PART III. CANTO II.[1]
HE learned write, an insect breeze
Is but a mongrel prince of bees,[2]
That falls before a storm on cows,
And stings the founders of his house;
From whose corrupted flesh that breed 5
Of vermin did at first proceed.[3]
So, ere the storm of war broke out,
Religion spawn'd a various rout[4]
Of petulant capricious sects,
The maggots of corrupted texts,[5] 10
- ↑ This canto being wholly unconnected with the story of Hudibras, would, in Mr Nash's opinion, have been better placed at the end; indeed this arrangement has been adopted by Mr Towneley in his French translation. Its different character, and its want of connexion with the foregone, may be accounted for, by supposing it written on the spur of the occasion, and with a view to recommend the author to his friends at court, by an attack on the opposite faction, at a time when it was daily gaining ground and the secret views of Charles II. were more and more suspected and dreaded. A short time before the third part of this poem was published, Shaftesbury had ceased to be a minister, and had become a furious demagogue. But the canto describes the spirit of parties not long before the Restoration. One object of satire here is to refute and ridicule the plea of the Presbyterians, after the Restoration, of having been the principal instruments in bringing back the king.
- ↑ The classical theory of the generation of bees is here applied to the breese, or gadfly, which is said by Pliny (Nat. Hist. xi. 16) to be "a bee of larger size which chases the others:" hence it may fairly be styled a prince of bees, yet but a mongrel prince, because not truly a bee
- ↑ Assuming that they deposit their larvæ in the flesh of cows.
- ↑ Case, in his thanksgiving sermon for the taking of Chester, told the Parliament, that no less than 180 errors and heresies were propagated in the city of London.
- ↑ The Independents, and sometimes the Presbyterians, have been charged with altering a text of Scripture, in order to authorize them to appoint their own ministers, substituting ye for we in Acts vi. 3. "Therefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom ye may appoint over this business." Mr Field is said
