Cowley. Denham. Milton. Butler. Rochester. Roscommon. Otway. Waller. Pomfret ...

He knew when to fall on pell-mell,
To fall back, and retreat as well.
So lawyers, left the Bear defendant,
Ard plaintiff Dog, fhould make an end on 't,
Do ftave and tail with Writs of Error,
Reverfe of Judgment, and Demurrer,
To let them breathe a while, and then
Cry Whoop, and fet them on again.
As Romulus a wolf did rear,
So he was dry-nurs'd by a bear,
That fed him with the purchas'd prey
Of many a fierce and bloody fray;

Bred up, where difcipline most rare is,
In military garden Paris:

For foldiers, heretofore, did grow

Until fome fplay-foot politicians

160

He was of great defcent, and high
For fplendour and antiquity,

And from celeftial origine

Deriv'd himself in a right line;

Not as the ancient heroes hid,

Who, that their base-births might be hid

165 (Knowing they were of doubtful gender,
And that they came in at a windore)
Made Jupiter himself, and others

O' th' Gods, gallants to their own mothers,
To get on them a race of champions

170 (Of which old Homer first made lampoons)
Arctophylax, in northern sphere,
Was his undoubted ancestor;

In gardens juft as weeds do now;

175

And leave th' herbs ftanding. Quoth Sir Sun,
My friends, that is not to be done.

180

185

Not done! quoth Statesman; Yes, an 't please ye,
When 'tis once known, you'll fay 'tis easy.
Why then let's know it, quoth Apollo:
We'll beat a drum, and they'll all follow.
A drum! (quoth Phoebus) Troth that 's true,
A pretty invention, quaint and new:
But though of voice and inftrument

We are th' undoubted prefident,
We fuch loud mufic do not profess,
The Devil's master of that office,
Where it must pass; if 't be a drum,
He'll fign it with Cler. Parl. Dom. Com. ;
To him apply yourselves, and he
Will foon difpatch you for his fee.
They did fo; but it prov'd fo ill,
They'd better let them grow there ftill.
But to refume what we difcourfing
Were on before, that is, ftout Orfin;
That which of oft by fundry writers
Has been apply'd t' almost all fighters,
More justly may be afcrib'd to this
Than any other warrior, (viz.)
None ever acted both parts bolder,
Both of a chieftain and a foldier.

From him his great forefathers came,
And in all ages bore his name:

Learn'd he was in med'einal lore,
For by his fide a pouch he wore,

Replete with ftrange hermetic powder,

That wounds nine miles point-blank would folder
By skilful chemift, with great coft,
Extracted from a rotten post;

But of a heavenlier influence

Than that which mountebanks dispense;
Though by Promethean fire made,

As they do quack that drive that trade.
For as when flovens do amifs
At others' doors, by stool or pifs,
The learned write, a red-hot fpit
B'ing prudently apply'd to it,
Will convey mischief from the dung
190 Unto the part that did the wrong;
So this did healing, and as fure
As that did mifchief, this would cure.
Thus virtuous Orfin was endued
With learning, conduct, fortitude,
195 Incomparable; and as the prince
Of poets, Homer, fung long fince,
A fkilful leech is better far
Than half an hundred men of war;
So he appear'd and by his fkill,
No lefs than dint of fword, could kill.
The gallant Bruin march'd next him,
With vifage formidably grim,
And rugged as a Saracen,

200

Or Turk of Mahomet's own kin,
205 Clad in a mantle della guerre
Of rough impenetrable fur;
And in his nofe, like Indian king,
He wore, for ornament, a ring;
About his neck a threefold gorget,

Ver. 159, 160.] Thus altered in the edition of As rough as trebled leathern target;

1674,

Knew when t' engage his bear pell mell,
And when to bring him off as well.

Pell-mell, i. e. confufedly, without order.

Ver. 194.] The Houfe of Commons, even before the Rump had murdered the King, and expelled the House of Lords, ufurped many branches of the Royal Prerogative, and particularly this for granting licences for new inventions.

Armed, as herald's cant, and langued,
Or, as the vulgar fay, fharp-fanged:
For as the teeth in beafts of prey
Are fwords, with which they fight in fray,

Ver. 211.] This is one inftance of the Author'). making great things little, though his talent lay chiefly the other way.

Ver. 238. Unto the part, &c.] Unto the brachy in the two first editions 1663.

So fwords, in men of war, are teeth
Which they do eat their vittle with.
He was by birth, fome authors write,
A Ruffian, fome a Muscovite,

And 'mong the Coffacks had been bred,
Of whom we in Diurnals read,

That ferve to fill up pages here,

As with their bodies ditches there.
Scrimanfky was his coufin-german,

With whom he ferv'd, and fed on vermin;
And when these fail'd, he 'd fuck his claws,
And quarter himself upon his paws:

And though his countrymen, the Huns,

275

Next these the brave Magnano came, Magnano, great in martial fame ; Yet when with Orfin he wag'd fight, 'Tis fung he got but little by 't: Yet he was fierce as foreft-boar, Whofe fpoils upon his back he wore, As thick as Ajax' seven-fold shield, Which o'er his brazen arms he held; But brafs was feeble to refift

More than Le Blanc the traveller,

The fury of his armed fift;

Who writes, he fpous'd in India, Of noble houfe, a lady gay,

Nor could the hardest ir'n hold out

285

335

349

And got on her a race of worthies
As ftout as any upon earth is.
Full many a fight for him between
Talgol and Orfin oft had been,
Each striving to deserve the crown
Of a fav'd citizen; the one
To guard his Bear, the other fought
To aid his Dog; both made more ftout
By feveral fpurs of neighbourhood,
Church-fellow-membership, and blood;
But Talgol, mortal foe to cows,
Never got aught of him but blows;
Blows hard and heavy, fuch as he
Had lent, repaid with ufury.

Yet Talgol was of courage ftout,
And vanquifh'd oftener than he fought;
Inur'd to labour, fweat, and toil,
And, like a champion, fhone with oil:
Right many a widow his keen blade,
And many fatherless, had made;
He many a boar and huge dun-cow
Did, like another Guy, o'erthrow;

Had like the boar or dun-cow far'd:

Against his blows, but they would through 't.

345

In magic he was deeply read, As he that made the brazen-head; Profoundly fkill'd in the black art, As English Merlin for his heart; But far more fkilful in the spheres, 290 Than he was at the fieve and fhears. He could transform himself in colour, As like the devil as a collier; As like as hypocrites, in fhow, Are to true faints, or crow to crow. Of warlike engines he was author, Devis'd for quick dispatch of flaughter: The cannon, blunderbufs, and faker, He was th' inventer of, and maker: The trumpet and the kettle-drum 300 Did both from his invention come. He was the firft that e'er did teach To make, and how to stop a breach. A lance he bore with iron pike, Th' one half would thruft, the other strike;

295

305 And when their forces he had join'd, He fcorn'd to turn his parts behind.

But Guy with him in fight compar'd,

He Trulla lov'd, Trulla, more bright Than burnish'd armour of her knight; A bold virago, stout and tall, As Jone of France, or English Mall:

350

355

360

365

Ver. 331.] Simeon Wait, a tinker, as famous an Independent preacher as Burroughs; who, with equal blafphemy to his Lord of Hofts, would ftyle Oliver Cromwell the archangel giving battle to the Devil.

Ver. 365.] The daughter of James Spenfer, de320 bauched by Magnano the tinker. So called, be caufe the tinker's wife or miftrefs was commonly called his trull. See "The Coxcomb," a comedy.

Ver. 299.] A butcher in Newgate-market, who afterwards obtained a captain's commiffion

Ver. 368.] Alluding, probably, to Mary Carl.

for his rebellious bravery at Ñafeby, as Sir R. ton, called Kentish Mell, but more commonly The L'Eftrange obferves.

Through perils both of wind and limb,
Through thick and thin the follow'd him
In every adventure h' undertook,
And never him or it forfook:
At breach of wall, or hedge furprise,
She thar'd i' th' hazard and the prize;
At beating quarters up, or forage,
Behav'd herself with matchlefs courage,
And laid about in fight more bufily
Than the Ainazonian Dame Penthefile.
And though fome critics here cry shame,
And fay our authors are to i lame,
That (pite of all philofophers,
Who hold no females tout but bears,
And heretofore did fo abhor

That women fhould pretend to war,
They would not fuffer the ftout'st dame
To fwear by Hercules's name)
Make feeble ladies, in their works,
To fight like termagants and Turks;
To lay their native arms afide,
Their modefty, and ride astride;
To run a-tilt as men, and wield
Their naked tools in open field;
As flout Armida, bold Thalestris,

And the that would have been the mistress

He rais'd the low, and fortify'd

370 The weak against the strongest fide:
Ill has he read that never hit
On him in Mufes' deathlefs writ.

375

He had a weapon keen and fierce,

That though a bull-hide fhield would pierce,
And cut it in a thousand pieces,

415

Though tougher than the Knight of Greece's, 420
With whom his black-thumb'd ancestor

Was comrade in the ten years' war:
For when the reftlefs Greeks fat down
380 So many years before Troy town,

And were renown'd, as Homer writes,
For well-fold boots no less than fights,
They ow'd that glory only to
His ancestor, that made them fo.

386 Faft friend he was to Reformation,
Until 'twas worn quite out of fashion;
Next rectifier of wry law,

And would make three to cure one flaw.
Learned he was, and could take note,

390 Tranfcribe, collect, tranflate, and quote:
But preaching was his chiefeft talent,
Or argument, in which being valiant,

395

400

405

410

German Princess; a perfon notorious at the time this First Part of Hudibras was published. She was transported to Jamaica 1671; but returning from tranfportation too foon, fhe was hanged at Tyburn Jan, 22. 1672-3.

Ver. 382] This and three following lines not in the two first editions of 1663.

425

430

435

Ver. 435.] Mechanics of all forts were then Preachers, and fome of them much followed and admired by the mob. "I am to tell thee, Chrif "tin Reader," (fays Dr. Featley, preface to his Dipper dipp'd, wrote 1645, and published 1647, "This new year of new changes, never P. 1.) "heard of in former ages, namely, of ftables "turned into temples, and I will beg leave to add, "temples turned into ftables (as was that of St. Paul's, and many more), ftalls into quires, fhopboards into communion-tables, tubs into pulpits, aprons into linen ephods, and mecha "nics of the lowest rank into priests of the high

places. I wonder that our door-posts and walls "fweat not, upon which fuch notes as thefe have "been lately affixed; on fuch a day, fuch a brew"er's clerk exercifeth; fuch a tailor expoundeth; "fuch a waterman teacheth.-If cooks, instead "of mincing their meat, fall upon dividing of the "Word; if tailors leap up from the fhopboard

into the pulpit, and patch up fermons out of "ftolen threds; if not only of the loweft of the "people, as in Jeroboan's time, priests are con"fecrated to the Moft High God-Do we marvel "to fee fuch confufion in the Church as there is!" They are humourously girded in a tract entitled, The Reformado, precisely character'd, by a modern Church-warden, p. 11. "Here are felt-makers Ver. 409. Cerden.] A one-eved cobler, like his "(fays he) who can roundly deal with the blockbrother Colonel Hewfon. The Poet obferves, that "heads and neutral dimicafters of the world; his chief talent lay in preaching. Is it not then" coblers who can give good rules for upright indecent, and beyond the rules of decorum, to"walking, and handle Scripture to a bristle; introduce him into fuch rough company No; it" coachmen who know how to lafh the beaftly is probable he had but newly fet up the trade of a " enormities, and curb the headstrong infolences Teacher; and we may conclude that the Poet did" of this brutish age, ftoutly exhorting us to stand not think that he had fo much fanctity as to debar "up for the truth, left the wheel of destruction him the pleasure of his beloved diverfion of Bear- "roundly overrun us. We have weavers that baiting.

Laft Colon came, bold man of war, Deftin'd to blows by fatal star;

Right expert in command of horse,

But cruel, and without remorse.
That which of Centaur long ago
Was faid, and has been wrested to
Some other knights, was true of this,
He and his horse were of a piece;
One fpirit did inform them both,
The felf-fame vigour, fury, wroth:
Yet he was much the rougher part,
And always had a harder heart,
Although his horfe had been of those
That fed on man's flesh, as fame goes
Strange food for horfe! and yet, alas!
It may be true, for flesh is grafs.
Sturdy he was, and no less able
Than Hercules to clean a ftable;
As great a drover, and as great
A critic too, in hog or neat.

445

450

455

And now the field of death, the lifts,
Were enter'd by antagonists,

And blood was ready to be broach'd,
When Hudibras in hafte approach'd,
With Squire and weapons to attack them;
But first thus from his horfe befpake them.
What rage, O Citizens! what fury
Doth you to thefe dire actions hurry?
What ceftrum, what phrenetic mode
Makes you this lavish of your blood,
While the proud Vies your trophies boast,
And unreveng'd walks Waller's ghost'
What towns, what garrifons, might you,
With hazard of this blood, fubdue,
Which now y' are bent to throw away
In vain untriumphable fray?

Shall faints in civil bloodthed wallow
Of faints, and let the Caufe lie fallow?

490

495

500

The Caufe, for which we fought and fwore 505
So boldly, fhall we now give o'er?
Then because quarrels ftill are seen
With oaths and fwearings to begin,
The Solemn League and Covenant
Will feem a mere God-dam-merant,
And we that took it, and have fought,
As lewd as drunkards that fall out:
For as we make war for the King
Against himfelf, the felf-fame thing,

510

460

He ripp'd the womb up of his mother, Dame Tellus, 'canfe the wanted fother, And provender, wherewith to fed Himfelf and his lefs cruel fteed.

It was a question whether he

Or 's horfe were of a family

465 Some will not stick to swear, we do For God and for Religion too;

515

For if Bear-beating we allow,

More worshipful; till antiquaries

(After they 'ad almoft por'd out their eyes)

Did very learnedly decide

The bufinefs on the horfe's fide,

And prov'd not only horfe, but cows,

Nay pigs, were of the elder house:
For beafts, when man was but a piece
Of earth himself, did th' earth poffefs.
Thefe worthies were the chief that led
The combatants, each in the head
Of his command, with arms and rage
Ready, and longing to engage.
The numerous rabble was drawn out
Of feveral counties round about,
From villages remote, and shires
Of east and western hemispheres.
From foreign parishes and regions,
Of different manners, fpeech, religions,
Came men and mastiffs; fome to fight
For fame and honour, some for fight.

46 can sweetly inform us of the shuttle-swiftnefs "of the times, and practically tread out the vi"ciffitude of all fublunary things till the web of "our life be cut off: and here are mechanics, of 66 my profeffion, who can feparate the pieces of "falvation from thofe of damnation, measure 66 out every man's portion, and cut it out by a thread, fubftantially preffing the points, till "till they have fashionably filled up their work "with a well-bottomed conclufion."

Ver. 503. 504.] Mr. Walker obferves, "That "all the cheating, covetous, ambitious perfons of "the land, were united together under the title "of the Godly, the Saints, and shared the fat of "the land between them;" and he calls them the Saints who were canonized no where but in the Devil's Calendar.

Ver. 513, 514.] The Prefbyterians, in all their wars against the King, maintained ftill, That they fought for him;, for they pretended to diftinguifh his political perfon from his natural one; his political perfon, they said, muft be, and was, with the Parliament, though his natural perfon was at war with them.

3 [D]

And make all cries about the Town
Join throats to cry the Bishops down?
Who having round begirt the palace
(As once a month they do the gallows)
As members gave the fign about,
Set up their throats with hideous fhout.
When tinkers bawl'd aloud to fettle
Church-Difcipline, for patching kettle;
No fow-gelder did blow his horn
To geld a cat, but cry'd Reform:
The oyster-women lock'd their fish up,
And trudg'd away, to cry No Bishop;
The moufe-trap-men laid fave-alls by,
And 'gainst Ev'l Counsellors did cry;

530

535

Like th' Hebrew calf, and down before it 575
The Saints fell proftrate, to adore it:
So fay the Wicked-and will you
Make that farcafmous fcandal true,
By running after Dogs and Fears,

Beafts more unclean than calves or steers? 8@
Have powerful Preachers ply'd their tongues,
And laid themfelves out and their lungs;
Us'd all means, both direct and fin'fter,
I' th' power of Gospel-preaching Min'ster?
Have they invented tones to win

540 The women, and make them draw in
The men, as Indians with a female
Tame elephant inveigie the male?
Have they told Prov'dence what it must do,
Whom to avoid, and whom to truft to?

590

550

Botchers left old cloaths in the lurch,

And fell to turn and patch the Church;

Some cry'd the Covenant, instead

455

555

550

- Till both turn'd bankrupts, and are broke?
Did Saints, for this, bring in their plate,
And crowd as if they came too late?
For when they thought the Caufe had need on't,
Happy was he that cou'd be rid on't.
Did they coin pifs-pots, bowls, and flaggons, 565
Int' officers of horfe and dragoons?
And into pikes and mufqueteers
Stamp beakers, cups, and porringers?
A thimble, bodkin, and a spoon,"
Did ftart up living men, as foon
As in the furnace they were thrown,
Joft like the dragon's teeth being sown,
Then was the Caufe of gold and plate,
The Brethrens' offerings, confecrate,

570

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Ver. 586.] It was a common practice to inform God of the tranfactions of the times. "Oh, n "good Lord God (fays Mr. G. Swathe, Prayer, I p. 12.) I hear the King hath fet up his standard "at. York against the Parliament and city of Lon- i "don. Look thou upon them, take their cane! "into thine own hand; appear thou in the cause "of thy Saints, the caufe in hand-It is thy caute, "Lord. We know that the King is milled, de"luded, and deceived by his Popith, Arminian, " and temporizing, rebellious malignant faction "and party, &c"-" They would (fays Dr. "Echard) in their prayers and fermons tell God, "that they would be willing to be at any charge

or trouble for him, and to do, as it were, an "kindness for the Lord; the Lord might now "truft them, and rely upon them, they should

not fail him: they should not be unmindful ei "his bufinefs; his work fhould not stand ft", nor his defigns be neglected. They must needs "fay, that they had formerly received fome fa

vours from God, and have been, as it were, "beholden to the Almighty; but they did not "much question but they thould find fome op"portunity of making fome amends for the many

good things, and (as I may fo fay) civilities "which they had received from him. Indeed, as "for thofe that are weas in the Faith, and are

yet but babes in Chrift, it is fit that they thou'i "keep fome distance from God, fhould knee: "before him, and ftand (as I may fay) cap 13 "hand to the Almighty: but for those that are "ftrong in all Gifts, and grown up in all Grace, "and are come to a fulness and ripenefs in the "Lord Jefus, it is mely enough to take agitat, "chair, and fit at the end of the table, and, with "their cock'd hats on their heads, to say, Go... "we thought it not amifs to call upon thee Lis " evening, and let thee know how affairs ftand: "we have been very watchful fince we were lats "with thee; and they are in a very hopeful con "dition; we hope that thou wilt not forget : "for we are very thoughtful of thy concerns? we do fomewhat long to hear from thee; and if "thou pleaseft to give us fuch a thing (Vizy

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