Much therefore of that humour which tranfported the last century with merriment is loft to us, who do not know the four folemnity, the fullen fuperftition, the gloomy moroseness, and the ftubborn fcruples of the ancient Puritans; or, if we knew them, derive our information only from books, or from tradition, have never had them before our eyes, and cannot but by recollection and ftudy understand the lines in which they are fatyrised. Our grandfathers knew the picture from the life; we judge of the life by contemplating the picture.

It is fcarcely poffible, in the regularity and compofure of the prefent time, to image the tumult of abfurdity, and clamour of contradiction, which perplexed doctrine, difordered practice, and disturbed both publick and private quiet, in that age when fubordination was broken, and awe was hiffed away; when any unfettled innovator who could hatch a half-formed notion produced it to the publick; when every man might become a preacher, and almost every preacher could collect a congregation!

The wifdom of the nation is very reasonably fupposed to refide in the parliament. What can be concluded of the lower claffes of the people, when in one of the parliaments fummoned by Cromwell it was fe> riously 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 fhould commence anew?

We have never been witneffes of animofities excited by the ufe of mince pies and plumb porridge; nor feen with what abhorrence thofe who could eat them at all other times of the year would fhrink from them in De

cember.

cember. 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 alehouse with beer, brewed for all times and feasons, he should accept his kindnefs, 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 first scholars of his age thought neceffary, to prove that it was no crime to throw a dye, or play at cards, or to hide a fhilling for the reckoning.

Aftrology, however, against which fo much of the 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 raifed 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 Caflle, an aftrologer was confulted what hour would be found moft favourable to an efcape.

What effect this poem had upon the publick, whether it fhamed impofture 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

I have heard of a clergyman ejected from his living by the parliament vifiters for being a fcandalous eater of cuftard. Not that it was a fuperftitious meat, but becaute it was a delicacy.

part

part in the diftribution of good or evil, and in the government of fublunary things.

Poetical Action ought to be probable upon certain fuppofitions, and fuch probability as burlesque requires is here violated only by one incident. Nothing can fhew 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 most agreeable fiction of Cervantes; very fuitable indeed to the manners of that age and nation, which ascribed wonderful efficacy to voluntary penances; but fo remote from the prac tice and opinions of the Hudibraftick time, that judgement and imagination are alike offended.

The diction of this poem is groffly familiar, and the numbers purposely neglected, except in a few places where the thoughts by their native excellence fecure themselves from violation, being fuch as mean language cannot exprefs. The mode of verfification has been blamed by Dryden, who regrets that the heroick

*Of fuch there are many in Hudibras, as alfo many paffages abounding with the beauties of poetry that are seldom noticed: thefe for inftance:

Where'er you tread, your feet fhall fet
The primrole and the violet:

All fpices, perfumes, and fweet powders
Shall borrow from your breath their odours:
Nature her charter fhall renew,

And take all lives of things from you:

The world depend upon your eve,

And when you frown upon it, die.

The moon pull'd off her veil of light
That hides her face by day from fight,
Mysterious veil of darkness made
That's both her luftre and her fhade.

measure

measure was not rather chofen. To the critical fentence of Dryden the highest reverence would be due, were not his decifions often precipitate, and his opinions immature. When he wished to change the meafure, he probably would have been willing to change more. If he intended that, when the numbers were heroick, the diction fhould ftill remain vulgar, he planned a very heterogeneous and unnatural compofition. If he preferred a general stateliness both of found and words, he can be only understood to with that Butler had undertaken a different work.

The meafure is quick, fpritely, and colloquial, fuitable to the vulgarity of the words and the levity of the sentiments. But fuch numbers and fuch diction can gain regard only when they are ufed by a writer whofe vigour of fancy and copiousness of knowledge entitle him to contempt of ornaments, and who, in confidence of the novelty and juftnefs 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, and criticilin may justly doom them to perish together.

Nor even though another Butler fhould arife, would another Hudibras obtain the fame regard. Burlefque confifts in a difproportion between the ftyle and the fentiments, or between the adventitious fentiments and the fundamental fubject. It therefore, like all bodies compounded of heterogeneous parts, contains in it a principle of corruption. All difproportion is unnatural; and from what is unnatural we can derive only the pleafure which novelty produces. We admire it awhile as a ftrange thing; but when it is

1

no longer strange, we perceive its deformity. It is a kind of artifice, which by frequent repetition detects itfelf; and the reader, learning in time what he is to expect, lays down his book, as the fpectator turns away from a second exhibition of thofe tricks, of which the only ufe is to fhew that they can be played.

*Notwithstanding this fevere cenfure of Hudibras, it is the opinion of many that the various learning, the wit and humour, and that fine painting and difcrimination of characters which the poem exhibits, have given it a permanent existence, and of this the many editions it has gone through are a fort of proof. It were to be wished that an edition with fewer trifling notes and impertinent citations than that of Dr. Grey were given to the public, and that by an editor more fufceptible of its beauties than he seems to have been; of which defect in him I cannot but note the following as an egregious instance. Butler, meaning to fhew that the ufurpers availed themselves of those laws which were made to fecure the freedom of the people, illustrates his argument by this fine fimile:

As when the fea breaks o'er its bounds,

And overflows the level grounds,

Those banks and dams, that like a screen
Did keep it out, now keep it in:
So when tyrannic ufurpation
Invades the freedom of a nation,
The laws o' th' land that were intended
To keep it out, are made defend it.

Upon which paffage Dr. Grey adverts to the old story, as he calls it, of Godwin-fands, which are the effect of a fuppofed irruption of the fea through banks that ever fince the accident, as being deftroyed, could neither keep it in nor out.

With equal inattention or incapacity to difcern the humour of the poem, he compares with the following lines,

With that he seiz'd upon his blade;
And Ralpho too, as quick and bold,
Upon his bafket hilt laid hold,
With equal readine's prepar'd
To draw and ftand upon his guard,

thefe