# Hudibras/Part 3/Canto 1

PART III. CANTO I.
ARGUMENT.
PART III. CANTO I.
R. Cooper sculp$^t$.
William Lilly.
From an Original Picture in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
R. Cooper sculp$^t$.
Niccolo Macchiavelli.
From a Print by Raphael Morghen after a Picture by Bronzino.
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, 1595 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, 1600 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, 1605 Which now come near an even rate.
* ↑ That is, surrender, or give up: from the French rendre.
* ↑ This was one of the extravagant follies of Caligula. He assumed to be a god and boasted of embracing the moon. See Suetonius, Life of Caligula (Bohn's edit. p. 266).
* ↑ The meaning is, that when men have flattered their mistresses extravagantly, and declared them to be more than human, they must not be surprised or complain, if they are treated in return with that distant reserve which superior beings may rightly exercise towards inferior creatures.
* ↑ Drowned themselves. Objects reflected by water appear nearly the same as when they are viewed through the windows of a room so high from the ground that it dazzles to look down from it. Thus Juvenal, Sat. vi. v. 31, Altæ caligantesque fenestræ: which Holyday translates, dazzling high windows.
* ↑ The heroes of romance endeavoured to conciliate the affections of their mistresses by the fame of their illustrious exploits. So was Desdemona won. Othello, Act i., "She lov'd me for the dangers I had past."
* ↑ Ordeal comes from the Anglo-Saxon ordal, and signifies judgement. The methods of trial by fire, water, or combat, were in use till the time of Henry III., and the right of exercising them was annexed to several lordships or manors, At this day, when a culprit is arraigned at the bar, and asked how he will be tried, he is directed to answer, "by God and my country," by the verdict or solemn opinion of a jury. "By God" only, would formerly have meant the ordeal, which referred the case immediately to the divine judgment.
* ↑ In former times, when scholarship was rare and almost confined to priests, a person who was tried for any capital crime, except treason or sacrilege, might obtain an acquittal by praying his clergy; the meaning of which was to call for a Latin Bible, and read a passage in it, generally selected from the Psalms. If he exhibited this capacity, the ordinary certified quod legit, and he was saved as a person of learning, who might be useful to the state; otherwise he was hanged. Hence the saying among the people, that if they could not read their neck-verse at sessions, they must sing it at the gallows, it being customary to give out a psalm to be sung preliminary to the execution.
* ↑ In the use of this term the saints unwittingly concurred with the old philosophers, who also called the body a vessel.
* ↑ Some editions read fritters; but the corrected one of 1678 has fitters, a phrase often used by romance writers, very frequently by the author of the Romaunt of Romaunts. Fitters signifies small fragments, from fetta, Ital., fetzen, Germ.
* ↑ The bull-fights at Madrid have been frequently described. The ladies have always taken a zealous part at these combats.
* ↑ That is, large and small pockets. Poke from poche, a large pocket, bag, or sack. So "a pig in a poke."
* ↑ Knick-knacks, or trinkets. See Wright's Glossary.
* ↑ The mutual accusations of the Knight and Sidrophel, if established, might hang both of them. Halter-proof is to be in no danger from a halter, as musket-proof is to be in no danger from a musket: to render neither halter-proof is to leave both in danger of being hanged.
* ↑ Ralpho considers that he should not have escaped the whipping intended for him by the Knight, if their dispute had not been interrupted by the riding-show, or skimmington.
* ↑ The author has long had an eye to the selfishness and treachery of the leading parties, the Presbyterians and Independents. A few lines below he speaks more plainly: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. The reader will remember that Hudibras represents the Presbyterians, and Ralpho the the Independents: this scene therefore alludes to the manner in which the latter supplanted the former in the civil war.
* ↑ To swear he had undergone the stipulated whipping, and then demand the performance of her part of the bargain.
* ↑ His honour and conscience, which might forfeit some of their immunities by perjury, as the outward ears do for the same crime in the sentence of the statute law.
* ↑ Thus in Hamlet, Act ii. sc. 2:I'll board him presently.—O, give me leave.— How does my good lord Hamlet? See also Twelfth Night, Act i. sc. 3; and Taming of the Shrew, Act i. sc. 2.
* ↑ Longees are thrusts made by fencers.
* ↑ "And now, being come within compass of discerning her, be began to frame the loveliest countenance that he could; stroking up his legs, setting up his beard in due order, and standing bolt upright." Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, lib iii. p. 349. See also Troilus and Cressida, Act i.; Cleveland's Mixt Assembly, p. 43; Don Quixote, Part i. book iii. chap. 12.
* ↑ This rhyme is used before by Crashaw, in his Delights of the Muses, published in 1646:I wish her beauty, That owes not all its duty To gaudy tire, or glistering shoe-ty.
* ↑ Roman Catholics used to scourge themselves before the image of a favourite saint.
* ↑ The lady here with amusing affectation speaks as if the event had happened some time before, though in reality it was only the preceding day.
* ↑ From the stocks.
* ↑ Var. To th' good behaviour.
* ↑ Alluding to the famous story of Peter and John de Carvajal, who, being unjustly condemned for murder, and taken for execution, summoned the king, Ferdinand the Fourth of Spain, to appear before God's tribunal in thirty days. The king laughed at the summons, but it nevertheless disquieted him, and though he remained apparently in good health on the day before, he was found dead in his bed on the morning of the thirtieth day. Mariana says there can be no doubt of the truth of this story.
* ↑ Meaning the combination of saintship, or being righteous over-much, with selfishness and knavery.
* ↑ The reference is to the text:—"Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven." Matthew xviii. 13.
* ↑ The Knight argues that, since temporal punishments may be mitigated and commuted, the best securities for truth and honesty are such oaths as his.
* ↑ Var. Seals in edition of 1678.
* ↑ For two evil and delinquent spirits.
* ↑ Sir Samuel Morland's speaking trumpet was so called after Homer's far-famed brazen-tongued Stentor. See Iliad, v. 785.
* ↑ The later editions read, when thou'dst.
* ↑ This was the famous saying of Roger Bacon's brazen head.
* ↑ The epithets chaste and contemplative are used ironically. Bulwer, in his Artificial Changeling, p. 209, says, "the Turks call those that are young, and have no beards, bardasses," that is, sodomitical boys.
* ↑ Sir Samuel Luke, it will be remembered, was scout-master. See p. 4, note $^2$.
* ↑ In the romances of knight-errantry the heroes always invoke their mistresses upon such occasions.
* ↑ Some editions read: When I furiously—
* ↑ O, for pity, is a favourite expression, frequently used by Spenser.
* ↑ That is, whim, fancy, from the Italian capriccio.
* ↑ Cowage, or Cow-itch (Mucuna pruriens), a plant introduced from the East Indies in 1680, the pod of which is covered with short hairs, which, if applied to the skin, cause great itching. It is still sometimes used by country lads and lasses in various ways, to tease each other with.
* ↑ Dewtry is the old English name for Datura, a plant belonging to the Natural Order of Night-shades, all of which are extremely narcotic, and by some old writer said to be intoxicating and aphrodisiac. Stramonium is the English species. One of the inquiries of the time, instigated by the Royal Society, was as to the properties of Datura. See Sprat's History of the Royal Society, p. 161, et seq. Advrowtry signifies adultery, and is so used by Bacon, in his Life of Henry VII.
* ↑ Alchymists were called hermetic philosophers. Manicon (or strychnon) is another narcotic, and is so called from its power of causing madness. Authors differ as to its modern name, some supposing it to be the Physalis, or winter-cherry, others the black night-shade, See Pliny's Natural Hist. (Bohn's edit.) vol. v. p. 241, 266. Banquo, in Shakspeare's Macbeth, seems to allude to it when he says:Were such things here, as we do speak about? Or have we eaten of the insane root, That takes the reason prisoner?Act i.
* ↑ A banter on the pretended Discoverers of the Philosopher's Stone, one of whom, Van Helmont, asserted in his book, that he had made nearly eight ounces of gold by projecting a grain of his powder upon eight ounces of quicksilver.
* ↑ The alchymists pretended to be able to transmute the baser metals into gold. Antic means antique or ancient, perhaps quizzing the Royal Society; or Butler might mean those dreamers among the ancients, who gave occasion to the proverb, "pro thesauro carbones;" they dreamed of gold, but on examination found coals; it is frequently applied by Lucian and Phedrus. It must be borne in mind, however, that Carbon is the constituent part of diamonds and gold as well as of coal.
* ↑ The signatures of plants were marks or figures upon them, which were thought to point out their medicinal qualties. Thus Wood-sorrel was used as a cordial, because its leaf is shaped like a heart. Liverwort was given for disorders of the liver. The herb Dragon was employed to counteract the effects of poison, because its stem is speckled like some serpents. The yellow juice of the Celandine recommended it for the cure of the jaundice, and Paracelsus said, that the spots on the leaves of the Persicaria maculosa proved its efficacy in the scurvy.
* ↑ The multiplying glass, concave mirror, camera obscura, and other inventions, which were new in our author's time, passed with the vulgar for enchantments: and as the law against witches was then in force, the ex- hibitors of these curiosities were in some danger of being sentenced to Bridewell, the pillory, or the halter.
* ↑ Alluding to the occupation of minor criminals in Bridewell, who beat the hemp with which greater criminals were hanged.
* ↑ According to the rules of knight-errantry. See Don Quixote (book iii. ch. 1), and romances in general.
* ↑ Meaning that he was a pimp, or pander.
* ↑ William Lilly says he was fourteen years before he could get an elf or ghost of a departed witch, but at last found one in Lancashire. This country has always been famous for witches, but the ladies there are now so called out of compliment to their witchery or beauty.
* ↑ Lapland is head-quarters for witchcraft, and it is from these Scandinavians that we derive the accepted tradition that witches ride through the air on broom-sticks. See Scheffer's History of Lapland, Mallet's Northern Antiquities, and Keightley's Fairy Mythology.
* ↑ The poet intimates that Sidrophel, being much plagued with lice, had made a talisman, or formed a louse in a certain position of the stars, to chase away this kind of vermin.
* ↑ The talisman of a flea, a louse, and a bug. Morpion and Punaise are French terms.
* ↑ Meaning the balance for watches, which may be called a substitute for the pendulum, and was invented about our author's time by Dr Hooke.
* ↑ The Dissenters are ridiculed for an affected sanctity, and turning up the whites of their eyes, which Echard calls "showing the heavenly part of the eye." Thus Ben Jonson in his story of Cocklossel and the Devil,To help it he called for a puritan poacht That used to turn up the eggs of his eyes. And Fenton (in his Epistle to Southerne):Her eyes she disciplin'd percisely right, Both when to wink, and how to turn the white. See also Tale of a Tub, p. 207.
* ↑ When any one takes an oath, he puts his right hand to the book, that is, to the New Testament, and kisses it; but the Covenanters, in swearing, refused to kiss the book, saying it was Popish and superstitious; and substituted the ceremony of holding up the right hand, which they used also in taking any oath before the magistrate.
* ↑ This is an equivocation; the "vessel" is evidently not the abject suitor, but the lady herself.
* ↑ The Knight still means the widow, but speaks as if he meant himself.
* ↑ "Jump punctual" means to agree exactly. "You will find" (says Petyt, in his Visions of the Reformation) "that though they have two faces that look different ways, yet they have both the same lineaments, the same principles, and the same practices."
* ↑ When a woman pretends to be pregnant, in order to gain a respite from her sentence, the fact must be ascertained by a jury of matrons.
* ↑ It was made felony by Act 8 Ric. II., and 8 Hen. VI., cap. 12.
* ↑ Mark xii. 25: "For when they shall arise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage."
* ↑ That is, bargains and marriages.
* ↑ Plurimus in cœlis amor est, connubia nulla:  Conjugia in terris plurima, nullis amor. J. Owen, Epigram, lib. 2.
* ↑ Thus thought Eloise, according to Pope: Love, free as air, at sight of human ties, Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies. So Chaucer, in his Frankeleynes Tale: Love wol not be constrained by maistrie: Whan maistre cometh, the god of love anon Beteth his winges, and, farewel, he is gon.
* ↑ That is, where if one of them is faulty, the other is drawn into difficulties by it, and the truest lover is likely to be the greatest sufferer.
* ↑ The custom among the Romans was to chain the right hand of the culprit to the left hand of the guard.
* ↑ Sir Thomas Brown says that he could be content that we might procreate like trees without conjunction.
* ↑ An equivocation. The words "to have and to hold," in the marriage ceremony, signify "I take to possess and keep;" in deeds of conveyance their meaning is, "I give to be possessed and kept by another." The Salisbury Missal (see edition 1554) reads, "I take thee for my wedded wife to have and to hold for this day."
* ↑ Some editions read, the bet is laid.
* ↑ This would seem to mean generation on faith; but Dr Johnson says, implicit signifies mixt, complicated, intricate, perplexed. Grey illustrates the reference by the story of a woman who alleged that she was enceinte by her husband, though he had been three years absent from her, upon the plea that she had received very comfortable letters from him.
* ↑ The interpretation of the law was, that a child could not be deemed a bastard, if the husband had remained in the island, or within the four seas. See Butler's Remains, vol. i. p. 122.
* ↑ The villains were a sort of serfs or slaves, bound to the land, and passed with it to any purchaser: as the lord was not answerable for anything done by his villain tenant, no more is the wife for anything done by her villain husband, though he is bound to justify and maintain all that his wife does.
* ↑ Meaning that the husband is bound under all circumstances to maintain the credit of his wife, a condition as degrading as that of villainage, by which the tenants were bound to render the most abject services to their lords; while the wife, on the other hand, is in no respect responsible for her husband.
* ↑ A legal cuckold is one who has proved his title by an action for damages.
* ↑ These are names given in law proceedings to indefinite persons, like John Doe and Richard Roe, or Caius and Titus, in the civil law. See an amusing paper on the subject in Spectator, 577. But Butler has humorously changed John o' Nokes into a female.
* ↑ The gipsies, it is said, are satisfied of the validity of such decisions.
* ↑ Alluding to several revisions of the Common Prayer before the last, where it stood, "til death us depart," and then was altered to, "til death us do part."
* ↑ They used to burn themselves on the funeral piles of their husbands; a custom which has but recently been abolished.
* ↑ Set, that is, the game, a term at tennis.
* ↑ The doctrine of metempsychosis. Pythagoras, according to Heraclides, used to say that he remembered not only what men, but what plants and what animals, his soul had passed through. And Empedocles declared of himself, that he had been first a boy, then a girl, then a plant, then a bird, then a fish.
* ↑ In the edition of 1678, "ere so fond."
* ↑ Metals, if applied to the flesh, in very cold climates, occasion extreme pain. This well-known fact is occasioned by the rapid and excessive abstraction of caloric from the flesh; just as a burn is by the rapid and excessive communication of it. Virgil, in his Georgics, I. 92, speaks of cold as burning. Some years ago, we believe in 1814, a report ran through the newspapers that a boy, putting his tongue, out of bravado, to the iron of Menai bridge, when the cold was below zero, found it adhere so violently, that it could not be withdrawn without surgical aid, and the loss of part of it.
* ↑ That is, becomes as hard and frail as glass: for after being melted in the furnace of desire, he congeals like melted glass, which, when the heat is over, is not unlike ice.
* ↑ Made over their property, in trust, to a third person for their sole and separate use.
* ↑ Sir Kenelm Digby, in his Treatise on Bodies, chap. 36, § 38, relates this story of the fox.
* ↑ Signifying a mere toss up, heads or tails.
* ↑ On the shillings of Philip and Mary, coined 1555, the faces are placed opposite, and near to each other. Cleveland, in his poem on an Hermaphrodite, has a similar expression:"Thus did nature's mintage vary, Coining thee a Philip and Mary."
* ↑ The bride, among the Romans, was brought home to her husband in a yellow veil. The widow intimates that the yellow colour of the veil was an emblem of jealousy.
* ↑ The later editions read crincam; either of them is a cant word, denoting an infectious disease, or whimsical affection of the mind, applied commonly to love, lewdness, or jealousy. Thus, in the manors of East and West Enborne, in Berkshire, if the widow by incontinence forfeits her free bench, she may recover it again by riding into the next manor court, backward, on a black ram, with his tail in her hand, and saying the following words:Here I am, riding upon a black ram. Like a whore as I am: And for my crincum crancum, Have lost my bincum bancum. Blount's Fragmenta Antiq. p. 144. Nares's Glossary affords the following illustration. "You must know, Sir, in a nobleman 'tis abusive; no, in him the serpigo, in a knight the grincomes, in a gentleman the Neapolitan scabb, and in a serving man or artificer the plaine pox." Jones's Adrasta, 1635. But see Wright's Glossary, sub voc. Crincombes, Crancum, Grincomes.
* ↑ Aches was a dissyllable in Butler's time, and long afterwards. See note $^3$ at page 191.
* ↑ In some countries, after the wife has recovered from her lying in, it has been the custom for the husband to go to bed, and be treated with the same care and tenderness. See Apollonius Rhodius, II. 1013, and Valerius Flaccus, v. 148. The history of mankind hath scarcely furnished any thing more unaccountable than the prevalence of this custom. We meet with it in ancient and modern times, in the Old World and in the New, among nations who could never have had the least intercourse with each other. It is practised in China, and in Purchas's Pilgrims it is said to be practised among the Brazilians. At Haarlem, a cambric cockade hung to the door, shows that the woman of the house is brought to bed, and that her husband claims a protection from arrests during the six weeks of his wife's confinement. Polnitz Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 396.
* ↑ Raw and inexperienced youths; green is still used in the same sense. Shakespeare, in Hamlet, Act iv. sc. 5, says: And we have done but greenly to inter him.
* ↑ Nicholas Monardes, a physician of Seville, who died 1577, tells us, that this disease was supposed to have been brought into Europe at the siege of Naples, from the West Indies, by some of Columbus's sailors who accompanied him to Naples, on his return from his first voyage in 1493. When peace was there made between the French and Spaniards, the armies of both nations had free intercourse, and conversing with the same women were infected by this disorder. The Spaniards thought they had received the contagion from the French, and the French maintained that it had been communicated to them by the Spaniards. Guicciardini, at the end of his second book of the History of Italy, dates the origin of this distemper in Europe, at the year 1495. But Dr Gascoigne, as quoted by Anthony Wood, says he knew several persons who had died of it in his time, that is, before 1457, in which year his will was proved. Indeed, after all the pains which have been taken by inquisitive writers to prove that this disease was brought from America, or the West Indies, the fact is not sufficiently established. Perhaps it was generated in Guinea, or some other equinoctial part of Africa. Astruc, who wrote the History of Diseases, says it was brought from the West Indies, between the years 1494 and 1496. In the earliest printed book on the subject, Leonicenus de Epidemia quam Itali Morbem Gallicum, Galli vero Neapolitanum vocant, Venet. Aldi, 1497, the disease is said to have been till then unknown in Ferrara.
* ↑ Alluding to the words of the marriage ceremony: so in the following lines,—with their bodies bound To worship.
* ↑ Masks were introduced at the Restoration, and were then worn as a distinctive sign by the gay ladies of the theatre. Afterwards the use of them became more general.
* ↑ The poet humorously compares the noise and clamour of a scolding wife, which breaks the drum of her husband's ears, to the petard, or short cannon, used for beating down the gates of a castle.
* ↑ This was one of the early beliefs respecting the silkworm. See Edward Williams' Virginia's richly valued, Lond. 1650, p. 26.
* ↑ The Sirens, according to the poets, were three sea-monsters, half women and half fish; their names were Parthenope, Ligea, and Leucosia. Their usual residence was about the island of Sicily, where, by the charming melody of their voices, they used to detain those that heard them, and then transformed them into some sort of brute animals.
* ↑ Ancient botanists entertained various conceits about this plant; in its forked roots they discovered the shapes of men and women; and the sound which proceeded from its strong fibres when strained or torn from the ground, they took for the voice of a human being; sometimes they imagined that they had distinctly heard their conversation. The poet takes the liberty of enlarging upon those hints, and represents the mandrake husband and wife quarrelling under ground; a situation, he says, not more uncomfortable than that of a married pair continually at variance, since these, if not in fact buried alive, are so virtually.
* ↑ Thus Cleveland:Adam, 'till his rib was lost, Had the sexes thus engrost. When Providence our sire did cleave, And out of Adam carved Eve, Then did man 'bout wedlock treat, To make his body up complete.
* ↑ Anagram means a transposition of the letters of a word by which a new meaning is extracted from it; as in Dr Burney's well-known anagram of Horatio Nelson—Honor est a Nilo. Man is often called the microcosm, or world in miniature, and it is in this sense that Butler describes him.
* ↑ In the Symposium of Plato, Aristophanes, one of the dialogists, relates, that the human species, at its original formation, consisted not only of males and females, but of a third kind, combining both sexes in one. This last species, it is said, having rebelled against Jupiter, was, by way of punishment, completely divided; whence the strong propensity which inclines the separate parts to a reünion, and the assumed origin of love. And since it is hardly possible that the dissevered moieties should stumble upon each other, after they have wandered about the earth, we may, upon the same hypothesis, account for the number of unhappy and disproportionate matches which men daily encounter, by saying that they mistake their proper halves. Moore makes a happy use of this notion in speaking of ballad music before it is wedded to poetry: "A pretty air without words resembles one of those half creatures of Plato, which are described as wandering in search of the remainder of themselves through the world."—National Airs.
* ↑ That is, that join insensibly in an imperceptible line, like the imaginary lines of mathematicians. Other heavens, that is, the real heavens.
* ↑ Alluding to the sexual laws of nature, as typified in plants down to the smallest forms.
* ↑ See Lord Bacon's Essay, No. viii.
* ↑ The Amazons, according to the old mythological stories, avoided marriage and permitted no men to live amongst them, nevertheless held periodical intercourse with them. The vestals were under a vow of perpetual chastity.
* ↑ Diogenes asserted that marriage was nothing but an empty name. And Zeno, the father of the Stoics, maintained that all women ought to be common, that no words were obscene, and no parts of the body need be covered.
* ↑ i. e. such intercommunity of women would be productive of the worst consequences, unless mankind were reduced to the most barbarous state of nature, and men became altogether brutes.
* ↑ If there had been no matrimony, we should have had no provision made for us by our forefathers; but, like younger children of our primitive parent the earth, should have been excluded from every possession.
* ↑ Charles-street, Drury-lane, inhabited chiefly by strumpets.
* ↑ Meaning ladies of pleasure. The Lady of the Lake was represented in some of the old romances as a mistress of king Arthur.
* ↑ Thus Mr Pope:For sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient race, Are, as when women, wond'rous fond of place. Our poet, though vindicating the ladies and the happy state of matrimony, cannot help introducing this stroke of satire: Bastards have no place, or rank.
* ↑ That is, will not even go to church if they have not their right of precedence. Chaucer says of the wife of Bath, 451:In all the parish wif ne was there non, That to the offring before hire shulde gon, And if ther did, certain so wroth was she, That she was out of alle charitee.
* ↑ Meaning benefit of clergy, on account of pregnancy. See note on line 522, at page 286.
* ↑ This alludes to the form enjoined in the Directory, when it was contrary to law to be married by the service in the Book of Common Prayer.
* ↑ So Terence. The quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love. Andria III. 3.
* ↑ Coy, or Coye, is used here in the sense of toying or fondling. So Shakspeare,"Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed, While I thy amiable cheek do coy." Mids. N. D. Act iv. sc. 1. But see Wright's Glossary sub voce.
* ↑ That is, makes them irrevocable, and secures the title; as passing a fine in law does a conveyance or settlement.
* ↑ In this speech the Knight makes amends for previous uncourteousness, and defends the ladies and the married state with great gallantry, wit, and good sense.
* ↑ That is, shot at random, not at a target.
* ↑ The fairies were believed to be capable of exchanging infants in the cradle for some of their own "Elfin brood," or for the children of other parents. See Keightley's Fairy Mythology.
* ↑ Alluding to the form of marriage in the Common Prayer Book, where the fee is directed to be put upon the book with the wedding-ring, and the bridegroom endows the bride with all his worldly goods.
* ↑ Fines, signifies pays; implying that her wealth, by exposing her to the snares of fortune-hunters, may be the cause of her destruction.
* ↑ The sluts or draggle-tails. See Wright's Provincial Dictionary.
* ↑ That is, the widow's children by a former husband, who are under age; to whom the lover would willingly be guardian, to have the management of the jointure.
* ↑ This is still imposed at forfeits. But see Pepys's Diary.
* ↑ Fashionable games much in vogue in the time of Charles II. Ombre was introduced at the Restoration. Beast, or Angel-beast, was similar to Loo. "I love my love with an A," was one of the favourite amusements at Whitehall. Pepys tells us that he once found the Duke and Duchess of York, with all the great ladies at Whitehall, "sitting upon a carpet upon the ground, there being no chairs, playing at 'I love my love with an A, because he is so and so; and I hate him with an A, because of this and that;' and some of them, particularly the Duchess herself, and my Lady Castlemaine, were very witty."
* ↑ The widow, in these and the following lines, gives no bad sketch of a person who endeavours to retrieve his circumstances by marriage, and practises every method in his power to recommend himself to his rich mistress: he plays with her at Questions and Commands, endeavours to divert her with cards, puts himself in masquerade, flirts her fan, talks of flames and darts, aches and sufferings; which last, the poet intimates, might more justly be attributed to other causes.
* ↑ Masks were kept close to the face, by a bead fixed to the inside of them, and held in the mouth, when the lady's hands were otherwise employed.
* ↑ At the vulgar play of Questions and Commands, a forfeit was often to take off a lady's garter: expecting this therefore the lady provided herself with new ones.
* ↑ That is, made use of, or practised.
* ↑ These are the two principal rent days in the year: unsatisfactory to the landlord, when his outgoings exceed his incomings.
* ↑ Here the poet shows his knowledge of the law, and law terms, which he always uses with great propriety. Execution is obtaining possession of anything recovered by judgment of law. Extent is a writ of execution at the suit of the crown, which extends over all the defendant's lands and other property, in order to satisfy a bond, engagement, or forfeit. Exigent is a writ requiring a person to appear; and lies where the defendant in an action cannot personally be found, or on anything of his in the country, whereby he may be distrained. Scire facias is a writ to enforce the execution of judgment.
* ↑ Haste, bustle. Wright's Provincial Dictionary.
* ↑ Two princes celebrated for their valour in the 11th century. The former the predecessor, the latter the son and successor, of Canute the Great.
* ↑ A sort of divination by circles and pricks in the earth; used here for any sort of conjuring. The Knight's trance was a swoon through fear.
* ↑ Lapland, on account of its remaining pagan so long, was celebrated through the rest of Europe as the country of magicians and witches. They are reputed to have obtained the revelations necessary to making their predictions during trances.
* ↑ This circumstance happened to Sir Richard Philips, of Picton Castle, in Pembrokeshire. The Cavaliers, commanded by Colonel Egerton, attacked this place, and demanded a parley. Sir Richard consented; and, being a little man, stepped upon a bench, and showed himself at one of the windows. The colonel, who was high in stature, sat on horseback underneath; and pretending to be deaf, desired the other to come as near him as he could. Sir Richard then leaned a good deal from the window; when the colonel seized him by the ears, and drew him out. Soon after the castle surrendered.
* ↑ Alluding to the use of cautery in apoplexy.
* ↑ This scene is imitated, but with much less wit and learning, in a poem called Dunstable Downs, falsely attributed to Butler.
* ↑ Your old friends and companions.
* ↑ The Knight confesses that he would have sacrificed his conscience to money; in reality, he had rid himself of it long before.
* ↑ To provide for herself, as horses do when they are turned to grass. The poet might possibly intend a jeu de mot. Alimony is a separate maintenance paid by the husband to the wife, where she is not convicted of adultery. The Earl of Strafford relates a case rather worse than Hudibras intended;—Queen Elizabeth reprimanded Stakeley for ill-using his wife, to which he replied, that "he had already turned her into her petticoat, and if any one could make more of her, they might take her for him."
* ↑ The small bell, which rings immediately before the minister begins the church service, is called the saints' bell; and when the clerk has rung it he says, "he has rung all in."
* ↑ The devils are here looked upon as landlords of the meeting-houses, since the tenants of them were known to be so diabolical, and to hold them by no good title; but as it was uncertain how long these lawless times would last, the poet makes the devils let them only by the year: now when anything is actually let, landlords never come there, that is, have excluded themselves from all right to the use of the premises.
* ↑ I remember an old attorney, who told me, a little before his death, that he had been reckoned a very great rascal, and believed he was so, for he had done many roguish and infamous things in his profession: "but," adds he, "by what I can observe of the rising generation, the time may come, and you may live to see it, when I shall be accounted a very honest man, in comparison with those attorneys who are to succeed me."Nash.
* ↑ A banter on the pamphlets in those days, under the name and form of Catechisms: Heylin's Rebel's Catechism, Watson's Cavalier's Catechism, Ram's Soldier's Catechism, Parker's Political Catechism, &c. &c.
* ↑ Both Presbyterians and Independents were fond of saying one of us; that is, one of the holy brethren, the elect number, the godly party.
* ↑ Alluding to the Great Plague of London, in 1665, which destroyed 68,586 people. Defoe gives a very graphic and painfully interesting account of it.
* ↑ A committee was appointed November 11, 1646, to inquire into the value of all church-livings, in order to plant an able ministry, as was pretended; but, in truth, to discover the best and fattest benefices, that the champions of the cause might choose for themselves. Whereof some had three or four a-piece; a lack being pretended of competent pastors. When a living was small, the church doors were shut up. "I could name an assembly-man," says Sir William Dugdale, in his Short View, "who being told by an eminent person that a certain church had no incumbent, inquired the value of it; and receiving for answer that it was about £50 a-year, he said, if it be no better worth, no godly man will accept it."
* ↑ —Administerings. See P. iii. c. ii. v. 55.
* ↑ That is, a bishop who wears lawn sleeves.
* ↑ Moral goodness was deemed a mean attainment, and much beneath the character of saints, who held grace and inspiration to be all meritorious, and virtue to have no merit; nay, some even thought virtue impious, when it is rooted only in nature, and not imputed; some of the modern sects are supposed to hold tenets not very unlike this. Nash.
* ↑ It is reported of Judge Jefferys, that taking a dislike to a witness who had a long beard, he told him that "if his conscience was as long as his beard, he had a swinging one:" to which the countryman replied, "My Lord, if you measure consciences by beards, you have none at all."
* ↑ Nicholas Machiavelli was the great Florentine Historian and Statesman of the 16th cent. His political principles were loudly condemned by the Puritans, because they considered them identified with those of Charles I. Nick is a name of the devil, taken from the old Scandinavian and Teutonic name of a kind of water-spirit. See Keightley's Fairy Mythology. When Machiavel is represented as such a proficient in wickedness, that his name hath become an appellation for the devil himself, we are not less entertained by the smartness of the sentiment, than we should be if it were supported by the truth of history. By the same kind of poetical license Empedodes, in the second canto, is humorously said to have been acquainted with the writings of Alexander Ross, who did not live till about 2000 years after him.
* ↑ The moon is here said to influence the tides and motions of the sea, and half mankind, who are assumed to be more or less lunatic.
* ↑ Insane persons are supposed to be worst at the change and full of the moon, when the tides are highest.
* ↑ Meaning this religious knight-errantry: this search after trifling offences, with intent to punish them as crying sins. Ralpho, who now supposed himself alone, vents his sorrows in this soliloquy, which is so artfully worded, as equally to suit his own case and the Knight's, and to censure the conduct of both. Hence the latter applies the whole as meant to be directed to himself, and comments upon it accordingly to v. 1400, after which the squire improves on his master's mistake, and counterfeits the ghost in earnest. This seems to have been Butler's meaning, though not readily to be collected from his words. Holy brotherhood alludes to the society instituted in Spain, called La Santa Hermandad, employed in detecting and apprehending thieves and robbers, and executing other parts of the police.
* ↑ The Centaurs were a people of Thessaly, and supposed to be the first managers of horses. Strangers, who had never seen any such thing before, reported them to be half man and half beast.
* ↑ Alluding to the result of the Knight's attempt to put down the Skimmington.
* ↑ A phrase used by Horace, Carm. lib. iv. Od. 13, v. 20; also by Ben Jonson in his Tale of a Tub, Act iii. sc. 5.
* ↑ The heathen oracles wore said to have ceased at the Nativity. See [[Author:|John Milton|Milton's]] Ode.
* ↑ Tom Po was a common name for a spectre. The word seems to be akin to bug in "bugbear;" to the Dutch bauw, a spectre; and to the Welsh bo, a hobgoblin. One son of Odin was named Po or Bo.
* ↑ Grey illustrates this by the story of two male servants, one of whom alarmed the other, who was very apprehensive of the devil, by getting under the bed at night time and playing pranks; but happening to make a natural explosion, the frightened man recovered himself, and cried out, "Oh! oh! if thou art a f———g devil, have at thee, I am not afraid;" and therewith got up and thrashed him.
* ↑ One of the current superstitions of the olden time about fairies was, that if servant-maids, before going to bed, swept up their hearths clean, brightened the furniture, and left a pail full of clean water for bathing in, they would find money in their shoes; if they left the house dirty they would be pinched in their sleep. Thus the old ballad of Robin Goodfellow, who perhaps was the sprite meant by Pug-Robin;When house or hearth doth sluttish lie, I pinch the maids both black and blue: And from the bed, the bed-cloths I Pull off, and lay them nak'd to view. Again, speaking of fairies:Such sort of creatures as would bast ye A kitchen wench, for being nasty: But if she neatly scour her pewter, Give her the money that is due t' her. Every night before we go, We drop a tester in her shoe. See Shakspeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Merry Wives of Windsor; Percy's Reliques; and Keightley's Fairy Mythology.
* ↑ Pug-Robin, or Robin Goodfellow, was a kind of merry sprite, whose character and achievements are frequently recorded by the poets, particularly in the well-known lines of Shakspeare, Mids. Night's Dream, Act ii. sc. 1. Pug is the same as Puck. Dry bobbing here means dry jesting.
* ↑ You are no such wise person, or sophister, from the Greek σύφος.
* ↑ Meaning the Independents, or Ralpho, whom he says he had sent to the infernal Hogen-Mogen (from the Dutch Hoogmogende, high and mighty, or the devil,) supposing he would be hung.
* ↑ Skipper is the Dutch for the master of a sloop, generally a good climber.
* ↑ When persons took the Covenant, they attested their obligation to observe its principles by lifting up their hands to heaven. Of this South says, satirically, "Holding up their hands was a sign that they were ready to strike." The Covenant here means the Solemn League and Covenant, framed by the Scots, and adopted by the English, ordered to be read in all churches, when every person was bound to give his consent, by holding up his hand at the reading of it.
* ↑ Ralpho, the supposed sprite, allows that they, the devil and the Independents, had engaged in the Covenant; but he insists that the violation of it was not at all prejudicial to the cause they had undertaken and for which it was framed.
* ↑ A peccadillo, or more correctly Piccadil, was a stiff collar or ruff worn round the neck and shoulders. Ludicrously it means the pillory. This collar came into fashion in the reign of James I., and is supposed to have given the name to Piccadilly.
* ↑ Some editions read "held up."
* ↑ That is, the scandalous reflections on the saints, such as charging the Covenant with perjury, and making the Covenanter no better than a rogue at the bar.
* ↑ Hudibras having been hard upon Satan and the Independents, the voice undertakes the defence of each, but first of the Independents.
* ↑ That is, either with the Independents or with the devil.
* ↑ He, that is, the Independent, has no power, having no classis, or spiritual jurisdiction, to distress us by open and authorized vexations. Stools mean stools of repentance, on which persons were compelled to stand and do penance for their sins. Poundage is the commutation of punishment for a sum of money.
* ↑ He argues that men who are influenced by the devil, and co-operate with him, commit greater wickedness than he is able to perpetrate by his own agency. We seldom hear, therefore, of his taking an entire possession. The persons who complain most of his doing so, are those who are well furnished with the means of exorcising and ejecting him, such as relics, crucifixes, beads, pictures, rosaries, &c.
* ↑ "Not having the fear of God before their eyes, but being led by the instigation of the devil," is the form of indictment for felony, murder, and other atrocious crimes.
* ↑ Some editions read "you help."
* ↑ The enthusiasm of the Independents was something new in its kind, not much allied to superstition.
* ↑ Keep those in hell whom you are pleased to send thither by excommunication, mittimus, or anathema: as jailors and turnkeys confine their prisoners.
* ↑ More honestly than the Presbyterians surrendered the estates which they held in trust for one another; these trustees were generally Covenanters. See Part i. c. i. v. 76, and Part iii. c. ii. v. 55.
* ↑ This alludes to the case of a Mr Sherfield, who mortgaged his estate to half a dozen different people, having by a previous deed demised it for pious uses, so that all lost their money. See Stratford's Letters, 1739, vol. i. p. 206.
* ↑ You call down the vengeance of the civil magistrate upon them, and in this second instance pass over, that is, take no notice of, their souls: the ecclesiastical courts can excommunicate, and then they apply to the civil court for an outlawry. Utlegation means outlawry.
* ↑ Seize the party by a writ de excommunicato capiendo.
* ↑ Your friends and ours, that is, you devils and us fanatics: that as you trust us in our way, to raise you devils, and to lay them again when done with. Nash.
* ↑ It is probable that the presbyterian doctrine of reprobation had driven some persons to suicide, as in the case of Alderman Hoyle, a member of the house. See Birkenhead's Paul's Church Yard.
* ↑ Assuming that sanctus is derived from sanguis, blood.—We fanatics of this island only have merited that title by spilling much blood.
* ↑ It was formerly a current superstition that when the cock crowed at break of day, spirits and fiends that walked by night were forced to return to their infernal prison.
* ↑ His back is called his forlorn hope, because that was generally exposed to danger, to save the rest of his body, intimating that he always turned his hack on his enemies.
* ↑ Butler does not forget the Royal Society, who at that time held their meetings at Gresham College in Bishopsgate Street. In 1662, the scheme of a cart with legs instead of wheels was brought before this Society, and referred to the consideration of Mr Hooke. The inventor was Mr Potter. Mr Hooke was ordered to draw up a full description of this cart, which, together with the animadversions upon it, was to be entered in the books of the Society.
* ↑ Jockies endanger their necks by spurring their horses, and galloping very fast; and highwaymen, called padders, from the Saxon paad, highway, spur their horses to save their necks.
* ↑ The time now approached when the Presbyterians and Independents were to fall into equal disgrace, and resemble the doleful condition of the Knight and Squire.