Hudibras - Samuel Butler (story reading txt) 📗

a treatise ex professo on that subject, and, I believe, thought what he wrote to be true, which since has been almost exploded out of the world. ↩

Cossacks are a people that live near Poland. This name was given them for their extraordinary nimbleness; for cosa, or kosa, in the Polish tongue, signifies a goat. He that would know more of them, may read Le Laboreur and Thuldenus. ↩

This custom of the Huns is described by Ammianus Marcellinus, Hunni semicruda cujusvis Pecoris carne vescuntur, quasi inter femora sua et equorum terga subsertam, calefacient brevi. p. 686. [The Huns stoutheartedly eat half-raw meat, which is warned briefly by being held between their thighs and their horses’ backs.] ↩

The Story in Le Blanc, of a bear that married a king’s daughter, is no more strange than many others, in most travellers, that pass with allowance; for if they should write nothing but what is possible, or probable, they might appear to have lost their labour, and observed nothing but what they might have done as well at home. ↩

Roger Bacon and Merlin. See Collier’s Dictionary. ↩

Two notorious women; the last was known here by the name of Moll Cutpurse. ↩

Penthesile, Queen of the Amazons, succeeded Orythia. She carried succours to the Trojans, and after having given noble proofs of her bravery, was killed by Achilles. Pliny saith, it was she that invented the battle-axe. If anyone desire to know more of the Amazons, let him read Mr. Sanson. ↩

The old Romans had particular oaths for men and women to swear by, and therefore Macrobius says, Viri per Castorum non jurabant antiquitus, nec Mulieres per Herculem; Ædepol autem juramentum erat tum mulieribus, quam viris commune, etc. [Men did not swear by Castor in ancient times, nor women by Hercules; however women swore by Ædepol as much as men did.] ↩

Two formidable women at arms, in romances, that were cudgelled into love by their gallants. ↩

Gundibert is a feigned name, made use of by Sir William d’Avenant in his famous epic poem, so called; wherein you may find also that of his mistress. This poem was designed by the author to be an imitation of the English drama: it being divided into five books, as the other is into five acts; the cantos to be parallel of the scenes, with this difference, that this is delivered narratively, the other dialoguewise. It was ushered into the world by a large preface, written by Mr. Hobbes, and by the pens of two of our best poets, viz. Mr. Waller and Mr. Cowley, which one would have thought might have proved a sufficient defence and protection against snarling critics. Notwithstanding which, four eminent wits of that age (two of which were Sir John Denham and Mr. Donne) published several copies of verses to Sir William’s discredit, under this title, Certain Verses written by several of the Author’s Friends, to be reprinted with the second Edition of Gundibert in 8vo. Lond. 1653. These verses were as wittily answered by the author, under this title, The Incomparable Poem of Gundibert Vindicated from the Wit Combat of Four Esquires, Clinias, Damœtas, Sancho, and Jack-Pudding; printed in 8vo. Lond. 1665, Vide Langbain’s Account of Dramatic Poets. ↩

Œstrum is not only a Greek word for madness, but signifies also a gad-bee or horsefly, that torments cattle in the summer, and makes them run about as if they were mad. ↩

Some few days after the King had accus’d the five members of treason in the House of Commons, great crowds of the rabble came down to Westminster Hall, with printed copies of the Protestation tied in their hats like favours. ↩

The six members were the Lord Kimbolton, Mr. Pym, Mr. Hollis, Mr. Hampden, Sir Arthur Haslerig, and Mr. Stroud, whom the King ordered to be apprehended, and their papers seized; charging them of plotting with the Scots, and favouring the late tumults; but the House voted against the arrest of their persons or papers; whereupon the King having preferred articles against those Members, he went with his guard to the House to demand them; but they, having notice, withdrew. ↩

Abusive or insulting had been better; but our Knight believed the learned language more convenient to understand in than his own mother-tongue. ↩

The Convocation, in one of the short Parliaments, that ushered in the long one (as dwarfs are wont to do knights-errant,) made an oath to be taken by the clergy for observing canonical obedience; in which they enjoined their brethren, out of the abundance of their consciences, to swear to articles with, etc. ↩

The holy league in France, designed and made for the extirpation of the Protestant religion, was the original out of which the solemn league and covenant here was (with the difference only of circumstances) most faithfully transcribed. Nor did the success of both differ more than the intent and purpose; for after the destruction of vast numbers of people of all sorts, both ended with the murder of two kings, whom they had both sworn to defend: and as our covenanters swore every man to run one before another in the way of reformation, so did the French, in the holy league, to fight to the last drop of blood. ↩

Staving and trailing are terms of art used in the Bear Garden, and signify there only the parting of dogs and bears: though they are used metaphorically in several other professions, for moderating; as law, divinity, hectoring, etc. ↩

Pryn, Bastwick, and Burton, who laid down their ears as proxies for their profession of the