CANTO II.]
HUDIBRAS.
349
Have prov'd how inconsiderable
Are all Engagements of the rabble,
Whose frenzies must be reconcil'd
With drums and rattles, like a child, 530
But never prov'd so prosperous
As when they were led on by us;
For all our scouring of religion
Began with tumults and sedition;
When hurricanes of fierce commotion 635
Became strong motives to devotion,
As carnal seamen, in a storm,
Turn pious converts, and reform;
When rusty weapons, with chalk'd edges,
Maintain'd our feeble privileges, 540
And brown-bills levy'd in the city,[1]
Made bills to pass the Grand Committee;
When zeal, with aged clubs and gleaves,[2]
Gave chase to rochets and white sleeves,[3]
And made the church, and state, and laws, 545
Submit t' old iron, and the Cause.
Are all Engagements of the rabble,
Whose frenzies must be reconcil'd
With drums and rattles, like a child, 530
But never prov'd so prosperous
As when they were led on by us;
For all our scouring of religion
Began with tumults and sedition;
When hurricanes of fierce commotion 635
Became strong motives to devotion,
As carnal seamen, in a storm,
Turn pious converts, and reform;
When rusty weapons, with chalk'd edges,
Maintain'd our feeble privileges, 540
And brown-bills levy'd in the city,[1]
Made bills to pass the Grand Committee;
When zeal, with aged clubs and gleaves,[2]
Gave chase to rochets and white sleeves,[3]
And made the church, and state, and laws, 545
Submit t' old iron, and the Cause.
- ↑ Apprentices armed with occasional weapons. Ainsworth, in his Dictionary, translates sparum, a brown-bill. Bishop Warburton says, to fight with rusty or poisoned weapons (see Shakspeare's Hamlet) was against the law of arms. So when the citizens used the former, they chalked the edges. Samuel Johnson, in the octavo edition of his Dictionary, says, "brown-bill was the ancient weapon of the English foot," so called, perhaps, because sanguined to prevent the rust. The common epithet for a sword, or other offensive weapon, in the old metrical romances, is brown: as brown brand, or brown sword, brown-bill, &c. Shakspeare says:In the ballad of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, printed in Percy's Reliques, line 1508, we haveSo with a band of bowmen and of pikes,
Brown-bills and targeteers 400 strong,
I come.Edward II. Act ii.With new chalk'd bills and rusty arms.
Butler, in his MS. Common-place book, says, "the confident man's wit is like a watchman's bill with a chalked edge, that pretends to sharpness, only to conceal its dull bluntness from the public view."
- ↑ Zealots armed with old clubs and gleaves, or swords.
- ↑ Rochets and white sleeves are used figuratively for the bishops, who were the objects of many violent popular demonstrations, and often assaulted by armed mobs, in the beginning of the troubles.
