PART II.-CANTO II. ARGUMENT. 5. stickle. Cf. Hudibras I. ii. 437, and note. CANTO II. 4. clawed. Butler seems rather fond of this word for scuffling. Cf. II. i. 888. 5. in cases. A punning allusion to cases of conscience' and the study of casuistry.' 6. bases. Violoncellos. 8. fit. Fit, fyt, fitte, are all forms of a word which was applied to the divisions of a ballad or poem. The modern word 'canto' has taken its place. Cf. the old ballad— 14. "To Carlisle went three bold yeomen, All in the morning of May; Here is a fyt of Cloudesly, And another is for to say.' ADAM BELL, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly. Helmont. Of the two Helmonts, father and son, Butler probably alluded to the latter, who was a contemporary of his own. The father, John Baptist van Helmont, born in Brussels about 1580, was a celebrated chemist, to whom chemistry is said to owe the use of the term gas, he having applied the word geist to the effervescence of the Spa waters. The son, Francis Mercury van Helmont, claimed to have found the philosopher's stone, and the original language of man which a child would speak without any process of acquisition of it, &c., &c. Montaigne, 1533-1591, the famous essayist. Allusions to his quaint sayings are frequent in the literature of Butler's time and the generation or two after. Cf. Hudibras I. i. 38. White. It is difficult to fix with any precision the particular White here referred to. Probably the allusion is to Thomas White (died 1676) who wrote as the champion of the Church of Rome, and of some of Sir Kenelm Digby's curious notions. His philosophical writings are chiefly remarkable for his having been one of the carliest English writers who clearly grasped and plainly enunciated the Law of Association of Ideas, with which Hartley's name is now generally connected somewhat too exclusively. Tully. It is under this part of his name that Marcus Tullius Cicero was alluded to until the present century. Cf. 'How Mr. Deane could spend, with a boy who had translated so much of Ovid, some months over a small part of Tully's "Offices," it is now vain to inquire.'-JOHNSON, Life of Pope, p. 127, ed. Clar. Press. There is another reading 'Lully' in some editions, but Tully' seems certainly the correct one; nor is it necessary as some commentators have done to appeal to one in particular, the Stoicorum Paradoxa, of his works in explanation of Butler's allusion to him. There is quite enough in the tone of much of Cicero's writing passim to justify his introduction into the present company by a burlesque poet in compliance with the exigencies of rhyme. 15-17. with fierce dispute...fight and study. Butler is very rarely inaccurate, even in his quaintest humours. But he certainly seems here to have mistaken a passage in Diogenes Laertius which refers to slaughter having taken place in the Stoa, not in connection with the Stoic teaching, but under the Thirty Tyrants. Cf. ̓Ανακάμπτων δὴ ἐν τῇ ποικίλῃ στοᾷ τῇ καὶ Πεισιανακτείῳ καλουμένῃ, ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς γραφῆς τῆς Πολυγνώτου ποικίλῃ, διατίθετο τοὺς λόγους, βουλόμενος καὶ τὸ χωρίον ἀπερίσε τατον ποιῆσαι· ἐπὶ γὰρ τῶν τριάκοντα τῶν πολιτῶν πρὸς τοῖς χιλίοις τετρακόσιοι ἀνῄρηντ ̓ ἐν αὐτῷ.—DIOGENES LAERTIUS, Vita Zenonis, § 5. Into this error Grey follows Butler even to the length of giving in a note the following-In Porticu Discipulorum seditionibus mille quadringenti triginta cives interfecti sunt'; --a translation in which there is nothing of the original Diogenes Laertius except the number, and even that is not quite accurately given. 18. virtue is a body. A current account of the Stoic doctrine on this head. One main point of the departure of the Stoics from Plato and Aristotle, was their rigid maintenance of the theorem that nothing incorporeal exists, save only accidents of existences themselves corporeal, and that of these accidents (Td λEKT) the existence was only nominal, not real; they were somewhat between a notion and a thing. Thus, to the Stoics, night and day are not bodies, nor are numbers such as ten and fifteen; but virtue, vice, memory, &c., have in their idea a real corporeal existence. Cf. ἀνάπαλιν δὲ ἡ ἀλήθεια σῶμά ἐστι παρόσον ἐπιστήμη πάντων ἀληθῶν ἀποφαντικὴ δοκεῖ τυγχάνειν, πᾶσα δὲ ἐπιστήμη πῶς ἔχει ἐστὶν ἡγεμονικόν· τὸ δὲ ἡγεμονικὸν σῶμα κατὰ τούτους ὑπῆρχεν.-SEXTUS EMPIRICUS, Αdv. Math. vii. 38. So also Cicero gives the same account of the Stoics-'Nullo modo arbitrabatur quidquam effici posse ab ea [natura] quae expers esset corporis; nec vero aut quod efficeret aliquid aut quod efficeretur posse esse non corpus' (Acad. Post. I. ii.). Seneca (Ep. 106) ‘Quaeris bonum an corpus sit prodest, facit enim ; quod facit corpus est. So too Bonum 19. an animal. The analogies that could be made out with the animal frame were favourites with the Stoics. Thus Εἰκάζουσι δὲ ζῴῳ τὴν φιλοσοφίαν, ὀστοῖς μὲν καὶ νεύροις τὸ λογικὸν προσομοιοῦντες, τοῖς δὲ σαρκοδεστέροις τὸ ἠθικόν τῇ δὲ ψυχῇ τὸ φυσικόν.—DIOGENES LAERT. vii. 40. But the most probable source of the allusions in the whole of this difficult passage is the account of the Stoics given by Plutarch, an author whom we know Butler to have read with much care and to whom he is much indebted. Cf. ̓́Ατοπον γὰρ εὖ μάλα τὰς ἀρετὰς καὶ τὰς κακίας, πρὸς δὲ ταύταις τὰς τέχνας καὶ τὰς μνήμας πάσας, ἔτι δὲ φαντασίας καὶ πάθη καὶ ὁρμὰς καὶ συγ καταθέσεις σώματα ποιουμένους ἐν μηδενὶ φάναι κεῖσθαι. Οἱ δ ̓ οὐ μόνον τὰς ἀρετὰς καὶ τὰς κακίας ζῷα εἶναι λέγουσιν, οὐδὲ τὰ πάθη μόνον, ὀργὰς καὶ φθόνους καὶ λύπας καὶ ἐπιχαιρεκακίας, οὐδὲ καταλήψεις καὶ φαντασίας καὶ ἀγνοίας, οὐδὲ τὰς τέχνας ζῷα, τὴν σκυτοτομικήν, τὴν χαλκοτυπικήν, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τούτοις ἔτι καὶ τὰς ἐνεργείας σώματα καὶ ζῷα ποιοῦσι.-PLUTARCH, Adversus Stoicos de Communibus Notitiis, 45. So also we have the same thing in DIOGENES LAERTIUS, Vita Zenonis, § 139-οὕτω δὴ καὶ τὸν ὅλον κόσμον ζῷον ὄντα καὶ ἔμψυχον καὶ λογικόν, ἔχειν ἡγεμονικὸν μὲν τὸν ἀιθέρα. 30. Thetis, was a marine divinity, daughter of Nereus. She was condemned to marry a mortal, that mortal was Peleus, and by him she became the mother of Achilles. Her name is used by Butler here simply as an equivalent for the sea, her native element, and the opening in this way of a new phase of adventure for squire and knight is in imitation of the opening lines of more than one of Homer's books. Cf. Ἠὼς μὲν κροκόπεπλος ἀπ ̓ Ωκεανοῖο ῥοάων Iliad, xix. 1. 48. whipping-duty. The first editions read whipping duly.' 74. claw. Cf. Hudibras II. ii. 4, and note. 78. clan and clan. Allusion to the clan-feuds of Scotland. 87. sacrifice of bridewells. The floggings in prisons. 88. mongrel Christians. A phrase applied to the Roman Catholics and Episcopalians. 107. but wind. Cf. 116. 'Nec jurare time; Veneris perjuria venti TIBULLUS, Eleg. I. iv. 21. reformado saint. Reformado officers were those whose companies had been disbanded, but who were kept in the service on lowered pay and reduced position. The squire coolly patronises the knight by allowing that he is a reformado saint; i.e. that he is still a saint though of saintliness far inferior to that of the squire. 118. pretend. Put forward. The original meaning of this word in English was in strict accordance with its etymology. Cf. 'His target always over her pretended.' SPENSER, Faerie Queenė, vi. 2, 19. From this strict sense it comes to mean as here to bring forward,' but without any of the implied falseness that is conveyed by the modern use of the word. Ĉf.-' He pretends a quarrel to me that I have fallen foul upon priesthood.'-DRYDEN in Johnson's Life, Clar. Press Ed. p. 55. Finally, the word came to include the notion of alleging falsely. This is a good example of that degradation of meaning of which other examples are cunning' (properly skill or skilful); 'silly' (A.S. sælig happy); 'craft' (proper meaning seen in handicraft), &c. = 134. self-denying. Another hit at the Self-Denying Ordinance. The skilful form in which Butler puts the insinuation that the Self-Denying Ordinance was all a lie is well worthy of notice. 136. by Providence. Alluding to the claim set up on the part of the Parliamentary party that they acted by special direction of the Spirit.' Cf. When they break their faith, articles, promises, declarations, and covenant, they allege the Spirit is the author thereof. When Cromwell (contrary to his vows and protestations made to the king) kept him close prisoner in Carisbrook Castle, he affirmed the Spirit would not let him keep his word. When contrary to the public faith they murdered him, they pretended they could not resist the motions of the Spirit.'-CLEMENT WALKER, History of Independency, Pt. III., p. 23, Edit. 1661. The 142. perjury. The Royalists always bitterly complained that the original vows of the Parliamentary party were only kept so far forth as they afterwards found convenient. curious fiction of dividing the monarch into a political and natural king (Cf. I. ii. 513, and note), the latter of which they opposed in the name of the former, gave rise to occurrences which justified the accusation. Thus by the Solemn League and Covenant itself the parties to it were bound in the third article thus-'We shall with the same reality, sincerity, and constancy, in our several vocations endeavour with our estates and lives... to preserve and defend the King's Majesty's Person and Authority, in the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms, that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesty's just power and greatness.' When we consider the bearing that the signing of the Covenant had on the ultimate results of the war, we can easily see why Butler, thinking of the words above quoted, should say that the cause was begun in perjury. 144. they broke. Many of the Presbyterian divines them. selves felt the difficulty of the position, a difficulty of which Butler here takes merciless advantage, when they were called upon to subscribe the Covenant and remembered their own Vows of ordination. Cf. Dr. Featly declared he durst not abjure Prelacy absolutely because he had sworn to obey his bishop in all things lawful and honest.'-NEAL'S History of the Puritans, Vol. III. chap. ii. In those days, as for long afterwards, an oath had been imposed on graduation at the Universities, which also had of necessity to be broken by all subscribers to the Covenant. 146. before our plate. Cf. I. ii. 567 sq. 154. Protestation. Cf. I. ii. 521, and note. The Protestation was really a solemn oath to maintain the true reformed Protestant religion, expressed in the doctrine of the Church of England.' All men were ordered to 'take' it (May 4, 1641), and to 'break' it when called on to subscribe the Covenant (September 1643). 155. to recant. After the king's death and when the Independents were the really powerful party in the State, they forced upon the nation a new oath of allegiance known as the Engagement. This was 'to be true and faithful to the government established without king or house of peers' (1649). This of course overthrew the Covenant utterly, since the vow of the Covenant to defend the king's person and authority became nugatory when it had been expressly declared that there was no longer either the person or authority of a king to defend. |