It is fcarcely poffible, in the regularity and compofure of the prefent time, to image the tumult of abfurdity, and clamour of contradiction, that perplexed doctrine, and disturbed both publick and private quiet, in that age, when fubordination was broken, and awe was hiffed away; when any unfettled innovator who could hatch a half-formed notion produced it to the publick; when every man might become a preacher, and almoft every preacher could collect a congregation.

The wifdom of the nation is very reasonably fuppofed to refide in the parliament. What can be concluded of the lower claffes of the people, when in one of the parliaments fummoned by Cromwell it was feriously propofed, that all the records in the Tower should be burnt, that all memory of things paft fhould be effaced, and that the whole fyftem of life fhould commence anew?

We have never been witneffes of animofities excited by the use of minced pies and plumb porridge; nor feen with what abhorrence those who could eat them at all other times of the year would fhrink from them in December. An old Puritan, who was alive in my childhood, being at one of the feafts of the church invited by a neighbour to partake his cheer, told him, that, if he would treat him at an alehouse with beer, brewed for all times and feafons, he fhould accept his kindness, but would have none of his fuperftitious meats or drinks.

One of the puritanical tenets was the illegality of all games of chance; and he that reads Gataker upon Lots, may fee how much learning and reafon one of the first scholars of

his age thought neceffary, to prove that it was no crime to throw a die, or play at cards, or to hide a fhilling for the reckoning.

Aftrology however, against which so much of this fatire is directed, was not more the folly of the Puritans than of others. It had in that time a very extenfive dominion. Its predictions raifed hopes and fears in minds. which ought to have rejected it with contempt. In hazardous undertakings, care was taken to begin under the influence of a propitious planet; and when the king was prifoner in Carisbrook Castle, an aftrologer was confulted what hour would be found moft favourable to an escape.

What effect this poem had upon the publick, whether it fhamed impofture or reclaimed credulity, is not eafily determined. Cheats can seldom stand long against laughter. It is certain that the credit of planetary intelligence wore fast away; though fome men of knowledge, and Dryden among them, continued to believe that conjunctions and oppofitions had a great part in the diftribution of good or evil, and in the government of fublunary things.

Poetical Action ought to be probable upon certain fuppofitions, and fuch probability as burlesque requires is here violated only by one incident. Nothing can fhew more plainly the neceffity of doing fomething, and the difficulty of finding fomething to do, than that Butler was reduced to transfer to his hero the flagellation of Sancho, not the most agreeable fiction of Cervantes; very fuitable indeed to the manners of that age and nation, which afcribed wonderful efficacy to voluntary pe

nances;

nances; but fo remote from the practice and opinions of the Hudibraftick time, that judgement and imagination are alike offended.

The Diction of this

poem is grofly familiar, and the numbers purpofely neglected, except in a few places where the thoughts by their native excellence fecure themselves from violation, being fuch as mean language cannot exprefs. The mode of verfification has been blamed by Dryden, who regrets that the heroic measure was not rather chofen. To the cri tical fentence of Dryden the highest reverence would be due, were not his decifions often precipitate, and his opinions immature. When he wifhed to change the measure, he probably would have been willing to change more. If he intended that, when the numbers were heroick, the diction fhould ftill remain vulgar, he planned a very heterogeneous and unnatural compofition. If he preferred a general statelinefs both of found and words, he can be only understood to wish that Butler had undertaken a different work.

The measure is quick, fpritely, and colloquial, fuitable to the vulgarity of the words and the levity of the fentiments. But fuch numbers and fuch diction can gain regard only when they are used by a writer whofe vigour of fancy and copioufnefs of knowledge entitle him to contempt of ornament, and who, in confidence of the novelty and justness of his conceptions, can afford to throw metaphors and epithets away. To another that conveys common thoughts in careless versification, it will only be faid, "Pauper videri Cin"na vult, & eft pauper." The meaning and

diction

diction will be worthy of each other, and criticism may justly doom them to perish toge-` ther.

Nor, even though another Butler fhould arife, would another Hudibras obtain the fame regard. Burlesque confifts in a difproportion between the ftile and the fentiments, or between the adventitious fentiments and the fundamental fubject. It therefore, like all bodies compounded of heterogeneous parts, contains in it a principle of corruption. All difproportion is unnatural, and from what is unnatural we can derive only the pleasure which novelty produces. We admire it awhile as a strange thing; but, when it is no longer ftrange, we perceive its deformity. It is a kind of artifice, which by frequent repetition detects itself; and the reader, learning in time what he is to expect, lays down his book, as the fpectator turns away from a fecond exhibition of those tricks, of which the only use is to fhew that they can be played.

DRYDEN.