Oh! oh!'-with that he fetch'd a groan,
And fell again into a swoon,
Shut both his eyes, and stop'd his breath,
And to the life out-acted death;
That Hudibras, to all appearing,
Believ'd him to be dead as herring.
He held it now no longer safe
To tarry the return of Ralph,
But rather leave him in the lurch;
Thought he, 'He has abus'd our Church,
Refus'd to give himself one firk
To carry on the Public Work;
Despis'd our Synod-men like dirt,
And made their Discipline his sport;
Divulg'd the secrets of their Classes,
And their Conventions prov'd high places;
Disparag❜d their tythe-pigs, as Pagan,
And set at nought their cheese and bacon;
Rail'd at their Covenant, and jeer'd
Their reverend Parsons, to my beard;
For all which scandals, to be quit
At once, this juncture falls out fit.
I'll make him henceforth to beware,
And tempt my fury if he dare:
He must at least hold up his hand,
By twelve freeholders to be scan'd,
Who by their skill in palmistry,
Will quickly read his destiny,
And make him glad to read his lesson,
Or take a turn for't at the Session,
Unless his light and gifts prove truer
Than ever yet they did, I'm sure;
For if he 'scape with whipping now,
"Tis more than he can hope to do;
And that will disengage my Conscience
Of the' obligation, in his own sense :
I'll make him now by force abide
What he by gentle means denied,
To give my honour satisfaction,
And right the Brethren in the action.'
This being resolv'd; with equal speed
And conduct he approach'd his steed,
And, with activity unwont,
Assay'd the lofty beast to mount;
Which once achiev'd, he spur'd his palfry, To get from the' enemy and Ralph free; Left danger, fears, and foes behind,
And beat, at least three lengths, the wind,
WELL, Sidrophel, though 'tis in vain
To tamper with your crazy brain,
Without trepanning of your scull,
As often as the moon's at full;
'Tis not amiss, ere y'are giv'n o'er,
To try one desperate med'cine more:
*This Epistle was published ten years after the Third Canto of this Second Part, to which it is now annexed, namely, in the year 1674; and is said (in a Key to a burlesque poem of Mr. Butler's, published 1706) to have been occasioned by Sir Paul Neal, a conceited virtuoso, and member of the Royal Society, who con⚫ stantly affirmed that Mr. Butler was not the author of Hudibras, which occasioned this Epistle; and by some he has been taken for the real Sidrophei of the Poem. This was the gentleman who is said to have made a great discovery of an elephant in the moon ; which, upon examination, proved to be no other than a mouse which had mistaken its way, and got into his telescope. See Poem, intitled The Elephant in the Moon, vol. iii.
For where your case can be no worse,
The desp'rat'st is the wisest course.
Is't possible that you, whose ears
Are of the tribe of Issachar's,
And might (with equal reason) either
For merit, or extent of leather,
With William Prynne's, before they were
Retrench'd and crucified, compare ;
Should yet be deaf against a noise
So roaring as the public voice?
That speaks your virtues free and loud,
And openly in every crowd;
As loud as one that sings his part
To' a wheel-barrow, or turnip-cart,
Or your new nick-nam'd old invention
To cry green-hastings with an engine;
(As if the vehemence had stun'd,
And torn your drumheads with the sound)
And 'cause your folly's now no news,
But overgrown, and out of use,
Persuade yourself there's no such matter,
But that 'tis vanish'd out of Nature;
When Folly, as it grows in years,
The more extravagant appears;
For who but you could be possest,
With so much ignorance and beast,
That neither all men's scorn and hate,
Nor being laugh'd and pointed at,
Nor bray'd so often in a mortar,
Can teach you wholesome sense and nurture;
But (like a reprobate) what course
'Soever us'd, grow worse and worse?
Can no transfusion of the blood,
That makes fools cattle, do you good?
Nor putting pigs to' a bitch to nurse,
To turn 'em into mungrel-curs,
Put you into a way, at least,
To make yourself a better beast?
Can all your critical intrigues,
Of trying sound from rotten eggs:
Your several new-found remedies,
Of curing wounds and scabs in trees;
Your arts of fluxing them for claps,
And purging their infected saps:
Recovering shankers, crystallines,
And nodes and blotches in their rinds,
Have no effect to operate
Upon that duller block, your pate?
But still it must be lewdly bent
To tempt your own due punishment;
And, like your whimsied chariots, draw
The boys to course you without law;
As if the art you have so long
Profess'd of making old dogs young,
In you had virtue to renew
Not only youth, but childhood too.
Can you, that understand all books,
By judging only with your looks,
Resolve all problems with your face,
As others do with B's and A's;
Unriddle all that mankind knows
With solid bending of your brows;
All arts and sciences advance,
With screwing of your countenance,
And with a penetrating eye,
Into the' abstrusest learning pry;
Know more of any trade by' a hint,
Than those that have been bred up in't,
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