world over; for by swinging a weight at the end of a string, and calculating (by the motion of the sun, or any star) how long the vibration would last, in proportion to the length of the string and weight of the pendulum; they thought to reduce it back again, and from any part of time compute the exact length of any string that must necessarily vibrate in so much space of time; so that if a man should ask in China for a quarter of an hour of satin or taffeta, they would know perfectly what it meant; and all mankind learn a new way to measure things, no more by the yard, foot, or inch, but by the hour, quarter, and minute.'-Note to Edition 1674.

1050. an iron lance. Another exquisite piece of mock heroic on Butler's part. The lance is neither more nor less than the large old-fashioned spit, which in the kitchens of our grandfathers used to be laid horizontally in front of the fire, and was long enough to reach from side to side of an old-fashioned hearth.

1063. sea-coal. Coal brought by sea. It was almost always so spoken of by old writers; thus there is a statute of 1273 prohibiting the use of sea-coal in or near London as being prejudicial to health. By 1400 coal was in common use in London, but it was not general all over the country much before the reign of Charles I.

1093. Booker. Cf. note on II. iii. 360.

Sarah Jimmers, a speculatrix, as those 'mediums' were then called, whose particular privilege was claimed to be the power of seeing distant or future events in a crystal or speculum (mirror). Lilly calls her Sarah Skelhorn, and speaks in high terms of her powers.

1094. nimmers, thieves. Cf. I. i. 598.

1095. Napier's bones. 'Napier's Rods,' a contrivance for abridging the labour of calculation, were made of ivory, and thus obtained the name of Napier's bones.

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1103. cross nor pile. Not a coin. 'Cross and pile' 'heads and tails.' Various explanations have been given of the phrase. The pile may be the head of a spear (pilum), or a column (pile, pillar), or a ship (pile, pilot), impressed on one side of the coin, while the cross was stamped on the other. The phrase occurs twice more in Hudibras; cf. III. i. 680 and III. iii. 688.

1108. Rota-men. Some editions have an absurd reading, rotten men. The Rota was the name given to a club of which James Harrington, author of The Commonwealth of Occana, was

founder and chief. This club 'met at the Turk's Head, kept by one Miles, in the New Palace Yard, Westminster, and sat round an oval table with a passage cut in the middle of it by which Miles delivered his coffee. The Rota discussed principles of government, and voted by ballot. Its ballot-box was the first seen in England. Milton's old pupil, Cyriac Skinner, was one of the members of this club, which was named from a doctrine of its supporters, that in the chief legislative body a third part of the members should rote out by ballot every year, and be incapable for three years of re-election; by which principle of rotation, Parliament would be completely renewed every ninth year.'-PROF. MORLEY, First Sketch of English Literature, p. 612.

1112. the pit. Allusion to cock-fighting, the pit being the lists in which the cocks fought.

1113. secular prince of darkness. As the devil is the spiritual prince of darkness, so is the constable the secular, who governs in the night with as great authority but far more imperiously.'-Note to Edition 1674.

1123. learned philosophers. This may refer to the atomic philosophers generally, or particularly to Sir Kenelm Digby. Cf. To this purpose the subtilties of the fox are of most note. They say he useth to lie as if he were dead, thereby to make hens and ducks come boldly to him. And there are particular stories that expresse yet more cunning than all these as of a fox that being sore hunted hanged himself by the teeth among dead vermin in a warren until the dogges were passed by him and had lost him. Now to penetrate into the cause of this and of suchlike actions; we may remember how we shewed in the last chapter that the beating of the heart worketh two things, the one is that it turneth about the species or little corporeities (streaming from outward objects) which remain in the memory: the other is that it is always pressing on to some motion or other, out of which it hapneth that when the ordinary waies of getting victuals or of escaping from enemies do fail a creature whose constitution is active, it lighteneth sometimes (though peradventure very seldome) upon doing something out of which the desired effect followeth; as it cannot choose but fall out now and then that though chance only do govern their actions, and when their action proveth successful it leaveth such an impression in the memory that whensoever the like occasion occurreth that animal will follow the same method, for the same specieses do come together from the memory into the fantasie.'-SIR KENELM DIGBY, Treatise of Bodies, chap. xxxvi. § 3.

1148. dead as herring. This saying is very old and its origin is not certainly known. It has been explained by the

very quick death of the herring when taken out of the water; but there does not seem to be any necessary connection between the rapidity of the death and the degree of deadness. It is probably a reference to the curing and packing in barrels or boxes, which seems to make the herring appear peculiarly dead to the public eye. The same impression is conveyed by any process to which meat is subjected before it comes into the hands of the cook. Thus we also say, 'Dead as pickled pork.' Cf.-' By gar, de herring is no dead so as I vill kill him.'-SHAKSPEARE, Merry Wives of Windsor, II. iii. 12.

1158. high places. Places of pagan sacrifice, from pagan altars being frequently on hills or high places.

1171. read his lesson. Alluding to the practice of 'Benefit of Clergy,' by which is meant the exemption of the clerical order from civil punishment. It applied not only to the actual clergy, but to all who were able to read and write and had thus learning enough to be clergymen. Hence any one convicted of a capital crime could 'pray his clergy,' that is could call for a Latin Bible and read a passage, generally taken from the Psalms. Failing in this test he was hanged; and as a verse of a Psalm was sung under the gallows before hanging a culprit thereon, a saying arose of one manifestly guilty of a hanging offence, 'He must either read a verse or sing it.' This was called 'reading the neck-verse.' Cf. III. i. 55. The privilege was finally abolished under George IV.

HEROICAL EPISTLE OF HUDIBRAS TO SIDROPHEL.

THIS Epistle is really no part of the poem of Hudibras. The Sidrophel to whom it is addressed is not the same as the Sidrophel of the poem. The latter is probably intended for Lilly; here one Sir Paul Neal is the original. The epistle was not published until ten years after the second part of Hudibras, and the occasion of it was that the Sir Paul Neal aforesaid had strenuously maintained that Butler was not the author of Hudibras. It was included in the edition of 1674 of the Hudibras, and was probably meant not only to satisfy Butler's natural revenge on one who had tried to deprive him of his honours of authorship, but also to force a sale for the new edition of the poem itself.

Ecce iterum Crispinus. This now familiar quotation is the commencement of Juvenal's lines :

Ecce iterum Crispinus, et est mihi saepe vocandus
Ad partes; monstrum, nulla virtute redemptum.
Satire IV. ad init.

10. Issachar's. 'Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens.'-Gen. xlix. 14.

13.

William Prynne. Cf. I. i. 646, and note.

21. new nick-named old invention. This is the engine' of the next line and is the speaking-trumpet which Sir Samuel Worland, who published an account of it under the name of Tuba Stentorophonica, then claimed to have newly invented. The claim was disputed, and as the dispute was rather a grotesque one, Butler ascribes the pretended invention to his Sidrophel.

22. green-hastings. Early peas. Whether their name is derived from their having originally been principally supplied to the London market from Hastings, or whether the name is a corruption of green-hastenings, in allusion to their forced growth, may well now be doubted. The latter is the more probable explanation.

27. persuade yourself. The subject of this verb is a long way back, in line 9. The sense runs: 'Is it possible that you persuade yourself?'

35. brayed, &c. Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.'-Prov. xxvii. 22.

46.

trying

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·

39. transfusion of the blood. Butler here begins to ridicule the scientific theories under investigation in his day. distinguishing. Cf. The wylde corne, beinge in shape and greatnesse lyke to the good, if they be mengled, with great difficultie wyll be tryed out. -SIR T. ELYOT, The Governour, B. II. c. 14.

58. without law. Without the fair start given to the quarry in coursing.

66.

B's and A's of a mathematical problem.

the wily x.'

'Chasing

80. find woodcocks by their eyes. The gleam of the eye betrays the bird to the fowler. Cf.

'Then as I careless on the bed

Of gelid strawberries do tread,
And through the hazels thick espy

The hatching throstle's shining eye.'

MARVEL.

But in addition to this plain interpretation of the line, there is probably a double allusion, as in the case of the ass and widgeon' of I. i. 232. Woodcock certainly means a fool in the Taming of the Shrew, I. ii. 160 :—

Gremio.

Grumio.

O this learning, what a thing it is!

O this woodcock, what an ass it is!

81. the college. Gresham College, the first meeting-place of the Royal Society. Cf. III. i. 1564. Sir Paul Neal was one of the earliest members of the Royal Society.

86. Sir Poll. A kind of punning double allusion, probably, both to Sir Paul Neal and Sir Politic Would Be'; a wellknown character in Ben Jonson's Volpone.

96.

The

your German scale. Your exaggerations. German mile being about four times as long as an English one.

124. natural

character. Cf. 1. 76. 'It is with depraved

man in his impure naturalls that we must maintaine this quarell.'-Bp. HALL, St. Paul's Combat.