A cheat that scholars put upon

Other men's reason and their own;

A fort of error, to ensconce

Absurdity and ignorance,
That renders all the avenues
To truth impervious and abstruse,
By making plain things, in debate,
By art perplext and intricate:

For nothing goes for Sense or Light,
That will not with old rules jump right;
As if rules were not in the schools
Deriv'd from truth, but truth from rules.
This Pagan, Heathenish, invention
Is good for nothing but contention :
For as in sword and buckler fight
All blows do on the target light,
So, when men argue, the great'st part
O' th' contest falls on terms of art,

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mill. It will be proved to thy face, that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words, as no Christian ear can endure to hear."

It was the opinion of those tinkers, tailors, &c. that governed Chelmsford at the beginning of the Rebellion, "That learning had always been an enemy to the Gospel, and that it were a happy thing if there were no universities, and that all books were burned except the Bible."

"I tell you (says a writer of those times) wicked books do as much wound us as the swords of our adversaries; for this manner of learning is superfluous and costly: many tongues and languages are only confusion, and only wit, reason, understanding, and scholarship, are the main means that oppose us, and hinder our cause; therefore, if ever we have the fortune to get the upperhand-we will down with all law and learning, and have no other rule but the Carpenter's, nor any writing or reading but the Score and the Tally."

Until the fustian stuff be spent,

And then they fall to th' argument.

Quoth Hudibras, Friend Ralph, thou hast
Outrun the constable at last :

For thou art fallen on a new
Dispute, as senseless as untrue,
But to the former opposite,
And contrary as black to white :
Mere disparata; that concerning
Presbytery, this human learning;
Two things s' averse, they never yet
But in thy rambling fancy met.

But I shall take a fit occasion

T'evince thee by' ratiocination,

Some other time in place more proper

Than this we're in; therefore let's stop here,
And rest our weary'd bones a while,
Already tir'd with other toil.

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PART II. CANTO I.

THE ARGUMENT.

The Knight, by damnable Magician,
Being cast illegally in prison,
Love brings his action on the case,
And lays it upon Hudibras.
How he receives the Lady's visit,
And cunningly solicits his suit,
Which she defers; yet, on parole,

Redeems him from th' enchanted hole.

But now, t' observe Romantique method,
Let bloody steel a while be sheathed,
And all those harsh and rugged sounds
Of bastinadoes, cuts, and wounds,
Exchang'd to love's more gentle style,

Arg. 12 VAR.

'The Knight being clapp'd by th' heels in prison,
The last unhappy expedition.'

Arg. 5 VAR. How he revi's,' &c.

5

The beginning of this Second Part may perhaps seem strange and abrupt to those who do not know that it was written on purpose in imitation of Virgil, who begins the Fourth Book of his Æneids in the very same manner, 'At regina gravi,' &c. And this is enough to satisfy the curiosity of those who believe that invention and fancy ought to be measured, like cases in law, by precedents, or else they are in the power of the critic.

2 VAR. Let rusty steel,' and 'To trusty steel.' 5-8 VAR. And unto love turn we our style,

To let our readers breathe a while,

By this time tir'd with th' horrid sounds
Of blows, and cuts, and blood, and wounds.'

To let our reader breathe a while.

In which, that we may be as brief as
Is possible, by way of preface:

Is 't not enough to make one strange,

That some men's fancies should ne'er change,
But make all people do and say

The same things still the self-same way?
Some writers make all ladies purloin'd,
And knights pursuing like a whirlwind :
Others make all their knights, in fits
Of jealousy, to lose their wits;

Till drawing blood o' th' dames, like witches,
They're forthwith cur'd of their capriches.
Some always thrive in their amours,
By pulling plasters off their sores
As cripples do to get an alms,

Just so do they, and win their dames.
Some force whole regions, in despite

O' geography, to change their site;

Make former times shake hands with latter,
And that which was before come after.

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But those that write in rhyme still make
The one verse for the other's sake;

For one for sense, and one for rhyme,

I think 's sufficient at one time.

But we forget in what sad plight
We whilom left the captiv'd Knight
And pensive Squire, both bruis'd in body,
And conjur'd into safe custody.

Tir'd with dispute, and speaking Latin,
As well as basting and Bear-baiting,

10 VAR. That a man's fancy.'
32 VAR. We lately.'

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And desperate of any course

To free himself by wit or force,

His only solace was,

that now

His dog-bolt fortune was so low,
That either it must quickly end,
Or turn about again, and mend;
In which he found th' event, no less
Than other times, beside his guess.

There is a tall long-sided dame,
(But wond'rous light) ycleped Fame,
That like a thin cameleon boards
Herself on air, and eats her words;
Upon her shoulders wings she wears
Like hanging sleeves, lin'd through with ears,
And eyes, and tongues, as poets list,
Made good by deep mythologist:
With these she through the welkin flies,
And sometimes carries truth, oft lies;
With letters hung, like eastern pigeons,
And Mercuries of furthest regions;
Diurnals writ for regulation
Of lying, to inform the nation,

And by their public use to bring down
The rate of whetstones in the kingdom.
About her neck a packet-mail,

Fraught with advice, some fresh, some stale;
Of men that walk'd when they were dead,
And cows of monsters brought to bed;
Of hailstones big as pullets' eggs,

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46 The beauty of this consists in the double meaning. The first alludes to Fame's living on Report: the second is an insinuation, that if a report is narrowly enquired into, and traced up to the original author, it is made to contradict itself.