contempt. In hazardous undertakings care was taken to begin under the influe a propitious planet; and, when the king was prisoner in Carisbrook Castle, an loger was consulted what hour would be found most favourable to an escape.
What effect this poem had upon the public, whether it shamed imposture, or reclaimed credulity, is not easily determined. Cheats can seldom stand long against laughter. It is certain, that the credit of planetary intelligence wore fast away; though some men of knowledge, and Dryden among them; continued to believe, that conjunctions and oppositions had a great part in the distribution of good or evil, and in the government of sublunary things.
Poetical action ought to be probable upon certain suppositions; and such probability as burlesque requires is here violated only by one incident. Nothing can show more plainly the necessity of doing something, and the difficulty of finding something to do, than that Butler was reduced to transfer to his hero the flagellation of Sancho, not the most agreeable fiction of Cervantes; very suitable indeed to the manners of that age and nation, which ascribed wonderful efficacy to voluntary penances; but so remote from the practice and opinions of the Hudibrastic time, that judgment and imagination are alike offended.
The diction of this poem is grossly familiar, and the numbers purposely neglected, except in a few places, where the thoughts by their native excellence secure themselves fron violation, being such as mean language cannot express. The mode of versification has been blamed by Dryden, who regrets, that the heroic measure was not rather chosen. To the critical sentence of Dryden the highest reverence would be due, were not his decisions often precipitate, and his opinions immature. When he wished to change the measure, he probably would have been willing to change more. If he intended, that, when the numbers were heroic, the diction should still remain vulgar, he planned a very heterogeneous and unnatural composition. If he preferred a general stateliness, both of sound and words, he can be only understood to wish Butler had undertaken a different work.
The measure is quick, sprightly, and colloquial, suitable to the vulgarity of the words, and the levity of the sentiments. But such numbers and such diction can gain regard only when they are used by a writer, whose vigour of fancy and copiousness of knowledge entitle him to contempt of ornaments, and who, in confidence of the novelty and justness of his conceptions, can afford to throw metaphors and epithets away. To another, that conveys common thoughts in careless versification, it will only be said, Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper." The meaning and diction will be worthy of each other, and criticism may justly doom them to perish together.
Nor even though another Butler should arise, would another Hudibras obtain the same regard. Burlesque consists in a disproportion between the style and the sentiments, or between the adventitious sentiments and the fundamental subject. It, therefore, like all bodies compounded of heterogeneous parts, contains in it a principle of corruption. All disproportion is unnatural; and from what is unnatural we can derive only the pleasure which novelty produces. We admire it awhile as a strange thing; but when it is no longer strange, we perceive its deformity. It is a kind of artifice, which by frequent repetition detects itself; and the reader, learning in time what he is to expect, lays down his book, as the spectator turns away from a second exhibition of those tricks, of which the only use is to show, that they can be played.
HUDIBRAS.
IN THREE PARTS.
Sir Hudibras his passing worth,
The manner how he sally'd forth,
His arms and equipage are shown,
His horse's virtues, and his own:
Th' adventure of the bear and fiddle
Is sung, but breaks off in the middle'.
WHEN civil dudgeon first grew high,
And men fell out they knew not why;
When hard words, jealousies, and fears,
Set folks together by the ears,
And made them fight, like mad or drunk,
For dame Religion, as for punk;
Whose honesty they all durst swear for,
Though not a man of them knew wherefore;
When gospel-trumpeter, surrounded
With long-ear'd rout, to battle sounded;
And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,
Was beat with fist instead of a stick;
Then did sir Knight abandon dwelling,
And out he rode a colonelling 2.
A wight he was, whose very sight would
Patitle him Mirror of Knighthood,
1A ridicule on Ronsarde and Davenant.
The knight (if sir Samuel Luke was Mr. But-
That never bow'd his stubborn knee
To any thing but chivalry,
Nor put up blow, but that which laid
Right worshipful on shoulder-blade;
Chief of domestic knights and errant,
Either for chartel 3 or for warrant ;
Great on the bench, great in the saddle,
That could as well bind o'er as swaddle;
Mighty he was at both of these,
And styl'd of war, as well as peace.
(So some rats, of amphibious nature,
Are either for the land or water):
But here our authors make a doubt,
Whether he were more wise or stout:
Some hold the one, and some the other,
But, howsoe'er they make a pother,
The difference was so small, his brain
Outweigh'd his rage but half a grain;
Which made some take him for a tool,
That knaves do work with, call'd a fool.
For 't has been held by many, that
As Montaigne, playing with his cat,
Complains she thought him but an ass,
Much more she would sir Hudibras :
(For that's the name our valiant knight
To all his challenges did write.)
But they're mistaken very much;
'Tis plain enough he was no such.
We grant, although he had much wit,
H' was very shy of using it,
As being loth to wear it out,
ler's hero) was not only a colonel in the parlia-And therefore bore it not about,
ment-army, but also scoutmaster-general in the 1 counties of Bedford, Surry, &c.
3 Chartel is a challenge to a duel.
Unless on holy-days, or so,
As men their best apparel do.
Beside, 'tis known he could speak Greek
As naturally as pigs squeak;
That Latin was no more difficile,
Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle:
Being rich in both, he never scanted
His bounty unto such as wanted;
But much of either would afford
To many that had not one word.
For Hebrew roots, although they're found
To flourish most in barren ground,
He had such plenty, as suffic'd
To make some think him circumcis'd;
And truly so he was, perhaps,
Not as a proselyte, but for claps.
He was in logic a great critic,
Profoundly skill'd in analytic;
He could distinguish, and divide
A hair 'twixt south and south-west side;
On either which he would dispute,
Confute, change hands, and still confute:
He'd undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a man's no horse;
He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a lord may be an owl;
A calf an alderman, a goose a justice,
And rooks committee-men and trustees.
He'd run in debt by disputation,
And pay with ratiocination:
All this by syllogism, true
In mood and figure, he would do.
For rhetoric, he could not ope
His mouth, but out there flew a trope;
And when he happen'd to break off
I' th' middle of his speech, or cough,
H' had hard words ready to show why,
And tell what rules he did it by ;
Else, when with greatest art he spoke,
You'd think he talk'd like other folk;
For all a rhetorician's rules
Teach nothing but to name his tools.
But, when he pleas'd to show 't, his speech, In loftiness of sound, was rich;
A Babylonish dialect,
Which learned pedants much affect;
It was a party-colour'd dress
Of patch'd and py-ball'd languages;
'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin,
Like fustian heretofore on satin;
It had an old promiscuous tone,
As if h' had talk'd three parts in one;
Which made some think, when he did gabble,
Th' had heard three labourers of Babel,
Or Cerberus himself pronounce
A leash of languages at once.
This he as volubly would vent,
As if his stock would ne'er be spent:
And truly, to support that charge,
He had supplies as vast and large;
For he could coin or counterfeit
New words, with little or no wit;
Words so debas'd and hard, no stone
Was hard enough to touch them on;
And when with hasty noise he spoke 'em,
The ignorant for current took 'em ;
That had the orator, who once
Did fill his mouth with pebble-stones
When he harangued, but known his phrase,
He would have us'd no other ways.
In mathematics he was greater
Than Tycho Brahe or Erra Pater 4;
For he, by geometric scale,
Could take the size of pots of ale;
Resolve, by sines and tangents, strait,
If bread or butter wanted weight;
And wisely tell, what hour o'th' day
The clock does strike, by algebra.
Beside, he was a shrewd philosopher,
And had read every text and gloss over;
Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath,
He understood b' implicit faith:
Whatever sceptic could inquire for,
For every why he had a wherefore;
Knew more than forty of them do,
As far as words and terms could go;
All which he understood by rote,
And, as occasion serv'd, would quote;
No matter whether right or wrong,
They might be either said or sung.
His notions fitted things so well,
That which was which he could not tell;
But oftentimes mistook the one
For th' other, as great clerks have done.
He could reduce all things to acts,
And knew their natures by abstracts;
Where entity and quiddity,
The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly;
Where truth in person does appear,
Like words congeal'd in northern air.
He knew what's what, and that's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly :
In school-divinity as able,
As he that hight Irrefragable 5;
A second Thomas", or, at once
To name them all, another Dunce 7:
4 An eminent Danish mathematician; and William Lilly, the famous astrologer of those times.
s Alexander Hales, so called; he was an Englishman, born in Gloucestershire, and flourished about the year 1236, at the time when what was called school-divinity was much in vogue; in which science he was so deeply read, that he was called Doctor Irrefragabilis, that is, the invincible doctor, whose arguments could not be resisted.
6 Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican friar, was born in 1224, studied at Cologne and at Paris. He new-modelled the school-divinity, and was therefore called the Angelic Doctor, and Eagle of divines. The most illustrious persons of his time were ambitious of his friendship, and put a high value on his merits, so that they offered him bishoprics, which he refused with as much ardour as others seek after them. He died in the fiftieth year of his age, and was canonized by pope John XXII. We have his works in eighteen volumes, several times printed.
7 Johannus Dunscotus was a very learned man, who lived about the end of the thirteenth, and beginning of the fourteenth century. The English and Scots strive which of them shall have the honour of his birth. The English say he was born in Northumberland; the Scots allege he was born at Dunse in the Merse, the neighbouring county to Northumberland, and hence was called Dunscotus: Moreri, Buchanan, and other Scotch historians, are of this opinion. He died at Cologne, Nov. 8,
Profound in all the Nominal
And Real ways beyond them all 8:
For be a rope of sand could twist
As tough as learned Sorbonist,
And weave fine cobwebs, fit for scull
That's empty when the Moon is full:
Such as take lodgings in a head
That's to be let unfurnished.
He could raise scruples dark and nice,
And after solve them in a trice;
As if Divinity had catch'd
The itch, on purpose to be scratch'd;
Or, like a mountebank, did wound
And stab herself with doubts profound,
Only to show with how small pain
The sores of Faith are cur'd again;
Although by woful proof we find
Dey always leave a scar behind.
He knew the seat of Paradise,
(old tell in what degree it lies,
And as he was dispos'd, could prove it
below the Moon, or else above it;
That Adam dreamt of, when his bride
Lane from her closet in his side;
Whether the Devil tempted her
Bra High-Dutch interpreter ;
feither of them had a navel;
To first made music malleable;
Thether the Serpent, at the Fall,
ad cloven feet, or none at all:
this without a gloss or comment,
He could unriddle in a moment,
proper terms, such as men smatter
Then they throw out and miss the matter.
For his religion, it was fit
Eatch his learning and his wit:
Tas presbyterian true blue;
Ir he was of that stubborn crew
ferrant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true church militant;
Sech as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversies by
lafalible artillery ;
Lad prove their doctrine orthodox,
By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire, and sword, and desolation,
Ardly, thorough reformation,
Talways must be carry'd on,
And still be doing, never done;
Af religion were intended
nothing else but to be mended:
Aseet whose chief devotion lies
odd perverse antipathies;
hang out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss;
Me peevish, cross, and splenetic,
Than dog distract, or monkey sick;
That with more care keep holy-day
wrong, than others the right way; pound for sins they are inclin'd to, I daraning those they have no mind to: to perverse and opposite,
taey worshipp'd God for spite:
Gulielmus Occham was father of the Nominals, Johannes Dunscotus of the Reals. These two bot in the two first editions of 1664, but added
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for:
Free-will they one way disavow,
Another, nothing else allow :
All piety consists therein
In them, in other men all sin:
Rather than fail, they will defy
That which they love most tenderly;
Quarrel with minc'd pies, and disparage
Their best and dearest friend, plum-porridge;
Fat pig and goose itself oppose,
And blaspheme custard through the nose.
Th' apostles of this fierce religion,
Like Mahomet's, were ass and widgeon,
To whom our knight, by fast instinct
Of wit and temper, was so linkt,
As if hypocrisy and nonsense
Had got th' advowson of his conscience.
Thus was he gifted and accouter'd,
We mean on th' inside, not the outward:
That next of all we shall discuss;
Then listen, sirs, it follows thus.
His tawny beard was th' equal grace
Both of his wisdom and his face;
In cut and dye so like a tile,
A sudden view it would beguile;
The upper part whereof was whey,
The nether orange, mix'd with grey.
This hairy meteor did denounce
The fall of sceptres and of crowns;
With grisly type did represent
Declining age of government;
And tell, with hieroglyphic spade,
Its own grave and the state's were made:
Like Samson's heart-breakers, it grew
In time to make a nation rue;
Though it contributed its own fall,
To wait upon the public downfall;
It was monastic, and did grow
In holy orders by strict vow;
Of rule as sullen and severe,
As that of rigid Cordeliere:
"Twas bound to suffer persecution,
And martyrdom, with resolution;
T'oppose itself against the hate
And vengeance of th' incensed state,
In whose defiance it was worn,
Still ready to be pull'd and torn,
With red-hot irons to be tortur'd,
Revil'd, and spit upon, and martyr'd;
Maugre all which 'twas to stand fast
As long as monarchy should last;
But when the state should hap to reel,
'Twas to submit to fatal steel,
And fall, as it was consecrate,
A sacrifice to fall of state,
Whose thread of life the Fatal Sisters
Did twist together with its whiskers,
And twine so close, that Time should never,
In life or death, their fortunes sever,
But with his rusty sickle mow
Both down together at a blow.
So learned Taliacotius 9, from
The brawny part of porter's bum,
9 Gasper Taliacotius was born at Bononia, A. D. 1553, and was professor of physic and surgery there. He died 1599. His statue stands in the anatomy theatre, holding a nose in its hand. He wrote a treatise in Latin called Chirurgia Nota, in H
Cut supplemental noses, which
Would last as long as parent breech,
But when the date of Nock was out,
Off dropt the sympathetic snout.
His back, or rather burthen, show'd
As if it stoop'd with its own load:
For as Æneas bore his sire
Upon his shoulders through the fire,
Our knight did bear no less a pack
Of his own buttocks on his back;
Which now had almost got the upper-
Hand of his head for want of crupper:
To poise this equally, he bore
A paunch of the same bulk before,
Which still he had a special care
To keep well cramm'd with thrifty fare;
As white-pot, butter-milk, and curds,
Such as a country-house affords ;
With other victual, which anon
We farther shall dilate upon,
When of his hose we come to treat,
The cupboard where he kept his meat.
His doublet was of sturdy buff,
And though not sword, yet cudgel-proof,
Whereby 'twas fitter for his use,
Who fear'd no blows but such as bruise.
His breeches were of rugged woollen,
And had been at the siege of Bullen;
To old king Harry so well known,
Some writers held they were his own:
Through they were lin'd with many a piece
Of ammunition bread and cheese,
And fat black puddings, proper food
For warriors that delight in blood:
For, as we said, he always chose
To carry vittle in his hose,
That often tempted rats and mice
The ammunition to surprise;
And when he put a hand but in
The one or t' other magazine,
They stoutly in defence on't stood,
And from the wounded foe drew blood,
And till th' were storm'd and beaten out,
Ne'er left the fortify'd redoubt:
And though knights-errant, as some think,
Of old did neither eat nor drink,
Because when thorough deserts vast,
And regions desolate, they past,
Where belly-timber above ground,
Or under, was not to be found,
Unless they graz'd, there's not one word
Of their provision on record:
Which made some confidently write,
They had no stomachs but to fight.
'Tis false; for Arthur wore in hall
Round table like a farthingal,
On which, with shirt pull'd out behind,
And eke before, his good knights din'd;
Though 'twas no table some suppose,
But a huge pair of round trunk hose,
In which he carry'd as much meat
As he and all the knights could eat,
When, laying by their swords and truncheons,
They took their breakfasts, or their nuncheons.
But let that pass at present, lest
We should forget where we digrest,
which he teaches the art of ingrafting noses, ears, lips, &c. with the proper instruments and bandages. This book has passed through two editions.
As learned authors use, to whom
We leave it, and to th' purpose come.
His puissant sword unto his side,
Near his undaunted heart, was ty'd,
With basket-hilt that would hold broth,
And serve for fight and dinner both`;
In it he melted lead for bullets
To shoot at foes, and sometimes pullets,
To whom he bore so fell a grutch,
He ne'er gave quarter to any such.
The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty,
For want of fighting was grown rusty,
And ate into itself, for lack
Of somebody to hew and hack:
The peaceful scabbard, where it dwelt,
The rancour of its edge had felt;
For of the lower end two handful
It had devoured, 'twas so manful,
And so much scorn'd to lurk in case,
As if it durst not show its face.
In many desperate attempts
Of warrants, exigents, contempts,
It had appear'd with courage bolder
Than serjeant Bum invading shoulder:
Oft had it ta'en possession,
And prisoners too, or made them run.
This sword a dagger had, his page,
That was but little for his age,
And therefore waited on him so,
As dwarfs upon knights-errant do:
It was a serviceable dudgeon,
Either for fighting or for drudging:
When it had stabb'd or broke a head,
It would scrape trenchers, or chip bread;
Toast cheese or bacon, though it were
To bait a mouse-trap, 'twould not care:
"Twould make clean shoes, and in the earth
Set leeks and onions, and so forth:
It had been 'prentice to a brewer,
Where this and more it did endure,
But left the trade, as many more
Have lately done on the same score.
In th' holsters, at his saddle-bow,
Two aged pistols he did stow,
Among the surplus of such meat
As in his hose he could not get:
These would inveigle rats with th' scent,
To forage when the cocks were bent,
And sometimes catch them with a snap,
As cleverly as th' ablest trap:
They were upon hard duty still,
And every night stood centinel,
To guard the magazine i'th' hose
From two-legg'd and from four-legg'd foes.
Thus clad and fortify'd, sir Knight,
From peaceful home, set forth to fight.
But first with nimble active force
He got on th' outside of his horse:
For having but one stirrup ty'd
This saddle on the further side,
It was so short, h' had much ado
To reach it with his desperate toe;
But after many strains and heaves,
He got up to the saddle-eaves,
From whence he vaulted into th' seat
With so much vigour, strength, and heat,
That he had almost tumbled over
With his own weight, but did recover,
By laying hold on tail and mane,
Which oft he us'd instead of rein.
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