take his cheer, told him, that, if he would treat him at an alehoufe with beer, brewed for all times and feafons, he fhould accept his kindness, but would have none of his fuperftitious meats or drinks. One of the puritanical tenets was the illegality of all games of chance; and he that reads Gataker upon Lots, may fee how much learning and reafon one of the first scholars of his age thought neceffary, to prove that it was no crime to throw a die, or play at cards, or to hide a fhilling for the reckoning. Aftrology, however, against which fo much of the fatire is directed, was not more the folly of the Puritans than of others. It had in that time a very extenfive dominion. Its predictions raifed hopes and fears in minds. which ought to have rejected it with contempt. In hazardous undertakings, care was taken to begin under the influence of a propitious planet; and when the king was prifoner in Carifbrook Caftle, an aftrologer was confulted what hour would be found most favourable to an escape. What What effect this poem had upon the publick, whether it fhamed impofture or reclaimed credulity, is not easily determined. Cheats can feldom ftand long against laughter. It is certain that the credit of planetary intelligence wore faft away; though fome men of knowledge, and Dryden among them, continued to believe that conjunctions and oppofitions had a great part in the diftribution of good or evil, and in the government of fublunary things. Poetical Action ought to be probable upon certain fuppofitions, and fuch probability as burlesque'; requires is here violated only by one incident. Nothing can fhew more plainly the neceffity of doing fomething, and the difficulty of finding fomething to do, than that Butler was reduced to transfer to his hero the flagellation of Sancho, not the most agreeable fiction of Cervantes; very fuitable indeed to the manners of that age and nation, which afcribed wonderful efficacy to voluntary penances; but fo remote from the practice and opinions of the Hudibrafick time, that judgement and imagination are alike offended. A The The diction of this poem is groffly familiar, and the numbers purposely neglected, except in a few places where the thoughts by their native excellence fecure themselves from violation, being fuch as mean language cannot exprefs. The mode of verfification has been blamed by Dryden, who regrets that the heroick measure was not rather chofen. To the critical fentence of Dryden the highest reverence would be due, were not his decifions often precipitate, and his opinions immature. When he wished to change the measure, he probably would have been willing to change more. If he intended that, when the numbers were heroick, the diction should still remain vulgar, he planned a very heterogeneous and unnatural compofition. If he preferred a general stateliness both of found and words, he can be only understood to wish that Butler had undertaken a differ ent work. The measure is quick, fpritely, and colloquial, fuitable to the vulgarity of the words and the levity of the fentiments. But fuch numbers and fuch diction can gain regard only only when they are used by a writer whose vigour of fancy and copioufnefs of knowledge entitle him to contempt of ornaments, and who, in confidence of the novelty and juftnefs of his conceptions, can afford to throw metaphors and epithets away. To another that conveys common thoughts in careless versification, it will only be faid, “Pauper videri Cinna vult, & eft pauper." The meaning and diction will be worthy of each other, and criticism may juftly doom them to perish together. Nor even though another Butler should arife, would another Hudibras obtain the fame regard. Burlesque confifts in a difproportion between the ftyle and the sentiments, or between the adventitious fentiments and the fundamental fubject. It therefore, like all bodies compounded of heterogeneous parts, contains in it a principle of corruption. All difproportion is unnatural; and from what is unnatural we can derive only the pleasure which novelty produces. We admire it awhile as a strange thing; but, when it is no longer ftrange, we perceive its deformity. It is a kind of artifice, which by frequent repe |