But (like a reprobate) what course
Soever us'd, grow worse and worse?
Can no transfufion of the blood,
That makes fools cattle, do you good?
Nor putting pigs t' a bitch to nurse,
To turn them into mongrel-curs,

Put you

into a way, at least,

To make yourself a better beast?
Can all your critical intrigues,
Of trying found from rotten eggs;
Your feveral new-found remedies,
Of curing wounds and scabs in trees;
Your arts of fluxing them for claps,
And purging their infected faps;
Recovering fhankers, crystallines,
And nodes and botches in their rinds,

45

Have no effect to operate

As if the art you have fo long Profefs'd, of making old dogs young, you had virtue to renew

In

Not only youth, but childhood too.
Can you, that understand all books,
By judging only with your looks,
Refolve all problems with your face,
As others do with B's and A's;

бо

65

Unriddle

Unriddle all that mankind knows

With folid bending of your brows;'

All arts and fciences advance,
With fcrewing of your countenance,
And with a penetrating eye
Into th' abftrufeft learning pry;
Know more of any trade b' a hint,
Than those that have been bred up
And yet have no art, true or false,
To help your own bad naturals ?
But ftill, the more you strive t' appear,
Are found to be the wretcheder:

in 't,

For fools are known by looking wife,
As men find woodcocks by their eyes.

Hence 'tis that 'cause ye 'ave gain'd o' th' college
A quarter fhare (at most) of knowledge,
And brought in none, but spent repute,
Y' affume a power as absolute

To judge, and cenfure, and control,
As if you were the fole Sir Poll,

70

75

$5

And faucily pretend to know

More than your dividend comes to:

You'll find the thing will not be done

With ignorance and face alone:

No, though ye 've purchas'd to your name,
In hiftory, fo great a fame;

90

That

Ver. 86.] Sir Politick Would-be, in "Volpone." Ver. 91, 92.] These two lines, I think, plainly dif cover that Lilly, and not Sir Paul Neal, was here lashed under the name of Sidrophel; for Lilly's fame abroad

That now your talent 's fo well known,
For having all belief outgrown,
That every strange prodigious tale
Is meafur'd by your German fcale-
By which the virtuofi try

The magnitude of every lye,

Caft to what it does amount,
up

And place the bigg'ft to your account;
That all thofe ftories that are laid

Too truly to you, and thofe made,
Are now still charg'd upon your score,
And leffer authors nam'd no more.
Alas! that faculty betrays
Those fooneft it defigns to raise;

95

300

105

And all your vain renown will spoil,
As guns o'ercharg'd the more recoil;

Though

abroad was indifputable. Mr. Strickland, who was many years Agent for the Parliament in Holland, thus publishes it: "I came purpofely into the Committee

this day, to fee the man who is fo famous in those 66 parts where I have fo long continued: I affure you, "his name is famous all over Europe. I came to do "him justice." Lilly is alfo careful to tell us, that the King of Sweden fent him a gold chain and medal worth about 50l. for making honourable mention of his Majefty in one of his almanacks; which, he fays, was tranflated into the language fpoke at Hamburgh, and printed, and cried about the streets as it was in London. Thus he trumpets to the world the fame he acquired by his infamous practices, if we may credit his own hiftory.

Ver. 105. Betrays.] Defiroys, in all the editions I have seen.

Though he that has but impudence,

To all things has a fair pretence;

And, put among his wants but shame,

To all the world may lay his claim:

IIO

Though you have try'd that nothing 's borne

With greater ease than public fcorn,

That all affronts do ftill give place

115

To your impenetrable face;

That makes your way through all affairs,

As pigs through hedges creep with theirs :
Yet, as 'tis counterfeit and brass,
You must not think 'twill always pafs;
For all impoftors, when they 're known,
Are past their labour, and undone:
And all the beft that can befal

An artificial natural,

Is that which madmen find, as foon

120

125

HUDI BRA S.

PART III. CANTO I.

THE ARGUMENT.

The Knight and Squire refolve at once,
The one the other to renounce;

They both approach the Lady's bower,
The Squire t' inform, the Knight to wooe her.
She treats them with a masquerade,

By Furies and Hobgoblins made;

From which the Squire conveys the Knight,
And steals him from himself by night.

IS true no lover has that power

"TT' enforce a defperate amour,

As he that has two ftrings t' his bow,
And burns for love and money too;

For

We are now come to the Third Part of Hudibras, which is confiderably longer than either the First or the Second; and yet can the fevereft critic fay that Mr. Butler grows infipid in his invention, or faulters in his judgment? No; he ftill continues to fhine in both thefe excellencies; and, to manifeft the extensiveness of his abilities, he leaves no art untried to fpin out thefe adventures to a length proportionable to his wit and fatire. I dare fay the reader is not weary of him; nor will he be fo at the conclufion of the Poem: and the reafon is evident, because this last part is as fruitful of wit and humour as the former; and a poetic fire is equally diffufed through the whole Poem, that burns every where clearly, and every where irresistibly.