'Twas he that brought upon his knees
The hectoring kill-cow Hercules;
Reduced his leaguer-lion's skin*
T'a petticoat, and made him spin;
Seized on his club, and made it dwindle
T'a feeble distaff, and a spindle.
'Twas he made emperors gallants
To their own sisters, and their aunts;
Set popes and cardinals agog,

To play with pages at leap-frog:
'Twas he that gave our senate purges,
And fluxed the house of many a burgess,†
Made those that represent the nation
Submit, and suffer amputation;
And all the grandees o' th' cabal
Adjourn to tubs, at spring and fall.
He mounted synod-men, and rode 'em
To Dirty-Lane and Little Sodom;
Made 'em curvet, like Spanish Jenets,
And take the ring at madam

'Twas he that made Saint Francis do
More than the devil could tempt him to:
In cold and frosty weather grow
Enamoured of a wife of snow, ||

And, though she were of rigid temper,

With melting flames accost and tempt her;
Which, after in enjoyment quenching,

He hung a garland on his engine.'

* A leaguer coat is a sort of watch cloak, or coat used by soldiers when they are at a siege, or upon duty.-N.

† Alluding to Cromwell turning the members out of the house.

Abingdon-street, Westminster, was originally called Dirty-lane. At a later date there was a lane of that name near Leicester-fields. § Sir Roger L'Estrange fills up the blank with the name of Stennet.

The legend of St. Francis, the founder of the order of Franciscans, relates that being tempted one night by the devil in the form of a beautiful woman, he rushed out naked into a heap of snow, which extraordinary evidence of his self-control so discomfited the devil that he immediately took his departure.

Quoth she, If love have these effects,
Why is it not forbid our sex?

Why is't not damned, and interdicted,
For diabolical and wicked?

And sung, as out of tune, against,
As Turk and Pope are by the saints?
I find, I've greater reason for it,
Than I believed before t' abhor it.'

Quoth Hudibras, 'These sad effects,
Spring from your heathenish neglects
Of love's great power, which he returns
Upon yourselves with equal scorns;
And those who worthy lovers slight,
Plagues with preposterous appetite.
This made the beauteous Queen of Crete
To take a town-bull for her sweet,*
And from her greatness stoop so low,
To be the rival of a cow;

Others, to prostitute their great hearts,
To be baboons' and monkeys' sweethearts;
Some with the dev'l himself in league grow,

By's representative a negro.

'Twas this made vestal maids love-sick,
And venture to be buried quick;t
Some by their fathers and their brothers,
To be made mistresses, and mothers.
'Tis this that proudest dames enamours
On lackeys, and varlets-des-chambres;‡
Their haughty stomachs overcomes,
And makes 'em stoop to dirty grooms;

* Pasiphäe, who fell in love with Taurus, a servant of Minos, her husband.

+ The Vestal virgins who broke their vow of chastity were buried alive in a place specially set apart for the purpose outside the city walls.

Varlet is the old French. A varlet was servant to a knight. It had scarcely come into use in Butler's time in its modern signification of rogue or scoundrel.

To slight the world, and to disparage*
Claps, issue, infamy, and marriage.'

Quoth she, 'These judgments are severe,
Yet such as I should rather bear,

Than trust men with their oaths, or prove
Their faith and secrecy in love.'

Says he, 'There is as weighty reason
For secrecy in love, as treason.
Love is a burglarer, a felon

That at the windore-eye does steal in,
To rob the heart, and with his prey,
Steals out again a closer way,
Which whosoever can discover,
He's sure, as he deserves, to suffer.
Love is a fire, that burns and sparkles
In men, as naturally as in charcoals,
Which sooty chemists stop in holes,
When out of wood they extract coals;†
So lovers should their passions choke,
That though they burn, they may not smoke.
'Tis like that sturdy thief that stole,
And dragged beasts backwards into's hole;+
So love does lovers, and us men
Draws by the tails into his den,
That no impression may discover,
And trace t' his cave the wary lover.
But if you doubt I should reveal
What you entrust me under seal,
I'll prove myself as close and virtuous

As your own secretary, Albertus.'§

* That is, to be indifferent to the evils that ensue from following illicit desires.

+ Charcoal colliers, in order to keep their wood from blazing when it is in the pit, cover it carefully with turf and mould.-N.

Cacus, the robber, who, after having stolen cattle, adopted the device of drawing them into his den by their tails, for the purpose of baffling pursuit upon their track, which was thus made apparently to take a contrary direction.-Eneid viii.

§ Albertus Magnus, Bishop of Ratisbon, flourished in the thirteenth century, and wrote a book entitled De Secretis Mulierum-hence he is here called the sex's secretary.

Quoth she, 'I grant you may be close
In hiding what your aims propose:
Love-passions are like parables,

By which men still mean something else:
Though love be all the world's pretence,
Money's the mythologique sense,
The real substance of the shadow,
Which all address and courtship's made to.'
Thought he, I understand your play,
And how to quit you your own way;
He that will win his dame, must do
As Love does, when he bends his bow;
With one hand thrust the lady from,
And with the other pull her home.

'I grant,' quoth he, 'wealth is a great Provocative to amorous heat:

It is all philtres and high diet,

That makes love rampant, and to fly out: 'Tis beauty always in the flower,

That buds and blossoms at fourscore:
"Tis that by which the sun and moon,
At their own weapons, are out-done:
That makes knights-errant fall in trances,
And lay about 'em in romances:
'Tis virtue, wit, and worth, and all
That men divine and sacred call:
For what is worth in any thing,
But so much money as 'twill bring?
Or what but riches is there known,
Which man can solely call his own;
In which no creature goes his half,
Unless it be to squint and laugh?
I do confess, with goods and land
I'd have a wife at second hand;
And such you are: nor is't your person
My stomach's set so sharp and fierce on;
But 'tis your better part, your riches,
That my enamoured heart bewitches:

Let me your fortune but possess,

And settle your person how you please;
Or make it o'er in trust to the devil,
You'll find me reasonable and civil.'

Quoth she, 'I like this plainness better
Than false-mock passion, speech, or letter,
Or any feat of qualm or swooning,
But hanging of yourself, or drowning;
Your only way with me to break
Your mind, is breaking of your neck:
For as when merchants break, o'erthrown
Like nine-pins, they strike others down;
So that would break my heart; which done,
My tempting fortune is your own.
These are but trifles; every lover
Will damn himself over and over,
And greater matters undertake
For a less worthy mistress' sake:
Yet they're the only ways to prove
Th' unfeigned realities of love;
For he that hangs, or beats out's brains,
The devil's in him if he feigns.'

Quoth Hudibras, "This way's too rough
For mere experiment and proof;
It is no jesting, trivial matter,

To swing i' th' air, or douce* in water,
And, like a water-witch, try love; t
That's to destroy, and not to prove;

* In some editions, plunge-in others, dive.

One of the modes of ascertaining whether a woman was a witch was by throwing her into the water. If she floated, she was adjudged guilty, not because she was supposed to save herself by her arts, but because the water, conscious of her iniquity, would not admit her below the surface; so that if she escaped drowning she was sure to be burned. 'It appears,' says King James, in his Dæmonology, that God hath appointed for a supernatural sign of the monstrous impiety of witches, that the water shall refuse them in her bosom that have shaken off them the sacred water of baptism, and wilfully refused the benefit thereof.'