preachers, said, "that he shrunk up his shoulders, and stretched himself, as if he was going to cleave a bullock's head." Some of our modern tabernacle fanatics have gone nearly as far into this extravagance, as the old Puritans. Their action in the pulpit, and precise hypocritical behaviour in other respects, is alluded to in the following lines:

"Both Cain and Judas back are come,

In vizards most divine;

God bless us from a pulpit drum,

And preaching Cataline."

V. 13. Then did Sir Knight, &c.] It has been a matter of controversy whether Butler had not some particular person in view in his delineation of the character of Hudibras. It is highly probable that he had; and tradition reports his hero to have been Sir Simon Luke, with whom Butler, though his principles were sound and loyal, lived some time.

V. 14. And out he rode a-colonelling.] That is, he took the field in the capacity of an officer in the parliamentary service. It is to be observed there, that the Knight is now entering upon his proper office, full of pretended pious and sanctified resolutions for the good of his country; and his future peregrinations and adventures are so consistent with his office and humour, and with the spirit of the times, that they cannot be looked upon as fabulous or improbable.

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V. 15. A wight he was, &c.] The word wight was often used by our old writers to imply person, but it had become nearly obsolete in Butler's time, and he probably used it in a ridiculous sense, as we do at present, when we say, a luckless wight.

V. 16. Mirrour of Knighthood.] Don Quixote is frequently called by Cervantes the Mirrour of Chivalry; and in his library was a book entitled the " Mirrour of Knighthood," which the curate ordered to be committed to the flames.

V. 19-20. Nor put up blow, but that which laid

Right worshipful on shoulder blade.] Which conferred dignity upon him, alluding to the ceremony of making a knight, when the person kneels, and the king lays his sword upon his shoulder.

V. 22. Either for Chartel, &c.] Chartel signifies a letter of de

fiance or challenge to a duel, in use when combats were allowed to decide difficult controversies not otherwise to be determined by law. A trial (and the last) of this kind was intended between the Marquis of Hamilton and Lord Rea in the year 1631, but the king (Charles 1.) put an end to the dispute.

V. 22. Or for warrant.] Hudibras being a justice of the peace, possessed authority to issue warrants, and therefore, was to be considered as a formidable person, both in respect to his military capacity, and his office as a civil magistrate. In the following line the poet calls him, “Great on the bench, great in the saddle,” by which he means that he was equally renowned as a justice and as a man of war.

V. 24. That could as well bind o'er as swaddle.] Swaddle implies to bang, drub, or cudgel; the Knight is therefore represented as equally able to bind a culprit to the peace by virtue of his authority as justice, or to drub them into good behaviour by force of arms.

V. 34. Outweigh'd his rage, &c.] By rage is to be understood that enthusiastic principle by which Sir Hudibras and the reformers of his day were actuated. The word is used in the same sense at present, when we say such a fashion is the rage. V. 38-9. As Montaigne, playing with his cat,

Complains she thought him but an ass.] "When I am playing with my cat," says Montaigne in his Essays, book 11, chap. 12, "who knows whether she has more sport in dallying with me than I have in gaming with her? We entertain each other with mutual apish tricks.” Dr. Grey, in his comments upon this passage, seems to think that it was intended to ridicule the simple humour of Montaigne, but this is not a very reasonable supposition. Montaigne was a writer in high estimation when Butler wrote, and he was too sound a judge of the lively old Frenchman's merit purposely to ridicule him.

V. 40. Much more she would Sir Hudibras.] Whence Butler derived the name of his knight is uncertain. Geoffrey of Monmouth makes mention of a British king of the name of Hudibras, who lived about the time of Solomon, and reigned thirty-nine years; he composed all dissensions among his people, and built Kaerlem or Canterbury, Kaergaen or Winchester, and the town

of Paladur, now Shaftesbury. Spencer, in his Fairy Queen, has a knight of the nome of Hudibras, and probably Butler borrowed from him.

"He that made love unto the eldest dame

Was hight Sir Hudibras, an hardy man;
Yet not so good of deeds as great of name,
Which he by many rash adventures wan,

Since errand arms to sew [follow] he first began."

V. 51-2. Besides, 'tis known he could speak Greek

As naturally as pigs squeak.] In the panegyrical verses by Lionel Cranfield, prefixed to Coriat's Crudities, is the follow

ing passage;

"He Greek and Latin speaks with equal ease

That hogs eat acorns, and tame pigeons pease."

V. 53-4. That Latin was no more difficile,

Than for a blackbird 'tis to whistle.] In Don Quixote, Sancho Panza observes, that his master is a great scholar, Latins it hugely, and talks his mother-tongue as well as one of your university doctors." In the time of the grand rebellion it was very common for preachers to interlard their sermons with scraps of Latin; and as a proof that the people in those days were fond of hearing Latin in sermons, it appears from the Life of Dr. Pocock, the great oriental scholar," that one of his friends, passing through Childrey, which was the doctor's living, inquired who was the minister, and how they liked him? and received from them this answer: our parson is one Mr. Pocock, a plain, honest man; but, Master, said they, he is no Latiner." Pocock, independent of great merit as an orientalist, was one of the first classical scholars of his age, but he had too good a taste to introduce Latin quotations into his sermons, which probably would have been unintelligible to nine-tenths of his hearers.

V. 55-6. Being rich in both, he never scanted

His bounty unto such as wanted.] This feature in the Knight's character is perfectly natural. A self-conceited fanatic is perpetually making a display of his opinions and learning, and the more ignorant the persons are with whom he converses, the higher he will advance his pretensions to superior

knowledge, because what he says among illiterate persons is sure to be admired, though not understood.

V. 59. For Hebrew roots, altho' they're found.] Dr. Echard tells us, "that some are of opinion that children may speak Hebrew at four years of age, if they be brought up in a wood, and suck of a wolf;" and Sir Thomas Browne, in his Vulgar Errors, observes, “that children in the school of nature, without institution, would naturally speak the primitive language of the world, was the opinion of the ancient heathens, and continued since by Christians, who will have it our Hebrew tongue, as being the language of Adam.

V. 66. Profoundly skill'd in analytic.] Analytic method (one of the modes of logic) takes the whole compound as it finds it, whether it be a species or an individual, and leads us into the knowledge of it, by resolving it into its principles or parts, its generic nature, and special properties; and is called the method of resolution.

V. 75. A calf an alderman, &c.] The corporation of London, in the time of the civil war, were decisively hostile to the court; and, in fact, without their support the parliament would never have ventured the lengths it did. This, perhaps, may in some degree account for Butler's antipathy to aldermen.

V. 75. A goose a justice.] Lord Clarendon, in his History of the Rebellion, observes," that after the declaration of no more addresses to the king, they who were not above the ordinary condition of constables five or six years before, were now justices of the peace, who executed the commands of the parliament in all the counties with vigour and tyranny, as was natural for such persons to use over and towards those upon whom they had looked at such a distance. The whole government of the nation remained in a manner wholly in their hands; who, in the beginning of the parliament, were scarcely ever heard of, or their names known, but in the places where they inhabited. It appears from another author, that at "the commencement of the rebellion, the town of Chelmsford, in Essex, was governed by a tinker, two coblers, two tailors, and two pedlars." Such were the magistrates under whose authority the nation was placed, and whom Butler so justly lashes.

V. 76. And rooks committee-men, &c.] In several of the coun ties, particularly the associated ones, Middlesex, Kent, Surry, Sussex, Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire, committees were erected of such men, as were for the good cause, as they called it, (that is, Puritanism) who had authority from the members of the two houses at Westminster, to fine and imprison whom they pleased; and, as might be expected from such persons, harassing the country in a most arbitrary and rapacious manner, they were on that account, with great propriety, called rooks. The gaming-tables and the turf still retain the phrase, and a rook is there considered as synonymous with a blackleg.

V. 79. All this by syllogism, true.] A syllogism is an argument in logic consisting of three propositions, wherein some things being supposed, or taken for granted, a conclusion is drawn different from the thing supposed.

V. 93. A Babylonish dialect.] A confusion of languages, like what a conceited pedant may be thought most likely to explain himself in.

V. 98. Like fustian heretofore on satin.] This was a fashion where the coarse fustian was pinked, or cut into holes, that the fine satin might appear through it.

V. 100. As if h' had talk'd three parts in one.] This phrase alludes to the old catches in three parts.

V. 101-2, Which made some think, when he did gabble,

Th' had heard three labourers of Babel.]

Speaking

Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Or this may allude to some fantastic doctrine then in vogue, on the origin of languages.

V. 103. Or Cerberus himself pronounce,

A leash of languages at once.] Cerberus was the name which the poets gave to a dog with three heads, which they feigned guarded the entrance of hell, and caressed the unfortunate souls sent thither, and devoured them that would get out again: yet Hercules overcame him. By this allegory the poets meant the past, the present, and the time to come, which receive, and, as it were, devour all things. Hercules got the better of him, which shows that heroic actions are always victorious over time, because they are present in the memory of posterity.