of the people, when in one of the parliaments fummoned by Cromwell it was seriously propofed, that all the records in the Tower fhould be burnt, that all memory of things paft fhould be effaced, and that the whole fyftem of life should commence anew?

We have never been witneffes of animofities excited by the use of minced pies and plumb porridge; nor feen with what abhorrence those who could eat them at all other times of the year would fhrink from them in December. An old Puritan, who was alive in my childhood, being at one of the feafts of the church invited by a neighbour to partake his cheer, told him, that, if he would treat him at an alehoufe with beer, brewed for all times and feafons, he fhould accept his kindness, but would have none of his fuperftitious meats or drinks.

One of the puritanical tenets was the illegality of all games of chance; and he that reads Gataker upon Lots, may fee how much learning and reafon one of the firft fcholars. of his age thought neceffary, to prove that

it was no crime to throw a die, or play at cards, or to hide a fhilling for the reckoning.

Aftrology, however, against which so much of this fatire is directed, was not more the folly of the Puritans than of others. It had in that time a very extenfive dominion. Its predictions raised hopes and fears in minds which ought to have rejected it with contempt. In hazardous undertakings, care was taken to begin under the influence of a propitious planet; and when the king was prifoner in Carifbrook Castle, an aftrologer was confulted what hour would be found most favourable to an escape.

What effect this poem had upon the publick, whether it fhamed imposture or reclaimed credulity, is not easily determined. Cheats can feldom ftand long against laughter. It is certain that the credit of planetary intelligence wore faft away; though fome men of knowledge, and Dryden among them, continued to believe that conjunctions and oppofitions had a great part in the diftribution of good or evil, and in the government of fublunary things.

3

Poetical

Poetical Action ought to be probable upon certain fuppofitions, and fuch probability as burlefque requires is here violated only by one incident. Nothing can shew more plainly the neceffity of doing fomething, and the difficulty of finding fomething to do, than that Butler was reduced to transfer to his hero the flagellation of Sancho, not the moft agreeable fiction of Cervantes; very fuitable indeed to the manners of that age and nation, which afcribed wonderful efficacy to voluntary penances; but fo remote from the practice and opinions of the Hudibraftick time, that judgement and imagination are alike offended,

The diction of this poem is groffly familiar, and the numbers purpofely neglected, except in a few places where the thoughts by

their native excellence fecure themfelves from violation, being fuch as mean language cannot exprefs. The mode of verfification has been blamed by Dryden, who regrets that the heroick measure was not rather chofen. To the critical fentence of Dryden the highest reverence would be due, were not his deci

fions often precipitate, and his opinions immature. When he wished to change the measure, he probably would have been willing to change more. If he intended that, when the numbers were heroick, the diction should still remain vulgar, he planned a very heterogeneous and unnatural compofition. If he preferred a general ftateliness both of found and words, he can be only understood to wish that Butler had undertaken a different work.

The measure is quick, fpritely, and colloquial, fuitable to the vulgarity of the words and the levity of the fentiments. But fuch numbers and fuch diction can gain regard only when they are used by a writer whose vigour of fancy and copiousness of knowledge entitle him to contempt of ornaments, and who, in confidence of the novelty and just: nefs of his conceptions, can afford to throw metaphors and epithets away. To another that conveys common thoughts in careless verfification, it will only be faid, Pauper "videri Cinna vult, & eft pauper." The meaning and diction will be worthy of each

other,

other, and criticism may justly doom them to perish together.

Nor, even though another Butler should arife, would another Hudibras obtain the fame regard. Burlesque confifts in a difproportion between the ftyle and the fentiments, or between the adventitious fentiments and the fundamental subject. It therefore, like all bodies compounded of heterogeneous parts, contains in it a principle of corruption. All disproportion is unnatural; and from what is unnatural we can derive only the pleasure which novelty produces. We admire it awhile as a strange thing; but, when it is no longer strange, we perceive its deformity. It is a kind of artifice, which by frequent repetition detects itself; and the reader, learning in time what he is to expect, lays down his book, as the fpectator turns away from a fecond exhibition of those tricks, of which the only use is to fhew that they can be played.

U 4

ROCHESTER.