Nor liberty of consciences,*

Nor lords and commons' ordinances ;+
Nor for the church, nor for church-lands,
To get them in their own no hands;+
Nor evil counsellors to bring
To justice, that seduce the king;
Nor for the worship of us men,

Though we have done as much for them.
Th' Egyptians worshipped dogs, and for
Their faith made internecine war.
Others adored a rat, and some
For that church suffered martyrdom.
The Indians fought for the truth
Of th' elephant and monkey's tooth;§
And many, to defend that faith,
Fought it out mordicus || to death.
But no beast ever was so slight,¶
For man, as for his god, to fight;
They have more wit, alas! and know
Themselves and us better than so.
But we, who only do infuse
The rage in them like boutè-feus,**
'Tis our example that instils

In them th' infection of our ills.

For, as some late philosophers

Have well observed, beasts that converse

*This line stood in the first edition

Nor for free liberty of conscience.

Bishop Warburton thinks the alteration for the worse, free liberty being a happy satirical periphrasis for licentiousness. That it did not accurately express what Butler meant, however, may be presumed from his having afterwards substituted the reading in the text.

The title given to bills, after Parliament had renounced the king's authority. An ordinance, says Cleveland, is a law still-born, dropped before quickened by the royal assent. + Paws.

§ The people of Ceylon and Malabar worshipped the teeth of elephants and monkeys. The Siamese are said to have offered 700,000 ducats to redeem from the Portuguese a monkey's tooth which had long been an object of worship with them. Desperately-tooth and nail.

** Incendiaries.

Thoughtless, silly.

With man take after him, as hogs
Get pigs all th' year, and bitches dogs.
Just so, by our example, cattle
Learn to give one another battle.
We read in Nero's time, the Heathen
When they destroyed the Christian brethren,
They sewed them in the skins of bears,
And then set dogs about their ears;
From whence, no doubt, th' invention came
Of this lewd antichristian game.'

To this, quoth Ralpho,- Verily
The point seems very plain to me;
It is an antichristian game,
Unlawful both in thing and name.
First, for the name; the word bear-baiting
Is carnal, and of man's creating;
For certainly there's no such word
In all the Scripture on recòrd;*
Therefore unlawful, and a sin;
And so is, secondly, the thing:
A vile assembly 'tis, that can

No more be proved by Scripture, than
Provincial, classic, national;†

Mere human creature-cobwebs all.

The Disciplinarians held that the Scripture of God is in such sort the rule of human actions, that simply, whatever we do, and are not by it directed thereto, the same is sin.'-HOOKER'S Ecclesiastical Polity. Some of the French Huguenots carried this doctrine so far as to refuse to pay rent, unless their landlords could produce a text of Scripture to warrant the payment. While on the one hand texts were easily found to authenticate any doctrine they accepted, so on the other there was no difficulty in opposing any doctrine they disapproved, on the ground that there was no text by which it could be sustained.

†These words, and the things they represented, being of man's invention, were carnal and unlawful. The passage, being spoken by Ralph, is intended to show the aversion in which the Presbyterian Assembly of Divines was held by the Independents; for, although the phrase 'vile assembly' is directly applied to the gathering of people at the bear-baiting, it bears allusively upon that form of Church government for which the Independents asserted no authority could be found in Scripture.

Thirdly, it is idolatrous;

For when men run a-whoring thus
With their inventions, whatsoe'er
The thing be, whether dog or bear,
It is idolatrous and pagan,
No less than worshipping of Dagon.'
Quoth Hudibras, I smell a rat;
Ralpho, thou dost prevaricate:

For though the thesis which thou lay'st
Be true ad amussim,* as thou say'st;
For that bear-baiting should appear,
Jure divino, lawfuller

Than synods are, thou dost deny
Totidem verbis-so do I;

Yet there's a fallacy in this;

For if by sly homœosis,+

Tussis pro crepitu, an art,

Under a cough to slur a f―t,‡

Thou wouldst sophistically imply

Both are unlawful-I deny.'

'And I,' quoth Ralpho, 'do not doubt

But bear-baiting may be made out,

In gospel times, as lawful as is

Provincial, or parochial classis;
And that both are so near of kin,
And like in all, as well as sin,

That, put 'em in a bag, and shake 'em,
Yourself o' th' sudden would mistake 'em,
And not know which is which, unless
You measure by their wickedness;
For 'tis not hard t' imagine whether
O' th' two is worst, tho' I name neither.'
Quoth Hudibras, 'Thou offer'st much,
But art not able to keep touch.

* Exactly.

† An explanation of a thing by something resembling it.

Left out in the edition of 1574; but retained by Grey and Nash.

Mira de lente,* as 'tis i' th' adage,
Id est, to make a leek a cabbage;
Thou canst at best but overstrain
A paradox, and thy own brain;†
For what can synods have at all
With bear that's analogical?
Or what relation has debating
Of church-affairs with bear-baiting?
A just comparison still is

Of things ejusdem generis:
And then what genus rightly doth
Include, and comprehend them both?
If animal, both of us may

As justly pass for bears as they;
For we are animals no less,
Although of different specieses. +
But, Ralpho, this is no fit place,
Nor time, to argue out the case:
For now the field is not far off,
Where we must give the world a proof
Of deeds, not words, and such as suit
Another manner of dispute:
A controversy that affords

Actions for arguments, not words;
Which we must manage at a rate

Of prow'ss, and conduct adequate

To what our place, and fame doth promise,
And all the godly expect from us. §

* Great cry and little wool.

The reading in the first edition, for which this couplet was substi tuted, stood as follows:

Thou wilt best but suck a bull,

Or shear swine-all cry and no wool.

The reference is to an old proverb-As wise as the Waltham calf, that went nine times to suck a bull.

Thus in all the editions. There is no absolute necessity for the additional syllable; but it is highly humorous. It occurs in other places. § Godly and ungodly were the distinctions drawn by the Presbyterians between themselves and the Royalists.

Nor shall they be deceived, unless
We're slurred and outed* by success;
Success, the mark no mortal wit,
Or surest hand can always hit:
For whatsoe'er we perpetrate,

We do but row, w' are steered by fate,†
Which in success oft disinherits,
For spurious causes, noblest merits.
Great actions are not always true sons
Of great and mighty resolutions;
Nor do the bold'st attempts bring forth
Events still equal to their worth;
But sometimes fail, and in their stead
Fortune and cowardice succeed.

Yet we have no great cause to doubt,
Our actions still have borne us out;
Which, though they're known to be so ample,
We need not copy from example;
We're not the only person durst
Attempt this province, nor the first.
In northern clime a val'rous knight
Did whilom kill his bear in fight,
And wound a fiddler: we have both
Of these the objects of our wroth,
And equal fame and glory from
Th' attempt, or victory to come.
'Tis sung, there is a valiant Mamaluke
In foreign land, yclep'd‡
To whom we have been oft compared
For person, parts, address, and beard;

Both equally reputed stout,

And in the same cause both have fought;

* Ejected-expelled.

†The doctrine of predestination, for which the Puritans were so zealous, is set up to meet all contingencies.

The name of Sir Samuel Luke exactly fills the chasm, and supplies the rhyme.