English Satires

by Unknown

SAMUEL BUTLER.

(1612-1680.)

[XIV.] THE CHARACTER OF HUDIBRAS.

This extract is taken from the first canto of Hudibras, and contains the complete portrait of the Knight, Butler's aim in the presentation of this character being to satirize those fanatics and pretenders to religion who flourished during the Commonwealth.

When civil dudgeon first grew high,

And men fell out they knew not why;

When hard words, jealousies and fears,

Set folks together by the ears,

And made them fight like mad or drunk,

For Dame Religion as for punk:

Whose honesty they all durst swear for,

Though not a man of them knew wherefore:

When gospel-trumpeter surrounded

With long-ear'd rout to battle sounded,

And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,

Was beat with fist, instead of a stick:

Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling,

And out he rode a-colonelling,

A wight he was, whose very sight wou'd

Intitle him, Mirrour of Knighthood;

That never bow'd his stubborn knee

To any thing but chivalry;

Nor put up blow, but that which laid

Right Worshipful on shoulder-blade:

Chief of domestic knights and errant,

Either for chartel or for warrant:

Great in the bench, great in the saddle,

That could as well bind o'er as swaddle:

Mighty he was at both of these,

And styl'd of war, as well as peace,

(So some rats, of amphibious nature,

Are either for the land or water).

But here our authors make a doubt,

Whether he were more wise or stout.

Some hold the one, and some the other:

But howsoe'er they make a pother,

The diff'rence was so small his brain

Outweigh'd his rage but half a grain;

Which made some take him for a tool

That knaves do work with, call'd a fool.

For 't has been held by many, that

As Montaigne, playing with his cat,

Complains she thought him but an ass,

Much more she would Sir Hudibras,

(For that the name our valiant Knight

To all his challenges did write)

But they're mistaken very much,

'Tis plain enough he was no such.

We grant although he had much wit,

H' was very shy of using it;

As being loth to wear it out,

And therefore bore it not about

Unless on holidays, or so,

As men their best apparel do.

Besides, 'tis known he could speak Greek

As naturally as pigs squeak:

That Latin was no more difficile,

Than for a blackbird 'tis to whistle.

B'ing rich in both, he never scanted

His bounty unto such as wanted;

But much of either would afford

To many that had not one word.

For Hebrew roots, although they're found

To flourish most in barren ground,

He had such plenty as suffic'd

To make some think him circumcis'd:

And truly so he was, perhaps,

Not as a proselyte, but for claps,

He was in logic a great critic,

Profoundly skill'd in analytic;

He could distinguish, and divide

A hair 'twixt south and south west side;

On either which he could dispute,

Confute, change hands, and still confute;

He'd undertake to prove by force

Of argument, a man's no horse;

He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,

And that a lord may be an owl;

A calf an alderman, a goose a justice,

And rooks committee-men and trustees,

He'd run in debt by disputation,

And pay with ratiocination:

All this by syllogism, true

In mood and figure, he would do.

For rhetoric, he could not ope

His mouth, but out there flew a trope;

And when he happened to break off

I' th' middle of his speech, or cough,

H' had hard words, ready to show why,

And tell what rules he did it by:

Else when with greatest art he spoke,

You'd think he talk'd like other folk,

For all a rhetorician's rules

Teach nothing but to name his tools.

But, when he pleas'd to show't his speech

In loftiness of sound was rich;

A Babylonish dialect,

Which learned pedants much affect:

It was a party-coloured dress

Of patch'd and pye-ball'd languages;

'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin,

Like fustian heretofore on satin.

It had an odd promiscuous tone,

As if h' had talk'd three parts in one;

Which made some think when he did gabble,

Th' had heard three labourers of Babel;

Or Cerberus himself pronounce

A leash of languages at once.

This he as volubly would vent

As if his stock would ne'er be spent;

And truly, to support that charge,

He had supplies as vast as large:

For he could coin or counterfeit

New words with little or no wit:

Words so debas'd and hard, no stone

Was hard enough to touch them on:

And when with hasty noise he spoke 'em,

The ignorant for current took 'em,

That had the orator who once

Did fill his mouth with pebble-stones

When he harangu'd but known his phrase,

He would have us'd no other ways.

In mathematics he was greater

Then Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater:

For he, by geometric scale,

Could take the size of pots of ale;

Resolve by sines and tangents, straight,

If bread and butter wanted weight;

And wisely tell what hour o' th' day

The clock does strike by algebra.

Beside, he was a shrewd philosopher,

And had read ev'ry text and gloss over;

Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath,

He understood b' implicit faith:

Whatever sceptic could inquire for,

For every why he had a wherefore,

Knew more than forty of them do,

As far as words and terms could go.

All which he understood by rote,

And as occasion serv'd, would quote:

No matter whether right or wrong,

They must be either said or sung.

His notions fitted things so well,

That which was which he could not tell;

But oftentimes mistook the one

For th' other, as great clerks have done.

He cou'd reduce all things to acts,

And knew their natures by abstracts;

Where entity and quiddity,

The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly;

Where Truth in persons does appear,

Like words congeal'd in northern air.

He knew what's what, and that's as high

As metaphysic wit can fly.

In school divinity as able,

As he that hight, Irrefragable;

A second Thomas, or at once

To name them all, another Duns:

Profound in all the Nominal

And Real ways beyond them all;

For he a rope of sand could twist

As tough as learned Sorbonist:

And weave fine cobwebs, fit for scull;

That's empty when the moon is full:

Such as lodgings in a head

That's to be let unfurnished.

He could raise scruples dark and nice,

And after solve 'em in a trice,

As if divinity had catch'd

The itch, on purpose to be scratch'd;

Or, like a mountebank, did wound

And stab herself with doubts profound,

Only to show with how small pain

The sores of faith are cur'd again;

Although by woful proof we find,

They always leave a scar behind.

He knew the seat of paradise,

Cou'd tell in what degree it lies;

And, as he was dispos'd could prove it,

Below the moon, or else above it.

What Adam dream'd of when his bride

Came from her closet in his side;

Whether the devil tempted her

By a High-Dutch interpreter;

If either of them had a navel;

Who first made music malleable;

Whether the serpent, at the fall,

Had cloven feet, or none at all;

All this without a gloss or comment,

He could unriddle in a moment,

In proper terms such as men smatter,

When they throw out and miss the matter.

For his religion it was fit

To match his learning and his wit;

'Twas Presbyterian true blue,

For he was of that stubborn crew

Of errant saints, whom all men grant

To be the true church militant:

Such as do build their faith upon

The holy text of pike and gun;

Decide all controversies by

Infallible artillery;

And prove their doctrine orthodox

By apostolic blows and knocks;

Call fire, and sword, and desolation,

A godly thorough reformation,

Which always must be carried on,

And still be doing, never done:

As if religion were intended

For nothing else but to be mended.

A sect whose chief devotion lies

In odd perverse antipathies:

In falling out with that or this,

And finding somewhat still amiss

More peevish, cross, and splenetic,

Than dog distract, or monkey sick

That with more care keep holiday

The wrong, than others the right way:

Compound for sins they are inclin'd to,

By damning those they have no mind to.

Still so perverse and opposite,

As if they worshipp'd God for spite.

The self-same thing they will abhor

One way, and long another for.

Free-will they one way disavow,

Another, nothing else allow.

[XV.] THE CHARACTER OF A SMALL POET.

From Butler's "Characters", a series of satirical portraits akin to those of Theophrastus.

The Small Poet is one that would fain make himself that which nature never meant him; like a fanatic that inspires himself with his own whimsies. He sets up haberdasher of small poetry, with a very small stock and no credit. He believes it is invention enough to find out other men's wit; and whatsoever he lights upon, either in books or company, he makes bold with as his own. This he puts together so untowardly, that you may perceive his own wit as the rickets, by the swelling disproportion of the joints. You may know his wit not to be natural, 'tis so unquiet and troublesome in him: for as those that have money but seldom, are always shaking their pockets when they have it, so does he, when he thinks he has got something that will make him appear witty. He is a perpetual talker; and you may know by the freedom of his discourse that he came lightly by it, as thieves spend freely what they get. He is like an Italian thief, that never robs but he murders, to prevent discovery; so sure is he to cry down the man from whom he purloins, that his petty larceny of wit may pass unsuspected. He appears so over-concerned in all men's wits, as if they were but disparagements of his own; and cries down all they do, as if they were encroachments upon him. He takes jests from the owners and breaks them, as justices do false weights, and pots that want measure. When he meets with anything that is very good, he changes it into small money, like three groats for a shilling, to serve several occasions. He disclaims study, pretends to take things in motion, and to shoot flying, which appears to be very true, by his often missing of his mark. As for epithets, he always avoids those that are near akin to the sense. Such matches are unlawful and not fit to be made by a Christian poet; and therefore all his care is to choose out such as will serve, like a wooden leg, to piece out a maimed verse that wants a foot or two, and if they will but rhyme now and then into the bargain, or run upon a letter, it is a work of supererogation. For similitudes, he likes the hardest and most obscure best; for as ladies wear black patches to make their complexions seem fairer than they are, so when an illustration is more obscure than the sense that went before it, it must of necessity make it appear clearer than it did; for contraries are best set off with contraries. He has found out a new sort of poetical Georgics—a trick of sowing wit like clover-grass on barren subjects, which would yield nothing before. This is very useful for the times, wherein, some men say, there is no room left for new invention. He will take three grains of wit like the elixir, and, projecting it upon the iron age, turn it immediately into gold. All the business of mankind has presently vanished, the whole world has kept holiday; there has been no men but heroes and poets, no women but nymphs and shepherdesses: trees have borne fritters, and rivers flowed plum-porridge. When he writes, he commonly steers the sense of his lines by the rhyme that is at the end of them, as butchers do calves by the tail. For when he has made one line, which is easy enough, and has found out some sturdy hard word that will but rhyme, he will hammer the sense upon it, like a piece of hot iron upon an anvil, into what form he pleases. There is no art in the world so rich in terms as poetry; a whole dictionary is scarce able to contain them; for there is hardly a pond, a sheep-walk, or a gravel-pit in all Greece, but the ancient name of it is become a term of art in poetry. By this means, small poets have such a stock of able hard words lying by them, as dryades, hamadryades, aönides, fauni, nymphæ, sylvani, &c. that signify nothing at all; and such a world of pedantic terms of the same kind, as may serve to furnish all the new inventions and "thorough reformations" that can happen between this and Plato's great year.

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