Hudibras Samuel Butler (free novels to read TXT) 📖

And ’tis a miracle, we are not
Already sacrific’d incarnate:
For while we wrangle here, and jar
W’ are grilly’d all at Temple-Bar:
Some on the sign-post of an ale-house,
Hang in effigy, on the gallows;
Made up of rags, to personate
Respective officers of state;
That henceforth they may stand reputed,
Proscrib’d in law, and executed;
And while the work is carrying on
Be ready listed under Dun,194
That worthy patriot, once the bellows,
And tinder-box, of all his fellows;
The activ’st member of the five,
As well as the most primitive;
Who, for his faithful service then,
Is chosen for a fifth agen
(For since the state has made a Quint
Of Generals, he’s listed in’t.)
This worthy, as the world will say,
Is paid in specie, his own way;
For, moulded to the life in clouts,
Th’ have pick’d from dunghills hereabouts,
He’s mounted on a hazel bavin,
A cropp’d malignant baker gave ’em;
And to the largest bone-fire riding,
They’ve roasted Cook already and Pride in;195
On whom, in equipage and state,
His scarecrow fellow-members wait,
And march in order, two and two,
As at thanksgivings th’ us’d to do;
Each in a tatter’d talisman,
Like vermin in effigy slain.

But (what’s more dreadful than the rest)
Those rumps are but the tail o’ th’ beast,
Set up by Popish engineers,
As by the crackers plainly appears;
For none but Jesuits have a mission
To preach the faith with ammunition,
And propagate the church with powder:
Their founder was a blown-up soldier.196
These spiritual pioneers o’ th’ whore’s,
That have the charge of all her stores,
Since first they fail’d in their designs,
To take in heaven by springing mines,
And with unanswerable barrels
Of gunpowder dispute their quarrels,
Now take a course more practicable,
By laying trains to fire the rabble,
And blow us up in th’ open streets,
Disguis’d in rumps, like Sambenites;
More like to ruin, and confound,
Than all the doctrines under ground.

Nor have they chosen rumps amiss
For symbols of state mysteries;
Though some suppose ’twas but to shew
How much they scorn’d the saints, the few;
Who, ’cause they’re wasted to the stumps,
Are represented best by rumps.
But Jesuits have deeper reaches
In all their politic far-fetches,
And from the Coptic priest, Kircherus,197
Found out this mystic way to jeer us.
For, as th’ Egyptians us’d by bees198
T’ express their antique Ptolomies,
And by their stings, the swords they wore,
Held forth authority and power;
Because these subtle animals
Bear all their int’rests in their tails;
And when they’re once impair’d in that,
Are banish’d their well-order’d state;
They thought all governments were best
By hieroglyphic rumps exprest.

For, as in bodies natural,
The rump’s the fundament of all,
So, in a commonwealth, or realm,
The government is call’d the helm;
With which, like vessels under sail,
They’re turn’d and winded by the tail;
The tail, which birds and fishes steer
Their courses with through sea and air;
To whom the rudder of the rump is
The same thing with the stern and compass.
This shews how perfectly the rump
And commonwealth in nature jump.
For as a fly, that goes to bed,
Rests with his tail above his head,
So in this mongrel state of ours,
The rabble are the supreme powers;
That hors’d us on their backs, to show us
A jadish trick at last, and throw us.

The learned rabbins of the Jews
Write there’s a bone, which they call leuz,
I’ th’ rump of man, of such a virtue,
No force in nature can do hurt to:
And therefore at the last great day,
All th’ other members shall, they say,
Spring out of this, as from a seed
All sorts of vegetals proceed;
From whence the learned sons of art
Os sacrum justly stile that part:
Then what can better represent
Than this rump bone, the Parliament;
That, alter several rude ejections,
And as prodigious resurrections,
With new reversions of nine lives,
Starts up, and like a cat revives?

But now, alas! they’re all expir’d,
And th’ House, as well as members, fir’d;
Consum’d in kennels by the rout,
With which they other fires put out:
Condemn’d t’ ungoverning distress,
And paltry private wretchedness;
Worse than the devil, to privation,
Beyond all hopes of restoration;
And parted, like the body and soul,
From all dominion and control.
We, who could lately with a look
Enact, establish, or revoke;
Whose arbitrary nods gave law,
And frowns kept multitudes in awe;
Before the bluster of whose huff,
All hats, as in a storm, flew off;
Ador’d and bowed to by the great,
Down to the footman and valet;
Had more bent knees than chapel-mats,
And prayers than the crowns of hats;
Shall now be scorn’d as wretchedly,
For ruin’s just as low as high;
Which might be suffer’d, were it all
The horror that attends our fall:
For some of us have scores more large
Than heads and quarters can discharge;
And others, who, by restless scraping,
With public frauds, and private rapine,
Have mighty heaps of wealth amass’d,
Would gladly lay down all at last;
And to be but undone, entail
Their vessels on perpetual jail;
And bless the dev’l to let them farms
Of forfeit souls on no worse terms.

This said, a near and louder shout
Put all th’ assembly to the rout,
Who now begun t’ out-run their fear,
As horses do from whom they bear;
But crowded on with so much haste,
Until th’ had block’d the passage fast,
And barricado’d it with haunches
Of outward men, and bulks, and paunches,
That with their shoulders strove to squeeze,
And rather save a crippl’d piece
Of all their crush’d and broken members,
Than have them grilled on the embers;
Still pressing on with heavy packs
Of one another on their backs:
The vanguard could no longer bear
The charges of the forlorn rear,
But, born down headlong by the rout,
Were trampled sorely under foot:
Yet nothing prov’d so formidable
As the horrid cookery of the rabble;
And fear, that keeps all feeling out,
As lesser pains are by the gout,
Reliev’d ’em with a fresh supply
Of rallied force enough to fly,
And beat a Tuscan running-horse,
Whose jockey-rider is all spurs.