Hudibras Samuel Butler (free novels to read TXT) 📖

Quoth Ralph, How great I do not know
We may by being beaten grow;
But none, that see how here we sit,
Will judge us overgrown with wit.
As gifted brethren, preaching by
A carnal hour-glass, do imply,
Illumination can convey
Into them what they have to say,
But not how much; so well enough
Know you to charge, but not draw off:
For who, without a cap and bauble,
Having subdu’d a bear and rabble,
And might with honour have come off,
Would put it to a second proof?
A politic exploit, right fit
For Presbyterian zeal and wit.

Quoth Hudibras, That cuckoo’s tone,
Ralpho, thou always harp’st upon.
When thou at any thing would’st rail,
Thou mak’st Presbytery the scale
To take the height on’t, and explain
To what degree it is profane:
Whats’ever will not with (thy what d’ye call)
Thy light jump right, thou call’st synodical;
As if Presbytery were the standard
To size whats’ever ’s to be slander’d.
Dost not remember how this day,
Thou to my beard wast bold to say,
That thou coud’st prove bear-baiting equal
With synods orthodox and legal?
Do if thou canst; for I deny’t,
And dare thee to ’t with all thy light.

Quoth Ralpho, Truly that is no
Hard matter for a man to do,
That has but any guts in ’s brains,
And could believe it worth his pains;
But since you dare and urge me to it,
You’ll find I’ve light enough to do it.

Synods are mystical bear-gardens,
Where elders, deputies, churchwardens,
And other members of the court,
Manage the Babylonish sport;
For prolocutor, scribe, and bear-ward,
Do differ only in a mere word;
Both are but sev’ral synagogues
Of carnal men, and bears, and dogs:
Both anti-christian assemblies,
To mischief bent, far as in them lies;
Both stave and tail with fierce contests,
The one with men, the other beasts.
The diff’rence is, the one fights with
The tongue, the other with the teeth;
And that they bait but bears in this,
In th’ other, souls and consciences;
Where Saints themselves are brought to stake
For gospel-light, and conscience’ sake;
Expos’d to Scribes and Presbyters,
Instead of mastiff dogs and curs,
Than whom th’ have less humanity;
For these at souls of men will fly.
This to the prophet did appear,
Who in a vision saw a bear,
Prefiguring the beastly rage
Of church-rule in this latter age:
As is demonstrated at full
By him that baited the Pope’s bull.78
Bears nat’rally are beasts of prey,
That live by rapine; so do they.
What are their orders, constitutions,
Church-censures, curses, absolutions,
But sev’ral mystic chains they make,
To tie poor Christians to the stake,
And then set heathen officers,
Instead of dogs, about their ears?
For to prohibit and dispense;
To find out or to make offence;
Of hell and heaven to dispose;
To play with souls at fast and loose;
To set what characters they please,
And mulcts on sin or godliness;
Reduce the Church to gospel-order,
By rapine, sacrilege, and murder;
To make Presbytery supreme,
And Kings themselves submit to them;
And force all people, though against
Their consciences, to turn saints;
Must prove a pretty thriving trade,
When Saints monopolists are made:
When pious frauds, and holy shifts,
Are dispensations and gifts,
Their godliness becomes mere ware,
And ev’ry synod but a fair.
Synods are whelps of th’ Inquisition,
A mongrel breed of like pernicion;
And growing up, became the sires
Of scribes, commissioners, and triers;
Whose bus’ness is, by cunning sleight,
To cast a figure for men’s light;
To find, in lines of beard and face,
The physiognomy of grace;
And by the sound and twang of nose,
If all be sound within disclose,
Free from a crack or flaw of sinning,
As men try pipkins by the ringing;
By black caps, underlaid with white,
Give certain guess at inward light.
Which serjeants at the gospel wear,
To make the spiritual calling clear;
The handkerchief about the neck
(Canonical cravat of Smeck,79
From whom the institution came,
When church and state they set on flame,
And worn by them as badges then
Of spiritual warfaring men)
Judge rightly if regeneration
Be of the newest cut in fashion.
Sure ’tis an orthodox opinion,
That grace is founded in dominion.
Great piety consists in pride;
To rule is to be sanctified:
To domineer, and to control,
Both o’er the body and the soul,
Is the most perfect discipline
Of church-rule, and by right divine.
Bel and the Dragon’s chaplains were
More moderate than these by far:
For they (poor knaves) were glad to cheat,
To get their wives and children meat;
But these will not be fobb’d off so;
They must have wealth and power too,
Or else with blood and desolation
They’ll tear it out o’ th’ heart o’ th’ nation.

Sure these themselves from primitive
And Heathen Priesthood do derive,
When butchers were the only clerks,
Elders and presbyters of kirks;
Whose directory was to kill;
And some believe it is so still.
The only diff’rence is, that then
They slaughter’d only beasts, now men.
For then to sacrifice a bullock,
Or now and then a child to Moloch,
They count a vile abomination,
But not to slaughter a whole nation.
Presbytery does but translate
The Papacy to a free state;
A commonwealth of Popery,
Where ev’ry village is a See
As well as Rome, and must maintain
A tithe-pig metropolitan;
Where ev’ry presbyter and deacon
Commands the keys for cheese and bacon;
And ev’ry hamlet’s governed
By ’s Holiness, the church’s head;
More haughty and severe in ’s place,
Than Gregory or Boniface.
Such Church must (surely) be a monster
With many heads: for if we conster
What in th’ Apocalypse we find,
According to th’ apostle’s mind,
’Tis that the whore of Babylon
With many heads did