CANTO III.]
HUDIBRAS.
263
Is't possible that you, whose ears
Are of the tribe of Issachar's,[1] 10
And might with equal reason, either
For merit, or extent of leather.
With William Pryn's,[2] before they were
Retrench'd, and crucify'd, compare,
Shou'd yet be deaf against a noise 15
So roaring as the public voice?
That speaks your virtues free and loud,
And openly in ev'ry crowd,
As loud as one that sings his part
T' a wheel-barrow, or turnip-cart, 20
Or your new nick-nam'd old invention
To cry green-hastings with an engine;[3]
As if the vehemence had stunn'd,
And torn your drum-heads with the sound;[4]
And 'cause your folly's now no news, 25
But overgrown, and out of use,
Persuade yourself there's no such matter,[5]
But that 'tis vanish'd out of nature;
When folly, as it grows in years,
The more extravagant appears; 30
For who but you could be possest
With so much ignorance and beast,
That neither all men's scorn and hate,
Nor being laugh'd and pointed at,
Nor bray'd so often in a mortar,[6] 35
Can teach you wholesome sense and nurture,
Are of the tribe of Issachar's,[1] 10
And might with equal reason, either
For merit, or extent of leather.
With William Pryn's,[2] before they were
Retrench'd, and crucify'd, compare,
Shou'd yet be deaf against a noise 15
So roaring as the public voice?
That speaks your virtues free and loud,
And openly in ev'ry crowd,
As loud as one that sings his part
T' a wheel-barrow, or turnip-cart, 20
Or your new nick-nam'd old invention
To cry green-hastings with an engine;[3]
As if the vehemence had stunn'd,
And torn your drum-heads with the sound;[4]
And 'cause your folly's now no news, 25
But overgrown, and out of use,
Persuade yourself there's no such matter,[5]
But that 'tis vanish'd out of nature;
When folly, as it grows in years,
The more extravagant appears; 30
For who but you could be possest
With so much ignorance and beast,
That neither all men's scorn and hate,
Nor being laugh'd and pointed at,
Nor bray'd so often in a mortar,[6] 35
Can teach you wholesome sense and nurture,
- ↑ Genesis xlix. 14: "Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between two burdens."
- ↑ See Part III. Canto II. 841, and note.
- ↑ In former times, and indeed until the beginning of the present century, the earliest peas brought to the London market came from Hastings, where they were grown, it may be said forced, in exhausted lime-pits. These used to be cried about the streets by hawkers with stentorian voice, "Green-hastings O." In Butler's time these hawkers may have helped their lungs with a speaking pipe, in which case this passage would point at Sir Samuel Borland's speaking-trumpet, then recently invented.
- ↑ Drum-heads, that is, the drum of your ears.
- ↑ i.e. is it possible that you should persuade yourself?
- ↑ That is, pounded. "Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him." Prov. xxvii. 22.
