372
HUDIBRAS.
[PART III.
Denounc'd and pray'd with fierce devotion,
And bended elbows on the cushion;
Stole from the beggars all your tones, 1105
And gifted mortifying groans;
Had lights where better eyes were blind,
As pigs are said to see the wind;[1]
Fill'd Bedlam with Predestination,
And Knightsbridge with Illumination;[2] 1110
Made children, with your tones, to run for't,
As bad as Bloodybones or Lunsford:[3]
While women, great with child, miscarry'd,
For being to Malignants marry'd.
Transform'd all wives to Dalilahs, 1115
Whose husbands were not for the Cause;[4]
And turn'd the men to ten-horn'd cattle,
Because they came not out to battle;[5]
Made tailors' 'prentices turn heroes,
For fear of b'ing transform'd to Meroz,[6] 1120
And bended elbows on the cushion;
Stole from the beggars all your tones, 1105
And gifted mortifying groans;
Had lights where better eyes were blind,
As pigs are said to see the wind;[1]
Fill'd Bedlam with Predestination,
And Knightsbridge with Illumination;[2] 1110
Made children, with your tones, to run for't,
As bad as Bloodybones or Lunsford:[3]
While women, great with child, miscarry'd,
For being to Malignants marry'd.
Transform'd all wives to Dalilahs, 1115
Whose husbands were not for the Cause;[4]
And turn'd the men to ten-horn'd cattle,
Because they came not out to battle;[5]
Made tailors' 'prentices turn heroes,
For fear of b'ing transform'd to Meroz,[6] 1120
- ↑ Pigs are said to be very sagacious in foretelling wind and weather. Thus, in a poem entitled Hudibras at Court, we read:And now, as hogs can see the wind,
And storms at distance coming find. - ↑ At this village, near London, was a lazar-house, to which the poet alludes.
- ↑ That is, frightened children as much by your preaching, as if you had threatened them with Rawhead and Bloodybones. Sir Thomas Lunsford, who was represented by his enemies as devouring children out of mere bloodthirstiness, was lieutenant of the Tower a little before the beginning of the war; but afterwards removed by desire of the Parliament. He is represented by Lord Clarendon as a man of desperate character and dissolute habits.
- ↑ If the husband sided not with the Presbyterians, his wife was represented as insidious and a betrayer of her country's interests, such as Dalilah was to Samson and the Israelites. Judges xvi.
- ↑ Compared them to the ten horns, or ten kings, who gave their power and strength to the beast. Revelation xvii. 12. See also Daniel vii. 7. A cuckold is called a horned beast, and a notorious cuckold may be called a ten-horned beast, there being no beast described with more horns than the beast in vision.
- ↑ "Curse ye Meroz," said the angel of the Lord; "curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty." Judges v. 23. This was a favourite text with those who preached for the Parliament: and it assisted them much in raising recruits.
