442
HUDIBRAS.
[THE LADY'S
Marriage, at best, is but a vow, 155Which all men either break or bow;Then what will those forbear to do,Who perjure when they do but woo?Such as beforehand swear and lie,For earnest to their treachery, 160And, rather than a crime confess,With greater strive to make it less:Like thieves, who, after sentence past,Maintain their inn'cence to the last;And when their crimes were made appear 165As plain as witnesses can swear,Yet when the wretches come to die,Will take upon their death a lie.Nor are the virtues you confess'dT' your ghostly father, as you guess'd, 170So slight as to be justified,By be'ng as shamefully denied;As if you thought your word would pass,Point-blank, on both sides of a case;Or credit were not to be lost 175B' a brave knight-errant of the post,That eats perfidiously his word,And swears his ears through a two-inch board;[1]Can own the same thing, and disown,And perjure booty pro and con; 180Can make the Gospel serve his turn,And help him out to be forsworn;When 'tis laid hands upon, and kist,To be betray'd and sold, like Christ.These are the virtues in whose name 185A right to all the world you claim,And boldly challenge a dominion,In grace and nature, o'er all women;
- ↑ That is, endeavours to shield himself from the punishment due to perjury, the loss of his ears, by a desperate perseverance in false swearing. A person is said to swear through a two-inch hoard, when he makes oath of anything which was concealed from him by a thick door or partition.
him; what a setting dog is to a sportsman. Butler here seems to say that those who tell the cards in another's hand, cannot always tell how they will be played.
