Hudibras - Samuel Butler (story reading txt) 📗

And yet, in spite of all your charms,
To conjure legion up in arms,
And raise more devils in the rout
Than e’er y’ were able to cast out,
Y’ have been reduc’d, and by those fools
Bred up (you say) in your own schools;
Who, though but gifted at your feet,
Have made it plain, they have more wit;
By whom y’ have been so oft trepann’d,
And held forth out of all command,
Out-gifted, out-impuls’d, out-done,
And out-reveal’d at carryings-on;
Of all your dispensations worm’d;
Out-providenc’d, and out-reform’d,
Ejected out of church and state,
And all things, but the people’s hate
And spirited out of th’ enjoyments
Of precious, edifying employments,
By those who lodg’d their gifts and graces,
Like better bowlers, in your places:
All which you bore with resolution,
Charg’d on th’ accompt of persecution;
And though most righteously opprest,
Against your wills, still acquiesc’d;
And never hum’d and hah’d sedition,
Nor snuffled treason, nor misprision:
That is, because you never durst;
For had you preach’d and pray’d your worst,
Alas! you were no longer able
To raise your posse of the rabble:
One single red-coat sentinel
Out-charm’d the magic of the spell;
And, with his squirt-fire, could disperse
Whole troops with chapter rais’d and verse.
We knew too well those tricks of yours,
To leave it ever in your powers;
Or trust our safeties, or undoings,
To your disposing of out-goings;
Or to your ordering providence,
One farthing’s worth of consequence.
For had you pow’r to undermine,
Or wit to carry a design,
Or correspondence to trepan,
Inveigle, or betray one man,
There’s nothing else that intervenes,
And bars your zeal to use the means;
And therefore wondrous like, no doubt,
To bring in kings, or keep them out:
Brave undertakers to restore,
That could not keep yourselves in pow’r;
T’ advance the int’rests of the crown,
That wanted wit to keep your own!

’Tis true, you have (for I’d be loth
To wrong ye) done your parts in both,
To keep him out, and bring him in,
As grace is introduc’d by sin;
For ’twas your zealous want of sense,
And sanctify’d impertinence,
Your carrying business in a huddle,
That forc’d our rulers to new-model;
Oblig’d the state to tack about,
And turn you, root and branch, all out:
To reformado, one and all,
T’ your great croysado-general:190
Your greedy slav’ring to devour,
Before ’twas in your clutches, pow’r,
That sprung the game you were to set,
Before y’ had time to draw the net;
Your spite to see the church’s lands
Divided into other hands,
And all your sacrilegious ventures
Laid out in tickets and debentures;
Your envy to be sprinkled down,
By under-churches in the town;
And no course us’d to stop their mouths,
Nor th’ Independents’ spreading growths
All which consider’d, ’tis more true
None bring him in so much as you;
Who have prevail’d beyond their plots,
Their midnight juntos, and seal’d knots;
That thrive more by your zealous piques,
Than all their own rash politics.
And you this way may claim a share
In carrying (as you brag) th’ affair;
Else frogs and toads, that croak’d the Jews
From Pharaoh and his brick-kilns loose,
And flies and mange, that set them free
From task-masters and slavery,
Were likelier to do the feat,
In any indiff’rent man’s conceit:
For who e’er heard of restoration
Until your thorough reformation?
That is, the king’s and church’s lands
Were sequester’d int’ other hands:
For only then, and not before,
Your eyes were open’d to restore;
And when the work was carrying on,
Who cross’d it, but yourselves alone?
As by a world of hints appears,
All plain and extant as your ears.

But first, o’ th’ first: The Isle of Wight
Will rise up, if you should deny ’t;
Where Henderson, and th’ other masses,
Were sent to cap texts, and put cases;
To pass for deep and learned scholars,
Although but paltry Ob and Sollers:191
As if th’ unseasonable fools
Had been a coursing in the schools;
Until th’ had prov’d the devil author
O’ th’ Covenant, and the Cause his daughter,
For when they charg’d him with the guilt
Of all the blood that had been spilt,
They did not mean he wrought th’ effusion,
In person, like Sir Pride, or Hughson,192
But only those who first begun
The quarrel were by him set on;
And who could those be but the saints,
Those reformation termagants?

But ere this pass’d, the wise debate
Spent so much time, it grew too late;
For Oliver had gotten ground,
T’ inclose him with his warriors round;
Had brought his Providence about,
And turn’d th’ untimely sophists out.

Nor had the Uxbridge bus’ness less
Of nonsense in ’t, or sottishness,
When from a scoundrel holderforth,
The scum as well as son o’ th’ earth,
Your mighty senators took law
At his command, were forc’d t’ withdraw,
And sacrifice the peace o’ th’ nation
To doctrine, use, and application.
So when the Scots, your constant cronies,
Th’ espousers of your cause and monies,
Who had so often, in your aid,
So many ways been soundly paid,
Came in at last for better ends,
To prove themselves your trusty friends,
You basely left them, and the church
They train’d you up to, in the lurch,
And suffer’d your own tribe of Christians
To fall before, as true Philistines.
This shews what utensils y’ have been,
To bring the King’s concernments in;
Which is so far from being true,
That none but he can bring in you;
And if he take you into trust,
Will find you most exactly just;
Such as will punctually repay
With double interest, and betray.

Not that I think those pantomimes,
Who vary action with the times,
Are less ingenious in their art,
Than those who dully act one part;
Or those who turn from side to side,
More guilty than the wind and tide.
All countries are a wise man’s home,
And so are governments to some,
Who change them for the same intrigues
That statesmen use in breaking leagues:
While others, in old faiths and troths,
Look odd as out-of-fashion’d cloths;
And nastier in an old opinion,
Than those who never shift their linen.

For true and faithful’s sure to lose,
Which way soever the game goes;
And whether parties lose or win,
Is always nick’d, or else hedg’d in:
While pow’r usurp’d, like stol’n delight,
Is more bewitching than the right;
And when the times begin to alter,
None rise so high as from the halter.

And so may we, if w’ have but sense
To use the necessary means;
And not your usual stratagems
On one another, lights and dreams:
To stand on terms as positive,
As if we did not take, but give:
Set up the Covenant on crutches,
’Gainst those who have us in their clutches,
And dream of pulling churches down,
Before w’ are sure to prop our own:
Your