But man delights to have his ears

Than draw it out; so 'tis in books the chief Blown maggots in by flatterers.

Of all perfections to be plain and brief. All wit does but divert men from the road The man, that for his profit 's bought tobay, In which things vulgarly are understood,

Is only hir'd, on liking, to betray; And force Mistake and Ignorance to own

And, when he's bid a liberaller price, A better sense than commonly is known.

Will not be sluggish in the work, nor nice. In little trades, more cheats and lying

OPINiators naturally differ Are us'd in selliug than in buying ;

From other men; as wooden legs are stifler But in the great, unjuster dealing

Than those of pliant joints, to yield and bow, Is us'd in buying than in selling.

Which way soe'er they are design'd to go: All smatterers are more brisk and pert

Navigation, that withstood Than those that understand an art;

The mortal fury of the Flood, As little sparkles shine more bright

And prov'd the only means to save Than glowing coals, that give them light.

All earthly creatures from the wave,

Has, for it, taught the sea and wind -Law does not put the least restraint

To lay a tribute on mankind, Upon our freedom, but maintain 't;

That, by degrees, has swallow'd more
Or, if it does, 'tis for our good,

Than all it drown'd at once before.
To give us freer latitude:
For wholesome laws preserve us free,

The prince of Syracuse, whose destin'd fate By stinting of our liberty.

It was to keep a school and rule a state,

Found, that his sceptre never was so awd, The world has long endeavour'd to reduce As-when it was translated to a rod; Those things to practice that are of no use; And that his subjects ne'er were so obedient, And strives to practise things of speculation, As when he was inaugurated pedant: And bring the practical to contemplation;

For to instruct is greater than to rule, And by that errour renders both in vain,

And no command 's so imperious as a school. By forcing Nature's course against the grain.

As he, whose destiny does prove In all the world there is no vice

To dangle in the air above, Less prone t excess than avarice;

Does lose his life for want of air, It neither cares for food nor clothing:

That only fell to be his share; Nature 's content with little, that with nothing. So he, whom Fate at once design'd

To plenty and a wretched mind, IN Rome no temple was so low

Is but condemn'd t'a rich distress,
As that of Honour, built to show

And starves with niggardly excess.
How humble honour ought to be,
Though there 'twas all authority.

The universal med'cine is a trick,

That Nature never meant, to cure the sick, It is a harder thing for men to rate

Unless by death, the singular receipt,
Their own parts at an equal estimate,

To root out all diseases by the great:
Than cast up fractions, in th' account of Heaven, For universals deal in no one part
Of time and motion, and adjust them even; Of Nature, nor particulars of Art;
For modest persons never had a true

And therefore that French quack, that set up physic, Particular of all that is their due.

Calld his receipt a general specific.

For, though in mortal poisons every one
Some people's fortunes, like a weft or stray, Is mortal universally alone,
Are only gain'd by losing of their way.

Yet Nature never made an antidote

To cure them all as easy as they 're got;
As he that makes his mark is understood Much less, among so many variations
To write his name, and 'tis in law as good; Of different maladies and complications,
So he, that cannot write one word of sense,

Make all the contrarieties in Nature
Believes he has as legal a pretence

Submit themselves t' an equal moderator.
To scribble what he does not understand,
As idiots have a title to their land.

A CONVERT 's but a fly, that turns about,

After his head 's pullid off, to find it out
Were Tully now alive, he 'd be to seek
In all our Latin terms of art and Greek;

All mankind is but a rabble,
Would never understand one word of sense

As silly and unreasonable
The most irrefragable schoolman means :

As those that, crowding in the street,
As if the schools design'd their terms of art To see a show or monster, meet ;
Not to advance a science, but divert;

Of whom no one is in the right,
As Hocus Pocus conjures, to amuse

Yet all fall out about the sight; The rabble from observing what he does.

And, when they chance t'agree, the choice is

Still in the most and worst of vices; As 'tis a greater mystery, in the art

And all the reasons that prevail Of painting, to foreshorten any part

Are measur'd, not by weight, but tale.

TRIPLETS UPON AVARICE...DESCRIPTION OF HOLLAND. 227 As, in all great and crowded fairs,

TO HIS MISTRESS.
Monsters and puppet plays are wares,
Which in the less will not go off,

Do not unjustly blame
Because they have not money enough;

My guiltless breast, So men in princes' courts will pass,

For venturing to disclose a flame That will not in another place.

It had so long supprest. LOGICIANS use to clap a proposition,

In its own ashes it design'd As justices do criminals, in prison,

Por ever to have lain; And, in as learn'd authentic nonsense, writ

But that my sighs, like blasts of wind,
The names of all their moods and figures fit:

Made it break out again.
For a logician 's one that has been broke
To ride and pace his reason by the book,
And by their rules, and precepts, and examples,
To put his wits into a kind of trammels.

Do not mine affection slight,
Those get the least that take the greatest pains,

'Cause my locks with age are white :

Your breasts have snow without, and snow within, But most of all i' th’ drudgery of brains;

While flames of fire in your bright eyes are seen.
A natural sign of weakness, as an ant
Is more laborious than an elephant ;
And children are more busy at their play,
Than those that wisely'st pass their time away.

EPIGRAM ON A CLUB OF SOTS.
All the inventions that the world contains, The jolly members of a toping club,
Were not by reason first found out, nor brains Like pipe-staves, are but hoop'd into a tub,
But pass for theirs who had the luck to light And in a close confederacy link,
Upon them by mistake or oversight. •

For nothing else but only to hold drink.

TO THE SAME.

HUDIBRAS'S ELEGY!
TRIPLETS UPON AV ARICE.

In days of yore, when knight or squire

By Fate were summon'd to retire, As misers their own laws enjoin,

Some menial poet still was near, To wear no pockets in the mine,

To bear them to the hemisphere, For fear they should the ore purloin;

And there among the stars to leave them, So he that toils and laborirs hard

Until the gods sent to relieve them: To gain, and what he gets has spar'd,

And sure our knight, whose very sight wou'd Is from the use of all debarr'd.

Entitle him Mirror of Knighthood,

Should he neglected lie, and rot, And, though he can produce more spankers Stink in his grave, and be forgot, Than all the usurers and bankers,

Would bave just reason to complain, Yet after more and more he hankers;

If he should cbance to rise again ;

And therefore, to prevent his dudgeon, And, after all his pains are done,

In mournful doggrel thus we trudge on. Has nothing he can call his own,

Oh me! what tongue, what pen, can tell
But a mere livelihood alone.

How this renowned champion fell,
But must reflect, alas! alas!
All human glory fades like grass,
And that the strongest martial feats

Of errant knights are all but cheats!
DESCRIPTION OF HOLLAND. Witness our knight, who sure has done

More valiant actions, ten to one, A COUNTRY that draws fifty foot of water,

Than of More-Hall the mighty More,
In which men live as in the hold of Nature,

Or him that made the Dragon roar;
And, when the sea does in upon them break, Has knock'd more men and women down
And drowns a province, does but spring a leak;

Than Bevis of Southampton town,
That always ply the pump, and never think
They can be safe, but at the rate they stink; 1 Neither this elegy, nor the following epitaph,
That live as if they had been run ayround,

is to be found in The Genuine Remains of Butler, And, when they die, are cast away and drown'd; as published by Mr. Thyer. Both however having That dwell in ships, like swarms of rats, and prey frequently been reprinted in The Posthumous Works Upon the goods all nations' Meets convey;

of Samuel Butler, and as they, besides, relate to And, when their merchants are blown-up and crackt, the hero of his particular poem, there needs no Whole towns are cast away in storms, and wreckt; apology for their being thus preserved. Some That feed, like cannibals, on other fishes,

other of the posthumous poems would not have And serve their cousin-gerinans up in dishes : disgraced their supposed author; but, as they are A land that rides at anchor, and is moord, so positively rejected by Mr. Thyer, we have not In which they do not live, but go aboard.

ventured to admit them. N.

Or than our modern heroes can,

Hard was his fate in this, I own, To take them singly man by man.

Nor will I for the trapes atone; No, sure, the grisly king of terrour

Indeed to guess I am not able, Has been to blame, and in an errour,

What made her thus inexorable, To issue his dead-warrant forth

Valess she did not like his wit, To seize a knight of so much worth,

Or, what is worse, his perquisite. Just in the nick of all his glory;

Howe'er it was, the wound she gave I tremble when I tell the story.

The knight, he carry'd to his grave: Oh! help me, help me, some kind Muse,

Vile harlot! to destroy a knight, This surly tyrant to abuse,

That could both plead, and pray, and fignt. Who, in his rage, has been so cruel

Oh! cruel, base, inhuman drab, To rob the world of such a jewel!

To give him such a mortal stab, A knight, more learned, stout, and good,

That made him pine away and moulder, Sure ne'er was made of flesh and blood :

As though that he had been no soldier: All his perfections were so rare,

Could'st thou find no one else to kill, The wit of man could not declare

Thou instrument of Death and Hell ! Which single virtue, or which grace,

But Hudibras, who stood the bears Above the rest had any place,

So oft against the cavaliers, Or which he was most famous for,

And in the very heat of war The camp, the pulpit, or the bar;

Took stout Crowdero prisoner; Of each he had an equal spice,

And did such wonders all along, And was in all so very nice,

That far exceed both pen and tongue? That, to speak truth, th' account it lost,

If he had been in battle slain, In which he did excel the most.

We’ad had less reason to complain; When he forsook the peaceful dwelling,

But to be murder'd by a whore, And out he went a colonelling,

Was ever knight so serv'd before ? Strange hopes and fears possest the nation,

But, since he's gone, all we can say, How he could manage that vocation,

He chanc'd to die a lingering way; Until he show'd it to a wonder,

If he had liv'd a longer date, How nobly he could fight and plunder.

He might, perhaps, have met a fate At preaching, too, he was a dab,

More violent, and fitting for More exquisite by far than Squab;

A knight so fam'd in civil war. He could fetch uses, and infer,

To sum up all—from love and danger Without the help of metaphor,

He's now (O happy knight !) a stranger; From any scripture text, howe'er

And, if a Muse can aught foretell, Remote it from the purpose were;

His fame shall fill a chronicle, And with his fist, instead of a stick,

And he in after-ages be
Beat pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,

Of errant knights th' epitome.
Till be made all the audience weep,
Excepting those that fell asleep.
Then at the bar he was right able,
And could bind o'er as well as swaddle;
And famous, too, at petty sessions,

HUDIBRAS'S EPITAPH.
'Gainst thieves and whores, for long digressions.
He could most learnedly determine

Under this stone rests Hudibras, Tu Bridewell, or the stocks, the vermin.

A knight as errant as e'er was ; For bis address and way of living,

The controversy only lies, All his behaviour, was so moving,

Whether he was more stout than wise; That, let the dame be ne'er so chaste,

Nor can we here pretend to say, As people say, below the waist,

Whether he best could fight or pray; If Hudibras but once came at her,

So, till those questions are decided, He'd quickly made her chaps to water;

His virtues must rest undivided. Then for his equipage and shape,

Pull oft he suffer'd bangs and drubs, On vestals they'd commit a rape;

And full as oft took pains in tubs; Which often, as the story says,

Of which the most that can be said, Have made the ladies weep both ways.

He pray'd and fought, and fought and pray'd. Ill has he read, that never heard

As for his personage and shape, How he with widow Tomson far'd,

Among the rest we 'll let them 'scape; And what hard conflict was between

Nor do we, as things stand, think fit Our knight and that insulting quean.

This stone should meddle with his wit. Sure captive knight ne'er took more pains,

One thing, 'tis true, we ought to tell, Por rhymes for his melodious strains,

He liv'd and dy'd a colonel ; Nor beat his brains, or made more faces,

And for the good old cause stood buff, To get into a jilt's good graces,

'Gainst many a bitter kick and cuff. Than did sir Hudibras to get

Bát, since his worship 's dead and gone, Into this subtle gipsy's net;

And mouldering lies beneath this stone, Who, after all her high pretence

The reader is desir'd to look, To inodesty and innocence,

For his achievements in bis book; Was thought by most to be a woman

Which will preserve of knight the tale, That to all other knights was common

Till Time and Death itself shall fail.

SELECT

POEMS

OF THE

EARL OF ROCHESTER.