For now the field is not far off,
Where we must give the world a proof

Of deeds, not words, and such as suit
Another manner of dispute.

A controversy that affords

Actions for arguments, not words:

870

So ours 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,

920

And angry answer'd from behind,

With brandish'd tail and blast of wind.

So have I seen, with armed heel,

925

A wight bestride a common-weal:

While still the more he kick'd and spurr'd,
The less the sullen jade has stirr❜d.

CANTO II.

THE ARGUMENT.

The catalogue and character
Of th' enemies' best men of war:
Whom, in a bold harangue, the knight
Defies and challenges to fight:
H'encounters Talgol, routs the bear,
And takes the fiddler prisoner;

Conveys him to inchanted 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've no great matter

To treat of, but a world o' th' latter.

And as for our part, we shall tell

The naked truth of what befel;

5

35

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 lye on't,

To make the knight o'ercome the giant.

Fig. 13.

40

38. Fig. 13 exhibits the bear and the dog, as seen on

This b'ing profess'd, we hope's enough,
And now go on where we left off.

the left side of the moon; and on the same left side of the moon may be seen Crowdero, as drawn in

but in order to compare them with their prototypes, the

They rode, but authors having not Determin'd whether pace or trot,

(This is to say,

whether tollutation,

As they do term't, or succussation,)
We leave it, and go on, as now
Suppose they did, no matter how :
Yet some from subtle hints have got
Mysterious light it was a trot.
But let that pass: they now begun

45

50

To spur their living engines on.

As Indian Britons were from penguins.
So let them be: as I was saying,

60

They their live engines ply'd, not staying
Until they reach'd the fatal champain,
Which th' enemy did then incamp 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

65

map in the frontispiece is to be viewed in its proper state, that is, with the north uppermost, and not upside down, as it was for the figures of Hudibras and Ralph.**