The literature of innuity: Cp. Pound (in this tradition): Contract Romantic Simplicity HUDIBRAS.

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PART III.

And when they're once impair'd in that,
Are banish'd their well-order'd state,
They thought all governments were best
By hieroglyphic rumps exprest.

For as, in bodies natural,

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The rump's the fundament of all,\
So, in a commonwealth or realm,
The government is called the Helm,
With which, like vessels under sail,
They're turn'd and winded by the tail:
The tail, which birds and fishes steer
Their courses with through sea and air,
To whom the rudder of the rump is

1595

satize

The same thing with the stern and compass.
This shews how perfectly the rump

And commonwealth in Nature jump:
For as a fly that goes to bed

1600

1605

Rests with his tail above his head,

1610

So in this mongrel state of ours

The rabble are the supreme powers,

That hors'd us on their backs, to show us
A jadish trick at last, and throw us.--

The learned Rabbins of the Jews

Write there's a bone, which they call Luez,

i

1615

I' th' rump of man, of such a virtue
No force in Nature can do hurt to;

325

And therefore, at the last great day,
All th' other members shall, they say,
Spring out of this, as from a seed

1620

All sorts of vegetals proceed;

From whence the learned sons of Art

Os sacrum justly style that part.

Then what can better represent

Than this rump-bone the Parliament,

1625

That, after several rude ejections, by Gromwell

And as prodigious resurrections,
With new reversions of nine lives
Starts up, and like a cat revives ?

But now, alas! they're all expir'd,
And th' House as well as members fir'd;
Consum'd in kennels by the rout,
With which they other fires put out;
Condemn'd t' ungoverning distress,
And paltry private wretchedness;
Worse than the devil to privation,
Beyond all hopes of restoration;

1630

1635

mitre's?

And parted, like the body and soul,
From all dominion and controul.

We who could lately, with a look,
Enact, establish, or revoke,

Whose arbitrary nods gave law,

And frowns kept multitudes in awe ;
Before the bluster of whose huff
All hats, as in a storm, flew off;
Ador'd and bow'd to by the great,
Down to the footman and valet ;
Had more bent knees than chapel-mats,

And prayers than the crowns of hats;
Shall now be scorn'd as wretchedly,

For ruin 's just as low as high;

Which might be suffer'd, were it all

1640

1645

1650

The horrour that attends our fall:

For some of us have scores more large

1655

Than heads and quarters can discharge;
And others, who by restless scraping,
With public frauds, and private rapine,
Have mighty heaps of wealth amass'd,
Would gladly lay down all at last;

1660

estates

And, to be but undone, entail

Their vessels on perpetual jail,

And bless the dev'l to let them farms

Of forfeit souls on no worse terms.

This said, a near and louder shout

1665

Put all th' assembly to the rout, is this all

is this an adduntly.

Who now began t' outrun their fear,
As horses do from those they bear ;
But crowded on with so much haste,
Until they 'ad block'd the passage fast,
And barricado'd it with haunches

Of outward men, and bulks, and paunches,
That with their shoulders strove to squeeze,

And rather save a crippled piece

1670

Of all their crush'd and broken members, 1675
Than have them grillied on the embers;

Still pressing on with heavy packs

Of one another on their backs,

The van-guard could no longer bear

The charges of the forlorn rear,

1680

But, borne down headlong by the rout,
Were trampled sorely under foot;

Yet nothing prov❜d so formidable

As th' horrid cookery of the rabble ;
And fear, that keeps all feeling out,
As lesser pains are by the gout, S
Reliev'd them with a fresh supply
Of rallied force, enough to fly,
And beat a Tuscan running-horse,
Whose jockey-rider is all spurs.

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1690