Hudibras Samuel Butler (free novels to read TXT) 📖
- Author: Samuel Butler
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He was after this recommended to that great encourager of learning, Elizabeth Countess of Kent, where he had not only the opportunity to consult all manner of learned books, but to converse also with that living library of learning, the great Mr. Selden.
Our Author lived some time also with Sir Samuel Luke, who was of an ancient family in Bedfordshire but, to his dishonour, an eminent commander under the usurper Oliver Cromwell: and then it was, as I am informed, he composed this loyal Poem. For, though fate, more than choice, seems to have placed him in the service of a Knight so notorious, both in his person and politics, yet, by the rule of contraries, one may observe throughout his whole Poem, that he was most orthodox, both in his religion and loyalty. And I am the more induced to believe he wrote it about that time, because he had then the opportunity to converse with those living characters of rebellion, nonsense, and hypocrisy, which he so livelily and pathetically exposes throughout the whole work.
After the restoration of King Charles II those who were at the helm, minding money more than merit, our Author found that verse in Juvenal to be exactly verified in himself:
Haud facile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat
Res angusta domi:4
And being endued with that innate modesty, which rarely finds promotion in princes’ courts. He became Secretary to Richard Earl of Carbury, Lord President of the Principality of Wales, who made him Steward of Ludlow-Castle, when the Court there was revived. About this time he married one Mrs. Herbert, a gentlewoman of a very good family, but no widow, as the Oxford Antiquary has reported; she had a competent fortune, but it was most of it unfortunately lost, by being put out on ill securities, so that it was of little advantage to him. He is reported by the Antiquary to have been Secretary to his Grace George Duke of Buckingham, when he was Chancellor to the University of Cambridge; but whether that be true or no, it is certain, the Duke had a great kindness for him, and was often a benefactor to him. But no man was a more generous friend to him, than that Mecaenas of all learned and witty men, Charles Lord Buckhurst, the late Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, who, being himself an excellent poet, knew how to set a just value upon the ingenious performances of others, and has often taken care privately to relieve and supply the necessities of those, whose modesty would endeavour to conceal them; of which our author was a signal instance, as several others have been, who are now living. In fine the integrity of his life, the acuteness of his wit, and easiness of his conversation, had rendered him most acceptable to all men; yet he prudently avoided a multiplicity of acquaintance, and wisely chose such only whom his discerning judgment could distinguish (as Mr. Cowley expresseth it)
From the great vulgar or the small.
And having thus lived to a good old age, admired by all, though personally known to few, he departed this life in the year 1680, and was buried at the charge of his good friend Mr. Longuevil, of the Temple, in the yard belonging to the church of St. Paul’s Covent-garden, at the west-end of the said yard, on the north side, under the wall of the said church, and under that wall which parts the yard from the common highway. And since he has no monument yet set up for him, give me leave to borrow his epitaph from that of Michael Drayton, the poet, as the author of Mr. Cowley’s has partly done before me:
And though no monument can claim
To be the treasurer of thy name;
This work, which ne’er will die, shall be
An everlasting monument to thee.
Sir Hudibras his passing worth,
The manner how he sallied forth,
His arms and equipage are shown;
His horse’s virtues, and his own.
Th’ adventure of the Bear and Fiddle
Is sung, but breaks off in the middle.
When civil dudgeon5 first grew high,
And men fell out they knew not why;
When hard words, jealousies, and fears,
Set folks together by the ears,
And made them fight, like mad or drunk,
For dame Religion as for punk;
Whose honesty they all durst swear for,
Though not a man of them knew wherefore;
When gospel-trumpeter, surrounded
With long-ear’d rout, to battle sounded,
And pulpit, drum ecclesiastick,
Was beat with fist, instead of a stick;
Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling,
And out he rode a colonelling.
A wight he was, whose very sight would
Entitle him Mirror of Knighthood;
That never bent his stubborn knee
To any thing but chivalry;
Nor put up blow, but that which laid
Right worshipful on shoulder-blade:
Chief of domestic knights and errant,
Either for cartel or for warrant;
Great on the bench, great in the saddle,
That could as well bind o’er, as swaddle:6
Mighty he was at both of these,
And styl’d of war, as well as peace.
(So some rats, of amphibious nature,
Are either for the land or water.)
But here our authors make a doubt
Whether he were more wise, or stout.
Some hold the one, and some the other;
But howsoe’er they make a pother,
The diff’rence was so small, his brain
Outweigh’d his rage but half a grain;
Which made some take him for a tool,
That knaves do work with, call’d a fool.
And offer to lay wagers that
As Montaigne, playing with his cat,7
Complains she thought him but an ass,
Much more she would Sir Hudibras;
(For that’s the name our valiant Knight
To all his challenges did write.)
But they’re mistaken very much;
’Tis plain enough he was no such.
We grant, although he had much wit,
H’ was very shy of using it;
As being loth to wear it out,
And therefore bore it not about;
Unless on holy-days, or so,
As men their best apparel do.
Beside, ’tis known he could speak Greek
As naturally as pigs squeak:
That Latin was no more difficile,
Than to a blackbird ’tis to whistle.
Being rich
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