Claims it her own: thick woods and gloomy night Some call it gifts, and some new light.] The knight and squire entertained different theological opinions. The Independents and Anabaptists (of which sect Ralph probably was) pretended to great gifts, as they called them, by inspiration, and their preachers, though many of them could scarcely read, were called gifted brethren. Some of the modern Methodists are no less fanatical and inflated than their Puritanical precursors. V. 487-8. Like commendation nine-pence crook'd With-To and from my love-it look'd.] Until the year 1696, when all money not milled was called in, a nine-penny piece of silver was as common as sixpences or shillings, and these nine-pences were usually bent as sixpences commonly are now; which bending was called to my love and from my love, and such nine-pences the common people gave or sent to their sweethearts, as tokens of love, V. 490. To look a gift-horse in the mouth.] Persons who receive a horse as a present are not likely to examine his mouth, by which his age may be known, with such care as a person that is going to buy a horse. V. 495-6. For saints themselves will sometimes be, Of gifts that cost them nothing, free.] Ignorance is often said to be the mother of presumption. The Commonwealth fanatics exceeded even the reformers in Scotland of the preceding century in presumption and ignorance. A modern wit and scholar of the first order, speaking of them, says, "every transaction of life was interlarded with scraps from Scripture, and their own names were lost in names adopted from the two testaments; Cromwell rebaptized his whole regiment after the posterity of Abraham, and heard the pedigree of our Saviour every day at roll call." The author of a tract, entitled "Sir John Birkenhead revived," ridicules these pretended saints in the following manner :→→ "If these be saints, 'tis vain indeed The world will soon be of this creed, Of all those monsters which we read None like to those now lately bred Within this wretched isle. The Turk, the Jew, and infidel, Make up an English saint." V. 499-500. He could deep mysteries unriddle, As easily as thread a needle.] There was no trait in the character of the Puritans more conspicuous than the alacrity with which they affected to resolve the profoundest mysteries of the Christian dispensation. The most awful and solemn subjects were discussed among them with as little gravity or reserve as if they had been discoursing of mere matters of trade, or the most ordinary concerns of human life; and therefore, when talking of religious subjects, they generally drew their metaphors from some of the handicrafts to which they belonged; as our poet in this place says of the squire, he could deep mysteries unriddle, as easily as thread a needle, which could have been no difficult matter for a man bred a tailor. Dr. Echard, (Contempt of the Clergy) makes mention of one of the fanatical preachers, who, discoursing about the sacrament and faith, tells his hearers, that Christ is a treasury of all wares and commodities, and therefore, opening his wide throat, cries aloud, "Good people, what do you lack, what do you buy? Will you buy any balm of Gilead and eye-salve, any myrrh, aloes, or cassia? Shall I fit you with a robe of righteousness, or with a white garment? See here! What is it you want? Here is a very choice armoury: shall I show you a helmet of salvation, a shield or breast-plate of faith? Will you please to walk in and see some precious stones, a jasper, a sapphire, a chalcedony? Speak, what do you buy?" Dr. Echard remarks upon this extravagant, profane rant, very properly, now for my part I must needs say, and I much fancy I speak the minds of thousands, 66 that it had been much better for such an impudent and ridiculous bawler as this was, to have been condemned to have cried oysters and brooms, than to discredit, at this unsanctified rate, his profession and our religion." V. 507-8. A light that falls down from on high, For spiritual trades to cozen by.] Butler probably here designs a quibble on the spiritual lights which the Presbyterian visionaries pretended to, and which he compares to the show-lights which certain trade's people use to set off their commodities to the best advantage. Mercers, silkmen, drapers, &c. have a particular light which comes from the top of their shops, by which their goods are shown with a better effect; and the same, it is well known, is the case with exhibitions of pictures, which are always seen to the best advantage, when the light is so managed as to proceed from the top of the exhibition room. V. 509. An ignis fatuus, &c.] A resplendent exhalation of the earth, caused, as it is most generally supposed, by the decomposition of putrid substances. This phosphoric exhalation is known in country parts by the name of a Jack o'lanthorn, or Will with the wisp, and according to vulgar tradition, often causes people to wander out of their way, and leads them into pools and ditches. The reason of this, which can be explained upon natural principles, is, that these exhalations most frequently arise in damp and marshy places, and, consequently, that those who approach to take a nearer view of them, are liable to fall into the swamps from whence they proceed. V. 511-2. To make them dip themselves, and souud For Christendom in dirty pond.] Butler, like Shakespeare, when he starts a good idea, seems to think he can never make enough of it: his ignis fatuus naturally enough leads the saints into pools and ditches, but instead of leaving them there ashamed of their folly, their enthusiasm still sits closely by them, and he represents them diving for salvation, and fishing to catch regeneration. Nothing can be more exquisite than the humour of this passage, nothing more unconstrained and unforced than the application of it. This will be obvious to the meanest reader, when he is informed that the sectaries to whom Butler more particularly alludes here, were the Anabaptists, or dippers, as they were then called, in derision, who maintained that regeneration was not granted to sinners, unless the whole body was immersed in the waters of baptism. Accordingly men and women were often publicly baptized before large bodies of people, the priest accompanying them into the water, and remaining there, in the severest seasons, to the conclusion of the ceremony. Of the abuses to which such a practice would be liable, not a word need here be said: they are sufficiently ridiculed in the following lines, taken from a satire against hypocrites. "Men say there was a sacred wisdom then, That rul'd the strange opinions of these men ; A deacon and a buffeter of Satan." The Anabaptists of the present day support their principal doctrine upon those words of our Saviour, “He that believeth, and is baptised, shall be saved." Now, as adults, or grown persons, are alone capable of believing, they argue that none but adults are fit to be baptized. The modern Anabaptists baptize their converts in baths in their chapels of worship, in the face of the congregation, but they are never entirely naked when they are immersed; as was the case with the ancient disciplinants of their sect. V. 515-6. This light inspires and plays upon The nose of saint, like bagpipe drone.] The sectaries in Cromwell's time were most of them men of the meanest education and lowest habits, and consequently utter enemies to all refinements of literature, or graces, or polish of elocution. The drawl and twang of a vulgar Methodist of the present day, will furnish us with a lively notion of the Puritan preachers, to whom Butler here alludes, and whom another poet of his own age describes as, "With face and fashion to be known With eyes all white, and many a groan, And harp in's nose, or he is none." V. 520. But spiritual eaves-droppers can hear.] Perhaps it would be an emendation to this passage to read can bear: i. e, they speak in a language so harsh, dissonant, and uncouth, that none but spiritual eaves-droppers, gifted brethren like themselves, can listen to them with patience! or, our poet may have meant by hear to understand, i. e. that the preachers spoke so unintelligibly that none but the sanctified like themselves could possibly understand them. Eaves-droppers are reputed in law, malicious persons who listen to the discourses of the unwary, in order to inform against them; but Butler probably intended no more by the words, than listeners of the worst class. V. 525-6-7. Thus Ralph became infallible, As three or four legg'd oracle, Or ancient cup, or modern chair.] Among the numerous sects of fanatics into which the nation was split in Cromwell's time, there was not one, perhaps, which did not think itself the only true, infallible church. The squire belonged to the most sour and austere sect of fanatics, and therefore was the more likely to be presuming in his spiritual gifts and graces. He looked upon himself as no ordinary man; but as one whom pious exercises and meditations had made perfect. In a word, he was one of those hot-headed enthusiasts who can persuade themselves into the belief of any thing, and have so superior an opinion of their own judgment, that they can never allow themselves to be in the wrong. Hence Butler says, in a fine strain of humour, Ralph became infallible, as three or four legg'd oracle, the ancient cup, or modern chair. The three legged oracle refers to the tripos, or three footed stool, upon which the priestess of Delphos sat, when she delivered her oracles: the four legged oracles may probably allude to the elephants which the kings of Siam, and other eastern potentates, kept for the purpose of divination, and which they believed in as implicitly as the ancients did in the oracles of Apollo. The ancient cup has reference to Joseph's divination cup, mentioned in the book of Genesis; and the modern chair implies the papal throne, (which the Popes in their affected humility call |
