357. he that routs. Venables and Penn (father of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania), made an expedition in 1655 against the Spanish West Indies. They took Jamaica, but were unsuccessful at St. Domingo, and on their return the taunt was aimed at them that they had displayed their valour only on horses, &c. It may be that Butler is alluding to these circumstances.

361. crabs and oysters. 'Postremo, quasi perpetraturus bellum, directa acie in litore Oceani ac ballistis machinisque depositis, nemine gnaro aut opinante quidnam coepturus esset, repente, ut conchas legerent, galeasque et sinus replerent, imperavit, spolia Oceani vocans, Capitolio Palatioque debita.'SUETONIUS, Vita Calig. c. 46.

383. Rinaldo. Hero of the last book of Tasso. Cf."Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword, And won thy love doing thee injuries;

But I will wed thee in another key

With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.'

SHAKSPEARE, Midsummer Night's Dream, I. i. 17.

402. breaking gold. Breaking a coin by two lovers, each

retaining half as a keepsake, is an old custom.

The custom is

the subject of one of the best of Dibdin's songs, now not generally known, but worthy to be rescued from oblivion

Broken Gold.

'Two real lovers with one heart,

One mind, one sentiment, one soul,
In hapless hour were doomed to part
At tyrant duty's harsh control.
They broke in two a golden coin

In token that their love should hold,
And swore when Fate their hands should join
To join again the broken gold.

'A treach'rous friend who could not brook
That joy which real love imparts,
In evil hour advantage took

To sow dissension in their hearts.
Engines employed, kept spies by day,
Conjectures raised and falsehoods told
To prove that each had given away
To rivals base the broken gold.
'At last when years elapsed they met,
Hushed ev'ry fear, dead all alarms,
Banished each sorrow and regret,

They rushed into each other's arms.
While to the fond embrace they flew
Which love sat smiling to behold,
In token that their hearts were true
They fondly joined the broken gold.'

436. extend, here to levy an execution. Properly this legal technical term should only be applied to lands.

458.

Swiss. Switzerland was then the chief source whence

other countries were supplied with mercenaries.

475.

Galenist and Paracelsian. Galen lived from 130-200. He advocated the treatment of disease with herbal remedies, whilst Paracelsus (cf. II. iii. 299, and note) was in favour of minerals, particularly mercury.

534. Nash states in his notes that in Butler's MS. the following verses, are written under these lines

'More nice and subtle than those wire-drawers
Of equity and justice, common lawyers;
Who never end, but always prune a suit
To make it bear the greater store of fruit.

'As labouring men their hands, criers their lungs,
Porters their backs, lawyers hire out their tongues.
A tongue to mire and gain accustom'd long,
Grows quite insensible to right or wrong.
"The humourist that would have had a trial,
With one that did but look upon his dial,
And sued him but for telling of his clock,
And saying, 'twas too fast, or slow it struck.'

575. This and the following line are in most editions given as the concluding words of the knight's speech; but obviously by error.

577. told the clock. Hung about with nothing to do, waiting for a job.

580. hiccius doctius. A jargon in imitation of the sounds of Latin words. It has been thought to be a corruption of hic est inter doctos, but for this there seems to be no authority. Cf. note on hocus pocus, 1. 716.

590. puddle-dock. A jail for petty offenders.

599. made monsters fine. Made the showmen who had monsters to show, pay a fine for leave to carry on their occupation. The monsters, such as sea-serpents, pig-faced ladies, &c., &c., are a race hardly yet quite extinct, still to be found lingering about rural fairs.

602. Headborough, or Headborrow, 'signifies him that is chief of the Frankpledge, and that had the principal government of them within his own pledge.'—Blount.

609. bakers' ears. Bakers for using false weights were liable to have their ears cropped in the pillory. The insinuation is that they could pay a fine or a bribe to our lawyer instead.

612. arbitrary ale. This seems to mean ale brewed with any material the brewer chose to use; in which sense all our ale has by recent enactments become 'arbitrary.' Cf. 'Next this he does his country signal service in the judicious and mature legitimation of tippling licences, that the subject be not imposed on with illegal and arbitrary ale.'-BUTLER'S Character of a Justice of the Peace. But arbitrary ale might very well mean ale sold by an unauthorised measure; and we know that Butler has more than once ridiculed the functions of justices to look into the matter of weights and measures. I. i. 121 sq.

Cf.

620. hawkered. A hawker is still a person who wanders about selling his wares pedlar-fashion where he can.

688. cross and pile. Cf. II. iii. 1103, and note.

It

690. maintenance in law is a punishable offence. consists in a third party not interested in the suit finding funds for one of the parties to that suit.

695. barratry. Inciting to lawsuits. Common barratry is the offence of frequently exciting and stirring up suits and quarrels between his Majesty's subjects either at law or otherwise.'-BLACKSTONE, Comm. iv. c. 10.

709. for justice. All the editions print these lines (709-734) as spoken by the knight. But by reckoning the speeches from 1. 707-quoth the knight'-to 1. 783-'quoth Hudibras 'it will be seen that this leaves one too few in the changes of speakers. Then it is absurd for Hudibras to ask about recovering the widow for your (the lawyer's) wife.' Again, the current arrangement loses the whole point of the satire about the false witnesses. By attributing 11. 709-734 to the lawyer, we have him offering to provide witnesses from the professional Knights of the Post,' and Hudibras replies that we (the Puritan party) have plenty such of our own.' The reading has therefore been altered, by making only the two lines 707-8 spoken by the knight, and the rest by the lawyer. Grey seems to sanction this by putting these two lines in parentheses.

716. hocus pocus. Cf. note on hiccius doctius, 1. 580. Hocus pocus is said by Tillotson to be a corruption of Hoc est corpus, and to have been intended in ridicule of the formula as used by the priest when consecrating the elements in the Eucharist. Others have suggested Ochus Bochus, the name of an Italian magician invoked by jugglers. But probably hocus pocus and hoax have a common ancestor in the Welsh hoced pwca, a goblin's trick.

732. tales. This is tales de circumstantibus, persons from the bystanders or audience in a court, who are impounded to make up the number of the jury when the jurymen summoned do not all put in an appearance. Cf. A gentleman in black who sat below the judge, proceeded to call over the names of the jury; and, after a great deal of bawling, it was discovered that only ten special jurymen were present. Upon this Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz prayed a tales; the gentleman in black then proceeded to press into the special jury two of the common jurymen; and a greengrocer and a chemist were caught directly.'-Pickwick Papers, ch. xxxiv.

742. Bongey. A learned Franciscan, a friend to Friar Bacon.

748. quillets. Probably a corrupt form of quidlibet, a subtle case in law. Cf.

'Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.'

SHAKSPEARE, Love's Labour's Lost, IV. iii. 288.

762. cross-legged knights. The monumental effigies of the Knights Templars in the Temple Church are here alluded to. The crossing of the legs was sometimes used on monuments as a sign that the knight so figured had fought in the Crusades.

HEROICAL EPISTLE

OF HUDIBRAS TO HIS LADY.

2. Nebuchadnezzar. 'The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from men and did eat grass as oxen.'-Daniel iv. 33.

52. The guilty, etc. This line is almost hopelessly faulty. The only way to restore the metre would be to read

The guilt, and punish th' innocent.'

168. cully = foolish. Cf. What is this but being a cully in the grave? Sure this is being henpecked with a vengeance! But without dwelling upon these less frequent instances of eminent cullyism, what is there so common as to hear a fellow curse his fate that he cannot get rid of a passion to a jilt?'—Spectator, No. 486. Cf. also II. ii. 481.

188. Philip Nye's thanksgiving beard. Philip Nye was one of the Five Dissenting Brethren' in the Assembly of Divines. Cf. Introduction, p. xxi. The 'thanksgiving beard' is the subject of a poem by Butler in his Genuine Remains, where is told how he

'Could clap up souls in Limbo with a vote

And for their fees discharge and let them out;

Which made some grandees bribe him with the place
Of holding forth upon Thanksgiving Days;'

and how, having obtained the post and in honour of the occasion

'He thought upon it and resolved to put

His head into as wonderful a cut.'

This resolution, and its results, are described in Butler's poem with all his humour.

238. by ravishing. The Rape of Sabine women. Livy I. 9.

252. alimony or death departs. Alimony is the allowance paid by a husband to a wife to whom the law has granted a legal separation and separate maintenance. Alimony and death are thus classed here as the only causes of separation possible to the married state. Departs is here used transitively. Cf. III. i. 637, and note.

THE LADY'S ANSWER.

4. replevin. Releasing of goods distrained, by giving a surety for the amount due.

59. St. Martin's beads. On the site of the old St. Martin's-le-Grand, demolished at the dissolution of the monasteries, a large number of foreign dealers in trinkets and imitation jewellery established themselves. Hence the phrase.

103. deodand. Any personal chattel which had been by misadventure the cause of the death of a human being, was forfeited to the king, to be by him devoted to pious uses; hence it was called a deodand, as being given to God.' The king frequently granted the right to receive such articles to the lord of the manor.