A fort of error, to ensconce
Absurdity and ignorance,

That renders all the avenues

To truth, impervious and abstruse,
By making plain things, in debate,
By art perplex'd and intricate :
For nothing goes for Sense or Light,
That will not with old rules jump right;
As if rules were not in the schools
Deriv'd from truth, but truth from rules.
This Pagan, Heathenish invention
Is good for nothing but contention :
For as in sword-and-buckler fight,
All blows do on the target light;
So when men argue, the great'st part
O' the contest falls on terms of art,
Until the fustian stuff be spent,

And then they fall to the' argument.'
Quoth Hudibras, Friend Ralph, thou hast
Outrun the constable at last:

For thou art fallen on a new
Dispute, as senseless as untrue,
But to the former opposite,
And contrary as black to white;
Mere disparata ;* that concerning
Presbytery; this, human learning;
Two things so averse, they never yet
But in thy rambling fancy met.
But I shall take a fit occasion

To' evince thee by' ratiocination,

Some other time, in place more proper
Than this we're in; therefore let's stop here,
And rest our wearied bones a while,

Already tir'd with other toil.

* Disparata.] Things separate and unlike.

And all those harsh and rugged sounds
Of bastinados, cuts, and wounds,
Exchang'd to love's more gentle style,
To let our reader breathe a while:
In which, that we may be as brief as
Is possible, by way of preface,-
Is't not enough to make one strange,
That some men's fancies should ne'er change,
But make all people do and say

The same things still the self-same way?
Some writers make all ladies purloin'd,
And knights pursuing like a whirlwind:
Others make all their knights, in fits
Of jealousy, to lose their wits;

Till drawing blood o' th' dames, like witches,
They're forthwith cur'd of their capriches.

Some always thrive in their amours,
By pulling plaisters off their sores;
As cripples do, to get an alms,
Just so do they, and win their dames.
Some force whole regions, in despite
O' geography, to change their site;
Make former times shake hands with latter,
And that which was before come after.
But those that write in rhyme still make
The one verse for the other's sake;
For one for sense, and one for rhyme,
I think's sufficient at one time.

But we forget in what sad plight
We whilom left the captiv'd Knight
And pensive Squire, both bruis'd in body,
And conjur❜d into safe custody.

Tir'd with dispute, and speaking Latin,

As well as basting and Bear-baiting,
And desperate of any course,
To free himself by wit or force,
His only solace was, that now
His dog-bolt fortune was so low,
That either it must quickly end,
Or turn about again, and mend,
In which he found the' event, no less
Than other times, beside his guess.
There is a tall long-sided dame,
(But wondrous light) ycleped Fame,
That like a thin camelion boards
Herself on air, and eats her words;*

* The beauty of this consists in the double meaning; the first alludes to Fame's living on report. The second is an insinuation, that if a report is narrowly enquired into, and traced up to the original author, it is made to contradict itself.

Upon her shoulders wings she wears

Like hanging sleeves, lin❜d through with ears,
And eyes and tongues, as poets list,
Made good by deep mythologist;

With these she through the welkin flies,
And sometimes carries truth, oft lies;
With letters hung, like eastern pigeons,
And Mercuries of furthest regions;
Diurnals writ for regulation

Of lying, to inform the nation,

And by their public use to bring down
The rate of whetstones* in the kingdom.
About her neck a pacquet-mail,

Fraught with advice, some fresh, some stale,
Of men that walk'd when they were dead,
And cows of monsters brought to bed;
Of hailstones big as pullets' eggs,

And puppies whelp'd with twice two legs;
A blazing-star seen in the west,
By six or seven men at least.

Two trumpets she does sound at once,
But both of clean contrary tones;
But whether both with the same wind,
Or one before, and one behind,

We know not, only this can tell,
The one sounds vilely, t' other well;
And therefore vulgar authors name
The' one Good, the' other Evil Fame.
This tattling gossip knew too well
What mischief Hudibras befel,
And straight the spiteful tidings bears
Of all, to the' unkind Widow's ears.

* A whetstone was formerly fastened to notorious liars. Vide Nuga Antiquæ, ii. 240. edit. 1804,

Democritus ne'er laugh'd so loud,
To see bawds carted through the crowd,
Or funerals, with stately pomp,
March slowly on in solemn dump,
As she laugh'd out, until her back,
As well as sides, was like to crack.
She vow'd she would go see the sight,
And visit the distressed Knight;
To do the office of a neighbour,
And be a gossip at his labour;
And from his wooden jail, the stocks,
To set at large his fetter-locks;

And by exchange, parole, or ransom,
To free him from the' inchanted mansion.
This being resolv'd, she call'd for hood
And usher (implements abroad
Which ladies wear) beside a slender
Young waiting damsel to attend her.
All which appearing; on she went
To find the Knight, in limbo pent:
And 'twas not long before she found
Him and his stout Squire in the pound;
Both coupled in inchanted tether,
By further leg behind together.
For as he sat upon his rump,

His head, like one in doleful dump,
Between his knees, his hands applied
Unto his ears on either side,

And by him, in another hole,
Afflicted Ralpho, cheek by joul:
She came upon him in his wooden
Magician's circle, on the sudden,
As spirits do to' a conjurer,

When in their dreadful shapes th' appear.