He oft in such attempts as these
Came off with glory and success:
Nor will we fail in the' execution,
For want of equal resolution,
Honour is like a widow, won
With brisk attempt and putting on;
With entering manfully, and urging;
Not slow approaches, like a virgin.’
This said; as erst the Phrygian knight,
So our's with rusty steel did smite
His Trojan horse, and just as much
He mended pace upon the touch;
But from his empty stomach groan'd
Just as that hollow beast did sound,
And angry answer'd from behind,
With brandish'd tail and blast of wind.
So have I seen, with armed heel,
A wight bestride a Common-weal,
While still the more he kick'd and spur'd,
The less the sullen jade has stir❜d.

PART I. CANTO II.

THE ARGUMENT.

The catalogue and character
Of the' enemies' best men of war,
Whom, in a bold harangue, the Knight
Defies, and challenges to fight:

He' encounters Talgol, routs the Bear,
And takes the Fiddler prisoner,

Conveys him to enchanted castle,

There shuts him fast in wooden Bastile.

THERE was an ancient sage philosopher
That had read Alexander Ross over,
And swore the world, as he could prove,
Was made of fighting and of love.
Just so Romances are, for what else
Is in them all but love and battles?

O' th' first of these we have no great matter
To treat of, but a world o' th' latter;
In which, to do the injur'd right,
We mean in what concerns just fight,
Certes our authors are to blame,
For to make some well-sounding name
A pattern fit for modern knights
To copy out in frays and fights,
(Like those that a whole street do rase
To build a palace in the place)
They never care how many others
They kill, without regard of mothers,

Or wives, or children, so they can
Make up some fierce, dead-doing man,
Compos'd of many ingredient valours,
Just like the manhood of nine tailors:
So a wild Tartar, when he spies
A man that's handsome, valiant, wise,
If he can kill him, thinks to' inherit
His wit, his beauty, and his spirit;
As if just so much he enjoy'd,
As in another is destroy'd:
For when a giant's slain in fight,
And mow'd o'erthwart, or cleft downright,
It is a heavy case, no doubt,

A man should have his brains beat out,
Because he's tall, and has large bones;
As men kill beavers for their stones.
But as for our part, we shall tell
The naked truth of what befel,

And as an equal friend to both
The Knight and Bear, but more to troth,
With neither faction shall take part,
But give to each his due desert;
And never coin a formal lie on't,

To make the knight o'ercome the giant.
This being profest, we've hopes enough,
And now go on where we left off.

They rode; but authors having not
Determin'd whether pace or trot,
(That is to say, whether tollutation,
As they do term't, or succusation*)
We leave it, and go on, as now
Suppose they did, no matter how;

Tollutation and succussation are terms used here for ambling and trotting.

Yet some, from subtle hints, have got,
Mysterious light it was a trot:

But let that pass; they now begun
their living engines on:

To spur

For as whip'd tops and bandy'd balls,
The learned hold, are animals;

So horses they affirm to be

Mere engines made by Geometry,
And were invented first from engines,
As Indian Bramins were from Penguins.
So let them be; and, as I was saying,
They their live engines ply'd, not staying
Until they reach'd the fatal champain
Which the' enemy did then encamp on;
The dire Pharsalian plain, where battle
Was to be wag'd 'twixt puissant cattle
And fierce auxiliary men,

That came to aid their brethren;
Who now began to take the field,
As Knight from ridge of steed beheld.
For as our modern wits behold,
Mounted a pick-back on the old,
Much further off, much further he,
Rais'd on his aged beast, could see;
Yet not sufficient to descry

All postures of the enemy:

Wherefore he bids the Squire ride further,
To' observe their numbers and their order,
That when their motions he had known,
He might know how to fit his own.
Meanwhile he stop'd his willing steed,
To fit himself for martial deed:
Both kinds of metal he prepar'd,
Either to give blows, or to ward;

Courage and steel, both of great force,
Prepar'd for better, or for worse.
His death-charg'd pistols he did fit well,
Drawn out from life-preserving victual.
These being prim'd, with force he labour'd
To free's sword from retentive scabbard;
And after many a painful pluck,

From rusty durance he bail'd tuck :
Then shook himself to see that prowess
In scabbard of his arms sat loose;

And, rais'd

upon his desperate foot,
On stirrup-side he gaz'd about,
Portending blood, like blazing star,
The beacon of approaching war.
Ralpho rode on with no less speed
'Than Hugo in the forest did ;*
But far more in returning made;
For now the foe he had survey'd,
Rang'd, as to him they did appear,
With van, main-battle, wings and rear.
I' th' head of all this warlike rabble,
Crowderot march'd, expert and able.
Instead of trumpet, and of drum,

That makes the warrior's stomach come,
Whose noise whets valour sharp, like beer,
By thunder turn'd to vinegar,

*Thus altered in the edition of 1674:

The Squire advanc'd with greater speed
Than could b' expected from his steed.

For Hugo, see Davenant's Gondibert.
+ So called, from crowd, a fiddle. This was one Jackson, a mil.
liner, who lived in the New Exchange in the Strand. He had for
merly been in the service of the Roundheads, and had lost a leg in
it; this brought him to decay, so that he was obliged to scrape
upon a fiddle, from one alehouse to another, for his bread.