CANTO II.]
HUDIBRAS.
365
And practis'd down from forty-four, 935
Until they turn'd us out of door:[1]
Besides the herds of boutèfeus[2]
We set on work, without the House.
When ev'ry knight and citizen
Kept legislative journeymen, 940
To bring them in intelligence,
From all points of the rabble's sense,
And fill the lobbies of both Houses
With politic important buzzes;
Set up committees of cabals,[3] 945
To pack designs without the walls;
Examine and draw up all news,
And fit it to our present use;
Agree upon the plot o' th' farce,
And ev'ry one his part rehearse; 950
Make Q's of answers, to way-lay
What th' other parties like to say;[4]
What repartees, and smart reflections,
Shall be return'd to all objections;
And who shall break the master-jest, 955
And what, and how, upon the rest;
Help pamphlets out, with safe editions,
Of proper slanders and seditions,
And treason for a token send,
By Letter to a Country Friend; 960
Disperse lampoons, the only wit
That men, like burglary, commit,
With falser than a padder's face,
That all its owner does betrays;
Until they turn'd us out of door:[1]
Besides the herds of boutèfeus[2]
We set on work, without the House.
When ev'ry knight and citizen
Kept legislative journeymen, 940
To bring them in intelligence,
From all points of the rabble's sense,
And fill the lobbies of both Houses
With politic important buzzes;
Set up committees of cabals,[3] 945
To pack designs without the walls;
Examine and draw up all news,
And fit it to our present use;
Agree upon the plot o' th' farce,
And ev'ry one his part rehearse; 950
Make Q's of answers, to way-lay
What th' other parties like to say;[4]
What repartees, and smart reflections,
Shall be return'd to all objections;
And who shall break the master-jest, 955
And what, and how, upon the rest;
Help pamphlets out, with safe editions,
Of proper slanders and seditions,
And treason for a token send,
By Letter to a Country Friend; 960
Disperse lampoons, the only wit
That men, like burglary, commit,
With falser than a padder's face,
That all its owner does betrays;
- ↑ From the time of the Self-denying ordinance, 1644, when the Presbyterians were turned out from all places of profit and power, till Pride's Purge, on December 7, 1648.
- ↑ Incendiaries.
- ↑ The poet probably alludes to the ministers of Charles the Second, the initials of whose names were satirically so arranged as to make up the word cabal. See note, page 25.
- ↑ Prisoners in Newgate, and other gaols, have often sham-examinations, to prepare them with answers for their real trials.
occasioned the wags to say, punningly, that the king carried it by Hook, but not by Crook.
