Hudibras Samuel Butler (free novels to read TXT) 📖

The Rosicrucians were a sect that appeared in Germany in the beginning of the 17th age. They are also called the enlightened, immortal, and invisible. They are a very enthusiastical sort of men, and hold many wild and extravagant opinions. ↩

He used to preach, as if they might expect legions to drop down from heaven, for the propagation of the good old cause. ↩

A most Reverend Prelate, A. B. of Y. who sided with the disaffected party. ↩

The Romans highly honoured, and nobly rewarded, those persons that were instrumental in the preservation of the lives of their citizens, either in battle or otherwise. ↩

The author compares the arbitrary actings of the ungovernable mob to the Sultan or Grand Signior, who very seldom fails to sacrifice any of his chief commanders, called Bassas, if they prove unsuccessful in battle. ↩

Homer wrote a poem of the war between the mice and the frogs. ↩

A story in Tasso, an Italian Poet, of a hero that gained his mistress by conquering her party. ↩

Prideux, a justice of peace, a very pragmatical busy person in those times, and a mercenary and cruel magistrate, infamous for the following methods of getting of money among many others. ↩

There was a gaol for puny offenders. ↩

He extorted money from those that kept shows. ↩

John a Nokes, and John a Stiles, are two fictitious names made use of in stating cases of law only. ↩

Bongey was a Franciscan, and lived towards the end of the thirteenth century, a doctor of divinity in Oxford; and a particular acquaintance of Friar Bacon’s. In that ignorant age, everything that seemed extraordinary was reputed magic; and so both Bacon and Bongey went under the imputation of studying the black art. Bongey also, publishing a treatise of Natural Magic, confirmed some well-meaning credulous people in this opinion; but it was altogether groundless; for Bongey was chosen provincial of his order, being a person of most excellent parts and piety. ↩

Metaphysicians are of opinion, that angels and souls departed, being divested of all gross matter, understand each other’s sentiments by intuition, and consequently maintain a sort of conversation without the organs of speech. ↩

In regard children are capable of being inhabitants of heaven, therefore it should not resent it as a crime to supply store of inhabitants for it. ↩

Parthians are the inhabitants of a province in Persia: They were excellent horsemen, and very exquisite at their bows; and it is reported of them, that they generally slew more on their retreat than they did in the engagement. ↩

One of the assembly of divines, very remarkable for the singularity of his beard. ↩

When Romulus had built Rome, he made it an asylum, or place of refuge, for all malefactors, and others obnoxious to the laws to retire to; by which means it soon came to be very populous; but when he began to consider, that, without propagation, it would soon be destitute of inhabitants, he invented several fine shows, and invited the young Sabine women, then neighbours to them; and when they had them secure, they ravished them; from whence proceeded so numerous an offspring. ↩

Alimony is an allowance that the law gives the woman for her separate maintenance upon living from her husband. That and death are reckoned the only separations in a married state. ↩

The poets feign Cupid to have two sorts of arrows; the one tipped with gold, and the other with lead. The golden always inspire and inflame love in the persons he wounds with them: but, on the contrary, the leaden create the utmost aversion and hatred. With the first of these he shot Apollo, and with the other Daphne, according to Ovid. ↩

Prester John, an absolute prince, emperor of Abyssinia or Ethiopia. One of them is reported to have had seventy kings for his vassals, and so superb and arrogant, that none durst look upon him without his permission. ↩

Joan of Arc, called also the Pucelle, or Maid of Orleans. She was born at the town of Damremi, on the Meuse, daughter of James de Arc, and Isabella Romée; and was bred up a shepherdess in the country. At the age of eighteen or twenty she pretended to an express commission from God to go to the relief of Orleans, then besieged by the English, and defended by John Compte de Dennis, and almost reduced to the last extremity. She went to the coronation of Charles the Seventh, when he was almost ruined. She knew that prince in the midst of his nobles; though meanly habited. The doctors of divinity, and members of parliament, openly declared that there was some thing supernatural in her conduct. She sent for a sword, which lay in the tomb of a knight, which was behind the great altar of the church of St. Katharine de Forbois, upon the blade of which the cross and flower-de-luces were engraven, which put the king in a very great surprise, in regard none besides himself knew of it. Upon this he sent her with the command of some troops, with which she relieved Orleans, and drove the English from it, defeated Talbot at the battle of Pattai, and recovered Champagne. At last she was unfortunately taken prisoner in a sally at Champagne in 1430, and tried for a witch or sorceress, condemned, and burnt in Rouen marketplace in May, 1430. ↩

The Salique law is a law in France, whereby it is enacted, that no female shall inherit that crown. ↩