366
HUDIBRAS.
[PART III.
Who therefore dares not trust it, when 965
He's in his calling, to be seen.[1]
Disperse the dung on barren earth,
To bring new weeds of discord forth;
Be sure to keep up congregations.
In spite of laws and proclamations: 970
For charlatans can do no good,[2]
Until they're mounted in a crowd;
And when they're punish'd, all the hurt
Is but to fare the better for't;
As long as confessors are sure 975
Of double pay for all th' endure,[3]
And what they earn in persecution,
Are paid t' a groat in contribution:
Whence some tub-holders-forth have made
In powd'ring-tubs their richest trade; 980
And, while they kept their shops in prison,
Have found their prices strangely risen.[4]
He's in his calling, to be seen.[1]
Disperse the dung on barren earth,
To bring new weeds of discord forth;
Be sure to keep up congregations.
In spite of laws and proclamations: 970
For charlatans can do no good,[2]
Until they're mounted in a crowd;
And when they're punish'd, all the hurt
Is but to fare the better for't;
As long as confessors are sure 975
Of double pay for all th' endure,[3]
And what they earn in persecution,
Are paid t' a groat in contribution:
Whence some tub-holders-forth have made
In powd'ring-tubs their richest trade; 980
And, while they kept their shops in prison,
Have found their prices strangely risen.[4]
- ↑ Padders, or highwaymen, usually covered their faces with a mask or piece of crape.
- ↑ Charlatan is a quack doctor, whom punishment makes more widely known, and so benefits instead of injures.
- ↑ Alluding again to Burton, Prynne, and Bastwick, who having been pilloried, fined, and banished to different parts of the kingdoms, by the sentence of the Star-chamber, were by the Parliament afterward recalled, and rewarded out of the estates of those who had punished them. In their way back to London they were honoured with loud acclamations, and received many presents.———silenc'd ministers,
That get estates by being undone
For tender conscience, and have none:
Like those that with their credit drive
A trade without a stock, and thrive.
Butler's Remains, vol. i. 63. - ↑ Powdering-tubs, which were tubs for salting beef in, may here signify either prisons or hospitals. The term powdering was a synonyme for sprinkling with salt, and so came to be applied to the places where infected persons were cured. When any one gets into a scrape, he is said to be in a pretty pickle. Ancient Pistol throws some light upon this passage when he bids Nym"to the spital go,
And from the powdering-tub of infamy
Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind,
Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse."
Hen. V. Act i.
