CANTO II.]
HUDIBRAS.
329
And ev'ry partner to possess
His church and state joint-purchases,
In which the ablest saint, and best,
Was nam'd in trust by all the rest, 60
To pay their money, and instead
Of ev'ry brother, pass the deed;
He strait converted all his gifts
To pious frauds and holy shifts,
And settled all the others' shares 65
Upon his outward man and 's heirs;
Held all they claim'd as Forfeit Lands
Deliver'd up into his hands,
And pass'd upon his conscience
By pre-entail of Providence; 70
Impeach'd the rest for reprobates,
That had no titles to estates,
But by their spiritual attaints
Degraded from the right of saints.
This b'ing reveal'd, they now begun 75
With law and conscience to fall on,
And laid about as hot and brain-sick
As th' utter barrister of Swanswick;[1]
Engag'd with money-bags, as bold
As men with sand-bags did of old,[2] 80
His church and state joint-purchases,
In which the ablest saint, and best,
Was nam'd in trust by all the rest, 60
To pay their money, and instead
Of ev'ry brother, pass the deed;
He strait converted all his gifts
To pious frauds and holy shifts,
And settled all the others' shares 65
Upon his outward man and 's heirs;
Held all they claim'd as Forfeit Lands
Deliver'd up into his hands,
And pass'd upon his conscience
By pre-entail of Providence; 70
Impeach'd the rest for reprobates,
That had no titles to estates,
But by their spiritual attaints
Degraded from the right of saints.
This b'ing reveal'd, they now begun 75
With law and conscience to fall on,
And laid about as hot and brain-sick
As th' utter barrister of Swanswick;[1]
Engag'd with money-bags, as bold
As men with sand-bags did of old,[2] 80
- ↑ William Prynne, already mentioned at page 30, was born at Swanswick, in Somersetshire. The poet calls him hot and brain-sick, because he was a restless and turbulent man. He is called the utter (or outer) barrister by the court of Star-chamber, in the sentence ordering him to be discarded; and afterwards he was voted again by the House of Commons to be restored to his place and practice as an utter barrister; which signifies a pleader without the bar, or one who is not king's counsel or Serjeant.
- ↑ Bishop Warburton says: "When the combat was demanded in a legal way by knights and gentlemen, it was fought with sword and lance; and when by yeomen, with sand-bags fastened to the end of a truncheon." When tilts and tournaments were in fashion for men of knightly degree, men of low degree amused themselves with running at the Quintain, which was a beam with a wooden board at one end, and a sand-bag at the other, so fixed on a post, that when the board was smartly struck, it swung round
1749, great arrears were due to the army: for the discharge of which some of the lands were allotted, and whole regiments joined together in the manner of a corporation. The distribution afterwards was productive of many law-suits, the person whose name was put in trust often claiming the whole, or a larger share than he was entitled to. See note at page 7.
