Page:Hudibras - Volume 2 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/75

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CANTO III.]

HUDIBRAS.

255

Shall make all tailors yards of one 1025
Unanimous opinion:^[1]
A thing he long has vapour'd of,
But now shall make it out by proof.
Quoth Sidrophel, I do not doubt
To find friends that will bear me out:^[2] 1030
Nor have I hazarded my art,
And neck, so long on the State's part,
To be expos'd i' th' end to suffer
By such a braggadocio huffer.^[3]
Huffer! quoth Hudibras, this sword 1035
Shall down thy false throat cram that word.
Ralpho, make haste, and call an officer,
To apprehend this Stygian sophister;^[4]
Meanwhile I'll hold 'em at a bay.
Lest he and Whachum run away. 1040

↑ The device of the vibration of a pendulum was intended to settle a certain measure of ells, yards, &c., all the world over, which should have its foundation in nature. For by swinging a weight at the end of a string, and calculating, by the motion of the sun or any star, how long the vibration would last, in proportion to the length of the string and weight of the pendulum, they thought to reduce it back again, and from any part of time compute the exact length of any string, that must necessarily vibrate for such a period of time. So that if a man should ask in China for a quarter of an hour of satin or taffeta, they would know perfectly well what he meant; and the measure of things would be reckoned no more by the yard, foot, or inch, but by the hour, quarter, and minute. See Butler's Remains by Thyer, vol. i. p. 30, for the following illustration of this notion:

By which he had composed a pedlar's jargon,

For all the world to learn and use to bargain,

An universal canting idiom

To understand the swinging pendulum,

And to communicate in all designs

With th' Eastern virtuoso mandarines.

Elephant in the Moon

The moderns perhaps will not be more successful in their endeavours to establish a universal standard of weights and measures.
↑ William Lilly wrote and prophesied for the Parliament, till he perceived their influence decline. He then changed sides, but having declared himself rather too soon, he was taken into custody; and escaped only, as he tells us himself, by the interference of friends, and by cancelling the offensive leaf in his almanack.
↑ Huff means to bully or brow-beat.
↑ i.e. hellish sophister.

[1] The device of the vibration of a pendulum was intended to settle a certain measure of ells, yards, &c., all the world over, which should have its foundation in nature. For by swinging a weight at the end of a string, and calculating, by the motion of the sun or any star, how long the vibration would last, in proportion to the length of the string and weight of the pendulum, they thought to reduce it back again, and from any part of time compute the exact length of any string, that must necessarily vibrate for such a period of time. So that if a man should ask in China for a quarter of an hour of satin or taffeta, they would know perfectly well what he meant; and the measure of things would be reckoned no more by the yard, foot, or inch, but by the hour, quarter, and minute. See Butler's Remains by Thyer, vol. i. p. 30, for the following illustration of this notion:

By which he had composed a pedlar's jargon,

For all the world to learn and use to bargain,

An universal canting idiom

To understand the swinging pendulum,

And to communicate in all designs

With th' Eastern virtuoso mandarines.

Elephant in the Moon

The moderns perhaps will not be more successful in their endeavours to establish a universal standard of weights and measures.

[2] William Lilly wrote and prophesied for the Parliament, till he perceived their influence decline. He then changed sides, but having declared himself rather too soon, he was taken into custody; and escaped only, as he tells us himself, by the interference of friends, and by cancelling the offensive leaf in his almanack.

[3] Huff means to bully or brow-beat.

[4] .e. hellish sophister.

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