Hudibras has been compared to the Satyre Menippée, first published in France in the year 1593. The subject indeed is somewhat similar, a violent civil war excited by religious zeal, and many good men made the dupes of state politicians. After the death of Henry III. of France, the Duke de Mayence called together the states of the kingdom, to elect a successor, there being many pretenders to the crown; the consequent intrigues were the foundation of the Satyre Menippée, so called from Menippus, an ancient cynic philosopher and rough satirist, introducer of the burlesque species of dialogue. In this work are unveiled the different views and interests of the several actors in those busy scenes, who, under the pretence of public good, consulted only their private advantage, passions, and prejudices. This book, which aims particularly at the Spanish party, went through various editions, from its first publication to 1726, when it was printed at Ratisbon in three volumes, with copious notes and index. In its day it was as much admired as Hudibras, and is still studied by antiquaries with delight. But this satire differs widely from our author's: like those of Varro, Seneca, and Julian, it is a mixture of verse and prose, and though it contains much wit, and Mr Butler had certainly read it with attention, yet he cannot be said to imitate it.
The reader will perceive that our poet had more immediately in view, Don Quixote, Spenser, the Italian poets, together with the Greek and Roman classics;[1] but very rarely, if ever, alludes to Milton, though Paradise Lost was published ten years before the third part of Hudibras.
Other sorts of burlesque have been published, such as the Carmina Macaronica, the Epistolæ obscurorum Virorum, Cotton's Virgil Travesty, &c., but these are efforts of genius of no great importance, and many burlesque and satirical pieces, prose and verse, were published in France between the year 1533 and 1600, by Rabelais, Scarron, and others.
- ↑ The editor has in his possession a copy of the first edition of the two parts of Hudibras, appended to which arc about 100 pages of contemporary manuscript, indicating the particular passages of preceding writers which Butler is supposed to have had in view. Among the authors most frequently quoted are: Cervantes (Don Quixote), Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal and Persius, Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius, Lucan, Martial, Statius, Suetonius, Justin, Tacitus, Cicero, Aulus Gellius, Macrobius, Plinii Historia Naturalis, and Erasmi adagia.
