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A bold virago, stout and tall,

As Joan of France, or English Mall :

Through perils both of wind and limb,

Through thick and thin fhe follow'd him
In every adventure h' undertook,

370

And never him or it forfook :
At breach of wall, or hedge furprise,
She fhar'd i' th' hazard and the prize;
At beating quarters up, or forage,
Behav'd herself with matchlefs courage,
And laid about in fight more bufily

375

Than th' Amazonian Dame Penthefile.

And though fome critics here cry shame,
And fay our authors are to blame,

380

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Ver. 368.] Alluding, probably, to Mary Carlton, called Kentish Moll, but more commonly The German Princefs; a perfon notorious at the time this First Part of Hudibras was published. She was tranfported to Jamaica 1671; but returning from tranfportation too foon, fhe was hanged at Tyburn Jan. 22, 1672-3.

Ver. 382.] This and the three following lines not in the two first editions of 1663.

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To government, which they suppose
Can never be upheld in profe;
Strip Nature naked to the skin,
You'll find about her no fuch thing.
may be fo, yet what we tell
Of Trulla, that 's improbable,

It

Shall be depos'd by thofe have seen 't,
Or, what's as good, produc'd in print;
And if they will not take our word,
We'll prove it true upon
record.

The upright Cerdon next advanc't,
Of all his race the valiant'ft:

400

405

410 Cerdon

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Ver. 409. Cerdon] A one-eyed cobler, like his brother Colonel Hewfon. The Poet obferves, that his chief talent lay in preaching. Is it not then indecent, and beyond the rules of decorum, to introduce him into fuch rough company? No; it is probable he had but newly fet up the trade of a Teacher; and we may conclude that the Poet did not think that he had fo much fanctity as to debar him the pleasure of his beloved diverfion of Bear-baiting.

Cerdon the Great, renown'd in song,
Like Herc❜les, for repair of wrong:
He rais'd the low, and fortify'd
The weak against the strongest side:
Ill has he read that never hit

On him in Mufes' deathlefs writ.

He had a weapon keen and fierce,

415

That through a bull-hide shield would pierce,
And cut it in a thousand pieces,

Though tougher than the Knight of Greece's,

420

With whom his black-thumb'd ancestor

Was comrade in the ten-years' war:

For when the reftlefs Greeks fat down
So many years before Troy town,

And were renown'd, as Homer writes,

425

For well-fol'd boots no less than fights,

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And would make three to cure one flaw.
Learned he was, and could take note,

Transcribe, colle&, translate, and quote :
But preaching was his chiefeft talent,
Or argument, in which being valiant,

435

He

Ver. 435.] Mechanics of all forts were then Preachers, and fome of them much followed and ad

He us'd to lay about and stickle,
Like ram or bull at Conventicle:

For

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mired by the mob. "I am to tell thee, Chriftian “Reader,” (says Dr. Featley, preface to his Dipper dipp'd, wrote 1645, and published 1647, p. 1.) " This 66 new year of new changes, never heard of in former ages, namely, of stables turned into temples, and I "will beg leave to add, temples turned into ftables "(as was that of St. Paul's, and many more), ftalls "into quires, shopboards into communion-tables, tubs "into pulpits, aprons into linen ephods, and mecha"nics of the lowest rank into priefts of the high places. "I wonder that our door-pofts and walls fweat not, upon which fuch notes as these have been lately af"fixed; on fuch a day, fuch a brewer's clerk exer"cifeth; fuch a tailor expoundeth; fuch a waterman "teacheth.-If cooks, instead of mincing their meat, "fall upon dividing of the Word; if tailors leap up "from the fhopboard into the pulpit, and patch up "fermons out of ftolen fhreds; if not only of the lowest "of the people, as in Jeroboam's time, priefts are con"fecrated to the Moft High God-Do we marvel to "fee fuch confusion in the Church as there is!" They are humourously girded in a tract entitled, The Reformado, precifely character'd, by a modern Church-warden, p. 11. Here are felt-makers (fays he) who can "roundly deal with the blockheads and neutral dimi"cafters of the world; coblers who can give good "rules for upright walking, and handle Scripture to a "bristle; coachmen who know how to lafh the beaftly "enormities, and curb the headstrong infolences of "this brutish age, ftoutly exhorting us to stand up for "the truth, left the wheel of deftruction roundly overWe have weavers that can fweetly inform

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run us.

VOL. I.

F

Kus

For difputants, like rams and bulls,

Do fight with arms that spring from sculls.
Last Colon came, bold man of war,
Deftin'd to blows by fatal ftar;
Right expert in command of horse,
But cruel, and without remorse.
That which of Centaur long ago
Was faid, and has been wrefted to
Some other knights, was true of this,
He and his horse were of a piece;
One spirit did inform them both,
The felf-fame vigour, fury, wroth :
Yet he was much the rougher part,
And always had a harder heart,
Although his horfe had been of those
That fed on man's flesh, as fame goes:
Strange food for horfe! and, yet, alas!

It may be true, for flesh is grafs.
Sturdy he was, and no less able
Than Hercules to clean a ftable;

440

445

450

455

As

"us of the shuttle swiftness of the times, and practi"cally tread out the viciffitude of all fublunary things "till the web of our life be cut off: and here are me"chanics, of my profeffion, who can feparate the "pieces of falvation from those of damnation, mea"fure out every man's portion, and cut it out by a "thread, fubftantially preffing the points, till they "have fashionably filled up their work with a well-bot"tomed conclufion."

Ver. 441. Colon.] Ned Perry, an hoftler.

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