68
HUDIBRAS.
[PART I.
For no three of us will agree
Where or what Churches these should be;
And is indeed the self-same case
With theirs that swore et cæteras;[1]650
Or the French league, in which men vow'd
To fight to the last drop of blood.[2]
These slanders will be thrown upon
The cause and work we carry on,
If we permit men to run headlong655
T' exorbitances fit for Bedlam,
Rather than gospel-walking times,[3]
When slightest sins are greatest crimes.
But we the matter so shall handle,
As to remove that odious scandal.660
In name of king and parliament,[4]
I charge ye all, no more foment
This feud, but keep the peace between
Your brethren and your countrymen;
And to those places straight repair665
Where your respective dwellings are:
- ↑ A sly stroke of the poet's at his own party. By the convocation which pat in the beginning of 1640 all the clergy were required to take an oath in this form: "Nor will I ever give my consent to alter the government of this Church by archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, et cætera." Dr Heylin, a member of the Convocation, endeavoured to make it appear that the et cætera was inserted by mistake. The absurdity of the oath is thus lashed by his brother satirist, Cleveland, p. 33:
"Who swears et cætera, swears more oaths at once
Than Cerberus, out of his triple sconce." - ↑ The 'Holy League' entered into for the extirpation of Protestantism in France, 1576, was the original of the Scotch 'Solemn League and Covenant.' Nor did they differ much in their result. Both ended with the murder of two kings whom they had sworn to defend. This comparison has also been made, paragraph by paragraph, by Sir William Dugdale, in his 'Short View of the Troubles.'
- ↑ A cant phrase of the time.
- ↑ The Presbyterians made a distinction between the king's person politic, and his person natural: when they fought against the latter, it was in defence of the former, always inseparable from the parliament. The commission granted to the Earl of Essex was in the name of the king and parliament. But when the Independents got the upper hand, the name of the king was omitted, and the commission of Sir Thomas Fairfax ran only in the name of the parliament.
