And at fit periods the whole rout
Set up their throats with clam'rous shout.
The Knight transported, and the Squire,
Put up their weapons and their ire;660
And Hudibras, who us'd to ponder
On such sights with judicious wonder,
Could hold no longer, to impart
His an'madversions, for his heart.
Quoth he, In all my life till now,665
I ne'er saw so profane a show;[1]
It is a paganish invention,
Which heathen writers often mention:
And he, who made it, had read Goodwin,[2]
Or Ross, or Cælius Rhodogine,[3] 670
With all the Grecian Speeds and Stows,[4]
That best describe those ancient shows;
And has observ'd all fit decorums
We find describ'd by old historians:[5]
- ↑ The Knight's learning leads him to see in this burlesque procession nothing but paganism, which he, as a reformer, is bound to put an end to at once.
- ↑ Thomas Goodwin was a high Calvinistic Independent, who, dissatisfied with the terms of nonconformity in England, became for some years Pastor of an Independent congregation at Arnheim in Holland. On his return to England he was elected one of the Assembly of Divines, and in 1649, president of Magdalen College, Oxford. At the Restoration he was ejected, and died in 1679. It is however probable that Butler means Dr Thomas Godwyn, who wrote a celebrated manual of Hebrew Antiquities entitled "Moses and Aaron." Oxford, 1616, and another on Roman Antiquities, published Oxford, 1613, both of which went through many editions.
- ↑ In the edition of 1674, altered to,
I warrant him, and understood him.
But the older line was restored in 1704. The name of Ross has occurred more than once before. Ludovicus Cælius Rhodoginus (L. C. Riechieri) was born at Rovigo, about 1460; and published a voluminous and learned miscellany called Lectiones Antiquæ, of which one of the editions was printed by Aldus in 1516. He died in 1525. - ↑ Speed and Stowe are celebrated English chroniclers. By Grecian Speeds and Stows he means, any ancient authors who have explained the antiquities and customs of Greece.
- ↑ This is an imperfect rhyme, but in English, to an ear not critically acute, m and n sound alike. So the old savings, among the common people taken for rhyme,—A stitch in time saves nine. Tread on a worm, and it will turn.
Sporus after he had been gelded (Bohn's transl. p. 357). The story of Pope Joan is too well known to need repetition. But see notes on the subject in Gibbon (Bohn's edition), vol. v. p. 420.
