Hudibras - Samuel Butler (story reading txt) 📗

journeymen,
To bring them in intelligence
From all points of the rabble’s sense,
And fill the lobbies of both Houses
With politic important buzzes;
Set committees of cabals,
To pack designs without the walls;
Examine, and draw up all news,
And fit it to our present use:
Agree upon the plot o’ th’ farce,
And ev’ry one his part rehearse;
Make Q’s of answers, to waylay
What th’ other party’s like to say;
What repartees and smart reflections,
Shall be return’d to all objections;
And who shall break the master-jest,
And what, and how, upon the rest:
Help pamphlets out, with safe editions,
Of proper slanders and seditions,
And treason for a token send,
By letter to a country friend;
Disperse lampoons, the only wit
That men, like burglary, commit;
Wit falser than a padder’s face,
That all its owner does betrays;
Who therefore dares not trust it when
He’s in his calling to be seen;
Disperse the dung on barren earth,
To bring new weeds of discord forth;
Be sure to keep up congregations,
In spite of laws and proclamations;
For charlatans can do no good
Until they’re mounted in a crowd;
And when they’re punish’d, all the hurt
Is but to fare the better for ’t;
As long as confessors are sure
Of double pay for all th’ endure,
And what they earn in persecution,
Are paid t’ a groat in contribution;
Whence some tub-holders-forth have made
In powd’ring-tubs their richest trade;
And while they kept their shops in prison,
Have found their prices strangely risen:
Disdain to own the least regret
For all the Christian blood w’ have let;
’Twill save our credit, and maintain
Our title to do so again;
That needs not cost one dram of sense,
But pertinacious impudence.
Our constancy t’ our principles,
In time will wear out all things else;
Like marble statues rubb’d in pieces
With gallantry of pilgrims’ kisses;
While those who turn and wind their oaths
Have swell’d and sunk, like other froths;
Prevail’d a while, but ’twas not long
Before from world to world they swung,
As they had turn’d from side to side;
And as the changelings liv’d, they dy’d.

This said, th’ impatient states-monger
Could now contain himself no longer;
Who had not spar’d to shew his piques
Against th’ haranguer’s politics,
With smart remarks of leering faces,
And annotations of grimaces.
After h’ had administer’d a dose
Of snuff mundungus to his nose,
And powder’d th’ inside of his skull,
Instead of th’ outward jobbernol,
He shook it with a scornful look
On th’ adversary, and thus he spoke:

In dressing a calf’s head, although
The tongue and brains together go,
Both keep so great a distance here,
’Tis strange if ever they come near;
For who did ever play his gambols
With such insufferable rambles
To make the bringing in the king,
And keeping of him out, one thing?
Which none could do but those that swore
T’ as point-blank nonsense heretofore:
That to defend was to invade;
And to assassinate, to aid.
Unless, because you drove him out
(And that was never made a doubt,)
No pow’r is able to restore,
And bring him in, but on your score:
A spiritual doctrine, that conduces
Most properly to all your uses.
’Tis true, a scorpion’s oil is said
To cure the wounds the vermin made;
And weapons, drest with salves, restore
And heal the hurts they gave before;
But whether Presbyterians have
So much good nature as the salve,
Or virtue in them as the vermin,
Those who have try’d them can determine.
Indeed, ’tis pity you should miss
Th’ arrears of all your services,
And for th’ eternal obligation
Y’ have laid upon th’ ungrateful nation,
Be us’d so unconscionably hard,
As not to find a just reward
For letting rapine loose, and murther,
To rage just so far, but no further;
And setting all the land on fire,
To burn ’t to a scantling, but no higher;
For vent’ring to assassinate,
And cut the throats of church and state,
And not be allow’d the fittest men
To take the charge of both agen:
Especially, that have the grace
Of self-denying, gifted face;
Who when your projects have miscarry’d,
Can lay them, with undaunted forehead,
On those you painfully trepann’d,
And sprinkled in at second-hand;
As we have been, to share the guilt
Of Christian blood, devoutly spilt;
For so our ignorance was flamm’d
To damn ourselves t’ avoid being damn’d;
Till finding your old foe, the hangman,
Was like to lurch you at back-gammon
And win your necks upon the set,
As well as ours, who did but bet
(For he had drawn your ears before,
And nick’d them on the self-same score,)
We threw the box and dice away,
Before y’ had lost us at foul play;
And brought you down to rook, and lie,
And fancy only, on the by;
Redeem’d your forfeit jobbernoles
From perching upon lofty poles;
And rescu’d all your outward traitors
From hanging up like alligators;
For which ingeniously y’ have shew’d
Your Presbyterian gratitude;
Would freely have paid us home in kind,
And not have been one rope behind.
Those were your motives to divide,
And scruple on the other side;
To turn your zealous frauds, and force,
To fits of conscience and remorse;
To be convinc’d they were in vain,
And face about for new again:
For truth no more unveil’d your eyes,
Than maggots are convinc’d to flies;
And therefore all your lights and calls
Are but apocryphal and false,
To charge us with the consequences
Of all your native insolences,
That to your own imperious wills
Laid law and gospel neck and heels;
Corrupted the Old Testament,
To serve the New for precedent;
T’ amend its errors, and defects,
With murther, and rebellion-texts;
Of which there is not any one
In all the Book to sow upon:
And therefore (from your tribe) the Jews
Held Christian doctrine forth, and use;
As Mahomet (your chief) began
To mix them in the Alcoran;
Denounc’d and pray’d, with fierce devotion,
And bended elbows on the cushion;
Stole from the beggars all your tones,
And gifted mortifying groans;
Had lights where better eyes were blind,
As pigs are said to see the wind;
Fill’d Bedlam with predestination,
And Knightsbridge with illumination;
Made children, with your tones to run for’t,
As bad as Bloody-bones, or Lunsford;
While women, great with child, miscarry’d,
For being to malignants marry’d:
Transform’d all wives to Dallilahs
Whose husbands were not for the cause;
And turn’d the men to ten-horn’d cattle,
Because they came not out to battle;
Made tailors’ ’prentices turn heroes,
For fear of being transform’d to Meroz;
And rather forfeit their indentures,
Than not espouse the saints’ adventures:
Could transubstantiate, metamorphose,
And charm whole herds of beasts, like Orpheus;
Enchant the king’s and church’s lands
T’ obey and follow your commands;
And settle on a new freehold,
As Marcly-Hill had done of old;
Could turn the Covenant, and translate
The gospel into spoons and plate;
Expound upon all merchants’ cashes,
And open th’ intricatest places?
Could catechize a money-box,
And prove all pouches