WHEN civil dudgeon first grew high,
And men fell out they knew not why;
When hard words, jealoufies, and fears
Set folks together by the ears,

ARGUMENT, ver. ult. Is fung, but breaks off in the middle.] A ridicule on Ronfarde's Franciade, and Sir William Davenant's Gondibert. (Mr. W.)

CANTO I. v. 1. When civil dudgeon, &c.] To take in dudgeon is inwardly to refent fome injury or affront, and what is previous to actual fury. It was altered by Mr. Butler, in an edition in 1674, to civil fury, whether for the better or worse the reader must be left to judge. Thus it ftood in the editions of 1684, 1689, 1694, and 1700. Civil dudgeon was reftored in the edition of 1704, and

has continued fo ever fince..

v. 2. And men fell out they knew not why.] It may be juftly faid they knew not why, fince (as Lord Clarendon obferves, Hift. of the Rebellion, vol. i. fol. edit. p. 52) "The like peace and plenty and univerfal tranquillity was never enjoyed by any nation for ten years together before thofe unhappy troubles began." See the like obfervation by Abp. Bramhall, Serpent Salve, Works in folio, p.592. the cant words ufed by the Prefbyterians and fetaries of those v. 3. When hard words, &c.] By hard words he probably means

VOL. I.

B

times;

2

HUDIBRA S.

PART I.

5 And made them fight, like mad or drunk, For Dame Religion, as for punk,

times; fuch as gospel-walking, gofpel-preaching, foul-faving, elect, faints, the godly, the predeftinate, and the like, which they applied to their own preachers and themselves; likewife Arminians, (fome called them Ormanifts, see Dr. Walker's Sufferings of the Epifcopal Clergy, part ii. p. 252) papists, prelatifts, malignants, reprobates, wicked, ungodly, and carnal-minded, which they applied to all loyal perfons, who were defirous of maintaining the established conftitution in church and ftate; by which they infused ftrange fears and jealoufies into the heads of the people, and made them believe there was a formed defign in the King and his minifters to deprive them of their religion and liberties; fo that, as foon as the parliament met, and the demagogues had affumed a licentioufnefs in fpeech, they first raised mobs to drive the King from his palace, and then regular forces to fight (as they falfely and wickedly pretended) for their religion: they fet the people against the Common Prayer, which they made them believe was the Massbook in English, and nicknamed it Porridge. See Baftwick's Letter to Mr. Aquila Wicks; Nalfon's Collections, vol. i. p. 503; Mercurius Rufticus, No. 111, p. 100, 191; and the Lethargy of the Church of England: fee Reformado precifely charactered by a Church-warden, p. 6, Publ. Libr. Cambridge, xix. 9, 7. They enraged them likewise against the furplice, calling it a rag of Popery, the whore of Babylon's fmock, and the fmock of the whore of Rome; fee a tract entitled, A Rent in the Lawn Sleeves, 1641, p. 4, and a Babylonish garment; fee Reformado precisely charactered, p. 8. v.6. As for punk.] Sir John Suckling has expreffed this thought a little more decently in the tragedy of Brennoralt:

"Religion now is a young miftress here,

For which each man will fight and die at leaft;
Let it alone a while, and 'twill become
A kind of married wife, people will be
Content to live with it in quietness."

(Mr. W.)

v. 8. Tho' not a man of them knew wherefore.] The greatest bigots are ufually perfons of the fhalloweft judgment, as it was in thofe wicked times, when women and the meaneft mechanics became zealous sticklers for controverfies, which none of them could be supposed to understand. An ingenious Italian, in Queen Elifabeth's days, gave this character of the Disciplinarians, their predeceffors, "That the common people were wiser than the wifest of his nation; for here the very women and shopkeepers were better able to judge of predestination, and what laws were fit to be made concerning church-government, than what were fit to be obeyed or demolished; that they were more able (or at least thought fo) to raise

and

Whose honesty they all durft fwear for, Tho' not a man of them knew wherefore; When gofpel-trumpeter, furrounded

and determine perplexed cafes of confcience than the most learned colleges in Italy; that men of flightest learning, or at least the moft ignorant of the common people, were made for a new, or a fuper-, or re-reformation of religion. And in this they appeared like that man who would never leave to whet and whet his knife till there was no feel left to make it useful." Hooker's Life, by Walton, p. 10, prefixed to his Ecclef. Polity.

v. 9. When gofpel-trumpeter, furrounded.] The Prefbyterians. (many of whom before the war had got into parish churches) preached the people into rebellion, incited them to take up arms and fight the Lord's battles, and deftroy the Amalekites, root and branch, hip and thigh (Coleman before the Commons, April 30, 1643, p. 24), and to root out the wicked from the earth; that was, in their sense, all that loved the King, the bishops, and the common prayer. They told the people afterwards, that they fhould bind their kings in chains, and their nobles in links of iron; fee Cheynel's Faft Sermon before the Lords, March 26, 1645, p. 53; Century of eminent Prefbyterian Preachers, 1723, p.7; and one Durance prayed to God at Sandwich, "That the King might be brought in chains of iron to his parliament;" Edward's Gangræna, part ii. p. 131, 134. part iii. p. 97, both which they literally did. And it has been fully made out, that many of the regicides were drawn into the grand rebellion by the direful imprecations of feditious preachers from the pulpit: This fome of them owned, and in particular Dr. South tells us, "That he had it from the mouth of Axtell the regicide, that he, with many more, went into that execrable war with fuch a controlling horror upon their fpirits, from those public fermons, especially of Brooks and Calamy (fee a specimen of their feditious paffages, Cent. of eminent Prefbyterian preachers, chap. i. p. 3, 5, 6), that they verily believed they should have been accurfed by God for ever if they had not acted their part in that dismal tragedy, and heartily done the devil's work." Sermons, vol. i. p. 513. And in this fenfe is that remarkable expreffion of the Doctor to be taken, Vol. v. Serm. 1. "That it was the pulpit that fupplied the field with fwordmen, and the parliament-houfe with incendiaries." Sir Roger L'Eftrange (Reflection on Fab. 67. part 1.) girds them notably upon this head: "A trumpeter," fays he, " in the pulpit is the very emblem of a trumpeter in the field, and the fame charge holds good against both; only the fpiritual trumpeter is the moft pernicious inftrument of the two: for the latter ferves only to roufe

B 2

the