Hudibras/Part 1/Canto 3

by Samuel Butler (1612-1680)

PART I.⁠CANTO III.

ARGUMENT.^[1]

The scatter'd rout return and rally,
Surround the place; the Knight does sally,
And is made pris'ner: then they seize
Th' enchanted fort by storm, release
Crowdero, and put the Squire in's place:
I should have first said Hudibras.

PART I.⁠CANTO III.

 

Y me! what perils do environ
The man that meddles with cold iron!^[2]
What plaguy mischiefs and mishaps
Do dog him still with afterclaps!
For tho' dame Fortune seem to smile,5
And leer upon him for a while,
She'll after show him, in the nick
Of all his glories, a dog-trick.
This any man may sing or say
I' th' ditty call'd, "What if a day?^[3]10
For Hudibras, who thought he'd won
The field as certain as a gun,^[4]
And having routed the whole troop,
With victory was cock-a-hoop;^[5]

Thinking he'd done enough to purchase 15
Thanksgiving-day among the churches,^[6]
Wherein his metal and brave worth
Might be explain'd by holder-forth,
And register'd by fame eternal,
In deathless pages of diurnal;^[7]20
Found in few minutes, to his cost,
He did but count without his host:^[8]
And that a turn-stile is more certain
Than, in events of war, Dame Fortune.
⁠For now the late faint-hearted rout.25
O'erthrown and scatter'd round about,
Chas'd by the horror of their fear,
From bloody fray of Knight and Bear,
All but the dogs, who, in pursuit
Of the Knight's victory, stood to 't30
And most ignobly sought^[9] to get
The honour of his blood and sweat,^[10]
Seeing the coast was free and clear
O' the conquer'd and the conqueror,
Took heart of grace,^[11] and fac'd about,35
As if they meant to stand it out:
For now the half defeated bear,^[12]
Attack'd by th' enemy i' th' rear.
Finding their number grew too great
For him to make a safe retreat,40
Like a bold chieftain fac'd about;
But wisely doubting to hold out,
Grave way to fortune, and with haste
Fac'd the proud foe, and fled, and fac'd,

Retiring still, until he found45
He'd got th' advantage of the ground;
And then as valiantly made head
To check the foe, and forthwith fled,
Leaving no art untry'd, nor trick
Of warrior stout and politick;50
Until, in spite of hot pursuit,
He gain'd a pass, to hold dispute
On better terms, and stop the course
Of the proud foe. With all his force
He bravely charg'd, and for a while 55
Forc'd their whole body to recoil;
But still their numbers so increas'd,
He found himself at length oppress'd,
And all evasions so uncertain,
To save himself for better fortune,60
That he resolv'd, rather than yield,
To die with honour in the field.
And sell his hide and carcase at
A price as high and desperate
As e'er he could. This resolution65
He forthwith put in execution,
And bravely threw himself among
Th' enemy i' th' greatest throng;
But what could single valour do
Against so numerous a foe? 70
Yet much he did, indeed too much
To be believ'd, where th' odds were such;
But one against a multitude
Is more than mortal can make good:
For while one party he oppos'd,75
His rear was suddenly enclos'd.
And no room left him for retreat,
Or fight against a foe so great.
For now the mastiffs, charging home,
To blows and handy-gripes were come;80
While manfully himself he bore,
And, setting his right foot before,
He rais'd himself, to show how tall
His person was, above them all.

This equal shame and envy stirr'd85
In th' enemy, that one should beard
So many warriors, and so stout,
As he had done, and stav'd it. out,
Disdaining to lay down his arms,
And yield on honourable terms.90
Enraged thus, some in the rear
Attack'd him, and some ev'rywhere,
Till down he fell; yet falling fought,
And, being down, still laid about;
As Widdrington, in doleful dumps, 95
Is said to fight upon his stumps.^[13]
But all, alas! had been in vain,
And he inevitably slain,
lf Trulla and Cerdon, in the nick,
To rescue him had not been quick: 100
For Trulla, who was light of foot,
As shafts which long-field Parthians shoot:^[14]
But not so light as to be borne
Upon the ears of standing corn,^[15]
Or trip it o'er the water quicker105
Than witches, when their states they liquor,^[16]
As some report, was got among
The foremost of the martial throng;
Where pitying the vanquish'd bear,
She call'd to Cerdon, who stood near,110
Viewing the bloody fight; to whom,
Shall we, quoth she, stand still hum-drum,
And see stout Bruin, all alone,
By numbers basely overthrown?

Such feats already he 'as achiev'd,115
In story not to be believ'd,
And 'twould to us be shame enough,
Not to attempt to fetch him off.
I would, quoth he, venture a limb
To second thee, and rescue him;120
But then we must about it straight,
Or else our aid will come too late;
Quarter he scorns, he is so stout,
And therefore cannot long hold out.
This said, they wav'd their weapons round125
About their heads, to clear the ground;
And joining forces, laid about
So fiercely, that th' amazed rout
Turn'd tail again, and straight begun,
As if the devil drove, to run.130
Meanwhile th' approach'd th' place where Bruin
Was now engag'd to mortal ruin:
The conqu'ring foe they soon assail'd;
First Trulla stav'd, and Cerdon tail'd,^[17]
Until the mastiffs loos'd their hold:135
And yet, alas! do what they could,
The worsted bear came off with store
Of bloody wounds, but all before:^[18]
For as Achilles, dipt in pond,
Was anabaptiz'd free from wound,140
Made proof against dead-doing steel
All over, but the pagan heel;^[19]

R. Cooper sculp^t.

William Prynne.

From an Original Picture in the possession of Mr. J. H. Burns.

So did our champion's arms defend
All of him but the other end,
His head and ears, which in the martial145
Encounter lost a leathern parcel;
For as an Austrian archduke once
Had one ear, which in ducatoons
Is half the coin, in battle par'd
Close to his head,^[20] so Bruin far'd;150
But tugg'd and pull'd on th' other side,
Like scriv'ner newly crucify'd;^[21]
Or like the late-corrected leathern
Ears of the circumcised brethren.^[22]
But gentle Trulla into th' ring155
He wore in's nose convey'd a string.
With which she march'd before, and led
The warrior to a grassy bed,
As authors write, in a cool shade,^[23]
Which eglantine and roses made;160
Close by a softly murm'ring stream,
Where lovers use to loll and dream:
There leaving him to his repose,
Secured from pursuit of foes,

And wanting nothing but a song,^[24]165
And a well-tuned theorbo^[25] hung
Upon a bough, to ease the pain
His tugg'd ears suffer'd, with a strain.^[26]
They both drew up, to march in quest
Of his great leader, and the rest.170
For Orsin, who was more renown'd
For stout maintaining of his ground
In standing fights, than for pursuit,
As being not so quick of foot,
Was not long able to keep pace175
With others that pursu'd the chase,
But found himself left far behind,
Both out of heart and out of wind;
Griev'd to behold his bear pursu'd
So basely by a multitude, 180
And like to fall, not by the prowess,
But numbers, of his coward foes.
He rag'd, and kept as heavy a coil as
Stout Hercules for loss of Hylas;^[27]
Forcing the vallies to repeat185
The accents of his sad regret:
He beat his breast, and tore his hair,
For loss of his dear crony bear;
That Echo, from the hollow ground,^[28]
His doleful wailings did resound190

More wistfully, by many times.
Than in small poets' splay-foot rhymes,^[29]
That make her, in their ruthful stories,
To answer to inter'gatories.
And most unconscionably depose195
To things of which she nothing knows;
And when she has said all she can say,
'Tis wrested to the lover's fancy.
Quoth he, O whither, wicked Bruin,
Art thou fled to my—Echo, ruin.200
I thought th' hadst scorn'd to budge a step,
For fear. Quoth Echo, Marry guep.^[30]
Am not I here to take thy part?
Then what has quail'd thy stubborn heart?
Have these bones rattled, and this head205
So often in thy quarrel bled?
Nor did I ever wince or grudge it,
For thy dear sake. Quoth she, Mum budget.^[31]
Thinks't thou 'twill not be laid i' th' dish^[32]
Thou turn'dst thy back? Quoth Echo, Pish.210
To run from those th' hadst overcome
Thus cowardly? Quoth Echo, Mum.
But what a-vengeance makes thee fly
From me too, as thine enemy?

Or, if thou hast no thought of me,215
Nor what I have endur'd for thee,
Yet shame and honour might prevail
To keep thee thus from turning tail:
For who would grutch to spend his blood in
His honour's cause? Quoth she, a Puddin.220
This said, his grief to anger turn'd,
Which in his manly stomach burn'd;
Thirst of revenge, and wrath, in place
Of sorrow, now began to blaze.
He vow'd the authors of his woe225
Should equal vengeance undergo;
And with their bones and flesh pay dear
For what he suffer'd and his bear.
This b'ing resolv'd, with equal speed
And rage, he hasted to proceed230
To action straight, and giving o'er
To search for Bruin any more.
He went in quest of Hudibras,
To find him out, where'er he was;
And if he were above ground, vow'd235
He'd ferret him, lurk where he wou'd.
⁠But scarce had he a furlong on
This resolute adventure gone,
When he encounter'd with that crew
Whom Hudibras did late subdue.240
Honour, revenge, contempt, and shame,
Did equally their breasts inflame.
'Mong these the fierce Magnano was,
And Talgol, foe to Hudibras;
Cerdon and Colon, warriors stout,245
And resolute, as ever fought;
Whom furious Orsin thus bespoke:
⁠Shall we, quoth he, thus basely brook
The vile affront that paltry ass,
And feeble scoundrel, Hudibras,250
With that more paltry ragamuffin,
Ralpho, with vapouring and huffing,
Have put upon us, like tame cattle,
As if th' had routed us in battle?

For my part, it shall ne'er be said255
I for the washing gave my head:^[33]
Nor did I turn my back for fear
O' th' rascals, but loss of my bear,^[34]
Which now I'm like to undergo;
For whether these fell wounds, or no,260
He has received in fight, are mortal,
Is more than all my skill can foretel;
Nor do I know what is become
Of him, more than the Pope of Rome,^[35]
But if I can but find them out265
That caused it, as I shall no doubt,
Where'er th' in hugger-mugger lurk,^[36]
I'll make them rue their handiwork,
And wish that they had rather dar'd
To pull the devil by the beard.^[37]270
⁠Quoth Cerdon, noble Orsin, th' hast
Great reason to do as thou say'st,
And so has ev'rybody here,
As well as thou hast, or thy bear:
Others may do as they see good;275
But if this twig be made of wood
That will hold tack, I'll make the fur
Fly 'bout the ears of the old cur,

And th' other mongrel vermin, Ralph,
That brav'd us all in his behalf.280
Thy bear is safe, and out of peril,
Tho' lugg'd indeed, and wounded very ill;
Myself and Trulla made a shift
To help him out at a dead lift;
And having brought him bravely off,285
Have left him where he's safe enough:
There let him rest; for if we stay,
The slaves may hap to get away.
⁠This said, they all engag'd to join
Their forces in the same design,290
And forthwith put themselves, in search
Of Hudibras, upon their march:
Where leave we them awhile, to tell
What the victorious Knight befell;
For such, Crowdero being fast295
In dungeon shut, we left him last.
Triumphant laurels seem'd to grow
Nowhere so green as on his brow;
Laden with Avhich, as well as tir'd
With conqu'ring toil, he now retir'd300
Unto a neighb'ring castle by,
To rest his body, and apply
Fit med'cines to each glorious bruise
He got in fight, reds, blacks, and blues;
To mollify th' uneasy pang305
Of ev'ry honourable bang.
Which b'ing by skilful midwife drest,
He laid him down to take his rest.
⁠But all in vain: he 'ad got a hurt
O' th' inside, of a deadlier sort,310
By Cupid made, who took his stand
Upon a widow's jointure-land,^[38]

For he, in all h is am'rous battles,
No 'dvantage finds like goods and chattels,
Drew home his bow, and aiming right,315
Let fly an arrow at the Knight;
The shaft against a rib did glance,
And gall him in the purtenance;^[39]
But time had somewhat 'swaged his pain,
After he had found his suit in vain:320
For that proud dame, for whom his soul
Was burnt in 's belly like a coal,
That belly that so oft did ake.
And suffer griping for her sake,
Till purging comfits and ant's eggs^[40]325
Had almost brought him off his legs,—
Us'd him so like a base rascallion,
That old Pyg—what d' y' call him—malion,
That cut his mistress out of stone,^[41]
Had not so hard a hearted one.330
She had a thousand jadish tricks,
Worse than a mule that flings and kicks;
'Mong which one cross-grain'd freak she had,
As insolent as strange and mad;
She could love none but only such335
As scorn'd and hated her as much.^[42]
'Twas a strange riddle of a lady;
Not love, if any lov'd her? hey-day!^[43]
So cowards never use their might.
But against such as will not fight.340

So some diseases have been found
Only to seize upon the sound.^[44]
He that gets her by heart, must say her
The back-way, like a witch's prayer.^[45]
Meanwhile the Knight had no small task345
To compass what he durst not ask:
He loves, but dares not make the motion;
Her ignorance is his devotion:^[46]
Like caitiff vile, that for misdeed
Hides with his face to rump of steed;^[47]350
Or rowing scull, he 's fain to love,
Look one way and another move;
Or like a tumbler that does play
His game, and look another way,^[48]
Until he seize upon the coney;355
Just so does he by matrimony.

But all in vain: her subtle snout
Did quickly wind his meaning out;
Which she return'd with too much scorn,
To be by man of honour borne;360
Yet much he bore, until the distress
He suffer'd from his spightful mistress
Did stir his stomach, and the pain
He had endur'd from her disdain
Turn'd to regret so resolute,365
That he resolv'd to wave his suit,
And either to renounce her quite,
Or for a while play least in sight.
This resolution b'ing put on,
He kept some months, and more had done,370
But being brought so nigh by fate,
The vict'ry he achiev'd so late
Did set his thoughts agog, and ope
A door to discontinu'd hope,^[49]
That seem'd to promise he might win375
His dame too, now his hand was in;
And that his valour, and the honour
He 'ad newly gain'd, might work upon her:
These reasons made his mouth to water,
With am'rous longings to be at her.380
⁠Thought he unto himself, who knows
But this brave conquest o'er my foes
May reach her heart, and make that stoop,
As I but now have forc'd the troop?
If nothing can oppugne love,^[50]385
And virtue invious^[51] ways can prove.
What may not he confide to do
That brings both love and virtue too?
But thou bring'st valour too, and wit,
Two things that seldom fail to hit.390
Valour's a mouse-trap, wit a gin,
Which women oft are taken in:^[52]

Then, Hudibras, why should'st thou fear
To be, that art a conqueror?
Fortune the audacious doth juvare,^[53]395
But lets the timidous^[54] miscarry:
Then, while the honour thou hast got
Is spick and span new, piping hot,^[55]
Strike her up bravely thou hadst best,
And trust thy fortune with the rest.400
⁠Such thoughts as these the Knight did keep
More than his bangs, or fleas, from sleep;
And as an owl, that in a barn
Sees a mouse creeping in the corn,
Sits still, and shuts his round blue eyes,405
As if he slept, until he spies
The little beast within his reach,
Then starts, and seizes on the wretch;
So from his couch the Knight did start,
To seize upon the widow's heart;410
Crying, with hasty tone and hoarse,
Ralpho, dispatch, to horse, to horse!
And 'twas but time; for now the rout,
We left engag'd to seek him out,
By speedy marches were advanc'd415
Up to the fort where he ensconc'd,
And all the avenues possest
About the place, from east to west.
⁠That done, awhile they made a halt,
To view the ground, and where t' assault:420
Then call'd a council, which was best,
By siege, or onslaught, to invest
The enemy; and 'twas agreed
By storm and onslaught to proceed.
This b'ing resolv'd, in comely sort425
They now drew up t' attack the fort;

When Hudibras, about to enter
Upon anothergates adventure,^[56]
To Ralpho call'd aloud to arm,
Not dreaming of approaching storm.430
Whether dame Fortune, or the care
Of angel bad, or tutelar,
Did arm, or thrust him on a danger,
To which he was an utter stranger,
That foresight might, or might not, blot435
The glory he had newly got;
Or to his shame it might be said,
They took him napping in his bed:
To them we leave it to expound,
That deal in sciences profound.440
⁠His courser scarce he had bestrid,
And Ralpho that on which he rid,
When setting ope the postern gate,
Which they thought best to sally at,^[57]
The foe appear'd, drawn up and drill'd445
Ready to charge them in the field.
This somewhat startled the bold Knight,
Surpris'd with th' unexpected sight:
The bruises of his bones and flesh
He thought began to smart afresh;450
Till recollecting wonted courage,
His fear was soon converted to rage,
And thus he spoke: The coward foe,
Whom we but now gave quarter to.
Look, yonder's rally'd, and appears455
As if they had outrun their fears;
The glory we did lately get,
The Fates command us to repeat;^[58]

And to their wills we must succumb,
Quocunque trahunt, 'tis our doom.460
This is the same numeric crew
Which we so lately did subdue;
The self-same individuals that
Did run, as mice do from a cat,
When we courageously did wield465
Our martial weapons in the field,
To tug for victory: and when
We shall our shining blades agen
Brandish in terror o'er our heads,
They 'll straight resume their wonted dreads.470
Fear is an ague, that forsakes
And haunts, by fits, those whom it takes;^[59]
And they'll opine they feel the pain
And blows they felt to-day, again.
Then let us boldly charge them home,475
And make no doubt to overcome.
⁠This said, his courage to inflame,
He call'd upon his mistress' name;^[60]
His pistol next he cock'd anew,
And out his nut-brown whinyard drew;^[61]480
And placing Ralpho in the front,
Reserv'd himself to bear the brunt,
As expert warriors use; then ply'd,
With iron heel, his courser's side,
Conveying sympathetic speed485
From heel of Knight to heel of steed.
⁠Meanwhile the foe, with equal rage
And speed, advancing to engage.
Both parties now were drawn so close,
Almost to come to handy-blows:490
When Orsin first let fly a stone
At Ralpho; not so huge a one

As that which Diomed did maul
Æneas on the bum withal;^[62]
Yet big enough, if rightly hurl'd,495
T' have sent him to another world,
Wliether above ground, or below,
Which saints, twice dipt, are destin'd to.^[63]
The danger startled the bold Squire,
And made him some few steps retire; 500
But lludibras advanc'd to's aid,
And rous'd his spirits half dismay'd.
He n'isely doubting lest the shot
O' th' enemy, now growing hot,
Might at a distance gall, press'd close505
To come, pell-mell, to handy-blows,
And that he might their aim decline,
Advanc'd still in an oblique line;
But prudently forbore to fire,
Till breast to breast he had got nigher;^[64] 510
As expert warriors use to do,
When hand to hand they charge their foe.
This order the advent'rous Knight,
Most soldier-like, observ'd in fight,
When Fortune, as she's wont, turn'd fickle,515
And for the foe began to stickle.
The more shame for her Goodyship
To give so near a friend the slip.
For Colon, choosing out a stone,
Levell'd so right, it thump'd upon520
His manly paunch, with such a force,
As almost beat him oft' his horse,
He loos'd his whinyard,^[65] and the rein.
But laying fast hold on the mane,
Preserv'd his seat: and, as a goose 525
In death contracts his taloua close,

So did the Knight, and with one claw
The trigger of his pistol draw.
The gun went off; and as it was
Still fatal to stout Hudibras,530
In all his feats of arms, when least
He dreamt of it, to prosper best;
So now he far'd: the shot let fly,
At random, 'mong the enemy,
Pierced Talgol's gaberdine,^[66] and grazing 535
Upon his shoulder, in the passing
Lodg'd in Magnano's brass habergeon,^[67]
Who straight, A surgeon! cried—a surgeon!
He tumbled down, and, as he fell.
Did murder! murder! murder! yell.540
This startled their whole body so,
That if the Knight had not let go
His arms, but been in warlike plight,
H' had won, the second time, the fight;
As, if the Squire had but fall'n on,545
He had inevitably done.
But he, diverted with the care
Of Hudibras his wound,^[68] forbare
To press th' advantage of his fortune,
While danger did the rest dishearten.550
For he with Cerdon b'ing engag'd
In close encounter, they both wag'd
The fight so well, 'twas hard to say
Which side was like to get the day.
And now the busy work of death 555
Had tir'd them so, they 'greed to breathe,
Preparing to renew the fight,
When th' hard disaster of the knight,
And th' other party, did divert
Their fell intent, and forc'd them part.^[69]560
Ralpho press'd up to Hudibras,
And Cerdon where Magnano was,

Each striving to confirm his party
With stout encouragements and hearty.
⁠Quoth Ralpho, Courage, valiant Sir,565
And let revenge and honour stir
Your spirits up; once more fall on,
The shatter'd foe begins to run:
For if but half so well you knew
To use your vict'ry as subdue,^[70]570
They durst not, after such a blow
As you have giv'n them, face us now;
But from so formidable a soldier,
Had fled like crows when they smell powder.^[71]
Thrice have they seen your sword aloft575
Wav'd o'er their heads, and fled as oft:
But if you let them recollect
Their spirits, now dismay'd and check'd,
You 'll have a harder game to play
Than yet y' have had, to get the day.580
⁠Thus spoke the stout Squire; but was heard
By Hudibras with small regard.
His thoughts were fuller of the bang
He lately took, than Ralph's harangue;
To which he answer'd, Cruel fate,585
Tells me thy counsel comes too late,
The clotted blood^[72] within my hose,
That from my wounded body flows,
With mortal crisis doth portend
My days to appropinque an end.^[73]590
I am for action now unfit,
Either of fortitude or wit;
Fortune, my foe, begins to frown,
Resolv'd to pull my stomach down.

I am not apt, upon a wound,595
Or trivial basting, to despond;
Yet I'd be loath my days to curta'l;
For if I thought my wounds not mortal,
Or that we'd time enough as yet
To make an honourable retreat,600
'Twere the best course; but if they find
We fly, and leave our arms behind
For them to seize on, the dishonour,
And danger too, is such, I'll sooner
Stand to it boldly, and take quarter,605
To let them see I am no starter.
In all the trade of war no feat
Is nobler than a brave retreat:
For those that run away, and fly,
Take place at least o' th' enemy.^[74]610
⁠This said, the Squire, with active speed,
Dismounted from his bony^[75] steed
To seize the arms, which by mischance
Fell from the bold Knight in a trance.
These being found out, and restor'd615
To Hudibras, their natural lord,
As a man may say,^[76] with might and main,
He hasted to get up again.^[77]

Thrice he essay'd to mount aloft;
But by his weighty bum, as oft 620
He was pull'd back: 'till having found
Th' advantage of the rising ground,
Thither he led his warlike steed,
And having plac'd him right, with speed
Prepar'd again to scale the beast, 625
When Orsin, who had newly drest
The bloody scar upon the shoulder
Of Talgol, with Promethean powder,^[78]
And now was searching for the shot
That laid Magnano on the spot, 630
Beheld the sturdy Squire aforesaid
Preparing to climb up his horse-side;
He left his cure, and laying hold
Upon his arms, with courage bold
Cry'd out, 'Tis now no time to dally, 635
The enemy begin to rally:
Let us that are unhurt and whole
Fall on, and happy man be's dole.^[79]
⁠This said, like to a thunderbolt,
He flew with fury to th' assault, 640
Striving the enemy to attack
Before he reach'd his horse's back.
Ralpho was mounted now, and gotten
O'erthwart his beast with active vau'ting,
Wriggling his body to recover 645
His seat, and cast his right leg over;
When Orsin, rushing in, bestow'd
On horse and man so heavy a load,
The beast was startled, and begun
To kick and fling like mad, and run, 650
Bearing the tough Squire, like a sack,
Or stout king Richard, on his back;^[80]

'Till stumbling, lie threw him down,^[81]
Sore bruis'd, and cast into a swoon.
Meanwhile the Knight began to rouse 655
The sparkles of his wonted prowess;
He thrust his hand into his hose,
And found, both by his eyes and nose,
'Twas only choler,^[82] and not blood,
That from his wounded body flow'd. 660
This, with the hazard of the Squire,
Inflam'd him with despightful ire;
Courageously he fac'd about,
And drew his other pistol out,
And now had half-way bent the cock, 665
When Cerdon gave so fierce a shock,
With sturdy truncheon, 'thwart his arm,
That down it fell, and did no harm:
Then stoutly pressing on with speed,
Essay'd to pull him off his steed.670
The Knight his sword had only left,
With which he Cerdon's head had cleft.
Or at the least cropt off a limb,
But Orsin came and rescu'd him.
He with his lance attack'd the Knight 675
Upon his quarters opposite.
But as a bark, that in foul weather,
Toss'd by two adverse winds together,
Is bruis'd and beaten to and fro,
And knows not which to turn him to: 680
So far'd the Knight between two foes,
And knew not which of them t' oppose;
'Till Orsin charging with his lance
At Hudibras, by spightful chance
Hit Cerdon such a bang, as stunn'd 685
And laid him flat upon the ground.
At this the Knight began to cheer up,
And raising up himself on stirrup,
Cry'd out, Victoria! lie thou there,
And I shall straight dispatch another, 690

To bear thee company in death:
But first I'll halt awhile, and breathe.
As well he might: for Orsin griev'd
At th' wound that Cerdon had receiv'd,
Ran to relieve him with his lore, 695
And cure the hurt he made before.
Meanwhile the Knight had wheel'd about,
To breathe himself, and next find out
Th' advantage of the ground, where best
He might the ruffled foe infest. 700
This b'ing resolv'd, he spurr'd his steed,
To run at Orsin with full speed,
While he was busy in the care
Of Cordon's wound, and unaware:
But he was quick, and had already 705
Unto the part apply'd remedy;
And seeing th' enemy prepar'd,
Drew up, and stood upon his guard:
Then, like a warrior, right expert
And skilful in the martial art, 710
The subtle Knight straight made a halt,
And judg'd it best to stay th' assault,
Until he had reliev'd the Squire,
And then, in order, to retire;
Or, as occasion should invite, 715
With forces join'd renew the fight.
Ralpho, by this time disentranc'd.
Upon his bum himself advanc'd,
Though sorely bruis'd; his limbs all o'er,
With ruthless bangs were stiff and sore; 720
Bight fain he would have got upon
His feet again, to get him gone;
When Hudibras to aid him came.
⁠Quoth he, and call'd him by his name,^[83]
Courage, the day at length is ours, 725
And we once more as conquerors,
Have both the field and honour won,
The foe is profligate,^[84] and run;

I mean all such as can, for some
This hand hath sent to their long home;730
And some lie sprawling on the ground,
With many a gash and bloody wound.
Cæsar himself could never say,
He got two vict'ries in a day,
As I have done, that can say, twice I, 735
In one day, Veni, vidi, vici.^[85]
The foe's so numerous, that we
Cannot so often vincere,^[86]
And they perire, and yet enow
Be left to strike an after-blow. 740
Then, lest they rally, and once more
Put us to fight the bus'ness o'er,
Get up, and mount thy steed; dispatch,
And let us both their motions watch.
⁠Quoth Ralph, I should not, if I were 745
In case for action, now be here;
Nor have I turn'd my back, or hang'd
An arse, for fear of being bang'd.
It was for you I got these harms,
Advent'ring to fetch off your arms. 750
The blows and drubs I have receiv'd
Have bruis'd my body, and bereav'd
My limbs of strength: unless you stoop,
And reach your hand to pull me up,
I shall lie here, and be a prey 755
To those who now are run away.
⁠That thou shalt not, quoth Hudibras:
We read, the ancients held it was
More honourable far servare
Civem, than slay an adversary; 760
The one we oft to-day have done,
The other shall dispatch anon:

And tho' th' art of a diff'rent church,
I will not leave thee in the lurch.^[87]
This said, he jogg'd his good steed nigher,765
And steer'd him gently toward the Squire;
Then bowing down his body, stretch'd
His hand out, and at Ralpho reach'd;
When Trulla, whom he did not mind,
Charg'd him like lightning behind. 770
She had been long in search about
Magnano's wound, to find it out;
But could find none, nor where the shot
That had so startled him was got:
But having found the worst was past 775
She fell to her own work at last,
The pillage of the prisoners,
Which in all feats of arms was hers:
And now to plunder Ralph she flew,
When Hudibras his hard fate drew 780
To succour him; for, as he bow'd
To help him up, she laid a load
Of blows so heavy, and plac'd so well,
On th' other side, that down he fell.
⁠Yield, scoundrel, base, quoth she, or die, 785
Thy life is mine, and liberty:
But if thou think'st I took thee tardy,
And dar'st presume to be so hardy,
To try thy fortune o'er afresh,
I'll wave my title to thy flesh,790
Thy arms and baggage, now my right:^[88]
And if thou hast the heart to try't,
I'll lend thee back thyself awhile,
And once more, for that carcase vile,
Fight upon tick.—Quoth Hudibras, 795
Thou offer'st nobly, valiant lass,
And I shall take thee at thy word.
First let me rise, and take my sword;

That sword, which has so oft this day
Through squadrons of my foes made way,800
And some to other worlds dispatch'd,
Now with a feeble spinster match'd,
Will blush with blood ignoble stain'd,
By which no honour's to be gain'd.
But if thou'lt take m' advice in this,805
Consider, while thou may'st, what 'tis
To interrupt a victor's course,
B' opposing such a trivial force.
Tor if with conquest I come off.
And that I shall do sure enough,810
Quarter thou canst not have, nor grace,^[89]
By law of arms, in such a case;
Both which I now do offer freely.
⁠I scorn, quoth she, thou coxcomb silly,
Clapping her hand upon her breech,815
To show how much she priz'd his speech,
Quarter or counsel from a foe:
If thou canst force me to it, do.
But lest it should again be said,
When I have once more won thy head,820
I took thee napping, unprepar'd,
Arm, and betake thee to thy guard.
⁠This said, she to her tackle fell,
And on the Knight let fall a peal
Of blows so fierce, and prest so home,825
That he retir'd, and follow'd 's bum.
Stand to't, quoth she, or yield to mercy,
It is not fighting arsie-versie^[90]

Shall serve thy turn.—This stirr'd his spleen
More than the danger he was in,830
The blows he felt, or was to feel,
Although th' already made him reel.
Honour, despight, revenge, and shame,
At once into his stomach came;
Which fir'd it so, he rais'd his arm835
Above his head, and rain'd a storm
Of blows so terrible and thick,
As if he meant to hash her quick.
But she upon her truncheon took them,
And by oblique diversion broke them;840
Waiting an opportunity
To pay all back with usury,
Which long she fail'd not of; for now
The Knight, with one dead-doing blow,
Resolving to decide the fight,845
And she with quick and cunning slight
Avoiding it, the force and weight
He charg'd upon it was so great,
As almost sway'd him to the ground:
Ko sooner she th' advantage found,850
But in she flew; and seconding,
With home-made thrust, the heavy swing,
She laid him flat upon his side,
And mounting on his trunk astride,
Quoth she, I told thee what would come855
Of all thy vapouring, base scum.
Say, will the law of arms allow^[91]
I may have grace, and quarter now?
Or wilt thou rather break thy word,
And stain thine honour, than thy sword?860
A man of war to damn his soul,
In basely breaking his parole.

And when before the fight, th' hadst vow'd
To give no quarter in cold blood;
Now thou hast got me for a Tartar,^[92]865
To make m' against my will take quarter;
Why dost not put me to the sword,
But cowardly fly from thy word?
⁠Quoth Hudibras, The day 's thine own;
Thou and thy stars have cast me down:870
My laurels are transplanted now,
And flourish on thy conqu'ring brow:
My loss of honour 's great enough,
Thou need'st not brand it with a scoff:
Sarcasms may eclipse thine own,875
But cannot blur my lost renown:
I am not now in fortune's power,
He that is down can fall no lower.^[93]
The ancient heroes were illustr'ous
For being benign, and not blust'rous 880
Against a vanquish'd foe: their swords
Where sharp and trenchant, not their words;
And did in tight but cut work out
T' employ their courtesies about.^[94]
⁠Quoth she, Altho' thou hast deserv'd,885
Base Slubberdegullion,^[95] to be serv'd
As thou didst vow to deal with me,
If thou hadst got the victory;
Yet I should rather act a part
That suits my fame, than thy desert.890

Thy arms, thy liberty, beside
All that's on th' outside of thy hide,
Are mine by military law,^[96]
Of which I will not bate one straw;
The rest, thy life and limbs, once more,895
Though doubly forfeit, I restore.
⁠Quoth Hudibras, It is too late
For me to treat or stipulate;
What thou command'st I must obey;
Yet those whom I expugn'd to-day,900
Of thine own party, I let go,
And gave them life and freedom too,
Both dogs and bear, upon their parol,
Whom I took pris'ners in this quarrel.
⁠Quoth Trulla, Whether thou or they 905
Let one another run away,
Concerns not me; but was't not thou
That gave Crowdero quarter too?
Crowdero, whom in irons bound,
Thou basely threw'st into Lob's pound,^[97]910
Where still he lies, and with regret
His generous bowels rage and fret:
But now thy carcase shall redeem,
And serve to be exchang'd for him.
⁠This said, the Knight did straight submit,915
And laid his weapons at her feet:
Next he disrob'd his gaberdine,
And with it did himself resign.
She took it, and forthwith divesting
The mantle that she wore, said, jesting,920
Take that, and wear it for my sake;
Then threw it o'er his sturdy back:

And as the French, we conquer'd once,
Now give us laws for pantaloons,
The length of breeches, and the gathers,925
Port-cannons, perriwigs, and feathers,^[98]
Just so the proud, insulting lass
Array'd and dighted Hudibras.^[99]
⁠Meanwhile the other champions, yerst^[100]
In hurry of the fight disperst,930
Arriv'd, when Trulla 'd won the day,
To share in th' honour and the prey,
And out of Hudibras his hide,
With vengeance to be satisfy'd;
Which now they were about to pour 935
Upon him in a wooden show'r:
But Trulla thrust herself between,
And striding o'er his back agen,
She brandish'd o'er her head his sword
And vow'd they should not break her word;940
Sh' had given him quarter, and her blood,
Or theirs, should make that quarter good.
For she was bound, by law of arms,
To see him safe from further harms.
In dungeon deep Crowdero cast 945
By Hudibras, as yet lay fast,
Where to the hard and ruthless stones,
His great heart made perpetual moans;

Him she resolved that Hudibras
Should ransom, and supply his place. 950
⁠This stopp'd their fury, and the basting
Which toward Hudibras was hasting.
They thought it was but just and right,
That what she had achiev'd in fight,
She should dispose of how she pleas'd; 955
Crowdero ought to be releas'd:
Nor could that any way be done
So well, as this she pitch'd upon:
For who a better could imagine?
This therefore they resolv'd t' engage in. 960
The Knight and Squire first they made
Rise from the ground where they were laid,
Then mounted both upon their horses,
But with their faces to the arses.
Orsin led Hudibras's beast, 965
And Talgol that which Ralpho prest;
Whom stout Magnano, valiant Cerdon,
And Colon, waited as a guard on;
All ush'ring Trulla, in the rear,
With th' arms of either prisoner.970
In this proud order and array,
They put themselves upon their way,
Striving to reach th' enchanted Castle,
Where stout Crowdero in durance lay still.
Thither with greater speed than shows,975
And triumph over conquer'd foes,
Do use t' allow; or than the bears,
Or pageants borne before lord-mayors,^[101]
Are wont to use, they soon arriv'd,
In order, soldier-like contriv'd: 980
Still marching in a warlike posture,
As fit for battle as for muster.
The Knight and Squire they first unhorse,
And, bending 'gainst the fort their force,
They all advanc'd, and round about 985
Begirt the magical redoubt.

Magnan' led up in this adventure,
And made way for the rest to enter:
For he was skilful in black art,^[102]
No less than he that built the fort,990
And with an iron mace laid flat
A breach, which straight all enter'd at,
And in the wooden dungeon found
Crowdero laid upon the ground:
Him they release from durance base, 995
Restored t' his fiddle and his case,
And liberty, his thirsty rage
With luscious veng'ance to assuage;
For he no sooner was at large,
But Trulla straight brought on the charge, 1000
And in the self-same limbo put
The Knight and Squire, where he was shut;
Where leaving them i' th' wretched hole,^[103]
Their bangs and durance to condole,
Confin'd and conjur'd into narrow 1005
Enchanted mansion, to know sorrow,
In the same order and array
Which they advanc'd, they march'd away:
But Hudibras, who scorn'd to stoop
To fortune, or be said to droop, 1010
Cheer'd up himself with ends of verse,
And sayings of philosophers.
⁠Quoth he, Th' one half of man, his mind,
Is, sui juris, unconfined,^[104]
And cannot be laid by the heels, 1015
Whate'er the other moiety feels.

'Tis not restraint, or liberty,
That makes men prisoners or free;
But perturbations that possess
The mind, or equanimities. 1020
The whole world was not half so wide
To Alexander, when he cry'd,
Because he had but one to subdue,^[105]
As was a paltry narrow tub to
Diogenes: who is not said, 1025
For aught that ever I could read,
To whine, put finger i' th' eye, and sob,
Because h' had ne'er another tub.
The ancients make two sev'ral kinds
Of prowess in heroic minds,1030
The active and the passive valiant,
Both which are pari libra gallant;
For both to give blows, and to carry,
In fights are equi-necessary:
But in defeats, the passive stout 1035
Are always found to stand it out
Most desp'rately, and to out-do
The active, 'gainst a conqu'ring foe:
Tho' we with blacks and blues are suggil'd,^[106]
Or, as the vulgar say, are cudgel'd; 1040
He that is valiant, and dares fight,
Though drubb'd, can lose no honour by't.
Honour's a lease for lives to come,
And cannot be extended from
The legal tenant: 'tis a chattel 1045
Not to be forfeited in battel.
If he that in the field is slain.
Be in the bed of honour lain,^[107]
He that is beaten may be said
To lie in honour's truckle-bed.^[108] 1050

For as we see th' eclipsed sun
By mortals is more gaz'd upon
Than when, adorn'd with all his light,
He shines in serene sky most bright;
So valour, in a low estate, 1055
Is most admir'd and wonder'd at.
⁠Quoth Ralph, How great I do not know
We may, by being beaten, grow;
But none that see how here we sit,
Will judge us overgrown with wit. 1060
As gifted brethren, preaching by
A carnal hour-glass,^[109] do imply
Illumination, can convey
Into them what they have to say,
But not how much; so well enough 1065
Know you to charge, but not draw off.
For who, without a cap and bauble,^[110]
Having subdu'd a bear and rabble,
And might with honour have come off,
Would put it to a second proof: 1070
A politic exploit, right fit
For Presbyterian zeal and wit.^[111]
⁠Quoth Hudibras, That cuckoo's tone,
Ralpho, thou always harp'st upon;
When thou at anything would'st rail, 1075
Thou mak'st presbytery thy scale

To take the height on't, and explain
To what degree it is profane:
Whats'ever will not with thy—what d'ye call
Thy light—jump right, thou call'st synodical. 1080
As if presbytery were a standard
To size whats'ever's to be slander'd.
Dost not remember how this day
Thou to my beard was bold to say,
That thou could'st prove bear-baiting equal 1085
With synods, orthodox and legal?
Do, if thou can'st, for I deny't,
And dare thee to't with all thy light.^[112]
⁠Quoth Ralpho, Truly that is no
Hard matter for a man to do, 1090
That has but any guts in's brains,^[113]
And could believe it worth his pains;
But since you dare and urge me to it,
You'll find I've light enough to do it.
⁠Synods are mystical bear-gardens, 1095
Where elders, deputies, church-wardens,
And other members of the court,
Manage the Babylonish sport.
For prolocutor, scribe, and bearward,
Do differ only in a mere word, 1100
Both are but sev'ral synagogues
Of carnal men, and bears, and dogs:
Both antichristian assemblies,
To mischief bent, as far's in them lies:
Both stave and tail with fierce contests, 1105
The one with men, the other beasts.
The diff'rence is, the one fights with
The tongue, the other with the teeth;
And that they bait but bears in this,
In th' other souls and consciences; 1110

Where saints themselves are brought to stake^[114]
For gospel-light, and conscience-sake;
Expos'd to scribes and presbyters,
Instead of mastiff dogs and curs;
Than whom th' have less humanity, 1115
For these at souls of men will fly.
This to the prophet did appear,
Who in a vision saw a bear,
Prefiguring the beastly rage
Of church-rule, in this latter age:^[115] 1120
As is demonstrated at full
By him that baited the pope's bull.^[116]
Bears naturally are beasts of prey,
That live by rapine; so do they.
What are their orders, constitutions, 1125
Church-censures, curses, absolutions,
But sev'ral mystic chains they make,
To tie poor Christians to the stake?
And then set heathen officers,
Instead of dogs, about their ears. 1130
For to prohibit and dispense,
To find out, or to make offence;
Of hell and heav'n to dispose,
To play with souls at fast and loose;
To set what characters they please, 1135
And mulets on sin or godliness;
Reduce the church to gospel-order,
By rapine, sacrilege, and murder;
To make presbytery supreme,
And kings themselves submit to them;^[117]1140

R. Cooper sculp^t.

HENRY BURTON.

From a scarce Print by Glover.

And force all people, tho' against
Their consciences, to turn saints;
Must prove a pretty thriving trade,
When saints monopolists are made:
When pious frauds, and holy shifts,1145
Are dispensations and gifts;
There godliness becomes mere ware,
And ev'ry synod but a fair.
⁠Synods are whelps o' th' Inquisition,
A mungrel breed of like pernicion,^[118]1155
And growing up, became the sires
Of scribes, commissioners, and triers;^[119]

Whose bus'ness is, by cunning slight,
To cast a figure for men's light;
To find, in lines of beard and face, 1155
The physiognomy of grace;^[120]
And by the sound and twang of nose,
If all be sound within disclose,
Free from a crack, or flaw of sinning,
As men try pipkins by the ringing;^[121] 1160
By black caps, underlaid with white,^[122]
Give certain guess at inward light;
Which Serjeants at the gospel wear,^[123]
To make the sp'ritual calling clear.
The handkerchief about the neck, 1165
—Canonical cravat of smeck,^[124]

From whom the institution came,
When Church and State they set on flame,
And worn by them as badges then
Of spiritual warfaring-men,—1170
Judge rightly if regeneration
Be of the newest cut in fashion:
Sure 'tis an orthodox opinion,
That grace is founded in dominion.^[125]
Great piety consists in pride;1175
To rule is to be sanctified:
To domineer, and to control,
Both o'er the body and the soul,
Is the most perfect discipline
Of church-rule, and by right divine.1180
Bell and the Dragon's chaplains were
More moderate than those by far:^[126]
For they, poor knaves, were glad to cheat,
To get their wives and children meat;
But these will not be fobb'd off so,1185
They must have wealth and power too;
Or else with blood and desolation'
They '11 tear it out o' th' heart o' th' nation.
⁠Sure these themselves from primitive
And heathen priesthood do derive,1190

When butchers were the only clerks,^[127]
Elders and presbyters of kirks;
Whose Directory was to kill;
And some believe it is so still.^[128]
The only diff'rence is, that then1195
They slaughter'd only beasts, now men.
For them to sacrifice a bullock,
Or, now and then, a child to Moloch,
They count a vile abomination,
But not to slaughter a whole nation.1200
Presbytery does but translate
The papacy to a free state,^[129]
A commonwealth of popery,
Where ev'ry village is a see
As well as Rome, and must maintain 1205
A tithe-pig metropolitan;
Where ev'ry presbyter and deacon
Commands the keys for cheese and bacon;^[130]
And ev'ry hamlet's governed
By's holiness, the church's head,^[131]1210

More haughty and severe in's place
Than Gregory and Boniface.^[132]
Such church must, surely, be a monster
With many heads: for if we conster^[133]
What in th' Apocalypse we find, 1215
According to th' Apostle's mind,
'Tis that the Whore of Babylon,
With many heads, did ride upon;^[134]
Which heads denote the sinful tribe
Of deacon, priest, lay-elder, scribe.1220
Lay-elder, Simeon to Levi,^[135]
Whose little finger is as heavy
As loins of patriarchs, prince-prelate,
And bishop-secular.^[136] This zealot
Is of a mungrel, diverse kind,1225
Cleric before, and lay behind;^[137]
A lawless linsey-woolsey brother,^[138]
Half of one order, half another;

A creature of amphibious nature,
On land a beast, a fish in water:1230
That always preys on grace or sin;
A sheep without, a wolf within.
This fierce inquisitor has chief
Dominion over men's belief
And manners; can pronounce a saint1235
Idolatrous, or ignorant,
When superciliously he sifts,
Through coarsest bolter, others' gifts.^[139]
For all men live and judge amiss,
Whose talents jump not just with his.1240
He'll lay on gifts with hand, and place
On dullest noddle light and grace.
The manufacture of the kirk.
Whose pastors are but th' handiwork
Of his mechanic paws, instilling1245
Divinity in them by feeling.
From whence they start up chosen vessels,
Made by contact, as men get measles.
So cardinals, they say, do grope
At th' other end the new-made pope.^[140]1250
⁠Hold, hold, quoth Hudibras, soft fire,
They say, does make sweet malt. Good Squire,
Festina lente, not too fast;
For haste, the proverb says, makes waste.
The quirks and cavils thou dost make 1255
Are false, and built upon mistake:
And I shall bring you, with your pack
Of fallacies, t' Elenchi back;^[141]
And put your arguments in mood
And figure to be understood.1260
I'll force you by right ratiocination
To leave your vitilitigation.^[142]

R. Cooper sculp^t.

JOHN the 8^th. or POPE JOAN.

From a scarce Print.

And make you keep to the question close,
And argue dialecticōs.^[143]
⁠The question then, to state it first,1265
Is, which is better, or which worst,
Synods or bears. Bears I avow
To be the worst, and synods thou.
But, to make good th' assertion,
Thou say'st th' are really all one.1270
If so, not worst; for if th' are idem,^[144]
Why then, tantundem dat tantidem.
For if they are the same, by course
Neither is better, neither worse.
But I deny they are the same,1275
More than a maggot and I am.
That both are animalia,^[145]
I grant, but not rationalia:
For though they do agree in kind,
Specific difference we find;^[146]1280
And can no more make bears of these,
Than prove my horse is Socrates.^[147]
That synods are bear-gardens too,
Thou dost affirm; but I say, No:
And thus I prove it, in a word,1285
Whats'ever assembly's not impow'r'd
To censure, curse, absolve, and ordain,
Can be no synod: but bear-garden

Has no such power, ergo 'tis none;
And so thy sophistry's o'erthrown.1290
⁠But yet we are beside the question
Which thou didst raise the first contest on:
For that was, Whether bears are better
Than synod-men? I say, Negatur.
That bears are beasts, and synods men,1295
Is held by all: they're better then,
For bears and dogs on four legs go,
As beasts; but synod-men on two.
'Tis true, they all have teeth and nails;
But prove that synod-men have tails:1300
Or that a rugged, shaggy fur
Grows o'er the hide of presbyter;
Or that his snout and spacious ears
Do hold proportion with a bear's.
A bear's a savage beast, of all 1305
Most ugly and unnatural,
Whelp'd without form, until the dam
Has lickt it into shape and frame:^[148]
But all thy light can ne'er evict,
That ever synod-man was lickt, 1310
Or brought to any other fashion
Than his own will and inclination.
But thou dost further yet in this
Oppugn thyself and sense; that is,
Thou would'st have presbyters to go 1315
For bears and dogs, and bearwards too;
A strange chimæra^[149] of beasts and men,
Made up of pieces het'rogene;
Such as in nature never met,
In codem subjecto yet. 1320

⁠Thy other arguments are all
Supposures hypothetical,
That do but beg; and we may chuse
Either to grant them, or refuse.
Much thou hast said, which I know when,1325
And where thou stol'st from other men;
Whereby 'tis plain thy light and gifts
Are all but plagiary shifts;
And is the same that Ranter said.
Who, arguing with me, broke my head,^[150]1330
And tore a handful of my beard:
The self-same cavils then I heard,
When b'ing in hot dispute about
This controversy, we fell out;
And what thou know'st I answer'd then 1335
Will serve to answer thee agen.
⁠Quoth Ralpho, Nothing but th' abuse
Of human learning you produce;
Learning, that cobweb of the brain.
Profane, erroneous, and vain;^[151]1340

A trade of knowledge as replete,
As others are with fraud and cheat;
An art t' incumber gifts and wit,
And render both for nothing fit;
Makes light unactive, dull and troubled,1345
Like little David in Saul's doublet:^[152]
A cheat that scholars put upon
Other men's reason and their own;
A fort of error to ensconce
Absurdity and ignorance,1350
That renders all the avenues
To truth impervious, and abstruse,
By making plain things, in debate,
By art perplex'd, and intricate:
For nothing goes for sense or light 1355
That will not with old rules jump right,
As if rules were not in the schools
Deriv'd from truth, but truth from rules.^[153]
⁠This pagan, heathenish invention
Is good for nothing but contention.1360
For as in sword-and-buckler fight.
All blows do on the target light;
So when men argue, the greatest part
O' th' contest falls on terms of art.
Until the fustian stuff be spent,1365
And then they fall to th' argument.
Quoth Hudibras, Friend Ralph, thou hast
Out-run the constable at last;
For thou art fallen on a new
Dispute, as senseless as untrue,1370
But to the former opposite,
And contrary as black to white;

R. Cooper sculp^t.

BISHOP WARBURTON.

From a scarce Print by Burford.

Mere disparata,^[154] that concerning
Presbytery, this human learning;
Two things's' averse, they never yet,1375
But in thy rambling fancy, met.^[155]
But I shall take a fit occasion
T' evince thee by ratiocination,
Some other time, in place more proper
Than this w' are in: therefore let's stop here,1380
And rest our weary'd bones awhile,
Already tir'd with other toil.

 

---

1. The Author follows the example of Spenser, and the Italian poets, in the division of his work into parts and cantos. Spenser contents himself with a quatrain at the head of each canto; Butler more fully informs his readers what they are to expect, by an argument in the same style with the poem; and shows that he knew how to enliven so dry a thing as a summary.
2. A parody on Spenser's verses:
   ⁠Ay me, how many perils do enfold
   ⁠The virtuous man to make him daily fall.
   ⁠Fairy Queen: Book i. canto 8.
   These two lines are become a kind of proverbial expression, partly owing to the moral reflection, and partly to the jingle of the double rhyme: they are applied sometimes to a man mortally wounded with a sword, and sometimes to a lady who pricks her finger with a needle. It was humorously applied by the Cambridge wits to Jeffreys, on the publication of Lord Byron's "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." Butler, in his MS. Common Place-book, on this passage, observes: "Cold iron in Greenland burns as grievously as hot." Some editions read "Ah me."
3. An old ballad, which begins:
   ⁠ What if a day, or a month, or a year
   ⁠Crown thy delights,
   ⁠With a thousand wish't contentings!
   ⁠Cannot the chance of a night or an hour,
   ⁠Cross thy delights,
   ⁠With as many sad tormentings?
4. The first edition reads: Suer as a gun.
5. That is, crowing or rejoicing. Handbook of Proverbs, p. 154.
6. The parliament was accustomed to order a day of public Thanksgiving, on occasion of every advantage gained over the Royalists, however trifling. And at these seasons the valour and worthiness of the leader, who had gained the victory, were lauded and enlarged upon.
7. The gazettes or newspapers, on the side of the parliament, were published daily, and called Diurnals.
8. Handbook of Proverbs, p. 542.
9. Var. Fought.
10. An allusion to the complaint of the Presbyterian commanders against the Independents, when the Self-denying Ordinance had excluded them.
11. Altered in subsequent editions to "took heart again."
12. The first editions read: For by this time the routed bear.
13. So in the famous song of Chevy Chase:
    ⁠For Witherington needs must I wail,
    ⁠As one of the doleful dumps,
    ⁠For when his legs were smitten off
    ⁠He fought upon his stumps
14. Long-field is a term of archery, and a long-fielder is a hero at a cricket match.
15. A satirical stroke at the character of Camilla, whose speed is hyperbolically described by Virgil, at the end of the seventh book of the Æneid.
16. Witches are said to ride upon broomsticks, and to liquor, or grease them, that they may go faster. See Lucan, vi. 572.
17. Trulla interposed her staff between the dogs and the bear, in order to part them; and Cerdon drew the dogs away by their tails. Staving and tailing are technical terms used in the bear-garden, but are sometimes applied metaphorically to higher pursuits, as law, divinity, &c.
18. That is, honourable wounds. The reader familiar with Shakspeare will remember Old Siward, in the last scene of Macbeth:
    ⁠Siw.⁠————Had he his hurts before?
    ⁠Ross.⁠Aye, in the front.
    ⁠Why then God's soldier is he!
    ⁠Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
    ⁠I would not wish them to a fairer death.
    ⁠And so his knell is knoll'd.
19. The Anabaptists insisted upon the necessity of immersion in baptism; so Butler uses the word "anabaptized" as equivalent to "dipt": but as the vulnerable heel was not dipt, he calls it "pagan."
20. Albert, archduke of Austria, brother to the emperor Rodolph the Second, had one of his ears grazed by a spear, when he had taken off his helmet, and was endeavouring to rally his soldiers, in an engagement with Prince Maurice of Nassau, ann. 1598. A ducatoon is half a ducat.
21. In those days lawyers or scriveners, guilty of dishonest practice, were sentenced to lose their ears.
22. Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton, who were placed in the pillory, and had their ears cut off, by order of the Star-chamber, in 1637, for writing seditious libels. They were banished into remote parts of the kingdom; but recalled by the parliament in 1640. At their return the populace received them with enthusiasm. They were met, near London, by ten thousand persons, carrying boughs and flowers; and the members of the Star-chamber, concerned in punishing them, were fined £4000 for each.
23. The passage which commences with this line is an admirable satire on the romance writers of those days; who imitated the well-known passages in Homer and Virgil, which represented the care taken by the deities of their favourites, after combats. "In this passage (says Ramsay) the burlesque is maintained with great skill, the imagery is descriptive, and the verse smooth; showing that the author might, had he chosen, have produced something in a very different strain to 'Hudibras'; though of less excellence, he perhaps knew the true bent of his genius, and probably felt a contempt for the easy smoothness and pretty feebleness of his contemporaries, of whom Waller and Denham were the two most striking examples."
24. The ancients believed that Music had the power of curing haemorrhages, gout, sciatica, and all sorts of sprains, when once the patient found himself capable of listening to it. Thus Homer, Odyssey, book xix. line 531 of Pope.
25. A large lute for playing a thorough bass, used by the Italians.
26. In Grey's edition it is thus pointed;
    ⁠His tugg'd ears suffer'd; with a strain
    ⁠They both drew up—
    But the poet probably meant a well-tuned theorbo, to ease the pain with a strain, that is, with music and a song.
27. Hercules, when he bewails the loss of Hylas. See Val. Flac. Aegon. iii. 593, and Theocritus, Idyl. xiii. 58.
28. A fine satire (says Grey) on that false kind of wit which makes an Echo talk sensibly, and give rational answers. Echoes were frequently introduced by the ancient poets (Ovid. Metam. iii. 379; Anthol. Gr. iii. 6, &c.), and had become a fashion in England from the Elizabethan era to the time when Butler wrote. Addison, see Spectator 59, reproves this, as he calls it, "silly kind of device," and cites Erasmus's Dialogues, where an Echo is made to answer in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. But all the ancient Echoes are outdone by the Irish Echo, which in answer to "How do you do, Paddy Blake?" echoed, "Pretty well, thank you."
29. Supposed to he a sneer at Sir Philip Sidney, who in his Arcadia has a long poem between the speaker and Echo.
30. An exclamation or small oath, having no particular import, apparently the origin of our Marry come up. It is used by Taylor the Water Poet, Ben Jonson, and Gayton in his Translation of Don Quixote.
31. That is, "be silent," in allusion to what Shakspeare puts into the mouth of Master Slander: "I come to her in white, ancl cry mum; she cries budget; and by that we know one another."—Merry Wives, Act v. sc. 2.
32. To lay in one's dish, to make an accusation against one, to lay a charge at one's door.
    ⁠Last night you lay it, madam, in our dish,
    ⁠How that a maid of ours (whom we must check)
    ⁠Had broke your bitches leg.
    ⁠Sir John Harrington, Epigr. i. 27.
33. That is, behaved cowardly, or surrendered at discretion: jeering obliquely perhaps at the anabaptistical notions of Ralpho. Hooker, or Vowler, in his description of Exeter, written about 1584, speaking of the parson of St Thomas, who was hanged during the siege, says, "he was a stout man, who would not give his head for the polling, nor his beard for the washing." Grey gives the following quotation from Beaumont and Fletcher, Cupid's Revenge, Act iv. "1st Citizen. It holds, he dies this morning. 2nd Citizen. Then happy man be his fortune. 1st Citizen. And so am I and forty more good fellows, that will not give their heads for the washing."
34. Var. Of them, but losing of my bear. In all editions between 1674 and 1704.
35. This common saying is a sneer at the Pope's infallibility.
36. The confusion or want of order occasioned by haste and secrecy.
    ⁠——and we have done but greenly
    ⁠In hugger-mugger to inter him.
    ⁠Hamlet, iv. 5. See also Wright's Glossary.
37. A proverbial expression used for any bold or daring enterprise: so we say, To take a lion by the beard. The Spaniards deemed it the most unpardonable of affronts to be pulled by the beard, and would resent it at the hazard of life.
38. The widow is presumed by Grey to be Mrs Tomson, who had a jointure of £200 a year. The courtship appears to be a fact dressed up by Butler's humour (although the editor of 1819 thinks it apocryphal) from Walker's History of Independency, i. p. 170. We learn tbat Sir Samuel Luke, to repair his decayed estate, sighed for the widow's jointure, but met with fatal obstacles in his suit, for she was a mere coquet, and, what was worse as regarded her suitor's principles, she was a royalist. Her inexorableness, says Mr Walker, was eventually the cause of the knight's death.
39. A ludicrous name for the knight's heart: taken from a calf's head and purtenance, as it is vulgarly called, instead of appurtenance (or pluck), which, among other entrails, contains the heart. The word is used in the same sense in the Bible. See Exodus xii. 9.
40. Ants' eggs were formerly supposed, by some, to be antaphrodisiacs, or antidotes to love passions. See Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft, b. vi. ch. 7.
41. Pygmalion, as the mythologists say, fell in love with a statue of his own carving; which Venus, to gratify him, turned into a living woman. See Ovid's Metamorphoses, lib. x. l. 247.
42. Such capricious kind of love is described by Horace: Satires, book i. ii. 105.
43. So in the edition of 1678, in others it is ha-day, but either may stand, as they both signify a mark of admiration. See Skinner and Junius.
44. "It is common for horses, as well as men, to be afflicted with sciatica, or rheumatism, to a great degree, for weeks together, and when they once get clear of the fit, never perhaps hear any more of it while they live: for these distempers, with some others, called salutary distempers, seldom or never seize upon an unsound body." Bracken's Farriery Improved, ii. 46. The meaning then, from ver. 338, is this: As the widow loved none that were disposed to love her, so cowards fight with none that are disposed to fight with them: so some diseases seize upon none that are already distempered, but upon those only who, through the firmness of their constitution, seem least liable to such attacks.
45. That is, the Lord's Prayer read backwards. The Spectator, No. 61, speaking of an epigram called the Witch's Prayer, says, it fell into verse whether read backwards or forwards, excepting only that it cursed one way and blessed the other." See Spectator, No. 110, 117, upon Witchcraft.
46. A banter on the Papists, who, denying to the laity the use of the Bible or Prayer-book in the vulgar tongue, are charged with asserting, that "ignorance is the mother of devotion." The wit here is in making the widow's ignorance of his love the cause of the Knight's devotion.
47. * Dr Grey supposes this may allude to five members of the army, who, on the 6th of March, 1648, were forced to ride in New Palace yard with their faces towards their horses' tails, had their swords broken over their heads, and were cashiered, for petitioning the Rump for relief of the oppressed commonwealth.
48. A dog, called by the Latins Vertagus, that rolls himself in a heap, and tumbles over, disguising his shape and motion, till he is near enough to his object to seize it by a sudden spring. The tumbler was generally used in hunting rabbits. See Caius de Canibus Britannicis (Kay, on Englishe Dogges, sin. 4to, Lond. 1576), and Martial, lib. xiv. Epig. 200.
49. One of the canting phrases used by the sectaries, when they entered on any new mischief.
50. Read oppugné, as three syllables, to make the line of sufficient length.
51. That is, impassable. See Horace, III. 2.
52. Assuming that women are often captivated by a red coat or a copy of verses.
53. Alluding to the familiar quotation, Fortes Fortuna adjuvat, "Fortune favours the bold,"
54. Timidous, from timidus; the hero being in a latinizing humour.
55. Spick and span is derived by Dr Grey from spike, which signifies a nail of iron, as well as a nail in measure, and span, which is a measure of nine inches, or quarter of a yard. This applied to a new suit means that it has just been measured by the nail and span. Ray gives a different derivation; see Bohn's Handbook of Proverbs, page 178.
56. That is, an adventure of another kind; so Sanderson, p. 47, third sermon ad elerum. "If we be of the spirituality, there should be in us anothergates manifestation of the spirit." The Americans, in conformity with a prevailing form, might read it "another guess."
57. Variation in editions 1674 to 1704—
    ⁠To take the field and sally at.
58. This is exactly in the style of victorious leaders. Thus Hannibal encouraged his men: "These are the same Romans whom you have beaten so often." And Octavius addressed his soldiers at Actium: "It is the same Antony whom you once drove out of the field before Mutina: Be, as you have been, conquerors." And so, too, Napoleon on several occasions.
59. Var. Haunts by turns, in the editions of 1663.
60. A hit at the old Romances of Knight-errantry. In like manner Cervantes makes Don Quixote invoke his Dulcinca upon almost every occasion.
61. Whinyard signifies a sword; it is chiefly used in contempt or banter. Johnson derives it from whin, furze; so whinniard, the short scythe or instrument with which country people cut whins.
62. See Iliad v. 304. Virgil. Æn. I. 101. Juvenal. Sat. xv. 65.
63. Meaning the Anabaptists, who thought they obtained a higher degree sanctification by being re-baptized.
64. Alluding to Cromwell's prudent conduct in this respect, who seldom suffered his soldiers to fire till they were near enough to the enemy to be sure of doing execution.
65. Var. He lost his whinyard.
66. A coarse robe or mantle; the term is used by Shylock in the Merchant of Venice, Act I. sc. 3.
67. Habergeon, a diminutive of the French word hauberg, a little coat of mail. But here it signifies the tinker's budget.
68. Var. Hudibras, his hurt.
69. Var. And force their sullen rage to part.
70. This perhaps has some reference to Prince Rupert, who, at Marston Moor, and on some other occasions, was successful at his first onset by charging with great fury, but lost his advantage by too long a pursuit. See Echard, vol. ii. p. 480.
71. This belief still prevails in all rural districts. Plot, in his Natural History of Oxfordshire, says: "If the crows towards harvest-time are mischievous, the farmers dig holes near the corn, and fill them with cinders and gunpowder, sticking crow feathers about them, which they find successful."
72. Var. The knotted blood.
73. One of the knight's hard words, signifying to approach, or draw near.
74. These two lines were not in the first editions of 1663, but added in 1674. This same notion is repeated in part iii. canto iii. 241—244. But the celebrated lines of similar import, commonly supposed to be in Hudibras,
    ⁠"For he that fights and runs away
    ⁠May live to fight another day,"
    are found in the Musarum Deliciæ (by Sir Jno. Mennis and James Smith) 12mo, Lond. 1656, and the type of them occurs in a much earlier collection, viz. The Apophthegmes of Erasmus, by Nico. Udall, 12mo, Lond. 1542, where they are thus given:
    ⁠That same man that renneth awaie
    ⁠Maie again fight, an other daie.
75. In some editions it is bonny, but I prefer bony, which is the reading of 1678.—Nash.
76. A sneer at the expletives then used in common conversation, such as: and he said, and she said, and so sir, d'ye see, &c. See Spectator, 371.
77. Var.⁠The active Squire, with might and main,
    ⁠Prepar'd in haste to mount again.
78. See canto ii. ver. 225.—Prometheus boasts especially of communicating to mankind the knowledge of medicines, Æschyli Prometh. Vinct, v. 491.
79. A common saying, repeatedly occurring in Shakspeare and the old poets, equivalent to,—"May it be his lot (dole) to be a happy man!"
80. After the battle of Bosworth Field, where Richard III. fell, his body was stripped, and, in an ignominious manner, laid across a horse's back like a slaughtered deer; his head and arras hanging on one side, and his legs on the other, besmeared with blood and dirt.
81. We must here read stumble-ing, to make three syllables.
82. The delicate reader will easily guess what is here intended by the word choler.
83. A parody on a phrase continually recurring in Homer.
84. That is, routed: from the Latin, profligo, to put to flight.
85. I came, I saw, I overcame: the words in which Cæsar announced to the Senate his victory over Pharnaces. In his consequent triumph at Rome they were inscribed on a tablet, and carried before him.
86. A great general, being informed that his enemies were very numerous, replied, then there are enough to be killed, enough to be taken prisoners, and enough to run away.
87. This is a sneer at the Independents, who, when they got possession of the government, deserted their old allies, the Presbyterians, and treated them with great hauteur.
88. The application of the "law of arms," as expounded in the old romances, to this case, is exquisitely ludicrous.
89. L'Estrange records a parallel to this at the siege of Pontefract. An officer having had his horse shot under him, saw two or three common soldiers with their muskets over him as he lay on the ground, ready to beat out his brains; the officer, with great presence of mind, told them to strike at their peril, for if they did, he swore a great oath he would not give quarter to a man of them. This so surprised them that they hesitated for an instant, during which the officer got up and made his escape.
90. That is, wrong end uppermost, or b———e foremost. So Ray, quoting Ben Jonson, has:—
    ⁠Passion of me, was ever man thus cross'd?
    ⁠All things run arsi-vearsi, upside down.
    ⁠See Handbook of Proverbs, p. 143.
91. Instead of this and the nine following lines (857 to 866), these four stood in the two first editions of 1663.
    ⁠Shall I have quarter now, you ruflin?
    ⁠Or wilt thou be worse than thy hufling?
    ⁠Thou said'st th' wouldst kill me, marry wouldst thou:
    ⁠Why dost thou not, thou Jack-a-nods thou?
92. The Tartars (says Purchas, in his Pilgrimes, p. 478) would rather die than yield, which makes them fight with desperate energy; whence the proverb, Thou hast caught a Tartar.—A man catches a Tartar when he falls into his own trap, or having a design upon another, is caught himself. "Help, help, cries one, I have caught a Tartar. Bring him along, answers his comrade. He will not come, says he. Then come without him, quoth the other. But he will not let me, says the Tartar-catcher."
93. A literal translation of the proverb: Qui jacet in terrâ non habet unde cadat.
94. See Cleveland, in his letter to the Protector. "The most renowned heroes have ever with such tenderness cherished their captives, that their swords did but cut out work for their courtesies."
95. That is, a drivelling fool: to slubber, in British, is to drivel; and gul, or its diminutive gullion, a fool, or person easily imposed upon. The word is used by Taylor the Water Poet, in his "Laugh and grow fat."
96. In public duels all horses, pieces of broken armour, or other furniture that fell to the ground, after the combatants entered the lists, were the fees of the marshal; but the rest became the property of the victor.
97. A cant term for a jail or the stocks, used by the old Dramatists. See Massinger's Duke of Milan, III. 2.—Dr Grey mentions a story of Mr Lob, a preacher among the dissenters, who, when their meetings were prohibited, contrived a trap-door in his pulpit, which led through many dark windings into a cellar. His adversaries once pursued him into these recesses, and, groping about in perplexity, one of them said that they had got into Lob's pound.
98. We seem at no time to have been averse to the French fashions, but they were quite the rage after the Restoration. Pantaloons were then a kind of loose breeches, commonly made of silk, and puffed, which covered the legs, thighs, and part of the body. They are represented in some of Vandyke's pictures. Port-cannons were streamers of ribands which hung from the knees of the short breeches; they had grown to such excess in France, that Molière was thought to have done good service by laughing them out of fashion. Perriwigs were brought from France in the reign of Elizabeth, but were not much used till after the Restoration. At first they were of various colours, to suit the complexion, and of immense size in large flowing curls, as we see on monuments in Westminster Abbey and in old portraits. Lord Bolingbroke is said to be the first who tied them up in knots; which was esteemed so great an undress, that when his lordship first went to court in a wig of this fashion Queen Anne was offended, and said to those about her, "This man will come to me next court-day in his night-cap."
99. Dighted, from the Anglo-Saxon dihtan, to dress, fit out.
100. Yerst, or erst, means first.
101. I believe at the lord-mayor's show bears were led in procession, and afterwards baited for the diversion of the populace.—Nash.
102. Meaning the tinker Magnano. See Canto ii. 1. 336.
103. In the edition of 1704 it is printed in Hockly hole, a pun on the place where their hocks or ankles were confined. Hockley Hole, or Hockley i' th' Hole, was the name of a place near Clerkenwell Green, resorted to for vulgar diversions. There is an old ballad entitled "Hockley i' th' hole, to the tune of the Fiddler in the Stocks." See Old Ballads, vol. i. p.294.
104. Referring to that distinction in the civil law which separates the jurisdiction over the body from that over the mind; (see Justinian's Institutes, III. tit. 8.)—and perhaps to Spinoza, who says that "knowledge makes us free by destroying the dominion of the passions and the power of external things over ourselves." In the succeeding lines the author shows his learning, by bantering the stoic philosophy; and his wit, by comparing Alexander the Great with Diogenes.
105. See Juven. Sat. x. 168; xiv. 308.
106. Beaten black and blue; from the Latin suggillare.
107. "The bed of honour," says Farquhar (in the Recruiting Officer), "is a mighty large bed. Ten thousand people may lie in it together and never feel one another."
108. The truckle-bed is a small bed upon wheels, which goes under the larger one. The pun is upon the word "truckle."
109. In those days there was always an hour-glass placed conspicuously on or near the pulpit, in an iron frame, which was set immediately after giving out the text. An hour, or the sand run out, was considered the legitimate length of a sermon. This preaching by the hour gave rise to an abundance of jokes, of which the following are examples: "A tedious spin-text having tired out his congregation by a sermon which had lasted through one turn of his glass and three parts of the second, without any prospect of its coming to a close, was, out of compassion to the yawning auditory, greeted with this short hint by the sexton, 'Pray, Sir, be pleased, when you have done, to leave the key under the door;' and thereupon departing, the congregation followed him." Another: A punning preacher, having talked a full hour, turned his hour-glass, and said: "Come, my friends, let us take another glass."
110. Who but one who deserves a fool's cap.
111. Ralpho, being chagrined by his situation, not only blames the misconduct of the Knight, which had brought them into the scrape, but sneers at him for his religious principles. The Independents, at one time, were as inveterate against the Presbyterians as both were against the Church.
112. The Independents were great pretenders to inward light, for such they assumed to be the light of the spirit. They supposed that all their actions, as well as their prayers and preachings, were immediately directed by it.
113. A proverbial expression for one who has some share of common sense, used by Sancho Pança to Don Quixote (Gayton's Translation) upon his mistaking the barber's bason for a helmet. Sec Ray, in Handbook of Proverbs, p. 163.
114. The Presbyterians, when in power, by means of their synods, assemblies. classes, scribes, presbyters, triers, orders, censures, curses, &c. &c., persecuted the ministers, both of the Independents and of the Church of England, with violence and cruelty little short of the Inquisition.
115. Daniel vii. 5. "And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear; and it raised up itself on one side; and it had three ribs in the mouth of it, between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh."
116. The Baiting of the Pope's Bull was the title of a polemic pamphlet written against the Pope, by Henry Burton, rector of St Matthew, Friday-street. London, 1627.
117. The Disciplinarians, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, maintained in their book, called Eccclesiastical Discipline, that kings ought to be subject to ecclesiastical censures, as well as other persons. This doctrine was revived by the Presbyterians, and actually put in practice by the Scots, in their treatment of Charles II. The Presbyterians, in the civil war, maintained "that princes must submit their sceptres, and throw down their crowns before the church, yea, lick the dust off the feet of the church;" and Buchanan, in his famous "De Jure Regni apud Scotos," asserted, that "ministers may excommunicate princes, and that they, being by excommunication cast into hell, are not worthy to enjoy any life upon earth."
118. The word pernicion appears to have been coined by our author from the Latin pernicies, and means destructive effect. It is given in Webster's Dictionary.
119. The Presbyterians had a set of officers called Triers, commissioned by the two houses, who examined candidates for orders, and presentees to benefices, and sifted the qualifications of ruling elders in every congregation. See Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy. As the Presbyterians demanded of the Church of England, What command or example have you for kneeling at the communion, for wearing a surplice, for lord bishops, for a penned liturgy, &c. &c., so the Independents retorted upon them; Where are your lay elders, your presbyters, your classes, your synods, to be found in Scripture? where your steeple-houses, and your national church, or your tithes, or your metre psalms, or your two sacraments? show us a command or example for them. See Dr Hammond's View of the Directory. The learned Dr Pocock was called before the Triers for ignorance and insufficiency of learning, and after an attendance of several months was acquitted, and then not on his own merits, but on the remonstrance of a deputation of the most learned men of Oxford, including Dr Owen, who was of their own party. This is confirmed by Dr Owen, in a letter to Secretary Thurloe. "One thing," says he, "I must needs trouble you with: there are in Berkshire some men of mean quality and condition, rash, heady, enemies of tythes, who are the commissioners for ejecting ministers: they alone sit and act, and are at this time casting out, on very slight and trivial pretences, very worthy men; one in special they intend next week to eject, whose name is Pocock, a man of as unblameable a conversation as any that I know living, and of repute for learning throughout the world, being the professor of Hebrew and Arabic in our University: so that they exceedingly exasperate all men, and provoke them to the height."
120. The Triers pretended to great skill in this respect; and if they disliked the face or beard of a man, if he happened to be of a ruddy complexion, or cheerful countenance, they would reject him at once. Their questions were such as these: When were you converted? Where did you begin to feel the motions of the Spirit? In what year? In what month? On what day? About what hour of the day had you the secret call or motion of the Spirit to undertake and labour in the ministry? &c. &c. And they would try whether he had the true whining voice and nasal twang. Dr South, in his Sermon, says they were most properly called Cromwell's Inquisition, and that, as the chief pretence of those Triers was to inquire into men's gifts, if they found them well gifted in the hand they never looked any further."
     ⁠The reader (says Nash) may be inclined to think the dispute between the Knight and the Squire rather too long. But if he considers that the great object of the poem was to expose to scorn and contempt those sectaries and pretenders to extraordinary sanctity, who had overturned the constitution in Church and State, he will not wonder that the author indulges himself in this fine train of wit and humour.
121. They judged of men's inward grace by his outward complexion. Dr Echard says, "If a man had but a little blood in his cheeks, his condition was accounted very dangerous, and it was almost an infallible sign of reprobation: and I will assure you," he adds, "a very honest man, of a very sanguine complexion, if he chance to come by an officious zealot's house, might be put in the stocks for only looking fresh in a frosty morning."
122. Many persons, particularly the dissenters in our poet's time, were fond of wearing black caps lined with white. See the print of Baxter, and others.
123. A black coif, worn on the head, is the badge of a serjeant-at-law.
124. A club or junto, which wrote several books against the king, consisting of five Parliamentary holders-forth, namely: Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow; the initials of their names make the word Smectymnus: and, by way of distinction, they wore handkerchiefs about their necks, which afterwards degenerated into carnal cravats. Hall, bishop of Exeter, presented a humble remonstrance to the high court of parliament, in behalf of liturgy and episcopacy; which was answered by the junto under the title of The Original of Liturgy and Episcopacy, discussed by Smectymnuus. (See John Milton's Apology for Smectymnuus.) They are remarkable also for another book, "The King's Cabinet unlocked," in which all the chaste and endearing expressions in letters that passed between Charles I. and his Queen are, by their painful labours in the Devil's vineyard, turned into ridicule.
125. The Presbyterians held that those only who possessed grace were entitled to power.
126. The priests, their wives, and children, feasted upon the provisions offered to the idol, and pretended that he bad devoured them. See the Apocrypha, Bel and the Dragon, v. 15. The great gorbellied idol, called the Assembly of Divines (says Overton in his arraignment of Persecution), is not ashamed in this time of state necessity, to guzzle down and devour daily more at an ordinary meal than would make a feast for Bell and the Dragon; for, besides their fat benefices forsooth, they must have their four shillings a day for setting in constollidation.
127. Both in the Heathen and Jewish sacrifices the animal was slaughtered by the priests.
128. A banter on the Directory, or form of service drawn up by the Presbyterians, and substituted for the Common Prayer.
129. The resemblance between Papacy and Presbytery, which is here implied, is amusingly set forth by Dean Swift, in his Tale of a Tub, under the names of Peter and Jack.
130. Alluding to the well-known influence which dissenting ministers of all sects and denominations exercise over the purses of the female part of their flocks. As an illustration, Grey gives the following anecdote: Daniel Burgess, dining with a gentlewoman of his congregation, and a large uncut Cheshire cheese being brought to table, he asked where he should cut it. She replied, where you please, Mr Burgess. Upon which he ordered the servant in waiting to carry it to his own house, for he would cut it there.
131. The gentlemen of Cheshire sent a remonstrance to the parliament, wherein they complained that, instead of having twenty-six bishops, they were then governed by a numerous presbytery, amounting, with lay elders and others, to 40,000. This government, say they, is purely papal, for every minister exercises papal jurisdiction. Dr Grey quotes from Sir John Birkenhead revived:

     But never look for health nor peace
     ⁠If once presbytery jade us,
     When every priest becomes a pope,
     ⁠When tinkers and sow-gelders
     May,if they can but 'scape the rope,
     ⁠Be princes and lay-elders.

132. Two most insolent and assuming popes, who endeavoured to raise the tiara above all the crowned heads in Christendom. Gregory VII., elected 1073, the son of a Smith, and commonly called Hildebrand, was the first pontiff who arrogated to himself the authority to excommunicate and depose the emperor. Boniface VIII., elected 1294, one of the most haughty, ambitious, and tyrannical men, that ever filled the papal chair, at the jubilee instituted by himself, appeared one day in the habit of a pope, and the next in that of an emperor; and caused two swords to be carried before him, to show that he was invested with all power ecclesiastical and temporal. Walsingham says that "he crept into the papacy like a fox, ruled like a lion, and died like a dog."
133. Meaning "construe."
134. The Church of Rome has often been compared to the whore of Babylon. The beast which the whore rode upon is here said to signify the Presbyterian establishment: and the seven, or many heads of the beast, are interpreted, by the poet, to mean their several officers, deacons, priests, scribes, lay-elders, &c.
135. That is, lay-elder, an associate to the priesthood, for interested, if not for iniquitous purposes. Alluding to Genesis xlix. 5, 6. "Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations: O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united; for in their anger they slew a man."
136. Such were formerly several of the bishops in Germany.
137. Sir Roger L'Estrange, in his key to Hudibras, tells us that one Andrew Crawford, a Scotch preacher, is here intended; others say William Dunning, a Scotch presbyter of a turbulent and restless spirit, diligent in promoting the cause of the kirk. But, probably, the author meant no more than to give a general picture of the lay-elders.
138. It was forbidden by the Levitical law to wear a mixture of linen and woollen in the same garment.
139. A bolter is a coarse sieve for separating bran from flour.
140. This alludes to the stereorary chair, used at the installations of some of the popes, and which, being perforated at the bottom, has given rise to the assertion that, to prevent the recurrence of a Pope Joan, the Pontiff elect is always examined through it by the youngest deacon.
141. Elenchi are arguments which deceive under an appearance of truth. The Elenchus, says Aldrich, is properly a syllogism which refutes an opponent by establishing that which contradicts his opinion.
142. That is, a perverse humour of wrangling, or, "contentious litigation."
143. That is, dialectically, or logically.
144. These are technical terms of school-logic.
145. Suppose (says Nash) to make out the metre, we read:
     ⁠That both indeed are animalia.
     ⁠The editor of 1819 proposes to read of them in place of indeed. But it was probably intended in the next line to ellipse rationalia into rat'nalia (pronounced rashnalia).
146. Between animate and inanimate things, as between a man and a tree, there is a generic difference, that is, one "in kind;" between rational and sensitive creatures, as a man and a bear, there is a specific difference; for though they agree in the genus of animals, or living creatures, yet they differ in the species as to reason. Between two men, Plato and Socrates, there is a numerical difference; for, though they are of the same species as rational creatures, yet they are not one and the same, but two men. See Part ii. Canto i. 1. 150.
147. Or that my horse is a man. Aristotle, in his disputations, uses the word Socrates as an appellative for man in general; from him it was taken up in the schools.
148. It was in Butler's time, and long afterwards, a popular notion that the
     cubs of the bear were mere "lumps of flesh," until fashioned by the tongue
     of their dam. See Ovid's Metam. XV.; Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 36 (Bohn's Edit. vii. ii. p.305.). It is alluded to in Pope's Dunciad, i. 99, 100;
     ⁠So watchful Bruin forms, with plastic care,
     ⁠Each growing lump, and brings it to a bear.
149. Alluding to the fable of Chimæra in Ovid's Metamorphoses, book IX.:
     ⁠———and where Chimæra raves
     ⁠On craggy rocks, with lion's face and mane,
     ⁠A goat's rough body, and a serpent's train.
     Described also by Homer, Iliad, vi. 180.
150. The Ranters were a vile sect, that denied all the doctrines of religion, natural and revealed, and believed sin and vice to be the whole duty of man. They held, says Alexander Ross, that God, Devil, Angels, Heaven, and Hell, were fictions; that Moses, John the Baptist, and Christ, were impostors, and that preaching was but public lying. With one of these the knight had entered into a dispute, and at last came to blows. Whitelocke says that the soldiers in the parliament army were frequently punished for being Ranters.
151. Independents and Anabaptists were great enemies to all human learning, the thought that preaching, and everything else, was to come by inspiration. Dr South says: "Latin unto them was a mortal crime, and Greek looked upon as a sin against the Holy Ghost. All learning was then cried down, so that with them the best preachers were such as could not read, and the ablest divines such as could not write. In all their preachments they so highly pretended to the spirit, that they hardly could spell the letter." We are told in the Mercurius Rusticus, that the tinkers and tailors who governed Chelmsford at the beginning of the Rebellion, asserted "that learning had always been an enemy to the gospel, and that it would be a happy state if there were no universities, and all books were burnt except the Bible." Their enmity to learning is well satirized by Shakspeare, who makes Jack Cade say when he ordered Lord Say's head to be struck off: "I am the besom that must sweep the court clean of such filth as thou art. Thou has most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm, in erecting a grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books, but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used; and, contrary to the king, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face, that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb; and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear." Henry VI. Part II. Act iv. sc. 7.
152. See 1 Samuel xvii. 38.
153. Bishop Warburton, in a note on these lines, says: "This observation is just, the logicians have run into strange absurdities of this kind: Peter Ramus, the best of them, in his Logic, rejects a very just argument of Cicero's as sophistical, because it did not jump right with his rules."
154. Things so different from each other, that they cannot be compared.
155. The Presbytery of those times had little learning among them, though many made pretences to it; but, seeing all their boasted arguments and doctrines, wherever they differed from the Church of England, controverted and battled by the learned divines of that Church, they found that without more learning they should not maintain their ground. Therefore, about the time of the Revolution, they began to think it very necessary, instead of Calvin's Institutes, and a Dutch System or two, to help them to arguments against Episcopacy, to study more polite books. It is certain that dissenting ministers, since that time, have both preached and written more learnedly and politely.