340
HUDIBRAS.
[PART III.
Some were for th' utter extirpation
Of linsey-woolsey in the nation;[1]
And some against all idolizing
The cross in shop-books, or baptizing;[2]
Others to make all things recant 315
The Christian or sirname of Saint,[3]
And force all churches, streets, and towns,
The holy title to renounce;
Some 'gainst a third estate of souls,
And bringing down the price of coals;[4] 320
Some for abolishing black-pudding,
And eating nothing with the blood in,[5]
To abrogate them roots and branches;[6]
While others were for eating haunches
Of warriors, and now and then, 325
The flesh of kings and mighty men;
Of linsey-woolsey in the nation;[1]
And some against all idolizing
The cross in shop-books, or baptizing;[2]
Others to make all things recant 315
The Christian or sirname of Saint,[3]
And force all churches, streets, and towns,
The holy title to renounce;
Some 'gainst a third estate of souls,
And bringing down the price of coals;[4] 320
Some for abolishing black-pudding,
And eating nothing with the blood in,[5]
To abrogate them roots and branches;[6]
While others were for eating haunches
Of warriors, and now and then, 325
The flesh of kings and mighty men;
- ↑ Were for Judaizing. The Jewish law forbids the use of a garment made of linen and woollen. Lev. xix. 19.
- ↑ The Presbyterians thought it superstitious and Popish to use the sign of the cross in baptism; Butler satirizes that notion by representing them as regarding it idolatrous for tradesmen to make a cross in their books, as a sign of payment.
- ↑ Streets, parishes, churches, public foundations, and even the apostles themselves, were unsainted for some years preceding the Restoration, so that St Paul's was necessarily called Paul's, St Ann's, Ann's, &c. See the Spectator, No. 125.
- ↑ The first line may allude to the doctrine of the intermediate state, in which some supposed the soul to continue from the time of its leaving the body to the resurrection; or else it may allude to the Popish doctrine of purgatory. The former subject was warmly discussed about this time. The exorbitant price of coals was then loudly complained of. Sir Arthur Hazelrigg laid a tax of four shillings a chaldron upon Newcastle coals, when he was governor there. Many petitions were presented against the tax; and various schemes proposed for reducing the price of them. Shakspeare says:
- ↑ The Judaizing sect, who were for introducing Jewish customs.
- ↑ Clarendon mentions a set of levellers, who were called root and branch men, in opposition to others who were of more moderate principles. To abrogate, that is, that they might utterly abrogate or renounce everything that had blood, while others were for eating haunches, alluding to Revelation xi. 18, "That ye might eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of
