Hudibras Samuel Butler (free novels to read TXT) 📖

Quoth Hudibras, The case is clear,
The Saints may ’mploy a conjurer,
As thou hast prov’d it by their practice;
No argument like matter of fact is;
And we are best of all led to
Men’s principles by what they do.
Then let us straight advance in quest
Of this profound gymnosophist;
And as the fates and he advise,
Pursue or wave this enterprise.

This said, he turn’d about his steed,
And eftsoons on th’ adventure rid:
Where leave we him and Ralph a while,
And to the Conjurer turn our stile,
To let our reader understand
What’s useful of him beforehand.

He had been long t’wards mathematics,
Optics, philosophy, and statics,
Magic, horoscopy, astrology,
And was old dog at physiology;
But as a dog that turns the spit
Bestirs himself, and plies his feet,
To climb the wheel, but all in vain,
His own weight brings him down again;
And still he’s in the self-same place
Where at his setting out he was;
So in the circle of the arts
Did he advance his nat’ral parts,
Till falling back still, for retreat,
He fell to juggle, cant, and cheat:
For as those fowls that live in water
Are never wet, he did but smatter:
Whate’er he labour’d to appear,
His understanding still was clear:
Yet none a deeper knowledge boasted,
Since old Hodge Bacon and Bob Grosted.112
Th’ intelligible world he knew,
And all men dream on’t to be true;
That in this world there’s not a wart
That has not there a counterpart;
Nor can there on the face of ground
An individual beard be found,
That has not, in that foreign nation,
A fellow of the self-same fashion;
So cut, so colour’d, and so curl’d,
As those are in th’ inferior world.
H’ had read Dee’s prefaces before,
The dev’l, and Euclid, o’er and o’er;
And all the intrigues ’twixt him and Kelly,
Lescus and th’ emperor, would tell ye;
But with the moon was more familiar
Than e’er was almanac well-willer;
Her secrets understood so clear,
That some believ’d he had been there;
Knew when she was in the fittest mood
For cutting corns, or letting blood;
When for anointing scabs or itches,
Or to the bum applying leeches;
When sows and bitches may be spay’d,
And in what sign best cider’s made:
Whether the wane be, or increase,
Best to set garlic, or sow peas;
Who first found out the Man i’ th’ Moon,
That to the ancients was unknown;
How many dukes, and earls, and peers,
Are in the planetary spheres;
Their airy empire and command,
Their sev’ral strengths by sea and land;
What factions th’ have, and what they drive at
In public vogue, or what in private;
With what designs and interests
Each party manages contests.
He made an instrument to know
If the moon shine at full or no;
That would as soon as e’er she shone, straight
Whether ’twere day or night demonstrate;
Tell what her d’meter t’ an inch is,
And prove that she’s not made of green cheese.
It would demonstrate, that the Man in
The Moon’s a sea Mediterranean;
And that it is no dog nor bitch,
That stands behind him at his breech,
But a huge Caspian Sea, or lake,
With arms, which men for legs mistake;
How large a gulf his tail composes,
And what a goodly bay his nose is;
How many German leagues by th’ scale
Cape Snout’s from Promontory Tail.
He made a planetary gin,
Which rats would run their own heads in,
And cause on purpose to be taken,
Without th’ expense of cheese or bacon.
With lute-strings he would counterfeit
Maggots that crawl on dish of meat:
Quote moles and spots on any place
O’ th’ body, by the index face:
Detect lost maidenheads by sneezing,
Or breaking wind of dames, or pissing;
Cure warts and corns with application
Of med’cines to th’ imagination,
Fright agues into dogs, and scare
With rhymes the tooth-ache and catarrh:
Chase evil spirits away by dint
Of sickle, horse-shoe, hollow-flint;
Spit fire out of a walnut-shell,
Which made the Roman slaves rebel;
And fire a mine in China here,
With sympathetic gunpowder.
He knew whats’ever’s to be known,
But much more than he knew would own:
What med’cine ’twas that Paracelsus
Could make a man with, as he tells us;
What figur’d slates are best to make
On wat’ry surface duck or drake;
What bowling-stones, in running race
Upon a board, have swiftest pace;
Whether a pulse beat in the black
List of a dappled louse’s back;
If systole or diastole move
Quickest when he’s in wrath or love;
When two of them do run a race,
Whether they gallop, trot, or pace;
How many scores a flea will jump,
Of his own length, from head to rump;
Which Socrates and Chaerephon,113
In vain, assay’d so long agone;
Whether his snout a perfect nose is,
And not an elephant’s proboscis;
How many diff’rent species
Of maggots breed in rotten cheese;
And which are next of kin to those
Engender’d in a chandler’s nose;
Or those not seen, but understood,
That live in vinegar and wood.

A paultry wretch he had, half-starv’d,
That him in place of Zany serv’d,
Hight Whachum, bred to dash and draw,
Not wine, but more unwholesome law;
To make ’twixt words and lines huge gaps,
Wide as meridians in maps;
To squander paper, and spare ink,
And cheat men of their words, some think.
From this, by merited degrees,
He’d to more high advancement rise;
To be an under conjurer,
A journeyman astrologer.
His business was to pump and wheedle,
And men with their own keys unriddle;
To make them to themselves give answers,
For which they pay the necromancers;
To fetch and carry intelligence,
Of whom, and what, and where, and whence,
And all discoveries disperse
Among th’ whole pack of conjurers;
What cut-purses have left with them,
For the right owners to redeem;
And what they dare not vent find out,
To gain themselves and th’ art repute;
Draw figures, schemes, and horoscopes,
Of Newgate, Bridewell, brokers’ shops,
Of thieves ascendant in the cart,
And find out all by rules of art;
Which way a serving man, that’s run
With clothes or money away, is gone;
Who pick’d a