376
HUDIBRAS.
[PART III.
And all your sacrilegious ventures
Laid out on tickets and debentures: Your envy to be sprinkled down,
By under-churches in the town;[1] 1210
And no course us'd to stop their mouths,
Nor th' Independents' spreading growths:
All which consider'd, 'tis most true
None bring him in so much as you,
Who have prevail'd beyond their plots,[2] 1215
Their midnight juntos, and seal'd knots,
That thrive more by your zealous piques,
Than all their own rash politics.
And this way you may claim a share
In carrying, as you brag, th' affair, 1220
Else frogs and toads, that croak'd the Jews
From Pharaoh and his brick-kilns loose,
And flies and mange, that set them free
From task-masters and slavery,
Were likelier to do the feat, 1225
In any indiff'rent man's conceit:
For who e'er heard of Restoration,
Until your Thorough Reformation?[3]
That is, the king's and church's lands
Were sequester'd int' other hands: 1230
For only then, and not before,
Your eyes were open'd to restore;
And when the work was carrying on,
Who cross'd it, but yourselves alone?
As by a world of hints appears, 1235
All plain, aud extant, as your ears.[4]
But first, o' th' first: The Isle of Wight
Will rise up, if you shou'd deny 't;
Laid out on tickets and debentures: Your envy to be sprinkled down,
By under-churches in the town;[1] 1210
And no course us'd to stop their mouths,
Nor th' Independents' spreading growths:
All which consider'd, 'tis most true
None bring him in so much as you,
Who have prevail'd beyond their plots,[2] 1215
Their midnight juntos, and seal'd knots,
That thrive more by your zealous piques,
Than all their own rash politics.
And this way you may claim a share
In carrying, as you brag, th' affair, 1220
Else frogs and toads, that croak'd the Jews
From Pharaoh and his brick-kilns loose,
And flies and mange, that set them free
From task-masters and slavery,
Were likelier to do the feat, 1225
In any indiff'rent man's conceit:
For who e'er heard of Restoration,
Until your Thorough Reformation?[3]
That is, the king's and church's lands
Were sequester'd int' other hands: 1230
For only then, and not before,
Your eyes were open'd to restore;
And when the work was carrying on,
Who cross'd it, but yourselves alone?
As by a world of hints appears, 1235
All plain, aud extant, as your ears.[4]
But first, o' th' first: The Isle of Wight
Will rise up, if you shou'd deny 't;
- ↑ By the Independents, whose popularity was much greater with the people than that of the Presbyterians.
- ↑ The plots of the royalists are here meant.
- ↑ The Independent here charges the Presbyterians with having no design of restoring the king, notwithstanding the merit they made of such intentions after the Restoration, until they were turned out of all profit by sale of the crown and church lands; and that it was not their loyalty, but their disappointment and resentment against the Independents, that made them think of treating with the king.
- ↑ In ridicule of the Presbyterians, many of whom, according to Dryden and others, had lost their ears in the pillory.
