365 Be our solicitors and agents,
And stand for us in all engagements.
And these are all the mighty powers
You vainly boast to cry down ours;
And what in real value's wanting,
370 Supply with vapouring and ranting:
Because yourselves are terrified,
And stoop to one another's pride;
Believe we have as little wit

To be out-hectored, and submit:
375 By your example, lose that right
In treaties, which we gained in fight;
And terrified into an awe,

Pass on ourselves a salique law;
Or, as some nations use, give place,
380 And truckle to your mighty race;
Let men usurp th' unjust dominion,
As if they were the better women.

NOTES

R

NOTES

PART II.-CANTO I.

ARGUMENT.

1. In the first edition the argument began thus-
'The knight by damnable magician
Being cast illegally in prison.'

The change has certainly not been for the better, the second line as it now stands being very obscure.

3. action on the case. action brought to recover redress for injuries done without force, A legal technical term for an and where the law has not specially provided a remedy.

5. receives. In the first edition this read revi's; an old word signifying to cap a small stake with a larger one.

CANTO I.

1. The opening of this canto is, as Butler himself informs us, imitated from the opening lines of the Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid

'At regina gravi jamdudum saucia cura

Vulnus alit venis, et caeco carpitur igni.'

2. rusty. First edition reads 'bloody.'

3-6. These four lines are in the first edition given thus'And unto Love we turn our style

To let our reader breathe a while,

By this time tired with th' horrid sounds
Of blows and cuts and blood and wounds.'

9. strange wonder. Glanvill, in the Vanity of Dogmatizing, speaking of Aristotle says-Which yet we need not strange at from one of whom a father saith nec Deum coluit nec curavit.'

17. drawing blood. The old superstition was that by drawing blood from a witch her magic power was destroyed. Cf.

'Devil or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee,
Blood will I draw on thee, thou art a witch.'

So also

SHAKS. Henry VI., Pt. I. Act I. Sc. v.

Scots are like witches; do but whet your pen,
Scratch till the blood comes, they'll not hurt you then.'
CLEVELAND, Rebel Scot.

20. by pulling, &c. Considerable skill in the healing art was an indispensable accomplishment for the lady of the chivalric age.

24. to change their site. In these and the following lines, modern playwrights are bantered for having abandoned the restraints of the 'unities' of time, of place, and of action, which had been so strictly observed by the classical dramatists.

25. former times, &c. That is commit anachronisms. Many such are found in Shakspeare. But as Butler had just been imitating Virgil's Fourth Book of the Aeneid, it is probable that he was alluding in this line to the bringing together of Dido and Æneas.

29-30. Cf. II. ii. 321-4 and note.

32. lately. First edition reads whilom.'

40. dog-bolt. Dog' is a prefix of contempt, as in dogLatin, dog-trick, &c. The use of the word dog-bolt as an adjective is very rare and seems difficult to explain. Perhaps Johnson's suggestion may be near the mark, that the allusion is to the refuse of a sifting, (bolter sieve) only fit for dogs. Cf.

=

'I'll not be made a prey unto the marshall
For ne'er a snarling dog-bolt of you both.'
BEN JONSON, Alchemist, Act I. Sc. i.

=

46. ycleped, called. The y is the A.S. prefix ge- which is probably the same as the Greek enclitic -yé, a particle only used to lay stress on the word to which it is attached. The same prefix is found also in ywis certainly. This latter word being generally written in MSS. iwis or Iwis has, by confusion with the 1st personal pronoun, given rise to a purely fictitious verb to know, which has even found its way into most

wis dictionaries.