CANTO II.]
HUDIBRAS.
331
And with as little variation,
To serve for any sect i' th' nation.
The Good Old Cause,[1] which some believe
To be the dev'l that tempted Eve
With knowledge, and does still invite 105
The world to mischief with new light,
Had store of money in her purse,
When he took her for bett'r or worse,
But now was grown deform'd and poor,
And fit to be turn'd out of door. 110
The Independents, whose first station
Was in the rear of Reformation,
A mongrel kind of church-dragoons,[2]
That serv'd for horse and foot at once,
And in the saddle of one steed 115
The Saracen and Christian rid;[3]
Were free of ev'ry spiritual order,
To preach, and fight, and pray, and murder.[4]
No sooner got the start, to lurch[5]
Both disciplines of war and church, 120
And providence enough to run
The chief commanders of them down,
But carry'd on the war against
The common enemy o' th' saints,
And in awhile prevail'd so far, 125
To win of them the game of war,
And be at liberty once more
T' attack themselves as they'd before.
To serve for any sect i' th' nation.
The Good Old Cause,[1] which some believe
To be the dev'l that tempted Eve
With knowledge, and does still invite 105
The world to mischief with new light,
Had store of money in her purse,
When he took her for bett'r or worse,
But now was grown deform'd and poor,
And fit to be turn'd out of door. 110
The Independents, whose first station
Was in the rear of Reformation,
A mongrel kind of church-dragoons,[2]
That serv'd for horse and foot at once,
And in the saddle of one steed 115
The Saracen and Christian rid;[3]
Were free of ev'ry spiritual order,
To preach, and fight, and pray, and murder.[4]
No sooner got the start, to lurch[5]
Both disciplines of war and church, 120
And providence enough to run
The chief commanders of them down,
But carry'd on the war against
The common enemy o' th' saints,
And in awhile prevail'd so far, 125
To win of them the game of war,
And be at liberty once more
T' attack themselves as they'd before.
- ↑ This was the designation of the party purpose of those who first got up the Covenant and Protestation.
- ↑ Many of the Independent officers, such as Cromwell, Ireton, Harrison, &c., used to pray and preach publicly. Cleveland uses the same term, "Kirk dragoons," in his Hue and Cry after Sir John Presbyter.
- ↑ The Templars were at first so poor that two knights rode on one horse; Butler says the new order of Military Saints did so, but that one rider was a Saracen and the other a saint. Grey says in quoting Walker, that the Independents were a compound of Jew, Christian, and saint.
- ↑ To preach, has a reference to the Dominicans; to fight, to the knights of Malta: to pray, to the fathers of Oratory; to murther, to the Jesuits. But the Independents assumed to themselves the privilege of every order: they preached, fought, prayed, and murdered.
- ↑ That is, to swallow up, see Skinner and Junius. A lurcher is a glutton. See Wright's Provincial Dictionary.
