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AN HEROICAL EPISTLE OF HUDIBRAS TO SIDROPHEL

WE

Ecce iterum Crispinus.

ELL, Sidrophel, though 'tis in vain
To tamper with your crazy brain,
Without trepanning of your skull,
As often as the moon's at full,
'Tis not amiss, ere ye're given o'er,
To try one desperate medicine more;
For where your case can be no worse,
The desp'rat'st is the wisest course.
Is't possible that you, whose ears
Are of the tribe of Issachar's,t
And might, with equal reason, either
For merit, or extent of leather,

With William Prynne's, before they were
Retrenched, and crucified, compare,
Should yet be deaf against a noise
So roaring as the public voice?
That speaks your virtues free and loud,
And openly in every crowd,

As loud as one that sings his part
T'a wheelbarrow, or turnip-cart,

*This Epistle appeared ten years after the publication of the Second Part of Hudibras, with which, notwithstanding the title, it has no connexion whatever. It was inserted for the first time as forming a continuation of the Second Part in the edition of 1674, and has been retained in the same place by all subsequent editors, although it must be regarded as an excrescence. The Sidrophel of the Epistle and the Sidrophel of Hudibras are different persons, The former is said to have been designed for Sir Paul Neal, as a revenge upon him for his having publicly and repeatedly affirmed that Butler was not the author of Hudibras.-See ante, p. 9, note *. The only reason that can be suggested for addressing him under a name which had been previously applied to Lilly, is that the name had become a bye-word of contempt, and that its application to Sir Paul heightened the opprobrium of the satire.

† Gen. xlix. 14.

See vol. i. p. 128, note §.

Or your new nicked-named old invention
To cry green-hastings* with an engine;†
As if the vehemence had stunned,

And torn your drumheads with the sound;
And 'cause your folly's now no news,
But overgrown, and out of use,

Persuade yourself there's no such matter,
But that 'tis vanished out of nature;
When folly, as it grows in years,
The more extravagant appears;
For who but you could be possessed
With so much ignorance and beast,
That neither all men's scorn and hate,
Nor being laughed and pointed at,
Nor brayed so often in a mortar,‡

Can teach you wholesome sense and nurture,
But, like a reprobate, what course
Soever used, grow worse and worse?
Can no transfusion of the blood, §
That makes fools cattle, do you good?
Nor putting pigs t' a bitch to nurse,
To turn them into mongrel curs, ||

* Early peas are called 'hastings.' There is an early pear known as 'hasting pear,' sometimes called 'green chisel.' In a note on Grey's Hudibras, 'green hastings' is said to have been an apple well-known formerly.

† A speaking-trumpet, introduced by Sir Samuel Morland, who claimed the invention in an account he published of it in 1671, entitled Tuba Stentorophonica. His claim to originality was disputed; hence Butler speaks of it as a new nicked-named old invention.' There seems to be good reason for supposing that Sir Samuel was the first person who developed practically the principle of the steam-engine. Prov. xxvii. 22.

§ The first person who appears to have maintained the doctrine of the transfusion of the blood was Libavius, a German physician. It was taken up in England by Dr. Richard Lower, who, in his Tractatus de Corde, item de motu et colore Sanguinis et Chyli in eum transitu, published in 1669, claimed the merit of the discovery, which was disputed by Francis Potter, of Wiltshire. The faculty entered warmly into the discussion ; and the doctrine and its rival supporters furnished for many years a theme of speculation and controversy.

A remarkable instance of this kind is made mention of by Giraldus Cambrensis, of a hunting sow that had sucked a bitch.-G.

Put you into a way, at least,
To make yourself a better beast?
Can all your critical intrigues,
Of trying sound from rotten eggs;
Your several new-found remedies,
Of curing wounds and scabs in trees;
Your arts of fluxing them for claps,
And purging their infected saps;
Recovering shankers, crystallines,
And nodes and blotches in their rinds,
Have no effect to operate

Upon that duller block, your pate?
But still it must be lewdly bent

To tempt your own due punishment;
And, like your whimsied chariots,* draw
The boys to course you without law;
As if the art you have so long
Professed, of making old dogs young,
In you had virtue to renew
Not only youth, but childhood too:
Can you,
that understand all books,
By judging only with your looks,
Resolve all problems with your face,
As others do with Bs and As;
Unriddle all that mankind knows
With solid bending of your brows;
All arts and sciences advance,
With screwing of your countenance,
And with a penetrating eye,
Into th' abstrusest learning pry;
Know more of any trade b' a hint,
Than those that have been bred up in't,
And yet have no art, true or false,
To help your own bad naturals?

But still the more you strive t' appear,

Are found to be the wretcheder:

* Some fantastical novelty, probably, introduced by one of the projectors of the Royal Society.

For fools are known by looking wise,
As men find woodcocks by their eyes.
Hence 'tis that 'cause ye 'ave gained o' th' college*
A quarter share, at most, of knowledge,
And brought in none, but spent repute,
Y'assume a power as absolute

To judge, and censure, and control,
As if you were the sole Sir Poll,t
And saucily to pretend to know
More than your dividend comes to:
You'll find the thing will not be done
With ignorance and face alone: +

No, though ye 'ave purchased to your name,
In history, so great a fame;

That now your talent's so well known,
For having all belief outgrown,
That every strange prodigious tale

Is measured by your German scale, §
By which the virtuosi try

The magnitude of every lie,

Cast up to what it does amount,

And place the bigg'st to your account;

* Gresham College.-See post, p. 119, note f.

Sir Politic Would-be, a ridiculous pretender to politics, in Ben Jonson's Volpone.-WABBURTON. Or Sir Poll may have been intended to mark the real object of the satire, Sir Paul Neal.

It should seem that the most impudent face is the best; for he that does the shamefullest thing the most unconcerned is said to set a good face upon it; for the truth is, the face is but the outside of the mind, but all the craft is to know how 'tis lined. He may, for anything he knows, have as good a title to his pretences as another man; for judgment not being passed in the case (which shall never be by his means), his title still stands fair. All he can possibly attain to is but to be another thing than nature meant him, though a much worse. He makes that good that Pliny says of children-Qui celerius fari cepere, tardius ingredi incipiunt. The apter he is to smatter, the slower he is in making any advance in his pretences. He trusts words before he is thoroughly acquainted with them, and they commonly show him a trick before he is aware; and he shows at the same time his ignorance to the learned, and his learning to the ignorant.'— BUTLER.-Character of a Pretender.

§ The German short mile being equal to nearly four English.

That all those stories that are laid
Too truly to you, and those made,
Are now still charged upon your score,
And lesser authors named no more.
Alas! that faculty betrays

Those soonest it designs to raise ;
And all your vain renown will spoil,
As guns o'ercharged the more recoil;
Though he that has but impudence,
To all things has a fair pretence;
And put among his wants but shame,
To all the world may lay his claim:
Though you have tried that nothing's borne
With greater ease than public scorn,
That all affronts do still give place
To your impenetrable face;

That makes your way through all affairs,
As pigs through hedges creep with theirs:
Yet as 'tis counterfeit, and brass,

You must not think 'twill always pass;
For all impostors, when they're known,
Are past their labour, and undone :*
And all the best that can befal
An artificial natural,

Is that which madmen find, as soon

As once they're broke loose from the moon,

And, proof against her influence,

Relapse to e'er so little sense,

To turn stark fools, and subjects fit
For sport of boys, and rabble-wit.

*He that is impudent is like a merchant that trades upon his credit without a stock, and, if his debts were known, would break immediately. The inside of his head is like the outside, and his peruke as naturally of his own growth as his wit. He passes in the world like a piece of counterfeit coin, looks well enough until he is rubbed and worn with use, and then his copper complexion begins to appear. and nobody will take him but by owl-light.'—BUTLER.-Character of an Impudent Man.

II. BUTLER.

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