the barbarous language in which the learning of the common law of England was at that period almost uniformly expreffed. The MS. is imperfect, no title exifting, fome leaves being torn, and is continued only to the 193d section, which is about the middle of Coke's fecond book of the firft inftitute. As another instance of the poet's great industry, I have à French dictionary, compiled and transcribed by him: thus did our ancestors, with great labour, draw truth and learning out of deep wells, whereas our modern scholars only skim the furface, and pilfer a fuperficial knowledge from encyclopædies and reviews. It doth not appear that he ever wrote for the stage, though I have, in his MS. common-place book, part of an unfinished tragedy, entitled Nero. Concerning Hudibras there is but one sentiment—it is univerfally allowed to be the first and last poem of its kind; the learning, wit, and humour, certainly stand unrivalled: various have been the attempts to define or describe the two last; the greatest English writers have tried in vain, Cowley*, Barrow †, Drydent, Lock §, Addifon||, Pope¶, * In his Ode on Wit, † in his Sermon against foolish Talking and Jefting, ‡ in his Preface to an Opera called the State of Innocence, § Effay on Human Understanding, b. ii. c. 2. Spectator, No. 35 and 32. ¶ Effay concerning humour in Comedy, and Corbyn Morris's Effay on Wit, Humour, and Raillery. and Congreve, all fail'd in their attempts; perhaps they are more to be be felt than explained, and to be understood rather from example than precept: if any one wishes to know what wit and humour are, let him read Hudibras with attention, he will there fee them displayed in the brightest colours: there is luftre refulting from the quick elucidation of an object, by a juft and unexpected arrangement of it with another subject: propriety of words, and thoughts elegantly adapted to the occafion: objects which poffefs an affinity and congruity, or fometimes a contrast to each other, affembled with quickness and variety; in fhort, every ingredient of wit, or of humour, which critics have difcovered on diffecting them, may be found in this poem. reader may congratulate himself, that he is not destitute of taste to relish both, if he can read it with delight; nor would it be presumption to transfer to this capital author, Quinctilian's enthusiastic praise of a great Antient : hunc igitur spect̃emus, hoc propofitum fit nobis exemplum, ille se profeciffe fciat cui Cicero valde placebit. The Hudibras is to an epic poem, what a good farce is to a tragedy; perfons advanced in years generally prefer the former, having met with tragedies enough in real life; whereas the comedy, or interlude, is a relief from anxious and disgusting reflections, and fuggefts fuch playful ideas, as wanton round the heart and enliven the very features. The hero marches out in search of adventures, to suppress thofe fports, and punish thofe trivial offences, which the vulgar among the royalists were fond of, but which the prefbyterians and independents abhorred; and which our hero, as a magistrate of the former perfuafion, thought it his duty officially to fupprefs. The diction is that of burlefque poetry, painting low and mean perfons and things in pompous language, and a magnificent manner, or sometimes levelling fublime and pompous paffages to the standard of low imagery. The principal actions of the poem are four: Hudibras's victory over Crowdero-Trulla's victory over Hudibras-Hudibras's victory over Sidrophel—and the Widow's antimasquerade: the rest is made up of the adventures of the Bear, of the Skimmington, Hudibras's converfations with the Lawyer and Sidrophel, and his long disputations with Ralpho and the Widow. The verfe confifts of eight fyllables, or four feet, a measure which, in unskilful hands, foon becomes tiresome, and will ever be a dangerous fnare to meaner and less masterly imitators. The Scotch, the Irish, the American Hudibras, are not worth mentioning: the translation into French, by an Englishman, is curious; it preferves the fenfe, but cannot keep up the humour. Prior feems to have come nearest the original, though he is fenfible of his own inferiority, and fays, But, like poor Andrew, I advance, And thence, tho' low, in earnest fall. His Alma is neat and elegant, and his verfification superior to Butler's; but his learning, knowledge, and wit, by no means equal. Prior, as Dr. Johnson says, had not Butler's exuberance of matter, and variety of illustration. The fpangles of wit which he could afford, he knew how to polish, but he wanted the bullion of his mafter. Hudibras, then, may truly be faid to be the first and last satire of the kind; for if we examine Lucian's Tragopodagra, and other dialogues, the Cæfars of Julian, Seneca's Apocolocyntofis,* and fome fragments of Varro, they will be found very different: the battle of the frogs and mice, commonly ascribed to Homer, and the Margites, generally allowed to be his, prove this fpecies of poetry to be of great antiquity. The inventor of the modern mock heroic was Aleffandro Taffoni, born at Modena 1565. His Secchia rapita, or * Or the mock deification of Claudius; a burlesque of Apotheofis, or Anathanatofis. Reimarus renders it, non inter deos fed inter fatuos relatio, and quotes a proverb from Apuleius, Colocyntæ caput, for a fool. Colocynta is metaphorically put for any thing unusually large. Anas nohourrais in the clouds of Ariftophanes, is to have the eye fwelled by an obftruction as big as a gourd. Rape of the Bucket, is founded on the popular account of the cause of the civil war between the inhabitants of Modena and Bologna, in the time of Frederic II. This bucket was long preferved, as a trophy, in the cathedral of Modena, fufpended by the chain which fastened the gate of Bologna, through which the Modenese forced their paffage, and seized the prize. It is written in the ottava Rima, the folemn measure of the Italian heroic poets, has gone through many editions, and been twice tranflated into French: it has, indeed, confiderable merit, though the reader will scarcely fee Elena trasformafi in una fecchia. Taffoni travelled into Spain as first secretary to Cardinal Colonna, and died in an advanced age, in the court of Francis the First, duke of Modena : he was highly efteemed for his abilities and extenfive learning; but, like Mr. Butler's, his wit was applauded, and unrewarded, as appears from a portrait of him, with a fig in his hand, under which is written the following diftich: Dextra cur ficum quæris mea geftat inanem, The next fuccefsful imitators of the mock-heroic, have been Boileau, Garth, and Pope, whofe refpective works are too generally known, and too justly admired, to require, at this time, description or encomium. The Pucelle d'Orleans of Voltaire may be deemed an imitation of Hudibras, and is |