358
HUDIBRAS.
[PART III.
Nor put them to the charge of jails,
To find us pill'ries and carts'-tails, 750
Or hangman's wages,[1] which the state
Was forc'd, before them, to be at;
That cut, like tallies, to the stumps,
Our ears for keeping true accompts,[2]
And burnt our vessels, like a new- 755
Seal'd peck, or bush'l, for being true
But hand in hand, like faithful brothers,
Held forth the Cause against all others,
Disdaining equally to yield
One syllable of what we held. 760
And though we differ'd now and then
'Bout outward things, and outward men,
Our inward men, and Constant Frame
Of spirit, still were near the same;
And till they first began to cant,[3] 765
And sprinkle down the Covenant,
We ne'er had Call in any place,
Nor dream'd of teaching down Free-grace;
But join'd our gifts perpetually,
Against the common enemy, 770
Although 'twas ours, and their opinion,
Each other's church was but a Rimmon.[4]
To find us pill'ries and carts'-tails, 750
Or hangman's wages,[1] which the state
Was forc'd, before them, to be at;
That cut, like tallies, to the stumps,
Our ears for keeping true accompts,[2]
And burnt our vessels, like a new- 755
Seal'd peck, or bush'l, for being true
But hand in hand, like faithful brothers,
Held forth the Cause against all others,
Disdaining equally to yield
One syllable of what we held. 760
And though we differ'd now and then
'Bout outward things, and outward men,
Our inward men, and Constant Frame
Of spirit, still were near the same;
And till they first began to cant,[3] 765
And sprinkle down the Covenant,
We ne'er had Call in any place,
Nor dream'd of teaching down Free-grace;
But join'd our gifts perpetually,
Against the common enemy, 770
Although 'twas ours, and their opinion,
Each other's church was but a Rimmon.[4]
- ↑ The value of thirteen pence halfpenny, in a coin called a thirteener, which the State had to defray, when the Puritans' ears were cropped.
- ↑ Tallies are corresponding notches made by small traders on sticks, which are cut down as the accompts are settled. The meaning seems to be: the State made us suffer for keeping true accounts, or for being true, cutting our ears like tallies, and branding the vessels of our bodies like a measure with the mark fresh upon it. There was a seal put upon true and just measures and weights.
- ↑ The term cant is derived from Mr Andrew Cant, and his son Alexander, whose seditious preaching and praying was in Scotland called canting. Grey.
- ↑ A Syrian idol. See 2 Kings v. 18. And Paradise Lost, i. 467:The meaning is, that in the opinion of both, church communion with each other was a like case with that of Naaman's bowing himself in the house of Rimmon, equally laying both under the necessity of a petition for pardon: the Independents knew that their tenets were so opposite to those ofHim followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat
Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks
Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams.
