For as when merchants break, o'erthrown
Like nine-pins, they strike others down;
So that would break my heart; which done,
My tempting fortune is your own.490
These are but trifles; every lover
Will damn himself over and over,
And greater matters undertake
For a less worthy mistress' sake:
Yet th' are the only ways to prove495
Th' unfeign'd realities of love;
For he that hangs, or beats out's brains,
The devil's in him if he feigns.
Quoth Hudibras, This way's too rough
For mere experiment and proof;500
It is no jesting, trivial matter,
To swing i' th' air, or douce in water,[1]
And, like a water-witch, try love;[2]
That's to destroy, and not to prove:
As if a man should be dissected,505
To find what part is disaffected:
Your better way is to make over,
In trust, your fortune to your lover:[3]
Trust is a trial; if it break,
'Tis not so desp'rate as a neck:510
Beside, th' experiment's more certain,
Men venture necks to gain a fortune:
The soldier does it every day,[4]
Eight to the week, for six-pence pay:[5]
- ↑ Var. "plunge in water," or "dive in water."
- ↑ The common test for witchcraft was to throw the suspected witch into the water. If she swam, she was judged guilty; if she sank, she preserved her character, and only lost her life. King James, in his Dæmonology, explained the floating of the witch by the refusal of the element used in baptism to receive into its bosom one who had renounced the blessing of it. The last witch swum in England was an old woman in a village of Suffolk, about 30 years ago.
- ↑ Grey compares this to the highwayman's advice to a gentleman upon the road; "Sir, be pleased to leave your watch, your money, and your rings with me, or by ——— you'll be robbed."
- ↑ This and the three following lines were added in the edition of 1674.
- ↑ Warburton explains that "if a soldier gets only sixpence a day, and one day's pay is reserved weekly for stoppages, he must make eight days to the week before he will receive a clear week's pay." Percennius, the mutinous
