the advantage over the ancients or no, since we are well assured that many branches of knowledge which were perfectly well known to the ancients are irrecoverably lost to the moderns. If we may judge of the state of knowledge among mankind, from the state of population, which is perhaps a safer criterion than any other to judge by, unquestionably the ancient world was infinitely more populous than the modern. And if we look at the happiest periods of modern history, when the arts and sciences were cultivated with the most success, who for a moment could compare them with that bright portion of Athenian History, which is comprised between the era of Pericles and Alexander?

V. 97-8. Portending blood, like blazing star,

The beacon of approaching war.] From the most ancient times all extraordinary appearances in the air have, by the vulgar, been accounted preternatural prodigies, or signs, exhibited by the power of heaven, to put mortals on their guard against approaching calamities. Such was the comet which appeared when the emperor Charles V. sickened, increased as his disorder increased, and at last shooting its fiery body point-blank against the monastery of St. Justus, where he lived, in the very hour the emperor died the comet vanished. Pliny says, 66 comets are called dire, because they portend cruel and horrible disasters, as famine, wars, discomfiture, havoc, slaughter, the destruction of cities, the devastation of countries, and the untimely end of the human species.” Plinii Nat. Hist. 1. xi. c. xxv.

V. 99-100. Ralpho rode on with no less speed

Than Hugo in the forest did.] One of the great difficulties in our older poets is, to understand their allusions to works which, however well known in their own times, have long since fallen into oblivion. The Hugo mentioned in the above passage, is a personage who figures in Sir William Davenant's poem of Gondibert. He was scout-master to Gondibert; and when he and his party of hunters were in danger of an ambuscade from Oswald and his forces, he sent little Hugo to reconnoitre the enemy.

"The Duke this falling storm does now discern,

Bids little Hugo fly, but 'tis to view

The foe, and their first count'nance learn,

Whilst firm he in a square his hunters drew.

And Hugo soon, light as his courser's heels,

Was in their faces troublesome as wind,

And like to it so wingedly he wheels,

No one could catch what all with trouble find."

V. 106. Crowdero march'd, &c.] In the Key to Hudibras, published by Sir Roger L'Estrange, we are informed, that by Crowdero was meant one Jackson, a miliner who lived in the New Exchange in the Strand. He had formerly been in the Parliamentarian service, and lost a leg in it, which had reduced him to decay, so that he was obliged to go about from alehouse to alehouse, earning his bread by playing upon the fiddle. Our poet very judiciously places him at the head of his catalogue, for country diversions are generally attended with a fiddler or bag-piper, who march first in procession. It may be observed in this place, that we have here the exact characters of what we may easily conceive the usual attendants at a bear-baiting to have been, fully drawn, and a list of warriors conformable to the practice of epic poets. V. 113-4. A squeaking engine he apply'd

Unto his neck, on north-east side.] Dr. Grey, in his note upon this passage, says, "Why the north-east side? Do fiddlers always, or most generally, stand or sit according to the points of the compass, so as to answer this description? No, surely, I lately heard of an ingenious explication to this passage, taken from the position of the body when it is buried, which being always the head to the west, and the feet to the east, consequently the left side of the neck, that part where the fiddle is usually placed, must be due north-east."

V. 115-6. Just where the hangman does dispose,

To special friends, the knot of noose.] In execution the noose is always placed under the left ear: the reason of this is, that the pressure of the halter upon the great jugular vein stopping the circulation of the blood, may the sooner put the criminal out of his misery.

V. 129. Chiron, the four legg'd bard.] Chiron, a centaur, son to Saturn and Phillyris, living in the mountains, where, being much given to hunting, he became very knowing in the virtues of plants, and one of the most famous physicians in his time. He imparted his skill to Esculapius, and was afterwards Achilles's governor, until, being wounded by Hercules, and desiring to die, Ju

piter placed him in heaven, where he forms the sign of Sagittarius, or the Archer.

V. 137-8. As once in Persia 'tis said,

Kings were proclaim'd by a horse that neigh'd.] According to Herodotus and other historians, Darius was proclaimed King of Persia in the following manner. Seven princes (of whom Darius was one) having slain the usurpers of the throne of Persia, entered into a consultation among themselves about settling of the government, and agreed, that the monarchy should be continued in the same manner as it had been established by Cyrus: and that, for the determining which of them should be monarch, they should meet on horseback the next morning against the rising of the sun, at a place appointed for that purpose; and that he whose horse should first neigh should be king. The groom of Darius being informed of what was agreed on, made use of a devise which secured the crown to his master; for, the night before, having tied a mare to the place where they were the next morning to meet, he brought Darius' horse thither, and put him to cover the mare, and, therefore, as soon as the princes came thither at the time appointed, Darius' horse, at the sight of the place, remembering the mare, ran thither and neighed, whereon he was forthwith saluted king by the rest, and accordingly placed on the throne,

Had got a deputy of oak.] Crowdero having lost a leg in the wars, had got its place supplied by a wooden one. Howell, in his Familiar Letters, tells a story of a captain, who had got a wooden leg, which was booted over, so as to look like an ordinary limb. Being in an engagement, he had it shattered to pieces by a cannon ball, upon which his soldiers cried out, a surgeon, a surgeon, for the captain: to which he replied, no, no, a carpenter, a carpenter will serve the turn.—Another story somewhat of a similar kind is to be found in Pinkethman's Jests. "I have heard," says he, "of a brave sea officer, who having lost a leg and an arm in the service, once ordered the hostler, upon his travels, to unbuckle his leg, which he did; then he bid him unscrew his arm, which was made of steel, which he did, but seemingly surprised, which the officer perceiving, he bid him unscrew his neck, at which the hostler scoured off, taking him for the devil.”

V. 146. And takes place tho' the younger brother.] Alluding to the aukward steps a man with a wooden leg makes in walking, who always sets it first.

V. 147. Next march'd brave Orsin, &c.] The person alluded to by the name of Orsin is said, by Sir Roger L'Estrange, to have been one Joshua Gosling, who kept bears at Paris Gardens in Southwark; but who, however, had more consistency than most of the fanatics of his times, for he stood hard and fast for the Rump Parliament,

V. 155-6. Grave as the Emperor of Pegu,

Or Spanish potentate, Don Diego.] The Travels of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, who had resided a long time at the court of the Emperor of Pegu, was a popular book in the time of Butler, and notwithstanding its author has been stigmatized by Congreve as a liar of the first magnitude, the relations of subse quent travellers have abundantly confirmed his accounts of the remote countries which he visited. He relates of the Emperor of Pegu, that whenever he goes abroad he keeps himself fixed immoveably in one posture on his throne, which is carried on men's shoulders, and never deigns to turn to the right or to the left, or to take notice of any thing that is passing under his eyes. The gravity of the Spanish nation is so well known, that it would be superfluous here to say any thing on the subject. V. 167. As Romulus a wolf did rear.]

According to the fabuRomulus was nursed by

lous history of the foundation of Rome, a wolf. The Spectator, remarking upon the subject of ancient heroes supposed to have been nursed by different animals, observes, that "Romulus and Remus were said to have been nursed by a wolf; Telephus, the son of Hercules, by a hind; Peleus, the son of Neptune, by a mare; and Ægisthus by a goat: not that they had actually sucked such creatures, as some simpletons have imagined, but their nurses had been of such a nature and temper, and infused such into them." This is as feasible an explanation as any that can be given, of what, though not absolutely impossible, is certainly very far out of the ordinary course of nature.

V. 168. So he was dry-nurs'd by a bear.] That is, he was maintained by the diversion which his bear afforded the rabble. Our

poet might likewise have the story of Valentine and Orson in his mind, who, as the legend goes, were suckled by a she-bear.

V. 172. In military garden, Paris.] This was a place of vulgar resort in Southwark, where bears were formerly baited, and which was called after the name of the proprietor, as Ranelagh had its name from the earls of Ranelagh, to whom the gardens and buildings originally belonged.

V. 173-4. As soldiers heretofore did grow

In gardens, just as weeds do now.] The bear-gardens being places where the dissolute associated, they furnished a large proportion of the soldiers who served in the parliamentary army in the civil war.

V. 175.

splay-foot politicians.] Gardeners, from exercising their feet a great deal in digging, may be supposed to have in proportion larger feet than ordinary men, and Butler therefore calls them "splay-foot politicians."

V. 177. For licensing a new invention.] This and the following lines are fully explained in Boccalini's Advertisement from Parnassus, Cent. 1. Ad. XVI. p. 27. ed. 1656, which begins thus; "Ambassadors from all the gardeners in the world are come to the court, who have acquainted his Majesty, that were it either from the bad condition of their seed, the naughtiness of the soil, or from evil celestial influences, so great abundance of weeds grew up in their gardens, as, not being able to undergo the charges they were at in weeding them out, and of cleansing their gardens, they should be enforced either to give them over, or else to enhance the price of their pompions, cabbages, and other herbs, unless his Majesty would help them to some new instrument, by means whereof they might not be at such excessive charge in keeping their gardens. His Majesty did much wonder at the gardeners' foolish request, and being full of indignation, answered their ambassadors, that they should tell those that sent them, that they should use their accustomed manual instruments, their spades and mattocks, for no better could be found or wished for, and cease from demanding such impertinent things. The ambassadors did then courageously reply, that they made this request, being moved thereunto by the great benefits which they saw his Majesty had been pleased to grant to princes,