both man and master are merely compact of vileness and of folly. Butler had the court at his back, and the crowd as well; he gave them of the stuff they liked; and it was his function for some twenty years to pelt and belabour and defile the brace of pitiful scarecrows he had contrived, and so make sport for a winning side that could not forget it once had been in other circumstances. It is the steady and persistent exercise of this function that has procured him much of the neglect with which he is visited. Fashions change; the bogies of one epoch become the heroes of the next, and what yesterday was apt and humorous is balderdash and out of date to-morrow. That which we praise in Butler now is that for which two centuries ago no man regarded him. He is tedious, trivial, spiteful, ignoble, where he once was sprightly, exact, magnanimous, heroic. But he had an abundance of wit of the best and truest sort; he was an indefatigable observer; he knew opinions well, and books even better; he had considered life acutely and severely as a rhythmist he proceeded from none and has had no successor; his vocabulary is of its kind incomparable; his work is a very hoard of sentences and saws, of vigorous locutions and picturesque colloquialisms, of strong sound sense and robust English. And when all against him has been said that can be, there remains enough of good in his verse to prove that, great as it is, his reputation was well earned and justly bestowed.

W. E. HENLEY.

[From Hudibras, Part I.]

ARGUMENTATIVE THEOLOGY.

He could raise scruples dark and nice,
And after solve 'em in a trice;
As if Divinity had catched

The itch on purpose to be scratched;
Or, like a mountebank, did wound
And stab herself with doubts profound,
Only to show with how small pain
The sores of faith are cured again.

THE PRESBYTERIANS.

That stubborn crew

Of errant saints whom all men grant
To be the true Church Militant.
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery;

And prove their doctrine orthodox
With apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire and sword and desolation
A godly, thorough Reformation,
Which always must be going on,
And still be doing, never done,
As if Religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended:
A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd, perverse antipathies,
In falling out with that or this
And finding somewhat still amiss;
More peevish, cross, and splenetic
Than dog distract or monkey sick:
That with more care keep holyday
The wrong, than others the right way;

Compound for sins they are inclined to
By damning those they have no mind to.
Still so perverse and opposite

As if they worshipped God for spite,
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way and long another for ;
Freewill they one way disavow,
Another, nothing else allow ;
All piety consists therein
In them, in other men all sin.
Rather than fail they will defy

That which they love most tenderly;
Quarrel with mince-pies, and disparage
Their best and dearest friend plum-porridge;
Fat pig and goose itself oppose,

And blaspheme custard through the nose.

'NEW LIGHT.'

'Tis a dark lantern of the spirit,

Which none see by but those that bear it;
A light that falls down from on high,
For spiritual trades to cozen by;

An ignis fatuus that bewitches

And leads men into pools and ditches,

To make them dip themselves, and sound
For Christendom in dirty pond;

To dive like wildfowl for salvation,
And fish to catch regeneration,

VOL. II.

THE MUSE OF DOGGEREL.

Thou that with ale or viler liquors

Didst inspire Withers, Prynne, and Vickars,
And force them, though it was in spite

Of nature and their stars, to write;

Who (as we find in sullen writs

And cross-grained works of modern wits)

D d

With vanity, opinion, want,
The wonder of the ignorant,
The praises of the author, penned
By himself or wit-ensuring friend,
The itch of picture in the front
With bays and wicked rhymes upon't
(All that is left o' the Forkèd Hill
To make men scribble without skill),
Canst make a poet, spite of Fate,
And teach all people to translate
Though out of languages in which
They understand no part of speech.

MARTIAL MUSIC.

Instead of trumpet and of drum

That makes the warrior's stomach come, Whose noise whets valour sharp, like beer By thunder turned to vinegar ;

For if a trumpet sound or drum beat Who has not a month's mind to combat?

HONOUR.

He that is valiant and dares fight,

Though drubbed, can lose no honour by 't.
Honour's a lease for lives to come,

And cannot be extended from
The legal tenant: 'Tis a chattel
Not to be forfeited in battle.
If he that in the field is slain
Be in the bed of honour lain,
He that is beaten may be said
To lie in honour's truckle-bed.
For as we see the eclipsèd sun
By mortals is more gazed upon
Than when, adorned with all his light,
He shines in serene sky most bright,

So valour in a low estate

Is most admired and wondered at.

[From Part II.]

NIGHT.

The sun grew low and left the skies,
Put down, some write, by ladies' eyes.
The moon pulled off her veil of light
That hides her face by day from sight
(Mysterious veil, of brightness made
That's both her lustre and her shade!),
And in the lantern of the night
With shining hours hung out her light;
For darkness is the proper sphere
Where all false glories use to appear.
The twinkling stars began to muster
And glitter with their borrowed lustre,
While sleep the wearied world relieved,
By counterfeiting death revived.

MORNING.

The sun had long since in the lap
Of Thetis taken out his nap,

And, like a lobster boiled, the morn
From black to red began to turn.

SPIRITUAL TRIMMERS.

Some say the soul's secure Against distress and forfeiture; Is free from action, and exempt From execution and contempt; And to be summoned to appear In the other world's illegal here; And therefore few make any account Into what encumbrances they run 't. For most men carry things so even Between this world and hell and heaven,