xxvi THE LIFE AND WORKS OF SAMUEL BUTLER. Juan," are both fragments; and that, in reference to the first of these, at least, we have not the most distant data to guide us in conjecturing what was the ultimate plan or purpose of the poet, beyond, at least, the very probable conjecture that his vigorous and unsparing satire would have swept at last into the ranks of the ungrateful cavaliers. As it is, "Hudibras" now stands before us—not a sublime, unfinished temple consecrated to deities, whose worship was never to be celebrated therein-but a great, grotesque, nameless structure, reared half in sport and half in earnest, which excites in the minds of those who walk in it rather laughter than love, rather wonder than satisfaction, and which, after all the explanations given, is far more a problem than a poem. HUDIBRAS, IN THREE PARTS, WRITTEN IN THE TIME OF THE LATE WARS. PART FIRST. CANTO I. THE ARGUMENT. Sir HUDIBRAS, his passing worth, WHEN civil dudgeon first grew high, And made them fight, like mad or drunk, Whose honesty they all durst swear for, Was beat with fist instead of a stick : A wight he was whose very sight would That knaves do work with, call'd a Fool. 7 20 30 'He rode a-colonelling:' the Knight (if Sir Samuel Luke was Mr Butler's hero) was not only a Colonel in the Parliament army, but also Scoutmastergeneral in the counties of Bedford, Surrey, &c.-2 Mirror of Knighthood:' there was a book so called; see Don Quixote, vol. i. c. 6, p. 48.-3 Either for chartel' chartel signifies a letter of defiance or challenge to a duel 4 'Swaddle:' swaddle, bang, cudgel, or drub. For 't has been held by many, that As men their best apparel do. Beside, 'tis known he could speak Greek That Latin was no more difficile, He had such plenty as sufficed To make some think him circumcised: 'As Montaigne :' 'When I am playing with my cat,' says Montaigne, Essays, book ii. chap. 12, 'who knows whether she hath more sport in dallying with me than I have in gaming with her? We entertain one another with mutual apish tricks,' &c.—2 ‹ Much more she would Sir Hudibras:' Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bishop of St Asaph, in his British History, makes mention of a British King of this name, who lived about the time of Solomon, and reigned thirty-nine years; he composed all dissensions among his people, and built Kaerlem or Canterbury, Kaerguen or Winchester, and the town of Paladur, now Shaftesbury. Mr Butler seems rather to allude to one of Spencer's knights: see Fairy Queen, book ii. canto 2, § 17. And truly so perhaps he was, A hair 'twixt south and south-west side; A calf an alderman, a goose a justice, And pay with ratiocination. All this by syllogism, true In mood and figure, he would do. His mouth, but out there flew a trope; For all a rhetorician's rules Teach nothing but to name his tools. But, when he pleased to show't, his speech A Babylonish dialect, ; Which learned pedants much affect ; 63 70 80 90 1 'Committee-men:' alluding to the Committees appointed by the Parliament, in certain counties, to fine and imprison. |