Hudibras/Part 2/An Heroical Epistle of Hudibras to Sidrophel

by Samuel Butler (1612-1680)

 

AN HEROICAL EPISTLE

OF

HUDIBRAS TO SIDROPHEL.^[1]

Ecce iterum Crispinus.

 

ELL, Sidrophel, tho' 'tis in vain
To tamper with your crazy brain,
Without trepanning of your skull,^[2]
As often as the moon's at full,
'Tis not amiss, ere ye're giv'n o'er, 5
To try one desp'rate med'cine more;
For where your case can be no worse,
The desp'rat'st is the wisest course.
Is't possible that you, whose ears
Are of the tribe of Issachar's,^[3] 10
And might with equal reason, either
For merit, or extent of leather.
With William Pryn's,^[4] before they were
Retrench'd, and crucify'd, compare,
Shou'd yet be deaf against a noise 15
So roaring as the public voice?
That speaks your virtues free and loud,
And openly in ev'ry crowd,
As loud as one that sings his part
T' a wheel-barrow, or turnip-cart, 20
Or your new nick-nam'd old invention
To cry green-hastings with an engine;^[5]
As if the vehemence had stunn'd,
And torn your drum-heads with the sound;^[6]
And 'cause your folly's now no news, 25
But overgrown, and out of use,
Persuade yourself there's no such matter,^[7]
But that 'tis vanish'd out of nature;
When folly, as it grows in years,
The more extravagant appears; 30
For who but you could be possest
With so much ignorance and beast,
That neither all men's scorn and hate,
Nor being laugh'd and pointed at,
Nor bray'd so often in a mortar,^[8] 35
Can teach you wholesome sense and nurture,
But, like a reprobate, what course
Soever us'd, grow worse and worse?
Can no transfusion of the blood,
That makes fools cattle, do you good?^[9] 40
Nor putting pigs t' a bitch to nurse,
To turn them into mongrel curs;^[10]
Put you into a way, at least,
To make yourself a better beast?
Can all your critical intrigues, 45
Of trying sound from rotten eggs;^[11]
Your sev'ral new-found remedies,
Of curing wounds and scabs in trees;
Your art for fluxing them for claps,
And purging their infected saps; 50
Recovering shankers, crystallines,
And nodes and blotches in their reins,
Have no effect to operate
Upon that duller block, your pate?
But still it must be lewdly bent 55
To tempt your own due punishment;
And, like your whimsy'd chariots,^[12] draw
The boys to course you without law;^[13]
As if the art you have so long
Profess'd of making old dogs young,^[14] 60
In you had virtue to renew
Not only youth, but childhood too;
Can you, that understand all books,
By judging only with your looks,
Resolve all problems with your face, 65
As others do with B's and A's;
Unriddle all that mankind knows
With solid bending of your brows?
All arts and sciences advance,
With screwing of your countenance, 70
And with a penetrating eye,
Into th' abstrusest learning pry;
Know more of any trade b' a hint,
Than those that have been bred up in't,
And yet have no art, true or false, 75
To help your own bad naturals?
But still the more you strive t' appear,
Are found to be the wretcheder:
For fools are known by looking wise,
As men find woodcocks by their eyes. 80
Hence 'tis because ye've gained o' th' college^[15]
A quarter share, at most, of knowledge,
And brought in none, but spent repute,
Y' assume a pow'r as absolute
To judge, and censure, and control, 85
As if you were the sole Sir Poll^[16],
And saucily pretend to know
More than your dividend comes to:
You'll find the thing will not be done
With ignorance and face alone: 90
No, tho' ye've purchas'd to your name,
In history, so great a fame;
That now your talent's so well known,
For having all belief out-grown,
That ev'ry strange prodigious tale 95
Is measur'd by your German scale,^[17]
By which the virtuosi try
The magnitude of ev'ry lie,
Cast up to what it does amount,
And place the bigg'st to your account; 100
That all those stories that are laid
Too truly to you, and those made,
Are now still charg'd upon your score,
And lesser authors nam'd no more.
Alas! that faculty betrays^[18] 105
Those soonest it designs to raise;
And all your vain renown will spoil,
As guns o'ercharg'd the more recoil;
Though he that has but impudence,
To all things has a fair pretence; 110
And put among his wants but shame,
To all the world may lay his claim:
Tho' you have tried that nothing's borne
With greater ease than public scorn,
That all affronts do still give place 115
To your impenetrable face;
That makes your way thro' all affairs,
As pigs thro' hedges creep with theirs:
Yet as 'tis counterfeit and brass,
You must not think 'twill always pass; 120
For all impostors, when they're known,
Are past their labour and undone:^[19]
And all the best that can befall
An artificial natural,
Is that which madmen find, as soon 125
As once they're broke loose from the moon,
And proof against her influence,
Relapse to e'er so little sense,
To turn stark fools, and subjects fit
For sport of boys, and rabble-wit. 130

 

1. This Epistle was not published till many years after the preceding canto, and does not refer to the character there described. Sidrophel in the poem is, most probably, William Lilly, the astrologer and almanack-maker. But the Sidrophel of this Epistle is said to have been Sir Paul Neile, a conceited virtuoso, and member of the Royal Society. See note on line 86, post. The name Sidrophel had become proverbial for ignorance and imposture, when the Epistle was written.
2. A surgical operation to remove part of the skull when it presses upon the brain. It was said to restore the understanding, and in that sense proposed as a remedy for the disorder with which Dean Swift was afflicted.
3. Genesis xlix. 14: "Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between two burdens."
4. See Part III. Canto II. 841, and note.
5. In former times, and indeed until the beginning of the present century, the earliest peas brought to the London market came from Hastings, where they were grown, it may be said forced, in exhausted lime-pits. These used to be cried about the streets by hawkers with stentorian voice, "Green-hastings O." In Butler's time these hawkers may have helped their lungs with a speaking pipe, in which case this passage would point at Sir Samuel Borland's speaking-trumpet, then recently invented.
6. Drum-heads, that is, the drum of your ears.
7. i.e. is it possible that you should persuade yourself?
8. That is, pounded. "Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him." Prov. xxvii. 22.
9. In the last century some scientific members of the Royal Society made experiments in transfusing the blood of one animal into the veins of another; and, according to their account, the operation produced beneficial effects. It was even performed on human subjects. Dr Mackenzie has described the process in his History of Health, p. 431. Sir Edmund King, a favourite of Charles II., was among the philosophers of his time who made this famous experiment. See Phil. Trans, abr iii. 224. The lines from v. 39 to 59 allude to various projects of the first establishers of the Royal Society. See Birch's History of that body, vol. i. 303, vol. ii. 48, et seq. That makes fools cattle, i. e. fools for admitting the blood of cattle into their veins.
10. A curious story is told from Giraldus Cambrensis, of a sow that was suckled by a bitch, and acquired the sagacity of a hound or spaniel. See Butler's Remains, vol. i. p. 12.
11. On the first establishment of the Royal Society, some of the members engaged in the investigation of these and similar subjects. The Society was incorporated July 15, 1662.
12. The scheme proposed by the Socicry, was probably the cart to go with legs instead of wheels, mentioned Part III. Canto I. line 1563; or perhaps the famous sailing chariot of Stevinus, which was moved by sails, and carried twenty-eight passengers, over the sands of Scheveling, fourteen Dutch miles (nearly fifty-four English), in two hours.
13. That is, to follow you close at the heels.
14. See Butler's Genuine Remains, vol, ii. p. 188. His want of judgement inclines him naturally to the most extravagant undertakings, like that of making old dogs young; corking up of words in bottles," &c.
15. Though the Royal Society removed from Gresham college on account of the fire of London, it returned there again 1674, being the year in which this Epistle was published.
16. Nash thinks that the character of Sidrophet, in this Epistle, was designed for Sir Paul Neile, who had offended Mr Butler by saying that he was not the author of Hudibras. And this opinion is confirmed by Mr Thyer, who, in Butler's Remains, says "he can assure the reader, upon the poet's own authority, that the character of Sidrophel was intended for a picture of Sir Paul Neile, son of Richard Neile (whose father was a chandler in Westminster), who, as Anthony Wood says, went through all degrees and orders in the church, school-master, curate, vicar, &c. &c., and at last was archbishop of York." Sir Paul was one of the first establishers of the Royal Society, which, in the dawn of science, listening to many things that appeared trifling and incredible to the generality of the people, became the butt and sport of the wits of the time.
17. All incredible stories are now measured by your standard. One German mile is equal to five English miles.
18. Var. Destroys in some early editions.
19. See Butler's Character of an Impudent Man. "He that is impudent, is like a merchant who trades upon his credit without a stock, and if his debts were known, would break immediately."