HUDIBRAS. PART I. CANTO I. ARGUMENT. Sir Hudibras his passing worth, WHEN Civil dudgeon* first grew high, And made them fight, like mad or drunk, To take in dudgeon, is inwardly to resent some injury or affront, and what is previous to actual fury. + It may be justly said They knew not why; since, as Lord Clarendon observes, 'The like peace and plenty, and universal tranquillity, was never enjoyed by any nation for ten years together, before those unhappy troubles began.' By hard words, he probably means the cant words used by the Presbyterians and sectaries of those times; such as Gospel-walking. Gospel-preaching, Soul-saving, Elect, Saints, The Godly, the Predestinate, and the like; which they applied to their own preachers and themselves. Whose honesty they all durst swear for, Was beat with fist instead of a stick ;* A wight he was, whose very sight would Nor put up blow, but that which laid Great on the bench, great in the saddle,§ *Alluding to their vehement action in the pulpit, and their beating it with their fists, as if they were beating a drum. The Knight (if Sir Samuel Luke was Mr. Butler's hero) was not only a Colonel in the Parliament army, but also Scoutmastergeneral in the counties of Bedford, Surry, &c. This gives us some light into his character and conduct; for he is now entering upon his proper office, full of pretendedly pious and sanctified resolutions for the good of his country. He kneeled to the King, when he knighted him, but seldom upon any other occasion. In this character of Hudibras all the abuses of human learning are finely satirized; philosophy, logic, rhetoric, mathematics, me taphysics, and school-divinity. But here our authors make a doubt And therefore bore it not about; Unless on holy-days, or so, As men their best apparel do. Beside 'tis known he could speak Greek As naturally as pigs squeak; That Latin was no more difficile, Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle: Being rich in both, he never scanted For Hebrew roots, although they're found To make some think him circumcis'd; And truly so he was, perhaps, A hair, 'twixt south and south-west side; And pay with ratiocination: All this by syllogism, true In mood and figure, he would do. • Thus changed in the editions of 1674, 1684, 1689, 1694, 1700, And truly so perhaps he was, 'Tis many a pious Christian's case. +Such was Alderman Pennington, who sent a person to Newgate for singing (what he called) a malignant psalm. Ib. Lord Clarendon observes, That after the declaration of No more Addresses to the King, they who were not above the condition of ordinary con tables six or seven years before, were now the justices of the peace.' Dr. Bruno Ryves informs us, that the town of Chelmsford in Essex was governed, at the beginning of the Rebellion, by a tinker, two coblers, two tailors, and two pedlars.' In the several counties, especially the associated ones. (Middlesex, Kent. Surrey, Sussex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire,) which sided with the Parliament, committees were erected of such men as were for the Good Cause, as they called it, who had autho rity, from the members of the two Houses at Westminster, to fine and imprison whom they pleased. |