Another still in reformation
Give dogs and bears a dispensation?
How will dissenting brethren relish it?
What will malignants* say? Videlicet,
That each man swore to do his best,
To damn and perjure all the rest;
And bid the devil take the hin'most,
Which at this race is like to win most.
They'll say our business to reform
The church and state, is but a worm;
For to subscribe, unsight, unseen,†
T'an unknown church's discipline,
What is it else, but, before-hand,
T'engage, and after understand?
For when we swore to carry on
The present reformation,
According to the purest mode
Of churches best reformed abroad,
What did we else but make a vow
To do, we knew not what, nor how?
For no three of us will agree
Where, or what churches these should be;
And is indeed the self-same case
With theirs that swore et ceteras;‡
Or the French league, § in which men vowed
To fight to the last drop of blood.
The first edition reads :
For to subscribe a church invisible,
As we have sworn to do, it is a bull:
For when we swore to do it after
The best reformed churches that are, &c.
This is an allusion to the oath proposed by the Convocation which sat in 1640, by which the clergy were sworn never to consent to alter the government of the church by archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, &c. It was humorously called swearing to et ceteras; and Butler, with perfect impartiality, satirizes it as being quite as absurd as the Covenant oath which pledged its subscribers to adopt a plan of reformation according to the forms of other churches, with which they were not only unacquainted, but upon the choice of which they differed amongst themselves.
§ The holy league in France, 1576, upon which the Scotch Covenant
These slanders will be thrown upon
The cause and work we carry on,
If we permit men to run headlong
T'exorbitancies fit for Bedlam,
Rather than gospel-walking times,
When slightest sins are greatest crimes.
But we the matter so shall handle,
As to remove that odious scandal.
In name of king and parliament,*
I charge ye all, no more foment
This feud, but keep the peace between
Your brethren and your countrymen;
And to those places straight repair
Where your respective dwellings are:
But to that purpose first surrender
The fiddler, as the prime offender,
Th' incendiary vile, that is chief
Author, and engineer of mischief;
That makes division between friends,
For profane and malignant ends.
He and that engine of vile noise,
On which illegally he plays,
Shall, dictum factum, both be brought
To condign pun'shment, as they ought.
This must be done, and I would fain see
Mortal so sturdy as to gainsay;
For then I'll take another course,
And soon reduce you all by force.'
This said, he clapped his hand on sword,
To show he meant to keep his word.
But Talgol, who had long suppressed
Inflamed wrath in glowing breast,
Which now began to rage and burn as
Implacably as flame in furnace,
Thus answered him, 'Thou vermin wretched;
As e'er in measled pork was hatched;
was modelled. The league had its prose Hudibras in the Satyre
Ménippée.-See ante, p. 38.
*See ante, p. 101, note [.
Thou tail of worship, that dost grow
On rump of justice as of cow;
How dar'st thou with that sullen luggage
O' thyself, old ir'n, and other baggage,
With which thy steed of bone and leather
Has broke his wind in halting hither;
How durst th', I say, adventure thus
T'oppose thy lumber against us?
Could thine impertinence find out
No work t' employ itself about,
Where thou, secure from wooden blow,
Thy busy vanity might show?
Was no dispute a-foot between
The caterwauling bretheren?
No subtle question raised among
Those out-o'-their wits, and those i' th' wrong?
No prize between those combatants
O' th' times, the land and water saints;*
Where thou mightst stickle, without hazard
Of outrage to thy hide and mazzard,†
And not, for want of business, come
To us to be thus troublesome,
To interrupt our better sort
Of disputants, and spoil our sport?
Was there no felony, no bawd,
Cut-purse, or burglary abroad?
No stolen pig nor plundered goose,
To tie thee up from breaking loose?
No ale unlicensed, broken hedge,
For which thou statute mightst allege,
To keep thee busy from foul evil,
And shame due to thee from the devil?
*The Presbyterians and Anabaptists.
Purses were formerly worn suspended from the girdle, and they were filched by cutting them, or the string by which they hung. A change of habits requiring a change of means in the ingenious fraternity of thieves, the cut-purse of the old times has been metamorphosed into the pick-pocket of the present day.
Did no committee sit,* where he
Might cut out journey-work for thee,
And set th' a task, with subornation,
To stitch up sale and sequestration;
To cheat, with holiness and zeal,
All parties and the common-weal?
Much better had it been for thee
H' had kept thee where th' art used to be;
Or sent th' on business any whither,
So he had never brought thee hither:
But if th' hast brain enough in skull
To keep within its lodging whole,
And not provoke the rage of stones,
And cudgels, to thy hide and bones;
Tremble and vanish while thou mayst,
Which I'll not promise if thou stay'st.'
At this the knight grew high in wroth,
And lifting hands and eyes up both,
Three times he smote on stomach stout,
From whence, at length, these words broke out:
'Was I for this entitled Sir,
And girt with trusty sword and spur,
For fame and honour to wage battle,
Thus to be braved by foe to cattle?
Not all the pride that makes thee swell
As big as thou dost blown-up veal;
Nor all thy tricks and sleights to cheat,
And sell thy carrion for good meat;
Not all thy magic to repair
Decayed old age, in tough lean ware,
Make natural death appear thy work,
And stop the gangrene in stale pork;
Not all that force that makes thee proud,
Because by bullock ne'er withstood;
* Local committees sat in different places to receive information, and carve out work for the justices-such as hunting up sequestrations, levying fines, and sending delinquents to prison.
Though armed with all thy cleavers, knives,
And axes made to hew down lives,
Shall save, or help thee to evade
The hand of justice, or this blade,
Which I, her sword-bearer, do carry,
For civil deed and military.
Nor shall these words, of venom base,
Which thou hast from their native place,
Thy stomach, pumped to fling on me,
Go unrevenged, though I am free:*
Thou down the same throat shall devour 'em
Like tainted beef, and pay dear for 'em.
Nor shall it e'er be said that wight
With gauntlet blue and bases white,t
And round blunt truncheon by his side,
So great a man-at-arms defied,
With words far bitterer than wormwood,
That would in Job or Grizel§ stir mood.
Dogs with their tongues their wounds do heal;
But men with hands, as thou shalt feel.'
This said, with hasty rage he snatched
His gun-shot, that in holsters watched;
And bending cock, he levelled full
Against th' outside of Talgol's skull;
Vowing that he should ne'er stir further,
Nor henceforth cow nor bullock murther.
But Pallas came in shape of rust,||
And 'twixt the spring and hammer thrust
That is, unaffected by your charges, free from the offences you accuse me of.
†The blue sleeves and white apron, or, possibly, the white stockings of the butcher. Bases sometimes in old authors means stockings; sometimes, when applied to women, petticoats; and, generally, refers to a part of the dress from the waist downwards. Its original meaning seems to have been, a mantle which hung down from the middle. The butcher's steel.
§ Patient Grizel, whose story was derived by Chaucer from Petrarch. A banter,' observes Dr. Nash, upon Homer, Virgil, and other epic poets, who have always a deity at hand to protect their heroes.' It is the only instance, with the exception of Mars, afterwards brought
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