our chair,) from which all the infallible bulls and decretals of the see of Rome, in the technical language of those instruments, are said to proceed.

V. 529. Spoke truth point-blank, tho' unaware.] The ancient oracles were supposed to be unacquainted with the real meaning of the responses they delivered, which were left to the sagacity of those who consulted them to interpret, or for time to discover. Hence, when they stumbled upon truth point-blank, they might well be said to speak unawares. When Alexander, previous to his Persian expedition, went to consult the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, the priestess refused to ascend the tripos, till Alexander obliged her by force, when, unable to resist any longer, she cried out, “thou art invincible," and these words were accepted by the hero without any further oracle.

V. 530. In magic talisman and cabal.] Magic talismans were anciently of various kinds, and for various uses. The charms used by the common people in the days of fanaticism, were similar in every point, except identity of substance, to the talismans which the ancient Persian magi fabricated. They were to preserve the wearers or owners of them against particular dangers; as, according to a vulgar notion, that skinny membrane, called a cawl, with which some children are born, is thought to be an infallible preservative against drowning, though the opinion is justly exploded by all persons of sense. The orientalists of the present day are still famous for their talismans, but in modern Europe, if we except the Turkish provinces in Europe, some parts of Poland, and the Russian empire, this superstitious delusion is nearly extinct. The cabal is a superstition of Hebrew origin, which consisted in a fantastic interpretation of the Old Testament, according to the dreams of the rabbins, by giving every text a triple meaning: 1. The simple or literal meaning; 2. The abstruse or allegorical meaning; 3. The numeric meaning, taking the letters of each word for cyphers or arithmetical numbers. This folly prevailed throughout Christendom to a wonderful extent at one period, and they are still to be found interpreters of the Apocalypse, who deal in such reveries.

V. 532. As far as Adam's first green breeches.] Butler, in this passage, probably meant to ridicule the Calvinistic, or Geneva

translation of the Bible, published in English with notes, in 4to. and 8vo. in the year 1557, and in folio in 1615, in which, in Ger nesis iii. 7. are the following words: "And they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves breeches," instead of aprons, as in the authorised translation.

V. 533. Deep sighted in intelligences.] Intelligences were those spirits or angels, which were supposed to regulate the motions of the heavenly bodies; for as the squire to his theological acquirements added that of being well versed in astrology, he was able to predict future events from the aspect of the stars.

V. 535-6. And much of terra incognita,

Th' intelligible world could say.] This passage is intended to ridicule those who argue upon subjects of which it is impossible for them to have any knowledge. The squire was a man of such universal knowledge, that he could say much even of those parts of the world that were unknown and undiscovered. V. 539. Or Sir Agrippa, &c.] Cornelius Agrippa flourished in the fifteenth century. He was a learned, but difficult writer; and died counsellor and historiographer to the Emperor Charles V.

V. 541. He Anthroposophus and Floud, &c.] Anthroposophia Theomagica, or a Discourse of the Nature of Man in the State after Death, was the title of a book which contained a great deal of unintelligible jargon, such as no one could understand what the author meant, or aimed at.-Floud was an enthusiast in phi losophy, of whom little is now kuown further than his name, on which Butler has conferred immortality.

V. 542. And Jacob Behmen understood, &c.] Jacob Behmen was a mystic philosopher, of Germany, who treated of the creation of the world, the nature of God, of man, animals, plants, &c. &c. most voluminously, but in so obscure and difficult a style, that even his own disciples could not understand him.

V. 545. In Rosicrucian lore as learned, &c.] The Rosicrucians, or Brothers of the Rosy Cross, were a sect of hermetical philosophers, who appeared, or at least were first taken notice of, in Ger many, in the beginning of the sixteenth century. They pretended to be masters of all sciences, and to have many important secrets, particularly that of the philosopher's stone. Swift, in his Tale of a Tub, makes the following observations upon the Rosicrucians:

"Night being the universal mother of things, wise philosophers hold all writings to be fruitful in the proportion they are dark, and therefore the True Illuminated, (a name of the Rosicrucians), that is to say, the darkest of all, have met with such numberless commentators, whose scholastic midwifery hath delivered them of meanings that the authors themselves perhaps never conceived, and yet may be very justly allowed the true parents of them. The words of such writers being just like seeds, however scattered at random, when they light upon such fruitful ground, will multiply far beyond either the hopes or the imagination of the sower." Sir Roger L'Estrange, in his fable of the Alchymist, tells a pleasant story of one of those philosophers. "A chemical pretender," says he, "who had written a discourse plausible enough on the transmutation of metals, and turning brass and silver to gold, thought he could not place such a curiosity better than in the hands of Leo X. and so made his holiness a present of it. The Pope received it with great humanity, and with this compliment over and above:-'Sir,' said he, I should have given you my acknowledgments in your own metal, but gold upon gold would have been false heraldry, so that I shall rather make you a return of a dozen empty purses to put your treasure in; for though you can make gold, I don't find that you can make purses.'

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V. 546. As he that vere adeptus eurned.] Such of the alchymists as pretended to have found out the philosopher's stone, were called Adept Philosophers.

V. 547. He understood the speech of Birds.] We never heard that any of the fanatics pretended to this extraordinary gift, and therefore we suppose that our poet confers it upon Ralpho only to heighten the ridicule of his character. It has been thought that some of the eastern sages pretended to the miraculous endowment; but this mistake originated in want of knowing that the orientalists were the inventors of those apologues and fables, in which birds and beasts are so often the principal actors, and argue with all the rationality and acuteness of human logicians.

V. 549-50. Could tell what subtlest parrots mean,

That speak and think contrary clean.] Butler, in this place, probably alluded to the following popular story. A parrot belonging to King Henry VIII. happening to fall out of one of

the palace windows into the water, very seasonably remembered some words it had often heard before, whether in earnest or jest, and cried out amain, “ a boat, a boat for twenty pounds." A boatman presently made to the spot, took up the bird, and restored it to the king, to whom he knew it belonged, hoping for as great a reward as the bird had promised. The king agreed that he should have as the bird should say anew, and immediately the parrot answered, “give the knave a groat.”

V. 551-2. What member 'tis of whom they talk

When they cry Rope, and Walk, knave, walk.] The meaning of this passage is, that the squire was so well acquainted with the secret history of his times, that whenever any member was alluded to on account of some cant name, or particular transaction of his life, he at once knew who was the person designated.-Rope is supposed to have been a bye name given to Baron Tomlinson, on account of a ludicrous speech made and printed on his swearing the sheriffs Warner and Love into their office: part of his charge to them was as follows: "You are the chief executioners of sen→ tences upon malefactors, whether it be whipping, burning, or hanging. Mr. Sheriff, I shall entreat a favour of you; I have a kinsman at your end of the town, a ropemaker. I know you will have many occasions before this time twelvemonth, and I hope I have spoken in time; pray make use of him, and you will do the poor man a favour, and yourself no prejudice." Walk, knave, walk, had some allusion to Colonel Hewson, one of the regicides, but what was the particular occasion of it cannot now be traced.

V. 560. He hadst matter seen undress'd.] This is matter before, by the fiat of the Almighty, it had been divided into elements, or reduced into form.

V. 573. He could foretel, &c.] The fanatic preachers would in their prayers often pretend to foretel events, in order to encourage the people in their rebellion.

V. 585-6. As if they were consenting to

All mischiefs in the world men do.] This ridicule of judiciary astrology is extremely happy. "It is injurious to the stars," says Gassendi, "to dishonour them with the imputation of such power and efficacy as is incompetent to them, and to make them many times the instruments not only to men's ruins, but even

to all their vicious inclinations and detestable villanies." And it was observed by Dr. James Young, of Sir Christopher Heyden, the great advocate of astrologers, that he affirmed, "That the efficacy of the stars cannot be frustrated without a miracle: where then (says he) is the providence of God and free-will? We are not free agents, but like Bartholomew puppets, act and speak as Mars and Jupiter please to constrain us;" or as the astrologer spoken of by St. Austin, "It is not we that lusted but Venus; not we that slew, but Mars; not we that stole, but Murcury; not God that helpeth, but Jupiter: and so free-born man is made star-born slave." V. 589-90. They'll search a planet's house, to know

Who broke and robb'd a house below.] Throughout the whole of this passage, Butler pursues his subject with unabated humour and raillery. The idea of searching the planets' houses to discover who robbed houses on the earth would appear to exceed all the bounds of probability, did we not know that such applications were once common, and that among our forefathers scarcely any momentous concern in life was undertaken, without first inquiring of the stars whether the issue of it would be successful.

V. 599-600. Make Mercury confess and 'peach

Those thieves which he himself did teach.] Mercury was the god of merchants and thieves, and therefore he is cǝmmonly represented with a purse in his hand.

V. 603-4. Like him that took the doctor's bill,

And swallow'd it instead o' th' pill.] The story on which this allusion is founded, is as follows: An ignorant countryman going to a physician for advice, the doctor wrote out a prescription for him, and bid him take it: and the countryman, instead of taking the paper to an apothecary's shop, literally obeyed the doctor's order, and swallowed it. A mistake somewhat similar occurred when the art of inoculating for the small-pox was in its infancy in England: a countryman desirous of preserving his children from the disease, procured some variolus matter, but not knowing how they were to be inoculated with it, he gave it to them between a piece of bread and butter.

V. 605. Cast the nativity o' th' question.] When any one came to an astrologer to have his child's nativity cast, and had forgot the hour and minute when it was born, which were necessary to be