Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide;
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings,
And, till prepar'd for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was the happy garden state,
While man there walk'd without a mate:
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there:
Two paradises are in one,
To live in paradise alone.

How well the skilful gard'ner drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial new!
Where, froin above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run:
And, as it works, th' industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckon'd, but with herbs and flowers?

[A Whimsical Satire on Holland.*]

Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land,
As but th' off-scouring of the British sand;
And so much earth as was contributed

By English pilots when they heav'd the lead;
Or what by th' ocean's slow alluvion fell,
Of shipwreck'd cockle and the muscle-shell;
This indigested vomit of the sea

Fell to the Dutch by just propriety.
Glad then, as miners who have found the ore,
They, with mad labour, fish'd the land to shore :
And div'd as desperately for each piece
Of earth, as if 't had been of Ambergrease;
Collecting anxiously small loads of clay,
Less than what building swallows bear away;
Or than those pills which sordid beetles rowl,
Transfusing into them their dunghill soul.
How did they rivet, with gigantic piles,
Thorough the centre their new-catched miles;
And to the stake a struggling country bound,
Where barking waves still bait the forced ground;
Building their wat'ry Babel far more high
To reach the sea, than those to scale the sky.
Yet still his claim the injur'd ocean laid,
And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples play'd;
As if on purpose it on land had come
To show them what's their mare liberum.
A daily deluge over them does boil;
The earth and water play at level-coyl.
The fish ofttimes the burgher dispossess'd,
And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest;
And oft the Tritons, and the sea-nymphs, saw
Whole shoals of Dutch serv'd up for Cabillau;
Or, as they over the new level rang'd,
For pickled herring, pickled heeren chang'd.
Nature, it seem'd, asham'd of her mistake,
Would throw their land away at duck and drake,
Therefore necessity, that first made kings,
Something like government among them brings.
For, as with Pigmies, who best kills the crane,
Among the hungry he that treasures grain,
Among the blind the one-ey'd blinkard reigns,
So rules among the drowned he that drains.
Not who first see the rising sun commands:
But who could first discern the rising lands.
Who best could know to pump an earth so leak,
Him they their lord, and country's father, speak.

To make a bank was a great plot of state; Invent a shov'l, and be a magistrate. Hence some small dike grave, unperceiv'd invades The pow'r, and grows, as 'twere, a king of spades; But, for less envy some join'd states endures, Who look like a commission of the sewers: For these half-anders, half-wet, and half-dry, Nor bear strict service, nor pure liberty. 'Tis probable religion, after this, Came next in order; which they could not miss. How could the Dutch but be converted, when Th' apostles were so many fishermen ? Besides, the waters of themselves did rise, And, as their land, so them did re-baptise; Though herring for their God few voices miss'd, And Poor-John to have been th' Evangelist. Faith, that could never twins conceive before, Never so fertile, spawn'd upon this shore More pregnant than their Marg'ret, that laid down For Hands-in-Kelder of a whole Hans-Town. Sure, when religion did itself embark, And from the east would westward steer its ark, It struck, and splitting on this unknown ground, Each one thence pillag'd the first piece he found: Hence Amsterdam, Turk, Christian, Pagan, Jew, . Staple of sects, and mint of schism grew; That bank of conscience, where not one so strange Opinion, but finds credit, and exchange. In vain for Catholics ourselves we bear: The universal church is only there.

SAMUEL BUTLER.

*

the merits of its author. Such a work is Hudibras, a cavalier burlesque of the extravagant ideas and rigid manners of the English Puritans of the civil war and commonwealth. Borne up by a felicity of versification and an intensity of wit never excelled in our literature, this poem still retains its place amongst the classic productions of the English muse, although, perhaps, rarely read through at once, for which, indeed, its incessant brilliancy in some measure unfits it. Samuel Butler, the author of this extraordinary satire, was born in 1612 at Stresham, in Worcestershire. His father was a farmer, possessing a small estate of his own; in short, an English yeoman. The poet, having received some education at the grammar-school of Worcester, removed to Cambridge, probably with the design of prosecuting his studies there; but, as he is ascertained to have never matriculated, it is supposed that the limited circumstances of his parents had forbidden him to advance in the learned career to which his tastes directed him. On this, as on all other parts of Butler's life, there rests great obscurity. It appears that he spent some years of his youth in performing the duties of clerk to a justice of the peace in his native district, and that in this situation he found means of cultivating his mind. His talents may be presumed to have interested some of his friends and neighbours in his behalf, for he is afterwards found in the family of the Countess of Kent, where he had the use of a library, and the advantage of conversation with the celebrated Selden, who often employed the poet as his amanuensis and transcriber. Thus ran on the years of Butler's youth and early manhood, and so far he cannot be considered as unfortunate, if we are to presume that he found his chief enjoyment, as scholars generally do, in opportunities of intellectual improvement. He is next found in the family of Sir Samuel Luke, a Bedfordshire gentleman, whom it is probable he served in the capacity of tutor. Luke was one of Cromwell's principal officers, marked probably-perhaps to an unusual degree-by the well-known peculiarities of his party. The situation could not be a very agreeable one to a man whose disposition was so much towards wit and humour, even though those qualities had not made their owner a royalist, which in such an age they could scarcely fail to do. Daily exposed to association with persons whose character, from antagonism to his own, he could not but loathe, it is not surprising that the now mature muse of Butler should have conceived the design of a general satire on the sectarian party. Perhaps personal grievances of his own might add to the poignancy of his feelings regarding the Cromwellians. The matchless fiction of Cervantes supplied him with a model, in which he had only to substitute the extravagances of a political and religious fanaticism for those of chivalry. Luke himself is understood to be depicted in Sir Hudibras, and for this Butler has been accused of a breach of the laws of hospitality: we are not disposed decidedly to rebut the charge; but we think it may in candour 3 allowed to hang in doubt, until we know something more precise as to the circumstances attending the connexion of the poet with his patron, and, more particularly, those attending their parting.

The Restoration threw a faint and brief sunshine upon the life of Butler. He was appointed secretary to the Earl of Carbury, President of the principality of Wales; and when the wardenship of the Marches was revived, the earl made his secretary steward of Ludlow castle. The poet, now fifty years of age, seemed to add to his security for the future by marrying a widow named Herbert, who was of good family and fortune; but this prospect proved delusive, in consequence of the failure of parties on whom the lady's fortune depended. It was now that Butler first became an author. The first part of 'Hudibras' appeared in 1663, and immediately became popular. Its wit, so pat to the taste of the time, and the breadth of the satiric pictures which it presented, each of which had hundreds of prototypes within the recollection of all men then living, could not fail to give it extensive currency. By the Earl of Dorset, an accomplished friend of letters, it was introduced to the notice of the court; and the king is said to have done it the honour of often quoting

it. A second part appeared in 1664, and a third fourteen years later. But though the poet and his work were the praise of all ranks, from royalty downwards, he was himself little benefited by it. What emoluments he derived from his stewardship, or whether he derived any emoluments from it at all, does not appear; but it seems tolerably clear that the latter part of his life was spent in mean and struggling circumstances in London. The Earl of Clarendon promised him a place at court, but he never obtained it. The king ordered him a present of £300,* which was insufficient to discharge the debts pressing upon him at the time. He was favoured with an interview by the Duke of Buckingham, who, however, seeing two court ladies pass, ran out to them, and did not come back, so that Butler had to go home disappointed. Such are the only circumstances related as chequering a twentyyears' life of obscure misery which befell the most brilliant comic genius which perhaps our country has ever produced. Butler died in 1680, in a mean street near Covent Garden,† and was buried at the expense of a friend.

Rose Street, London; in which Butler died.

'Hudibras' is not only the best burlesque poem written against the Puritans of that age, so fertile in satire, but is the best burlesque in the English language. The same amount of learning, wit, shrewdness, ingenious and deep thought, felicitous illustration, and irresistible drollery, has never been comprised in the same limits. The idea of the knight, Sir Hudibras, going out 'a-colonelling' with his Squire Ralph, is of course copied from Cervantes; but the filling up of the story is different. Don Quixote presents us with a wide range of adventures, which in

* It is usually stated that this order was for £3000, but that a figure was cut off, and only £300 paid. It is to us quite inconceivable that so large a sum should have ever been ordered

by the king, all the circumstances considered; and we there

fore do not allude to it in the text.

† Butler died in Rose Street, Covent Garden, one of the meanest streets of that part of the city. He was buried at the west end of the churchyard of St Paul's, Covent Garden, on

the south side, under the wall of the church.-Pilgrimages in London.

casm.

terest the imagination and the feelings. There is a freshness and a romance about the Spanish hero, and a tone of high honour and chivalry, which Butler did not attempt to imitate. His object was to cast ridicule on the whole body of the English Puritans, especially their leaders, and to debase them by low and vulgar associations. It must be confessed, that in many of their acts there was scope for sarTheir affected dress, language, and manners, their absurd and fanatical legislation against walking in the fields on Sundays, village May-poles, and other subjects beneath the dignity of public notice, were fair subjects for the satirical poet. Their religious enthusiasm also led them into intolerance and absurdity. Contending for so dear a prize as liberty of conscience, and believing that they were specially appointed to shake and overturn the old corruptions of the kingdom, the Puritans were little guided by considerations of prudence, policy, or forbearance. Even Milton, the friend and associate of the party, was forced to admit

His

That New Presbyter was but Old Priest writ large. The higher qualities of these men, their indomitable courage and lofty zeal, were of course overlooked or despised by the royalists, their opponents, and Butler did not choose to remember them. burlesque was read with delight, and was popular for generations after the Puritans had merged into the more sober and discreet English dissenters. The plot or action of 'Hudibras' is limited and defective, and seems only to have been used as a sort of peg on which he could hang his satirical portraits and allusions. The first cantos were written early, when the civil war commenced, but we are immediately conveyed to the death of Cromwell, at least fifteen years later, and have a sketch of public affairs to the dissolution of the Rump Parliament. The bare idea of a Presbyterian justice sallying out with his attendant, an Independent clerk, to redress superstition and correct abuses, has an air of ridicule, and this is kept up by the dialogues between the parties, which are highly witty and ludicrous; by their attack on the bear and the fiddle; their imprisonment in the stocks; the voluntary penance of whipping submitted to by the knight, and his adventures with his lady.

The love of Hudibras is almost as rich as that of Falstaff, and he argues in the same manner for the utmost freedom, men having, he says, nothing but 'frail vows' to oppose to the stratagems of the fair. He moralises as follows:

For women first were made for men,
Not men for them: It follows, then,
That men have right to every one,
And they no freedom of their own;
And therefore men have power to choose,
But they no charter to refuse.

Hence 'tis apparent that, what course
Soe'er we take to your amours,
Though by the indirectest way,
'Tis no injustice nor foul play;
And that you ought to take that course
As we take you, for better or worse,
And gratefully submit to those

Who you, before another, chose.

The poem was left unfinished, but more of it would hardly have been read even in the days of Charles. There is, in fact, a plethora of wit in 'Hudibras,' and a condensation of thought and style, which become oppressive and tiresome. The faculties of the reader cannot be kept in a state of constant tension; and after perusing some thirty or forty pages, he is fain to relinquish the task, and seek out for the simplicity of nature. Some of the

short burlesque descriptions are inimitable. For example, of Morning

The sun had long since, in the lap
Of Thetis, taken out his nap,
And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn
From black to red began to turn.

Of Night

The sun grew low and left the skies,
Put down, some write, by ladies' eyes;
The moon pull'd off her veil of light,
That hides her face by day from sight,
(Mysterious veil, of brightness made,
That's both her lustre and her shade),
And in the lantern of the night,
With shining horns hung out her light;
For darkness is the proper sphere,
Where all false glories use t' appear.
The twinkling stars began to muster,
And glitter with their borrow'd lustre;
While sleep the wearied world reliev'd,

By counterfeiting death reviv'd.

Many of the lines and similes in 'Hudibras' are completely identified with the language, and can never be separated from it. Such are the opening lines of Part II. canto three

Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated as to cheat;
As lookers on feel most delight
That least perceive a juggler's sleight;
And still the less they understand,

The more they admire his sleight-of-hand.

Or where the knight remarks, respecting the importance of money

For what in worth is anything,

But so much money as 'twill bring?

Butler says of his brother poets

Those that write in rhyme, still make
The one verse for the other's sake;
For one for sense, and one for rhyme,

I think 's sufficient at one time.

There are a few such compelled rhymes in 'Hudibras, but the number is astonishingly small.

[Accomplishments of Hudibras.]

When civil dudgeon first grew high,
And men fell out, they knew not why:
When hard words, jealousies, and fears,
Set folks together by the ears,
And made them fight, like mad or drunk,
For Dame Religion as for punk;
Whose honesty they all durst swear for,
Though not a man of them knew wherefore :
When gospel-trumpeter, surrounded
With long-ear'd rout, to battle sounded,
And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,

Was beat with fist, instead of a stick:
Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling,
And out he rode a-colonelling.

A wight he was, whose very sight would
Entitle him, mirror of knighthood;
That never bow'd his stubborn knee
To anything but chivalry;
Nor put up blow, but that which laid
Right-worshipful on shoulder-blade:
Chief of domestic knights and errant,
Either for chartel or for warrant:
Great on the bench, great on the saddle,
That could as well bind o'er, as swaddle.
Mighty he was at both of these,
And styl'd of war as well as peace.
(So some rats, of amphibious nature,
Are either for the land or water.)

But here our authors make a doubt,
Whether he were more wise or stout;
Some hold the one, and some the other:
But howsoe'er they make a pother,
The diffrence was so small, his brain
Outweigh'd his rage but half a grain;
Which made some take him for a tool
That knaves do work with, call'd a fool.
For 't has been held by many, that
As Montaigne, playing with his cat,
Complains she thought him but an ass,
Much more she would Sir Hudibras.
(For that's the name our valiant knight
To all his challenges did write.)
But they're mistaken very much;
'Tis plain enough he was no such :
We grant, although he had much wit,
He was very shy of using it;
As being loath to wear it out,
And therefore bore it not about;
Unless on holidays, or so,
As men their best apparel do;
Beside, 'tis known he could speak Greek
As naturally as pigs squeak;
That Latin was no more difficile,
Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle:
Being rich in both, he never scanted
His bounty unto such as wanted;
But much of either would afford
To many, that had not one word.
He was in logic a great critic,
Profoundly skill'd in analytic;
He could distinguish, and divide
A hair 'twixt south and south-west side;
On either which he would dispute,
Confute, change hands, and still confute;
He'd undertake to prove by force
Of argument a man's no horse;
He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a lord may be an owl,
A calf an alderman, a goose a justice,
And rooks committee-men and trustees.
He'd run in debt by disputation,
And pay with ratiocination:
All this by syllogism, true
In mood and figure, he would do.
For rhetoric, he could not ope
His mouth, but out there flew a trope;
And when he happen'd to break off
I' th' middle of his speech, or cough,
H' had hard words, ready to show why,
And tell what rules he did it by :
Else, when with greatest art he spoke,
You'd think he talk'd like other folk;
For all a rhetorician's rules

*

Teach nothing but to name his tools.
But, when he pleas'd to show't, his speech
In loftiness of sound was rich;

A Babylonish dialect,

Which learned pedants much affect:
It was a party-colour'd dress
Of patch'd and piebald languages ;
'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin,
Like fustian heretofore on satin.
It had an odd promiscuous tone,

As if he had talk'd three parts in one;
Which made some think, when he did gabble,
Th' had heard three labourers of Babel;
Or Cerberus himself pronounce
A leash of languages at once.
This he as volubly would vent
As if his stock would ne'er be spent;
And truly, to support that charge,
He had supplies as vast and large :
For he could coin or counterfeit
New words, with little or no wit;

Words so debas'd and hard, no stone
Was hard enough to touch them on:
And when with hasty noise he spoke 'em,
The ignorant for current took 'em;
That had the orator, who once
Did fill his mouth with pebble stones
When he harangu'd, but known his phrase,
He would have us'd no other ways.

[Religion of Hudibras.]

For his religion, it was fit
To match his learning and his wit.
'Twas Presbyterian true blue;
For he was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true church militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun ;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery;

And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire, and sword, and desolation,
A godly thorough reformation,
Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended;
A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies;
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss;
More peevish, cross, and splenetic,
Than dog distraught or monkey sick;
That with more care keep holiday
The wrong, than others the right way;
Compound for sins they are inclin'd to,
By damning those they have no mind to.
Still so perverse and opposite,
As if they worshipp'd God for spite;
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for;
Freewill they one way disavow,
Another, nothing else allow;
All piety consists therein
In them, in other men all sin;
Rather than fail, they will defy
That which they love most tenderly;
Quarrel with minc'd pies, and disparage
Their best and dearest friend, plum-porridge;
Fat pig and goose itself oppose,
And blaspheme custard through the nose.
Th' apostles of this fierce religion,
Like Mahomet's, were ass and widgeon,
To whom our knight, by fast instinct
Of wit and temper, was so link'd,
As if hypocrisy and nonsense
Had got th' advowson of his conscience.

[Personal Appearance of Hudibras.]

His tawny beard was th' equal grace
Both of his wisdom and his face;
In cut and dye so like a tile,
A sudden view it would beguile;
The upper part thereof was whey,
The nether, orange, mix'd with gray.
This hairy meteor did denounce
The fall of sceptres and of crowns;
With grisly type did represent
Declining age of government;
And tell, with hieroglyphic spade,
Its own grave and the state's were made.
Like Samson's heart-breakers, it grew
In time to make a nation rue;

Though it contributed its own fall,
To wait upon the public downfall;
It was monastic, and did grow
In holy orders by strict vow;
Of rule as sullen and severe,
As that of rigid Cordelier;
'Twas bound to suffer persecution,
And martyrdom with resolution;
T' oppose itself against the hate
And vengeance of th' incensed state,
In whose defiance it was worn,
Still ready to be pull'd and torn;
With red hot irons to be tortur'd,
Revil'd, and spit upon, and martyr'd;
Maugre all which 'twas to stand fast
As long as monarchy should last;
But when the state should hap to reel,
'Twas to submit to fatal steel,
And fall, as it was consecrate,
A sacrifice to fall of state;

Whose thread of life the fatal sisters
Did twist together with its whiskers,
And twine so close, that Time should never,
In life or death, their fortunes sever;
But with his rusty sickle mow
Both down together at a blow.

*

*

His doublet was of sturdy buff,
And though not sword, yet cudgel proof;
Whereby 'twas fitter for his use,
Who fear'd no blows but such as bruise.

His breeches were of rugged woollen,
And had been at the siege of Bullen;
To old king Harry so well-known,
Some writers held they were his own;
Though they were lin'd with many a piece
Of ammunition, bread and cheese,
And fat black puddings, proper food
For warriors that delight in blood;
For, as we said, he always chose
To carry victual in his hose,

That often tempted rats and mice
Th' ammunition to surprise;

And when he put a hand but in
The one or t' other magazine,

They stoutly on defence on't stood,

And from the wounded foe drew blood;

And till they were storm'd and beaten out,
Ne'er left the fortified redoubt;

And though knights-errant, as some think,
Of old did neither eat nor drink,
Because when thorough deserts vast,
And regions desolate they pass'd,
Where belly-timber above ground,
Or under, was not to be found,
Unless they graz'd, there's not one word
Of their provision on record;
Which made some confidently write
They had no stomachs but to fight.
'Tis false; for Arthur wore in hall
Round table like a farthingal;

On which, with shirt pull'd out behind,
And eke before, his good knights din'd;
Though 'twas no table some suppose,
But a huge pair of round trunk hose,
In which he carried as much meat
As he and all the knights could eat;
When laying by their swords and truncheons,
They took their breakfasts or their luncheons.
But let that pass at present, lest
We should forget where we digress'd,
As learned authors use, to whom
We leave it, and to the purpose come.

His puissant sword unto his side,
Near his undaunted heart, was tied,
With basket hilt that would hold broth,
And serve for fight and dinner both;

In it he melted lead for bullets

To shoot at foes, and sometimes pullets,

To whom he bore so fell a grutch,
He ne'er gave quarter t' any such.
The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty,
For want of fighting, was grown rusty,
And ate into itself, for lack

Of somebody to hew and hack:
The peaceful scabbard where it dwelt,
The rancour of its edge had felt;
For of the lower end two handful
It had devour'd, it was so manful,
And so much scorn'd to lurk in case,
As if it durst not show its face.
In many desperate attempts
Of warrants, exigents, contempts,
It had appear'd with courage bolder
Than Serjeant Bum invading shoulder:
Oft had it ta'en possession,

And prisoners too, or made them run.
This sword a dagger had his page,
That was but little for his
age;
And therefore waited on him so
As dwarfs upon knights-errant do:
It was a serviceable dudgeon,
Either for fighting, or for drudging:
When it had stabb'd or broke a head,
It would scrape trenchers, or chip bread;
Toast cheese or bacon, though it were
To bait a mouse-trap, would not care:
"Twould make clean shoes, and in the earth
Set leeks and onions, and so forth:
It had been 'prentice to a brewer,
Where this and more it did endure,
But left the trade, as many more
Have lately done on the same score.1

The Elephant in the Moon.

[Designed as a satire upon the Royal Society, whose philosophical researches appeared to Butler, and the wits in general, to be in many instances whimsical and absurd.]

A learn'd society of late,
The glory of a foreign state,
Agreed, upon a summer's night,
To search the moon by her own light;

To take an invent'ry of all

Her real estate, and personal;
And make an accurate survey
Of all her lands, and how they lay,
As true as that of Ireland, where
The sly surveyors stole a shire;

T' observe her country how 'twas planted,
With what sh' abounded most, or wanted;
And make the prop'rest observations
For settling of new plantations,
If the society should incline
T' attempt so glorious a design.

This was the purpose of their meeting,
For which they chose a time as fitting,
When, at the full, her radiant light
And influence too were at their height.
And now the lofty tube, the scale
With which they heav'n itself assail,
Was mounted full against the moon,
And all stood ready to fall on,
Impatient who should have the honour
To plant an ensign first upon her.

When one, who for his deep belief
Was virtuoso then in chief,
Approv'd the most profound, and wise,
To solve impossibilities,