HUDI BRA S. PART II. CANTO I. THE ARGUMENT. The Knight, by damnable Magician, Love brings his action on the cafe, And lays it upon Hudibras. How he receives the Lady's vifit, UT now, t' observe Romantique method, B Let bloody feel a while be fheathed ; Arg. Ver. 1, 2.] Thus altered, 1674, ·And The Knight being clapp'd by th' heels in prifon, Reftored 1704. Arg. Ver. 5.] How he receives, &c. How he revi's, &c. In the two firft editions of 1663. Ver. 1.] The beginning of this Second Part may perhaps And all those harsh and rugged founds In which, that we may be as brief as Is 't not enough to make one strange, The fame things still the self-fame way ? ΤΟ Some perhaps feem ftrange and abrupt to those who do not know that it was written on purpofe in imitation of Virgil, who begins the Fourth Book of his Æneids in the very fame manner, At regina gravi, &c. And this is enough to fatisfy the curiofity of those who believe that invention and fancy ought to be measured, like cafes in law, by precedents, or else they are in the power of the critic. Ver. 2. Let bloody freel, &c. Altered to let rufty Steel, 1674, 1684, &c. To trufty fteel, 1700. Reftored $704. Ver. 5.] And the three following lines, ftood in the two first editions of 1663, as follow: And unto love turn we our style, By this time tir'd with the horrid founds Of blows, and cuts, and blood, and wounds. Ver. 10.] That fome men's fancies, &c. That a man's fancy, in the two first editions of 1664.. Some writers make all ladies purloin'd, : Till, drawing blood o' th' dames, like witches, Some always thrive in their amours, Make former times shake hands with latter, 15 20 25 Ver. 32.] Whilom. Formerly, or, fome time ago. Altered to lately, 1674. Reftored 1704. 3 His only folace was, that now There is a tall long-fided dame, Of lying, to inform the nation, And by their public use to bring down Fraught with advice, fome fresh, some stale, 45 Ver. 48.] The beauty of this confifts in the doub meaning; the firft alludes to Fame's living on Report The fecond is an infinuation, that if a report is n rowly enquired into, and traced up to the original thor, it is made to contradict itself. Of men that walk'd when they were dead, And cows of monfters brought to bed; And puppies whelp'd with twice two legs; Two trumpets fhe does found at once, This tattling goffip knew too well To see bawds carted through the crowd, 65 70 75 -80 85 Το Ver. 77.] This tattling goffip, &c. Twattling gofip, In the two first editions of 1663. Altered, as it stands ere, 1674. |