As he believed h' was bound to do
In conscience, and commission too;[1]
And therefore thus bespoke the Squire:—
We that are wisely mounted higher
Than constables, in curule wit, 715
When on tribunal bench we sit,[2]
Like speculators, should foresee,
From Pharos[3] of authority,
Portended mischiefs farther than
Low proletarian tything-men:[4] 720
And therefore being inform'd by bruit,
That dog and bear are to dispute;
For so of late men fighting name,
Because they often prove the same;
For where the first does hap to be, 725
The last does coincidere.
Quantum in nobis, have thought good
To save th' expense of Christian blood,
And try if we, by mediation
Of treaty, and accommodation, 730
Can end the quarrel, and compose
The bloody duel without blows.
Are not our liberties, our lives,
The laws, religion, and our wives,
- ↑ The Presbyterians and Independents were great enemies to those sports with which the country people amused themselves, and which King James had most expressly encouraged, and even countenanced on a Sunday, as well by act of Parliament as by writing his "Book of Sports" (published 1618) in their favour. Hume, anno 1660, says, "All recreations were in a manner suspended, by the rigid severity of the Presbyterians and Independents; even bear-baiting was esteemed heathenish and unchristian; the sport of it, not the inhumanity, gave offence. Colonel Hewson, in his pious zeal, marched with his regiment into London, and destroyed all the bears which were there kept for the diversion of the citizens. This adventure seems to have given birth to the fiction of Hudibras."
- ↑ Some of the chief magistrates in Rome were said to hold curule offices, from the chair of state or chariot they rode in, called sella curulis.
- ↑ Pharos, a celebrated light-house of antiquity, 500 feet high, whence the English word Pharos, a watch-tower.
- ↑ Proletarii were the lowest class of people among the Romans; by affixing this term to tythingmen, the knight implies the little estimation in which they were held.
