ceived as students among them, and had not arrived 'at their doctor's degree, were styled of the Society of the Sorbonne. V. 162. That's to be let unfurnished.] It is an old figure of poetry aud rhetoric to call understanding the furniture of the head. Howell, in his excellent "Familiar Letters," records a saying of the great Lord Chancellor Bacon to this effect. A French nobleman, who was very tall, having come on an embassy to the court of James the first, the king asked Bacon, what he thought of the ambassador? who replied, "that he was a good, portly man, but, as it is in great houses, his upper story was the worst furnished. V. 166. The itch, on purpose to be scratch'd.] King James used to say, that the pleasure of scratching was too great for any but a sovereign to enjoy. V. 173-4. He knew the seat of paradise, Could tell in what degrees it lies.] The fa natics were addicted to rabinnical learning, and valued themselves highly upon their solution of mysterious questions, such as, where the seat of Paradise was? and when the Millenium would commence? A collection of the opinions of the learned respecting the locality of Paradise would form a curious volume. It has been placed in the third heaven, in the orb of the moon, in the moon itself, in the middle region of the air, above the earth, under the earth, in the place now covered by the Caspian sea, and under the arctic pole. Huet, the learned bishop of Avranches, places it upon the river between the conjunction of the Tigris and the Euphrates, now called the river of the Arabs, between this conjunction and the division made by the same river before it falls into the Persian sea. Other geographers have placed it in Armenia, between the sources of the Tigris, the Araxis, the Euphrates, and the Phasis, which they suppose to be the four rivers described by Moses. V. 176. Below the moon, or else above it.] Mahomet assured his followers, that Paradise was seated in heaven, and that Adam was cast down from thence to this earth when he transgressed. Butler, however, probably alluded to the jarring opinions of the enthusiasts, some of whom placed Paradise above the moon, and others below it. V. 177-8. What Adam dream'd of, when his bride Cume from her closet in his side.] This is în ridicule of the Talmudists, in whose writings a variety of puerile stories are to be found relative to the parents of the human race. "Her closet in his side." This alludes to the creation of Eve from one of her husband's ribs. V. 180. By a High-Dutch interpreter.] Ben Johnson, in his comedy of the Alchymist, introduces Surly asking Sir Epicure Mammon the following question. "Surly. Did Adam write, Sir, in High-Dutch? "Mammon. He did; which proves it was the pri mitive tongue." V. 181. If either of them had a navel.] Several of the ancients supposed that Adam and Eve had no navels; and among moderns, the bishop of Peterborough, (Dr. Cumberland,) was of the same opinion: "All other men," says he, " being born of women, have a navel, by reason of the umbilical vessels inserted into it, which from the placenta carry nourishment to children in the womb of their mothers; but it could not be so with our first parents. Besides, it cannot be believed that God gave them navels, which would have been altogether useless, and would have made them subject to a dangerous disease, called an omphalocele." V. 182. Who first made music malleable.] Marcro bius, in his second book, relates, that Pythagoras, passing by a smith's shop, found that the sounds from the hammers were either more grave or acute, according to the different weights of hammers. The philopher, to improve this hint, suspended different weights by strings of the same bigness, and found in like manner, that the sounds answered to the weights. This being discovered, he found out those numbers which produced sounds that were consonants; and that two strings, of the same substance and tension, the one being double the weight of the other, give that interval which is called diapason, or an eighth. The same was also affected from two strings, of the same length and size, the one having four times the tension of the other. By these steps, from so mean a beginning, did this great man reduce what was before only noise to one of the most delightful sciences, by marrying it to the mathematics, and by that means causing it to be one of the most abstract and demonstrative of sciences. V. 189. For his religion, &c.] Butler is very exact in delineating his hero's religion: it was necessary that he should be so, that the reader might judge whether he was a proper person to set up for a reformer, and whether the religion he professed was more eligible than that he endeavoured to demolish. V. 191. 'Twas Presbyterian true blue.] Blue was the Presbyterian colour, as it is of the modern Whigs. The phrase "true blue" probably had its origin in the following circumstance. Previons to the revolution, the colour of the ribbon of the garter was sky blue; but after the accession of William it was altered to its present colour, or dark blue. If this was done in compliment to the Whigs, as we may easily suppose, it is reasonable to conjecture that the Presbyterian blue here alluded to by Butler, was dark blue, in contradistinction to sky bine, which was the court colour. V. 193-4. Of errant saints, whom all men grant To be the true church militant.] Whereever presbytery has been established, it has been by force of arms, like the Mahometan religion: thus it was established in Geneva, in Switzerland, Holland, Scotland, &c. By the same means it obtained a tole ration for some time in France. Much blood was shed to get it established it England, and once, during the grand rebellion, it seemed very near gaining an esta Elishment here; for in the years 1615 and 1016, several ordinances of the Lords and Commons in parliament were made for that parpose, and these ordinances for the Presbyterian government and discipline were begna to be put in execution in the cities of London and West minster, and parts adjacent: but the Independents, by Cromwell's artifices, gaining an ascendency in the House of Commons, put a stop to their proceedings, and hindered their gaining the settlement they had so long sought for. All fanatics, whether Papists, Maho metans, or Prebyterians, are intolerant, but the PresbyTM terian fanatic seems the most intolerant of the three, for wherever he has been able to establish his power, he has prescribed all other religions but his own. This was their practice in Scotland, when they had power to do it, and they endeavoured to hinder it in England, whilst they had encouragement from the two houses at Westminster, declaring, "that to make a law for toleration was establishing iniquity by law;" and they asserted, "that a toleration was the appointing a city of refuge in men's consciences for the devil to fly to, a toleration of soul-murder, the greatest murder of all others." V. 195-6. Such as do build their faith upon The holy text of pike and gun.] Upon these Cornet Joyce built his faith, when he carried away the king by force from Holmby; for when his majesty, asked him for a sight of his instructions, Joyce said, he should see them presently; and so drawing up his troop of horse in the inner court, "These, Sir," said the cornet, "are my instructions." V. 199-200. And prove their doctrine orthodox By apostolic blows and knocks.] Many instances of this kind are given by Dr. Walker in his sufferings of the episcopal clergy. One of which we shall relate in his own words. "Sunday, 9th of September, 1649, at the church of St. Peter's, Paul's Wharf, Mr. Williams, reading morning service out of the book of Common Prayer, and having prayed for the king (as in that liturgy, established by act of parliament, he is enjoined), six soldiers from St. Paul's church (where they quarter) came, with swords and pistols cocked, into the church, commanding him to come out of the pulpit, which he immediately did, and went quietly with them into the vestry, when presently a party of horse from St. Paul's, rode into the church, with swords drawn, and pistols spanned, crying out, knock the rogues on the head, shoot them, kill them; and presently shot at random at the crowd of unarmed men, women, and children, shot an old women into the head, wounded grievously above forty more, whereof many were likely to die, frighted women with child, and rifled and plundered away their cloaks, hats, and other spoils of the Egyptians, and carried away the minister to Whitehall prisoner." V. 207-8. A sect whose chief devotion lies In odd perverse antipathies.] The religion of the Presbyterians of those times consisted principally in an opposition to the church of England, and in quarrelling with the most innocent customs then in use, as the eating Christmas pies and plumb porridge at Christmas, which they reputed sinful. V. 210. And finding somewhat still amiss.] Butler, in his remains, describes the Puritan to the same purpose, in his character of a fanatic. "His head is full of fears and fictions, For want of mending much amiss." They were at that time much of the temper and disposition of those Disciplinarians in Queen Elizabeth's days, four classes of whom complained to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh against the liturgy then in use. He inquired whether they wished it quite taken away? They answered, no! He then desired them to make a better. The first class made one agreeable to the Geneva form; this the second disliked, and corrected in six hundred particulars; this corrected liturgy had the misfortune to be rejected by the third class; and what the third had resolved on was found fault with by the fourth. Queen Elizabeth, alluding to the contradictions and dissensions which prevailed among themselves, was often heard to say, that she knew |
