Two things f' averfe, they never yet

But in thy rambling fancy met.

But I fhall take a fit occafion

T' evince thee by' ratiocination,

Some other time, in place more proper

1375

Than this we 're in; therefore let 's stop here, 1380

And reft our weary'd bones a while,

Already tir'd with other toil.

HUDIBRAS,

HUDI BRAS.

PART II. CANTOI.

B

The Knight, by damnable Magician,
Being caft illegally in prison,
Love brings his action on the case,
And lays it upon Hudibras.
How he receives the Lady's vifit,
And cunningly folicits his fuit,
Which she defers; yet on parole,
Redeems him from th' inchanted hole.

UT now, t' observe Romantique method,
Let bloody fteel a while be sheathed;

Arg. Ver. 1, 2.] Thus altered, 1674,

The Knight being clapp'd by th' heels in prison,

The laft unhappy expedition.

Reftored 1704.

And

Arg. Ver. 5.] How be receives, &c. How he revi's, &c. In the two first editions of 1663.

Ver. 1.] The beginning of this Second Part may perhaps seem strange and abrupt to those who do not know that it was

And all those harsh and rugged founds
Of baftinados, cuts, and wounds,
Exchang'd to love's more gentle style,
To let our reader breathe a while:
In which, that we may be as brief as
Is poffible, by way of preface,

Is 't not enough to make one strange,
That fome men's fancies fhould ne'er change,
But make all people do and fay

The fame things ftill the self-fame way?
Some writers make all ladies purloin'd,
And knights pursuing like a whirlwind :
Others make all their knights, in fits
Of jealoufy, to lofe their wits;

Till, drawing blood o' th' dames, like witches,
They 're forthwith cur'd of their capriches.

written on purpose in imitation of Virgil, who begins the Fourth Book of his Æneids in the very fame manner, At regina gravi, &c. And this is enough to fatisfy the curiofity of those who believe that invention and fancy ought to be measured, like cafes in law, by precedents, or elfe they are in the power of the critic.

Ver. 2.] Let bloody fteel, &c. 1684, &c. To trusty steel, 1700.

Altered to let rufty steel, 1674,

Restored 1704.

Ver. 5.] And the three following lines, ftood in the two first

editions of 1663, as follow:

And unto love turn we our ftyle,

To let our readers breathe a while,

By this time tir'd with the horrid founds

Of blows, and cuts, and blood, and wounds.

Ver. 10.] That fome men's fancies, &c. That a man's fancy,

in the two first editions of 1664.

Some

Some always thrive in their amours,
By pulling plaifters off their fores;
As cripples do to get an alms,

Juft fo do they, and win their dames.
Some force whole regions, in despite
O geography, to change their fite;

Make former times shake hands with latter,
And that which was before come after.
But those that write in rhyme still make
The one verfe for th' other's fake;
For one for fenfe, and one for rhyme,
I think, 's fufficient at one time.

But we forget in what fad plight

20

25

30

We whilom left the captive Knight

And penfive Squire, both bruis'd in body,
And conjur'd into fafe cuftody.

35

Tir'd with difpute, and fpeaking Latin,
As well as bafting and Bear-baiting,
And defperate of any course,
To free himself by wit or force,
His only folace was, that now
His dog-bolt fortune was fo low,
That either it must quickly end,
Or turn about again, and mend,
In which he found th' event, no less
Than other times, befide his guess.

40

Ver. 32.] Whilom. Formerly, or, fome time ago, Altered to lately, 1674. Reftored 1704.

There

There is a tall long-fided dame,
(But wond'rous light) ycleped Fame,
That like a thin camelion boards
Herfelf on air, and eats her words;

45

Upon her shoulders wings fhe wears

Like hanging fleeves, lin'd through with ears,

50

And eyes, and tongues, as poets lift,
Made good by deep mythologist :
With these she through the welkin flies,
And fometimes carries truth, oft lies;
With letters hung, like eaftern pigeons,
And Mercuries of furtheft regions;
Diurnals writ for regulation
Of lying, to inform the nation,

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

Fraught with advice, fome 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,

And puppies whelp'd with twice two legs;
A blazing-star seen in the weft,

By fix or feven men at least.

55

60

65

Ver. 48.] The beauty of this confifts in the double meaning; the first alludes to Fame's living on Report. The second is an infinuation, that if a report is narrowly enquired into, and traced up to the original author, it is made to contradict itself.

Two