TW. Woods Catalogue 1014 095 Leveell "This work is designed to illuchate the amazing hower of imagination, and the marne of employing it &aid the recollection in the most intricate harcher of five. The well known principle of aporiatry the unknown with the known, and the more difficult with the case harches of knowledge is exemplified in a soelmanner by accompanying some parts of geography, a map of the troonde with differnt pièces of poetry, the hons of the Zodiac & a HUDIBRA S. PART THE FIRST. CANTO I. THE ARGUMENT. Sir Hudibras his passing worth, WHEN civil dudgeon first grew high, HUDIBRA S. It has been a common practice of late to decorate books with engravings, referable to the scenes or incidents described in them. It has been adopted in modern books for ornament chiefly; but might be applied to older And made them fight, like mad or drunk, 5 authors, not with a view to ornament merely, but for the useful purpose of illustrating their meaning; as the characters brought into action by those authors being exposed by those means, to the scrutiny of the eye, would become familiar to us, without the necessity of long explanatory comments. Some plain examples of the utility of this method are hereinafter exhibited; the short notes which accompany the figures being rather calculated to save a little time and trouble to the reader, than necessary to his understanding the subjects in the light intended, it being supposed that the figures themselves will answer that purpose much more effectually. The first composition submitted to examination under the view proposed shall be the Poem of Hudibras, of which an excellent judge of literary merit has given the following character: "that it abounds more than any "other in strokes of just and inimitable wit; and yet that "it is surprizing how much erudition is introduced with "so good a grace, into a work of such pleasantry and humour; it being, perhaps, one of the most learned com"6 positions that is to be found in any language. The "advantage which the royal cause received from this "Poem, in exposing the fanaticism and false pretensions "of the former parliamentary party, was prodigious. The King himself had so good a taste, as to be highly pleased "with the merit of the work, and had even got a great "part of it by heart." To which character I take occasion to make this short addition, that Hudibras abounds with Whose honesty they all durst swear for, Though not a man of them knew wherefore: topics of science, of a reach wholly beside, and far beyond what, in these latter times, has been apprehended by any body. Supposing the reader to have refreshed his memory by running his eye over a few of the first pages of this admirable Poem, I would beg him to examine, with attention, "the Map of the Moon as seen through a Telescope," which forms the frontispiece of this volume; and would ask him, when he has turned it upside down, or the north side downwards, whether he does not recognize a resemblance of the hero of the Poem, the Knight Hudibras himself on one side of the engraving, and his no less renowned Squire, Ralph, on the other; such as they are represented in the two figures marked 1 and 2. When gospel-trumpeter, surrounded Fig. 2. If at first he should have any doubt of this, I am well satisfied that a little farther attention, or the contemplation and comparison of a few others of the figures hereafter inserted, will not fail to convince him, that one of the scenes of action of this Poem is, in truth, the moon. In order to avoid a multiplication of notes, and at the same time to assist a comparison of the various figures in the moon, with the copies therefrom hereafter given, as forming the characters of the Poem, I shall content myself, for the most part, with printing certain passages of the text in italics; but in case the reader should not, merely by a comparison of the figures with the moon, and |