1250. Sir Pride. This was the Colonel Pride of Pride's Purge' celebrity. A story was circulated against him that he was knighted by Cromwell with a faggot stick. He and Hewson, a shoemaker by trade, were both of them members of Cromwell's Upper House. Both were the subjects of endless scurrility in the political songs of the day. Cf.

'Make room for one-eyed Hewson

A lord of such account,

"Twas a pretty jest

That such a beast

Should to such honours mount.
When cobblers were in fashion,
And niggards in such grace,
'Twas sport to see

How Pride and he

Did jostle for the place.'

The Bloody Bed-roll, Loyal Songs,

vol. ii. p. 11.

1261. the Uxbridge business. Commissioners sat at Uxbridge in the spring of 1645 to arrange terms of peace. The negotiations were broken off by Charles, and the appeal to arms that followed led directly to his ruinous defeat at Naseby.

1263. holderforth. One Christopher Love who preached before the Commissioners above alluded to against the King's party. Butler here endeavours to make him responsible for the failure of the negotiations at Uxbridge, whereas the fact is that they were broken off by Charles, who saw in the New Model' a breach between the war and peace parties amongst his antagonists which he thought he could turn to his own

account.

1270. monies. The money paid to the Scots on the occasion of their surrendering Charles.

1277. suffered your own tribe, &c. Alluding to the Duke of Hamilton's invasion of England in the cause of the King. By 1648 the Independents, to the horror of the Scotch, had practically overthrown the Covenant. There was a natural feeling of hope, entertained north of the Tweed, that a raid into England on behalf of Presbyterianism and the Covenant would unite the Presbyterians of both nations in putting the Independents down. This hope was disappointed; the English Presbyterians 'left them in the lurch,' and Cromwell, falling on them at Preston, soon drove Hamilton's followers back over the border.

1304. nicked. Won by throw of the dice.
'Ultima ratio.'

1330. last reason.

1384. only ’mong themselves. Alluding to the restrictions passed upon the Jews forbidding them to intermarry with other nations. It has been said of the Jew that 'his religion was an ethnological distinction.'

1414. fifth monarchy. The fifth monarchy men' was the name applied to one of the numerous sects of Puritan England. The prophet Daniel, having enumerated four kingdoms which are to succeed one another, goes on (ch. ii. v. 44) 'And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed.' The fifth monarchy men held that this fifth and eternal kingdom meant the actual terrestrial monarchy of Christ, and that it was immediately at hand whence their name.

1443. forestalled. To forestall is a word borrowed from the corn trade, and was the name applied to a transaction on which the law of England long frowned. Cf.

At last by the 15th of Charles II. c. 7, the engrossing or buying of corn in order to sell it again, as long as the price of wheat did not exceed forty-eight shillings the quarter, and that of other grain in proportion, was declared lawful to all persons not being forestallers, that is, not selling again in the same market within three months.'

ADAM SMITH, Wealth of Nations, Bk. IV. ch. v. 1494. the rose. The phrase Under the Rose' is an extremely old one. The god of silence, Harpocrates, was bribed by Cupid with the present of a rose, not to betray the amours of Venus. Hence the rose became the emblem of silence and secresy. The ceilings of banqueting halls were decorated with roses as a reminder to guests of the obligation not to betray the confidences of the revel.

1499. another. When Monk had entered London those who remained of the members excluded by Pride's Purge were instigated by Sir Ashley Cooper to re-enter the House, and their admission was hailed by the populace with the most extravagant joy. The Rump was burned in effigy; and the news of this outburst was brought to the Council by Sir Martin Noel, to whom Butler here alludes.

But under this

1534. Dun was the hangman of the time. name Butler alludes to Hazelrig as shown by 1. 1547, where the hazel bairn' is obviously a pun on his name.

1537. the five. The 'Five Members,' of whom Hazelrig

was one.

1541.

a quint of generals. Monk, Hazelrig, Walton, Morley, and Alured were appointed as army commissioners in

1550. Cook. The solicitor who drew up the charges against the king. He was afterwards hanged at Tyburn, pleading in vain that he had merely acted as a solicitor, and taken his professional fees,

1555. talisman. In ragged effigy. The talisman was the image, believed to have been made by witches, of persons whom they wished to injure. The images were melted or otherwise destroyed in order that like evil might come upon the original. So a ragged talisman' was made for each obnoxious member of the Rump, who were thus burnt in talisman.

1564. soldier. Ignatius Loyola was originally a soldier, and was wounded at the siege of Pampeluna, 1521.

1574. Sambenites. Sambenito, the coat of yellow cloth put upon heretics when ordered to execution by the Inquisition. A picture of the Devil was painted on it in black.

1585. Kircherus. Early editions spell this name 'Kirkerus.' He was a Jesuit who wrote on the mysteries of ancient Egypt.

1587. The Egyptians represented kingship by the bee, with honey to reward virtue and a sting to punish vice. Butler works this out in the 'Speech made at the Rota.'

1610. above his head. If he settles on a wall.

1616. luez. Also called luz. A small bone at the lower end of the backbone was said by the Rabbins to be incorruptible, and to furnish the seed whence the whole body would be restored at the Resurrection.

1624.

os sacrum. The lowest bone of the backbone. It is so called only from its greater size than any of the vertebrae.

1648. valet. Pronounced 'valèt.'

1656. heads and quarters. For high treason the penalty used to be for the nobility, beheading; for the commonalty, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

1684. horrid cookery. In Cheapside there were a great many bonfires, and Bow-bells and all the bells in all the churches as we went home were a-ringing. Hence we went homewards it being about ten at night. But the common joy that was everywhere to be seen! The number of bonfires, there being fourteen between St. Dunstan's and Temple-bar, and at Strand Bridge [a bridge which spanned the Strand close to the east end of Catherinestreet, where a small stream ran down from the fields into the

Thames near Somerset House] I could tell at one time thirty-one fires; in King-street seven or eight; and all along, burning, and roasting, and drinking of Rumps; there being rumps tied upon sticks, and carried up and down. The butchers at the maypoles in the Strand rang a peal with their knives when they were going to sacrifice their rump. On Ludgate-hill there was one turning of the spit that had a rump tied to it, and another basting of it. Indeed, it was past imagination, both the greatness and the suddenness of it. At one end of the street you would think there was a whole lane of fire, and so hot that we were fain to keep on the other side.'-PEPYS' Diary.

1690. all spurs. Horses trained thus to race at the Carnival at Rome. Little balls armed with sharp spikes are hung along their hinder quarters, and serve to spur them on as soon as they begin to run.

PART III.-CANTO III.

3. fern. The seed of a fern being very small, almost invisible to the naked eye, it was long held that the plant was propagated, as it was also believed that some insects were, spontaneously or equivocally.' The further notion that whoever could carry this seed about with him became himself invisible, is alluded to by Shakspeare

6

6

We have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible.'

1 Henry I. II. i. 93.

16. see with ears, &c. Butler ridicules this idea also in his 'Character of an Hermetic Philosopher.' The ridicule is aimed at Sir Kenelm Digby, who tells with apparent credulity the story of a Spaniard who could hear by his eyes and see words.

20. hag. A.S. Egesian, to fear, to make afraid. To 'hag' is to fright, to scare. Cf. Timorous man whose nature is thus hagged with frightful imaginations of invisible powers and judgment to come.'-SCOTT, Christian Life, pt. ii., c. 3, s. 2.

36. Marshal Legion. This name has been very variously explained. The strong probability seems to be that 'Marshal Legion's regiment' simply means a pack of devils, from the devils of the Gospel whose name was Legion. But Grey explains this as an allusion to one Stephen Marshall, a Presbyterian preacher of some notoriety. The desire to identify all Butler's fanciful names with real persons has been indulged far beyond the evidence, and has produced many strained renderings.

44. we left. The thread of the narrative is here taken up again after the long digression of the last canto.

110. dunship. This is the earlier and the correct spelling. Later editions read donship. Donship was sometimes used as the title of a knight. But Butler purposely makes Ralpho thus alter the word so as to allude to the old saying 'dun in the mire.' Dun means a donkey or dunkey, so called from the