practice and opinions of the Hudibrastic time, that judgment and imagination are alike offended. The diction of this poem is grossly familiar, and the numbers purposely neglected, except in a few places where the thoughts by their native excellence secure themselves from violation, being such as mean language cannot express. The mode of versification has been blamed by Dryden, who regrets that the heroic measure was not rather chosen. To the critical sentence of Dryden the highest reverence would be due, were not his decisions 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 should still remain vulgar, he planned a very heterogeneous and unnatural composition. If he preferred a general stateliness both of sound and words, he can only be understood to wish Butler had undertaken a different work. The measure is quick, sprightly, and colloquial, suitable to the vulgarity of the words, and the levity of the sentiments, but such numbers and such diction can gain regard only when they are used by a writer whose vigour of fancy and copiousness of knowledge entitle him to contempt of ornaments, and who in confidence of the novelty and justness of his conceptions, can afford to throw metaphors and epithets away. To another that conveys common thoughts in careless versification, it will only be said, 'Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper.' The meaning and diction will be worthy of each other, and criticism may justly doom them to perish together.

Nor even though another Butler should arise, would another Hudibras obtain the same regard. Burlesque consists in a disproportion between the style and the sentiments, or between the adventitious sentiments and the fundamental subject. It, therefore, like all bodies compounded of heterogeneous parts, contains in it a principle of corruption. All disproportion is unnatural, and from what is unnatural we can derive only the pleasure which novelty produces. We admire it awhile as a strange thing; but when it is no longer strange 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 spectator turns away from a second exhibition of those tricks, of which the only use is to show they can be played."

NOTES.

Page ix. On Sir Samuel Luke being represented by Hudibras, see Dr. Grey's Preface, p. iv, where by a reverend and, learned person, Warburton is meant, see D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature (new series), vol. i. p. 235, on this point. The Grub Street Journal says, one Col. Rolle, a Devonshire man. The old tutelar saint of Devonshire was Hugh de Bras, see Edinburgh Review, No. LXVII. 159. The author of a curious article in the Censor, No. XVI. (v. Gent. Mag.) called "Memoirs of Sir Samuel Luke," observes, An unauthenticated story prevails that Butler once lived in the service of Sir Samuel Luke, and has increased with a succession of writers, like a rolling ball of snow. Wood and Aubrey, who had both access to credible information, say nothing about it; and it first occurs in an anonymous life prefixed to his poems. Towneley, in his Memoir, insinuates that he behaved with ingratitude; 'Il me semble qu'il doit épargner le chevalier Luke, son bienfaiteur, que la gratitude et la reconnaissance auraient du mettre a couvert contre les traits de la satire de votre auteur.' But for the climax of this representation we are indebted to the Edinb. Review (Art. Hogg's Jacobite Relics), in which the critic roundly asserts that “Butler lived in the family, supported by the bounty of Sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's captains, at the very time he planned his Hudibras, of which he was pleased to make his kind friend and hospitable patron the Hero." Now (he continues) we defy the history of whiggism to match this anecdote, or to produce so choice a specimen of the human nettle!

vide.

P. xii. Gratitude of the king.] According to the verses in Butler's Hudibras at Court,' (v. Remains).

Now you must know, Sir Hudibras
With such perfections gifted was,
And so peculiar in his manner,
That all that saw him, did him honor.
Among the rest this prince was one
Admired his conversation.

This prince, whose ready wit and parts
Conquer'd both men and women's hearts:
Was so o'ercome with Knight and Ralph,
That he could never clear it off.

He never eat, nor drank, nor slept,
But Hudibras still near him kept;
Nor would he go to church, or so,
But Hudibras must with him go.
Nor yet to visit concubine,
Or at a city feast to dine;

But Hudibras must still be there,
Or all the fat was in the fire.
Now after all, was it not hard
That he should meet with no reward,
That fitted out this Knight and Squire,
This monarch did so much admire;
That he should never reimburse
The man for th' equipage and horse,
Is sure a strange ungrateful thing
In any body but a king;

But this good king, it seems, was told
By some that were with him too bold,
If e'er you hope to gain your ends,
Caress your foes, and trust your friends.
Such were the doctrines that were taught,
Till this unthinking king was brought
To leave his friends to starve and die,
A poor reward for loyalty.

Oldham, in his Satire against Poetry, writes thus:

On Butler, who can think without just rage,
The glory and the scandal of the age.

Fair stood his hopes, when first he came to town,
Met every where with welcomes of renown.
Courted and loved by all, with wonder read,
And promises of princely favour fed.
But what reward for all had he at last,
After a life in dull expectance past.

The wretch, at summing up his misspent days,
Found nothing left but poverty and praise.
Of all his gains by verse he could not save
Enough to purchase flannel and a grave.
Reduced to want, he in due time fell sick,
Was fain to die, and be interred on tick,
And well might bless the fever that was sent
To rid him thence, and his worse fate prevent.

And Dryden, in the Hind and Panther:

Unpitied Hudibras, your champion friend
Has shown how far your charities extend.
This lasting verse shall on his tomb be read,
He shamed you living, and upbraids you dead.

P. xiv. Epitaph on Butler, by John Dennis, never before published, in D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, (new series), vol. i p. 240.

Near this place lies interred

The body of Mr. S. Butler,
Author of Hudibras.

He was a whole species of poets in one,
Admirable in a manner,

In which no one else has been tolerable;
A manner which began and ended with him,
In which he knew no guide,

And found no followers.

P. xxi. On the versification of Hudibras, see Dryden's Ded. to Juvenal, 1735, p. 100; to which Johnson alludes. See also Addison's Spectator, vol. i. No. ix. See also Prior's Alma, (c. ii. imit).

But shall we take the muse abroad,
To drop her idly on the road?
And leave our subject in the middle,
As Butler did his bear and fiddle?
Yet he, consummate master, knew
When to recede and when pursue.
His noble negligences teach
What others toils despair to reach.
He, perfect dancer, climbs the rope,
And balances your fear and hope;