he was absent, the populace broke into his house and destroyed the greater part of his valuable library and museum, valued at several thousand pounds.
56. Kelly was an apothecary at Worcester, and Dee's chief assistant, his seer or "skryer" (that is, medium), as he called him. A learned Pole, Albert Laski, whom Mr Butler calls Lescus, visiting England, formed an acqaintance with Dee and Kelly, and when he left this country took them and their families with him into Poland. Next to Kelly, he was the greatest confidant of Dee in his secret transactions. They were entertained by the Emperor Rodolph II., to whom they disclosed some of their secrets, and showed the wonderful stone; and he, in return, treated them with great respect, knighted Kelly, but afterwards imprisoned him. Dee received some advantageous offers, it is said, from the king of France, the emperor of Muscovy, and several foreign princes, but he returned to England, and, after great vicissitudes, died in poverty at Mortlake, in the year 1608, aged 81.
57. The almanack makers styled themselves well-willers to the mathematics, or philomaths.
58. Respecting these, and other matters mentioned in the following lines, Lilly, and the old almanack makers, gave particular directions. Astrologers of all ages have regarded certain planetary aspects to be especially favourable to the operations of husbandry and physic, and the influence of the moon is still pretty generally recognised. See Tusser's Five hundred Points of Good Husbandry.
59. There are and have been, in all countries and ages, different popular beliefs respecting the man in the moon. He is a stealer of firewood, according to Chaucer; according to others, a sabbath-breaker, or the man who was stoned for gathering sticks on the sabbath, whilst the Israelites were in the wilderness (see Numbers xv. 32). The Italian peasantry have for ages called him Cain, and as such he is alluded to in Dante, Paradiso II. (Wright's translation, page 309). See Daniel O'Rourck's Dream, in Crofton Croker's Fairy Legends, for a truly Hibernian representation of his love of solitude.
60. The determination of the diameter of the moon was so recent an event in Butler's time, that scientific pedants rendered themselves fair butts for his satire by the use they made of this knowledge of it.
61. It used to be supposed that the darker shadows on the moon's surface were seas; and the old astronomers gave them various names, some after a fancied analogy in their distribution to the principal seas of the eastern hemisphere of the globe; others, purely arbitrary. They are now known to be merely depressions on the surface; the closest observers having failed to detect any trace of either water or air!
62. The horoscope, which looks like a net or trap, and in which places for the planets are duly assigned.
63. The strings of a fiddle or lute, cut into short pieces, and strewed upon warm meat, will contract, and appear like live maggots.
64. "Some physiognomers have conceited the head of man to be the model of the whole body; so that any mark there will have a corresponding one on some part of the body." See Lilly's Life.
65. Democritus is said to have pronounced more nicely on the maid-servant of Hippocrates. Lilly professed this art, and said that no woman, whom he found a maid, ever twitted him with having been mistaken.
66. Warts are still "charmed away;" and there are few persons who cannot recite numerous examples of the efficacy of "medicines applied to the imagination," for the removal of those unseemly excrescences.
67. Butler seems to have raked together as many of the baits for human credulity as his reading could furnish, or he had ever heard mentioned. These charms for tooth-aches and coughs were well known to the common people a few years since. The word abracadabra, for fevers, is as old as Sammonicus. Haut haut hista pista vista, were recommended for a sprain by Cato, and Homer relates that the sons of Autolycus stopped the bleeding of Ulysses' wound by a charm. Soothing medicines are still called carminatives, from the Latin carmen, a magic formula. But the records of superstition in this respect are endless, and Grey quotes several which are very amusing. He says, "I have heard of a merry baronet. Sir B. B., who had great success in the cure of agues by charms. A gentleman of his acquaintance applying to him for the cure of a stubborn quartan, which had defied the doctors, he told him he had no faith, and would be prying into the secret, and then, notwithstanding the fit might be staved off awhile, it would certainly return. The gentleman promised him on his word of honour he would not look into it, but when he had escaped a second fit he could resist his curiosity no longer, and opened the paper, when he found in it no more than the words kiss — —." Another story of the kind is told by Selden in his Table-Talk. He cured a person of quality, who fancied he had two devils in his head, by wrapping a card in a piece of silk with strings, and hanging it round his neck. But those who delight in such stories will find an abundance of them in Brand's Popular Antiquities, 3 vols, post 8vo.
68. There is scarcely a stable-door in the country (none certainly at Newmarket) without a horseshoe nailed on it, or on the threshold.
69. This refers to the origin of the Servile war in Sicily, when Eunus, a Syrian, excited his companions in slavery to a revolt, by pretending a commission from the gods; and filling a nutshell with sulphur, breathed out fire and smoke in proof of his divine authority. See Livy, Florus, and other Roman historians.
70. Paracelsus was born in 1493, in Switzerland; and studied medicine, but devoted himself most to astrology and alchemy. He professed to have discovered the philosopher's stone, and the elixir of life, but nevertheless died in poverty. One of his doctrines was that man might be generated without connexion of the sexes, an idea which was humorously but coarsely ridiculed by Rabelais, book ii. ch. 27, where he speaks of begetting 53,000 little men with a single f——.
71. Intimating that Sidrophel was a smatterer in natural philosophy, and knew something of the laws of motion and gravity, though all he arrived at was but child's play, such as making ducks and drakes on the water, &c.
72. It was the fashion with the wits of our author's time to ridicule the Transactions of the Royal Society, and Dr Hooke in particular, whose Micrographia is here particularly referred to. Hooke was an admirable and laborious practical philosopher, but in his writings betrays much credulity and deficiency of method.
73. Systole (the contraction) and diastole (the dilatation) of the heart, are the motions by means of which the circulation of the blood is effected; and the passions of the mind have a sensible influence on the animal economy.
74. Aristophanes (Clouds, Act i. sc. 24), introduces a scholar of Socrates describing the method in which Socrates, and his friend Chærephon, endeavoured to ascertain how many lengths of its own feet a flea will jump, not, as our author says, how many lengths of its body. Both Plato and Xenophon allude to this ridicule of their master.
75. The lancets and sucker of the flea were a very favourite object of our earlier microscopists; and they are still popular.
76. All the objects spoken of in these lines are mentioned in Dr Hooke's work on the Microscope. The vibriones or eels in vinegar, were by their bites absurdly supposed by some to be the cause of its pungency.
77. A Zany is a buffoon, or Merry Andrew, designed to assist the quack, as the ballad-singer used to help the cut-purse or pick-pocket. L'Estrange says that Whachum is intended for one Tom Jones, a foolish Welchman. Others think it was meant for Richard Green, who published a piece of ribaldry entitled "Hudibras in a snare," or of Sir George Wharton; and Butler's Biographer of 1710, thinks it was levelled at the author of the spurious "second part" of Hudibras.
78. As lawyers used to do in their bills and answers in Chancery, for which they charged so much per sheet.
79. Menckenius, in his book de Charlataneria Eruditorum, ed. Amst. 1747, p. 192, tells the following story. There was a quack who boasted that he could infallibly detect, by the appearance of the urine, not only the diseases of the subject, but all mishaps which might by any means have befallen him. To contrive this he bade his servants pump those who came to consult him, and communicate to him privately what they found out. One day a poor woman brought her husband's water to him; and he had scarcely looked at it when he exclaimed, "Your husband has had the misfortune to fall downstairs." She, full of wonder, said, "And did you find that out from his water?" "Aye, truly," said he, "and I am very much mistaken if he did not fall down fifteen stairs." When, however, she said that he had actually fallen down twenty; "Pray," said he, with assumed anger, "did you bring all the water?" "No" replied she, "the bottle would not hold it all." "There it is," said he, "you have just left those five stairs behind you!" Another story somewhat similar is told by Grey of a Sidrophel in Moorfields, who had in his waiting-room different ropes to little bells which hung in his consulting room upstairs. If a girl had been deceived by her lover, one bell was pulled; if a peasant had lost a cow, another; and so on; his attendant taking care to sift the inquirer beforehand and give notice accordingly.
80. Ascendant, a term in astrology, is here equivocal.
81. Holding-forth was merely preaching, and the term was borrowed, without much appropriateness, from the Epistle to the Philippians, chap. ii. 16. But Dean Swift, in his "Tale of a Tub," gives a different derivation of the term, and humorously says that it arose from the way in which the dissenters held forth their ears "of grim magnitude," first on one side and then on the other. At this period warning was customarily given in churches and chapels, either by a notice board, or orally from the minister, to beware of pickpockets.
82. It was a penal offence to compound a felony. And the astrologers' profession naturally led them to be brothers in such affairs. Lilly acknowledges that he was once indicted for his performance in this line.
83. Alluding to John Booker, who, Lilly informs us, "made excellent verses upon the twelve mouths, framed according to the configuration of each."
84. Mnemonic verses for such things have always been in vogue and are useful enough: such as Thirty days has September, April, June, and November, &c. The couplet by which the Dominical or Sunday Letter can always be discovered (in common years) is an example of them—
    ⁠"At Dover Dwell George Brown Esquire
    ⁠Good Christopher Finch And David Frier."
    The initial letters being those of the first days of the twelve months, in order; from which those of all other days may be reckoned.
85. Petty rogues, in Bridewell, beat hemp; and it may happen that the produce of their labour is employed in making halters, in which greater criminals are hanged.
86. Bilk signifies a cheat or fraud, as well as to baulk or disappoint.
87. "Copies of Verses," indited in the name of the culprit, as well as his "last dying speech and confession," were then customarily hawked about, on the day of the execution.
88. Sir John Denham sings of the Earl of Strafford:
    ⁠So did he move our passions, some were known
    ⁠To wish, for the defence, the crime their own.
89. Lilly had a house and grounds at Hersham, Walton-on-Thames, which was his regular abode when not in London. He tells us in his Life that he bought them in 1652, for £950.
90. Fisk was a licentiate in medicine of good parts and very studious, but he abandoned his profession in pursuit of astrology. "In the year 1663," says Lilly in his own Life, "I became acquainted with Nicholas Fisk, licentiate in physic, born in Suffolk, fit for, but not sent to, the university, studying at home astrology and physic, which he afterwards practised at Colchester. He had a pension from the Parliament; and during the civil war, and the whole of the usurpation, prognosticated on that side."
91. That is, the dung of birds. See the account of Tobit's loss of his eyesight in the Book of Tobit.
92. Tiersel, or tiercelet, is the French name of the male goss-hawk. See Wright's Glossary.
93. The old naturalists, partly because the legs of the birds of Paradise are feathered down to the feet, and partly because the natives cut off the feet and used the whole skin as a plume, thought that they had no feet, and invented the most ridiculous fables about them. Martlets in heraldry are represented without feet. They are intended for the great black swallow, called the swift, or deviling, which has long and powerful wings, and is very seldom known to alight except on its nest.
94. There are several appearances (and disappearances) of new stars recorded. One in 1573, and another in 1604, which became almost as bright as the planet Venus. Another was seen in 1670; but that was after Butler had written these lines.
95. Astronomers have, from the earliest times, grouped the stars into constellations, which they have distinguished by the names of beasts, birds, fishes, &c., according to their supposed forms. Butler in his Genuine Remains, vol. i. p. 9, says:
    ⁠That elephants are in the moon,
    ⁠Though we had now discover'd none,
    ⁠Is easily made manifest;
    ⁠Since from the greatest to the least,
    ⁠All other stars and constellations
    ⁠Have cattle of all sorts of nations.
96. The old Cosmographers, when they found vast places, whereof they knew nothing, used to fill the same with an account of Indian plantation, strange birds, beasts, &c.
97. Signs, a pun on the signs for public-houses, and the signs or constellations in the heavens. The constellations are called "houses" by astrologers.
98. Some foreign philosophers directed a cannon towards the zenith; and, having fired it without finding where the ball fell, conjectured that it had stuck in the moon. Des Cartes imagined that the hall remained in the air. See Tale of a Tub, p. 252.
99. The story of Mahomet's body being suspended in an iron chest, between two great loadstones (which is not a Mahometan tradition), is refuted by Sandys and Prideaux.
100. The luminous part of the glow-worm is the tail.
101. This alludes to the symbol of Saturn in some of the old books. Astrologers use a sign not much unlike it.
102. On some old globes the Whale is represented with legs.
103. "At sight whereof the people stand aghast,
     ⁠But the sage wizard telles, as he has redd,
     ⁠That it importunes deth, and doleful dreryhed."
     ⁠Fairy Queen, Book iii. Canto i. st. 16.
104. This notion of falling stars was almost universal, until science showed the phænomenon to be both common and periodical. The theory is that these bodies are fragments traversing the planetary spaces, and at given times are drawn by the earth's attraction to her surface.
105. Will. Sedgwick was a whimsical fanatic preacher, alternately a Presbyterian, an Independent, and an Anabaptist, settled by the Parliament in the city of Ely. He pretended much to revelations, and was called the apostle of the Isle of Ely. He gave out that the approach of the day of judgment had been disclosed to him in a vision; and going to the house of Sir Francis Russel, in Cambridgeshire, where he found several gentlemen at bowls, he warned them all to prepare themselves, for the day of judgment would be some day in the next week; whence he was nick-named Doomsday Sedgwick.
106. It does not appear that Hudibras knew Sidrophel; but from lines 1011 and 1012, it is plain that Sidrophel knew Hudibras. It is extremely doubtful whether Lilly was personally acquainted with Sir Samuel Luke.
107. In the early editions, Butler prints this word in italics, meaning a sly hit at that conspicuous member of Cromwell's First Parliament, Praisegod Barebones, the Leather-Seller.
108. He bade him good evening: see line 540, on next page.
109. He assumes that they came to inquire after something stolen or strayed. In these lines we must observe the artfulness of Whachum, who pumps the Squire concerning the Knight's business, and afterwards relates it to Sidrophel in the presence of both of them, but in the cant terms of his own profession, a contrivance already alluded to in note on line 336, at p. 225.
110. That is, found or observed.
111. Venus, the goddess of love, opposes and thwarts Mars, the god of war, and there is likely to be no accord between them; by which he gives him to understand, that the Knight was in love, and had small hopes of success.
112. Is his mistress a virgin? No, therefore, by inference, a widow.
113. Saturn being the god of time, the wizard by these words inquires how long the love affair had been carried on. Whachum replies, one-tenth of his circle to a minute, or three years; one-tenth of the thirty years in which Saturn finishes his revolution, and exactly the time which the Knight's courtship had been pending.
114. Var. "Know before you speak," edit. of 1689.
115. Scot thus describes this practice, which he calls Coscinomancy. "Put a paire of sheeres in the rim of a sieve, and let two persons set the tip of each of their forefingers upon the upper part of the sheers, holding it with the sieve up from the ground steadily, and ask St Peter and St Paul whether A. B. or C. hath stolen the thing lost, and at the nomination of the guilty person the sieve will turne round." Discovery of Witchcraft, book xii. ch. xvii. 262. The Coskinomant, or diviner by a sieve, is mentioned by Theocritus, Idyll ii. 31 (Bohn's transl. p. 19). The Greek practice differed very little from that which has been stated above. They tied a thread to the sieve, or fixed it to a pair of shears, which they held between two fingers. After addressing themselves to the gods, they repeated the names of the suspected persons; and he, at whose name the sieve turned round, was adjudged guilty. This mode of divination was popular iu rural districts to a very late period, and is not yet entirely exploded. See Brand's Popular Antiquities (Bohn's edit.), vol. iii. p. 351.
116. Butler says, in his character of a Squire of Dames (Remains, vol. ii. p. 39), "he is donzel to the damzels, and gentleman usher daily waiter on the ladies, and rubs out his time in making legs and love to them." The word is likewise used in Ben Jonson's Alchemist. Donzel, a diminutive of Don, is from the Italian donzello, and means a young squire, page, or gallant.
117. That is, to lay an information against him, which would have exposed him to a prosecution, as at that time there was a severe inquisition against conjurers, witches, &c. See note on line 144, page 215.
118. Handbook of Proverbs, p. 178.
119. Metonymy is a figure of speech, whereby one word or thing is substituted by representation for another, the cause is put for the effect, the subject for the adjunct, or vice versâ;—as we say, a man "keeps a good table," or "we read Shakspeare," meaning his works. The term is here used in the sense of a juggle of words.
120. Words not used in their primary meaning. Terms of second intention, among the Schoolmen, denote ideas which have been arbitrarily adopted for purposes of science, in opposition to those which are connected with sensible objects. Whately says, "The first intention of a term is a certain vague and general signification of it, as opposed to one more precise and limited, which it bears in some particular art, science, or system, and which is called its second intention." (Book iii. § 10.)
121. The Knight has no faith in astrology; but wishes the conjurer to own plainly that he deals with the Devil, and then he will hope for some satisfaction from him, To show what may be done in this way, he recounts the great achievements of sorcerers.
122. So the witch Canidia, in Horace, Ep. XVII. line 78, boasts of her power to snatch the moon from heaven by her incantations. The ancients frequently introduced this fiction. See Virgil, Eclogue viii. 69; Ovid's Metamorphoses, vii. 207; Propertins, book i. elegy i. 19; and Tibullus, book i. elegy ii. 44.
123. "The king presently called to his Bongi to clear the air; the conjurer immediately made a hole in the ground, wherein he urined." Le Blanc's Travels, p. 98. The ancient Zabii used to dig a hole in the earth, and fill it with blood, as the means of forming a correspondence with demons, and obtaining their favour.
124. To secure demons or spirits.
125. The chemists and alchemists. In Butler's Remains, vol. ii. p. 235, we read: "these spirits they use to catch by the noses with fumigations, as St Dunstan did the devil, by a pair of tongs." St Dunstan lived in the tenth century, and became successively abbot of Glastonbury, bishop of London and Worcester, and archbishop of Canterbury. He was a man of great learning, a student of the occult sciences, and proficient in the polite arts, particularly painting and sculpture. The legend runs, that as he was very attentively engraving a gold cup in his cell, the Devil tempted him in the shape of a beautiful woman. The saint, perceiving who it was, took up a red-hot pair of tongs, and catching hold of the Devil by the nose, made him howl in such a terrible manner, as to be heard all over the neighbourhood.
126. By repetition of magical sounds and words, properly called enchantments. See Chaucer's Third Book of Fame.
127. By signs and figures described according to astrological symmetry: that is, certain conjunctions or oppositions with the planets and aspects of the stars.
128. Bombastus was the family name of Paracelsus, of whom see note at page 224. Butler's note on this passage in the edition of 1674, is as follows: "Paracelsus is said to have kept a small devil prisoner in the pummel of his sword; which was the reason, perhaps, why he was so valiant in his drink. However, it was to better purpose than Hannibal carried poison in his to dispatch himself, if he should happen to be surprised in any great extremity; for the sword would have done the feat alone much better and more soldier-like. And it was below the honour of so great a commander to go out of the world like a rat."
129. Dr Dee had a stone, which he called his angelical stone, asserting that it was brought to him by the angels Raphael and Gabriel, with whom he pretended to be familiar. He told the emperor "that the angels of God had brought to him a stone of such value, that no earthly kingdom is of sufficient worthiness to be compared to the virtue or dignity thereof." It was large, round, and very transparent; and persons who were qualified for the sight of it, were to perceive various shapes and figures, either represented in it as in a looking-glass, or standing upon it as on a pedestal. This stone is now in the Department of Antiquities, British Museum. See Zadkiel's Almanac for 1851, for an account of one of these crystal balls, which formerly belonged to Lady Blessington, and for the visions which were seen in it (?) in 1850. It is said that Dee's Angelical Stone, which was in the Strawberry Hill Collection, turned out to be only a polished piece of cannel coal.
130. As Paracelsus had a devil confined in the pummel of his sword, so "Agrippa had one tied to his dog's collar," says Erastus. It is probable that the collar had some strange unintelligible characters engraven upon it. Mr Butler (in edit. 1674) has the following note on these lines: "Cornelius Agrippa had a dog that was suspected to be a spirit, for some tricks he was wont to do beyond the capacity of a dog. But the author of Magia Adamica has taken a great deal of pains to vindicate both the doctor and the dog from that aspersion; in which he has shown a very great respect and kindness for them both."
131. Meaning Agrippa, who wrote a book entitled, De Occulta Philosophia. See note at p. 25.
132. Bishop Warburton says, nothing can be more pleasant than this turn given to Agrippa's silly book, De Vanitate Scientiarum.
133. Jacob Behmen or Böhmen, the inspired shoemaker, and theosophist, of Lusatia, was merely an enthusiast, who deluded himself in common with his followers. Law, Bishop of Carlisle, edited his works and gave them vogue in this country, and there arc not wanting admirers of them even at the present day.
134. The Egyptian deity Thoth, called Hermes by the Greeks, and Mercury by the Latins, from whom the early chemists pretended to have derived their art, is the mythical personification of almost all that is valuable to man.
135. Little is known of Zoroaster, who is supposed to have lived six centuries before the Christian era. Many miracles are attributed to him by the ancient writers, and he is the legendary founder of the religion of the old Persians, and reputed inventor of magic. Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher, flourished about the sixth or seventh century before Christ. He was the scholar of Thales, travelled in Egypt, Chaldea, and other parts of the East, and was initiated into all their mysteries; and at last settled in Italy, where he founded the Italic sect. He commonly expressed himself by symbols. Many incredible stories arc reported of him by Diogenes Laertius, Jamblicus, and others.
136. Apollonius of Tyana lived in the time of Domitian. Many improbable wonders are related of him by Philostratus; and more are added by subsequent writers. According to these accounts he raised the dead, rendered himself invisible, was seen at Rome and Puteoli on the same day, and proclaimed at Ephesus the murder of Domitian at the very instant of its perpetration at Rome. This last fact is attested by Dio Cassius, the consular historian; who, with the most vehement asseverations, affirms it to be certainly true, though it should be denied a thousand times over. Yet the same Dio elsewhere calls him a cheat and impostor. Dio, lxviii. ult. et lxxvii. 18. The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, written by Philostratus, has been translated into English by Blount, 1680, and by Berwick, 1809. Sceptics of all ages have been fond of comparing the feats of Apollonius with the miracles of Jesus Christ.
137. The Knight argues that opinions are not always to be received on the authority of a great name; nor does the antiquity of an opinion ever constitute the truth of it.
138. Time brings truth to light, although it was time also which had concealed it. It often involves subjects in perplexity, and occasions those very difficulties which afterwards it helps to remove. Bishop Warburton observes, that the satire contained in these lines of our author is fine and just. Cleanthes said that "truth was hid in a pit." "Yes," answers the poet; "but you, Greek philosophers, were the first that put her in there, and then claimed so much merit to yourselves for drawing her out."
139. If Truth is "Time's daughter," yet Saturn, or Time, may be none the kinder to her on that account. For, as poets feign that Saturn eats his sons, so he may also be supposed to feed upon his daughters.
140. In all civil wars the order of things is subverted; the poor become rich, and the rich poor. And they who suddenly gain riches seek, in the next place, to be furnished with an honourable pedigree, however fictitious. Many instances of this kind are preserved in Walker's History of Independency, Bate's Lives of the Regicides, &c. But the satire applies to heraldic pedigrees generally.
141. Averrhoes flourished in the twelfth century. He was a great critic, lawyer, and physician; and one of the most subtle philosophers that ever appeared among the Arabians. He wrote a commentary upon Aristotle, from whence he obtained the surname of commentator. He much disliked the epicycles and eccentrics which Ptolemy had introduced into his system; they seemed so absurd to him, that they gave him a disgust to the science of astronomy in general. He does not seem to have formed a more favourable opinion of astrology, which he condemned as eccentric and fallacious, having no foundation in truth or certainty.
142. Genethliaci, or Chaldeans, were soothsayers, who undertook to foretell the fortunes of men from circumstances attending their births, by casting their nativities.
143. Astyages, king of Media, had this dream of his daughter Mandane; and being alarmed at the interpretation which was given of it by the Magi, he married her to Cambyses, a Persian of mean quality. Her son was Cyrus, who fulfilled the dream by the conquest of Asia. See Herodotus, i. 107, and Justin.
144. The prodigies, said to have preceded the death of Cæsar, are mentioned by several of the classics, Virgil, Ovid, Plutarch, &c. But the poet alludes to what is related by Pliny in his Natural History, ii. 30. See also Shakspeare for a full account of these prodigies, Jul. Cæs. Act i. sc. 3.
145. Pliny tells this tale, in his Second Book. See also Suetonius, lib. ii. s. 29. The ascents to temples were always contrived so that the worshippers might set their right foot upon the uppermost step, as the ancients were superstitious in this respect. And we have an old English saying about putting the right foot foremost. (Handbook of Proverbs, p. 160.)
146. Ravens, crows, magpies, and the like, have always been regarded as birds of ominous appearance. But the omens have been variously interpreted in different ages and countries. In England if they croak against the sun it is for fine weather, if in the water it is for rain. Bishop Hall says, "If you hear but a raven croak from the next roof, make your will."
147. See Julius Obsequens, No. 44, 45, and Lycosthenes, p. 194, 195.
148. It appears from many passages of Cicero, and other authors, that the determinations of the augurs, aruspices, and the sibylline books, were commonly contrived to promote the ends of government, or to serve the purposes of the chief managers in the commonwealth.
149. "The fame of Galileo's observations excited many others to repeat them, and to make maps of the moon's spots." The reference here, except in respect of the "cattle," is to the map of Hevelius in his Selenographia sive Lunæ Descriptio. See also the Cure of Melancholy, by Democritus, junior, p. 254.
150. See Burnet's Archæolog. cap. x. p. 144. Anaxagoras of Clazomene was the first of the Ionic philosophers who maintained that the several parts of the universe were the works of a supreme intelligent being, and consequently did not allow the sun and moon to be gods. On this account he was accused of impiety, and thrown into prison; but released by the intercession of Pericles, who had been one of his pupils. The poet might probably have Bishop Wilkins in view, whose book, maintaining that the moon was a habitable world, and proposing schemes for flying there, went through several editions between 1638 and 1684.
151. In Butler's Remains we read
     ⁠For the ancients only took it for a piece
     ⁠Of red-hot iron, as big as Peloponese.
     Alluding to one of the notions about the moon, attributed, no doubt falsely, to Anaxagoras. See his Life in Diogenes Laertius (Bohn's edit. p. 59, et seq.).
152. Anaxagoras had foretold that a large stone would fall from heaven, and it was supposed to have been found soon afterwards near Ægospotamos. The fall of the stone is recorded in the Arundelian marbles.
153. These lanterns, as the poet calls them, were boxes, wherein the whole body was placed, together with a lamp. They were used by quacks, in a certain disease, to bring on perspiration. See Swift's Works, vol. vi. Pethox the Great, v. 56, Hawkesworth's edition. Screen fans were used to shade the eyes from the fire, and commonly hung by the side of the chimney; sometimes ladies carried them along with them: they were made of ornamented leather, paper, straw, or feathers.
154. These and the foregoing lines were a satire upon the gait, dress, and carriage of the fops and beaux of those days. Long perukes had some years previously been introduced in France, and in our poet's time had come into great vogue in England.
155. In the belly, under the short ribs. These lines were cleverly turned into Latin by Dr Harmer.
     ⁠Sic hypocondriacis inclusa meatibus aura
     ⁠Desinet in crepitum, si fertur prona per alvum;
     ⁠Sed si summa petat, mentisque invaserit arcem
     ⁠Divinus furor est, et conscia flamma futuri.
     The subject seems to have afforded scope, or rather "given vent," to the wit of the day. In Dornavii Amphitheatrum Sapientiæ joco-seriæ, Hanov. 1619, are several early pieces "de peditu," and a merry English writer gives the following joco-scientific definition of it. "A nitro-aërial vapour, exhaled from an adjacent pond of stagnant water, of a saline nature, and rarefied and sublimed into the nose of a microscopical alembic by the general heat of a stercorarius balneum, with a strong empyreuma, and forced through the posteriors by the compressive power of the compulsive faculty."
156. New light was a phrase coined at that time, and used ever since for any new opinion in religion. In the north of Ireland, where the dissenters are chiefly divided into two sects, they are distinguished as the old and the new lights. The old lights are such as rigidly adhere to the old Calvinistic doctrine; and the new lights are those who have adopted the more modern latitudinarian opinions; these are frequently hostile to each other, as their predecessors the Presbyterians and Independents were in the time of the Civil Wars.
157. Godwin, afterwards bishop of Hereford, wrote in his youth, a kind of astronomical romance, under the feigned name of Domingo Gonzales, and entitled it The Man in the Moon, or a Discourse on a Voyage thither (published London, 1638). It gives an account of his being drawn up to the moon in a light vehicle, by certain birds called ganzas, a Spanish word for geese. The Knight here censures the pretensions of Sidrophel by comparing them with this wild expedition. The poet likewise might intend to banter some of the aërial projects of the learned Bishop Wilkins.
158. A mathematical instrument for taking the heights and distances of stars.
159. "Et quod vulgo aiunt, artem non habere inimicum nisi ignorantem." Sprat thought it necessary to write many pages to show that natural philosophy was not likely to subvert our government, or our religion; and that experimental knowledge had no tendency to make men either bad subjects or bad Christians. See Sprat's History of the Royal Society.
160. The garrison of a castle were called warders. The tale of the defeat of the night attack on the Capitol through the cackling of the sacred geese of Juno, is well known. See Livy's Roman Hist. Book v. c.77.
161. Incredulous persons. He calls them owls because that bird was the emblem of wisdom; and Athenian, because that bird was sacred to Minerva, the protectress of Athens. Since the owl, however, is usually considered a moping, drowsy bird, the poet intimates that the knowledge of these sceptics is obscure, confused, and undigested. The meaning of the whole passage is: that there are two sorts of men, who are great enemies to the advancement of science; the first, bigoted divines, who, upon hearing of any new discovery in nature, apprehend an attack upon religion, and proclaim loudly that the Capitol, i.e. the faith of the church, is in danger; the others, self-sufficient philosophers, who lay down arbitrary principles, and reject every truth which does not coincide with them.
162. Sidrophel argues, that so many luminous bodies could never have been constructed for the sole purpose of affording a little light, in the absence of the sun; but his reasoning does not contribute much to the support of astrology.
163. Collecting herbs, and other requisites, for their enchantments. See Shakespeare's Macbeth, Act iv.
164. Meaning the constellation called Coma Berenices. Berenice, the wife of Ptolemy Evergetes, king of Egypt, made a vow when her husband undertook his expedition into Syria, that if he returned safe she would cut off and dedicate her hair to Venus, and this, on his return, she fulfilled. The offering by some accident being lost, Conon, the mathematician, to soothe her feelings, declared that her hair was carried up to heaven, where it was formed into seven stars, near the tail of the Lion. Hence the constellation of this name.
165. The constellation Auriga, near that of Cassiopeia; which lies near those of Cepheus, Perseus, and Andromeda.
166. A constellation in the northern hemisphere, consisting of 55 stars.
167. Plato, out of fondness for geometry, employed it in all his systems. He used to say that the Deity governed the world on geometrical principles, performing everything by weight and measure.
168. The Egyptian priests informed Herodotus that, in the space of 11,340 years, the sun had four times risen and set out of its usual course, rising twice where it now sets, and setting twice where it now rises. See Herodotus (Bohn's transl. p. 152). Spenser alludes to this supposed miracle in his Fairy Queen, book v. c. 1, stanza 6, et seq. Such a phenomenon might have been observed by some who had ventured beyond the equator, to the south, exploring the continent of Africa; for there, to any one standing with his face to the sun at noon, it would appear that the sun had risen on his right hand, and was about to set on his left.
169. It is mentioned as one of the opinions of Anaxagoras, that the heaven was composed of stone, and was kept up by violent circumrotation, but would fall when the rapidity of that motion should be remitted. Some do Anaxagoras the honour to suppose, that this conceit of his, gave the first hint towards the modern theory of the planetary motions.
170. Empedocles was a philosopher of Agrigentum, in Sicily, of the 5th cent. b. c. He was equally famous for his knowledge of natural history and medicine, and as a poet and a statesman; and it is generally related that he threw himself into Mount Etna, so that by suddenly disappearing he might establish his claim to divinity, but Diogenes Laertius gives a more rational account of his death. He maintained the motions of the sun and the planets; but held that the stars were composed of fire, and fixed in a crystal sphere, and that the sun was a body of fire. Some of these opinions are embodied in Shakspeare's familiar lines:
     ⁠"Doubt that the stars are fire
     ⁠Doubt that the sun doth move," &c.
171. The Knight further argues, that there can be no foundation for truth in astrology, since the learned differ so much about the planets themselves, from which astrologers chiefly drew their predictions.
172. Copernicus thought that the eccentricity of the sun, or the obliquity of the ecliptic, had been diminished by many parts since the times of Ptolemy and Hipparchus. On which Scaliger observed that the writings of Copernicus deserved a sponge, or their author a rod.
173. Instead of this and the seven following lines, the editions of 1664 read:
     ⁠About the sun's and earth's approach,
     ⁠And swore that he, that dar'd to broach
     ⁠Such paltry fopperies abroad,
     ⁠Deserv'd to have his rump well claw'd.
174. John Bodin, an eminent geographer and lawyer, born at Angers, died at Laon, 1596, aged 67. He agreed with Copernicus, and other famous astronomers, that the circle of the earth had approached nearer to the sun than it was formerly. He was alternately superstitious and sceptical; and is said to have been at different times, a Protestant, a Papist, a deist, a sorcerer, a Jew, and an atheist.
175. Var. He knew no more than th' pope of Rome, in the editions of 1664.
176. Cardan, a physician and astrologer, born at Pavia, 1501. He held that particular stars influenced particular countries, and that the fate of the greatest kingdoms in Europe was determined by the tail of Ursa Major. He cast the nativity of Edward VI., and foretold his death, it is said, correctly. He then foretold the time of his own death, and when the day drew near, finding himself in perfect health, he starved himself to death, rather than disgrace his science. Scaliger said that in certain things he appeared superior to human understanding, and in a great many others inferior to that of little children. See Bayle's Dict. Tennemann's History of Philosophy, p. 263.
177. This was a vulgar error, originating in the shortness of the bear's tail.
178. In the editions of 1664, this and the following lines stand thus:
     ⁠Some say the stars i' th' zodiac
     ⁠Are more than a whole sign gone back
     ⁠Since Ptolemy; and prove the same
     ⁠In Taurus now, then in the Ram.
     The alteration was made in the edition of 1674.
179. The Knight, still further to lessen the credit of astrology, observes that the stars have suffered a considerable variation of their longitude, by the precession of the equinoxes; for instance, the first star of Aries, which in the time of Meton the Atheniau was found in the very intersection of the ecliptic and equator, is now removed eastward more than thirty degrees, so that the sign Aries possesses the place of Taurus, Taurus that of Gemini, and so on.
180. The twelve signs are in astrology divided into four trigons, each named after one of the four elements: accordingly there are three fiery, three airy, three watery, and three earthly.
     ⁠Fiery—Aries, Leo, Sagittarius.
     ⁠Earthly—Taurus, Virgo, Capricornus.
     ⁠Airy—Gemini, Libra, Aquarius.
     ⁠Watery—Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces.
181. See Dr Bentley's Boyle Lectures. Sermon iii.
182. The Chaldeans, as Cicero remarks, pretended to have been in possession of astrological knowledge for the space of 47,000 years.
183. Mr Smith, of Harleston, says this is probably a banter upon Sir Richard Fanshawe's translation of Horace, Epod. ii. 69, 70.
     ⁠Omnem relegit idibus pecuniam,
     ⁠Quærit calendis ponere.
     ⁠At Michaelmas calls all his monies in,
     ⁠And at our Lady puts them out again.
     The 10th of March, May, July, and October, and the 13th of all other months, were the Ides. The 1st of every month was the Calends.
184. Handbook of Proverbs, pp. 81, &c. See also L'Estrange's Fables, Part ii. fab. 205, and Spectator, No. 535.
185. The accent is laid upon the last syllable of aspéct. Astrologers reckon five aspects of the planets: conjunction, sextile, quartile, trine, and opposition. Sextile denotes their being distant from each other a sixth part of a circle, or two signs; quartile, a fourth part, or three signs; trine, a third part, or four signs; opposition, half the circle, or directly opposite. It was the opinion of judicial astrologers, that whatever good disposition the infant might otherwise have been endued with, yet if its birth was, by any
186. "Punctual dose" is the precise number of wives to which he was predestined by the planetary influence predominant at his birth. An old proverb says, the first confers matrimony, the second company, the third heresy.
187. This is one of the petitions in the litany, which the dissenters objected to; especially the words sudden death. See Bennet's London Cases abridged, ch. iv. p. 100.
188. That is, astrologers, by endeavouring to persuade men that the stars have dealt out to them their future fortunes, are guilty of a similar fraud with the Druids, who borrowed money on a promise of repaying it after death. This practice among the Druids was founded on their doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Purchas speaks of some who barter with the people upon bills of exchange to be paid a hundred for one, in heaven.
189. The horoscope is the point of the heavens which rises above the eastern horizon, at any particular moment.
190. Nares says, habbe or nabbe; have or have not, hit or miss, at a venture: quasi, have or n'ave, i.e. have not; as nill for will not. "The citizens in their rage imagining that every post in the churche had bin one of their souldyers, shot habbe or nabbe, at random." Holinshed, Hist. of Ireland. F. 2, col. 2.
191. Butler here alludes to the spurious second part of Hudibras, published 1663. The first annotator informs us that "there was a notorious idiot, here described by the name of Whacum, who had counterfeited a second part of Hudibras, as untowardly as Captain Po, who could not write himself, and yet made shift to stand in the Pillory for forging other men's hands, as this fellow Whacum no doubt deserved. In this spurious production, the rencounters of Hudibras at Brentford, the transactions of a mountebank whom he met with, and probably these adventures of the may-pole at Kingston, are described at length. By drawing ou that spurious pub- lication for incidents in our hero's life, the astrologer betrays his ignorance of the facts, and Butler ingeniously contrives to publish the cheat.
192. That is, a silly, vain, empty-pated fellow.
193. Saltimbanque is a French word, signifying a quack or mountebank. Perhaps it was originally Italian.
194. Caldes'd is a word of the poet's own coining, and signifies, in the opinion of Warburton, "putting the fortune-teller upon you," as the Chaldeans were great fortune-tellers. Others suppose it may be derived from the Caldees, or Culdees. In Butler's Remains, vol. i. 24, it seems to mean hoodwinked or blinded.
     ⁠Asham'd that men so grave and wise
     ⁠Should be chaldes'd by gnats and flies.
195. i.e. perfectly true or upright, like a bricklayer's plumb-line.
196. The device of the vibration of a pendulum was intended to settle a certain measure of ells, yards, &c., all the world over, which should have its foundation in nature. For by swinging a weight at the end of a string, and calculating, by the motion of the sun or any star, how long the vibration would last, in proportion to the length of the string and weight of the pendulum, they thought to reduce it back again, and from any part of time compute the exact length of any string, that must necessarily vibrate for such a period of time. So that if a man should ask in China for a quarter of an hour of satin or taffeta, they would know perfectly well what he meant; and the measure of things would be reckoned no more by the yard, foot, or inch, but by the hour, quarter, and minute. See Butler's Remains by Thyer, vol. i. p. 30, for the following illustration of this notion:
     
     
     By which he had composed a pedlar's jargon,
     
     For all the world to learn and use to bargain,
     
     An universal canting idiom
     
     To understand the swinging pendulum,
     
     And to communicate in all designs
     
     With th' Eastern virtuoso mandarines.
     
     Elephant in the Moon
     
     
     The moderns perhaps will not be more successful in their endeavours to establish a universal standard of weights and measures.
197. William Lilly wrote and prophesied for the Parliament, till he perceived their influence decline. He then changed sides, but having declared himself rather too soon, he was taken into custody; and escaped only, as he tells us himself, by the interference of friends, and by cancelling the offensive leaf in his almanack.
198. Huff means to bully or brow-beat.
199. i.e. hellish sophister.
200. A spit for roasting meat.
201. Spelt "fiër-fork" in the old editions, so as to make fire a dissyllable.
202. Butler, in his speech at the Rota, says (Genuine Remains, vol. i. p. 323): "Some are of opinion that honour is seated in the rump only, chiefly at least: for it is observed, that a small kick on that part does more hurt and wound honour than a cut on the head or face, or a stab, or a shot of a pistol, on any other part of the body."
203. "Astrologers," says Agrippa, "while they gaze on the stars for direction, fall into ditches, wells, and gaols," that is, while they foretell what is to happen to others, cannot tell what will happen to themselves. The crafty Tiberius, not content with a promise of empire, examined the astrologer concerning his own horoscope, intending to drown him on the least appearance of falsehood. But Thrasyllus was too cunning for him, and immediately answered "that he perceived himself at that instant to be in imminent danger;" and added, "that he was destined to die just ten years before the emperor himself." Tacit. Ann. vi. 21; Dio. lviii. 27.
204. That is, marks or signs belonging to the astrologer's art. Knack also signifies a bauble.
205. Three astrologers. John Booker was born at Manchester in 1601, and after being apprenticed to a haberdasher, became clerk first to a justice of the peace and afterwards to a London alderman. He is said to have had great skill in judging of thefts. Lilly has frequently been mentioned. Sarah Jimmers, called by Lilly, Sarah Skilhorn, was a great speculatrix, or medium, as she would now be called. She was celebrated for the power of her eyes in looking into a speculum, and Lilly tells a strange story of angels showing her a red waistcoat being taken out of a trunk at 12 miles distance and the day before the act.
206. From the Anglo-Saxon niman, meaning thieves or pilferers.
207. Lord Napier of Merchiston, the inventor of Logarithms, also invented a contrivance for performing multiplication. The numbers were marked on little square rods, which, being made of ivory, were called Napier's bones. His lordship was one of the early members of the Royal Society, which the poet takes frequent occasions to banter.
208. Money frequently bore a cross on one side, and the head of a spear or arrow (pilum) on the other. Cross and pile were our heads and tails. Thus Swift says, "This I humbly conceive to be perfect boy's play; cross, I win, and pile, you lose."
209. Harrington, having devised the scheme of popular government which is described in his Oceana, endeavoured to promote it by a club, of which Henry Nevil, Charles Wolseley, John Wildman, and Doctor (afterwards Sir William) Petty, were members, which met in New Palace-yard, Westminster. This club was called the Rota, in consequence of a proposal that, in the projected House of Commons, a third part of the members should "rote out by ballot every year," and be ineligible for three years.
210. The constable who keeps the peace at night.
211. Olaus Magnus has related many such stories of the fox's cunning: his imitating the barking of a dog; feigning himself dead; ridding himself of fleas, by going gradually into the water with a lock of wool in his mouth, and when the fleas are driven into it, leaving the wool in the water; catching crab-fish with his tail, all of which the author avers to be truth on his own knowledge. Ol. Mag. Hist. i. 18.
212. The ancient atomic philosophers, Democritus, Epicurus, &c., held that sense in brutes, and cogitation and volition in men, were produced by the impression of corporeal atoms on the brain. But the author perhaps meant to ridicule Sir Kenelm Digby, who relates this story of the fox, and maintains that there was no thought or cunning in it, but merely a particular disposition of atoms.
213. See the scene of Falstaff's counterfeited death, Shakspeare, Henry IV., Part I. Act V.
214. Trunk-hose with pockets to them.
215. Shakspeare refers to this proverb in Merry Wives, II. 3. See also Bohn's Handbook of Proverbs, p. 187.
216. The different sects of dissenters left each other in the lurch whenever an opportunity offered of promoting their own separate interest. In this instance they made a separate peace with the King, as soon as they found that the Independents were playing their own game.
217. This and the following lines show that Hudibras represents the Presbyterians, and Ralpho the Independents, all the principal words being party catchwords.
218. That is, corruptions in discipline. "When the devil tempted Christ he set him upon the highest pinnacle of the temple. Great preferments are great temptations." Butler's Remains.
219. The Independents called the Covenant an almanack out of date.
220. Culprits, when they are tried, hold up their hands at the bar.
221. Cheiromancy, or telling fortunes by inspection of lines in the palm of the hand.
222. That is, claim the benefit of clergy, or be hanged.