taken general surveys, but to have examined particulars with minute inspection.

If the French boast the learning of Rabelais, we need not be afraid of confronting them with Butler.

But the most valuable parts of his performance are thofe which retired ftudy and native wit cannot fupply. He that merely makes a book from books may be ufeful, but can fcarcely. be great. Butler had not fuffered life to glide befide him unfeen or unobferved. He had watched with great diligence the operations of human nature, and traced the effects of opinion, humour, intereft, and paflion. From fuch remarks proceeded that great number of fententious diftichs which have paffed into converfation, and are added as proverbial axioms to the general stock of practical knowledge.

When any work has been viewed and admired, the first question of intelligent curiofity is, how was it performed? Hudibras was not a hafty effusion; it was not produced by a fudden tumult of imagination, or a fhort paroxyfin of violent labour. To accumulate fuch a mafs of fentiments at the call of accidental defire, or of fudden neceffity, is beyond the reach and power of the most active and comprehenfive mind. I am informed by Mr. Thyer, of Manchefter, that excellent editor of this author's reliques, that he could fhew fomething like Hudibras in profe. He has in his poffeffion the common-place book, in which Butler repofited not fuch events and precepts as are gathered by reading, but fuch remarks, fimilitudes, allufions, affemblages, or inferences, as occafion prompted, or meditation produced, thofe

thoughts that were generated in his own mind, and might be usefully applied to fome future purpose, Such is the labour of those who write for immortality.

But human works are not eafily found without a perishable part. Of the antient poets every reader feels the mythology tedious and oppreffive. Of Hudibras, the manners, being founded on opinions, are temporary and local, and therefore become every day lefs intelligible, and lefs ftriking. What Cicero fays of philofophy is true likewife of wit and humour, that time effaces the fictions of opinions, and con"firms the determinations of Nature." Such manners as depend upon ftanding relations and general paffions are co-extended with the race of man; but thofe modifications of life and peculiarities of practice, which are the progeny of error and perversenefs, or at beft of fome accidental influence or tranfient perfuafion, muft perish with their parents.

Much therefore of that humour which tranfported the last century with merriment is loft to us, who do not know the four folemnity, the fullen fuperftition, the gloomy morofenefs, and the ftubborn fcruples, of the antient Puritans; or, if we knew them, derive our information only from hooks, or from tradition, have never had them before our eyes, and cannot but by recollection and ftudy understand the lines in which they are fatirifed. Our grandfathers knew the picture from the life; we judge of the life by contemplating the picture.

It is fcarcely poffible, in the regularity and compofure of the present time, to image the tumult of abfurdity, and clamour of contradiction, which per

plexed doctrine, difordered practice, and disturbed both public 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 almost every preacher could collect a congregation.

The wisdom of the nation is very reasonably sup→ pofed 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 seriously proposed, that all the records in the Tower fhould 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 mince-pies and plumb-porridge; nor feen with what abhorrence thofe, 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 alehoufe with beer brewed for all times and feafons, he fhould accept his kindnefs, 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, againft which fo much of the fatire is directed, was not more the folly of the Puritans than of others. It had in that time a very extenfive dominion. Its predictious 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 Carifbrook Caftle, an aftrologer was confulted what hour would be found moft favourable to an efcape.

What effect this poem had upon the publick, whether it fhamed impofture, or reclaimed credulity, is not eafily determined. Cheats can feldom ftand long against laughter. It is certain that the credit of planetary intelligence wore faft 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 burlefque 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 moft agreeable fiction of Cervantes; very fuitable indeed to the manners of that age and nation, which afcribed wonderful efficacy to voluntary penances; but fo remote from the practice and opinions of the Hudibraftick time, that judgement and imagination are alike offended.

The

The diction of this poem is grofsly familiar, and the numbers purpofely neglected, except in a few places where the thoughts by their native excellence fecure themfelves from violation, being fuch as mean language cannot exprefs. The mode of verfification has been blamed by Dryden, who regrets that the heroick meafure was not rather chofen. To the critical 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 ftatelinefs both of found and words, he can be only understood to with 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 ornaments, and who, in confidence of the novelty and juftnefs of his conceptions, can afford to throw metaphors and epithets away. To another that conveys common thoughts in careless verfification, it will only be faid, "Pauper videri Cinna vult, & eft pauper." The meaning and diction will be worthy of each other, and criticism may justly doom them to perish together.

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