The Fiddle, and its spoils, the case, In manner of a trophy, place. That done, they ope the trap-door-gate, 1165 And let Crowdero down thereat. Crowdero making doleful face, Like hermit poor in pensive place, To dungeon they the wretch commit, 1170 But th' other, that had broke the peace, And head of knighthood, they release, 1175 NOTES HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY. PART I. CANTO II. Argument, V. 8. Then shuts him fast in wooden bastile.] There is no particular in which Butler is more remarkable, than for the propriety and happiness of his allusions. To call a pair of stocks a pair of stocks, would have been a great degradation of the dignity of his hero; and therefore he got over the difficulty by be→ stowing on them the epithet of wooden bastile, borrowed from the French bastile, then the most celebrated state prison in Europe, and which it is too well known here to be related, was destroyed at the commencement of the French revolution, in 1789. V. 2. That had read Alexander Ross over.] Alexander Ross was a Scotch divine, and one of the chaplains to Charles I. He wrote a book entitled 'A View of all Religions in the World, from the Creation to his own Time.' In naming him our poet probably had nothing more in view than to ridicule those compilers who, without any portion of taste or judgment, and with very little learning, esteem themselves capable of treating of the most abstruse subjects. V. 5-6. Just as romances are, for what else Is in them all than love and battles?] This is a satire on romances, where the chief incidents are made up of love-adventures, or quarrels. V. 15-6. Like those who a whole street do raze, To build a palace in the place.] Our poet probably here alludes to the building of Somerset-house in the Strand, for which one parish church, and three episcopal houses in the Strand, were pulled down. This action rendered the Protector Somerset, to whom the building belonged, extremely unpopular, and was one of the causes that led to his fall. Had Butler lived in our days, his complaint would have been reversed, for he would have seen palaces razed to build streets. Ely Place, in Holborn, stands on the spot which, in Butler's time, was occupied by the episcopal palace and gardens of the bishops of Ely; and in the recollection of the youngest, streets have risen up in Bloomsbury and Piccadilly, on the sites occupied a few years ago by the palaces of the Dukes of Bedford and York. V. 22. Just like the manhood of nine tailors.] Nine tailors, it is commonly said, make a man. The effiminacy of their employment seems to have entailed upon the race of tailors more ridicule and reproaches than any other class of men are subject to; and perhaps it were desirable in an enlarged view of political economy that, if possible, none but females should be employed on the labours of the needle. In Shakespeare's time the craft was liable to the same sarcasms and contempt that it is at present. In the Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio uses his tailor with as much contempt as if he had really been but the ninth part of a man. 66 Thou thread, thou thimble, Thou yard, three-quarters, half yard, quarter, nail, Away thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant; Or I shall so bemete thee with thy yard, As thou shalt think of prating whilst thou liv'st." V. 23-4. So a wild Tartar, when he spies A man that's handsome, valiant, wise, &c.] The Spectator says, That the wild Tartars are ambitious of destroying a man of the most extraordinary parts and accomplishments, as thinking that, upon his decease, the same talents, whatsoever post they qualified him for, enter of course into his destroyer. The North American Indians are said to hold a similar opinion; and this gave birth to a splendid burst of eloquence in the House of Peers, on the trial of Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, for participating in counsellor Layer's conspiracy. The witty, but profligate, Duke of Wharton, who warmly espoused the cause of Atter bury, turned to the bench of bishops and addressing the right reverend prelates, said, “he could not imagine how the reverend peers in lawn could possibly be so zealous in the prosecution of the learned member of their order, unless they were possessed with the infatuation of the North American Indians, and thought that, by gaining the bishop's preferments, they should become endowed also with his learning and his talents.” V. 30. And mow'd o'erthwart, or cleft downright.] Butler here alludes to the heroes of romance, who either cleft their adversaries in twain by a side stroke, or divided them into two parts, by splitting them from the skull to the middle. This might, perhaps, have been done by swords such as the ancient heroes of romance fought with, but it is much to be doubted whether modern swords would serve for such achievements. V. 47-8. That is to say, whether tolutation As they do term't, or succussation.] These are Latin words, which answer to the phrases of the English menage cantering or trotting. V. 57. Mere engines made by geometry.] Descartes, who died at the court of Christiana, Queen of Sweden, in 1654, taught, that horses, and other brute animals, had no life in them, but were mere engines, moved by certain springs like clock-work, having neither sense nor preception of any thing. Those philosophers who thought with Descartes, might, with no greater absurdity, hold whipping-tops to be animals. V. 59-60. And were invented first from engines, As Indian Britons were from Penguins.] To understand the humour of this passage, it ought to be mentioned, that a tradition has long prevailed, that America was discovered by Madoc, brother to David ap Owen, Prince of Wales, nearly two centuries before the voyage of Columbus. This is believed in some parts of America to the present day, and various relations have been published to prove the existence of Welsh Indians on that continent, to say nothing of an epic poem, written by an author of our own age, expressly to describe the adventures of Madoc; but certainly there is nothing to give credibility to the tradition, except that it is not impossible such an expedition might have occurred. The learned Mrs. Carter's explanation of this passage, which appears among the notes of Dr. Grey's edition of Hudibras, is too valuable to be omitted here. "The author's explanation of the last line," says she, "which is an illustration of the first, must, I think, be the clue which must lead us to the meaning of these lines. He tells us, that some authors have endeavoured to prove, from the bird called Penguin, and other Indian words, that the Americans are originally derived from Britons; that is, that these are Indian Britons; and, agreeable to this, some authors have endeavoured to prove from engines, that horses are mere engines made by geometry. But have these authors proved their points? Certainly not. Then it follows that horses, which are mere engines made by geometry, and Indian Britons, are mere creatures of the brain, invented creatures; and if they are only invented creatures, they may well be supposed to be invented from engines and penguins, from whence these authors had endeavoured, in vain, to prove their existence. Upon the whole, I imagine, that, in these and the lines immediately preceding, three sorts of writers are equally bantered by our author: those who hold machines to be animals, those who hold animals to be machines, and those who hold that the Americans are derived from Britons." Warburton, who justly may rank among the first commentators upon the British poets, observes upon these lines, "That the thought is extremely fine, and well exposes the folly of a philosopher, for attempting to establish a principle of great importance in his science on as slender a foundation as an etymologist advances an historical conjecture." V. 65. The dire Pharsalian plain.] Pharsalia, a city in Thessaly, famous for the battle fought by Julius Cæsar against Pompey, in the neighbouring plain, which put a period to the liberties of the Roman commonwealth. V. 71-2. For as our modern wits behold, Mounted a pick-back on the old.] Sir William Temple, in his Essay on Ancient and Modern Learning, observes, "That, as to knowledge, the moderns must have more than the ancients, because they have the advantage both of theirs and their own; which is commonly illustrated by a dwarf standing upon a giant's shoulders, or seeing more or further than he." It may, however, in point of fact be very well doubted, whether the moderns have |