known, in order to the erecting a scheme for the purpose, the figure caster looking upon the inquirer as wholly influenced, entirely guided by the stars in the affair, took the position of the heaven the minute the question was asked, and formed his judgment accordingly of the child's future fortune; just as if the child had been born the very same moment that the question was put to the conjuror. V. 619. No more than can the astrologians.] The meaning of this passage is, that the astrologers themselves can no more dispose of (i. e. deceive) a wise man than can the stars. What makes the obscurity is the using the word dispose in two senses; to signify influence where it relates to the stars, and deceive where it relates to the astrologers.

V.622. The other course, &c.] Religious impostures; by which the author finely insinuates, that even wise men at that time were deceived by those pretences.

This Ralpho knew, and therefore took

V. 637-8. We should as learned poets'use,

Invoke th' assistance of some muse.] Butler cannot permit the usual exordium of an epic poem to pass by him unimitated, though he immediately ridicules the custom. The invocation he uses is very satirical, and reaches abundance of writers; and his compliance with the custom was owing to a strong propensity he found in him to ridicule it.

V. 645-6. Thou that with ale or viler liquors,

Didst inspire Withers, Pryn, and Vickars.] Three wretched poetasters; but in considerable repute among the Puritans. Anthony Wood gives the following account of Pryn's elegant apparatus for the solicitation of the Muses, which Butler probably had in view when he wrote the above lines. "His custom was, when he studied, to put on a long quilted cap, which came an inch over his eyes, seldom eating any dinner, would every three hours or more be munching a roll of bread, and now and then refresh his exhausted spirits with ale brought him by his servant." Cowley, in his Miscellanies, apparently burlesquing his style, speaks of him as follows.

"One lately did not fear

Without the Muses' leave to plant verse here,

But it produc'd such base, rough, crabbed, hedge-
Rhymes, as e'en set the hearer's ear on edge:
Written by William Pryn, Esquire, the

Year of our Lord six hundred thirty three.

Brave Jersey muse! and he's for his high style,

Call'd to this day the Homer of the isle."

Another poet speaks of Withers and Pryn in the following

manner:

"When each notch'd 'prentice might a poet prove,

Warbling through the nose a hymn of love;

When sage George Withers, and grave William Pryn,

Himself might for a poet's share put in."

Vickars was as eminent among the Puritans, as Pryn or Withers. It is said of him, that he translated Virgil's Æneids into as horrible a travestie in earnest, as the French Scarron did in burlesque.

V. 649. —sullen writs.] Implying satirical writings. Our author's meaning here is, that such writers as Withers, Pryn, and Vickars, had no other quality than ill-nature towards many satirists.

V. 653-4. The praises of the author, penn'd,

B' himself or wit-insuring friend.] This was a sneer upon the too common practice of those times, in prefixing of panegyrical verses to the most stupid performances.

V. 655. The itch of picture in the front.] Every author of those times, however contemptible or insignificant, was ambitious of having his portrait prefixed to his compositions, and, in this respect, it seldom happened that he was not gratified: but the engravings of those sons of Apollo were not in the least superior to the portraits of Messrs. Dilworth, Dysche, Fenning, &c. which we see at the present day prefixed as frontispieces to the school books which bear their names.

V. 657. All that is left o' th' forked hill.] Parnassus, alluding to its two tops. Dryden says,

"I never did in cleft Parnassus dream,

Nor taste the Heliconian stream."

V. 658. To make men scribble without skill.] Taylor, the water poet, lashes such pretenders to poetry in the following lines:

"An ass in cloth of gold is but an ass,
And rhyming rascals may for poets pass
Among misjudging and illiterate hinds:

But judgment knows to use them in their kinds.
Myself knows how (sometimes) a verse to frame,
Yet dare I not put on a poet's name;

And I dare with thee at any time,

For what thou darʼst in either prose or rhyme :
For thou of poesy art the very scum,
Of riff-raff rubbish wit the total sum;
The loathsome glanders of all base abuse;
The only filch-line of each labouring muse;

The knave, the ass, the coxcomb, and the fool,
The scorn of poets, and true wits close-stool."

V. 663-4. Assist me but this once I'mplore,

And I shall trouble thee no more.] Butler's invocation to his master is conducted in a strain of high humour and the most piquant ridicule. The conclusion of it is perfectly in the style of the epic poets, who never fail to address themselves fervently to Apollo, Minerva, Venus, or some of the nine, to smile upon their labours, and inspire their poetic fires.

V. 665. In western clime there is a town.] Poets are very careful to avoid naming a place, and therefore commonly express themselves by some metaphor, circumlocution, or periphrasis of speech. Had our poet named Brentford at once, he would have sunk the dignity of his hero; but this he wisely avoids, by simply saying that the scene of his first adventure was in a town in western clime. Nor does he deign to acquaint the reader with the name of the town, till he comes to the Third Canto of Part II. when he tells the knight what befel him there.

And though you overcame the bear,

The dogs beat you at Brentford fair;

Where sturdy butchers broke your noddle.

V. 678. Which learned butchers call bear-baiting.] This game is ushered in the poem with the same solemnity as the celebrated games in the epics of Homer and Virgil.

V. 682. From Isthmian or Nemaan game.] To confer more importance on the adventure which Hudibras is about to undertake,

Butler deduces the origin of bear-baiting from the Isthmian and and Nemæan games; the first of which were celebrated every fifth year on the Isthmus of Corinth; the second every third year at Nemæa, a village between the cities of Cleona and Philus.

V. 684. That's fixed in northern hemisphere.] Ursa Major, the great bear, a constellation in the northern hemisphere.

V. 689-90. For after solemn proclamation

In the bear's name, &c.] The custom of bear-baiting is now so little used in England, that it is not easy to know by what laws the sport was regulated. Probably they did not differ much from the laws of bull-baiting, of which we may gather some notion from what Dr. Plot says in his history of Staffordshire, alluding to the bull-running at Tutbury, where solemn proclamation was made by the steward, before the bull was turned loose; "That all manner of persons give way to the bull, none being to come near him by forty feet, any way to hinder the minstrels, but to attend his or their own safety, every one at his own peril."

V. 714. We that are, &c.] This speech is set down as it was delivered by the knight in his own words, but since it is below the gravity of heroical poetry to admit of humour, and all men are obliged to speak wisely alike, and too much of so extravagant a folly would become tedious and impertinent, the rest of his harangues have only his sense expressed in other words, unless in some few places, where his own words could not be so well avoided.

V. 715. Than constables in curule wit.] Hudibras means to insinuate, that justices of the peace are as much superior in understanding to constables, as they are in office. Curule wit is an affected phrase of the knight to shew his learning, and is derived from the cella curulis, or ivory chair, on which the consuls and other chief magistrates of Rome used to sit when they administered justice.

V. 718. From Pharos of authority.] A justice of the peace being mounted on a bench, may be said to look down upon the crowd as from a Pharos of authority. The word Pharos is derived from a celebrated light-house built at the entrance of the harbour of Alexandria, which is still to be seen.

V. 720. Low proletarian tything-men.] The knight is uncommonly fond of the use of obscure and affected words. Of this

innumerable instances will appear. By proletarian tything-men, he means the lowest of the people. Aulus Gellius informs us, that in Rome they were accounted proletarii, who paid into the public treasury a less sum than fifteen hundred pieces of brass yearly. V. 725-6.

-coincidere ;

Quantum in nobis.] Agree.-Quantum in nobis, as much as is in our power. Our poet delights in heightening the humour of his story with quaint Latin phrases. This was in the taste of his age; and it is to be observed, that as elegant quotations give a polish and refinement to language, so the use of quaint and affected technical terms degrade and barbarise it.

V. 729-30. And try if we by mediation

Of treaty and accommodation.] Modern France is supposed to have gained as much by the skill and artifices of her diplomatists as by force of arms. This was also the case with the Round-heads in the time of Charles I. Whenever they had some particular end to answer, as to gain time, they made overtures towards an accommodation, and when their object was attained, they always contrived to break off the negociation by the unreasonableness of their terms.

V. 736. For covenant-] This was the solemn league and covenant, which was first framed and taken by the Scottish parliament, and by them sent to the parliament of England, in order to unite the two kingdoms more closely in religion. It was read and taken by both houses, and by the city of London; and ordered to be read in all the churches throughout the kingdom; and every person was bound to give his consent by holding up his hand at the reading of it.

Ib. and the cause's sake.] The Presbyterian party were accustomed to call the rebellion the cause. Sir William Dugdale, in his view of the troubles, informs us, that one Bond, preaching at the Savoy, told his auditors from the pulpit, "that they ought to contribute and pray, and do all they were able to bring in their brethren of Scotland, for settling of God's cause. I say," quoth he, "that is God's cause, and if our God hath any cause, this is it; and if this be not God's cause, then there is no God for me; but the devil is got up into heaven." Such was the blasphemy and fanatacism of the times, which, to use the words of a contemporary poet,