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HUDI BRA S.

PART II. CANTO I.

THE

ARGUMENT.

The Knight, by damnable Magician,
Being caft illegally in prifon,

Love brings his action on the cafe,

And lays it upon Hudibras.

How he receives the Lady's vifit,
And cunningly folicits his fuit,
Which the defers; yet, on parole,
Redeems him from th' inchanted hole.

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,
The last unhappy expedition.

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
Of baftinados, cuts, and wounds,
Exchang'd to love's more gentle style,
To let our reader breathe a while :

In which, that we may be as brief as
Is poffible, by way of preface,

Is 't not enough to make one strange,
That fome men's fancies fhould ne'er change,
But make all people do and fay

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,
To let our readers breathe a while,

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,
And knights pursuing like a whirlwind
Others make all their knights, in fits
Of jealoufy, to lose their wits;

:

Till, drawing blood o' th' dames, like witches,
They 're forthwith cur'd of their capriches.

Some always thrive in their amours,
By pulling plaifters off their fores;
As cripples do to get an alms,
Just fo do they, and win their dames.
Some force whole regions, in defpite
O' geography, to change their fite;

Make former times shake hands with latter,
And that which was before come after.
But those that write in rhyme still make
The one verfe for the other's fake;
For one for fenfe, and one for rhyme,

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Ver. 32.] Whilom. Formerly, or, fome time ago. Altered to lately, 1674. Reftored 1704.

3

His only folace was, that now
His dog-bolt fortune was fo low,
That either it must quickly end,
Or turn about again, and mend,
In which he found th' event, no lefs
Than other times, befide his guefs.

There is a tall long-fided dame,
(But wondrous light) ycleped Fame,
That like a thin camelion boards
Herfelf on air, and eats her words;
Upon her fhoulders wings fhe wears
Like hanging fleeves, lin'd through with ears,
And eyes, and tongues, as poets lift,
Made good by deep mythologift:
With these the through the welkin flies,
And fometimes carries truth, oft lies;
With letters hung, like eastern pigeons,
And Mercuries of furtheft regions;
Diurnals writ for regulation

Of lying, to inform the nation,

And by their public use to bring down
The rate of whetstones in the kingdom.
About her neck a pacquet-mail,

Fraught with advice, fome fresh, some stale,

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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;
Of hailftones big as pullets' eggs,

And puppies whelp'd with twice two legs;
A blazing-star seen in the west,
By fix or feven men at least.

Two trumpets fhe does found at once,
But both of clean contrary tones;
But whether both with the fame wind,
Or one before, and one behind,
We know not, only this can tell,
The one founds vilely, th' other well;
And therefore vulgar authors name
Th' one Good, th' other Evil Fame.

This tattling goffip knew too well
What mischief Hudibras befel,
And straight the fpiteful tidings bears
Of all, to th' unkind Widow's ears.
Democritus ne'er laugh'd so loud,

To see bawds carted through the crowd,
Or funerals, with stately pomp,
March flowly on in folemn dump,
As fhe laugh'd out, until her back,
As well as fides, was like to crack.
She vow'd fhe would go fee the fight,
And vifit the diftreffed Knight;

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Το

Ver. 77.] This tattling goffip, &c. Twattling gofip, In the two first editions of 1663. Altered, as it stands ere, 1674.

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