Hudibras: Part 2 - Canto I

THE ARGUMENT

The Knight by damnable Magician,
Being cast illegally in prison,
Love brings his Action on the Case.
And lays it upon Hudibras.
How he receives the Lady's Visit,
And cunningly solicits his Suite,
Which she defers; yet on Parole
Redeems him from th' inchanted Hole.

But now, t'observe a romantic method,
Let bloody steel a while be sheathed,
And all those harsh and rugged sounds
Of bastinadoes, cuts, and wounds,
Exchang'd to Love's more gentle stile,
To let our reader breathe a while;
In which, that we may be as brief as
Is possible, by way of preface,
Is't not enough to make one strange,
That some men's fancies should ne'er change,
But make all people do and say
The same things still the self-same way
Some writers make all ladies purloin'd,
And knights pursuing like a whirlwind
Others make all their knights, in fits
Of jealousy, to lose their wits;
Till drawing blood o'th' dames, like witches,
Th' are forthwith cur'd of their capriches.
Some always thrive in their amours
By pulling plaisters off their sores;
As cripples do to get an alms,
Just so do they, and win their dames.
Some force whole regions, in despight
O' geography, to change their site;
Make former times shake hands with latter,
And that which was before, come after.
But those that write in rhime, still make
The one verse for the other's sake;
For, one for sense, and one for rhime,
I think's sufficient at one time.

But we forget in what sad plight
We whilom left the captiv'd Knight
And pensive Squire, both bruis'd in body,
And conjur'd into safe custody.
Tir'd with dispute and speaking Latin,
As well as basting and bear-baiting,
And desperate of any course,
To free himself by wit or force,
His only solace was, that now
His dog-bolt fortune was so low,
That either it must quickly end
Or turn about again, and mend;
In which he found th' event, no less
Than other times beside his guess.

There is a tall long sided dame
(But wond'rous light,) ycleped Fame
That, like a thin camelion, boards
Herself on air, and eats her words;
Upon her shoulders wings she wears
Like hanging-sleeves, lin'd through with ears,
And eyes, and tongues, as poets list,
Made good by deep mythologist,
With these she through the welkin flies,
And sometimes carries truth, oft lies
With letters hung like eastern pigeons,
And Mercuries of furthest regions;
Diurnals writ for regulation
Of lying, to inform the nation;
And by their public use to bring down
The rate of whetstones in the kingdom.
About her neck a pacquet-male,
Fraught with advice, some fresh, some stale,
Of men that walk'd when they were dead,
And cows of monsters brought to bed;
Of hail-stones big as pullets eggs,
And puppies whelp'd with twice two legs;
A blazing star seen in the west,
By six or seven men at least.
Two trumpets she does sound at once,
But both of clean contrary tones;
But whether both with the same wind,
Or one before, and one behind,
We know not; only this can tell,
The one sounds vilely, th' other well;
And therefore vulgar authors name
Th' one Good, the other Evil, Fame.

This tattling gossip knew too well
What mischief HUDIBRAS befell.
And straight the spiteful tidings bears
Of all to th' unkind widow's ears.
DEMOCRITUS ne'er laugh'd so loud
To see bawds carted through the crowd,
Or funerals with stately pomp
March slowly on in solemn dump,
As she laugh'd out, until her back,
As well as sides, was like to crack.
She vow'd she would go see the sight,
And visit the distressed Knight;
To do the office of a neighbour,
And be a gossip at his labour;
And from his wooden jail, the stocks,
To set at large his fetter-locks;
And, by exchange, parole, or ransom,
To free him from th' enchanted mansion.
This b'ing resolv'd, she call'd for hood
And usher, implements abroad
Which ladies wear, beside a slender
Young waiting damsel to attend her;
All which appearing, on she went,
To find the Knight in limbo pent.
And 'twas not long before she found
Him, and the stout Squire, in the pound;
Both coupled in enchanted tether,
By further leg behind together
For as he sat upon his rump,
His head like one in doleful dump,
Between his knees, his hands apply'd
Unto his ears on either side;
And by him, in another hole,
Afflicted RALPHO, cheek by jowl;
She came upon him in his wooden
Magician's circle on the sudden,
As spirits do t' a conjurer,
When in their dreadful shapes th' appear.

No sooner did the Knight perceive her,
But straight he fell into a fever,
Inflam'd all over with disgrace,
To be seen by her in such a place;
Which made him hang his head, and scoul,
And wink, and goggle like an owl.
He felt his brains begin to swim,
When thus the dame accosted him:

This place (quoth she) they say's enchanted,
And with delinquent spirits haunted,
That here are ty'd in chains, and scourg'd,
Until their guilty crimes be purg'd.
Look, there are two of them appear,
Like persons I have seen somewhere.
Some have mistaken blocks and posts
For spectres, apparitions, ghosts,
With saucer eyes, and horns; and some
Have heard the Devil beat a drum:
But if our eyes are not false glasses,
That give a wrong account of faces,
That beard and I should be acquainted,
Before 'twas conjur'd or enchanted;
For though it be disfigur'd somewhat,
As if 't had lately been in combat,
It did belong to a worthy Knight
Howe'er this goblin has come by't.

When HUDIBRAS the Lady heard
Discoursing thus upon his beard,
And speak with such respect and honour,
Both of the beard and the beard's owner,
He thought it best to set as good
A face upon it as he cou'd,
And thus he spoke: Lady, your bright
And radiant eyes are in the right:
The beard's th' identic beard you knew,
The same numerically true:
Nor is it worn by fiend or elf,
But its proprietor himself.

O, heavens! quoth she, can that be true?
I do begin to fear 'tis you:
Not by your individual whiskers,
But by your dialect and discourse,
That never spoke to man or beast
In notions vulgarly exprest.
But what malignant star, alas
Has brought you both to this sad pass?

Quoth he, The fortune of the war,
Which I am less afflicted for,
Than to be seen with beard and face,
By you in such a homely case.
Quoth she, Those need not he asham'd
For being honorably maim'd,
If he that is in battle conquer'd,
Have any title to his own beard;
Though yours be sorely lugg'd and torn,
It does your visage more adorn
Than if 'twere prun'd, and starch'd, and lander'd,
And cut square by the Russian standard.
A torn beard's like a tatter'd ensign,
That's bravest which there are most rents in.
That petticoat about your shoulders
Does not so well become a souldier's;
And I'm afraid they are worse handled
Although i' th' rear; your beard the van led;
And those uneasy bruises make
My heart for company to ake,
To see so worshipful a friend
I' th' pillory set, at the wrong end.

Quoth HUDIBRAS, This thing call'd pain
Is (as the learned Stoicks maintain)
Not bad simpliciter, nor good,
But merely as 'tis understood.
Sense is deceitful, and may feign,
As well in counterfeiting pain
As other gross phenomenas,
In which it oft mistakes the case.
But since the immortal intellect
(That's free from error and defect,
Whose objects still persist the same)
Is free from outward bruise and maim,
Which nought external can expose
To gross material bangs or blows,
It follows, we can ne'er be sure,
Whether we pain or not endure;
And just so far are sore and griev'd,
As by the fancy is believ'd.
Some have been wounded with conceit,
And dy'd of mere opinion straight;
Others, tho' wounded sore in reason,
Felt no contusion, nor discretion.
A Saxon Duke did grow so fat,
That mice (as histories relate)
Eat grots and labyrinths to dwell in
His postick parts without his feeling:
Then how is't possible a kick
Should e'er reach that way to the quick?

Quoth she, I grant it is in vain.
For one that's basted to feel pain,
Because the pangs his bones endure
Contribute nothing to the cure:
Yet honor hurt, is wont to rage
With pain no med'cine can asswage.

Quoth he, That honour's very squeamish
That takes a basting for a blemish;
For what's more hon'rable than scars,
Or skin to tatters rent in wars?
Some have been beaten till they know
What wood a cudgel's of by th' blow;
Some kick'd until they can feel whether
A shoe be Spanish or neat's leather;
And yet have met, after long running,
With some whom they have taught that cunning.
The furthest way about t' o'ercome,
In the end does prove the nearest home.
By laws of learned duellists,
They that are bruis'd with wood or fists,
And think one beating may for once
Suffice, are cowards and pultroons:
But if they dare engage t' a second,
They're stout and gallant fellows reckon'd.

Th' old Romans freedom did bestow,
Our princes worship, with a blow.
King PYRRHUS cur'd his splenetic
And testy courtiers with a kick.
The NEGUS, when some mighty lord
Or potentate's to be restor'd
And pardon'd for some great offence,
With which be's willing to dispense,
First has him laid upon his belly,
Then beaten back and side to a jelly;
That done, he rises, humbly bows,
And gives thanks for the princely blows;
Departs not meanly proud, and boasting
Of this magnificent rib-roasting.
The beaten soldier proves most manful,
That, like his sword, endures the anvil,
And justly's held more formidable,
The more his valour's malleable:
But he that fears a bastinado
Will run away from his own shadow:
And though I'm now in durance fast,
By our own party basely cast,
Ransom, exchange, parole refus'd,
And worse than by the enemy us'd;
In close catasta shut, past hope
Of wit or valour to elope;
As beards the nearer that they tend
To th' earth still grow more reverend;
And cannons shoot the higher pitches,
The lower we let down their breeches;
I'll make this low dejected fate
Advance me to a greater height.

Quoth she, Y' have almost made me in love
With that which did my pity move.
Great wits and valours, like great states,
Do sometimes sink with their own weights:
Th' extremes of glory and of shame,
Like East and West, become the same:
No Indian Prince has to his palace
More foll'wers than a thief to th' gallows,
But if a beating seem so brave,
What glories must a whipping have
Such great atchievements cannot fail
To cast salt on a woman's tail:
For if I thought your nat'ral talent
Of passive courage were so gallant,
As you strain hard to have it thought,
I could grow amorous, and dote.

When HUDIBRAS this language heard,
He prick'd up's ears and strok'd his beard;
Thought he, this is the lucky hour;
Wines work when vines are in the flow'r;
This crisis then I'll set my rest on,
And put her boldly to the question.

Madam, what you wou'd seem to doubt,
Shall be to all the world made out,
How I've been drubb'd, and with what spirit
And magnanimity I bear it;
And if you doubt it to be true,
I'll stake myself down against you:
And if I fail in love or troth,
Be you the winner, and take both.

Quoth she, I've beard old cunning stagers
Say, fools for arguments use wagers;
And though I prais'd your valour, yet
I did not mean to baulk your wit;
Which, if you have, you must needs know
What I have told you before now,
And you b' experiment have prov'd,
I cannot love where I'm belov'd.

Quoth HUDIBRAS, 'tis a caprich
Beyond th' infliction of a witch;
So cheats to play with those still aim
That do not understand the game.
Love in your heart as icily burns
As fire in antique Roman urns,
To warm the dead, and vainly light
Those only that see nothing by't.
Have you not power to entertain,
And render love for love again;
As no man can draw in his breath
At once, and force out air beneath?
Or do you love yourself so much,
To bear all rivals else a grutch?
What fate can lay a greater curse
Than you upon yourself would force?
For wedlock without love, some say,
Is but a lock without a key.
It is a kind of rape to marry
One that neglects, or cares not for ye:
For what does make it ravishment,
But b'ing against the mind's consent?
A rape that is the more inhuman
For being acted by a woman.
Why are you fair, but to entice us
To love you, that you may despise us?
But though you cannot Love, you say,
Out of your own fanatick way,
Why should you not at least allow
Those that love you to do so too?
For, as you fly me, and pursue
Love more averse, so I do you;
And am by your own doctrine taught
To practise what you call a fau't.

Quoth she, If what you say is true,
You must fly me as I do you;
But 'tis not what we do, but say,
In love and preaching, that must sway.

Quoth he, To bid me not to love,
Is to forbid my pulse to move,
My beard to grow, my ears to prick up,
Or (when I'm in a fit) to hickup:
Command me to piss out the moon,
And 'twill as easily be done:
Love's power's too great to be withstood
By feeble human flesh and blood.
'Twas he that brought upon his knees
The hect'ring, kill-cow HERCULES;
Transform'd his leager-lion's skin
T' a petticoat, and made him spin;
Seiz'd on his club, and made it dwindle
T' a feeble distaff, and a spindle.
'Twas he that made emperors gallants
To their own sisters and their aunts;
Set popes and cardinals agog,
To play with pages at leap-frog.
'Twas he that gave our Senate purges,
And flux'd the House of many a burgess;
Made those that represent the nation
Submit, and suffer amputation;
And all the Grandees o' the Cabal
Adjourn to tubs at Spring and Fall.
He mounted Synod-Men, and rode 'em
To Dirty-Lane and Little Sodom;
Made 'em curvet like Spanish jenets,
And take the ring at Madam [Bennet's]
'Twas he that made Saint FRANCIS do
More than the Devil could tempt him to,
In cold and frosty weather, grow
Enamour'd of a wife of snow;
And though she were of rigid temper,
With melting flames accost and tempt her;
Which after in enjoyment quenching,
He hung a garland on his engine

Quoth she, If Love have these effects,
Why is it not forbid our sex?
Why is't not damn'd and interdicted,
For diabolical and wicked?
And sung, as out of tune, against,
As Turk and Pope are by the Saints?
I find I've greater reason for it,
Than I believ'd before t' abhor it.

Quoth HUDIBRAS, These sad effects
Spring from your Heathenish neglects
Of Love's great pow'r, which he returns
Upon yourselves with equal scorns;
And those who worthy lovers slight,
Plagues with prepost'rous appetite.
This made the beauteous Queen of Crete
To take a town-bull for her sweet,
And from her greatness stoop so low,
To be the rival of a cow:
Others to prostitute their great hearts,
To he baboons' and monkeys' sweet-hearts;
Some with the Dev'l himself in league grow,
By's representative a Negro.
'Twas this made vestal-maids love-sick,
And venture to be bury'd quick:
Some by their fathers, and their brothers,
To be made mistresses and mothers.
'Tis this that proudest dames enamours
On lacquies and valets des chambres;
Their haughty stomachs overcomes,
And makes 'em stoop to dirty grooms;
To slight the world, and to disparage
Claps, issue, infamy, and marriage.

Quoth she, These judgments are severe,
Yet such as I should rather bear,
Than trust men with their oaths, or prove
Their faith and secresy in love,

Says he, There is as weighty reason
For secresy in love as treason.
Love is a burglarer, a felon,
That at the windore-eyes does steal in
To rob the heart, and with his prey
Steals out again a closer way,
Which whosoever can discover,
He's sure (as he deserves) to suffer.
Love is a fire, that burns and sparkles
In men as nat'rally as in charcoals,
Which sooty chymists stop in holes
When out of wood they extract coals:
So lovers should their passions choak,
That, tho' they burn, they may not smoak.
'Tis like that sturdy thief that stole
And dragg'd beasts backwards into's hole:
So Love does lovers, and us men
Draws by the tails into his den,
That no impression may discover,
And trace t' his cave, the wary lover,
But if you doubt I should reveal
What you entrust me under seal.
I'll prove myself as close and virtuous
As your own secretary ALBERTUS.

Quoth she, I grant you may be close
In hiding what your aims propose.
Love-passions are like parables,
By which men still mean something else,
Though love be all the world's pretence,
Money's the mythologick sense;
The real substance of the shadow,
Which all address and courtship's made to.

Thought he, I understand your play,
And how to quit you your own way:
He that will win his dame, must do
As Love does when he bends his bow;
With one hand thrust the lady from,
And with the other pull her home.
I grant, quoth he, wealth is a great
Provocative to am'rous heat.
It is all philters, and high diet,
That makes love rampant, and to fly out:
'Tis beauty always in the flower,
That buds and blossoms at fourscore:
'Tis that by which the sun and moon
At their own weapons are out-done:
That makes Knights-Errant fall in trances,
And lay about 'em in romances:
'Tis virtue, wit, and worth, and all
That men divine and sacred call:
For what is worth in any thing,
But so much money as 'twill bring?
Or what, but riches is there known,
Which man can solely call his own
In which no creature goes his half;
Unless it be to squint and laugh?
I do confess, with goods and land,
I'd have a wife at second-hand;
And such you are. Nor is 't your person
My stomach's set so sharp and fierce on;
But 'tis (your better part) your riches,
That my enamour'd heart bewitches.
Let me your fortune but possess,
And settle your person how you please:
Or make it o'er in trust to th' Devil;
You'll find me reasonable and civil.

Quoth she, I like this plainness better
Than false mock-passion, speech, or letter,
Or any feat of qualm or sowning,
But hanging of yourself, or drowning.
Your only way with me to break
Your mind, is breaking of your neck;
For as when merchants break, o'erthrown,
Like nine-pins they strike others down,
So that would break my heart; which done,
My tempting fortune is your own,
These are but trifles: ev'ry lover
Will damn himself over and over,
And greater matters undertake
For a less worthy mistress' sake:
Yet th' are the only ways to prove
Th' unfeign'd realities of love:
For he that hangs, or beats out's brains,
The Devil's in him if he feigns.

Quoth HUDIBRAS, This way's too rough
For mere experiment and proof:
It is no jesting, trivial matter,
To swing t' th' air, or douce in Water,
And, like a water-witch, try love;
That's to destroy, and not to prove;
As if a man should be dissected
To find what part is disaffected.
Your better way is to make over,
In trust, your fortune to your lover.
Trust is a trial; if it break,
'Tis not so desp'rate as a neck.
Beside, th' experiment's more certain;
Men venture necks to gain a fortune:
The soldier does it ev'ry day.
(Eight to the week) for sixpence pay:
Your pettifoggers damn their souls,
To share with knaves in cheating fools:
And merchants, vent'ring through the main,
Slight pirates, rocks, and horns, for gain.
This is the way I advise you to:
Trust me, and see what I will do.

Quoth she, I should be loth to run
Myself all th' hazard, and you none;
Which must be done, unless some deed
Of your's aforesaid do precede.
Give but yourself one gentle swing
For trial, and I'll cut the string:
Or give that rev'rend head a maul,
Or two, or three, against a wall,
To shew you are a man of mettle,
And I'll engage myself to settle.

Quoth he, My head's not made of brass,
As Friar BACON'S noodle was;
Nor (like the Indian's skull) so tough
That, authors say, 'twas musket-proof,
As yet on any new adventure,
As it had need to be, to enter.
You see what bangs it has endur'd,
That would, before new feats, be cur'd.
But if that's all you stand upon,
Here, strike me luck, it shall be done.

Quoth she, The matter's not so far gone
As you suppose: Two words t' a bargain:
That may be done, and time enough,
When you have given downright proof;
And yet 'tis no fantastic pique
I have to love, nor coy dislike:
'Tis no implicit, nice aversion
T' your conversation, mein, or person,
But a just fear, lest you should prove
False and perfidious in love:
For if I thought you could be true,
I could love twice as much as you.

Quoth he, My faith as adamanatine,
As chains of destiny, I'll maintain:
True as APOLLO ever spoke,
Or Oracle from heart of oak;
And if you'll give my flame but vent,
Now in close hugger-mugger pent,
And shine upon me but benignly,
With that one, and that other pigsney,
The sun and day shall sooner part,
Than love or you shake off my heart;
The sun, that shall no more dispense
His own but your bright influence.
I'll carve your name on barks of trees,
With true-loves-knots and flourishes,
That shall infuse eternal spring,
And everlasting flourishing:
Drink ev'ry letter on't in stum,
And make it brisk champaign become;
Where-e'er you tread, your foot shall set
The primrose and the violet:
All spices, perfumes, and sweet powders,
Shall borrow from your breath their odours:
Nature her charter shall renew,
And take all lives of things from you;
The world depend upon your eye,
And when you frown upon it, die:
Only our loves shall still survive,
New worlds and natures to out-live:
And, like to heralds' moons, remain
All crescents, without change or wane.

Hold, hold, quoth she; no more of this,
Sir Knight; you take your aim amiss:
For you will find it a hard chapter
To catch me with poetic rapture,
In which your mastery of art
Doth shew itself, and not your heart:
Nor will you raise in mine combustion
By dint of high heroic fustian.
She that with poetry is won,
Is but a desk to write upon;
And what men say of her, they mean
No more than on the thing they lean.
Some with Arabian spices strive
T' embalm her cruelly alive;
Or season her, as French cooks use
Their haut-gousts, bouillies, or ragousts:
Use her so barbarously ill,
To grind her lips upon a mill,
Until the facet doublet doth
Fit their rhimes rather than her mouth:
Her mouth compar'd to an oyster's, with
A row of pearl in't - stead of teeth.
Others make posies of her cheeks,
Where red and whitest colours mix;
In which the lily, and the rose,
For Indian lake and ceruse goes.
The sun and moon by her bright eyes
Eclips'd, and darken'd in the skies,
Are but black patches, that she wears,
Cut into suns, and moons, and stars:
By which astrologers as well,
As those in Heav'n above, can tell
What strange events they do foreshow
Unto her under-world below.
Her voice, the music of the spheres,
So loud, it deafens mortals ears;
As wise philosophers have thought;
And that's the cause we hear it not.
This has been done by some, who those
Th' ador'd in rhime, would kick in prose;
And in those ribbons would have hung
On which melodiously they sung;
That have the hard fate to write best
Of those still that deserve it least;
It matters not how false, or forc'd:
So the best things be said o' th' worst:
It goes for nothing when 'tis said;
Only the arrow's drawn to th' bead,
Whether it be a swan or goose
They level at: So shepherds use
To set the same mark on the hip
Both of their sound and rotten sheep:
For wits, that carry low or wide,
Must be aim'd higher, or beside
The mark, which else they ne'er come nigh,
But when they take their aim awry.
But I do wonder you should choose
This way t' attack me with your Muse,
As one cut out to pass your tricks on,
With fulhams of poetic fiction:
I rather hop'd I should no more
Hear from you o' th' gallanting score:
For hard dry-bastings us'd to prove
The readiest remedies of love;
Next a dry-diet: but if those fail,
Yet this uneasy loop-hol'd jail,
In which ye are hamper'd by the fetlock,
Cannot but put y' in mind of wedlock;
Wedlock, that's worse than any hole here,
If that may serve you for a cooler,
T' allay your mettle, all agog
Upon a wife, the heavi'r clog:
Or rather thank your gentler fate,
That for a bruis'd or broken pate,
Has freed you from those knobs that grow
Much harder on the marry'd brow:
But if no dread can cool your courage,
From vent'ring on that dragon, marriage,
Yet give me quarter, and advance
To nobler aims your puissance:
Level at beauty and at wit;
The fairest mark is easiest hit.

Quoth HUDIBRAS, I'm beforehand
In that already, with your command
For where does beauty and high wit
But in your constellation meet?

Quoth she, What does a match imply,
But likeness and equality?
I know you cannot think me fit
To be th' yoke-fellow of your wit;
Nor take one of so mean deserts,
To be the partner of your parts;
A grace which, if I cou'd believe,
I've not the conscience to receive.

That conscience, quoth HUDIBRAS,
Is mis-inform'd: I'll state the case
A man may be a legal donor,
Of any thing whereof he's owner,
And may confer it where he lists,
I' th' judgment of all casuists,
Then wit, and parts, and valour, may
Be ali'nated, and made away,
By those that are proprietors,
As I may give or sell my horse.

Quoth she, I grant the case is true
And proper 'twixt your horse and you;
But whether I may take as well
As you may give away or sell?
Buyers you know are bid beware;
And worse than thieves receivers are.
How shall I answer hue and cry,
For a roan gelding, twelve hands high,
All spurr'd and switch'd, a lock on's hoof,
A sorrel mane? Can I bring proof
Where, when, by whom, and what y' were sold for,
And in the open market toll'd for?
Or should I take you for a stray,
You must be kept a year and day
(Ere I can own you) here i' the pound,
Where, if y' are sought, you may be found
And in the mean time I must pay
For all your provender and hay.

Quoth he, It stands me much upon
T' enervate this objection,
And prove myself; by topic clear
No gelding, as you would infer.
Loss of virility's averr'd
To be the cause of loss of beard,
That does (like embryo in the wom
Abortive on the chin become.
This first a woman did invent,
In envy of man's ornament;
SEMIRAMIS, of Babylon,
Who first of all cut men o' th' stone,
To mar their beards, and lay foundation
Of sow-geldering operation.
Look on this beard, and tell me whether
Eunuchs wear such, or geldings either?
Next it appears I am no horse;
That I can argue and discourse
Have but two legs, and ne'er a tail.

Quoth she, That nothing will avail
For some philosophers of late here,
Write, men have four legs by nature,
And that 'tis custom makes them go
Erron'ously upon but two;
As 'twas in Germany made good
B' a boy that lost himself in a wood,
And growing down to a man, was wont
With wolves upon all four to hunt.
As for your reasons drawn from tails,
We cannot say they're true or false,
Till you explain yourself, and show,
B' experiment, 'tis so or no.

Quoth he, If you'll join issue on't,
I'll give you satisfactory account;
So you will promise, if you lose,
To settle all, and be my spouse.

That never shall be done (quoth she)
To one that wants a tail, by me
For tails by nature sure were meant,
As well as beards, for ornament:
And though the vulgar count them homely,
In men or beast they are so comely,
So gentee, alamode, and handsome,
I'll never marry man that wants one;
And till you can demonstrate plain,
You have one equal to your mane,
I'll be torn piece-meal by a horse,
Ere I'll take you for better or worse.
The Prince of CAMBAY's daily food
Is asp, and basilisk, and toad;
Which makes him have so strong a breath,
Each night he stinks a queen to death;
Yet I shall rather lie in's arms
Than yours, on any other terms.

Quoth he, What nature can afford,
I shall produce, upon my word;
And if she ever gave that boon
To man, I'll prove that I have one
I mean by postulate illation,
When you shall offer just occasion:
But since y' have yet deny'd to give
My heart, your pris'ner, a reprieve,
But made it sink down to my heel,
Let that at least your pity feel;
And, for the sufferings of your martyr,
Give its poor entertainer quarter;
And, by discharge or main-prize, grant
Deliv'ry from this base restraint.

Quoth she, I grieve to see your leg
Stuck in a hole here like a peg;
And if I knew which way to do't
(Your honour safe) I'd let you out.
That Dames by jail-delivery
Of Errant-Knights have been set free,
When by enchantment they have been,
And sometimes for it too, laid in,
Is that which Knights are bound to do
By order, oath, and honour too:
For what are they renown'd, and famous else,
But aiding of distressed damosels?
But for a Lady no ways errant,
To free a Knight, we have no warrant
In any authentical romance,
Or classic author, yet of France;
And I'd be loth to have you break
An ancient custom for a freak,
Or innovation introduce
In place of things of antique use;
To free your heels by any course,
That might b' unwholesome to your spurs;
Which, if I should consent unto,
It is not in my pow'r to do;
For 'tis a service must be done ye
With solemn previous ceremony;
Which always has been us'd t' untie
The charms of those who here do lie
For as the ancients heretofore
To Honour's Temple had no door,
But that which thorough Virtue's lay,
So from this dungeon there's no way
To honour'd freedom, but by passing
That other virtuous school of lashing,
Where Knights are kept in narrow lists,
With wooden lockets 'bout their wrists;
In which they for a while are tenants,
And for their Ladies suffer penance:
Whipping, that's Virtue's governess,
Tutress of arts and sciences;
That mends the gross mistakes of Nature,
And puts new life into dull matter;
That lays foundation for renown,
And all the honours of the gown.
This suffer'd, they are set at large,
And freed with hon'rable discharge.
Then in their robes the penitentials
Are straight presented with credentials,
And in their way attended on
By magistrates of ev'ry town;
And, all respect and charges paid,
They're to their ancient seats convey'd.
Now if you'll venture, for my sake,
To try the toughness of your back,
And suffer (as the rest have done)
The laying of a whipping on,
(And may you prosper in your suit,
As you with equal vigour do't,)
I here engage myself to loose ye,
And free your heels from Caperdewsie.
But since our sex's modesty
Will not allow I should be by,
Bring me, on oath, a fair account,
And honour too, when you have done't,
And I'll admit you to the place
You claim as due in my good grace.
If matrimony and hanging go
By dest'ny, why not whipping too?
What med'cine else can cure the fits
Of lovers when they lose their wits?
Love is a boy by poets stil'd;
Then spare the rod and spoil the child.
A Persian emp'ror whipp'd his grannam
The sea, his mother VENUS came on;
And hence some rev'rend men approve
Of rosemary in making love.
As skilful coopers hoop their tubs
With Lydian and with Phrygian dubs,
Why may not whipping have as good
A grace, perform'd in time and mood,
With comely movement, and by art,
Raise passion in a lady's heart?
It is an easier way to make
Love by, than that which many take.
Who would not rather suffer whipping,
Than swallow toasts of bits of ribbon?
Make wicked verses, treats, and faces,
And spell names over with beer-glasses
Be under vows to hang and die
Love's sacrifice, and all a lie?
With china-oranges and tarts
And whinning plays, lay baits for hearts?
Bribe chamber-maids with love and money,
To break no roguish jests upon ye?
For lilies limn'd on cheeks, and roses,
With painted perfumes, hazard noses?
Or, vent'ring to be brisk and wanton,
Do penance in a paper lanthorn?
All this you may compound for now,
By suffering what I offer you;
Which is no more than has been done
By Knights for Ladies long agone.
Did not the great LA MANCHA do so
For the INFANTA DEL TOBOSO?
Did not th' illustrious Bassa make
Himself a slave for Misse's sake?
And with bull's pizzle, for her love,
Was taw 'd as gentle as a glove?
Was not young FLORIO sent (to cool
His flame for BIANCAFIORE) to school,
Where pedant made his pathic bum
For her sake suffer martyrdom?
Did not a certain lady whip
Of late her husband's own Lordship?
And though a grandee of the House,
Claw'd him with fundamental blows
Ty'd him stark naked to a bed-post,
And firk'd his hide, as if sh' had rid post
And after, in the sessions-court,
Where whipping's judg'd, had honour for't?
This swear you will perform, and then
I'll set you from th' inchanted den,
And the magician's circle clear.

Quoth he, I do profess and swear,
And will perform what you enjoin,
Or may I never see you mine.
Amen, (quoth she); then turn'd about,
And bid her Esquire let him out.
But ere an artist could be found
T' undo the charms another bound,
The sun grew low, and left the skies,
Put down (some write) by ladies eyes,
The moon pull'd 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 lanthorn of the night
With shining horns hung out her light;
For darkness is the proper sphere,
Where all false glories use t' appear.
The twinkling stars began to muster,
And glitter with their borrow'd lustre,
While sleep the weary 'd world reliev'd,
By counterfeiting death reviv'd;
His whipping penance till the morn
Our vot'ry thought it best t' adjourn,
And not to carry on a work
Of such importance in the dark,
With erring haste, but rather stay,
And do't in th' open face of day;
And in the mean time go in quest
Of next retreat to take his rest.

Hudibras: Part 3 - Canto I

THE ARGUMENT

The Knight and Squire resolve, at once,
The one the other to renounce.
They both approach the Lady's Bower;
The Squire t'inform, the Knight to woo her.
She treats them with a Masquerade,
By Furies and Hobgoblins made;
From which the Squire conveys the Knight,
And steals him from himself, by Night.

'Tis true, no lover has that pow'r
T' enforce a desperate amour,
As he that has two strings t' his bow,
And burns for love and money too;
For then he's brave and resolute,
Disdains to render in his suit,
Has all his flames and raptures double,
And hangs or drowns with half the trouble,
While those who sillily pursue,
The simple, downright way, and true,
Make as unlucky applications,
And steer against the stream their passions.
Some forge their mistresses of stars,
And when the ladies prove averse,
And more untoward to be won
Than by CALIGULA the Moon,
Cry out upon the stars, for doing
Ill offices to cross their wooing;
When only by themselves they're hindred,
For trusting those they made her kindred;
And still, the harsher and hide-bounder
The damsels prove, become the fonder.
For what mad lover ever dy'd
To gain a soft and gentle bride?
Or for a lady tender-hearted,
In purling streams or hemp departed?
Leap'd headlong int' Elysium,
Through th' windows of a dazzling room?
But for some cross, ill-natur'd dame,
The am'rous fly burnt in his flame.
This to the Knight could be no news,
With all mankind so much in use;
Who therefore took the wiser course,
To make the most of his amours,
Resolv'd to try all sorts of ways,
As follows in due time and place

No sooner was the bloody fight,
Between the Wizard, and the Knight,
With all th' appurtenances, over,
But he relaps'd again t' a lover;
As he was always wont to do,
When h' had discomfited a foe
And us'd the only antique philters,
Deriv'd from old heroic tilters.
But now triumphant, and victorious,
He held th' atchievement was too glorious
For such a conqueror to meddle
With petty constable or beadle,
Or fly for refuge to the Hostess
Of th' Inns of Court and Chancery, Justice,
Who might, perhaps reduce his cause
To th' cordeal trial of the laws,
Where none escape, but such as branded
With red-hot irons have past bare-handed;
And, if they cannot read one verse
I' th' Psalms, must sing it, and that's worse.
He therefore judging it below him,
To tempt a shame the Devil might owe him,
Resolv'd to leave the Squire for bail
And mainprize for him to the gaol,
To answer, with his vessel, all,
That might disastrously befall;
And thought it now the fittest juncture
To give the Lady a rencounter,
T' acquaint her 'with his expedition,
And conquest o'er the fierce Magician;
Describe the manner of the fray,
And show the spoils he brought away,
His bloody scourging aggravate,
The number of his blows, and weight,
All which might probably succeed,
And gain belief h' had done the deed,
Which he resolv'd t' enforce, and spare
No pawning of his soul to swear,
But, rather than produce his back,
To set his conscience on the rack,
And in pursuance of his urging
Of articles perform'd and scourging,
And all things else, his part,
Demand deliv'ry of her heart,
Her goods, and chattels, and good graces,
And person up to his embraces.
Thought he, the ancient errant knights
Won all their ladies hearts in fights;
And cut whole giants into fritters,
To put them into amorous twitters
Whose stubborn bowels scorn'd to yield
Until their gallants were half kill'd
But when their bones were drub'd so sore
They durst not woo one combat more,
The ladies hearts began to melt,
Subdu'd by blows their lovers felt.
So Spanish heroes, with their lances,
At once wound bulls and ladies' fancies;
And he acquires the noblest spouse
That widows greatest herds of cows:
Then what may I expect to do,
Wh' have quell'd so vast a buffalo?

Mean while, the Squire was on his way
The Knight's late orders to obey;
Who sent him for a strong detachment
Of beadles, constables, and watchmen,
T' attack the cunning-man fur plunder,
Committed falsely on his lumber;
When he, who had so lately sack'd
The enemy, had done the fact;
Had rifled all his pokes and fobs
Of gimcracks, whims, and jiggumbobs,
When he, by hook or crook, had gather'd,
And for his own inventions father'd
And when they should, at gaol delivery,
Unriddle one another's thievery,
Both might have evidence enough,
To render neither halter proof.
He thought it desperate to tarry,
And venture to be accessary
But rather wisely slip his fetters,
And leave them for the Knight, his betters.
He call'd to mind th' unjust, foul play
He wou'd have offer'd him that day,
To make him curry his own hide,
Which no beast ever did beside,
Without all possible evasion,
But of the riding dispensation;
And therefore much about the hour
The Knight (for reasons told before)
Resolv'd to leave them to the fury
Of Justice, and an unpack'd Jury,
The Squire concurr'd t' abandon him,
And serve him in the self-same trim;
T' acquaint the Lady what h' had done,
And what he meant to carry on;
What project 'twas he went about,
When SIDROPHEL and he fell out;
His firm and stedfast Resolution,
To swear her to an execution;
To pawn his inward ears to marry her,
And bribe the Devil himself to carry her;
In which both dealt, as if they meant
Their Party-Saints to represent,
Who never fail'd upon their sharing
In any prosperous arms-bearing
To lay themselves out to supplant
Each other Cousin-German Saint.
But, ere the Knight could do his part,
The Squire had got so much the start,
H' had to the Lady done his errand,
And told her all his tricks afore-hand.
Just as he finish'd his report,
The Knight alighted in the court;
And having ty'd his beast t' a pale,
And taking time for both to stale,
He put his band and beard in order,
The sprucer to accost and board her;
And now began t' approach the door,
When she, wh' had spy'd him out before
Convey'd th' informer out of sight,
And went to entertain the Knight
With whom encount'ring, after longees
Of humble and submissive congees,
And all due ceremonies paid,
He strok'd his beard, and thus he said:

Madam, I do, as is my duty,
Honour the shadow of your shoe-tye;
And now am come to bring your ear
A present you'll be glad to hear:
At least I hope so: the thing's done,
Or may I never see the sun;
For which I humbly now demand
Performance at your gentle hand
And that you'd please to do your part,
As I have done mine, to my smart.

With that he shrugg'd his sturdy back
As if he felt his shoulders ake.

But she, who well enough knew what
(Before he spoke) he would be at,
Pretended not to apprehend
The mystery of what he mean'd;.
And therefore wish'd him to expound
His dark expressions, less profound.

Madam, quoth he, I come to prove
How much I've suffer'd for your love,
Which (like your votary) to win,
I have not spar'd my tatter'd skin
And for those meritorious lashes,
To claim your favour and good graces.

Quoth she, I do remember once
I freed you from th' inchanted sconce;
And that you promis'd, for that favour,
To bind your back to good behaviour,
And, for my sake and service, vow'd
To lay upon't a heavy load,
And what 'twould bear t' a scruple prove,
As other Knights do oft make love
Which, whether you have done or no,
Concerns yourself, not me, to know.
But if you have, I shall confess,
Y' are honester than I could guess.

Quoth he, if you suspect my troth,
I cannot prove it but by oath;
And if you make a question on't,
I'll pawn my soul that I have done't;
And he that makes his soul his surety,
I think, does give the best security.

Quoth she, Some say, the soul's secure
Against distress and forfeiture
Is free from action, and exempt
From execution and contempt;
And to be summon'd to appear
In th' other world's illegal here;
And therefore few make any account
Int' what incumbrances they run't
For most men carry things so even
Between this World, and Hell, and Heaven,
Without the least offence to either,
They freely deal in all together;
And equally abhor to quit
This world for both or both for it;
And when they pawn and damn their souls,
They are but pris'ners on paroles.

For that (quoth he) 'tis rational,
Th' may be accountable in all:
For when there is that intercourse
Between divine and human pow'rs,
That all that we determine here
Commands obedience every where,
When penalties may be commuted
For fines or ears, and executed
It follows, nothing binds so fast
As souls in pawn and mortgage past
For oaths are th' only tests and seals
Of right and wrong, and true and false,
And there's no other way to try
The doubts of law and justice by.

(Quoth she) What is it you would swear
There's no believing till I hear
For, till they're understood all tales
(Like nonsense) are not true nor false.

(Quoth he) When I resolv'd t' obey
What you commanded th' other day,
And to perform my exercise,
(As schools are wont) for your fair eyes,
T' avoid all scruples in the case,
I went to do't upon the place.
But as the Castle is inchanted
By SIDROPHEL the Witch and haunted
By evil spirits, as you know,
Who took my Squire and me for two,
Before I'd hardly time to lay
My weapons by, and disarray
I heard a formidable noise,
Loud as the Stentrophonick voice,
That roar'd far off, Dispatch and strip,
I'm ready with th' infernal whip,
That shall divest thy ribs from skin,
To expiate thy ling'ring sin.
Th' hast broken perfidiously thy oath,
And not perform'd thy plighted troth;
But spar'd thy renegado back,
Where th' hadst so great a prize at stake;
Which now the fates have order'd me
For penance and revenge to flea,
Unless thou presently make haste:
Time is, time was: And there it ceas'd.
With which, though startled, I confess,
Yet th' horror of the thing was less
Than th' other dismal apprehension
Of interruption or prevention;
And therefore, snatching up the rod,
I laid upon my back a load;
Resolv'd to spare no flesh and blood,
To make my word and honour good;
Till tir'd, and making truce at length,
For new recruits of breath and strength,
I felt the blows still ply'd as fast
As th' had been by lovers plac'd,
In raptures of platonick lashing,
And chaste contemplative bardashing;
When facing hastily about,
To stand upon my guard and scout,
I found th' infernal Cunning-man,
And th' under-witch, his CALIBAN,
With scourges (like the Furies) arm'd,
That on my outward quarters storm'd.
In haste I snatch'd my weapon up,
And gave their hellish rage a stop;
Call'd thrice upon your name, and fell
Courageously on SIDROPHEL;
Who, now transform'd himself a bear,
Began to roar aloud, and tear;
When I as furiously press'd on,
My weapon down his throat to run;
Laid hold on him; but he broke loose,
And turn'd himself into a goose;
Div'd under water, in a pond,
To hide himself from being found.
In vain I sought him; but, as soon
As I perceiv'd him fled and gone,
Prepar'd with equal haste and rage,
His Under-sorcerer t' engage.
But bravely scorning to defile
My sword with feeble blood and vile,
I judg'd it better from a quick-
Set hedge to cut a knotted stick,
With which I furiously laid on
Till, in a harsh and doleful tone,
It roar'd, O hold for pity, Sir
I am too great a sufferer,
Abus'd, as you have been, b' a witch,
But conjur'd into a worse caprich;
Who sends me out on many a jaunt,
Old houses in the night to haunt,
For opportunities t' improve
Designs of thievery or love;
With drugs convey'd in drink or meat,
All teats of witches counterfeit;
Kill pigs and geese with powder'd glass,
And make it for enchantment pass;
With cow-itch meazle like a leper,
And choak with fumes of guiney pepper;
Make leachers and their punks with dewtry,
Commit fantastical advowtry;
Bewitch Hermetick-men to run
Stark staring mad with manicon;
Believe mechanick Virtuosi
Can raise 'em mountains in POTOSI;
And, sillier than the antick fools,
Take treasure for a heap of coals:
Seek out for plants with signatures,
To quack of universal cures:
With figures ground on panes of glass
Make people on their heads to pass;
And mighty heaps of coin increase,
Reflected from a single piece,
To draw in fools, whose nat'ral itches
Incline perpetually to witches;
And keep me in continual fears,
And danger of my neck and ears;
When less delinquents have been scourg'd,
And hemp on wooden anvil forg'd,
Which others for cravats have worn
About their necks, and took a turn.

I pity'd the sad punishment
The wretched caitiff underwent,
And left my drubbing of his bones,
Too great an honour for pultrones;
For Knights are bound to feel no blows
From paultry and unequal foes,
Who, when they slash, and cut to pieces,
Do all with civilest addresses:
Their horses never give a blow,
But when they make a leg, and bow.
I therefore spar'd his flesh, and prest him
About the witch with many a. question.

Quoth he, For many years he drove
A kind of broking-trade in love;
Employ'd in all th' intrigues, and trust
Of feeble, speculative lust:
Procurer to th' extravagancy,
And crazy ribaldry of fancy,
By those the Devil had forsook,
As things below him to provoke.
But b'ing a virtuoso, able
To smatter, quack, and cant, and dabble,
He held his talent most adroit
For any mystical exploit;
As others of his tribe had done,
And rais'd their prices three to one:
For one predicting pimp has th' odds
Of chauldrons of plain downright bawds.
But as an elf (the Devil's valet)
Is not so slight a thing to get;
For those that do his bus'ness best,
In hell are us'd the ruggedest;
Before so meriting a person
Cou'd get a grant, but in reversion,
He serv'd two prenticeships, and longer,
I' th' myst'ry of a lady-monger.
For (as some write) a witch's ghost,
As soon as from the body loos'd,
Becomes a puney-imp itself
And is another witch's elf.
He, after searching far and near,
At length found one in LANCASHIRE
With whom he bargain'd before-hand,
And, after hanging, entertained;
Since which h' has play'd a thousand feats,
And practis'd all mechanick cheats,
Transform'd himself to th' ugly shapes
Of wolves and bears, baboons and apes,
Which he has vary'd more than witches,
Or Pharaoh's wizards cou'd their switches;
And all with whom h' has had to do,
Turn'd to as monstrous figures too.
Witness myself, whom h' has abus'd,
And to this beastly shape reduc'd,
By feeding me on beans and pease,
He crams in nasty crevices,
And turns to comfits by his arts,
To make me relish for disserts,
And one by one, with shame and fear,
Lick up the candy'd provender.
Beside - But as h' was running on,
To tell what other feats h' had done,
The Lady stopt his full career,
And told him now 'twas time to hear
If half those things (said she) be true -
They're all, (quoth he,) I swear by you.
Why then (said she,) That SIDROPHEL
Has damn'd himself to th' pit of Hell;
Who, mounted on a broom, the nag
And hackney of a Lapland hag,
In quest of you came hither post,
Within an hour (I'm sure) at most;
Who told me all you swear and say,
Quite contrary another way;
Vow'd that you came to him to know
If you should carry me or no;
And would have hir'd him, and his imps,
To be your match-makers and pimps,
T' engage the Devil on. your side,
And steal (like PROSERPINE) your bride.
But he, disdaining to embrace.
So filthy a design and base,
You fell to vapouring and huffing
And drew upon him like a ruffin;
Surpriz'd him meanly, unprepar'd,
Before h' had time to mount his guard;
And left him dead upon the ground,
With many a bruise and desperate wound:
Swore you had broke and robb'd his house,
And stole his talismanique louse,
And all his new-found old inventions;.
With flat felonious intentions;
Which he could bring out where he had,
And what he bought them for, and paid.
His flea, his morpion, and punese,
H' had gotten for his proper ease,
And all perfect minutes made,
By th' ablest artist of the trade;
Which (he could prove it) since he lost,
He has been eaten up almost;
And all together might amount
To many hundreds on account;
For which h' had got sufficient warrant
To seize the malefactors errant,
Without capacity of bail,
But of a cart's or horse's tail;
And did not doubt to bring the wretches
To serve for pendulums to watches;
Which, modern virtuosos say,
Incline to hanging every way.
Beside, he swore, and swore 'twas true,
That, e're he went in quest of you,
He set a figure to discover
If you were fled to RYE or DOVER;
And found it clear, that, to betray
Yourselves and me, you fled this way;
And that he was upon pursuit,
To take you somewhere hereabout.
He vow'd he had intelligence
Of all that past before and since;
And found that, e'er you came to him,.
Y' had been engaging life and limb
About a case of tender conscience,
Where both abounded in your own sense:
Till RALPHO, by his light and grace,
Had clear'd all scruples in the case;
And prov'd that you might swear and own
Whatever's by the wicked done,
For which, most basely to requite
The service of his gifts and light,
You strove to oblige him, by main force,
To scourge his ribs instead of yours;
But that he stood upon his guard,
And all your vapouring out-dar'd;
For which, between you both, the feat
Has never been perform'd as yet.

While thus the Lady talk'd, the Knight
Turn'd th' outside of his eyes to white;
(As men of inward light are wont
To turn their opticks in upon 't)
He wonder'd how she came to know
What he had done, and meant to do;
Held up his affidavit-hand,
As if h' had been to be arraign'd;
Cast t'wards the door a look,
In dread of SIDROPHEL, and spoke:

Madam, if but one word be true
Of all the Wizard has told you,
Or but one single circumstance
In all th' apocryphal romance,
May dreadful earthquakes swallow down
This vessel, that is all your own;
Or may the heavens fall, and cover
These reliques of your constant lover.

You have provided well, quoth she,
(I thank you) for yourself and me,
And shown your presbyterian wits
Jump punctual with the Jesuits;
A most compendious way, and civil,
At once to cheat the world, the Devil,
And Heaven and Hell, yourselves, and those
On whom you vainly think t' impose.
Why then (quoth he) may Hell surprize -
That trick (said she) will not pass twice:
I've learn'd how far I'm to believe
Your pinning oaths upon your sleeve.
But there's a better way of clearing
What you would prove than downright swearing:
For if you have perform'd the feat,
The blows are visible as yet,
Enough to serve for satisfaction
Of nicest scruples in the action:
And if you can produce those knobs,
Although they're but the witch's drubs,
I'll pass them all upon account,
As if your natural self had done't
Provided that they pass th' opinion
Of able juries of old women
Who, us'd to judge all matter of facts
For bellies, may do so for backs,

Madam, (quoth he,) your love's a million;
To do is less than to be willing,
As I am, were it in my power,
T' obey, what you command, and more:
But for performing what you bid,
I thank you as much as if I did.
You know I ought to have a care
To keep my wounds from taking air:
For wounds in those that are all heart,
Are dangerous in any part.

I find (quoth she) my goods and chattels
Are like to prove but mere drawn battels;
For still the longer we contend,
We are but farther off the end.
But granting now we should agree,
What is it you expect from me?
Your plighted faith (quoth he) and word
You past in heaven on record,
Where all contracts, to have and t' hold,
Are everlastingly enroll'd:
And if 'tis counted treason here
To raze records, 'tis much more there.
Quoth she, There are no bargains driv'n,
Or marriages clapp'd up, in Heav'n,
And that's the reason, as some guess,
There is no heav'n in marriages;
Two things that naturally press
Too narrowly to be at ease.
Their bus'ness there is only love,
Which marriage is not like t' improve:
Love, that's too generous to abide
To be against its nature ty'd;
Or where 'tis of itself inclin'd,
It breaks loose when it is confin'd;
And like the soul, it's harbourer.
Debarr'd the freedom of the air,
Disdains against its will to stay,
But struggles out, and flies away;
And therefore never can comply
To endure the matrimonial tie,
That binds the female and the male,
Where th' one is but the other's bail;
Like Roman gaolers, when they slept,
Chain'd to the prisoners they kept
Of which the true and faithfull'st lover
Gives best security to suffer.
Marriage is but a beast, some say,
That carries double in foul way;
And therefore 'tis not to b' admir'd,
It should so suddenly be tir'd;
A bargain at a venture made,
Between two partners in a trade;
(For what's inferr'd by t' have and t' hold,
But something past away, and sold?)
That as it makes but one of two,
Reduces all things else as low;
And, at the best, is but a mart
Between the one and th' other part,
That on the marriage-day is paid,
Or hour of death, the bet is laid;
And all the rest of better or worse,
Both are but losers out of purse.
For when upon their ungot heirs
Th' entail themselves, and all that's theirs,
What blinder bargain e'er was driv'n,
Or wager laid at six and seven?
To pass themselves away, and turn
Their childrens' tenants e're they're born?
Beg one another idiot
To guardians, e'er they are begot;
Or ever shall, perhaps, by th' one,
Who's bound to vouch 'em for his own,
Though got b' implicit generation,
And gen'ral club of all the nation;
For which she's fortify'd no less
Than all the island, with four seas;
Exacts the tribute of her dower,
in ready insolence and power;
And makes him pass away to have
And hold, to her, himself, her slave,
More wretched than an ancient villain,
Condemn'd to drudgery and tilling;
While all he does upon the by,
She is not bound to justify,
Nor at her proper cost and charge
Maintain the feats he does at large.
Such hideous sots were those obedient
Old vassals to their ladies regent;
To give the cheats the eldest hand
In foul play by the laws o' th' land;
For which so many a legal cuckold
Has been run down in courts and truckeld:
A law that most unjustly yokes
All Johns of Stiles to Joans of Nokes,
Without distinction of degree,
Condition, age, or quality:
Admits no power of revocation,
Nor valuable consideration,
Nor writ of error, nor reverse
Of Judgment past, for better or worse:
Will not allow the priviledges
That beggars challenge under hedges,
Who, when they're griev'd, can make dead horses
Their spiritual judges of divorces;
While nothing else but Rem in Re
Can set the proudest wretches free;
A slavery beyond enduring,
But that 'tis of their own procuring.
As spiders never seek the fly,
But leave him, of himself, t' apply
So men are by themselves employ'd,
To quit the freedom they enjoy'd,
And run their necks into a noose,
They'd break 'em after, to break loose;
As some whom Death would not depart,
Have done the feat themselves by art;
Like Indian widows, gone to bed
In flaming curtains to the dead;
And men as often dangled for't,
And yet will never leave the sport.
Nor do the ladies want excuse
For all the stratagems they use
To gain the advantage of the set,
And lurch the amorous rook and cheat
For as the Pythagorean soul
Runs through all beasts, and fish and fowl,
And has a smack of ev'ry one,
So love does, and has ever done;
And therefore, though 'tis ne'er so fond,
Takes strangely to the vagabond.
'Tis but an ague that's reverst,
Whose hot fit takes the patient first,
That after burns with cold as much
As ir'n in GREENLAND does the touch;
Melts in the furnace of desire
Like glass, that's but the ice of fire;
And when his heat of fancy's over,
Becomes as hard and frail a lover.
For when he's with love-powder laden,
And prim'd and cock'd by Miss or Madam,
The smallest sparkle of an eye
Gives fire to his artillery;
And off the loud oaths go; but while
They're in the very act, recoil.
Hence 'tis so few dare take their chance
Without a sep'rate maintenance;
And widows, who have try'd one lover,
Trust none again, 'till th' have made over;
Or if they do, before they marry,
The foxes weigh the geese they carry;
And e're they venture o'er a stream,
Know how to size themselves and them;
Whence wittiest ladies always choose
To undertake the heaviest goose
For now the world is grown so wary,
That few of either sex dare marry,
But rather trust on tick t' amours,
The cross and pile for better or worse;
A mode that is held honourable,
As well as French, and fashionable:
For when it falls out for the best,
Where both are incommoded least,
In soul and body two unite,
To make up one hermaphrodite,
Still amorous, and fond, and billing,
Like PHILIP and MARY on a shilling,
Th' have more punctilios and capriches
Between the petticoat and breeches,
More petulant extravagances,
Than poets make 'em in romances.
Though when their heroes 'spouse the dames,
We hear no more charms and flames:
For then their late attracts decline,
And turn as eager as prick'd wine;
And all their catterwauling tricks,
In earnest to as jealous piques;
Which the ancients wisely signify'd,
By th' yellow mantos of the bride:
For jealousy is but a kind
Of clap and grincam of the mind,
The natural effects of love,
As other flames and aches prove;
But all the mischief is, the doubt
On whose account they first broke out.
For though Chineses go to bed,
And lie in, in their ladies stead,
And for the pains they took before,
Are nurs'd and pamper'd to do more
Our green men do it worse, when th' hap
To fail in labour of a clap
Both lay the child to one another:
But who's the father, who the mother,
'Tis hard to say in multitudes,
Or who imported the French goods.
But health and sickness b'ing all one,
Which both engag'd before to own,
And are not with their bodies bound
To worship, only when they're sound,
Both give and take their equal shares
Of all they suffer by false wares:
A fate no lover can divert
With all his caution, wit, and art.
For 'tis in vain to think to guess
At women by appearances,
That paint and patch their imperfections
Of intellectual complexions,
And daub their tempers o'er with washes
As artificial as their faces;
Wear under vizard-masks their talents
And mother-wits before their gallants,
Until they're hamper'd in the noose,
Too fast to dream of breaking loose;
When all the flaws they strove to hide
Are made unready with the bride,
That with her wedding-clothes undresses
Her complaisance and gentilesses,
Tries all her arts to take upon her
The government from th' easy owner;
Until the wretch is glad to wave
His lawful right, and turn her slave;
Find all his having, and his holding,
Reduc'd t' eternal noise and scolding;
The conjugal petard, that tears
Down all portcullises of ears,
And make the volley of one tongue
For all their leathern shields too strong
When only arm'd with noise and nails,
The female silk-worms ride the males,
Transform 'em into rams and goats,
Like Sirens, with their charming notes;
Sweet as a screech-owl's serenade,
Or those enchanting murmurs made
By th' husband mandrake and the wife,
Both bury'd (like themselves) alive.

Quoth he, These reasons are but strains
Of wanton, over-heated brains
Which ralliers, in their wit, or drink,
Do rather wheedle with than think
Man was not man in paradise,
Until he was created twice,
And had his better half, his bride,
Carv'd from the original, his side,
T' amend his natural defects,
And perfect his recruited sex;
Inlarge his breed at once, and lessen
The pains and labour of increasing,
By changing them for other cares,
As by his dry'd-up paps appears.
His body, that stupendous frame,
Of all the world the anagram
Is of two equal parts compact,
In shape and symmetry exact,
Of which the left and female side
Is to the manly right a bride;
Both join'd together with such art,
That nothing else but death can part.
Those heav'nly attracts of yours, your eyes,
And face, that all the world surprize,
That dazzle all that look upon ye,
And scorch all other ladies tawny,
Those ravishing and charming graces
Are all made up of two half faces,
That in a mathematick line,
Like those in other heavens, join,
Of which if either grew alone,
T' would fright as much to look upon:
And so would that sweet bud your lip,
Without the other's fellowship.
Our noblest senses act by pairs;
Two eyes to see; to hear, two ears;
Th' intelligencers of the mind,
To wait upon the soul design'd,
But those that serve the body alone,
Are single, and confin'd to one.
The world is but two parts, that meet
And close at th' equinoctial fit;
And so are all the works of nature,
Stamp'd with her signature on matter,
Which all her creatures, to a leaf,
Or smallest blade of grass receive;
All which sufficiently declare,
How entirely marriage is her care,
The only method that she uses
In all the wonders she produces:
And those that take their rules from her,
Can never be deceiv'd, nor err.
For what secures the civil life,
But pawns of children, and a wife?
That lie like hostages at stake,
To pay for all men undertake;
To whom it is as necessary
As to be born and breathe, to marry;
So universal all mankind,
In nothing else, is of one mind.
For in what stupid age, or nation,
Was marriage ever out of fashion?
Unless among the Amazons,
Or cloister'd friars, and vestal nuns;
Or Stoicks, who to bar the freaks
And loose excesses of the sex,
Prepost'rously wou'd have all women
Turn'd up to all the world in common.
Though men would find such mortal feuds,
In sharing of their publick goods,
'Twould put them to more charge of lives,
Than they're supply'd with now by wives;
Until they graze, and wear their clothes,
As beasts do, of their native growths:
For simple wearing of their horns
Will not suffice to serve their turns.
For what can we pretend t' inherit,
Unless the marriage-deed will bear it?
Could claim no right, to lands or rents,
But for our parents' settlements;
Had been but younger sons o' th' earth,
Debarr'd it all, but for our birth.
What honours or estates of peers,
Cou'd be preserv'd but by their heirs
And what security maintains
Their right and title, but the banes?
What crowns could be hereditary,
If greatest monarchs did not marry.
And with their consorts consummate
Their weightiest interests of state?
For all the amours of princes are
But guarantees of peace or war,
Or what but marriage has a charm
The rage of empires to disarm,
Make blood and desolation cease,
And fire and sword unite in peace,
When all their fierce contest for forage
Conclude in articles of marriage?
Nor does the genial bed provide
Less for the int'rests of the bride;
Who else had not the least pretence
T' as much as due benevolence;
Could no more title take upon her
To virtue, quality, and honour.
Than ladies-errant, unconfin'd,
And feme-coverts t' all mankind
All women would be of one piece,
The virtuous matron and the miss;
The nymphs of chaste Diana's train,
The same with those in LEWKNER's Lane;
But for the difference marriage makes
'Twixt wives and ladies of the lakes;
Besides the joys of place and birth,
The sex's paradise on earth;
A privilege so sacred held,
That none will to their mothers yield;
But rather than not go before,
Abandon Heaven at the door.
And if th' indulgent law allows
A greater freedom to the spouse,
The reason is, because the wife
Runs greater hazards of her life;
Is trusted with the form and matter
Of all mankind by careful nature;
Where man brings nothing but the stuff
She frames the wond'rous fabric of;
Who therefore, in a streight, may freely
Demand the clergy of her belly,
And make it save her the same way
It seldom misses to betray;
Unless both parties wisely enter
Into the liturgy indenture,
And though some fits of small contest
Sometimes fall out among the best,
That is no more than ev'ry lover
Does from his hackney-lady suffer;
That makes no breach of faith and love,
But rather (sometimes) serves t' improve.
For as in running, ev'ry pace
Is but between two legs a race,
In which both do their uttermost
To get before, and win the post,
Yet when they're at their race's ends,
They're still as kind and constant friends,
And, to relieve their weariness,
By turns give one another ease;
So all those false alarms of strife
Between the husband and the wife,
And little quarrels, often prove
To be but new recruits of love;
When those wh' are always kind or coy,
In time must either tire or cloy.
Nor are their loudest clamours more,
Than as they're relish'd, sweet or sour;
Like musick, that proves bad or good;
According as 'tis understood.
In all amours, a lover burns
With frowns as well as smiles by turns;
And hearts have been as aft with sullen
As charming looks surpriz'd and stolen.
Then why should more bewitching clamour
Some lovers not as much enamour?
For discords make the sweetest airs
And curses are a kind of pray'rs;
Too slight alloys for all those grand
Felicities by marriage gain'd.
For nothing else has pow'r to settle
Th' interests of love perpetual;
An act and deed, that that makes one heart
Becomes another's counter-part,
And passes fines on faith and love,
Inroll'd and register'd above,
To seal the slippery knots of vows,
Which nothing else but death can loose.
And what security's too strong,
To guard that gentle heart from wrong,
That to its friend is glad to pass
Itself away, and all it has;
And, like an anchorite, gives over
This world for th' heaven of lover?
I grant (quoth she) there are some few
Who take that course, and find it true
But millions whom the same does sentence
To heav'n b' another way - repentance.
Love's arrows are but shot at rovers;
Though all they hit, they turn to lovers;
And all the weighty consequents
Depend upon more blind events,
Than gamesters, when they play a set
With greatest cunning at piquet,
Put out with caution, but take in
They know not what, unsight, unseen,
For what do lovers, when they're fast
In one another's arms embrac't,
But strive to plunder, and convey
Each other, like a prize, away?
To change the property of selves,
As sucking children are by elves?
And if they use their persons so,
What will they to their fortunes do?
Their fortunes! the perpetual aims
Of all their extasies and flames.
For when the money's on the book,
And, All my worldly goods - but spoke,
(The formal livery and seisin
That puts a lover in possession,)
To that alone the bridegroom's wedded;
The bride a flam, that's superseded.
To that their faith is still made good,
And all the oaths to us they vow'd:
For when we once resign our pow'rs,
W' have nothing left we can call ours:
Our money's now become the Miss
Of all your lives and services;
And we forsaken, and postpon'd;
But bawds to what before we own'd;
Which, as it made y' at first gallant us,
So now hires others to supplant us,
Until 'tis all turn'd out of doors,
(As we had been) for new amours;
For what did ever heiress yet
By being born to lordships get?
When the more lady sh' is of manours,
She's but expos'd to more trepanners,
Pays for their projects and designs,
And for her own destruction fines;
And does but tempt them with her riches,
To use her as the Dev'l does witches;
Who takes it for a special grace
To be their cully for a space,
That when the time's expir'd, the drazels
For ever may become his vassals:
So she, bewitch'd by rooks and spirits,
Betrays herself, and all sh' inherits;
Is bought and sold, like stolen goods,
By pimps, and match-makers, and bawds,
Until they force her to convey,
And steal the thief himself away.
These are the everlasting fruits
Of all your passionate love-suits,
Th' effects of all your amorous fancies
To portions and inheritances;
Your love-sick rapture for fruition
Of dowry, jointure, and tuition;
To which you make address and courtship;
Ad with your bodies strive to worship,
That th' infants' fortunes may partake
Of love too, for the mother's sake.
For these you play at purposes,
And love your love's with A's and B's:
For these at Beste and L'Ombre woo,
And play for love and money too;
Strive who shall be the ablest man
At right gallanting of a fan;
And who the most genteelly bred
At sucking of a vizard-head;
How best t' accost us in all quarters;
T' our question - and - command new Garters
And solidly discourse upon
All sorts of dresses, Pro and Con.
For there's no mystery nor trade,
But in the art of love is made:
And when you have more debts to pay
Than Michaelmas and Lady-Day,
And no way possible to do't,
But love and oaths, and restless suit,
To us y' apply to pay the scores
Of all your cully'd, past amours;
Act o'er your flames and darts again,
And charge us with your wounds and pain;
Which others influences long since
Have charm'd your noses with and shins;
For which the surgeon is unpaid,
And like to be, without our aid.
Lord! what an am'rous thing is want!
How debts and mortgages inchant!
What graces must that lady have
That can from executions save!
What charms that can reverse extent,
And null decree and exigent!
What magical attracts and graces,
That can redeem from Scire facias!
From bonds and statutes can discharge,
And from contempts of courts enlarge!
These are the highest excellencies
Of all your true or false pretences:
And you would damn yourselves, and swear
As much t' an hostess dowager,
Grown fat and pursy by retail
Of pots of beer and bottled ale;
And find her fitter for your turn;
For fat is wondrous apt to burn;
Who at your flames would soon take fire,
Relent, and melt to your desire,
And like a candle in the socket,
Dissolve her graces int' your pocket.

By this time 'twas grown dark and late,
When they heard a knocking at the gate,
Laid on in haste with such a powder,
The blows grew louder still and louder;
Which HUDIBRAS, as if th' had been
Bestow'd as freely on his skin,
Expounding, by his inward light,
Or rather more prophetick fright,
To be the Wizard, come to search,
And take him napping in the lurch
Turn'd pale as ashes or a clout;
But why or wherefore is a doubt
For men will tremble, and turn paler,
With too much or too little valour.
His heart laid on, as if it try'd
To force a passage through his side,
Impatient (as he vow'd) to wait 'em,
But in a fury to fly at 'em;
And therefore beat, and laid about,
To find a cranny to creep out.
But she, who saw in what a taking
The Knight was by his furious quaking,
Undaunted cry'd, Courage, Sir Knight;
Know, I'm resolv'd to break no rite
Of hospitality t' a stranger;
But, to secure you out of danger,
Will here myself stand sentinel,
To guard this pass 'gainst SIDROPHEL.
Women, you know, do seldom fail
To make the stoutest men turn tail;
And bravely scorn to turn their backs
Upon the desp'ratest attacks.
At this the Knight grew resolute
As IRONSIDE and HARDIKNUTE
His fortitude began to rally,
And out he cry'd aloud to sally.
But she besought him to convey
His courage rather out o' th' way,
And lodge in ambush on the floor,
Or fortify'd behind a door;
That if the enemy shou'd enter,
He might relieve her in th' adventure.

Mean while they knock'd against the door
As fierce as at the gate before,
Which made the Renegado Knight
Relapse again t' his former fright.
He thought it desperate to stay
Till th' enemy had forc'd his way,
But rather post himself, to serve
The lady, for a fresh reserve
His duty was not to dispute,
But what sh' had order'd execute;
Which he resolv'd in haste t' obey,
And therefore stoutly march'd away;
And all h' encounter'd fell upon,
Though in the dark, and all alone;
Till fear, that braver feats performs
Than ever courage dar'd in arms,
Had drawn him up before a pass
To stand upon his guard, and face:
This he courageously invaded,
And having enter'd, barricado'd,
Insconc'd himself as formidable
As could be underneath a table,
Where he lay down in ambush close,
T' expect th' arrival of his foes.
Few minutes he had lain perdue,
To guard his desp'rate avenue,
Before he heard a dreadful shout,
As loud as putting to the rout,
With which impatiently alarm'd,
He fancy'd th' enemy had storm'd,
And, after ent'ring, SIDROPHEL
Was fall'n upon the guards pell-mell
He therefore sent out all his senses,
To bring him in intelligences,
Which vulgars, out of ignorance,
Mistake for falling in a trance;
But those that trade in geomancy,
Affirm to be the strength of fancy;
In which the Lapland Magi deal,
And things incredible reveal.
Mean while the foe beat up his quarters,
And storm'd the out-works of his fortress:
And as another, of the same
Degree and party, in arms and fame,
That in the same cause had engag'd,
At war with equal conduct wag'd,
By vent'ring only but to thrust
His head a span beyond his post,
B' a gen'ral of the cavaliers
Was dragg'd thro' a window by th' ears;
So he was serv'd in his redoubt,
And by the other end pull'd out.

Soon as they had him at their mercy,
They put him to the cudgel fiercely,
As if they'd scorn'd to trade or barter,
By giving or by taking quarter:
They stoutly on his quarters laid,
Until his scouts came in t' his aid.
For when a man is past his sense,
There's no way to reduce him thence,
But twinging him by th' ears or nose,
Or laying on of heavy blows;
And if that will not do the deed,
To burning with hot irons proceed.
No sooner was he come t' himself,
But on his neck a sturdy elf
Clapp'd, in a trice, his cloven hoof,
And thus attack'd him with reproof;
Mortal, thou art betray'd to us
B' our friend, thy Evil Genius,
Who, for thy horrid perjuries,
Thy breach of faith, and turning lies,
The Brethren's privilege (against
The wicked) on themselves, the Saints,
Has here thy wretched carcase sent
For just revenge and punishment;
Which thou hast now no way to lessen,
But by an open, free confession;
For if we catch thee failing once,
'Twill fall the heavier on thy bones.

What made thee venture to betray,
And filch the lady's heart away?
To Spirit her to matrimony? -
That which contracts all matches - money.
It was th' inchantment oft her riches
That made m' apply t' your croney witches,
That, in return, wou'd pay th' expence,
The wear and tear of conscience;
Which I cou'd have patch'd up, and turn'd,
For the hundredth part of what I earn'd.

Didst thou not love her then? Speak true.
No more (quoth he) than I love you. -
How would'st th' have us'd her, and her money? -
First turn'd her up to alimony;
And laid her dowry out in law,
To null her jointure with a flaw,
Which I before-hand had agreed
T' have put, on purpose in the deed;
And bar her widow's making over
T' a friend in trust, or private lover.

What made thee pick and chuse her out,
T' employ their sorceries about? -
That which makes gamesters play with those
Who have least wit, and most to lose.

But didst thou scourge thy vessel thus,
As thou hast damn'd thyself to us?

I see you take me for an ass:
'Tis true, I thought the trick wou'd pass
Upon a woman well enough,
As 't has been often found by proof,
Whose humours are not to be won,
But when they are impos'd upon.
For love approves of all they do
That stand for candidates, and woo.

Why didst thou forge those shameful lies
Of bears and witches in disguise?

That is no more than authors give
The rabble credit to believe:
A trick of following their leaders,
To entertain their gentle readers;
And we have now no other way
Of passing all we do or say
Which, when 'tis natural and true,
Will be believ'd b' a very few,
Beside the danger of offence,
The fatal enemy of sense.

Why did thou chuse that cursed sin,
Hypocrisy, to set up in?

Because it is in the thriving'st calling,
The only Saints-bell that rings all in;
In which all churches are concern'd,
And is the easiest to be learn'd:
For no degrees, unless th' employ't,
Can ever gain much, or enjoy't:
A gift that is not only able
To domineer among the rabble,
But by the laws impower'd to rout,
And awe the greatest that stand out;
Which few hold forth against, for fear
Their hands should slip, and come too near;
For no sin else among the Saints
Is taught so tenderly against.

What made thee break thy plighted vows? -
That which makes others break a house,
And hang, and scorn ye all, before
Endure the plague of being poor.

Quoth he, I see you have more tricks
Than all your doating politicks,
That are grown old, and out of fashion,
Compar'd with your New Reformation;
That we must come to school to you,
To learn your more refin'd, and new.

Quoth he, If you will give me leave
To tell you what I now perceive,
You'll find yourself an arrant chouse,
If y' were but at a Meeting-House. -
'Tis true, quoth he, we ne'er come there,
Because, w' have let 'em out by th' year.

Truly, quoth he, you can't imagine
What wond'rous things they will engage in
That as your fellow-fiends in Hell
Were angels all before they fell,
So are you like to be agen,
Compar'd with th' angels of us men.

Quoth he, I am resolv'd to be
Thy scholar in this mystery;
And therefore first desire to know
Some principles on which you go.

What makes a knave a child of God,
And one of us? - A livelihood.
What renders beating out of brains,
And murder, godliness? - Great gains.

What's tender conscience? - 'Tis a botch,
That will not bear the gentlest touch;
But breaking out, dispatches more
Than th' epidemical'st plague-sore.

What makes y' encroach upon our trade,
And damn all others? - To be paid.

What's orthodox, and true, believing
Against a conscience? - A good living.

What makes rebelling against Kings
A Good Old Cause? - Administrings.

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? -
About two hundred pounds a year.

And that which was prov'd true before,
Prove false again? - Two hundred more.

What makes the breaking of all oaths
A holy duty? - Food and cloaths.

What laws and freedom, persecution? -
B'ing out of pow'r, and contribution.

What makes a church a den of thieves? -
A dean and chapter, and white sleeves.

Ad what would serve, if those were gone,
To make it orthodox? - Our own.

What makes morality a crime,
The most notorious of the time;
Morality, which both the Saints,
And wicked too, cry out against? -
Cause grace and virtue are within
Prohibited degrees of kin
And therefore no true Saint allows,
They shall be suffer'd to espouse;
For Saints can need no conscience,
That with morality dispense;
As virtue's impious, when 'tis rooted
In nature only, and not imputed
But why the wicked should do so,
We neither know, or care to do.

What's liberty of conscience,
I' th' natural and genuine sense?
'Tis to restore, with more security,
Rebellion to its ancient purity;
And christian liberty reduce
To th' elder practice of the Jews.
For a large conscience is all one,
And signifies the same with none.

It is enough (quoth he) for once,
And has repriev'd thy forfeit bones:
NICK MACHIAVEL had ne'er a trick,
(Though he gave his name to our Old Nick,)
But was below the least of these,
That pass i' th' world for holiness.

This said, the furies and the light
In th' instant vanish'd out of sight,
And left him in the dark alone,
With stinks of brimstone and his own.

The Queen of Night, whose large command
Rules all the sea, and half the land,
And over moist and crazy brains,
In high spring-tides, at midnight reigns,
Was now declining to the west,
To go to bed, and take her rest;
When HUDIBRAS, whose stubborn blows
Deny'd his bones that soft repose,
Lay still expecting worse and more,
Stretch'd out at length upon the floor;
And though he shut his eyes as fast
As if h' had been to sleep his last,
Saw all the shapes that fear or wizards
Do make the Devil wear for vizards,
And pricking up his ears, to hark
If he cou'd hear too in the dark,
Was first invaded with a groan
And after in a feeble tone,
These trembling words: Unhappy wretch!
What hast thou gotten by this fetch;
For all thy tricks, in this new trade,
Thy holy brotherhood o' th' blade?
By sauntring still on some adventure,
And growing to thy horse a a Centaure?
To stuff thy skin with swelling knobs
Of cruel and hard-wooded drubs?
For still th' hast had the worst on't yet,
As well in conquest as defeat.
Night is the sabbath of mankind,
To rest the body and the mind,
Which now thou art deny'd to keep,
And cure thy labour'd corpse with sleep.
The Knight, who heard the words, explain'd,
As meant to him, this reprimand,
Because the character did hit
Point-blank upon his case so fit;
Believ'd it was some drolling spright,
That staid upon the guard that night,
And one of those h' had seen, and felt
The drubs he had so freely dealt;
When, after a short pause and groan,
The doleful Spirit thus went on:

This 'tis t' engage with dogs and bears
Pell-mell together by the ears,
And, after painful bangs and knocks,
To lie in limbo in the stocks,
And from the pinnacle of glory
Fall headlong into purgatory.

(Thought he, this devil's full of malice,
That in my late disasters rallies):
Condemn'd to whipping, but declin'd it,
By being more heroic-minded:
And at a riding handled worse,
With treats more slovenly and coarse:
Engag'd with fiends in stubborn wars,
And hot disputes with conjurers;
And when th' hadst bravely won the day,
Wast fain to steal thyself away.

(I see, thought he, this shameless elf
Wou'd fain steal me too from myself,
That impudently dares to own
What I have suffer'd for and done,)
And now but vent'ring to betray,
Hast met with vengeance the same way.

Thought he, how does the Devil know
What 'twas that I design'd to do?
His office of intelligence,
His oracles, are ceas'd long since;
And he knows nothing of the Saints,
But what some treacherous spy acquaints.
This is some pettifogging fiend,
Some under door-keeper's friend's friend,
That undertakes to understand,
And juggles at the second-hand;
And now would pass for Spirit Po,
And all mens' dark concerns foreknow.
I think I need not fear him for't;
These rallying devils do no hurt.
With that he rouz'd his drooping heart,
And hastily cry'd out, What art?
A wretch (quoth he) whom want of grace
Has brought to this unhappy place.

I do believe thee, quoth the Knight;
Thus far I'm sure th' art in the right;
And know what 'tis that troubles thee,
Better than thou hast guess'd of me.
Thou art some paultry, black-guard spright,
Condemn'd to drudg'ry in the night
Thou hast no work to do in th' house
Nor half-penny to drop in shoes;
Without the raising of which sum,
You dare not be so troublesome,
To pinch the slatterns black and blue,
For leaving you their work to do.
This is your bus'ness good Pug-Robin;
And your diversion dull dry-bobbing,
T' entice fanaticks in the dirt,
And wash them clean in ditches for't;
Of which conceit you are so proud,
At ev'ry jest you laugh aloud,
As now you wou'd have done by me,
But that I barr'd your raillery.

Sir (quoth the voice) y'are no such Sophi
As you would have the world judge of ye.
If you design to weigh our talents
I' the standard of your own false balance,
Or think it possible to know
Us ghosts as well as we do you;
We, who have been the everlasting
Companions of your drubs and basting,
And never left you in contest,
With male or female, man or beast,
But prov'd as true t' ye, and entire,
In all adventures, as your Squire.

Quoth he, That may be said as true
By the idlest pug of all your crew:
For none cou'd have betray'd us worse
Than those allies of ours and yours.
But I have sent him for a token
To your Low-Country HOGEN-MOGEN,
To whose infernal shores I hope
He'll swing like skippers in a rope.
And, if y' have been more just to me
(As I am apt to think) than he,
I am afraid it is as true,
What th' ill-affected say of you:
Y' have spous'd the Covenant and Cause,
By holding up your cloven paws.

Sir, quoth the voice, 'tis true, I grant,
We made and took the Covenant;
But that no more concerns the Cause
Than other perj'ries do the laws,
Which when they're prov'd in open court,
Wear wooden peccadillo's for't:
And that's the reason Cov'nanters
Hold up their hands like rogues at bars.

I see, quoth HUDIBRAS, from whence
These scandals of the Saints commence,
That are but natural effects
Of Satan's malice, and his sects,
Those Spider-Saints, that hang by threads,
Spun out o' th' intrails of their heads.

Sir, quoth the voice, that may as true
And properly be said of you,
Whose talents may compare with either,
Or both the other put together.
For all the Independents do,
Is only what you forc'd 'em to;
You, who are not content alone
With tricks to put the Devil down,
But must have armies rais'd to back
The gospel-work you undertake;
As if artillery, and edge-tools,
Were the only engines to save souls;
While he, poor devil, has no pow'r
By force to run down and devour;
Has ne'er a Classis; cannot sentence
To stools or poundage of repentance;
Is ty'd up only to design,
T' entice, and tempt, and undermine,
In which you all his arts out-do,
And prove yourselves his betters too.
Hence 'tis possessions do less evil
Than mere temptations of the Devil,
Which, all the horrid'st actions done,
Are charg'd in courts of law upon;
Because unless they help the elf,
He can do little of himself;
And therefore where he's best possess'd
Acts most against his interest;
Surprizes none, but those wh' have priests
To turn him out, and exorcists,
Supply'd with spiritual provision,
And magazines of ammunition
With crosses, relicks, crucifixes,
Beads, pictures, rosaries, and pixes;
The tools of working our salvation
By mere mechanick operation;
With holy water, like a sluice,
To overflow all avenues.
But those wh' are utterly unarm'd
T' oppose his entrance, if he storm'd,
He never offers to surprize,
Although his falsest enemies;
But is content to be their drudge,
And on their errands glad to trudge
For where are all your forfeitures
Entrusted in safe hands but ours?
Who are but jailors of the holes,
And dungeons where you clap up souls;
Like under-keepers, turn the keys,
T' your mittimus anathemas;
And never boggle to restore
The members you deliver o're
Upon demand, with fairer justice
Than all your covenanting Trustees;
Unless to punish them the worse,
You put them in the secular pow'rs,
And pass their souls, as some demise
The same estate in mortgage twice;
When to a legal Utlegation
You turn your excommunication,
And for a groat unpaid, that's due,
Distrain on soul and body too.

Thought he, 'tis no mean part of civil
State prudence to cajole the Devil
And not to handle him too rough,
When h' has us in his cloven hoof.

T' is true, quoth he, that intercourse
Has pass'd between your friends and ours;
That as you trust us, in our way,
To raise your members, and to lay,
We send you others of our own,
Denounc'd to hang themselves or drown;
Or, frighted with our oratory,
To leap down headlong many a story
Have us'd all means to propagate
Your mighty interests of state;
Laid out our spiritual gifts to further
Your great designs of rage and murther.
For if the Saints are nam'd from blood,
We only have made that title good;
And if it were but in our power,
We should not scruple to do more,
And not be half a soul behind
Of all dissenters of mankind.

Right, quoth the voice, and as I scorn
To be ungrateful, in return
Of all those kind good offices,
I'll free you out of this distress,
And set you down in safety, where
It is no time to tell you here.
The cock crows, and the morn grows on,
When 'tis decreed I must be gone;
And if I leave you here till day,
You'll find it hard to get away.

With that the Spirit grop'd about,
To find th' inchanted hero out,
And try'd with haste to lift him up;
But found his forlorn hope, his crup,
Unserviceable with kicks and blows,
Receiv'd from harden'd-hearted foes.
He thought to drag him by the heels,
Like Gresham carts, with legs for wheels;
But fear, that soonest cures those sores
In danger of relapse to worse,
Came in t' assist him with it's aid
And up his sinking vessel weigh'd.
No sooner was he fit to trudge,
But both made ready to dislodge.
The Spirit hors'd him like a sack
Upon the vehicle his back;
And bore him headlong into th' hall,
With some few rubs against the wall
Where finding out the postern lock'd,
And th' avenues as strongly block'd,
H' attack'd the window, storm'd the glass,
And in a moment gain'd the pass;
Thro' which he dragg'd the worsted souldier's
Fore-quarters out by the head and shoulders;
And cautiously began to scout,
To find their fellow-cattle out.
Nor was it half a minute's quest,
E're he retriev'd the champion's beast,
Ty'd to a pale, instead of rack;
But ne'er a saddle on his back,
Nor pistols at the saddle-bow,
Convey'd away the Lord knows how,
He thought it was no time to stay,
And let the night too steal away;
But in a trice advanc'd the Knight
Upon the bare ridge, bolt upright:
And groping out for RALPHO's jade,
He found the saddle too was stray'd,
And in the place a lump of soap.
On which he speedily leap'd up;
And turning to the gate the rein,
He kick'd and cudgell'd on amain.
While HUDIBRAS, with equal haste,
On both sides laid about as fast,
And spurr'd as jockies use to break,
Or padders to secure, a neck
Where let us leave 'em for a time,
And to their Churches turn our rhyme;
To hold forth their declining state,
Which now come near an even rate.

Hudibras: Part 3 - Canto Ii

THE ARGUMENT

The Saints engage in fierce Contests
About their Carnal interests;
To share their sacrilegious Preys,
According to their Rates of Grace;
Their various Frenzies to reform,
When Cromwel left them in a Storm
Till, in th' Effigy of Rumps, the Rabble
Burns all their Grandees of the Cabal.

THE learned write, an insect breeze
Is but a mungrel prince of bees,
That falls before a storm on cows,
And stings the founders of his house;
From whose corrupted flesh that breed
Of vermin did at first proceed.
So e're the storm of war broke out,
Religion spawn'd a various rout
Of petulant Capricious sects,
The maggots of corrupted texts,
That first run all religion down,
And after ev'ry swarm its own.
For as the Persian Magi once
Upon their mothers got their sons,
That were incapable t' enjoy
That empire any other way;
So PRESBYTER begot the other
Upon the good old Cause, his mother,
Then bore then like the Devil's dam,
Whose son and husband are the same.
And yet no nat'ral tie of blood
Nor int'rest for the common good
Cou'd, when their profits interfer'd,
Get quarter for each other's beard.
For when they thriv'd, they never fadg'd,
But only by the ears engag'd:
Like dogs that snarl about a bone,
And play together when they've none,
As by their truest characters,
Their constant actions, plainly appears.
Rebellion now began, for lack
Of zeal and plunders to grow slack;
The Cause and covenant to lessen,
And Providence to b' out of season:
For now there was no more to purchase
O' th' King's Revenue, and the Churches,
But all divided, shar'd, and gone,
That us'd to urge the Brethren on;
Which forc'd the stubborn'st for the Cause,
To cross the cudgels to the laws,
That what by breaking them th' had gain'd.
By their support might be maintain'd;
Like thieves, that in a hemp-plot lie
Secur'd against the hue-and-cry;
For PRESBYTER and INDEPENDANT
Were now turn'd plaintiff and defendant;
Laid out their apostolic functions
On carnal orders and injunctions;
And all their precious Gifts and Graces
On outlawries and scire facias;
At Michael's term had many a trial,
Worse than the Dragon and St. Michael,
Where thousands fell, in shape of fees,
Into the bottomless abyss.
For when like brethren, and like friends,
They came to share their dividends,
And ev'ry partner to possess
His Church and State Joint-Purchases,
In which the ablest Saint, and best,
Was nam'd in trust by all the rest,
To pay their money; and, instead
Of ev'ry Brother, pass the deed;
He strait converted all his gifts
To pious frauds and holy shifts;
And settled all the other shares
Upon his outward man and's heirs;
Held all they claim'd as forfeit lands,
Deliver'd up into his hands,
And pass'd upon his conscience,
By Pre-intail of Providence;
Impeach'd the rest for reprobates,
That had no titles to estates,
But by their spiritual attaints
Degraded from the right of Saints.
This b'ing reveal'd, they now begun
With law and conscience to fall on,
And laid about as hot and brain-sick
As th' Utter Barrister of SWANSWICK;
Engag'd with moneybags as bold
As men with sand bags did of old;
That brought the lawyers in more fees
Than all unsanctify'd Trustees;
Till he who had no more to show
I' th' case receiv'd the overthrow;
Or both sides having had the worst,
They parted as they met at first.

Poor PRESBYTER was now reduc'd,
Secluded, and cashier'd, and chous'd
Turn'd out, and excommunicate
From all affairs of Church and State;
Reform'd t' a reformado Saint,
And glad to turn itinerant,
To stroll and teach from town to town,
And those he had taught up, teach down.
And make those uses serve agen
Against the new-enlighten'd men,
As fit as when at first they were
Reveal'd against the CAVALIER;
Damn ANABAPTIST and FANATIC,
As pat as Popish and Prelatic;
And with as little variation,
To serve for any Sect i' th' nation.
The Good Old Cause, which some believe
To be the Dev'l that tempted EVE
With Knowledge, and does still invite
The world to mischief with new Light,
Had store of money in her purse
When he took her for bett'r or worse;
But now was grown deform'd and poor,
And fit to be turn'd out of door.

The INDEPENDENTS (whose first station
Was in the rear of reformation,
A mungrel kind of church-dragoons,
That serv'd for horse and foot at once;
And in the saddle of one steed
The Saracen and Christian rid;
Were free of ev'ry spiritual order,
To preach, and fight, and pray, and murder)
No sooner got the start to lurch
Both disciplines, of War and Church
And Providence enough to run
The chief commanders of 'em down,
But carry'd on the war against
The common enemy o' th' Saints,
And in a while prevail'd so far,
To win of them the game of war,
And be at liberty once more
T' attack themselves, as th' had before.

For now there was no foe in arms,
T' unite their factions with alarms,
But all reduc'd and overcome,
Except their worst, themselves at home,
Wh' had compass'd all they pray'd, and swore,
And fought, and preach'd, and plunder'd for;
Subdu'd the Nation, Church, and State,
And all things, but their laws and hate:
But when they came to treat and transact,
And share the spoil of all th' had ransackt,
To botch up what th' had torn and rent,
Religion and the Government,
They met no sooner, but prepar'd
To pull down all the war had spar'd
Agreed in nothing, but t' abolish,
Subvert, extirpate, and demolish.
For knaves and fools b'ing near of kin
As Dutch Boors are t' a Sooterkin,
Both parties join'd to do their best
To damn the publick interest,
And herded only in consults,
To put by one another's bolts;
T' out-cant the Babylonian labourers,
At all their dialects of jabberers,
And tug at both ends of the saw,
To tear down Government and Law.
For as two cheats, that play one game,
Are both defeated of their aim;
So those who play a game of state,
And only cavil in debate,
Although there's nothing lost or won,
The publick bus'ness is undone;
Which still the longer 'tis in doing,
Becomes the surer way to ruin.

This, when the ROYALISTS perceiv'd,
(Who to their faith as firmly cleav'd,
And own'd the right they had paid down
So dearly for, the Church and Crown,)
Th' united constanter, and sided
The more, the more their foes divided.
For though out-number'd, overthrown
And by the fate of war run down)
Their duty never was defeated,
Nor from their oaths and faith retreated;
For loyalty is still the same,
Whether it win or lose the game;
True as the dial to the sun,
Although it be not shin'd upon.
But when these brethren in evil,
Their adversaries, and the Devil,
Began once more to shew them play,
And hopes, at least, to have a day,
They rally'd in parades of woods,
And unfrequented solitudes;
Conven'd at midnight in out-houses,
T' appoint new-rising rendezvouzes,
And with a pertinacy unmatch'd,
For new recruits of danger watch'd.
No sooner was one blow diverted,
But up another party started;
And, as if nature too, in haste
To furnish out supplies as fast,
Before her time, had turn'd destruction
T' a new and numerous production,
No sooner those were overcome,
But up rose others in their room,
That, like the Christian faith, increast
The more, the more they were supprest
Whom neither chains, nor transportation,
Proscription, sale, or confiscation,
Nor all the desperate events
Of former try'd experiments
Nor wounds cou'd terrify, nor mangling,
To leave off loyalty and dangling;
Nor death (with all his bones) affright
From vent'ring to maintain the right,
From staking life and fortune down
'Gainst all together, for the Crown;
But kept the title of their cause
From forfeiture, like claims in laws
And prov'd no prosp'rous usurpation
Can ever settle in the nation;
Until, in spight of force and treason,
They put their loyalty in possession;
And by their constancy and faith,
Destroy 'd the mighty men of Gath.

Toss'd in a furious hurricane,
Did OLIVER give up his reign;
And was believ'd, as well by Saints,
As mortal men and miscreants,
To founder in the Stygian Ferry;
Until he was retriev'd by STERRY,
Who, in a faise erroneous dream,
Mistook the New Jerusalem
Prophanely for the apocryphal
False Heaven at the end o' th' Hall;
Whither it was decreed by Fate
His precious reliques to translate.
So ROMULUS was seen before
B' as orthodox a Senator;
From whose divine illumination
He stole the Pagan revelation.

Next him his Son and Heir Apparent
Succeeded, though a lame vicegerent;
Who first laid by the Parliament,
The only crutch on which he leant;
And then sunk underneath the State,
That rode him above horseman's weight.

And now the Saints began their reign,
For which th' had yearn'd so long in vain,
And felt such bowel-hankerings,
To see an empire all of Kings.
Deliver'd from the Egyptian awe
Of Justice, Government, and Law,
And free t' erect what spiritual Cantons
Should be reveal'd, or Gospel Hans-Towns,
To edify upon the ruins
Of JOHN of LEYDEN'S old Out-goings;
Who for a weather-cock hung up,
Upon the Mother Church's top;
Was made a type, by Providence,
Of all their revelations since;
And now fulfill'd by his successors,
Who equally mistook their measures
For when they came to shape the model,
Not one could fit another's noddle;
But found their Light and Gifts more wide
From fadging than th' unsanctify'd;
While ev'ry individual brother
Strove hand to fist against another;
And still the maddest, and most crackt,
Were found the busiest to transact
For though most hands dispatch apace,
And make light work, (the proverb says,)
Yet many diff'rent intellects
Are found t' have contrary effects;
And many heads t' obstruct intrigues,
As slowest insects have most legs.

Some were for setting up a King;
But all the rest for no such thing,
Unless KING JESUS. Others tamper'd
For FLEETWOOD, DESBOROUGH, and LAMBERT;
Some for the Rump; and some, more crafty,
For Agitators, and the safety;
Some for the Gospel, and massacres
Of Spiritual Affidavit-makers,
That swore to any human regence,
Oaths of supremacy and allegiance;
Yea, though the ablest swearing Saint
That vouch'd the Bulls o' th' Covenant:
Others for pulling down th' high-places
Of Synods and Provincial Classes,
That us'd to make such hostile inroads
Upon the Saints, like bloody NIMRODS
Some for fulfilling prophecies,
And th' expiration of th' excise
And some against th' Egyptian bondage
Of holy-days, and paying poundage:
Some for the cutting down of groves,
And rectifying bakers' loaves:
And some for finding out expedients
Against the slav'ry of obedience.
Some were for Gospel Ministers,
And some for Red-coat Seculars,
As men most fit t' hold forth the word,
And wield the one and th' other sword.
Some were for carrying on the work
Against the Pope, and some the Turk;
Some for engaging to suppress,
The Camisado of surplices,
That gifts and dispensations hinder'd,
And turn'd to th' Outward Man the Inward;
More proper for the cloudy night
Of Popery than Gospel Light.
Others were for abolishing
That tool of matrimony, a ring,
With which th' unsanctify'd bridegroom
Is marry'd only to a thumb;
(As wise as ringing of a pig,
That us'd to break up ground, and dig);
The bride to nothing but her will,
That nulls the after-marriage still
Some were for th' utter extirpation
Of linsey-woolsey in the nation;
And some against all idolizing
The Cross in shops-books, or Baptizing
Others to make all things recant
The Christian or Surname of Saint;
And force all churches, streets, and towns,
The holy title to renounce.
Some 'gainst a Third Estate of Souls,
And bringing down the price of coals:
Some for abolishing black-pudding,
And eating nothing with the blood in;
To abrogate them roots and branches;
While others were for eating haunches
Of warriors, and now and then,
The flesh of Kings and mighty men
And some for breaking of their bones
With rods of ir'n, by secret ones:
For thrashing mountains, and with spells
For hallowing carriers' packs and bells:
Things that the legend never heard of,
But made the wicked sore afear'd of.

The quacks of Government (who sate
At th' unregarded helm of State,
And understood this wild confusion
Of fatal madness and delusion,
Must, sooner than a prodigy,
Portend destruction to be nigh)
Consider'd timely how t' withdraw,
And save their wind-pipes from the law;
For one rencounter at the bar
Was worse than all th' had 'scap'd in war;
And therefore met in consultation
To cant and quack upon the nation;
Not for the sickly patient's sake,
For what to give, but what to take;
To feel the pulses of their fees,
More wise than fumbling arteries:
Prolong the snuff of life in pain,
And from the grave recover - Gain.

'Mong these there was a politician
With more heads than a beast in vision,
And more intrigues in ev'ry one
Than all the whores of Babylon:
So politic, as if one eye
Upon the other were a spy,
That, to trepan the one to think
The other blind, both strove to blink;
And in his dark pragmatick way,
As busy as a child at play.
H' had seen three Governments run down,
And had a hand in ev'ry one;
Was for 'em and against 'em all,
But barb'rous when they came to fall
For, by trepanning th' old to ruin,
He made his int'rest with the new one
Play'd true and faithful, though against
His conscience, and was still advanc'd.
For by the witchcraft of rebellion
Transform'd t' a feeble state-camelion,
By giving aim from side to side,
He never fail'd to save his tide,
But got the start of ev'ry state,
And at a change ne'er came too late;
Cou'd turn his word, and oath, and faith,
As many ways as in a lath;
By turning, wriggle, like a screw,
Int' highest trust, and out, for new.
For when h' had happily incurr'd,
Instead of hemp, to be preferr'd,
And pass'd upon a government,
He pay'd his trick, and out he went
But, being out, and out of hopes
To mount his ladder (more) of ropes,
Wou'd strive to raise himself upon
The publick ruin, and his own;
So little did he understand
The desp'rate feats he took in hand.
For when h' had got himself a name
For fraud and tricks, he spoil'd his game;
Had forc'd his neck into a noose,
To shew his play at fast and loose;
And when he chanc'd t' escape, mistook
For art and subtlety, his luck.
So right his judgment was cut fit,
And made a tally to his wit,
And both together most profound
At deeds of darkness under-ground;
As th' earth is easiest undermin'd
By vermin impotent and blind.

By all these arts, and many more,
H' had practis'd long and much before,
Our state artificer foresaw
Which way the world began to draw.
For as old sinners have all points
O' th' compass in their bones and joints,
Can by their pangs and aches find
All turns and changes of the wind,
And better than by NAPIER's bones
Feel in their own the age of moons;
So guilty sinners in a state
Can by their crimes prognosticate,
And in their consciences feel pain
Some days before a show'r of rain.
He therefore wisely cast about,
All ways he cou'd, t' ensure his throat;
And hither came, t' observe and smoke
What courses other riskers took
And to the utmost do his best
To save himself, and hang the rest.
To match this Saint, there was another
As busy and perverse a Brother,
An haberdasher of small wares
In politicks and state affairs;
More Jew than Rabbi ACHITOPHEL,
And better gifted to rebel:
For when h' had taught his tribe to 'spouse
The Cause, aloft, upon one house,
He scorn'd to set his own in order,
But try'd another, and went further;
So suddenly addicted still
To's only principle, his will,
That whatsoe'er it chanc'd to prove,
Nor force of argument cou'd move;
Nor law, nor cavalcade of Holborn,
Could render half a grain less stubborn.
For he at any time would hang
For th' opportunity t' harangue;
And rather on a gibbet dangle,
Than miss his dear delight, to wrangle;
In which his parts were so accomplisht,
That, right or wrong, he ne'er was non-plusht;
But still his tongue ran on, the less
Of weight it bore, with greater ease;
And with its everlasting clack
Set all men's ears upon the rack.
No sooner cou'd a hint appear,
But up he started to picqueer,
And made the stoutest yield to mercy,
When he engag'd in controversy.
Not by the force of carnal reason,
But indefatigable teazing;
With vollies of eternal babble,
And clamour, more unanswerable.
For though his topics, frail and weak,
Cou'd ne'er amount above a freak,
He still maintain'd 'em, like his faults,
Against the desp'ratest assaults;
And back'd their feeble lack of sense,
With greater heat and confidence?
As bones of Hectors, when they differ,
The more they're cudgel'd grow the stiffer.
Yet when his profit moderated,
The fury of his heat abated.
For nothing but his interest
Cou'd lay his Devil of Contest.
It was his choice, or chance; or curse,
T' espouse the Cause for bett'r or worse,
And with his worldly goods and wit,
And soul and body, worship'd it:
But when he found the sullen trapes
Possess'd with th' Devil, worms, and claps;
The Trojan mare, in foal with Greeks,
Not half so full of jadish tricks;
Though squeamish in her outward woman,
As loose and rampant as Dol Common;
He still resolv'd to mend the matter,
T' adhere and cleave the obstinater;
And still the skittisher and looser
Her freaks appear'd, to sit the closer.
For fools are stubborn in their way,
As coins are harden'd by th' allay:
And obstinacy's ne'er so stiff
As when 'tis in a wrong belief.
These two, with others, being met,
And close in consultation set,
After a discontented pause,
And not without sufficient cause,
The orator we nam'd of late,
Less troubled with the pangs of State
Than with his own impatience,
To give himself first audience,
After he had a while look'd wise,
At last broke silence, and the ice.

Quoth he, There's nothing makes me doubt
Our last out-goings brought about,
More than to see the characters
Of real jealousies and fears
Not feign'd, as once, but, sadly horrid,
Scor'd upon ev'ry Member's forehead;
Who, 'cause the clouds are drawn together,
And threaten sudden change of weather,
Feel pangs and aches of state-turns,
And revolutions in their corns;
And, since our workings-out are cross'd,
Throw up the Cause before 'tis lost.
Was it to run away we meant,
When, taking of the Covenant,
The lamest cripples of the brothers
Took oaths to run before all others;
But in their own sense only swore
To strive to run away before;
And now would prove, that words and oath
Engage us to renounce them both?
'Tis true, the Cause is in the lurch,
Between a Right and Mungrel-Church;
The Presbyter and Independent,
That stickle which shall make an end on't;
As 'twas made out to us the last
Expedient - ( I mean Marg'ret's Fast,)
When Providence had been suborn'd,
What answer was to be return'd.
Else why should tumults fright us now,
We have so many times come through?
And understand as well to tame,
As when they serve our turns t'inflame:
Have prov'd how inconsiderable
Are all engagements of the rabble,
Whose frenzies must be reconcil'd
With drums and rattles, like a child;
But never prov'd so prosperous
As when they were led on by us
For all our scourging of religion
Began with tumult and sedition;
When hurricanes of fierce commotion
Became strong motives to devotion;
(As carnal seamen, in a storm,
Turn pious converts, and reform);
When rusty weapons, with chalk'd edges,
Maintain'd our feeble privileges;
And brown-bills levy'd in the City,
Made bills to pass the Grand Committee;
When zeal, with aged clubs and gleaves,
Gave chace to rochets and white sleeves,
And made the Church, and State, and Laws,
Submit t' old iron and the Cause.
And as we thriv'd by tumults then,
So might we better now agen,
If we knew how, as then we did,
To use them rightly in our need:
Tumults, by which the mutinous
Betray themselves instead of us.
The hollow-hearted, disaffected,
And close malignant are detected,
Who lay their lives and fortunes down
For pledges to secure our own;
And freely sacrifice their ears
T' appease our jealousies and fears;
And yet, for all these providences
W' are offer'd, if we had our senses;
We idly sit like stupid blockheads,
Our hands committed to our pockets;
And nothing but our tongues at large,
To get the wretches a discharge:
Like men condemn'd to thunder-bolts,
Who, ere the blow, become mere dolts;
Or fools besotted with their crimes,
That know not how to shift betimes,
And neither have the hearts to stay,
Nor wit enough to run away;
Who, if we cou'd resolve on either,
Might stand or fall at least together;
No mean or trivial solace
To partners in extreme distress;
Who us'd to lessen their despairs,
By parting them int' equal shares;
As if the more they were to bear,
They felt the weight the easier;
And ev'ry one the gentler hung,
The more he took his turn among.
But 'tis not come to that, as yet,
If we had courage left, or wit;
Who, when our fate can be no worse,
Are fitted for the bravest course;
Have time to rally, and prepare
Our last and best defence, despair;
Despair, by which the gallant'st feats
Have been atchiev'd in greatest straits,
And horrid'st danger safely wav'd,
By being courageously out-brav'd;
As wounds by wider wounds are heal'd,
And poisons by themselves expell'd:
And so they might be now agen,
If we were, what we shou'd be, men;
And not so dully desperate,
To side against ourselves with Fate;
As criminals, condemn'd to suffer,
Are blinded first, and then turn'd over.
This comes of breaking Covenants,
And setting up Exauns of Saints,
That fine, like aldermen, for grace,
To be excus'd the efficace.
For Spiritual men are too transcendent,
That mount their banks for Independent,
To hang like MAHOMET in th' air,
Or St. IGNATIUS at his prayer,
By pure geometry, and hate
Dependence upon Church or State;
Disdain the pedantry o' th' letter;
And since obedience is better
(The Scripture says) than sacrifice,
Presume the less on't will suffice;
And scorn to have the moderat'st stints
Prescrib'd their peremptory hints,
Or any opinion, true or false,
Declar'd as such, in doctrinals
But left at large to make their best on,
Without b'ing call'd t' account or question,
Interpret all the spleen reveals;
As WHITTINGTON explain'd the bells;
And bid themselves turn back agen
Lord May'rs of New Jerusalem;
But look so big and over-grown,
They scorn their edifiers t' own,
Who taught them all their sprinkling lessons,
Their tones, and sanctified expressions
Bestow'd their Gifts upon a Saint,
Like Charity on those that want;
And learn'd th' apocryphal bigots
T' inspire themselves with short-hand notes;
For which they scorn and hate them worse
Than dogs and cats do sow-gelders.
For who first bred them up to pray,
And teach, the House of Commons Way?
Where had they all their gifted phrases,
But from our CALAMYS and CASES?
Without whose sprinkling and sowing,
Who e'er had heard of NYE or OWEN?
Their dispensations had been stifled,
But for our ADONIRAM BYFIELD;
And had they not begun the war,
Th' had ne'er been sainted, as they are:
For Saints in peace degenerate,
And dwindle down to reprobate;
Their zeal corrupts, like standing water,
In th' intervals of war and slaughter;
Abates the sharpness of its edge,
Without the power of sacrilege.
And though they've tricks to cast their sins
As easy as serpents do their skins,
That in a while grow out agen,
In peace they turn mere carnal men,
And from the most refin'd of saints,
As naturally grow miscreants,
As barnacles turn SOLAND geese
In th' Islands of the ORCADES.
Their dispensation's but a ticket,
For their conforming to the wicked;
With whom the greatest difference
Lies more in words, and shew, than sense.
For as the Pope, that keeps the gate
Of Heaven, wears three crowns of state;
So he that keeps the gate of Hell,
Proud CERBERUS, wears three heads as well;
And if the world has any troth
Some have been canoniz'd in both.
But that which does them greatest harm,
Their spiritual gizzards are too warm,
Which puts the over-heated sots
In fevers still, like other goats.
For though the Whore bends Hereticks
With flames of fire, like crooked sticks,
Our Schismaticks so vastly differ,
Th' hotter th' are, they grow the stiffer;
Still setting off their spiritual goods
With fierce and pertinacious feuds.
For zeal's a dreadful termagant,
That teaches Saints to tear and rant,
And Independents to profess
The doctrine of dependences:
Turns meek, and secret, sneaking ones,
To raw-heads fierce and bloody-bones:
And, not content with endless quarrels
Against the wicked, and their morals,
The GIBELLINES, for want of GUELPHS,
Divert their rage upon themselves.
For now the war is not between
The Brethren and the Men of Sin,
But Saint and Saint, to spill the blood
Of one another's brotherhood;
Where neither side can lay pretence
To liberty of conscience,
Or zealous suff'ring for the cause,
To gain one groat's-worth of applause;
For though endur'd with resolution
'Twill ne'er amount to persecution.
Shall precious Saints, and secret ones,
Break one another's outward bones,
And eat the flesh of Brethren,
Instead of Kings and mighty men?
When fiends agree among themselves,
Shall they be found the greatest elves?
When BELL's at union with the DRAGON,
And BAAL-PEOR friends with DAGON,
When savage bears agree with bears,
Shall secret ones lug Saints by th' ears,
And not atone their fatal wrath,
When common danger threatens both?
Shall mastiffs, by the coller pull'd,
Engag'd with bulls, let go their hold,
And Saints, whose necks are pawn'd at stake,
No notice of the danger take?
But though no pow'r of Heav'n or Hell
Can pacify phanatick zeal,
Who wou'd not guess there might be hopes,
The fear of gallowses and ropes,
Before their eyes, might reconcile
Their animosities a while;
At least until th' had a clear stage,
And equal freedom to engage,
Without the danger of surprize
By both our common enemies?

This none but we alone cou'd doubt,
Who understand their workings out;
And know them, both in soul and conscience,
Giv'n up t' as reprobate a nonsense
As spiritual out-laws, whom the pow'r
Of miracle can ne'er restore
We, whom at first they set up under,
In revelation only of plunder,
Who since have had so many trials
Of their encroaching self-denials,
That rook'd upon us with design
To out-reform, and undermine;
Took all our interest and commands
Perfidiously out of our hands;
Involv'd us in the guilt of blood
Without the motive gains allow'd,
And made us serve as ministerial,
Like younger Sons of Father BELIAL;
And yet, for all th' inhuman wrong
Th' had done us and the Cause so long,
We never fail to carry on
The work still as we had begun;
But true and faithfully obey'd
And neither preach'd them hurt, nor pray'd;
Nor troubled them to crop our ears,
Nor hang us like the cavaliers;
Nor put them to the charge of gaols,
To find us pill'ries and cart's-tails,
Or hangman's wages, which the State
Was forc'd (before them) to be at,
That cut, like tallies, to the stumps,
Our ears for keeping true accompts,
And burnt our vessels, like a new
Seal'd peck, or bushel, for b'ing true;
But hand in hand, like faithful brothers,
Held for the Cause against all others,
Disdaining equally to yield
One syllable of what we held,
And though we differ'd now and then
'Bout outward things, and outward men,
Our inward men, and constant frame
Of spirit, still were near the same;
And till they first began to cant
And sprinkle down the Covenant,
We ne'er had call in any place,
Nor dream'd of teaching down free grace,
But join'd our gifts perpetually
Against the common enemy.
Although 'twas ours and their opinion,
Each other's Church was but a RIMMON;
And yet, for all this gospel-union,
And outward shew of Church-communion,
They'll ne'er admit us to our shares
Of ruling Church or State affairs;
Nor give us leave t' absolve, or sentence
T' our own conditions of repentance;
But shar'd our dividend o' th' Crown,
We had so painfully preach'd down;
And forc'd us, though against the grain,
T' have calls to teach it up again:
For 'twas but justice to restore
The wrongs we had receiv'd before;
And when 'twas held forth in our way,
W' had been ungrateful not to pay;
Who, for the right w' have done the nation,
Have earn'd our temporal salvation;
And put our vessels in a way
Once more to come again in play.
For if the turning of us out
Has brought this Providence about,
And that our only suffering
Is able to bring in the King,
What would our actions not have done,
Had we been suffer'd to go on?
And therefore may pretend t' a share,
At least; in carrying on th' affair.
But whether that be so, or not,
W' have done enough to have it thought;
And that's as good as if w' had done't,
And easier pass't upon account:
For if it be but half deny'd,
'Tis half as good as justifi'd.
The world is nat'rally averse
To all the truth it sees or hears
But swallows nonsense, and a lie,
With greediness and gluttony
And though it have the pique, and long,
'Tis still for something in the wrong;
As women long, when they're with child,
For things extravagant and wild;
For meats ridiculous and fulsome,
But seldom any thing that's wholesome;
And, like the world, men's jobbernoles
Turn round upon their ears, the poles;
And what they're confidently told,
By no sense else can be control'd.
And this, perhaps, may prove time means
Once more to hedge-in Providence,
For as relapses make diseases
More desp'rate than their first accesses,
If we but get again in pow'r,
Our work is easier than before
And we more ready and expert
I' th' mystery to do our part.
We, who did rather undertake
The first war to create than make,
And when of nothing 'twas begun,
Rais'd funds as strange to carry 't on;
Trepann'd the State, and fac'd it down
With plots and projects of our own;
And if we did such feats at first,
What can we now we're better vers'd?
Who have a freer latitude,
Than sinners give themselves, allow'd,
And therefore likeliest to bring in,
On fairest terms, our discipline;
To which it was reveal'd long since,
We were ordain'd by Providence;
When three Saints Ears, our predecessors,
The Cause's primitive Confessors,
B'ing crucify'd, the nation stood
In just so many years of blood;
That, multiply'd by six, exprest
The perfect number of the beast,
And prov'd that we must be the men
To bring this work about agen;
And those who laid the first foundation,
Compleat the thorough Reformation:
For who have gifts to carry on
So great a work, but we alone?
What churches have such able pastors,
And precious, powerful, preaching masters?
Possess'd with absolute dominions
O'er brethren's purses and opinions?
And trusted with the double keys
Of Heaven and their warehouses;
Who, when the Cause is in distress,
Can furnish out what sums they please,
That brooding lie in bankers' hands,
To be dispos'd at their commands;
And daily increase and multiply,
With doctrine, use, and usury:
Can fetch in parties (as in war
All other heads of cattle are)
From th' enemy of all religions,
As well as high and low conditions,
And share them, from blue ribbands, down
To all blue aprons in the town;
From ladies hurried in calleches,
With cor'nets at their footmens' breeches,
To bawds as fat as Mother Nab;
All guts and belly, like a crab.
Our party's great, and better ty'd
With oaths and trade than any side,
Has one considerable improvement,
To double fortify the Cov'nant:
I mean our Covenant to purchase
Delinquents titles, and the Churches;
That pass in sale, from hand to hand,
Among ourselves, for current land;
And rise or fall, like Indian actions,
According to the rate of factions
Our best reserve for Reformation,
When new out-goings give occasion;
That keeps the loins of Brethren girt
The Covenant (their creed) t' assert;
And when th' have pack'd a Parliament,
Will once more try th' expedient:
Who can already muster friends,
To serve for members, to our ends,
That represent no part o' th' nation,
But Fisher's-Folly Congregation;
Are only tools to our intrigues,
And sit like geese to hatch our eggs;
Who, by their precedents of wit,
T' out-fast, out-loiter, and out-sit,
Can order matters underhand,
To put all bus'ness to a stand;
Lay publick bills aside for private,
And make 'em one another drive out;
Divert the great and necessary,
With trifles to contest and vary;
And make the Ration represent,
And serve for us, in Parliament
Cut out more work than can be done.
In PLATO'S year, but finish none;
Unless it be the Bulls of LENTHAL,
That always pass'd for fundamental;
Can set up grandee against grandee,
To squander time away, and bandy;
Make Lords and Commoners lay sieges
To one another's privileges,
And, rather than compound the quarrel,
Engage to th' inevitable peril
Of both their ruins; th' only scope
And consolation of our hope;
Who though we do not play the game,
Assist as much by giving aim:
Can introduce our ancient arts,
For heads of factions t' act their parts;
Know what a leading voice is worth,
A seconding, a third, or fourth
How much a casting voice comes to,
That turns up trump, of ay, or no;
And, by adjusting all at th' end,
Share ev'ry one his dividend
An art that so much study cost,
And now's in danger to be lost,
Unless our ancient virtuosos,
That found it out, get into th' Houses.
These are the courses that we took
To carry things by hook or crook;
And practis'd down from forty-four,
Until they turn'd us out of door
Besides the herds of Boutefeus
We set on work without the House;
When ev'ry knight and citizen
Kept legislative journeymen,
To bring them in intelligence
From all points of the rabble's sense,
And fill the lobbies of both Houses
With politick important buzzes:
Set committees of cabals,
To pack designs without the walls;
Examine, and draw up all news,
And fit it to our present use.
Agree upon the plot o' th' farce,
And ev'ry one his part rehearse,
Make Q's of answers, to way-lay
What th' other pasties like to say
What repartees, and smart reflections,
Shall be return'd to all objections;
And who shall break the master-jest,
And what, and how, upon the rest
Held pamphlets out, with safe editions,
Of proper slanders and seditions;
And treason for a token send,
By Letter to a Country Friend;
Disperse lampoons, the only wit
That men, like burglary, commit;
Wit falser than a padder's face,
That all its owner does betrays;
Who therefore dares not trust it when
He's in his calling to be seen;
Disperse the dung on barren earth,
To bring new weeds of discord forth;
Be sure to keep up congregations,
In spight of laws and proclamations:
For Charlatans can do no good
Until they're mounted in a crowd;
And when they're punish'd, all the hurt
Is but to fare the better for't;
As long as confessors are sure
Of double pay for all th' endure;
And what they earn in persecution,
Are paid t' a groat in contribution.
Whence some Tub-Holders-forth have made
In powd'ring-tubs their richest trade;
And while they kept their shops in prison,
Have found their prices strangely risen.
Disdain to own the least regret
For all the Christian blood w' have let;
'Twill save our credit, and maintain
Our title to do so again;
That needs not cost one dram of sense,
But pertinacious impudence.
Our constancy t' our principles,
In time will wear out all things else;
Like marble statues rubb'd in pieces
With gallantry of pilgrims' kisses;
While those who turn and wind their oaths,
Have swell'd and sunk, like other froths;
Prevail'd a while, but 'twas not long
Before from world to world they swung:
As they had turn'd from side to side,
And as the changelings liv'd, they dy'd.

This said, th' impatient States-monger
Could now contain himself no longer;
Who had not spar'd to shew his piques
Against th' haranguer's politicks,
With smart remarks of leering faces,
And annotations of grimaces.
After h' had administer'd a dose
Of snuff-mundungus to his nose,
And powder'd th' inside of his skull,
Instead of th' outward jobbernol,
He shook it with a scornful look
On th' adversary, and thus he spoke:

In dressing a calves head, although
The tongue and brains together go,
Both keep so great a distance here,
'Tis strange if ever they come near;
For who did ever play his gambols
With such insufferable rambles
To make the bringing in the KING,
And keeping of him out, one thing?
Which none could do, but those that swore
T' as point-plank nonsense heretofore:
That to defend, was to invade;
And to assassinate, to aid
Unless, because you drove him out,
(And that was never made a doubt,)
No pow'r is able to restore,
And bring him in, but on your score
A spiritual doctrine, that conduces
Most properly to all your uses.
'Tis true, a scorpions oil is said
To cure the wounds the vermine made;
And weapons, drest with salves, restore
And heal the hurts they gave before;
But whether Presbyterians have
So much good nature as the salve,
Or virtue in them as the vermine,
Those who have try'd them can determine.
Indeed, 'th pity you should miss
Th' arrears of all your services,
And for th' eternal obligation
Y' have laid upon th' ungrateful nation,
Be us'd so unconscionably hard,
As not to find a just reward,
For letting rapine loose, and murther,
To rage just so far, but no further;
And setting all the land on fire,
To burn't to a scantling, but no higher;
For vent'ring to assassinate,
And cut the throats, of Church and State,
And not be allow'd the fittest men
To take the charge of both agen:
Especially, that have the grace
Of self-denying, gifted face;
Who when your projects have miscarry'd,
Can lay them, with undaunted forehead,
On those you painfully trepann'd,
And sprinkled in at second hand;
As we have been, to share the guilt
Of Christian Blood, devoutly spilt;
For so our ignorance was flamm'd
To damn ourselves, t' avoid being damn'd;
Till finding your old foe, the hangman,
Was like to lurch you at back-gammon
And win your necks upon the set,
As well as ours, who did but bet,
(For he had drawn your ears before,
And nick'd them on the self-same score,)
We threw the box and dice away,
Before y' had lost us, at foul play;
And brought you down to rook, and lie,
And fancy only, on the by;
Redeem'd your forfeit jobbernoles
From perching upon lofty poles;
And rescu'd all your outward traitors
From hanging up like aligators;
For which ingeniously y' have shew'd
Your Presbyterian gratitude:
Would freely have paid us home in kind,
And not have been one rope behind.
Those were your motives to divide,
And scruple, on the other side.
To turn your zealous frauds, and force,
To fits of conscience and remorse;
To be convinc'd they were in vain,
And face about for new again;
For truth no more unveil'd your eyes,
Than maggots are convinc'd to flies
And therefore all your lights and calls
Are but apocryphal and false,
To charge us with the consequences
Of all your native insolences,
That to your own imperious wills
Laid Law and Gospel neck and heels;
Corrupted the Old Testament,
To serve the New for precedent
T' amend its errors, and defects,
With murther, and rebellion texts;
Of which there is not any one
In all the Book to sow upon
And therefore (from your tribe) the Jews
Held Christian doctrine forth, and use;
As Mahomet (your chief) began
To mix them in the Alchoran:
Denounc'd and pray'd, with fierce devotion,
And bended elbows on the cushion;
Stole from the beggars all your tones,
And gifted mortifying groans;
Had Lights where better eyes were blind,
As pigs are said to see the wind
Fill'd Bedlam with predestination,
And Knights-bridge with illumination:
Made children, with your tones, to run for't,
As bad as bloody-bones, or LUNSFORD:
While women, great with child, miscarry'd,
For being to malignants marry'd
Transform'd all wives to DALILAHS
Whose husbands were not for the Cause;
And turn'd the men to ten horn'd cattle,
Because they came not out to battle
Made taylors' prentices turn heroes,
For fear of being transform'd to MEROZ:
And rather forfeit their indentures,
Than not espouse the Saints' adventures.
Could transubstantiate, metamorphose,
And charm whole herds of beasts, like Orpheus;
Inchant the King's and Churches lands
T' obey and follow your commands;
And settle on a new freehold,
As MARCLY-HILL had done of old:
Could turn the Covenant, and translate
The gospel into spoons and plate:
Expound upon all merchants' cashes,
And open th' intricatest places
Could catechize a money-box,
And prove all powches orthodox;
Until the Cause became a DAMON,
And PYTHIAS the wicked Mammon.

And yet, in spight of all your charms
To conjure legion up in arms,
And raise more devils in the rout
Than e'er y' were able to cast out,
Y' have been reduc'd, and by those fools
Bred up (you say) in your own schools;
Who, though but gifted at your feet,
Have made it plain, they have more wit;
By whom y' have been so oft trepann'd,
And held forth out of all command,
Out-gifted, out-impuls'd, out-done,
And out-reveal'd at carryings-on;
Of all your dispensations worm'd,
Out-Providenc'd, and out-reform'd;
Ejected out of Church and State,
And all things, but the peoples' hate;
And spirited out of th' enjoyments
Of precious, edifying employments,
By those who lodg'd their Gifts and Graces,
Like better bowlers, in your places;
All which you bore with resolution,
Charg'd on th' accompt of persecution;
And though most righteously opprest,
Against your wills, still acquiesc'd;
And never hum'd and hah'd sedition,
Nor snuffled treason, nor misprision.
That is, because you never durst;
For had you preach'd and pray'd your worst,
Alas! you were no longer able
To raise your posse of the rabble:
One single red-coat centinel
Out-charm'd the magick of the spell;
And, with his squirt-fire, could disperse
Whole troops with chapter rais'd and verse.
We knew too well those tricks of yours,
To leave it ever in your powers;
Or trust our safeties, or undoings,
To your disposing of out-goings;
Or to your ordering Providence,
One farthing's-worth of consequence.
For had you pow'r to undermine,
Or wit to carry a design,
Or correspondence to trepan,
Inveigle, or betray one man,
There's nothing else that intervenes,
And bars your zeal to use the means
And therefore wond'rous like, no doubt,
To bring in Kings, or keep them out.
Brave undertakers to restore,
That cou'd not keep yourselves in pow'r;
T' advance the int'rests of the Crown,
That wanted wit to keep your own.

'Tis true, you have (for I'd be loth
To wrong ye) done your parts in both,
To keep him out, and bring him in,
As grace is introduc'd by sin;
For 'twas your zealous want of sense,
And sanctify'd impertinence,
Your carrying business in a huddle,
That forc'd our rulers to new-model;
Oblig'd the State to tack about,
And turn you, root and branch, all out;
To reformado, one and all,
T' your great Croysado General.
Your greedy slav'ring to devour,
Before 'twas in your clutches, pow'r,
That sprung the game you were to set,
Before y' had time to draw the net;
Your spight to see the Churches' lands
Divided into other hands,
And all your sacrilegious ventures
Laid out in tickets and debentures;
Your envy to he sprinkled down,
By Under-Churches in the town;
And no course us'd to stop their mouths,
Nor th' Independents' spreading growths
All which consider'd, 'tis most true
None bring him in so much as you
Who have prevail'd beyond their plots,
Their midnight juntos, and seal'd knots
That thrive more by your zealous piques,
Than all their own rash politicks
And you this way may claim a share
In carrying (as you brag) th' affair;
Else frogs and toads, that croak'd the Jews
From PHARAOH and his brick-kilns loose,
And flies and mange, that set them free
From task-masters and slavery,
Were likelier to do the feat,
In any indiff'rent man's conceit
For who e'er heard of restoration
Until your thorough Reformation?
That is, the King's and Churches' land
Were sequester'd int' other hands:
For only then, and not before,
Your eyes were open'd to restore.
And when the work was carrying on,
Who cross'd it, but yourselves alone?
As by a world of hints appears,
All plain and extant as your ears.

But first, o' th' first: The Isle of WIGHT
Will rise up, if you should deny't;
Where HENDERSON, and th' other masses,
Were sent to cap texts, and put cases;
To pass for deep and learned scholars,
Although but paltry Ob and Sollers:
As if th' unseasonable fools
Had been a coursing in the schools;
Until th' had prov'd the Devil author
O' th' Covenant, and the Cause his daughter,
For when they charg'd him with the guilt
Of all the blood that had been spilt,
They did not mean he wrought th' effusion,
In person, like Sir PRIDE, or HUGHSON,
But only those who first begun
The quarrel were by him set on;
And who could those be but the Saints,
Those Reformation Termagants?
But e'er this pass'd, the wise debate
Spent so much time, it grew too late;
For OLIVER had gotten ground,
T' inclose him with his warriors round
Had brought his Providence about,
And turn'd th' untimely sophists out,
Nor had the UXBRIDGE bus'ness less
Of nonsense in't, or sottishness,
When from a scoundrel Holder-forth,
The scum as well as son o' th' earth,
Your mighty Senators took law;
At his command, were forc'd t' withdraw,
And sacrifice the peace o' th' nation
To doctrine, use and application.
So when the SCOTS, your constant cronies,
Th' espousers of your Cause and monies,
Who had so often, in your aid,
So many ways been soundly paid,
Came in at last for better ends,
To prove themselves your trusty friends,
You basely left them, and the Church
They train'd you up to, in the lurch,
And suffer'd your own tribe of Christians
To fall before, as true Philistines.
This shews what utensils y' have been,
To bring the King's concernments in;
Which is so far from being true,
That none but he can bring in you:
And if he take you into trust,
Will find you most exactly just:
Such as will punctually repay
With double interest, and betray.

Not that I think those pantomimes,
Who vary action with the times,
Are less ingenious in their art,
Than those who dully act one part;
Or those who turn from side to side,
More guilty than the wind and tide.
All countries are a wise man's home,
And so are governments to some,
Who change them for the same intrigues
That statesmen use in breaking leagues;
While others, in old faiths and troths,
Look odd as out-of-fashion'd cloths;
And nastier in an old opinion,
Than those who never shift their linnen.

For true and faithful's sure to lose,
Which way soever the game goes;
And whether parties lose or win,
Is always nick'd, or else hedg'd in:
While pow'r usurp'd, like stol'n delight,
Is more bewitching than the right;
And when the times begin to alter,
None rise so high as from the halter.

And so may we, if w' have but sense
To use the necessary means;
And not your usual stratagems
On one another, Lights and Dreams
To stand on terms as positive,
As if we did not take, but give:
Set up the Covenant on crutches,
'Gainst those who have us in their clutches,
And dream of pulling churches down,
Before w' are sure to prop our own:
Your constant method of proceeding,
Without the carnal mans of heeding;
Who 'twixt your inward sense and outward,
Are worse, than if y' had none, accoutred.
I grant, all courses are in vain,
Unless we can get in again;
The only way that's left us now;
But all the difficulty's, How?
'Tis true, w' have money, th' only pow 'r
That all mankind falls down before;
Money, that, like the swords of kings,
Is the last reason of all things;
And therefore need not doubt our play
Has all advantages that way;
As long as men have faith to sell,
And meet with those that can pay well;
Whose half-starv'd pride, and avarice,
One Church and State will not suffice
T' expose to sale, beside the wages
Of storing plagues to after-ages.
Nor is our money less our own,
Than 'twas before we laid it down;
For 'twill return, and turn t' account,
If we are brought, in play upon't:
Or but, by casting knaves, get in,
What pow 'r can hinder us to win?
We know the arts we us'd before,
In peace and war, and something more;
And by th' unfortunate events,
Can mend our next experiments:
For when w' are taken into trust,
How easy are the wisest choust?
Who see but th' outsides of our feats,
And not their secret springs and weights;
And while they're busy at their ease,
Can carry what designs we please.
How easy is it to serve for agents,
To prosecute our old engagements?
To keep the Good Old Cause on foot,
And present power from taking root?
Inflame them both with false alarms
Of plots and parties taking arms;
To keep the Nation's wounds too wide
From healing up of side to side;
Profess the passionat'st concerns
For both their interests by turns;
The only way to improve our own,
By dealing faithfully with none;
(As bowls run true, by being made
On purpose false, and to be sway'd
For if we should be true to either,
'Twould turn us out of both together;
And therefore have no other means
To stand upon our own defence,
But keeping up our ancient party
In vigour, confident and hearty:
To reconcile our late dissenters,
Our brethren, though by other venters;
Unite them, and their different maggots,
As long and short sticks are in faggots,
And make them join again as close
As when they first began t' espouse;
Erect them into separate
New Jewish tribes, in Church and State;
To join in marriage and commerce,
And only among themselves converse;
And all that are not of their mind,
Make enemies to all mankind:
Take all religions in and stickle
From Conclave down to Conventicle;
Agreeing still, or disagreeing,
According to the Light in being.
Sometimes for liberty of conscience,
And spiritual mis-rule, in one sense;
But in another quite contrary,
As dispensations chance to vary;
And stand for, as the times will bear it,
All contradictions of the Spirit:
Protect their emissaries, empower'd
To preach sedition and the word;
And when they're hamper'd by the laws,
Release the lab'rers for the Cause,
And turn the persecution back
On those that made the first attack;
To keep them equally in awe,
From breaking or maintaining law:
And when they have their fits too soon,
Before the full-tides of the moon,
Put off their zeal t' a fitter season
For sowing faction in and treason;
And keep them hooded, and their Churches,
Like hawks from baiting on their perches,
That, when the blessed time shall come
Of quitting BABYLON and ROME,
They may be ready to restore
Their own Fifth Monarchy once more.

Meanwhile be better arm'd to fence
Against revolts of Providence.
By watching narrowly, and snapping
All blind sides of it, they happen
For if success could make us Saints,
Or ruin turn'd us miscreants:
A scandal that wou'd fall too hard
Upon a few, and. unprepar'd.

These are the courses we must run,
Spight of our hearts, or be undone;
And not to stand on terms and freaks,
Before we have secur'd our necks;
But do our work, as out of sight,
As stars by day, and suns by night;
All licence of the people own,
In opposition to the Crown;
And for the Crown as fiercely side,
The head and body to divide;
The end of all we first design'd,
And all that yet remains behind
Be sure to spare no publick rapine,
On all emergencies, that happen;
For 'tis as easy to supplant
Authority as men in want;
As some of us, in trusts, have made
The one hand with the other trade;
Gain'd vastly by their joint endeavour;
The right a thief; the left receiver;
And what the one, by tricks, forestall'd,
The other, by as sly, retail'd.
For gain has wonderful effects
T' improve the Factory of Sects;
The rule of faith in all professions.
And great DIANA of the EPHESIANS;
Whence turning of Religion's made
The means to turn and wind a trade:
And though some change it for the worse,
They put themselves into a course;
And draw in store of customers,
To thrive the better in commerce:
For all Religions flock together,
Like tame and wild fowl of a feather;
To nab the itches of their sects,
As jades do one another's necks.
Hence 'tis, Hypocrisy as well
Will serve t' improve a Church as ZEAL:
As Persecution or Promotion,
Do equally advance Devotion.

Let business, like ill watches, go
Sometime too fast, sometime too slow;
For things in order are put out
So easy, Ease itself will do't;
But when the feat's design'd and meant,
What miracle can bar th' event?
For 'tis more easy to betray,
Than ruin any other way.
All possible occasions start
The weighty'st matters to divert;
Obstruct, perplex, distract, intangle,
And lay perpetual trains to wrangle.
But in affairs of less import,
That neither do us good nor hurt,
And they receive as little by,
Out-fawn as much, and out-comply;
And seem as scrupulously just,
To bait our hooks for greater trust;
But still be careful to cry down
All publick actions, though our own:
The least miscarriage aggravate,
And charge it all upon the Sate;
Express the horrid'st detestation,
And pity the distracted nation
Tell stories scandalous and false,
I' th' proper language of cabals,
Where all a subtle statesman says,
Is half in words, and half in face;
(As Spaniards talk in dialogues
Of heads and shoulders, nods and shrugs):
Entrust it under solemn vows
Of mum, and silence, and the rose,
To be retail'd again in whispers,
For th' easy credulous to disperse.

Thus far the Statesman - When a shout,
Heard at a distance, put him out;
And straight another, all aghast,
Rush'd in with equal fear and haste;
Who star'd about, as pale as death,
And, for a while, as out of breath;
Till having gather'd up his wits,
He thus began his tale by fits.

That beastly rabble - that came down
From all the garrets - in the town,
And stalls, and shop-boards - in vast swarms,
With new-chalk'd bills - and rusty arms,
To cry the Cause - up, heretofore,
And bawl the BISHOPS - out of door,
Are now drawn up - in greater shoals,
To roast - and broil us on the coals,
And all the Grandees - of our Members
Are carbonading - on the embers;
Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses -
Held forth by Rumps - of Pigs and Geese,
That serve for Characters - and Badges.
To represent their Personages:
Each bonfire is a funeral pile,
In which they roast, and scorch, and broil,
And ev'ry representative
Have vow'd to roast - and broil alive:

And 'tis a miracle, we are not
Already sacrific' incarnate.
For while we wrangle here, and jar,
W' are grilly'd all at TEMPLE-BAR:
Some on the sign-post of an ale-house,
Hang in effigy, on the gallows;
Made up of rags, to personate
Respective Officers of State;
That henceforth they may stand reputed,
Proscrib'd in law, and executed;
And while the Work is carrying on
Be ready listed under DON,
That worthy patriot, once the bellows,
And tinder-box, of all his fellows;
The activ'st Member of the Five,
As well as the most primitive;
Who, for his faithful service then
Is chosen for a Fifth agen:
(For since the State has made a Quint
Of Generals, he's listed in't.)
This worthy, as the world will say,
Is paid in specie, his own way;
For, moulded to the life in clouts,
Th' have pick'd from dung-hills hereabouts,
He's mounted on a hazel bavin,
A cropp'd malignant baker gave 'm;
And to the largest bone-fire riding,
They've roasted COOK already and PRIDE in;
On whom in equipage and state,
His scarecrow fellow-members wait,
And march in order, two and two,
As at thanksgivings th' us'd to do;
Each in a tatter'd talisman,
Like vermin in effigie slain.

But (what's more dreadful than the rest)
Those Rumps are but the tail o' th' Beast,
Set up by Popish engineers,
As by the crackers plainly appears;
For none but Jesuits have a mission
To preach the faith with ammunition,
And propagate the Church with powder:
Their founder was a blown-up Soldier.
These spiritual pioneers o' th' Whore's,
That have the charge of all her stores,
Since first they fail'd in their designs,
To take in Heav'n by springing mines,
And with unanswerable barrels
Of gunpowder dispute their quarrels,
Now take a course more practicable,
By laying trains to fire the rabble,
And blow us up in th' open streets,
Disguis'd in Rumps, like Sambenites;
More like to ruin, and confound,
Than all the doctrines under ground.

Nor have they chosen Rumps amiss
For symbols of State-mysteries;
Though some suppose 'twas but to shew
How much they scorn'd the Saints, the few;
Who, 'cause they're wasted to the stumps,
Are represented best by Rumps.
But Jesuits have deeper reaches
In all their politick far-fetches,
And from the Coptick Priest, Kircherus,
Found out this mystick way to jeer us.
For, as th' Egyptians us'd by bees
T' express their antick PTOLOMIES;
And by their stings, the swords they wore,
Held forth authority and power;
Because these subtil animals
Bear all their int'rests in their tails;
And when they're once impar'd in that,
Are banish'd their well-order'd state;
They thought all governments were best
By Hieroglyphick Rumps exprest.

For, as in bodies natural,
The rump's the fundament of all;
So, in a commonwealth, or realm,
The government is call'd the helm;
With which, like vessels under sail,
They're turn'd and winded by the tail;
The tail, which birds and fishes steer
Their courses with through sea and air;
To whom the rudder of the rump is
The same thing with the stern and compass.
This shews how perfectly the Rump
And Commonwealth in nature jump.
For as a fly, that goes to bed,
Rests with his tail above his head,
So in this mungrel state of ours;
The rabble are the supreme powers;
That hors'd us on their backs, to show us
A jadish trick at last, and throw us.

The learned Rabbins of the Jews
Write there's a bone, which they call leuz,
I' th' rump of man, of such a virtue,
No force in nature can do hurt to;
And therefore at the last great day,
All th' other members shall, they say,
Spring out of this, as from a seed
All sorts of vegetals proceed;
From whence the learned sons of art
Os Sacrum justly stile that part.
Then what can better represent
Than this Rump Bone the Parliament;
That, alter several rude ejections,
And as prodigious resurrections,
With new reversions of nine lives,
Starts up, and like a cat revives?

But now, alas! they're all expir'd,
And th' House, as well as Members, fir'd;
Consum'd in kennels by the rout,
With which they other fires put out:
Condemn'd t' ungoverning distress,
And paultry, private wretchedness;
Worse than the Devil, to privation,
Beyond all hopes of restoration;
And parted, like the body and soul,
From all dominion and controul.
We, who cou'd lately with a look
Enact, establish, or revoke;
Whose arbitrary nods gave law,
And frowns kept multitudes in awe;
Before the bluster of whose huff,
All hats, as in a storm, flew off;
Ador'd and bowed to by the great,
Down to the footman and valet;
Had more bent knees than chapel-mats,
And prayers than the crowns of hats;
Shall now be scorn'd as wretchedly;
For ruin's just as low as high;
Which might be suffer'd, were it all
The horror that attends our fall:
For some of us have scores more large
Than heads and quarters can discharge;
And others, who, by restless scraping,
With publick frauds, and private rapine,
Have mighty heaps of wealth amass'd,
Would gladly lay down all at last;
And to be but undone, entail
Their vessels on perpetual jail;
And bless the Dev'l to let them farms
Of forfeit souls on no worse terms.

This said, a near and louder shout
Put all th' assembly to the rout,
Who now begun t' out-run their fear,
As horses do from whom they bear;
But crowded on with so mach haste,
Until th' had block'd the passage fast,
And barricado'd it with haunches
Of outward men, and bulks, and paunches,
That with their shoulders strove to squeeze,
And rather save a crippled piece
Of all their crush'd and broken members,
Than have them grilled on the embers;
Still pressing on with heavy packs
Of one another on their backs:
The van-guard could no longer hear
The charges of the forlorn rear,
But, born down headlong by the rout,
Were trampled sorely under foot:
Yet nothing prov'd so formidable
As the horrid cookery of the rabble;
And fear, that keeps all feeling out,
As lesser pains are by the gout,
Reliev'd 'em with a fresh supply
Of rallied force enough to fly,
And beat a Tuscan running-horse,
Whose jockey-rider is all spurs.