264
HUDIBRAS.
[EPISTLE TO
But, like a reprobate, what course
Soever us'd, grow worse and worse?
Can no transfusion of the blood,
That makes fools cattle, do you good?[1] 40
Nor putting pigs t' a bitch to nurse,
To turn them into mongrel curs;[2]
Put you into a way, at least,
To make yourself a better beast?
Can all your critical intrigues, 45
Of trying sound from rotten eggs;[3]
Your sev'ral new-found remedies,
Of curing wounds and scabs in trees;
Your art for fluxing them for claps,
And purging their infected saps; 50
Recovering shankers, crystallines,
And nodes and blotches in their reins,
Have no effect to operate
Upon that duller block, your pate?
But still it must be lewdly bent 55
To tempt your own due punishment;
And, like your whimsy'd chariots,[4] draw
The boys to course you without law;[5]
Soever us'd, grow worse and worse?
Can no transfusion of the blood,
That makes fools cattle, do you good?[1] 40
Nor putting pigs t' a bitch to nurse,
To turn them into mongrel curs;[2]
Put you into a way, at least,
To make yourself a better beast?
Can all your critical intrigues, 45
Of trying sound from rotten eggs;[3]
Your sev'ral new-found remedies,
Of curing wounds and scabs in trees;
Your art for fluxing them for claps,
And purging their infected saps; 50
Recovering shankers, crystallines,
And nodes and blotches in their reins,
Have no effect to operate
Upon that duller block, your pate?
But still it must be lewdly bent 55
To tempt your own due punishment;
And, like your whimsy'd chariots,[4] draw
The boys to course you without law;[5]
- ↑ In the last century some scientific members of the Royal Society made experiments in transfusing the blood of one animal into the veins of another; and, according to their account, the operation produced beneficial effects. It was even performed on human subjects. Dr Mackenzie has described the process in his History of Health, p. 431. Sir Edmund King, a favourite of Charles II., was among the philosophers of his time who made this famous experiment. See Phil. Trans, abr iii. 224. The lines from v. 39 to 59 allude to various projects of the first establishers of the Royal Society. See Birch's History of that body, vol. i. 303, vol. ii. 48, et seq. That makes fools cattle, i. e. fools for admitting the blood of cattle into their veins.
- ↑ A curious story is told from Giraldus Cambrensis, of a sow that was suckled by a bitch, and acquired the sagacity of a hound or spaniel. See Butler's Remains, vol. i. p. 12.
- ↑ On the first establishment of the Royal Society, some of the members engaged in the investigation of these and similar subjects. The Society was incorporated July 15, 1662.
- ↑ The scheme proposed by the Socicry, was probably the cart to go with legs instead of wheels, mentioned Part III. Canto I. line 1563; or perhaps the famous sailing chariot of Stevinus, which was moved by sails, and carried twenty-eight passengers, over the sands of Scheveling, fourteen Dutch miles (nearly fifty-four English), in two hours.
- ↑ That is, to follow you close at the heels.
