EPIGRAMATIC VERSES BY SAMUEL BUTLER.
OPINION.
Opinion governs all mankind,
Like the blind's leading of the blind;
For he that has no eyes in 's head,
Must be by a dog glad to be led;
And no beasts have so little in 'em
As that inhuman brute, Opinion.
"Tis an infectious pestilence,
The tokens upon wit and sense,
That with a venomous contagion
Invades the sick imagination:
And, when it seizes any part,
It strikes the poison to the heart."
This men of one another catch,
By contact, as the humors match.
And nothing's so perverse in nature
As a profound opiniator.
CRITICS.
Critics are like a kind of flies, that breed
In wild fig-trees, and when they're grown up, feed
Upon the raw fruit of the nobler kind,
And, by their nibbling on the outward rind,
Open the pores, and make way for the sun
To ripen it sooner than he would have done.
HYPOCRISY.
Hypocrisy will serve as well
To propagate a church, as zeal;
As persecution and promotion
Do equally advance devotion:
So round white stones will serve, they pay,
As well as eggs to make hens lay.
POLISH.
All wit and fancy, like a diamond,
The more exact and curious 'tis ground,
Is forced for every carat to abate,
As much in value as it wants in weight.
THE GODLY.
A godly man, that has served out his time
In holiness, may set up any crime;
As scholars, when they've taken their degrees
May set up any faculty they please.
PIETY.
Why should not piety be made,
As well as equity, a trade,
And men get money by devotion,
As well as making of a motion?
B' allow'd to pray upon conditions,
As well as suitors in petitions?
And in a congregation pray,
No less than Chancery, for pay?
MARRIAGE.
All sorts of vot'ries, that profess
To bind themselves apprentices
To Heaven, abjure, with solemn vows,
Not Cut and Long-tail, but a Spouse
As the worst of all impediments
To hinder their devout intents.
POETS.
It is not poetry that makes men poor;
For few do write that were not so before;
And those that have writ best, had they been rich.
Had ne'er been clapp'd with a poetic itch;
Had loved their ease too well to take the pains
To undergo that drudgery of brains;
But, being for all other trades unfit,
Only t' avoid being idle, set up wit.
PUFFING.
They that do write in authors' praises,
And freely give their friends their voices
Are not confined to what is true;
That's not to give, but pay a due:
For praise, that's due, does give no more
To worth, than what it had before;
But to commend without desert,
Requires a mastery of art,
That sets a gloss on what's amiss,
And writes what should be, not what is.
POLITICIANS.
All the politics of the great
Are like the cunning of a cheat,
That lets his false dice freely run,
And trusts them to themselves alone,
But never lets a true one stir,
Without some fingering trick or slur;
And, when the gamester doubts his play,
Conveys his false dice safe away,
And leaves the true ones in the lurch
T' endure the torture of the search.
FEAR.
There needs no other charm, nor conjurer
To raise infernal spirits up, but fear;
That makes men pull their horns in, like a snail
That's both a pris'ner to itself, and jail;
Draws more fantastic shapes, than in the grains
Of knotted wood, in some men's crazy brains;
When all the cocks they think they see, and bulls,
Are only in the insides of their skulls.
THE LAW.
The law can take a purse in open court
While it condemns a less delinquent for't.
THE SAME.
Who can deserve, for breaking of the laws,
A greater penance than an honest cause.
THE SAME.
All those that do but rob and steal enough,
Are punishment and court-of-justice proof,
And need not fear, nor be concerned a straw
In all the idle bugbears of the law;
But confidently rob the gallows too,
As well as other sufferers, of their due.
CONFESSION.
In the Church of Rome to go to shrift
Is but to put the soul on a clean shift.
SMATTERERS
All smatterers are more brisk and pert
Than those that understand an art;
As little sparkles shine more bright
Than glowing coals, that give them light.
BAD WRITERS.
As he that makes his mark is understood
To write his name, and 'tis in law as good,
So he, that can not write one word of sense
Believes he has as legal a pretense
To scribble what he does not understand,
As idiots have a title to their land.
THE OPINIONATIVE.
Opinionators naturally differ
From other men; as wooden legs are stiffer
Than those of pliant joints, to yield and bow,
Which way soever they're design'd to go.
LANGUAGE OF THE LEARNED.
Were Tully now alive, he'd be to seek
In all our Latin terms of art and Greek;
Would never understand one word of sense
The most irrefragable schoolman means:
As if the Schools design'd their terms of art,
Not to advance a science, but to divert;
As Hocus Pocus conjures to amuse
The rabble from observing what he does.
GOOD WRITING.
As 'tis a greater mystery in the art
Of painting, to foreshorten any part,
Than draw it out; so 'tis in books the chief
Of all perfections to be plain and brief.
COURTIERS.
As in all great and crowded fairs
Monsters and puppet-play are wares,
Which in the less will not go off,
Because they have not money enough;
So men in princes' courts will pass
That will not in another place.
INVENTIONS.
All the inventions that the world contains,
Were not by reason first found out, nor brains,
But pass for theirs who had the luck to light
Upon them by mistake or oversight.
LOGICIANS.
Logicians used to clap a proposition,
As justices do criminals, in prison,
And, in as learn'd authentic nonsense, writ
The names of all their moods and figures fit;
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.
LABORIOUS WRITERS.
Those get the least that take the greatest pains,
But most of all i' th' drudgery of the brains,
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 wiseliest pass their time away.
ON A CLUB OF SOTS.
The jolly members of a toping club,
Like pipestaves, are but hoop'd into a tub;
And in a close confederacy link,
For nothing else but only to hold drink.
HOLLAND.
A country that draws fifty feet of water,
In which men live as in the hold of Nature;
And when the sea does in upon them break,
And drown a province, does but spring a leak;
That always ply the pump, and never think
They can be safe, but at the rate they stink;
That live as if they had been run a-ground,
And, when they die, are cast away and drown'd;
That dwell in ships, like swarms of rats, and prey
Upon the goods all nations' fleets convey;
And, when their merchants are blown up and cracked,
Whole towns are cast away and wrecked;
That feed, like cannibals, on other fishes,
And serve their cousin-germans up in dishes:
A land that rides at anchor, and is moor'd,
In which they do not live, but go a-board.
WOMEN.
The souls of women are so small,
That some believe they've none at all;
Or if they have, like cripples, still
They've but one faculty, the will;
The other two are quite laid by
To make up one great tyranny;
And though their passions have most pow'r,
They are, like Turks, but slaves the more
To th' abs'lute will, that with a breath
Has sovereign pow'r of life and death,
And, as its little int'rests move,
Can turn 'em all to hate or love;
For nothing, in a moment, turn
To frantic love, disdain, and scorn;
And make that love degenerate
T' as great extremity of hate;
And hate again, and scorn, and piques,
To flames, and raptures, and love-tricks.