A

DISSERTATION

UPON

Burlesque Poetry.

I

SHALL not enter into the Detail of the Original of Burlefque Poetry, as confidering it as a modern Invention: For all Ways of Traveftie, Parodies, and turning Things into Ridicule, are by no Means to be confined to the Moderns, as the Learned very well know. How far the Macaronicks, made up of half Latin and half Vulgar Languages, without Regard to Grammar or Rules of any Kind -how far the Epiftolæ obfcurorum Virorum-and, above all, Rabelais, which is a Mixture of all Kinds of Languagesmay have influenced the Style, I fhall not now examine. How extremely fond all Nations were of it, may be seen in the Hiftory of French Poetry (a Book very commonly known); And I think Mr. Rhymer has touch'd upon it in English.

I fhall go no higher than to say that a little before Butler's Time arose an extraordinary Genius in France, famous for entertaining the Court with good Sayings, and the World with his Productions:-Scarron I mean:-A Man, who, to divert the tedious Hours of conftant and racking Infirmities, and make his Mind the more strongly agreeable, the less his Body was fo, fell upon this Method of turning all ferious. Things to Laughter and Ridicule.

His Way was new, and different from the Burlesque that was written before; and even fome of the Learned esteem it, as may be feen in Huetius, De Rebus ad fe pertinentibus.

Balzac

Balzac was at the fame Time in mighty Repute for the Sweetness of his Periods, and his high-flown and laboured Eloquence; as much overftrained in the ferious Way, as the other was too vulgar and mean in the comic: Yet one improved the Language, and the other debafed it. Balzas foon got the Learned on his Side: Very fine Books were written on the various Kinds of Wit and Style among the Antients: And, in fhort, the Learned at laft combined together against the Burlesque, and contrived to batter it down.

In this Way Things flood, when Butler took up the Cudgels against the Anti-Royalifts. Burlesque, though declining in France, was coming into Fafhion here.

The civil Wars were juft over, or turning towards the Refloration: And it appears that the Author was a zealous Cavalier, and that there was before him a Bank of twenty fuch Years, that furnish'd (not only a very ferious and bloody Tragedy, but) a great many Interludes of Madness, Folly, public Knavery and private: In short, a Ridicule, which, when the Mote was taken out of People's Eyes, was clear enough to be feen; but which, in the Acting, led them blindfold to a terrible Deftruction.

Malbranch fays, that Nations with Nations, Families with Families, and Parties with Parties, often fall into the Horrors of War and Bloodshed, for Things, the Ridicule of which is not perceived 'till a hundred Years afterwards.

So great a Genius as Butler coming fo early, many People's Eyes were opened much fooner, especially with Relation to one Party, which had for many Years been the reigning Party, and, indeed, in many Things the most peccant. He must be confidered as the Champion of the Royalifts, and, indeed, of the late diftrefs'd, now triumphant Church of England.

Now, as, in France, the Satyr Menippée, by expofing, in the Burlesque Way, the Hypocrites of thofe Times (the Spanifh Party, the Authors of that dreadful League of Confufion) contributed to bring People to their Senfes; fo likewife did this Writer, by unveiling that dark Scene of Hypocrify and Madness (which was one of the chief Reafons why the po litical Differences were no fooner accommodated) confiderable Service to his Country, and drove Enthufiafm before him.

But it is not my Design at prefent to enter into this Matter: I am endeavouring to fhew why He chofe This StyleHe who, as Mr. Dryden obferves, was capable of Any. [A3]

I fall

I fhall quote two unexceptionable Authors for this: In the firft Place, Milton, who, in his History of the Times before the Conqueft, fays, That the Reason of his employing himself in Things fo remote was to chase out of his Thoughts the present Times, which were not worthy of his Pen : Their Actions, he fays, were fo petty, so beneath all History, that he could not bear to treat of them. Sir William Temple too fays, That the public Affairs before 1660 were fo full of Madnefs, that he could not think of engaging in

them.

Now, if, by the Testimony of these two Authors, which no Party will refufe upon this Occafion, the Times we are fpeaking of were fo petty, fo beneath all Hiftory, fo full of Madness, were they not a fit Subject for a Traveftie? Were they not the proper Object of Burlesque? Was is not a proper Burial for a Scene of Pettiness, Putidness, Madness, and Inconfiftency?

I come now to the Faults attributed to his Style: And, First, as to the Matter, there are chiefly three Things, very blameable indeed, that are attributed to it, and have been pretty much the Practice of this Sort of Writers, viz. Obfcenity, Evil-Speaking, and Profaneness.

As to Obfcenity,. I cannot say our Author is wholly free: But, whatever there is of that Kind, it is very decently and remotely wrapt up; and, except a little merry DoubleMeaning between Hudibras and the Widow, and two ugly. Verfes about Platonic Bardafbing, few Authors are fo free from it: And, indeed, he knew too well the Dignity of his pretended Hero to make (as he says in another Poem) a Pimp of a Knight-Errant: For, truly, Obfcenity, at that Time of Day, in that Party, would fcarce have been thought fit for People of any other Profeffion: It could not have purchas ed him a Thanksgiving-Day in the Churches as bad as they

were.

Now, as to Evil-Speaking, you must confider the Poem as a Satyr made to expofe Vice: And, fo far as all Satyrs are chargeable with fomething of Ill-Nature, this must come in for its Share.

He did, indeed, rip up all the Faults of the adverfe Party to fuch a Degree, that he quite put them out of the Vogue of the World: They never gained any Ground of the Church of England after: He may be truly faid to have written them down, to have taken them by Head and Shoul

*See Hiftory of England, Part I, Quarto Edit. P. 2.

ders,

ders, and shoved them out of the polite World, where they have never fince made any Figure.

But then the Faults he found were real, and the Hypocrify and Knavery notorious, before he fet Pen to Paper: It was owned (as has been obferved) by Milton himself, the Cham pion of the other Side.

There are fome Things, I confefs, a little too hard upon fome People; and the whole Epistle to Sidropbel fhews fome Spleen against a learned and rifing Body of acute and venerable Philofophers.

But, in the main, a great Number of thofe he writes against were a Generation of Vipers, very little short of their Predeceffors, the Pharifees of pious Memory.

Now, as to Profaneness, the greatest of all Objections, it is to be confidered, that, in the preceding Times, fo great a Spirit of Religion, fay fome, or, as others fay, of Enthufiafm, prevailed, that all the moft facred Expreffions of the Scriptures, all the folemn Denunciations of the Prophets, the Phrases of all Parts of the Bible, were then in fuch common Ufe, and frequently in fuch fcandalous Abufe, that it could not be, but, in ridiculing fuch Monsters of Impiety, the Author must turn fome Paffages into Ridicule, which otherwise ought to be treated with the utmoft Reverence; especially, about the Operations of the Spirit, of which they made a most scandalous Ufe and Traffic. Yet our Author has nothing of this Kind half fo profane as the Tale of a Tub: Neither is the Profaneness in the Author, but in the Tartuffs that used it.

I think there is nothing that fhews a bad Heart in himself, nothing, or next to nothing, that has any Taste of the Li cence, which, under the falfe Notion of Wit, or true Name of Blafphemy, fo much infected and difgraced the Reign of King Charles the Second: If I had met with any Thing of this Kind, by any Slip of the Author, I fhould have fet it down amongst his moft criminal Enormities, and put as black a

*Theta

it

I could.

as upon

I would not have it tho' taken for granted, because this bantering Style was employed by the first Reformers against the childish Superftitions of Popery, and was a mafqued Battery, that did confiderable Execution, that therefore it is to be called profane, as I find in Popish Writers.

Nigrum Vitio præfigere Theta.

Perf. Sat. 4, 13.

1

But real Profaneness against God and true Religion is a Crime that no Man can approve of in his Heart, no Body ought to vindicate, no Degree of Wit can apologize for: It is one of those private Vices, fo bad, that I believe it would have puzzled even Mr. Mandeville himself to have founded any public Benefit upon it.

These three Vices are indeed plentifully fown in Rabelais, and fome of his Succeffors.

The Objections to the Burlefque Language are chiefly these four:

1. Old Language revived, and then it is obsolete. 2. Pedantry, in mixing learned Languages with it. 3. Plebeian, or vulgar Language.

*

4. Alfatian, or made Language.

First, as to the old, or obsolete Language, there is little to be charged to him on that Score. Wbilom, and Onflaught, and other Words that were not fo much out of Ufe then, as they are now, may be brought perhaps.

As to the learned Languages, it must be confefs'd, he has a little darkened his Poem, by mixing more Learning in it than there needed to be; not, indeed, by affected Scraps of Latin, without Humour or Neceffity, as Scarron and others of those Writers do: But, as thofe Times he writes about were Times of great Pedantry, it was neceffary, for his Drama, to turn those Things into Ridicule; for Hudibras is to be confidered as a Dramatic Performance, where all the Parts are to act in Character.

If Trulla, indeed, had made a Parade of her University Education, and argued dials, it would have been blameable: But, when Hudibras talks fo, he talks right; and the as right, when the bids him kiss her

The Latin he has brought in is little, and eafy to be understood, and not half fo much as was expected by a Country Audience in every Sermon, under the Charge of being no Latiner, as they faid of Dr. + Pocock.

* I don't mean, by the Alfatian Language, new Words, brought from other polite Languages to embellish or improve our own; but I mean a Sort of Beggars Gibberish, coined without any Foundation of Senfe or Etymology, like fome of Ancient Piftol's in Shakespear, or the Alfatians in Shadwell: For Example, Rino, Rinocerical, Coney for Money: This laft is ufed by Butler in Hudibras.

+ See Dr. Twells's Life of Dr. Pocock.

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