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Quoth Ralpho, Nothing but th' abufe Of human learning you produce; Learning, that cobweb of the brain, Profane, erroneous, and vain;

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Ver. 1339.] Ralpho was as great an enemy to human learning as Jack Cade and his fellow rebels. Cade's words to Lord Say, before he ordered his head to be cut off: "I am the beefom that muft fweep the "Court clean of fuch filth as thou art: thou haft moft "traiterously corrupted the youth of the realm, in

erecting a grammar-fchool: and whereas before our "forefathers had no other books but the Score and the "Tally, thou haft caufed Printing to be used; and, contrary to the King, his crown and dignity, thou haft built a Paper-mill. It will be proved to thy "face, that thou haft men about thee that ufually talk "of a noun and a verb, and fuch abominable words, "as no Chriftian ear can endure to hear.

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

"I tell you (fays a writer of those times) wicked books do as much wound us as the fwords of our adverfaries; for this manner of learning is fuper"fluous and coftly: many tongues and languages are only confufion; and only wit, reafon, understand

ing, and fcholarship, are the main means that op "pofe us, and hinder our caufe; therefore, if ever we "have the fortune to get the upper-hand, 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."

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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, Heathenifh invention

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And then they fall to th' argument.

Quoth Hudibras, Friend Ralph, thou haft
Out-run the conftable at laft:
For thou art fallen on a new
Difpute, as fenfeless as untrue,

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But

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T' evince thee by' ratiocination,

Some other time, in place more proper

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

And reft our weary'd bones a while,
Already tir'd with other toil.

HUDIBRAS.

HUDI BRAS.

PART II. CANTO I.

THE

ARGUMENT..

The Knight, by damnable Magician,
Being caft illegally in prison,

Love brings his action on the cafe,
And lays it upon Hudibras.

How he receives the Lady's vifit,
And cunningly folicits his fuit,
Which the defers; yet, on parole,

Redeems him from th' inchanted hole..

UT now, t' obferve Romantique method,

B Let bloody feel a while be sheathed;

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

And

The Knight being clapp'd by th' heels in prifon,
The laft unhappy expedition.

Reftored 1704.

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

Ver. 1.] The beginning of this Second Part may

perhaps

And all those harsh and rugged sounds
Of bastinados, 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 say

The fame things ftill the self-fame way?

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perhaps feem ftrange and abrupt to those who do not know that it was written on purpofe 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 curiosity of those who believe that invention and fancy ought to be meafared, like cafes in law, by precedents, or elfe they are in the power of the critic.

Ver. 2.] Let bloody feel, &c. Altered to let rusty fteel, 1674, 1684, &c. To trufty feel, 1700. Reftored 1704.

Ver. 5.1 And the three following lines, stood in the two first editions of 1663, as follow:

And unto love turn we our style,
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 firft editions of 1664.

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