Hudibras - Samuel Butler (story reading txt) 📗

constant method of proceeding,
Without the carnal means of heeding;
Who ’twixt your inward sense and outward,
Are worse, than if y’ had none, accoutred.
I grant, all courses are in vain,
Unless we can get in again;
The only way that’s left us now;
But all the difficulty’s how.
’Tis true, w’ have money, th’ only pow’r
That all mankind falls down before;
Money, that, like the swords of kings,
Is the last reason of all things;
And therefore need not doubt our play
Has all advantages that way;
As long as men have faith to sell,
And meet with those that can pay well;
Whose half-starv’d pride, and avarice,
One church and state will not suffice
T’ expose to sale, beside the wages
Of storing plagues to after-ages.
Nor is our money less our own,
Than ’twas before we laid it down,
For ’twill return, and turn t’ account,
If we are brought, in play upon ’t:
Or but, by casting knaves, get in,
What pow’r can hinder us to win?
We know the arts we us’d before,
In peace and war, and something more;
And by th’ unfortunate events,
Can mend our next experiments:
For when w’ are taken into trust,
How easy are the wisest choust?
Who see but th’ outsides of our feats,
And not their secret springs and weights;
And while they’re busy at their ease,
Can carry what designs we please?
How easy is ’t to serve for agents,
To prosecute our old engagements?
To keep the good old cause on foot,
And present pow’r from taking root?
Inflame them both with false alarms
Of plots and parties taking arms;
To keep the nation’s wounds too wide
From healing up of side to side;
Profess the passionat’st concerns
For both their interests by turns;
The only way to improve our own,
By dealing faithfully with none
(As bowls run true, by being made
On purpose false, and to be sway’d:)
For if we should be true to either,
’Twould turn us out of both together;
And therefore have no other means
To stand upon our own defence,
But keeping up our ancient party
In vigour, confident and hearty;
To reconcile our late dissenters,
Our brethren, though by other venters:
Unite them, and their different maggots,
As long and short sticks are in faggots,
And make them join again as close
As when they first began t’ espouse;
Erect them into separate
New Jewish tribes, in church and state;
To join in marriage and commerce,
And only among themselves converse;
And all that are not of their mind,
Make enemies to all mankind:
Take all religions in, and stickle
From conclave down to conventicle;
Agreeing still, or disagreeing,
According to the light in being.
Sometimes for liberty of conscience,
And spiritual mis-rule, in one sense;
But in another quite contrary,
As dispensations chance to vary;
And stand for, as the times will bear it,
All contradictions of the spirit;
Protect their emissaries empower’d
To preach sedition and the word;
And when they’re hamper’d by the laws,
Release the lab’rers for the cause,
And turn the persecution back
On those that made the first attack;
To keep them equally in awe,
From breaking or maintaining law;
And when they have their fits too soon,
Before the full-tides of the moon,
Put off their zeal t’ a fitter season
For sowing faction in and treason;
And keep them hooded, and their churches,
Like hawks from baiting on their perches,
That, when the blessed time shall come
Of quitting Babylon and Rome,
They may be ready to restore
Their own fifth monarchy once more.

Meanwhile be better arm’d to fence
Against revolts of Providence.
By watching narrowly, and snapping
All blind sides of it, they happen:
For if success could make us saints,
Or ruin turn’d us miscreants:
A scandal that would fall too hard
Upon a few, and unprepar’d.

These are the courses we must run,
Spite of our hearts, or be undone;
And not to stand on terms and freaks,
Before we have secur’d our necks:
But do our work, as out of sight,
As stars by day, and suns by night;
All licence of the people own,
In opposition to the crown;
And for the crown as fiercely side,
The head and body to divide;
The end of all we first design’d,
And all that yet remains behind:
Be sure to spare no public rapine,
On all emergencies, that happen;
For ’tis as easy to supplant
Authority as men in want;
As some of us, in trusts, have made
The one hand with the other trade;
Gain’d vastly by their joint endeavour,
The right a thief, the left receiver;
And what the one, by tricks, forestall’d,
The other, by as sly, retail’d.
For gain has wonderful effects
T’ improve the factory of sects;
The rule of faith in all professions,
And great Diana of the Ephesians;
Whence turning of religion ’s made
The means to turn and wind a trade:
And though some change it for the worse,
They put themselves into a course;
And draw in store of customers,
To thrive the better in commerce:
For all religions flock together,
Like tame and wild fowl of a feather;
To nab the itches of their sects,
As jades do one another’s necks.
Hence ’tis, hypocrisy as well
Will serve t’ improve a church as zeal:
As persecution or promotion,
Do equally advance devotion.

Let business, like ill watches, go
Sometime too fast, sometime too slow;
For things in order are put out
So easy, ease itself will do’t;
But when the feat’s design’d and meant,
What miracle can bar th’ event?
For ’tis more easy to betray,
Than ruin any other way.
All possible occasions start
The weightiest matters to divert;
Obstruct, perplex, distract, entangle,
And lay perpetual trains to wrangle.
But in affairs of less import,
That neither do us good nor hurt,
And they receive as little by,
Out-fawn as much, and out-comply;
And seem as scrupulously just,
To bait our hooks for greater trust
But still be careful to cry down
All public actions, though our own
The least miscarriage aggravate,
And charge it all upon the state:
Express the horrid’st detestation,
And pity the distracted nation;
Tell stories scandalous and false,
I’ th’ proper language of cabals,
Where all a subtle statesman says,
Is half in words, and half in face,
(As Spaniards talk in dialogues
Of heads and shoulders, nods and shrugs:)
Entrust it under solemn vows
Of mum, and silence, and the rose,
To be retail’d again in whispers,
For th’ easy credulous to disperse.

Thus far the statesman⁠—when a shout,
Heard at a distance, put him out;
And straight another, all aghast,
Rush’d in with equal fear and haste;
Who star’d about, as pale as death,
And, for a while, as out of breath;
Till having gather’d up his wits,
He thus began his tale by fits.

That beastly rabble⁠—that came down193
From all the garrets⁠—in the town,
And stalls, and shop-boards⁠—in vast swarms,
With new-chalk’d bills⁠—and rusty arms,
To cry the Cause⁠—up, heretofore,
And