has tried knows how much labour it will coft to form fuch a combination of circumftances, as fhall have at once the grace of novelty and credibility, and delight fancy without violence to reafon

Perhaps the Dialogue of this poem is not perfect. Some power of engaging the attention might have been added to it, by quicker reciprocation, by feasonable interruptions, by fudden queftions, and by a nearer approach to dramatic spritelinefs; without which fictitious fpeeches will always tire, however sparkling with fentences, and however variegated with allufions.

The great fource of pleasure is variety. Uniformity must tire at last, though it be uniformity of excellence. We love to expect; and, when expectation is disappointed or gratified we want to be again expecting. For this impatience of the prefent, whoever would please must make provision. The kilful writer irritat, mulcet, makes a due diftribution of the ftill and animated parts. It is for want of this artful intertexture, and thofe neceffary changes, that the whole of a book may be tedious, though all the parts are praised.

If unexhauftible wit could give perpetual pleasure, no eye would ever leave half-read the work of Butler; for what poet has ever brought fo many remote images fo happily together? It is fcarcely poffible to perufe a page without finding fome affociation of images that was never found before. By the first paragraph the reader is amused, by the next he is delighted, and by a few more ftrained to astonishment; but aftonishment is a toilfome pleafure; he is foon weary of wondering, and longs to be diverted.

Omnia vult belle Matho, dicere, dic aliquando

Et bene, die neutrum, dic aliquando male.

Imagination is useless without knowledge: nature gives in vain the power of combination, unless study and obfervation fupply materials to be combined. Butler's treafures of knowledge appear proportioned to his expence: whatever topic employs his mind, he fhews himself qualified to expand and illuftrate it with all the acceffaries that books can furnish: he is found not only to have travelled the beaten ground, but the bye-paths of literature; not only to have taken general furveys, but to have examined particulars with minute inspection.

If the French boaft the learning of Rabelais, we need not be afraid of confronting them with Butler.

But the most valuable parts of his performance are those which

which retired ftudy and native wit cannot fupply. He that merely makes a book from books may be useful, but can fcarcely be great. Butler had not fuffered life to glide befide him unfeen or unobferved. He had watched with great diligence the operations of human nature, and traced the effects of opinion, humour, interest, and paffion. From such remarks proceeded that great number of fententious diftichs which have paffed into converfation, and are added as proverbial axioms to the general stock of practical knowledge.

When any work has been viewed and admired, the first queftion of intelligent curiofity is, how was it performed? Hudibras was not a hafty effufion; it was not produced by a fudden tumult of imagination, or a fhort paroxyfm of violent labour. To accumulate fuch a mafs of fentiments at the call of accidental defire, or of fudden neceffity, is beyond the reach and power of the most active and comprehenfive mind. I am informed by Mr. Thyer of Manchester, the excellent editor of this author's reliques, that he could fhew fomething like Hudibras in profe. He has in his poffeffion the commonplace book, in which Butler repofited, not fuch events or precepts as are gathered by reading, but fuch remarks, fimilitudes, allufions, affemblages, or inferences, as occafion prompted, or meditation produced, those thoughts that were generated in his own mind, and might be usefully applied to fome future purpose. Such is the labour of those who write for immortality.

But human works are not eafily found without a perishable part. Of the ancient poets every reader feels the mythology tedious and oppreffive. Of Hudibras, the manners, being founded on opinions, are temporary and local, and therefore become every day lefs intelligible, and lefs ftriking. What Cicero fays of philosophy is true likewife of wit and humour, that time effaces the fictions of opinion, and confirms the determinations of Nature." Such manners as depend upon ftanding relations and general paffions are co-extended with the race of man; but those modifications of life, and peculiarities of practice, which are the progeny of error and perverseness, or at beft of fome accidental influence or tranfient perfuafion, muft perish with their parents.

Much therefore of that humour which transported the century with merriment is loft to us, who do not know the fullen fuperftition, the gloomy morofenefs, the four folemnity,

and

and the ftubborn fcruples of the antient Puritans; or, if we knew them, derive our information only from books, or from tradition, have never had them before our eyes, and cannot but by recollection and study understand the lines in which they are fatyrifed. Our grandfathers knew the picture from the life, we judge of the life by contemplating the picture.

It is fcarcely poffib'e, in the regularity and composure of the prefent time, to image the tumult of abfurdity, and clamour of contradiction, which perplexed doctrine, difordered practice, and difturbed both public and private quiet, in that age when fubordination was broken, and he was hiffed away; when any unfettled innovator who could hatch a half-formed notion produced it to the public; when every man might become a preacher, and almoft every preacher could collect a congregation

The wisdom of the nation is very reafonably supposed to refide in the parliament. What can be concluded of the lower claffes of the people, when in one of the parliaments funmoned by Cromwell it was ferioufly propofed, that all the records in the Tower should be burnt, that all memory of things paft should be effaced, and that the whole system of life should commence anew?

We have never been witneffes of animofities excited by the ufe of mince pies and plumb porridge; nor feen with what abhorrence thofe who could eat them at all other times of the year would fhrink from them in December. An old Puritan, who was alive in my childhood, being at one of the feasts of the church invited by a neighbour to partake his cheer, told him, that, if he would treat him at an alehouse with beer, brewed for all times and feasons, he fhould accept his kinduels, but would have none of his fuperftitious meats and drinks.

One of the puritanical tenets was the illegality of all games of chance; and he that reads Gataker upon Lots may fee how much learning and reafon one of the firft fcholars of his age thought neceffary, to prove that it was no crime to throw a dye or play at cards, or to hide a shilling for the reckoning.

Aftrology, however, against which fo much of the fatire is directed, was not more the folly of the Puritans than of others. It had in that time a very extenfive dominion. Its predictions raised hopes and fears in minds which ought to have rejected it with contempt. In hazardous undertakings care was taken to begin under the influence of a propitious planet; and when the king was prifoner in Carifbrook Caitle,

an

an aftrologer was confulted what hour would be found moft favourable to an escape.

What effect this poem had upon the public, whether it fhamed impofture or reclaimed credulity, is not eafily determined. Cheats can feldom stand long against laughter. It is certain that the credit of planetary intelligence wore faft away; though fome men of knowledge, and Dryden among them, continued to believe that conjunctions and oppofitions had a great part in the distribution of good or evil, and in the government of fublunary things.

Poetical Action ought to be probable upon certain fuppofitions, and fuch probability as burlesque requires is here violated only by one incident. Nothing can fhew more plainly the neceffity of doing something, and the difficulty of finding fomething to do, than that Butler was reduced to transfer to his hero the flagellation of Sancho, not the most agreeable fiction of Cervantes; very fuitable indeed to the manners of that age and nation, which afcribed wonderful efficacy to voluntary penances; but fo remote from the practice and opinions of the Hudibraftic time, that judgement and imagination are alike offended.

The diction of this poem is grofsly familiar, and the numbers purposely neglected, except in a few places where the thoughts by their native excellence fecure themselves from violation, being fuch as mean language cannot exprefs. The mode of verfification has been blamed by Dryden, who regrets that the heroic measure was not rather chofen. To the critical fentence of Dryden the highest reverence would be due, were not his decifions often precipitate, and his opinions immature. When he wished to change the measure, he probably would have been willing to change more. If he intended that, when the numbers were heroic, the diction fhould still remain vulgar, he planned a very heterogeneous and unnatural compofition. If he preferred a general statelinefs both of found and words, he can be only understood to wish Butler had undertaken a different work.

The measure is quick, fpritely, and colloquial, fuitable to the vulgarity of the words and the levity of the fentiments. But fuch members and fuch diction can gain regard only when they are used by a writer whofe vigour of fancy and copioufness of knowledge entitle him to contempt of ornaments, and who, in confidence of the novelty and juftness of his conceptions, can

B 3

afford

afford to throw metaphors and epithets away.

To another that conveys common thoughts in carelefs verfification, it will only be faid, Pauper videri Cinna vult, & eft pauper'.' The meaning and diction will be worthy of each other, and criticifm may justly doom them to perish together.

Nor even though another Butler should arife, would another Hudibras obtain the fame regard. Burlefque confifts in a difproportion between the ftyle and the fentiments, or between the adventitious fentiments and the fundamental fubject. It therefore, like all bodies compounded of heterogeneous parts, contains in it a principle of corruption. All difproportion is unnatural; and from what is unnatural we can derive only the pleasure which novelty produces. We admire it awhile as a ftrange thing; but, when it is no longer ftrange, we perceive its deformity. It is a kind of artifice, which by frequent repetition detects itself; and the reader, learning in time what he is to expect, lays down his book, as the fpectator turns away from a fecond exhibition of those tricks, of which the only ufe is to fhew that they can be played,