No force in nature can do hurt to;
And therefore, at the last great day,
All th' other members shall, they say, 1620
Spring out of this, as from a seed
All sorts of vegetals proceed;
From whence the learned sons of art
Os sacrum justly style that part:[1]
Then what can better represent, 1625
Than this rump-bone, the Parliament?
That after sev'ral rude ejections,
And as prodigious resurrections,
With new reversions of nine lives,
Starts up, and, like a cat, revives?[2] 1630
- ↑ The lowest of the vertebræ, or rather the bone below the vertebræ, is so called; not for the reason wittily assigned by our poet, but because it is much bigger than any of the vertebræ.
- ↑ The Rump, properly so called, began at Pride's Purge, a little before the king's death; and had the supreme authority for about five years; being turned out on April 23, 1653, by Cromwell. After his death, and the deposition of his son Richard, the Rump Parliament was restored by Lambert and other officers of the army, on May 7, 1659, in number about forty-two, the excluded members not being permitted to sit. On October 13, in the same year, they were dismissed by those who had summoned them, and the officers chose a Committee of Safety of twenty-three persons; who administered the affairs of government till December 20, when, finding themselves generally hated and slighted, and wanting money to pay the soldiers, Fleetwood and others desired the Rump to return to the exercise of their trust. At length, by means of General Monk, above eighty of the old secluded members resumed their places in the House; upon which most of the Rumpers quitted it. Butler, in his Genuine Remains, vol. i. p. 320, says, "Nothing can bear a nearer resemblance to the luz, or rump-bone of the ancient rabbins, than the present Parliament, that has been so many
and shape of half a pea; from which, as from an incorruptible seed, the whole man would be perfectly formed at the resurrection. Remains, vol. i. p. 320. The rabbins found their wild conjectures on Genesis xlviii. 2, 3. See Agrippa de occultâ philosophiâ, l. i. c. 20. Buxtorf, in his Chaldean Dictionary, under the word Luz, says, it is the name of a human bone, which the Jews look upon as incorruptible. In a hook called Breshith Rabboth, sect. 28, it is asserted that Adrian, reducing the bones to powder, asked the rabbin Jehoshuang (Jesuah the son of Hanniah) how God would raise man at the day of judgment: from the Luz, replied the rabbin: how do you know it? says Adrian: bring me one, and you shall see, says Jehoshuang: one was produced, and all methods, by fire, pounding, and other methods tried, but in vain. See Manasseh Ben-Israel de Resurrectione, lib. ii. cap. 15. See also Butler's Remains, "Speech in the Rota."
