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we judge of the life by contemplating

the picture.

It is fcarcely poffible, in the regularity and compofure of the prefent time, to image the tumult of abfurdity, and clamour of contradiction, that perplexed doctrine, and disturbed both publick and private quiet, in that age, when fubordination was broken, and awe was hiffed away; when any unfettled innovator who could hatch a half-formed notion produced it to the publick; when every man might become a preacher, and almoft every preacher could collect a congregation.

The wisdom of the nation is very reasonably supposed to refide in the parliament. What can be concluded.

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of the lower claffes of the people, when in one of the parliaments fummoned by Cromwell it was ferioufly proposed, that all the records in the Tower fhould be burnt, that all memory of things paft fhould be effaced, and that the whole fyftem of life should commence anew?

We have never been witneffes of animofities excited by the use of minced pies and plumb porridge; nor feen with what abhorrence those who could eat them at all other times of the year would fhrink from them in December. An old Puritan, who was alive in my childhood, being at one of the feafts of the church invited by a neighbour to partake his cheer, told him, that, if he would treat him at an alehouse with beer

beer, brewed for all times and seasons, he fhould accept his kindness, but would have none of his fuperftitious meats or drinks.

One of the puritanical tenets was the illegality of all games of chance; and he that reads Gataker upon Lots, may fee how much learning and reafon one of the first scholars of his age thought neceffary, to prove that it was no crime to throw a die, or play at cards, or tc hide a fhilling for the reckoning.

Aftrology however, against which fo much of this fatire is directed, was not more the folly of the Puritans than of others. It had in that time a very extenfive dominion. Its predictions raised hopes and fears in minds which ought

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to have rejected it with contempt. In hazardous undertakings, care was taken to begin under the influence of a propitious planet; and when the king was prifoner in Carifbrook Castle, an aftrologer was confulted what hour would be found most favourable to an escape.

What effect this poem had upon the publick, whether it fhamed imposture or reclaimed credulity, is not easily determined. Cheats can feldom ftand long against laughter. It is certain that the credit of planetary intelligence wore faft away; though fome men of knowledge, and Dryden among them, continued to believe that conjunctions and oppofitions had a great part in the diftribution

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tribution of good or evil, and in the government of fublunary things.

Poetical Action ought to be probable upon certain fuppofitions, and fuch pro.. bability as burlefque requires is here violated only by one incident. Nothing. can fhew more plainly the neceffity of doing fomething, and the difficulty of finding fomething to do, than that Butler was reduced to transfer to his hero the flagellation of Sancho, not the most agrecable fiction of Cervantes; very fuitable indeed to the manners of that age and nation, which afcribed wonderful efficacy to voluntary penances; but fo remote from the practice and opinions of the Hudibraftick time, that judgement and imagination are alike offended.

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