Hudibras
Hudibras is in Stewart Books.
Hudibras is an English mock-heroic narrative poem from the 17th century written by Samuel Butler first published in 1663.
Hudibras by Samuel Butler with Notes by the Rev Treadway Russel Nash D. D. A new edition in two volumes. Volume 1.
Pepy's Diary. 28 Jan 1660. Saturday. I went to Mr Downing (age 35) and carried him three characters, and then to my office and wrote another, while Mr. Frost staid telling money. And after I had done it Mr. Hawly came into the office and I left him and carried it to Mr Downing (age 35), who then told me that he was resolved to be gone for Holland this morning. So I to my office again, and dispatch my business there, and came with Mr. Hawly to Mr Downing's (age 35) lodging, and took Mr. Squib from White Hall in a coach thither with me, and there we waited in his chamber a great while, till he came in; and in the mean time, sent all his things to the barge that lay at Charing-Cross Stairs. Then came he in, and took a very civil leave of me, beyond my expectation, for I was afraid that he would have told me something of removing me from my office; but he did not, but that he would do me any service that lay in his power. So I went down and sent a porter to my house for my best fur cap, but he coming too late with it I did not present it to him. Thence I went to Westminster Hall [Map], and bound up my cap at Mrs. Michell's, who was much taken with my cap, and endeavoured to overtake the coach at the Exchange [Map] and to give it him there, but I met with one that told me that he was gone, and so I returned and went to Heaven1, where Luellin and I dined on a breast of mutton all alone, discoursing of the changes that we have seen and the happiness of them that have estates of their own, and so parted, and I went by appointment to my office and paid young Mr. Walton £500; it being very dark he took £300 by content. He gave me half a piece and carried me in his coach to St. Clement's [Map], from whence I went to Mr. Crew's (age 62) and made even with Mr. Andrews, and took in all my notes and gave him one for all. Then to my Lady Wright and gave her Lord's (age 34) letter which he bade me give her privately. So home and then to Will's for a little news, then came home again and wrote to Lord, and so to Whitehall and gave them to the post-boy. Back again home and to bed.
Note 1. A place of entertainment within or adjoining Westminster Hall [Map]. It is called in "Hudibras", "False Heaven, at the end of the Hall". There were two other alehouses near Westminster Hall, called Hell and Purgatory. "Nor break his fast In Heaven and Hell". Ben Jonson's Alchemist, act V. SC. 2.
Pepy's Diary. 26 Dec 1662. So to Dr. Williams, but he is out of town, then to the Wardrobe. Hither come Mr. Battersby; and we falling into a discourse of a new book of drollery in verse called Hudebras1, I would needs go find it out, and met with it at the Temple: cost me 2s. 6d. But when I came to read it, it is so silly an abuse of the Presbyter Knight going to the warrs, that I am ashamed of it; and by and by meeting at Mr. Townsend's at dinner, I sold it to him for 18d. Here we dined with many tradesmen that belong to the Wardrobe, but I was weary soon of their company, and broke up dinner as soon as I could, and away, with the greatest reluctancy and dispute (two or three times my reason stopping my sense and I would go back again) within myself, to the Duke's house and saw "The Villaine", which I ought not to do without my wife, but that my time is now out that I did undertake it for. But, Lord! to consider how my natural desire is to pleasure, which God be praised that he has given me the power by my late oaths to curb so well as I have done, and will do again after two or three plays more. Here I was better pleased with the play than I was at first, understanding the design better than I did. Here I saw Gosnell and her sister at a distance, and could have found it in my heart to have accosted them, but thought not prudent. But I watched their going out and found that they came, she, her sister and another woman, alone, without any man, and did go over the fields a foot. I find that I have an inclination to have her come again, though it is most against my interest either of profit or content of mind, other than for their singing.
Note 1. The first edition of Butler's "Hudibras" is dated 1663, and it probably had only been published a few days when Pepys bought it and sold it at a loss. He subsequently endeavoured to appreciate the work, but was not successful. The edition in the Pepysian Library is dated 1689.
Pepy's Diary. 06 Feb 1663. Thence to Lincoln's Inn Fields; and it being too soon to go to dinner, I walked up and down, and looked upon the outside of the new theatre, now a-building in Covent Garden [Map], which will be very fine. And so to a bookseller's in the Strand, and there bought Hudibras again, it being certainly some ill humour to be so against that which all the world cries up to be the example of wit; for which I am resolved once again to read him, and see whether I can find it or no.
Pepy's Diary. 28 Nov 1663. Up and at the office sat all the morning, and at noon by Mr. Coventry's (age 35) coach to the 'Change [Map], and after a little while there where I met with Mr. Pierce, the chyrurgeon, who tells me for good newes that my Lord Sandwich (age 38) is resolved to go no more to Chelsy, and told me he believed that I had been giving my Lord some counsel, which I neither denied nor affirmed, but seemed glad with him that he went thither no more, and so I home to dinner, and thence abroad to Paul's Church Yard, and there looked upon the second part of Hudibras, which I buy not, but borrow to read, to see if it be as good as the first, which the world cry so mightily up, though it hath not a good liking in me, though I had tried by twice or three times reading to bring myself to think it witty.
Pepy's Diary. 10 Dec 1663. Thence to St. Paul's Church Yard [Map], to my bookseller's, and having gained this day in the office by my stationer's bill to the King (age 33) about 40s. or £3, I did here sit two or three hours calling for twenty books to lay this money out upon, and found myself at a great losse where to choose, and do see how my nature would gladly return to laying out money in this trade. I could not tell whether to lay out my money for books of pleasure, as plays, which my nature was most earnest in; but at last, after seeing Chaucer, Dugdale's History of Paul's, Stows London, Gesner, History of Trent, besides Shakespeare, Jonson, and Beaumont's plays, I at last chose Dr. Fuller's (age 55) Worthys, the Cabbala or Collections of Letters of State, and a little book, Delices de Hollande, with another little book or two, all of good use or serious pleasure: and Hudibras, both parts, the book now in greatest fashion for drollery, though I cannot, I confess, see enough where the wit lies.
Pepy's Diary. 27 Jan 1664. Up and to the office, and at noon to the Coffeehouse, where I sat with Sir G. Ascue (age 48)1 and Sir William Petty (age 40), who in discourse is, methinks, one of the most rational men that ever I heard speak with a tongue, having all his notions the most distinct and clear, and, among other things (saying, that in all his life these three books were the most esteemed and generally cried up for wit in the world "Religio Medici", "Osborne's Advice to a Son2", and "Hudibras"), did say that in these-in the two first principally-the wit lies, and confirming some pretty sayings, which are generally like paradoxes, by some argument smartly and pleasantly urged, which takes with people who do not trouble themselves to examine the force of an argument, which pleases them in the delivery, upon a subject which they like; whereas, as by many particular instances of mine, and others, out of Osborne, he did really find fault and weaken the strength of many of Osborne's arguments, so as that in downright disputation they would not bear weight; at least, so far, but that they might be weakened, and better found in their rooms to confirm what is there said. He shewed finely whence it happens that good writers are not admired by the present age; because there are but few in any age that do mind anything that is abstruse and curious; and so longer before any body do put the true praise, and set it on foot in the world, the generality of mankind pleasing themselves in the easy delights of the world, as eating, drinking, dancing, hunting, fencing, which we see the meanest men do the best, those that profess it. A gentleman never dances so well as the dancing master, and an ordinary fiddler makes better musique for a shilling than a gentleman will do after spending forty, and so in all the delights of the world almost.
Note 1. Sir George Ayscue or Askew (age 48). After his return from his imprisonment he declined to go to sea again, although he was twice afterwards formally appointed. He sat on the court-martial on the loss of the "Defiance" in 1668.
Note 2. Francis Osborne, an English writer of considerable abilities and popularity, was the author of "Advice to a Son", in two parts, Oxford, 1656-8, 8vo. He died in 1659. He is the same person mentioned as "My Father Osborne", October 19th, 1661. B.
Pepy's Diary. 11 Oct 1665. By and by comes Cocke (age 48) to tell me that Fisher and his fellow were last night mightily satisfied and promised all friendship, but this morning he finds them to have new tricks and shall be troubled with them. So he being to go down to Erith, Kent with them this afternoon about giving security, I advised him to let them go by land, and so he and I (having eat something at his house) by water to Erith, Kent, but they got thither before us, and there we met Mr. Seymour (age 32), one of the Commissioners for Prizes, and a Parliament-man, and he was mighty high, and had now seized our goods on their behalf; and he mighty imperiously would have all forfeited, and I know not what. I thought I was in the right in a thing I said and spoke somewhat earnestly, so we took up one another very smartly, for which I was sorry afterwards, shewing thereby myself too much concerned, but nothing passed that I valued at all. But I could not but think [it odd] that a Parliament-man, in a serious discourse before such persons as we and my Lord Bruncker (age 45), and Sir John Minnes (age 66), should quote Hudibras, as being the book I doubt he hath read most. They I doubt will stand hard for high security, and Cocke (age 48) would have had me bound with him for his appearing, but I did stagger at it, besides Seymour (age 32) do stop the doing it at all till he has been with the Duke of Albemarle (age 56).
Pepy's Diary. 12 Feb 1667. This done, T. Killigrew (age 55) and I to talk: and he tells me how the audience at his house is not above half so much as it used to be before the late fire. That Knipp is like to make the best actor that ever come upon the stage, she understanding so well: that they are going to give her £30 a-year more. That the stage is now by his pains a thousand times better and more glorious than ever heretofore. Now, wax-candles, and many of them; then, not above 3 lbs. of tallow: now, all things civil, no rudeness anywhere; then, as in a bear-garden then, two or three fiddlers; now, nine or ten of the best then, nothing but rushes upon the ground, and every thing else mean; and now, all otherwise: then, the Queen (age 28) seldom and the King (age 36) never would come; now, not the King (age 36) only for state, but all civil people do think they may come as well as any. He tells me that he hath gone several times, eight or ten times, he tells me, hence to Rome to hear good musique; so much he loves it, though he never did sing or play a note. That he hath ever endeavoured in the late King's time, and in this, to introduce good musique, but he never could do it, there never having been any musique here better than ballads. Nay, says, "Hermitt poore" and "Chevy Chese"1 was all the musique we had; and yet no ordinary fiddlers get so much money as ours do here, which speaks our rudenesse still. That he hath gathered our Italians from several Courts in Christendome, to come to make a concert for the King (age 36), which he do give £200 a-year a-piece to: but badly paid, and do come in the room of keeping four ridiculous gundilows2, he having got, the King (age 36) to put them away, and lay out money this way; and indeed I do commend him for it, for I think it is a very noble undertaking. He do intend to have some times of the year these operas to be performed at the two present theatres, since he is defeated in what he intended in Moorefields [Map] on purpose for it; and he tells me plainly that the City audience was as good as the Court, but now they are most gone. Baptista tells me that Giacomo Charissimi is still alive at Rome, who was master to Vinnecotio, who is one of the Italians that the King (age 36) hath here, and the chief composer of them.
Note 1. "Like hermit poor in pensive place obscure" is found in "The Phoenix Nest", 1593, and in Harl. MS. No. 6910, written soon after 1596. It was set to music by Alfonso Ferrabosco, and published in his "Ayres", 1609. The song was a favourite with Izaak Walton, and is alluded to in "Hudibras" (Part I, canto ii., line 1169). See Rimbault's "Little Book of Songs and Ballads", 1851, p. 98. Both versions of the famous ballad of "Chevy Chase" are printed in Percy's "Reliques"..
Note 2. The gondolas mentioned before, as sent by the Doge of Venice. See September 12th, 1661.
Pepy's Diary. 19 Jul 1668. Lord's Day. Up, and to my chamber, and there I up and down in the house spent the morning getting things ready against noon, when come Mr. Cooper (age 59), Hales (age 68), Harris (age 34), Mr. Butler, that wrote Hudibras, and Mr. Cooper's (age 59) cozen Jacke; and by and by comes Mr. Reeves and his wife, whom I never saw before: and there we dined: a good dinner, and company that pleased me mightily, being all eminent men in their way. Spent all the afternoon in talk and mirth, and in the evening parted, and then my wife and I to walk in the garden, and so home to supper, Mrs. Turner (age 45) and husband and daughter with us, and then to bed.
Hudibras On Samuel Butler Author of Hudibras. In the British Museum is the original injunction by authority, signed John Berkenhead, forbidding any printer, or other person whatsoever to print Hudibras, or any part thereof, without the consent or approbation of Samuel Butler (or Boteler), Esq.* or his assignees, given at White-hall, 10th September, 1677; copy of this injunction may be seen in the note1.
Note 1. CHARLES R.
Our will and pleasure is and we do hereby strictly charge and command that no printer, bookseller, stationer, or other person whatsoever within our kingdom of England or Ireland, do print, reprint, utter or sell, or cause to be printed, re-printed, uttered or sold, a book or poem called Hudibras, or any part thereof, without the consent and approbation of Samuel Boteler, Esq. or his assignees, as they and every of them will answer the contrary at their perils. Given at our Court at Whitehall, the tenth day of September, in the year of our Lord God 1677 and in the 29th year of our reign.
Note B. His Majesty's command,
J. BERKENHEAD.
Miscel. Papers, Mus. Brit. Bibl. Birch, No. 4293.
Stewart Books, Hudibras Part 1
Hudibras Part 1 The Argument
Sir HUDIBRAS1 his passing worth.
The manner how he sally'd forth;
His arms and equipage are shewn;
His horse's virtues and his own.
Th' adventure of the bear and fiddle Is sung, but breaks off in the middle2.
Note 1. HUDIBRAS. Butler probably took this name from Spencer's Fairy Queen, B. ii. C. ii. St. 17. He that made love unto the eldest dame. Was hight Sir Hudibras, an hardy man; Yet not so good of deeds, as great of name. Which he by many rash adventures wan. Since errant arms to sew he first began.
Geoffrey of Monmouth mentions a British king of this name, though some have supposed it derived from the French, Hugo, Hu de Bras, signifying Hugh the powerful, or with the strong arm: thus Fortinbras, Firebras.
In the Grub-street Journal, Col. Rolls, a Devonshire gentleman is said to be satirized under the character of Hudibras; and it is asserted, that Hugh de Bras was the name of the old tutelar sunt of that county; but it is idle to look for personal reflexions in a poem designed for a general satire on hypocrisy, enthusiasm, and false learning.
Note 2.breaks off in the middle. Bishop Warburton observes very justly, that this is a ridicule on Ronsard's Franciade, and Sir William Davenant's Gondibert.
Hudibras Part 1 Canto 1
When civil fury first grew high1,
And men fell out, they knew not why;2
When hard words, jealousies, and fears
Set folks together by the ears3,.
And made them fight, like mad or drunk, (5)
For dame Religion as for Punk4;
Whose honesty they all durst swear for,
Tho' not a man of them knew wherefore:
When Gospel-Trumpeter, surrounded
With long-ear'd rout, to battle sounded5, (10)
And pulpit, drum ecclesiastick,
Was beat with fist, instead of a stick5;
Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling,
And out he rode a Colonelling6.
Note 1. When civil fury first grew high. In the first edition of the first part of this poem, printed separately, we read dudgeon. Bat on the publication of the second part, when the first was re-printed with several additions and alterations, the word dndgeon was changed to fury; as appears in a copy corrected by the author's own hand. The publisher in 1704 and the subsequent ones, have taken the liberty of correcting the author's copy, restored the word dudgeon, and many other readings: changing them, I think I may say, for the worse, in several passages. Indeed, while the Editor of 1704 replaces this word, and contends for it, he seems to shew its impropriety. "To take in dudgeon," says he, "is inwardly to resent, a sort of grumbling in the gizzard, and what was previous to actual fury." Yet in the next lines we have men falling out, set together by the ears, and fighting. I doubt not but the inconsistency of these expressions occurred to the author, and induced him to change the word, that his sense might be clear, and the sera of his poem certain and uniform. - Dudgeon, in its primitive sense, signifies a dagger; and figuratively, such hatred and sullenness as occasion men to employ short concealed weapons. Some readers may be fond of the word dudgeon, as a burlesque terih, and suitable, as they think, to the nature of the poem: but the judicious critic will observe, that the poet is not always in a drolling humour, and might not think fit to fall into it in the first line: he chooses his words not by the oddness or uncouthness of the sound, but by the propriety of their signification. Besides, the word dudgeon, in the figfurative sense, though not in its primitive one is generally taken for a monoptote in the ablative case, to take in dudgeon which might be another reason why the poet changed it into fury. See line 379.
Note 2. "And men fell out, they knew not why". Dr. Perrincheif 's Life of Charles I. says, "There will never be wanting, in any country, some" discontented spirits, and some designing craftsmen; but when "these confusions began, the more part knew not wherefore they were come together."
Note 3. "When hard words, jealousies, and fears. Set folks together by the ears, Hard words. - Probably the jargon and cant-words used by the Presbyterians, and other sectaries. They called themselves the elect, the saints, tlie predestinated: and their opponents they called Papists, Prelatists, ill-designing, reprobate, profligate, &c. &c.
In the body politic, when the spiritual and windy power moveth the members of a commonwealth, and by strange and hard words suffocates their understanding, it must needs thereby distract the people, and either overwhelm the commonwealth with oppression, "or cast it into the fire of a civil war." Hobbes.
Jealousies. Bishop Burnet, in the house of lords, on the first article of the impeachment of Sacheverel, says, "The true occasion of the war was a jesJousy, that a conduct of fifteen years had given too much ground for; and that was still kept up by a fatal train of errors in every step." See also the king's speech Dec. 2, 1641.
And fears, - Of superstition and Popery in the church, and of arbitrary power and tyranny in the state: and so prepossessed were many persons with these fears, that, like the hero of this poem, they would imagine a bear-baiting to be a deep design against the religion and liberty of the country. Lord Clarendon tells us, that the English were the happiest people under the sun, while the king was undisturbed in the administration of justice; but a top much felicity had made them unmanageable by moderate government; a long peace having softened almost all the noblesse into court pleasures, and made the commoners insolent by great plenty.
King Charles, in the fourth year of his reign, tells the lords, "We have been willing so far to descend to the desires of our good subjects, as fully to satisfie all moderate minds, and free them from all just fears and jealousies." The words jealousies and fears, were bandied between the king and parliament in all their papers, before the absolute breaking put of the war. They, were used by the parliament to the king, in their petition for the militia March 1, 1641-2; and by the king in his answer, "You speak of jealousies and fears, lay your hands to your hearts and ask yourselves, whether I may not be disturbed with jealousies and fears." And the parliament, in their declaration to the king at Newmarket, March 9, say, "Those fears and jealousies of ours which your majesty" thinks to be causeless, and without just ground, do necessarily and clearly arise from those dangers and distempers into which your evil councils have brought us: but those other fears and jealousies of yours, have no foundation or subsistance in any "action, intention, or miscarriage of ours, but are merely grounded on falsehood and malice."
The terms had been used before by the Earl of Carlisle to James I. 14 Feb. 1623. "Nothing will more dishearten the envious maligners of your majesty's felicity, and encourage your true hearted friends and servants, than the removing those false fears and jealousies, which are mere imaginary phantasms, and bodies of air easily dissipated, whensoever it shall please the sun of your majesty to shew itself clearly in its native brightness, lustre, and goodness."
Note 4. Far dame Religion as for Punk; From the Anglo-Saxon pung, it signifies a bawd. Anus instar corii ad ignem siccati. (Skinner.) Sometimes scortum, scortillum. Sir John Suckling says.
Religion now is a young mistress here.
For which each man will fight and die at least:
Let it alone awhile, and 'twill become
A kind of married wife; people will be
Content to live with it in quietness.
Note 5. When Gospel-Trumpeter, surrounded
With long-ear'd rout, to battle sounded; Mr. Butler told Thomas Veal esquire, of Simons-hall, Gloucestershire, that the Puritans had a custom of putting their hands behind their ears at sermons, and bending them forward, under pretence of hearing the better. He had seen five hundred or a thousand large ears pricked up as soon as the text was named. Besides, they wore their hair very short, which shewed their ears the more. See Godwin's notes in Bodley library. Dr. Bulwer in his Anthropometamorphosis, or Artificial Changeling, tells us wonderful stories of the size of men's ears in some countries. - Pliny lib. 7. c. 2. speaks of a people on the borders of India, who covered themselves with their ears. And Purchas, in his Pilgrim, saith, that in the island Arucetto, there are men and women having ears of such bigness, that they lie upon one as a bed, and cover themselves with the other.
I here mention the idle tales of these authors, because their works, together vnth Brown's Vulgar Errors, are the frequent object of our poet's satire.
Note 5. And pulpit, drum ecclesiastick, Was beat with fist, instead of a stick; It is sufficiently known from the history of those times, that the seeds of rebellion were first sown, and afterwards cultivated, by the factious preachers in conventicles, and the seditious and schismatical lecturers, who had crept into many churches, especially about London. "These men," says Lord Clarendon, "had, from the beginning of the parliament, infused seditious inclinations into the hearts of all men, against the government in church and state: but after the raising an army, and rejecting the king's overtures for peace, they contained themselves within no bounds, but filled all the pulpits with alarms of ruin and destruction, if a peace were ofiered or accepted." These preachers used violent action, and made the pulpit an instrument of sedition, as the drum was of war. Dr. South, in one of his sermons, says, "The pulpit supplied the field with sword-men, and the parliament-house with incendiaries."
Note 6. And out he rode a Colonelling. Some have imagined from hence, that by Hudibras, was intended Sir Samuel Luke of Bedfordshire (age 38). Sir Samuel (age 38) was an active justice of the peace, chairman of the quarter sessions, colonel of a regiment of foot in the parliament army and a committee-man of that county: but the poet's satire is general, not personal.
Continues.
