“For, if Inconstancy doth keep the door,

Lust enters, and my lady proves a whore:

And so a bastard to the world may come,
Perhaps begotten by some stable groom,
Whom the fork-headed, her cornuted Knight,

May play and dandle with, with great delight."

V. 429-30. 'Tis like that sturdy thief that stole,

And dragg'd beasts backwards into 's hole.] Alluding to the story of Cacus, who stole the oxen of Hercules, and dragged them backward to his cave, that they might not be traced. "Allur'd with hope of plunder, and intent

By force to rob, by fraud to circumvent,
The brutal Cacus, as by chance they stray'd;
Four oxen thence, and four fair kine convey'd,
And lest the printed footsteps might be seen,
He dragg'd them backwards to his rocky den:
The tracts averse a lying notice gave,

And led the searcher backwards from the cave."

V. 435-6. But if you doubt I should reveal

What you intrust me under seal.] Dr. Grey says, that our poet probably had here in view the 113th canon of 1603, by which it was enjoined, that secret sins confessed to the minister should not be revealed by him, (unless they were such crimes as by the laws of this realm his own life might be called in question for concealing them,) under pain of irregularity, which was suspension from the execution of his office.

V. 438. As your own secretary Albertus.] Albertus Magnus was bishop of Ratisbon; he flourished about the year 1260; and Butler calls him the women's secretary, on account of a book which he wrote entitled De Secretis Mulierum.

V. 444. Money's the mythologic sense.] Suitors talk of love, while their only object is to obtain a fortune.

V. 460. At their own weapons are outdone.] "That is," says Warburton, "the splendor of gold and silver is more refulgent than the rays of those luminaries."

V. 465-6. For what is worth in any thing,

But so much money as 'twill bring.] These lines, which are very shrewd and pointed, have obtained a sort of general cir

culation by frequent quotation. “A covetous person,” says the Tatler, No. 122, “in Seneca's Epistles, is represented as speaking the common sentiments of those who are possessed with that vice, in the following soliloquy: Let me be called a base man, so I am called a rich one: If a man is rich, who asks if he be good? The question is, How much we have? not from whence, nor by what means, we have it? Every man has so much merit as he has wealth. For my part, let me be rich, O ye Gods! or let me die: the man dies happily, who dies increasing his treasure: there is more pleasure in the possession of wealth, than in that of parents, children, wife, or friends,""

"that

V. 470. Unless it be to squint and laugh.] Pliny says, man is the only animal that squints;" and other philosophers affirm, that man is the only animal that laughs.

V. 475. But 'tis (your better part) your riches.] Our Knight unbosoms himself with the utmost frankness to his mistress. In the Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio argues in the same manner: "Signior Hortensio," says he, " 'twixt such friends as us few words suffice, and, therefore, if you know one rich enough to be Petruchio's wife, as wealth is the burthen of my wooing dance,

Be she as foul as was Florentius' love,

As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd
As Socrates' Xantippe, or a worse,

She moves me not, or not removes at least
Affection's edge in me. Were she as rough
As are the swelling Adriatic seas,

I come to wive it wealthily in Padua ;

If wealthily, then happily in Padua.

"Grumio. Why give him gold enough, and marry him to a puppet, or an aglet baby, or an old trot with ne'er a tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases as two and fifty horses. Why nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal.”

V. 497-8. For he that hangs, or beats out's brains,

The devil's in him if he feigns.] These lines are frequently quoted, because the sentiment they convey is just and natural, and can be forcibly applied to many of the common transactions of life. No man would dream of offering any extra

ordinary violence to his person unless he was really serious in the object of his pursuit.

V. 503. like a water witch, &c.] One mode of ordeal by which witches used to be tried, was by ducking them in water, their hands and feet being first secured. If the accused person floated on the water, she was deemed a witch; but if she sunk, she was considered innocent. In some parts of Scotland, and in some of England, it is to be feared, this superstition prevails to the present day.

V. 513-4. The soldier does it every day,

(Eight to the week,) for sixpence pay.] Warburton says, "If a soldier received sixpence a day, he would receive seven sixpences for seven days, or one week's pay; but if sixpence per week of this money be kept back for shoes, stockings, &c. then the soldier must serve one day more, viz. eight to the week, before he will receive seven sixpences, or one week's pay clear."

V. 625. Give but yourself one gentle swing

For trial, and I'll cut the string.] Dr. Grey says, "It is plain, from Hudibras' refusal to comply with her request, that he would not have approved of that antique game invented by a people among the Thracians, who hung up one of their companions in a rope, and gave him a knife to cut himself down, which if he failed in, he was suffered to hang till he was dead."

V. 533-4. Nor (like the Indian's skull) so tough,

That authors say 'twas musket proof.]

Oviedo, in his General History of the Indians, observes, "that Indian skulls are four times as thick as other men's; so that coming to handystrokes with them, it shall be requisite not to strike them on the heads with swords, for many swords have been broken on their heads, with little hurt done." It need scarcely here be mentioned, that this story of the thickness of Indian skulls is a mere fable, which, in an age like the present, would not have gained a moment's credit, so much better informed are we than our ancestors were, of the persons, manners, and customs of foreign nations.

V. 540. Here strike me luck, it shall be done.] A phrase borrowed from the cattle markets. Shakespeare, Part I. of Henry

VI. Act v. seems to ridicule, or rather to reprehend, this rude mode of courtship:

"So worthless peasants bargain for their wives,

As market men for oxen, sheep, and horse;

But marriage is a matter of more worth."

V. 552. I could love twice as much as you.] A former commentator upon Hudibras, observes upon this passage, "That the widow is practising coquetry and dissimulation in the highest perfection; she rallies and soothes the Knight, and, in short, plays all the arts of her sex upon him: he, alas! could not penetrate through the disguise; but the false hopes she gives him makes him joyous, and break out into rapturous asseverations of the sincerity of his love; and the extacy he seems to be in betrays him into gross inconsistencies. But this humour and flight in him may be excused, when we reflect, that there is no other way to be revenged of a coquet, but by retorting fallacies and coquetry. V. 555-6. True as Apollo ever spoke,

Or oracle from heart of oak.] Alluding to the oracle of Apollo at Delphos, and Jupiter's oracle in Epirus, near the city of Dodona, which delivered its responses from the hollow of an oak tree.

V. 565. I'll carve your name on bark of trees.] So Orlando, in As You Like It, says;

"O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books,

And in their barks my thoughts I'll character;
That every eye which in this forest looks
Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where.
Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree

The fair, the chaste, the unexpressive she.”

V. 569. Drink ev'ry letter on't in stum.] A potent heady ale. It was formerly the custom of tossing gallants to drink as many cups or glasses to their mistress' health, as there were letters in her

name.

V. 575. Nature her charter shall renew.] All this is designed to ridicule the hyperbolical praises which are heaped on the heroines of novels and romances, where women are described rather as divinities than as human creatures.

V. 600. To grind her lips upon a mill.] Warburton says the

meaning of this is, that the poets used to calls their mistress' lips polished rubies; now the ruby is polished by a mill.

V. 601. Until the fucet doublet, &c.] The facet doublet significs a false coloured stone, cut in many faces or sides. The humour of this term is, in calling the rubies of the lips false stones.

V. 603-4. Her mouth compar'd t' an oyster's, with

A row of pearl in 't 'stead of teeth.] This description was probably borrowed in part from Don Quixote's account of his mistress. "The curling locks of her bright flowing hair (says the valorous Manchazan) of purest gold, her smooth forehead the Elysian plain, her brows are two celestial bows, her eyes two glorious suns, her cheeks two beds of roses, her lips are coral, her teeth are pearl, her neck is alabaster, her breasts marble, her hands ivory, and snow would lose its whiteness near her bosom." This piece of grimace in lovers is likewise exposed with great humour by John Taylor, the water poet, in the following lines:

"To seek to merit ever-living bays,

For sordid stuff (like Ovid's lusty lays,)
With false bewitching verses to entice
Frail creatures from fair virtue to foul vice,
Whose flattery makes a whore to seem a saint,
That stinks like carrion with her pox and paint;
Comparing her (with false and odious lies)
To all that's in or underneath the skies;

Her eyes to suns, that do the sun eclipse,

Her cheeks are roses, rubies are her lips,
Her red and white, carnation mix'd with snow,
Her teeth to oriental pearls a row,

Her voice like music of the heavenly spheres,

Her hair like thrice-refined golden wires,

Her breath more sweet than aromatic drugs,

Like mounts of alabaster are her dugs:

Her bracelets, rings, her scarf, her fan, her chain,

Are subjects to inspire a poet's brain."

V. 608. For Indian lake and ceruse.] Lake is a crimson-coloured paint, similar to rouge; ceruse, the preparation of lead, commonly called white lead.