Engrav'd in planetary hours,
That over mortals had strange powers
To make them thrive in law or trade,
And stab or poison to evade; 1100
In wit or wisdom to improve,
And be victorious in love.
Whachum had neither cross nor pile,[1]
His plunder was not worth the while;
All which the conqu'ror did discompt, 1105
To pay for curing of his rump.
But Sidrophel, as full of tricks
As Rota-men of politics,[2]
Straight cast about to over-reach
Th' unwary conqu'ror with a fetch, 1110
And make him glad at least to quit
His victory, and fly the pit,
Before the secular prince of darkness[3]
Arriv'd to seize upon his carcass:
And, as a fox with hot pursuit,[4] 1115
Chas'd through a warren, cast about
To save his credit, and among
Dead vermin on a gallows hung.
- ↑ Money frequently bore a cross on one side, and the head of a spear or arrow (pilum) on the other. Cross and pile were our heads and tails. Thus Swift says, "This I humbly conceive to be perfect boy's play; cross, I win, and pile, you lose."
- ↑ Harrington, having devised the scheme of popular government which is described in his Oceana, endeavoured to promote it by a club, of which Henry Nevil, Charles Wolseley, John Wildman, and Doctor (afterwards Sir William) Petty, were members, which met in New Palace-yard, Westminster. This club was called the Rota, in consequence of a proposal that, in the projected House of Commons, a third part of the members should "rote out by ballot every year," and be ineligible for three years.
- ↑ The constable who keeps the peace at night.
- ↑ Olaus Magnus has related many such stories of the fox's cunning: his imitating the barking of a dog; feigning himself dead; ridding himself of fleas, by going gradually into the water with a lock of wool in his mouth, and when the fleas are driven into it, leaving the wool in the water; catching crab-fish with his tail, all of which the author avers to be truth on his own knowledge. Ol. Mag. Hist. i. 18.
a contrivance for performing multiplication. The numbers were marked on little square rods, which, being made of ivory, were called Napier's bones. His lordship was one of the early members of the Royal Society, which the poet takes frequent occasions to banter.
