NOTES,

HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY.

PART III. CANTO III.

OUR poet in this Canto resumes the thread of his narrative; and the reason why he is so full in the recapitulation of the last adventure of our Knight and Squire is, because we had lost sight of them for the space of the longest Canto in the whole poem. This respite might probably occasion forgetfulness in some readers, whose attention had been so long suspended; it was therefore necessary that a repetition should be made of the dark adventure, and that it should be rendered clear and intelligible to the reader. V. 3-4. That spring like fern, that insect-weed,

Equivocally, without seed.] The ancients were of opinion that fern was propagated without seed; but the moderns, by help of the microscope, have discovered this to be a mistake.

V. 8. Than hags with all their imps and teats.] An allusion to the vulgar and ridiculous opinion, that witches have their imps, or familiar spirits, who are employed in their diabolical practices, and suck private teats they have about them. When the belief of witchcraft prevailed, the cicatrices of scrofulous wounds, and other scars of a similar kind, were taken for teats, which the familiars of witches were accustomed to suck.

V. 11. For fear does things so like a witch.] Butler here argues the strange effects of fear in a very philosophical manner. It is highly probable that the first notion of witchcraft proceeded from fear working upon ignorance. In a rude state of society, where natural causes are not well understood, a belief of supernatural

agency has almost always obtained; and hence it happens, that those parts where a belief of witchcraft is still entertained, are the most barbarized and uncivilized in the globe.

V. 36. From Marshal Legion's regiment.] An allusion to Stephen Marshal, a furious fanatic preacher, who bellowed out treason from the pulpit, in order to recruit the army of the rebels. Cleveland calls him the Geneva bull :

"Or roar, like Marshal, that Geneva bull,

Hell and damnation, a pulpit full."

V. 59-60. As seamen ride with all their force,

And tug as if they row'd the horse.] Sailors are noted, almost to a proverb, for their bad horsemanship, and nearly as many ludicrous anecdotes are told of them in this particular, as there are bulls and blunders of Irishmen. Taylor, the water-poet, in his tract entitled A Navy of Land-Ships, banters them on this head. 66 66 Mariners," he observes, are commonly the worst horsemen. As one of them being upon a tired hackney, his companions prayed him to ride faster, he said, he was becalmed. Another mounted upon a foundered jade, that stumbled three or four times headlong the sailor imagined that the horse was too much laden a-head, or forward on, (as the sea-phrase is,) and therefore to ballast him, that he might go or sail with an even keel, he alighted, and filled his jerkin sleeves full of stones, and tied them fast to his horse's crupper, supposing thereby to make his stern as deeply laden as his head, and thus avoid stumbling."

V. 67. But when the morn began t' appear.] It has before been observed, that we may trace our hero's morning and night. This particular is always essential in poetry, to avoid confusion and mistakes among the critics. How," says an anonymous annotator on our author, "would they have calculated the number of days taken up in the Iliad, Æneid, and Paradise Lost, if the poets had not been careful to lead them into the momentous discovery? Butler is as clear in this point as any of them; for, from the opening of these adventures, every morning and night have been poetically described'; and now we are arrived at the third day.” V. 102-4. He star'd upon him, and cried out,

What art? my Squire, or that bold sprite
That took his place and shape last night?]

"Here,"

:

says one of Dr. Grey's annotators," is an amazing discovery opened. The Knight's dreadful apprehensions vanish with the night no sooner does the day break, but with joy he perceives his mistake; he finds Ralpho in his company, instead of an elf or ghost. Upon this he is as agreeably surprised, as he was before terribly affrighted. But let us examine whether this meeting, and the reconciliation that follows it, are naturally brought about; since the day before they had mutually resolved to abandon each other. I think he hath judiciously formed this incident: for it is plain the Knight and Squire were conscious they had wronged one another, the one by his base intentions, the other by his treachery and gross imposition. But very fortunately they were ignorant of each other's designs, and consequently each thought himself the offender. It is therefore natural and probable, that they should easily come to a good understanding. The Knight compounds with the Squire for his imposition as a ghost, not only from a sense of his own base intentions, but from the happy escape from witches, spirits, and elves, from which the Squire pretends to have freed him. On the other hand, the Squire is willing to re-enter into the Knight's service, and to attend him once more in his peregrinations, when he found this sham meritorious action had deluded him into a suspension of that resentment which he might justly have exerted. Thus are they fortunately reconciled, and thus are these momentous adventures continued, to the satisfaction of the reader and applause of the poet."

That to our churches veil'd his mitre.] Dr. Grey says, that "though there were more than one in those times that this character would have suited, yet it is probable, that Mr. George Grahame, bishop of Orkney, was the person sneered at by Butler in this place." He renounced episcopacy, and signed the abjuration, with his own hand, at Breckness, in Strones, February 11, 1639. Bishop Hall, treating of this incident, exclaims with the fervour of one of the primitive fathers of the church, “Good God! what is this that I have lived to hear? That a bishop, in a Christian assembly, should renounce his episcopal functions, and cry mercy for his now-abandoned calling!"

V. 186.

signifies to besiege it.

leaguer rise.] Siege. To beleaguer a place

V. 211. To mount two-wheel'd caroches, &c.] The cart in which malefactors were drawn from Newgate to Tyburn for execution. V. 245-6-7. Hence timely running 's no mean part

Of conduct in the martial art;

By which some glorious feats achieve.] It is observed somewhere of the great Duke of Marlborough, that he knew every part of the art of war, but how to make a retreat. A well-conducted retreat is esteemed one of the most difficult points of generalship. That of the ten thousand Greeks under Xenophon, will live for ever in the annals of history; and, in our own times, that of General Moreau through the defiles of the Black Forest, conferred as much honour on that commander as the victory of Hohinlinden.

V. 261-2. If th' ancients crown'd their bravest men,

That only sav'd a citizen.] The corona civica was given to any soldier, who, in battle, had saved the life of a Roman citizen, killing, at the same time, an enemy; and though it was composed of no better materials than oak-boughs, yet it was esteemed more honorable than any other crown.

V. 284. They have been forc'd to sing Te Deum.] The Puritans frequently sung Te Deum, and made rejoicings for imaginary victories. It was their custom likewise to sing a psalm before an engagement, to which Cotton, in his Virgil Travestie, compares the dismal howlings of Queen Dido's domestics, when they discovered that she had hanged herself:

"Even like unto the dismal yowl

When tristful dogs at midnight howl;
Or like the dirges that through nose
Humm'd out to damp their Pagan foes,
When holy Roundheads go to battle,

With such a yell did Carthage rattle."

The author of the Turkish Spy ridicules the custom of singing Te Deum for victories with considerable humour, and a certain degree of justness, peculiarly as applicable to the wars of his times. "I have been," says he, "to a ceremony which I am willing to see

often, to give an account of it in my letters; it is the Te Deum which Christian princes cause to be sung in their churches, on the gaining any considerable advantage over their enemies; which Te Deum is a hymn composed by two of their saints, to wit, Ambrose and Austin. When the French beat the Spaniards, they sing the Te Deum; and when these vanquish their enemies, they do the like. These nations do the duty of the Mussulmen, in destroying one another; and when it is done, they give God thanks for the evil they have committed."

V. 286. By flattering heaven with a lie.] It was not unusual for the Puritans to appoint a public thanksgiving, when it was notorious their forces had been defeated. Walker, in his History of Independency, gives a remarkable instance of this kind.

Popham," says he, "was the man who, on the 4th of June, 1649, gave a dismal relation to the high and mighty states at Whitehall, of his ill success in tampering with the governor of Kinsale, in Ireland, who, being honester than the saints suspected, took a sum of money of him to betray the town and fort, and ships in the road; but when Popham came into the road, to take possession of his new purchase, gave him such a gunpowder welcome, that he lost most of his men, landed to take livery and seisin, and divers ships. He was commanded to conceal the ill news, and make a different report to the plebeians of the Commons House, of his success; which occasioned an order, the 15th of June, That, for this remarkable additional mercy bestowed upon them, in the prosperous success given to their fleet at sea, upon Thursday next, the day set apart for thanksgiving, their ministers should praise God." Cowley, in his Puritan and Papist, lashes them on the same

score:

"Nay, to the Almighty's self, they have been bold

To lie, and their blasphemous minister told,
They might say false to God, for, if they were
Beaten, he knew 't not, for he was not there.
But God, who their great thankfulness did see,
Rewards them straight with another victory.
Just such a one as Brainsford, and sans doubt,
"Twill weary, er't be long, their gratitude out."

V. 300. With Bacrack, &c.] Dr. Grey says, "bacrack, or bac