CANTO II.]
HUDIBRAS.
185
And have not two saints power to use
A greater privilege than three Jews?[1]
The court of conscience, which in man
Should be supreme and sovereign,300
Is't fit should be subordinate
To ev'ry petty court i' th' state,
And have less power than the lesser,
To deal with perjury at pleasure?
Have its proceedings disallow'd, or305
Allow'd, at fancy of Pie-powder?[2]
Tell all it does, or does not know,
For swearing ex officio?[3]
Be forc'd t' impeach a broken hedge,
And pigs unring'd at vis. franc, pledge?[4]310
Discover thieves, and bawds, recusants,
Priests, witches, eves-droppers, and nuisance:
Tell who did play at games unlawful,
And who fill'd pots of ale but half-full;
And have no pow'r at all, nor shift,315
To help itself at a dead lift?
- ↑ Butler told one Mr Veal, that by the two saints he meant Dr Downing and Mr Marshall, who, when some of the rebels had their lives spared on condition that they would not in future bear arms against the king, were sent to dispense with the oath, and persuade them to enter again into the service.
- ↑ The court of pie-powder takes cognizance of such disputes as arise in fairs and markets; and is so called from the old French word pied-puldreaux, which signifies a pedlar, one who gets a livelihood without a fixed or certain residence. See Blackstone's Commentaries. In the borough laws of Scotland, an alien merchant is called pied-puldreaux.
- ↑ That is, by taking the ex officio oath; by which the parties were obliged to answer to interrogatories, even if they criminated themselves. In the conference, 1604, one of the matters complained of was the ex officio oath. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, and Archbishop Whitgift defended the oath, and the king gave a description of it, laid down the grounds upon which it stood, and justified the wisdom of the constitution.
- ↑ Frankpledge was an institution derived from the earliest Saxon times, and based upon the principle of mutual responsibility. By it Lords of the manor had the right of requiring surety of every free-horn man of the age of 14, for his good behaviour, and they were bound for each other. After the Conquest, where frankpledge prevailed, there were periodical meetings, when it was put in exercise, and these were called the View of frankpledge {visus franciplegii). Selden says, that the View of frankpledge was not wholly unknown in his time; which shows the point of Butler's allusion to it. See Blackstone and the Law Dictionaries.
