And pulpit, drum ecclesiastick,
Was beat with fist, instead of a stick;[1]
Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling.
And out he rode a colonelling.[2]
A Wight he was, whose very sight would 15
Entitle him Mirror of Knighthood;
That never bow'd his stubborn knee[3]
To anything but chivalry;
Nor put up blow, but that which laid
Right Worshipful on shoulder-blade:[4] 20
Chief of domestic knights, and errant,
Either for chartel[5] or for warrant:
Great on the bench, great in the saddle,
That could as well bind o'er, as swaddle:[6]
- ↑ Ridiculing their vehement action in the pulpit, and their beating it with their fists, as if they were beating a drum.
- ↑ Sir Samuel Luke, of Bedfordshire, is no doubt the type of our hero. This has hitherto been merely surmised, first by Grey, and since by all his successors, including Nash; but the present editor possesses a copy of the original edition, 1663, in which a MS. Key, evidently of the same date, gives the name of Sir Samuel Luke, without any question. Sir Samuel was a rigid Presbyterian, high in the favour of Cromwell, justice of the peace, chairman of the quarter sessions, a colonel in the parliament army, a committee-man of his own county, and scout-master-general in the counties of Bedford and Surrey. Butler was for a time in the service of Sir Samuel, probably as secretary; and though in the centre of Puritan meetings, was at heart a Royalist and a Churchman.
- ↑ Alluding to the Presbyterians, who refused to kneel at the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper; and insisted upon receiving it in a sitting or standing posture. In some of the kirks in Scotland, the pews arc so made, that it is very difficult for any one to kneel.
- ↑ That is, did not kneel or submit to a blow, except when the King dubbed him a knight. Sir Konelm Digby tells us, that when King James I., who had an antipathy to a sword, dubbed him knight, had not the Duke of Buckingham guided his hand aright, in lieu of touching his shoulder, he had certainly run the point of it into his eye.
- ↑ A challenge; also an agreement in writing between parties or armies which are enemies. MS. Key.
- ↑ Swaddle.—This word has two opposite meanings, one to beat or cudgel, the other to bind up or swathe, hence swaddling clothes. See Johnson, Webster, &c.
better. Five hundred or a thousand large ears were sometimes pricked up in this fashion as soon as the text was named, and as they wore their hair very short (whence they were called round-heads), they were the more prominent. Dryden alludes to this in his line:
"And pricks up his predestinating ears."
