public games of Greece, rarely encountered until all their joints and members had been soundly rubbed, fomented, and suppled with oil, whereby all strains were prevented, and the combatants were enabled to display their activity to the utmost advantage. V. 305-6. and huge dun cow, Did, like another Guy, o'erthrow.] Guy, Earl of Warwick, was a famous English champion, who flourished in the reign of King Athelstan, about the beginning of the tenth century. The legend of his killing the dun cow, must be so familiar to every reader, that it would be superfluous to give more of it here than what is contained in the following lines: "On Dunsmore Heath I also slew A monstrous wild and cruel beast, Call'd the Dun Cow of Dunsmore Heath, Which many people had oppress'd: Some of her bones in Warwick yet Still for a monument do lie, Which to ev'ry looker's view, As wond'rous strong they may espy." V. 309-10. With greater troops of sheep h' had fought Than Ajax, &c.] Ajax contended with Ulysses for the armour of Achilles, which being adjudged by the Grecians in favour of Ulysses, Ajax grew mad, and fell upon some flocks of sheep, taking them for the princes that had given the award against him; and after having made great slaughter among them, he at length slew himself. ib. or bold Don Quixote.] Butler here alludes to Don Quixote's adventure with the flock of sheep, which he mistook for an army, commanded by the giant Alifanfaron, of Taprobana. Part I. Book iii. Chap iv. V. 311-2. And many a serpent of fell kind, With wings before, und stings behind.] The reader should here keep in mind, that our author does nothing more than enlarge upon Talgol's profession, with that license which is excusable in a poet. The monstrous serpent which he here describes, is nothing more than the wasp or hornet, which is troublesome to butcher's shops in the heat of summer, and which they are accustomed to kill by means of a leather flap fastened at the end of a stick. V. 314. Bold Sir George, St. George did the Dragon.] St. George, the patron of England, and of the noble Order of the Garter, was Bishop of Cappadocia, and suffered martyrdom in the Dioclesian persecution. The legend of his killing the dragon was invented to signify his extirpating a certain heresy with which his diocese was infected. V. 315. No engine, nor device, polemic.] The racks and different tortures of the Inquisition, and all sorts of persecution on account of difference of religious opinions. V. 317. Tho' stor'd with deletery med'cines.] Our poet in all likelihood here alludes to a practice which there is too much reason for believing once prevailed in the Romish church, of administering poison to their adversaries, in order to get rid of them. V. 331. Magnano, &c.] Sir Roger L'Estrange says, he was one Simeon Wait, a tinker, as famous an independent preacher as Burroughs, who, with equal blasphemy, styled Oliver Cromwell the archangel giving battle to the devil. V. 344. As he that made the brazen head.] Roger Bacon, a learned friar, of Oxford, who flourished in the thirteenth century. V. 346. As English Merlin, &c.] Merlin seems, in various countries, to have been a common name for enchanters, as both Spanish, French, and Italian Merlins are to be met with in the writers of romance. The English Merlin, if we may believe the account of Geoffrey of Monmouth, flourished at the latter end of the fifth century. V. 347. But far more skilful in the spheres.] That is, he was more of an astrologer than a magician, and could perform more extraordinary things by observing the stars, than by the use of any magical ceremonies, like those of the sieve and shears. V. 350. As like the devil as a collier.] An old proverbial saying, "Like to like, as the devil said to the collier." V. 355. The cannon, blunderbuss, and saker.] There is something highly humourous in Butler's making the tinker the inventor of these weapons of destruction, as the ancient poets feigned Vulcan, the blacksmith of the gods, to be the forger of those celestial arms wherewith the deities engaged in combat. V. 359-60. He was the first that e'er did teach To make, and how to stop a breach.] This is another allusion to Magnano's profession of a tinker; of which class of men it is not uncommonly said, "that in order to mend one hole they make two." V. 365. He Trulla lov'd, &c.] This virago, who afterwards makes a very conspicuous figure in the adventures of Hudibras, is supposed to have been the daughter of one James Spencer, who was debauched by Magnano, the tinker. She is called Trulla, because the tinker's wife, or mistress, was commonly called his trull. V.368. As Joan of France, &c.] Joan la Pucelle, or the Maid of Orleans, who defeated the English in several pitched battles, but, being at length taken prisoner, was burnt for a witch at Rouen, in 1430. Ib. or English Moll.] Alluding probably to Mary Carlton, or Kentish Moll, but more commonly the German Princess, a person notorious at the time this first part of Hudibras was published. She was transported to Jamaica in 1671, but returning from transportation before the expiration of her sentence, she was hanged at Tyburn, Jan. 22, 1672. V. 378. Than th' Amazonian dame, Penthesile.] Penthesile, Queen of the Amazons, carried succours to the Trojans, and after having given noble proofs of her valour, she was killed by Achilles. There are other heroines of the same name to be met with in the ancient poets, but the Penthesile whom we have mentioned was the most celebrated. V. 385-6. They would not suffer the stoutest dame To swear by Hercules's name.] The Romans had particular forms of oaths for men and women to swear by. Thus Macrobius informs us, that the men were not allowed to swear by Castor, nor the women by Hercules. V. 389-90. To lay their native arms aside, Their modesty, and ride astride.] The proper arms of the softer sex are their beauty and tears; but when they betake themselves to martial exercises, they lose that influence over the other sex which a proper adherence to the laws of nature would have enabled them to retain. It is not unlikely that in this and some preceding passages, Butler meant to ridicule those female warriors in Ariosto and Tasso, who laying aside the delicacy of their sex, take the field like so many knight-errants. Formerly it was the custom for English women to ride astride like men, but Anne, the queen of Richard II. and daughter of the Emperor Charles IV. taught the English women that way of riding upon horseback which is now in usc. V. 393. As stout Armida, bold Thalestris.] Armida was the mistress of Orlando Furioso. Thalestris, a queen of the Amazons, is reported by Quintus Curtius, to have met Alexander the Great, attended by three hundred of her women, thirty days, in order to have a child by him. V. 395-6. Of Gondibert, but he had grace, And rather took a country lass.] Rhodalind, daughter of Aribert, King of Lombardy, is the person who wanted to have been the mistress of Gondibert, but he preferred Birtha, daughter of Astragon, a Lombard lord, and celebrated philosopher and physician. "Yet with as plain a heart as love untaught In Birtha wears, I there to Birtha make A vow, that Rhodalind I never sought, Nor now would, with her love her greatness take. Let us with secrecy our loves protest, Hiding such precious wealth from public view; The proffer'd glory I will first suspect As false, and shun it when I find it true." V. 399-400. To government, which they suppose, Can never be upheld in prose.] Warburton, the most sagacious and penetrating of all the English critics, says, that this passage is designed to ridicule Sir William Davenant's preface to Gondibert, where he endeavours to show, that neither divines, leaders of armies, statesmen, nor ministers of the law, can uphold the government without the aid of poetry.-It may be observed, that Davenant was a needy court writer, a poetaster rather than a poet, and he was studious to recommend his art as necessary to the government, as a merchant of the present day would recommend his traffic as necessary to the revenue. Lord Wharton used to boast, that he effected a revolution, which cost a monarch three crowns, by a song (Lilliburlero): but what bard has yet been able to uphold a tottering and decrepit state by the magic of his poesy? Davenant lived and died in poverty; he had nothing but the barren laurel, while the worthless minions of the dissipated Charles basked in the sunshine of the royal favor. V. 409. The upright Cerdon next advanc'd.] Sir Roger L'Estrange informs us that this personage was a one ey'd❞ cobler (like his brother colonel Hewson), and a great reformer. V. 413-4. He rais'd the low, and fortify'd The weak against the strongest side.] Warburton conjectures that our poet here alludes to Cerdon's profession of a cobler, who supplies a heel torn off, and mends a bad sole. Butler, in his Tale of the Cobler and Vicar of Bray, (vide Posthumous Works,) has the following lines: "So going out into the streets, He bawls with all his might, If any of you tread awry, And patch up all your holes." V. 415-6. Ill has he read that never hit "Because the On him, in Muses' deathless writ.] cobler is a very common subject in old ballads." Warburton.Tailors and coblers, perhaps, furnish more matter for merriment in our old ballads than all the other handicrafts put together. They seem to have been, from the earliest times, a sort of common property, a general fund of laughter, or ridicule, upon which the wits of all countries might draw for their amusement. Little Hunchback, in the Thousand and One Nights, and Snipshu, in the Persian Tales, are natives of Europe, and equally citizens of London or Paris, as of Bagdad or Samarcand. V. 419-20. And cut it in a thousand pieces, Tho' tougher than the knight of Greece his.] The Grecian warriors at the siege of Troy were, for the most part, armed with shields made of the hides of bulls, which were almost impenetrable to the weapons which were then in use. Of this description was Ajax's shield, as described in Iliad. V. "Stern Telamon, behind his ample shield, As from a brazen tow'r, overlook'd the field; |
