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Most desperately, and to outdo

The active, 'gainst a conquering foe.
Though we with blacks and blues are suggill'd,
Or, as the vulgar say, are cudgell'd,

He that is valiant, and dares fight,
Though drubb'd, can lose no honour by 't.
Honour's a lease for lives to come,
And cannot be extended from
The legal tenant: 'tis a chattle
Not to be forfeited in battle.
If be, that in the field is slain,
Be in the bed of Honour lain,
He that is beaten may be said
To lie in Honour's truckle-bed.
For as we see th' eclipsed Sun

By mortals is more gaz'd upon,

Than when, adorn'd with all his light,
He spines in serene sky most bright,
So valour, in a low estate,

is most admir'd and wonder'd at."

Quoth Ralph, "How great I do not know We may by being beaten grow;

But none, that see how here we sit,
Wil judge us overgrown with wit.
As fted brethren, preaching by
A carnal hour-glass, do imply
lumination can convey

in them what they have to say,
But not how much; so well enough
Anw you to charge, but not draw off:
For who, without a cap and bauble,
Having subdued a bear and rabble,
And might with honour have come off,
Would put it to a second proof?
A politic exploit, right fit
For presbyterian zeal and wit."

Quoth Hudibras, "That cuckoo's tone,
Ralpho, thou always harp'st upon:
When thou at any thing wouldst rail,
Thon mak'st presbytery thy scale,
To take the height on't, and explain
To what degree it is profane;

Whats'ever will not with (thy what-d'ye call)
Thy light jump right, thou call'st synodical:
As if presbytery were a standard
To size whatsoever's to be slander'd.
Dest not remember how this day
Then to my beard wast bold to say,

That thou couldst prove bear-baiting equal
With synods, orthodox and legal?
Do, if thou can'st, for I deny't,
And dare thee to't with all thy light."
Quoth Ralphe, "Truly that is no
Hard matter for a man to do,
That has but any guts in's brains,
And could believe it worth his pains:
But since you dare and urge me to it,
You'll find I've light enough to do it.

Synods are mystical bear-gardens,
Where alders, deputies, churchwardens,
And other members of the court,
Manage the Babylonish sport;

For prolocutor, scribe, and bear-ward,
Doer only in a mere word.
Brea are but several synagogues
Of carnal men, and bears and dogs:
Born antichristian assemblies,

To mischief bent, as far's in them lies:
Beth stave and tail, with fierce contests,
The one with men, the other beasts.

The difference is, the one fights with
The tongue, the other with the teeth;
And that they bait but bears in this,
In th' other souls and consciences;
Where saints themselves are brought to stake
For gospel-light and conscience' sake;
Expos'd to scribes and presbyters,
Instead of mastive dogs and curs;
Than whom they've less humanity,
For these at souls of men will fly.
This to the Prophet did appear,
Who in a vision saw a bear,
Prefiguring the beastly rage
Of church-rule, in this latter age;
As is demonstrated at full

By him that baited the pope's bull.
Bears naturally are beasts of prey,
That live by rapine; so do they.
What are their orders, constitutions,
Church-censures, curses, absolutions,
But several mystic chains they make,
To tie poor Christians to the stake?
And then set heathen officers,
Instead of dogs, about their ears.
For to prohibit and dispense,
To find out, or to make offence;
Of Hell and Heaven to dispose,
To play with souls at fast and loose;
To set what characters they please,
And mulcts, on sin and godliness;
Reduce the church to gospel-order,
By rapine, sacrilege, and murther;
To make presbytery supreme,
And kings themselves submit to them;
And force all people, though against
Their consciences, to turn saints;
Must prove a pretty thriving trade,
When saints monopolists are made:
When pious frauds and holy shifts
Are dispensations and gifts,
There godliness becomes mere ware,
And every synod but a fair.
Synods are whelps o' th' Inquisition,
A mongrel breed of like pernicion,
And growing up, became the sires
Of scribes, commissioners, and triers;
Whose business is, by cunning sleight,
To cast a figure for men's light,
To find, in lines of beard and face,
The physiognomy of Grace;
And by the sound and twang of nose,
If all be sound within disclose,
Free from a crack or flaw of sinning,
As men try pipkins by the ringing;
By black caps underlaid with white,
Give certain guess at inward light;
Which serjeants at the Gospel wear,
To make the sp'ritual calling clear.
The handkerchief about the neck
(Canonical cravat of Smeck,
From whom the institution came,
When church and state they set on flame,
And worn by them as badges then

Of spiritual warfaring-men)
Judge rightly if regeneration
Be of the newest cut in fashion:
Sure 'tis an orthodox opinion,
That grace is founded in dominion.
Great piety consists in pride;
To rule is to be sanctify'd:

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To domineer, and to control,
Both o'er the body and the soul,
Is the most perfect discipline

Of church-rule, and by right divine.
Bell and the Dragon's chaplains were
More moderate than these by far:

For they (poor knaves) were glad to cheat,
To get their wives and children meat;
But these will not be fobb'd off so,
They must have wealth and power too;
Or else with blood and desolation

They'll tear it out o' th' heart o' th' nation.

"Sure these themselves from primitive
And heathen priesthood do derive,
When butchers were the only clerks,
Elders and presbyters of kirks;
Whose directory was to kill,
And some believe it is so still.
The only difference is, that then
They slaughter'd only beasts, now men.
For then to sacrifice a bullock,

Or, now and then, a child, to Moloch,
They count a vile abomination,
But not to slaughter a whole nation.
Presbytery does but translate
The papacy to a free state,
A commonwealth of popery,
Where every village is a see

As well as Rome, and must maintain

A tithe-pig metropolitan ;

Where every presbyter and deacon

Commands the keys for cheese and bacon,
And every hamlet's governed

By 's Holiness, the church's head,
More haughty and severe in 's place,
Than Gregory and Boniface.

Such church must, surely, be a monster
With many heads: for if we conster
What in th' Apocalypse we find,
According to th' apostle's mind,
'Tis that the whore of Babylon
With many heads did ride upon,
Which heads denote the sinful tribe
Of deacon, priest, lay-elder, scribe.
"Lay-elder, Simeon to Levi,
Whose little finger is as heavy
As loins of patriarchs, prince-prelate,
And bishop-secular: this zealot
Is of a mongrel, diverse kind,
Cleric before, and lay behind;
A lawless linsy-woolsey brother,
Half of one order, half another;
A creature of amphibious nature,
On land a beast, a fish in water;
That always preys on grace or sin;
A sheep without, a wolf within.
This fierce inquisitor has chief
Dominion over men's belief

And manners; can pronounce a saint
Idolatrous or ignorant,
When superciliously he sifts
Through coarsest boulter others' gifts:
For all men live and judge amiss,
Whose talents jump not just with his;
He'll lay on gifts with hands, and place
On dullest nodle light and grace,
The manufacture of the kirk.
Those pastors are but th' handy-work
Of his mechanic paws, instilling

Divinity in them by feeling:

From whence they start up chosen vessels,
Made by contact, as men get measles.
So cardinals, they say, do grope
At th' other end the new-made pope."

"Hold, hold," quoth Hudibras, “soft fire, They say, does make sweet malt. Good squire, Festina lente, not too fast,

For haste (the proverb says) makes waste.
The quirks and cavils thou dost make

Are false, and built upon mistake:

And I shall bring you with your pack

Of fallacies, t' Elenchi back;

And put your arguments in mood
And figure to be understood.

I'll force you, by right ratiocination,
To leave your vitilitigation,

And make you keep to th' question close,
And argue dialecticis.

"The question then, to state it first,
Is, Which is better or which worst,
Synods or bears? Bears I avow
To be the worst, and synods thou;
But, to make good th' assertion,
Thou say'st they're really all one.
If so, not worse; for if they're idem,
Why then tuntundem dat tantidem.
For if they are the same, by course
Neither is better, neither worse.
Eut I deny they are the same,
More than a maggot and I ani.
That both are animalia

I grant, but not rationalia:

For though they do agree in kind,
Specific difference we find;

And can no more make bears of these,
Than prove my horse is Socrates.
That synods are bear-gardens, too,
Thou dost affirm; but I say, No:
And thus I prove it, in a word;
Whats'ever assembly's not impower'd
To censure, curse, absolve, and ordain,
Can be no synod: but bear-garden
Has no such power; ergo, 'tis none,
And so thy sophistry's o'erthrown.

"But yet we are beside the quest'on
Which thou didst raise the first contest on;
For that was, Whether bears are better
Than synod-men? I say, Negatur.
That bears are beasts, and synods men,
Is held by all: they're better then;
For bears and dogs on four legs go,
As beasts; but synod-men on two.
'Tis true they all have teeth and nails;
But prove that synod-men have tails;
Or that a rugged shaggy fur
Grows o'er the hide of Presbyter;
Or that his snout and spacious ears
Do hold proportion with a bear's.
A bear's a savage beast, of all
Most ugly and unnatural;
Whelp'd without form, until the dam
Has lickt it into shape and frame:
But all thy light can ne'er evict,
That ever synod-man was lickt,
Or brought to any other fashion
Than his own will and inclination.

"But thou dost further yet in this
Oppugn thyself and sense; that is,
Thou wouldst have presbyters to go
For bears and dogs, and bear-wards too:

A strange chimera of beasts and men,

Made up of pieces heterogene;

Such as in Nature never met

In eodem subiecto yet.

"The other arguments are all Supposures hypothetical,

That do but beg; and we may choose
Ether to grant them, or refuse.

Much thou hast said, which I know when
And where thou stol'st from other men,
(Whereby 'tis plain thy light and gifts
Are all but plagiary shifts)

And is the same that Ranter said,
Who, arguing with me, broke my head,
And tore a handful of my beard;
The self-same cavils then I heard,
When, being in bot dispute about
This controversy, we fell out;

And what thou know'st I answer'd then,'
Will serve to answer thee again."

Quoth Ralpho, "Nothing but th' abuse Of human learning you produce; Learning, that cobweb of the brain, Profane, erroneous, and vain; A trade of knowledge, as replete As others are with fraud and cheat; An art t' incumber gifts and wit, And render both for nothing fit;

Makes light unactive, dull, and troubled,
Like little David in Saul's doublet:

A cheat that scholars put upon
Other men's reason and their own;
A fort of errour to ensconce
Absurdity and ignorance,

That renders all the avenues
To truth impervious and abstruse,
By making plain things, in debate,
By art perplext and intricate:
For nothing goes for sense or light,
That will not with old rules jump right;
As if rules were not in the schools
Deriv'd from truth, but truth from rules.
This pagan, heathenish invention
Is good for nothing but contention:
For as, in sword and buckler fight,
All blows do on the target light;

So when men argue, the great'st part
O' th' contest falls on terms of art,
Until the fustian stuff be spent,

And then they fall to th' argument."
Quoth Hudibras, "Friend Ralph, thou hast
Outrun the constable at last:
For thou art fallen on a new
Dispute, as senseless as untrue,
But to the former opposite,
And contrary as black to white;
Mere disparata; that concerning
Presbytery, this human learning;
Two things s' averse, they never yet
But in thy rambling fancy met.
But I shall take a fit occasion

T' evince thee by' ratiocination,

Some other time, in place more proper
Than this we're in; therefore let's stop here,
And rest our weary'd bones a while,
Already tir'd with other toil."

HUDIBRAS.

IN THREE PARTS.

PART II. 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 suit,
Which she defers; yet, on parole,
Redeems him from th' enchanted hole.

BUT now, t' observe romantic method,
Let bloody steel a while be sheathed;
And all those harsh and rugged sounds
Of bastinados, cuts, and wounds,
Exchang'd to Love's more gentle style,
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,
They're 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 despite
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 rhyme still make
The one verse for th' other's sake;

For one for sense, and one for rhyme,

I think 's sufficient at one time.

But we forget in what sad plight
We whilom left the captive 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 wonderous light) ycleped Fame,
That like a thin cameleon 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-mail,
Fraught with advice, some fresh, some stale,
Of men that walk'd when they were dead,
And cows of monsters brought to bed;
Of hailstones 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, th' other Evil Fame.

This tattling gossip knew too well
What mischief Hudibras befel,
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 gaol, the stocks,
To set at large his fetter-locks;

1

And by exchange, parole, or ransom,
To free him from th' enchanted mansion.
This being 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 his 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
Into his ears on either side,
And by him, in another hole,
Acted 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,
Idam'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.

Than to be seen with beard and face

By you in such a homely case."

Quoth she, " Those need not be asham'd For being honourably maim'd;

If he that is in battle conquer'd

Have any title to his own beard,

Though your's 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 soldier'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 ache,
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 Stoics 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 phænomenas,
In which it oft mistakes the case.
But since th' immortal intellect
(That's free from errour and defect,

This place," quoth she, "they say's enchanted, Whose objects still persist the same)

And with delinquent spirits haunted,

That here are ty'd in chains, and scourg'd,

Tatil 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 and 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 is 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,

Is free from outward bruise or 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, though wounded sore in reason,
Felt no contusion, nor discretion.

A Saxon duke did grow so fat,

That mice (as histories relate)

Ate grots and labyrinths to dwell in

His postique parts, without his feeling;

Then how's it possible a kick

Shou'd 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 Honour hurt is wont to rage
With pain no medicine can assuage."

Quoth he, "That Honour's very squeamish,
That takes a basting for a blemish:
For what's more honourable than scars,
Or skin to tatters rent in wars?
Some have been beaten till they know

What wood a cudgel's of by the 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, to o'ercome,
In th' end does prove the nearest home.
By laws of learned duelists,
They that are bruis'd with wood or fists,
And think one beating may for once
Suffice, are cowards and poltroons;

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