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A Suggestion for a New Edition of 
 Butler’s Hudibras . 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN 
 
 [Reprinted from the Publications of the Modern Language Association of 
 America, xxvi, 3.] 
 
 The Modern Language Association of America 
 1911 
 
Return this book on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. A 
 charge is made on all overdue 
 books. 
 
 University of Illinois Library 
 
A SUGGESTION FOR A NEW EDITION OF 
 BUTLER’S HUDIBRAS 
 
 Butler’s Hudibras has been edited many times, and much 
 erudition has been shown in explaining the wit of that 
 remarkable burlesque. Yet, curiously enough, the most 
 obvious method of annotation has hitherto been entirely 
 overlooked. This would have been to utilize the abundant 
 material bequeathed to us by Butler himself in the form 
 of prose “ characters,” which were published only after his 
 death—material that throws a most interesting light upon 
 the poet’s method, and at the same time clears up many 
 obscurities in the mock-epic. These “ characters ” were 
 written between 1667 and 1669—five or six years after the 
 appearance of the first part of Hudibras , but were not col¬ 
 lected and published till 1759. Even then, only 121 out 
 of 187 were printed in Thyer’s edition of The Genuine 
 Remains in Prose and Verse of Mr. Samuel Butler. The 
 remaining 60 have lain undisturbed in the British Museum 
 as a Addition No. 32625-6,” till the industry of a modern 
 scholar has at last unearthed and published them. 1 The 
 whole collection conforms closely to the fash i on jaf w riting 
 “ characters” that was prevalent all through the seventeenth 
 Century. 2 The character-sketch, or “character” as it came 
 to be called in that age, was., a short account, usually in 
 
 1 Samuel Butler: Characters and Passages from Note-Books, edited by A. 
 E. Waller, M. A., Cambridge University Press, 1908. 
 
 2 E. C. Baldwin, BenJonson’s Indebtedness to the Greek, Character-Sketch, 
 in Modern Language Notes, November, 1901; The Relation of the English 
 Character to its Greek Prototype, Publications of the Modern Language Associa¬ 
 tion of America, Vol. xvm, No. 3 ; La Bruyere’s Influence upon Addison, 
 ibid., Vol. xii, No. 4 ; The Relation of the Seventeenth Century Character to 
 the Periodical Essay, ibid., Vol. xix, No. 1. 
 
 528 
 
a b *1 
 
 O K { 
 
 SUGGESTION FOR A NEW BUTLErA HUDIBRAS 529 
 
 prose, of the properties, qualities, or peculiarities, that serve 
 to individualize a type. And such these of Butler are. 
 Moreover, the style in which they were written was that 
 already fixed by tradition—a style that combined in the 
 fullest possible degree wit with brevity. The special signifi¬ 
 cance of Butler’s contribution to the literature of character- 
 writing: lies in the fact that in these Characters Butler in a 
 leisurely way and in prose portrayed the same types that he 
 had previously in Hudibras satirized in a more condensed 
 form, and in verse. Each of the objects of the satire in 
 Hudibras appears among the Chai'acters , but of course 
 dissociated from its surroundings, and separated from the 
 narrative. In this way the objects of the satire are more 
 clearly brought before us in the prose than in the poetry. 
 It is as if the actors in a burlesque had one by one left the 
 stage and obligingly posed for a photographist. And as 
 such a series of pictures would serve to emphasize certain 
 details of costume and of gesture that might escape the notice 
 of a spectator at the play, so these statuesque delineations of 
 the types Butler had in mind reveal more clearly than does 
 the mock-epic the particular objects of the author’s satire. 
 
 They prove, among other things, that the popular concep¬ 
 tion of Hudibras is a mistaken one. The poem is ordinarily 
 described as a kind of versified Don Quixote, satirizing the 
 Presbyterians. As a matter of fact, Butler borrowed very 
 little from Cervantes except the general framework of the 
 story, and the satire is far more than ridicule of the Presby¬ 
 terian party. It is a satire upon the society of the age. 
 The age deserved it. With all due respect for the Puritans, 
 with a full recognition of the incalculable value of their 
 service to the cause of civil liberty, espoused though it was 
 because to them it was the cause of religion, we must 
 recognize also that the Commonwealth period had toward 
 its close degenerated into one of shameless hypocrisy. The 
 
530 
 
 EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN 
 
 forms of godliness had become fashionable. Indeed they 
 were more than fashionable, they became obligatory. One 
 of the first resolutions of the “ Barebones Parliament ” was 
 that no man should hold office till the House should be 
 satisfied of his real godliness. The forms of this godliness 
 were easy to counterfeit. The dark clothes, the nasal twang, 
 the biblical language, the abhorrence of art, and the con¬ 
 tempt for learning that were characteristic of “ the Saints ” 
 were only too easily imitated by men to whom the power of 
 godliness that had made the earlier Puritans invincible on 
 the battle field and in the hall of debate was unknown. The 
 result was that by the middle of the seventeenth century 
 {hypocrisy had become a national vice. 
 
 X Hardly less vicious were the excesses of fanaticism that 
 appeared among those new sects which toward the close of 
 the Commonwealth period seemed more intent upon proving 
 their zeal than their sanity. There were, to mention only a 
 few, the Quakers who believed it a violation of Christian 
 sincerity to designate a single person by a plural pronoun. 1 
 There were the Fifth Monarchy men, who believed and 
 taught that the four great monarchies mentioned in the book 
 of Daniel were immediately to be succeeded by a fifth, when 
 Christ should reign temporally on the earth. There were 
 the Muggletonians, or disciples of Ludovic Muggleton, the 
 tipsy tailor, who went about denouncing eternal torments 
 against those who refused to credit his assertion that God 
 was just six feet high, and that the sun was exactly four 
 miles from the earth. There were also the Seekers, who 
 thought themselves so sure of salvation that they deemed it 
 
 1 “ Their gospel is an accidence, 
 
 By which they construe conscience, 
 
 And hold no sin so deeply red 
 As that of breaking Priscian’s head.” 
 
 Hudibras, P. 11 ., C. 2, 11. 221-4. 
 
SUGGESTION FOR A NEW BUTLER^ HUDIBRAS 531 
 
 needless for them to conform to ordinances either human or 
 divine, who thought it 
 
 u ... . ridiculous and nonsense 
 A saint should be a slave to conscience, 
 
 That ought to be above such fancies, 
 
 As far as above ordinances.” 1 
 
 f 
 
 Against religious hypocrisy and sectarian fanaticism alike 
 Butler waged relentless war. Upon Presbyterians, and all 
 that 
 
 “ . . . . various rout 
 Of petulent capricious sects” 
 
 into which the Presbyterian party came to be divided 
 Butler poured his merciless ridicule. Nor was it against 
 hypocrisy in religion alone that he exercised his wit. He 
 scourged hypocrisy in every form , though putting into th e 
 most prominent place what he regarded as the worst hyp oc¬ 
 
 r isy of a ll. Among the shams that he lashed were false 
 learning, masquerading as the true ; charlatans, posing as 
 physicians; politicians, hiding their self-seeking under an 
 ostentatious display of public spirit; plagiarists, parading as 
 their own their thefts from other men’s books ; cowards, 
 hiding their timidity beneath a show of bravado; the pre¬ 
 tensions and pedantries of learning ; the sham dignities of 
 ambassadors; the sophistries of lawyers; the quackeries of 
 astrologers—all these he ridiculed. And perhaps it is not 
 too much to say that by ridicule “ he laughed a frantic 
 nation into sense.” 2 
 
 1 Hudibras, P. II., C. 2, 11. 247-250. 
 
 2 11 Unrival’d Butler ! Blest with happy skill 
 
 To heal by comic verse each serious ill, 
 
 By wit’s strong lashes Reason’s light dispense, 
 
 And laugh a frantic nation into sense ! ” 
 
 An Essay on Epic Poetry , William Hayley, 1782, Ep. in. 
 
 8 
 
532 
 
 EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN 
 
 By revealing hypocrisy as the single theme of Butler’s 
 satire, the Characters emphasize the essential unity of the 
 epic—a unity somewhat obscured by the discursive treat¬ 
 ment, and by the fact that the narrative is scarcely sufficient 
 to hold the attention of the reader. They show that in spite 
 of the apparent lack of unity in the poem, Butler really did 
 follow the method of the Latin satirists in choosing for his 
 theme some one vice and subordinating everything else to 
 it. 1 Naturally, the resultant picture, as a representation of 
 life, is a distorted likeness. But Gilfillan is quite unfair in 
 his censure of Butler 2 for a failure to recognize beneath the 
 ludicrous religious fopperies of the Parliamentarians their 
 splendid courage and their noble faith. To blame Butler for 
 not presenting a true picture of the Puritans of his time is 
 as unjust as it would be to condemn Juvenal for his arraign¬ 
 ment of women in his sixth satire, for it is to be presumed 
 that there were in Rome in the first century A. D. some 
 good women, though Juvenal takes no account of them in 
 his attack upon the general frivolity of the sex during the 
 age of Roman decadence. By the very nature of the literary 
 form that the satirist adopts as his medium of expression, 
 he is limited to presenting a series of pictures that shall 
 exemplify some particular folly or vice, and only that. The 
 satire must always be like a series of family portraits, the 
 faces all revealing some hereditary and persistent character- 
 
 1 Dryden, who derived the rules governing the construction of satire 
 from the practice of the Latin satirists Horace, Juvenal, and Persius, says 
 in his Discourse concerning the Origin and Progress of Satire: ‘ * The poet is 
 bound, and that ex officio, to give his reader some one precept of moral 
 virtue, and to caution him against some one particular vice or folly. 
 Other virtues, subordinate to the first, may be recommended under that 
 chief head ; and other vices or follies may be scourged, besides that which 
 he principally intends. But he is chiefly to inculcate one virtue, and insist 
 on that.” 
 
 2 In the Introduction to his edition of Butler’s Poetical Works. 
 
SUGGESTION FOR A NEW BUTLER^S HUDIBRAS 533 
 
 istic, or like a rogues’ gallery, where all the pictures show 
 the same criminal taint. That the Hudibras is a satire upon 
 hypocrisy exemplified in typical representatives of the society 
 of the seventeenth century, rather than merely an attack 
 upon an already vanquished political party, is clearly shown 
 by even a casual reading of the Characters. 
 
 What Butler did when he wrote the Characters was to 
 separate the constituent elements of the satire of Hudibras , 
 and develop each independently in prose. Often he para¬ 
 phrased the lines of the epic, and in a few instances he 
 quoted from the poem a particularly neat couplet in which 
 he felt a pardonable pride, as when he ends the character of 
 a Zealot with this sentence : 
 
 “ He is very severe to other Men’s sins, that his own may 
 pass unsuspected, as those, that were engaged in the Con¬ 
 spiracy against Nero, were most cruel to their own Con¬ 
 federates, or as one says, 
 
 Compound for Sins he is inclin’d to 
 By damning those he has no mind to.” 1 
 
 By such a dismembering of the epic he revealed more 
 clearly the parts of which it was composed, just as wrecking 
 a building reveals its construction much more clearly than 
 does any superficial examination of the edifice in its integrity. 
 He shows clearly that in its construction he had adopted a 
 method which was a combination of the methods of the two 
 classes of satirists that flourished in the seventeenth century. 
 As has been pointed out, 2 there was the political satire 
 closely connected with the political and religious contro¬ 
 versies of the age, full of partisan witticisms, and of bitter 
 
 1 Quoted with a slight variation from Hudibras, P. i., C. 1, 11. 215-16. 
 
 2 Alden, The Rise of Formal Satire in England under Classical Influence, 
 Publications of the University of Pennsylvania, 1899. 
 
534 
 
 EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN 
 
 attacks upon individuals. Secondly, there was the phenom¬ 
 enal development of the satiric character-sketch with its 
 emphasis upon character analysis, and its portrayal of human 
 types. By adapting the prose chara cter -sketch to^the pur- 
 poses of political satire, Butler anticipated Dryden. _ By 
 combining the methods of the writer of characters with that 
 of the political satirist Butler contributed to the permanency 
 of his work, avoiding the ephemeralness that belongs almost 
 inevitably to all political satire, by making the appeal 
 depend in part at least upon the universal and timeless 
 
 interest in human character, rather than upon transient 
 
 ph ases of national politics. Had he acquired also the com¬ 
 pactness and the reflective manner of the Latin satirists, had 
 he reproduced the manner of Juvenal, for example, as he 
 reproduced in some degree his spirit, he might have written 
 a satire with all the classical dignity, which was lacking in 
 Hudibras, but which we find in Absalom and Achitophel . 
 
 Besides their usefulness in explaining Butler’s satiric 
 method, the Characters possess a value to the modern editor 
 in elucidating the text of Hudibras. No poetry of the 
 seventeenth century calls for so much annotation, because 
 no poetry of that age has become so unintelligible. Though 
 the satire, because it was directed against shams, and because 
 shams were not peculiar to that age, does possess a certain 
 permanence of appeal, still it shares to a considerable extent 
 the limitations of all satiric writing. The satire is directed 
 against a vice in which the society of the seventeenth cen¬ 
 tury had no monopoly, it is true; but that vice manifested 
 itself in ways that are now obsolete and forgotten. Doctor 
 Johnson in his Lives of the English Poets says of Butler’s 
 Hudibras: 
 
 “Much therefore of that humour which transported the last century 
 with merriment is lost to us, who do not know the sour solemnity, the 
 sullen superstition, the gloomy moroseness, and the stubborn scruples of 
 
SUGGESTION EOR A NEW BUTLER^S HUDIBRAS 535 
 
 the ancient Puritans; or, if we knew them, derive our information only 
 from books, or from tradition, have never had them before our eyes, and 
 cannot but by recollection and study understand the lines in which they 
 are satirized. Our grandfathers knew the picture from the life; we judge 
 of the life by the picture.” 
 
 The picture needs an explanation like those pictorial keys 
 that used to accompany engravings that were popular in the 
 last century. 1 
 
 Such a key to the understanding of Hudibras is furnished 
 by the Characters . 2 Here practically all the types that are 
 described, and even those briefly referred to by seemingly 
 casual allusions in the poem, are found classified and ticketed 
 with their proper designations. Ralph, for example, who is 
 ordinarily said to represent the Independents, is clearly 
 seen, when we examine the passages in which he figures, to 
 be composed of characteristics taken from eight types, which 
 in the Characters are drawn at full length and labeled. 
 Thus the Characters show Ralph to be an ex-tailor turned 
 politician; as regards his religious beliefs, an hypocritical 
 Anabaptist; with a loquacious bent, hence an haranguer and 
 a ranter, and finally, because of his superstitious ignorance 
 coupled with his pretensions to mystically acquired knowl¬ 
 edge, an astrologer and a Rosycrucian philosopher. 
 
 To show the relation of the Characters to Hudibras , I 
 excerpt from the epic certain lines descriptive of the charac- 
 
 1 These engravings most of us recall as having formed a part of the par¬ 
 lor splendors of some New England homestead. They represented a group 
 of people, who, perhaps, had never met in the body, and who seemed even 
 in the picture a little awkward and ill at ease, standing or sitting in angu¬ 
 lar attitudes, apparently for the express purpose of showing their faces. 
 For the identification of the faces there hung beside the engraving a small 
 outline sketch in which were numbers corresponding to a numbered list of 
 the persons represented. 
 
 2 That the Characters furnish a complete explanation of all the obscuri¬ 
 ties in the poem, like the u Kev to the Scriptures ” in use among some of 
 our Christian brethren is not, of course, meant to be implied. 
 
536 
 
 EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN 
 
 teristics and opinions of Ralph, 1 placing at the foot of the 
 pages in the form of notes the passages from the Characters 
 that are significant. 
 
 A Squire he had, whose name was Ralph, 
 
 That in th’ adventure went his half. 
 
 Though writers, for more stately tone, 
 
 Do call him Ralpho, ’tis all one ; 
 
 And when we can, with metre safe, 
 
 We’ll call him so, if not, plain Ralph ; 
 
 For rhyme the rudder is of verses, 
 
 With which, like ships, they steer their courses. 2 
 An equal stock of wit and valour 
 He had laid in; by birth a tailor ; 
 
 Thy mighty Tyrian queen that gained, 
 
 With subtle shreds, a tract of land, 
 
 Did leave it, with a castle fair, 
 
 To his great ancestor, her heir ; 
 
 From him descended cross-legged knights, 
 
 Famed for their faith 3 and warlike fights 
 Against the bloody Cannibal, 
 
 Whom they destroyed both great and small. 
 
 This sturdy squire had, as well 
 As. the bold Trojan knight seen hell, 4 
 
 1 Ralph was selected, not because he alone exemplifies the usefulness of 
 the Characters as a source for notes on the text of Hudibras , but because he 
 serves as well as any of the others would, and because to treat in this way 
 all the persons that figure in the epic would require too much space. 
 
 2 “When he writes Anagrams, he uses to lay the Outsides of his Verses 
 even (like a Bricklayer) by a line of Ryme and Acrostic, and fill the 
 Middle with Rubbish.—In this he imitates Ben Jonson, but in nothing 
 else.”— A Small Poet. 
 
 “When he writes, he commonly steers the Sense of his J^ines by the 
 Rhyme that is at the End of them, as Butchers do Calves by the Tail. 
 For when he has made one Line, which is easy enough ; and has found out 
 some sturdy hard Word, that will but rhyme, he will hammer the Sense 
 upon it, like a Piece of hot Iron upon an Anvil, into what Form he 
 Pleases. ’ ’ — Ibid. 
 
 3 “He lives much more by his Faith than good Works; for he gains 
 more by trusting and believing in one that pays him at long running, than 
 six that he works for, upon an even accompt, for ready money.”— A Taylor. 
 
 4 “ He calls Stealing damning , by a Figure in Rhetoric called the Effect 
 for the Efficient, and the Place where he lodges all his Thieveries Hell, to 
 put him in mind of his latter End.”— Ibid. 
 
SUGGESTION FOR A NEW BUTLER^ HUDIBRAS 537 
 
 Not with a counterfeited pass 
 Of golden bough, 1 but true gold lace. 
 
 His knowledge was not far behind 
 The knight’s, but of another kind, 
 
 And he another way came by ’t; 
 
 Some call it Gifts, and some New-light ; 
 
 A lib’ral art that costs no pains 
 Of study, industry, or brains. 
 
 P. i., C. 1, 11. 457-484. 
 
 Quoth Ralplio, ‘ Nothing but th’ abuse 
 Of human learning you produce ; 
 
 Learning, that cobweb of the brain, 
 
 Profane, erroneous, and vain ; 
 
 A trade of knowledge as replete, 
 
 As others are with fraud and cheat; 
 
 An art t’ incumber gifts and wit, 
 
 And render both for nothing fit; 2 
 
 P. i., C. 3, 1337-1344. 
 
 His wits were sent him for a token, 
 
 But in the carriage crack’d and broken. 
 
 Like commendation nine-pence, crook’t 
 With—to and from my love—it Look’t. 
 
 1 “ The great Secret, which they can prove to be the golden Bough, that 
 served .Eneas for a pass to go to Hell with.”— An Hermetic Philosopher. 
 
 2 “He cries down Learning, as he does the World, because it is not 
 within his Reach, and gives unjust Judgment upon that, which he under¬ 
 stands nothing of ... . The prodigious Height of Confidence, he has 
 arrived to, is not possible to be attained without an equally impregnable 
 Ignorance.”— An Anabaptist. 
 
 “He calls his supposed Abilities Gifts .... He owes all his Gifts to 
 his Ignorance, as Beggars do the Alms they receive to their Poverty.” — 
 A Fanatic. 
 
 “ And this he finds useful to many Purposes ; for it does not only save 
 him the Labour of Study, which he disdains as below his Gifts, but 
 exempts him from many other Duties, and gives his idle Infirmities a 
 greater Reputation among his Followers than the greatest Abilities of the 
 most Industrious.”— An Hypocritical Nonconformist. 
 
 “. . . he and his Brethren have with long and diligent Practice found 
 out an Expedient to make that Dullness, which would become intolerable 
 if it did not pretend to something above Nature, pass for Dispensations , 
 Light , Grace, and Gifts.” — Ibid. 
 
538 
 
 EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN 
 
 He ne’er consider’d it, as loth 
 To look a gift-horse in the mouth ; 
 
 And very wisely would lay forth 
 No more upon it than ’twas worth. 
 
 But as he got it freely, so 
 He spent it frank and freely too. 
 
 For saints themselves will sometimes be, 
 
 Of gifts that cost them nothing, free. 1 
 By means of this, with hem and cough, 
 
 Prolongers to enlighten snuff, 
 
 He could deep mysteries unriddle, 
 
 As easily as thread a needle : 2 
 
 P. i., C. 1, 11. 485-500. 
 
 ’Tis a dark-lanthorn of the spirit, 
 
 Which none see but those that bear it : 
 
 A light that falls down from on high, 
 
 For spiritual trades to cozen by : 
 
 An ignis fatuus, that bewitches, 
 
 And leads men into pools and ditches, 
 
 To make them dip themselves, and sound 
 For Christendom in dirty pond ; 
 
 To dive like wild fowl, for salvation. 
 
 And fish to catch regeneration. 3 
 
 1 “ He is very free of his faith because he comes easily by it; for it costs 
 him no consideration at all, and he is sure he can hardly part with it, for 
 less than it is worth.”— A Credulous Man. 
 
 2 “He gathers Churches on the Sunday, as the Jews did Sticks on their 
 Sabbath, to set the State on Fire. He humms and hahs high Treason, and 
 calls upon it, as Gamesters do on the Cast they would throw. He groans 
 Sedition, and, like the Pharisee , rails, when he gives Thanks.”— A Fifth- 
 Monarchy-Man. 
 
 3 “ He controuls his fellow Labourers in the Fire with as much Empire 
 and authority, as if he were sole Overseer of the great Work , to which he 
 lights his Header like an ignis fatuus , which uses to mislead Men into 
 Sloughs and Ditches ; . . . .”— An Hermetic Philosopher. 
 
 “ He finds out Sloughs and Ditches, that are aptest for launching of an 
 Anabaptist; for he does not christen, but launch his Vessel.”— An 
 Anabaptist. 
 
 “He does not like the use of Water in his Baptism, as it falls from 
 Heaven in Drops, but as it runs out of the Bowels of the Earth, or stands 
 putrefying in a dirty Pond.”— Ibid. 
 
SUGGESTION FOE A NEW BUTLEB^S HUDIBEAS 539 
 
 This light inspires and plays upon 
 The nose of saint, like bagpipe drone, 1 
 And speaks through hollow empty soul, 
 
 As through a trunk or whisp’ring hole, 
 
 Such language as no mortal ear 
 But spiritual eaves-droppers can hear. 
 
 P. i., C. 1, 11. 505-520. 
 
 Have they invented tones to win 
 The women, and make them draw in 
 The men, as Indians with a female 
 Tame elephant inveigle the male ? 2 
 
 R i., C. 2, 11. 585-8. 
 
 Thus Ralph became infallible, 
 
 As three or four legg’d oracle, 
 
 The ancient cup or modern chair; 
 
 Spoke truth point blank, though unaware. 
 
 For mystic learning wondrous able 
 In magic talisman, and cabal, 3 
 Whose primitive tradition reaches, 
 
 1 “His Tongue is like a Bagpipe Drone, that has no Stop, but makes a 
 continual ugly Noise, as long as he can squeeze any Wind out of him¬ 
 self.”— An Haranguer. 
 
 2 “ The pity of his suppos’d sufferings works much on the tender sex the 
 sisters, and their benevolence is as duly paid as the husbands ; for whatso¬ 
 ever they are to their spouses, they are sure to be his helpers, and he as 
 sure to plow with their heifers.”— A Silenc'd Presbyterian. 
 
 “And the better to set this off, he uses more artificial Tricks to improve 
 his Spirit of Utterance either into Volubility or Dullness, that it may seem 
 to go of itself, without his Study or Direction, than the old Heathen 
 Orators knew, that used to liquor their Throats, and harangue to Pipes. 
 For he has fantastic and extravagant Tones, as well as Phrases, ... in a 
 Kind of stilo recitativo between singing and braying ; . . .”— An Hypo¬ 
 critical Nonconformist. 
 
 3 “For they will undertake to teach any Kind of mysterious Learning in 
 the World by Way of Diet; and therefore have admirable Receipts, to 
 make several Dishes for Talisman, Magic, and Cabal, in which Sciences a 
 Man of an ingenious Stomach may eat himself into more Knowledge at a 
 Meal, than he could possibly arrive at by seven Years Study.”— An 
 Hermetic Philosopher. 
 
540 
 
 EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN 
 
 As far as Adam’s first green breeches. 1 
 Deep-sighted in intelligences, 
 
 Ideas, atoms, influences ; 
 
 And much of terra incognita, 
 
 Th’ intelligible world could say ; 2 
 A deep occult philosopher. 
 
 As learn’d as the wild Irish are, 
 
 Or Sir Agrippa, for profound 
 And solid lying much renown’d : 3 
 He Anthroposophus 4 and Floud, 
 
 And Jacob Behmen 5 understood ; 
 
 Knew many an amulet and charm, 
 
 That would do neither good nor harm ; 
 
 In Rosicrucian love as learned, 
 
 As he that vere adeptus earned. 6 
 
 1 “(He) derives the Pedigree of Magic from Adam’s first green Britches 
 because Fig-leaves being the first Cloaths, that Mankind wore, were only 
 used for Covering, and therefore are the most ancient Monuments of con¬ 
 cealed Mysteries.”— Ibid. 
 
 2 “ They are better acquainted with the intelligible World, than they 
 are with this ; and understand more of Ideas than they do of Things. 
 This intelligible World is a kind of Terra incognita , a Psitlacorum Begio, of 
 which Men talk what they do not understand. They would have us be¬ 
 lieve that it is but the Counterpart of the elementary World ; and that 
 there is not so much as an individual Beard upon the Face of the Earth, 
 that has not another there perfectly of the same Colour and Cut to match 
 it.”— Ibid. 
 
 “ Democracy is but the Effect of a crazy Brain ; ’tis like the intelligible 
 World, where the Models and Ideas of all Things are, but no Things ; and 
 ’twill never go further.”— Ibid. 
 
 5 “ He adores Cornelius Agrippa as an Oracle, ) T et believes he under¬ 
 stands more of his Writings than he did himself ; for he will not take his 
 own Testimony concerning his three books of occult Philosophy, which he 
 confesses to have written without Wit or Judgment.”— An Hermetic 
 Philosopher. 
 
 4 “No doubt a very strange Landscape, and not unlike that, which 
 Anthroposophus has made of the invisible Mountain of the Philosophers .” — 
 Ibid. 
 
 5 “They have made Spectacles to read Jacob Boehmen and Ben Israel 
 with, which, like those Glasses that revert the Object, will turn the 
 wrong End of their Sentences upwards, and make them look like Sense.” 
 —Ibid. 
 
 6 “The best you may suppose is laid up carefully ; for he always tells 
 you what he could tell you, whereby it appears the Purpose of his Writing 
 
SUGGESTION FOR A NEW BUTLER^S HUDIBRAS 541 
 
 He understood the speech of birds 
 As well as they themselves do words ; 
 
 Could tell what subtlest parrots mean, 
 
 That speak and think contrary clean ; 
 
 When they cry Rope—and Walk, Knave, Walk. 1 
 He’d extract numbers out of matter, 
 
 And keep them in a glass, like water, 2 
 Of sov’reign power to make men wise ; 
 
 For dropt in blear thick-sighted eyes, 
 
 They’d make them see in darkest night, 
 
 Like owls, tho’ purblind in the light. 3 
 By help of these, as he profest, 
 
 He had first matter seen undrest: 
 
 He took her naked, all alone, 
 
 Before one rag of form was on. 
 
 The chaos too he had descry’d, 
 
 And seen quite thro’, or else he lied : 
 
 Not that of pasteboard, which men shew 
 For groats, at fair of Barthol’mew ; 
 
 P. i., C. 1, 11. 525-566. 
 
 is but to let you know that he knows, which if you can but attain to, you 
 are sufficiently learned, and may pass for vere adeptus though otherwise he 
 will not allow any Man to be free of the Philosophers, that has not only 
 served out his Time to a Furnace, but can cant and spit Fire like a 
 Jugler.”— Ibid. 
 
 1 “. . . for they profess to understand the Language of Beasts and Birds, 
 as they say Solomon did, else he never would have said— The Fowls of the 
 Air can discover Treason against Princes .”— Ibid. 
 
 2 “Though they believe their own Senses base and unworthy of their 
 Notice (like that delicate Roman, who being put in his Litter by his 
 Servants, asked, whether he sat or no) yet they never apply themselves to 
 any Thing abstruse or subtile, but with much Caution ; and commonly 
 resolve all Questions of that Nature by Numbers— Monades, Triadcs , and 
 Decades, are with them a kind of philosophical Fulhams, with which, like 
 cunning Gamesters, they can throw what they please, and be sure to win, 
 for no Body can disprove them.”— Ibid. 
 
 u These Numbers they believe to be the better sort of Spirits, by the 
 Largeness of their Dominion, which extends from beyond the intelligible 
 World, through all the inferior Worlds, to the Center, which is the 
 uttermost bound of their Empire that Way.”— Ibid. 
 
 3 “. . . they are very sovereign to clear the Eyes of the Mind, and make 
 a blear-eyed Intellect see like a Cat in the Dark, though it be stark blind 
 in the Light.”— Ibid. 
 
542 
 
 EDWAKD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN 
 
 All this without th’ eclipse of th’ sun, 
 
 Or dreadful comet, he hath done 
 By inward light, 1 a way as good, 
 
 And easy to be understood : 
 
 But with more lucky hit than those 
 That use to make the stars depose, 
 
 Like Knights o’ th’ Post, 2 and falsely charge 
 Upon themselves what others forge ; 
 
 As if they were consenting to 
 All mischiefs in the world men do : 
 
 1 “But after so many Precepts and Rules delivered with the greatest 
 Confidence and Presumption of Certainty, they will tell you, that this Art 
 is not to be attained but by divine Revelation, and only to be expected by 
 holy and sanctified Persons, that have left behind them all the Concern¬ 
 ments of this World ; whereby it seems, this Shadow of Art follows those that 
 fly it, and flies from those that follow it.” — Ibid. 
 
 2 “He keeps as many Knights of the Post to swear for him, as the King 
 does poor Knights at Windsor to pray for him.”— A Litigious Man. 
 
 “A Knight of the Post 
 
 Is a retailer of Oaths, a Deposition-Monger, an Evidence-Maker that 
 lives by the Labour of his Conscience. He takes Money to kiss the 
 Gospel, as Judas did Christ, when he betrayed him. As a good conscience 
 is a continual Feast; so an ill one is with him his daily Food. He plys 
 at a Court of Justice, as Porters do at a Market; and his Business is to 
 bear Witness, as they do Burthens, for any man that will pay them for it. 
 He will swear his Ears through an Inch-Board, and wears them merely 
 by Favour of the Court ; for being Amicus curiae , they are willing to let 
 him keep the Pillory out of Possession, though he has forfeited his Right 
 never so often ; For when he is once outed of his Ears, he is past his 
 Labour, and can do the Commonwealth of Practisers no more Service. He 
 is a false Weight in the Ballance of Justice ; and as a Lawyer’s Tongue is 
 the Tongue of the Ballance, that inclines either Way, according as the 
 Weight of the Bribe inclines it, so does his. He lays one Hand on the 
 Book, and the other in the Plaintiff’s or Defendant’s Pocket. He feeds 
 upon His Conscience, as a Monkey eats his Tail. Pie kisses the Book to 
 show he renounces, and takes his leave of it—Many a parting Kiss has he 
 given the Gospel. He pollutes it with his Lips oftener than a Hypocrite. 
 He is a sworn Officer of every Court, and a great Practiser ; is admitted 
 within the Bar, and makes good what the rest of the Council say. The 
 Attorney and Solicitor fee and instruct him in the Case; and he ventures 
 as far for his Client, as any Man, to be laid by the Ears : He speaks more 
 to the Point than any other, yet gives false Ground to his Brethren of the 
 
SUGGESTION FOE A NEW BUTLEE's HUDIBEAS 543 
 
 Or, like the devil, did tempt and sway ’em 1 
 To rogueries, and then betray ’em. 
 
 They’ll search a planet’s house, to know 
 Who broke and robbed a house below ; 
 
 Examine Venus and the Moon, 
 
 Who stole a thimble or a spoon ; 
 
 And though they nothing will confess, 
 
 Yet by their very looks can guess, 2 
 And tell what guilty aspect bodes, 
 
 Who stole, and who received the goods : 
 
 They’ll question Mars, and, by his look, 
 
 Detect who ’twas that nimmed a cloak ; 
 
 Make Mercury confess, and ’peach 
 Those thieves which he himself did teach. 
 
 They’ll find, i’ th’ physiognomies 
 O’ th’ planets, all men’s destinies ; 
 
 Like him that took the doctor’s bill, 
 
 And swallow’d it instead o’ th’ pill. 
 
 Jury, that they seldom come near the Jack. His Oaths are so brittle, 
 that not one in twenty of them will hold the Taking, but fly as soon as 
 they are out. He is worse than an ill Conscience ; for that bears true 
 Witness, but his is always false, and though his own Conscience be said to 
 be a thousand Witnesses, he will out-swear and out-face them all. He 
 believes it no Sin to bear false Witness for his Neighbour, that pays him 
 for it, because it is not forbidden, but only to bear false Witness against 
 his Neighbour.” 
 
 1 “These Influences, they would make us believe, are a Kind of little 
 invisible Midwives, which the Stars employ at the Nativities of Men, to 
 swathe and bind up their Spirits .... And yet it should seem, these In¬ 
 fluences are but a kind of Mock-desfomes, whose Business it is to tamper 
 with all Men, but compel none.—This the learned call inclining not 
 necessitating. They have a small precarious Empire, wholly at the Will 
 of the Subject; they can raise no Men but only Volunteers, for their Power 
 does not extend to press any. Their Jurisdiction is only to invite Men to 
 the Gallows, or the Pillory in a civil Way, but force none so much as to a 
 Whipping, unless, like Catholic Penitents, they have a mind to it, and 
 will lay it on themselves. They are very like, if not the same, to the 
 Temptations of the Devil . . . .”— An Hermetic Philosopher. 
 
 2 “He talks with them by dumb Signs, and can tell what they mean by 
 their twinckling and squinting upon one another, as well as they them¬ 
 selves. He is a Spy upon the Stars, and can tell what they are doing by 
 the Company they keep, and the Houses they frequent.”— An Astrologer . 
 
544 
 
 EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN 
 
 Cast the nativity of the question, 
 
 And from positions to be guest on, 
 
 As sure as if they knew the moment 
 Of Native’s birth, tell what will come on ’t. 1 
 They’ll feel the pulses of the stars, 
 
 To find out agues, coughs, catarrhs ; 
 
 And tell what crisis does divine 
 The rot in sheep, or mange in swine ; 
 
 What gains, or loses, hangs, or saves, 
 
 What makes men great, what fools, or knaves ; 
 
 But not what wise, for only ’f those 
 The stars, they say, cannot dispose, 
 
 No more than can the astrologians : 
 
 There they say right, and like true Trojans. 2 
 
 P. i., C. 1, 11. 577-620. 
 
 Synods are mystical bear-gardens, 
 
 Where elders, deputies, church-wardens, 3 
 And other members of the court, 
 
 Manage the Babylonish sport. 
 
 P. i., C. 3, 11. 1095-8. 
 
 1 “ They have found out an admirable Way to decide all Contro- 
 versaries, and resolve Doubts of the greatest Difficulty by Way of horary 
 Questions, for as the learned Astrologers, observing the Impossibility of 
 knowing the exact Moment of any Man’s Birth, do use very prudently to 
 cast the Nativity of the Question (like him, that swallowed the Doctor’s bill 
 instead of the Medicine) and find the Answer as certain and infallible, as 
 if they had known the very Instant, in which the Native, as they call 
 him, crept into the World.”— An Hermetic Philosopher. 
 
 2 “As little Good as Hurt can they do any Man against his Will—they 
 cannot make a private Man a Prince, unless he have a very strong Desire 
 to be so ; nor make any Man happy in any Condition whatsoever, unless 
 his own Liking concur. ... As for the Wise, the Learned tell us, they 
 have nothing to do with them ; and if they make any Attempt upon them, 
 it is to no Purpose : for when they incline a Man to be a Knave, and pre¬ 
 vail upon him, he must be a Fool (for they have no Power over the Wise) 
 and so all their Labour is lost.”— Ibid. 
 
 3 “A Church-Warden 
 
 Is a public Officer, intrusted to rob the Church by Virtue of his Place, as 
 long as he is in it. He has a very great Care to eat and drink well upon 
 all public Occasions, that concern the Parish : for a good Conscience being a 
 perpetual Feast, he believes, the better he feeds, the more Conscience he 
 uses in the Discharge of his Trust; and as long as there is no Dry-money- 
 cheat used, all others are allowed, according to the Tradition and Practice 
 
SUGGESTION FOE A NEW BUTLEE's HUDIBEAS 545 
 
 That Saints may claim a dispensation 
 To swear and forswear on occasion, 
 
 I doubt not but it will appear 
 
 With pregnant light: the point is clear. 
 
 Oaths are but words, and words but wind, 1 
 Too feeble instruments to bind ; 
 
 And hold with deeds proportion so 
 As shadows to a substance do. 
 
 P. ii., C. 2, 11. 103-110. 
 
 But they are weak, and little know 
 What free-born consciences may do. 
 
 ’Tis the temptation of the devil 
 That makes all human actions evil : 
 
 For saints may do the same thing by 
 The spirit, in sincerity, 
 
 of the Church in the purest Times. When he lays a tax upon the Parish 
 he commonly raises it a fourth Part above the Accompt, to supply the 
 Default of Houses that may be burnt, or stand empty ; or Men that may 
 break and run away ; and if none of these happen, his Fortune is the 
 greater, and his Hazard never the less ; and therefore he divides the 
 Overplus between himself and his Colleagues, who were engaged to pay the 
 whole, if all the Parish had run away, or hanged themselves. He over¬ 
 reckons the Parish in his Accompts, as the Taverns do him, and keeps the 
 odd Money himself, instead of giving it to the Drawers. He eats up the 
 Bell-ropes like the Ass in the Emblem, and converts the broken Glass- 
 Windows into whole Beer-Glasses of Sack ; and before his Year is out, if 
 he be but as good a Fellow as the drinking Bishop was, pledges a whole 
 Pulpit full. If the Church happen to fall to decay in his Time, it proves 
 a Deodand to him ; for he is Lord of the Manor, and does not make only 
 make what he pleases of it, but has his Name recorded on the Walls 
 among Texts of Scripture and leathern Buckets, with the Year of his 
 Office, that the Memory of the Unjust, as well as the Just may last as 
 long as so transitory a Thing may. He interprets his Oath as Catholics do 
 the Scripture, not according to the Sense and Meaning of the Words, but 
 the Tradition and Practice of his Predecessors ; who have always been 
 observed to swear what other please, and do what they please themselves.” 
 
 1 “And therefore promises ought to oblige those only to whom they are 
 made, not those who make them ; for he that expects a Man should bind 
 himself is worse than a thief, who does that Service for him, after he has 
 robbed him on the High-way. Promises are but W 7 ords, and Words Air, 
 which no Man can claim a Propriety in, but is equally free to all and 
 incapable of being confined ; . . .”—A Modern Politician. 
 
546 
 
 EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN 
 
 Which other men are tempted to, 
 
 And at the devil’s instance do ; 
 
 And yet the actions be contrary, 
 
 Just as the saints and wicked vary. 
 
 For as on land there is no beast 
 But in some fish at sea’s exprest ; 
 
 So in the wicked there’s no vice, 
 
 Of which the saints have not a spice ; 
 
 And yet that thing that’s pins in 
 The one, in th’ other is a sin. 1 
 
 P. ii., C. 2, 11. 231-246. 
 
 Synods are whelps o’ th’ Inquisition, 
 
 A mongrel breed of like pernicion, 
 
 And growing up, became the sires 
 Of scribes, commissioners, and triers ; 
 
 Whose business is, by cunning sleight, 
 
 To cast a figure for men’s light; 
 
 To find, in lines of beard and face, 
 
 The physiognomy of grace ; 
 
 And by the sound and twang of nose, 
 
 If all be sound within, disclose, 
 
 Free from a crack, or flaw of sinning, 
 
 As men try pipkins by the ringing ; 
 
 By black caps underlaid with white, 
 
 1 “ For as strong Bodies may freely venture to do and suffer that, with¬ 
 out any Hurt to themselves, which would destroy those that are feeble : 
 so a Saint, that is strong in Grace, may boldly engage himself in those 
 great Sins and Iniquities, that would easily damn a weak brother, and yet 
 come off never the worse.”— A Banter. 
 
 “He preaches the Gospel in despite of itself ; for though there can be 
 no Character so true and plain of him, as that which is there copied from 
 the Scribes and Pharisees , yet he is not so weak a brother to apply any 
 Thing to himself, that is not perfectly agreeable to his own Purposes ; nor 
 so mean an Interpreter of Scripture, that he cannot relieve himself, when 
 he is prest home with a Text, especially where his own Conscience is 
 Judge : For what Privilege have the Saints more than the Wicked, if they 
 cannot dispense with themselves in such Cases?”— An Hypocritical Non¬ 
 conformist. 
 
 “He canonises himself a Saint in his own Life-time, as Homitian made 
 himself a God ; and enters his Name in the Rubric of his Church by 
 Virtue of a Pick-lock, which he has invented, and believes will serve his 
 Turn, as well as St. Peter’s Keys.”— An Anabaptist. 
 
SUGGESTION FOE A NEW BUTLER S HUDIBRAS 
 
 547 
 
 Give certain guess at inward light; 
 
 Which serjeants at the Gospel wear, 
 
 To make the sp’ritual calling clear. 
 
 The handkerchief about the neck— 1 
 Canonical cravat of smeck, 
 
 From whom the institution came, 
 
 When church and state they set on flame, 
 
 And worn by them as badges then 
 Of spiritual warfaring-men— 
 
 Judge rightly if regeneration 
 Be of the newest cut in fashion : 
 
 Sure ’tis an orthodox opinion, 
 
 That grace is founded in dominion. 
 
 Great piety consists in pride ; 
 
 To rule is to be sanctified : 
 
 To domineer, and to control 
 Both o’er the body and the soul, 
 
 Is the most perfect discipline 
 Of church-rule, and by right divine. 
 
 Bell and the Dragon’s chaplains were, 
 
 More moderate than those by far : 
 
 For they, poor knaves, were glad to cheat, 
 
 To get their wives and children meat ; 
 
 But these will not be fobb’s off so, 
 
 They must have wealth and power too ; 
 
 Or else with blood and desolation, 
 
 They’ll tear it out o’ th’ heart o’ th’ nation. 2 
 
 P. i., C. 3, 11.1154-1188. 
 
 1 “The handkerchief, he wore about his neck at the institution of his 
 order here, was a type, that in process of time, he should be troubled with 
 a sore throat, and since it is fulfill’d.”— A Silenc’d Presbyterian. 
 
 2 “He never forsook him in his greatest Extremities, but eat and drunk 
 truly and faithfully upon him, when he knew not how to do so anywhere 
 else : for all the service he was capable of doing his Master was the very 
 same with that of Bel and the Dragon’s Clerks, to eat up his meat, and 
 drink up his Drink for him.”— A Risker. 
 
 “David was eaten up with the Zeal of God’s House; but his Zeal 
 quite contrary eats up God’s House ; and as the words seem to intimate, 
 that David fed and maintained the Priests ; so he makes the Priests feed 
 and maintain him . . . .”—A Zealot. 
 
 “. . . for he thinks that no man ought to be much concerned in it 
 (religion) but Hypocrites, and such as make it their Calling and Pro- 
 
 9 
 
548 
 
 EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN 
 
 This zealot 
 
 Is of a mungrel diverse kind, 
 
 Cleric before, and lay behind ; 
 
 A lawless linsey-woolsey brother, 
 
 Half of one order, half another ; 
 
 A creature of amphibious nature, 
 
 On land a beast, a fish in water ; 1 
 That always preys on grace, or sin ; 
 
 A sheep without, a wolf within. 
 
 P. i., C. 3, 11. 1224-1232. 
 
 Partly because Butler was a Royalist, and because the 
 Royalists seem to us now to have been on the wrong side of 
 the politics of the seventeenth century; partly, also, because 
 Hudibras has suffered from being classed as a political satire, 
 the poem seems in danger of becoming a neglected, if not a 
 forgotten book. To rescue from the neglect and oblivion 
 into which it seems in danger of falling the wittiest poem in 
 the language, and really the only work of sustained poetical 
 genius that the Cavaliers had to offset the Puritan epic of 
 ; Paradise Lost , would be indeed a worthy task. In such an 
 undertaking the possible uses of the prose Characters in 
 revealing the author’s satiric method, and in explaining 
 allusions to the life of the time, should be considered. Since 
 the Characters are now in print; and since, upon even a 
 hasty examination, they seem to furnish an illuminating 
 commentary upon the text of Hudibras , there appears no 
 reason why they should not be utilized at once in the 
 preparation of a new edition of the poem. 
 
 Edward Chauncey Baldwin. 
 
 fession ; who, though they do not live by their Faith, like the Righteous, 
 do that which is nearest to it, get their living by it; . . —A Modern 
 
 Politician. 
 
 lu An Anabaptist is a Water-Saint, that like a Crocodile, sees clearly 
 in the Water, but Dully on Land .”—An Anabaptist. 
 
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