Samuel Butler (poet)

Like feather bed betwixt a wall And heavy brunt of cannon ball.

With many a stiff thwack, many a bang, Hard crab-tree and old iron rang.

And bid the devil take the hin'most.

Or shear swine, all cry and no wool.

Quoth Hudibras, "I smell a rat! Ralpho, thou dost prevaricate."

And force them, though it was in spite Of Nature and their stars, to write.

He ne'er consider'd it, as loth To look a gift-horse in the mouth.

For Rhime the Rudder is of Verses, With which like Ships they steer their courses.

The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, For want of fighting was grown rusty, And ate into itself, for lack Of somebody to hew and hack.

All piety consists therein In them, in other men all sin...

Compound for sins they are inclin'd to, By damning those they have no mind to

And weave fine cobwebs, fit for skull That's empty when the moon is full; Such as take lodgings in a head That's to be let unfurnished.

He knew what 's what, and that 's as high As metaphysic wit can fly.

Where entity and quiddity, The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly.

His notions fitted things so well, That which was which he could not tell; But oftentimes mistook th' one For th' other, as great clerks have done.

Whatever sceptic could inquire for, For ev'ry why he had a wherefore

In mathematics he was greater Than Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater: For he, by geometric scale, Could take the size of pots of ale; Resolve, by sines and tangents straight, If bread and butter wanted weight;

They'll say our bus'ness, to reform The Church and State, is but a worm; For to subscribe, unsight, unseen, To an unknown Church-discipline, What is it else, but before-hand T'engage, and after understand?

Shall we that in the Cov'nant swore, Each man of us to run before Another, still in Reformation, Give dogs and bears a dispensation? How will Dissenting Brethren relish it? What will malignants say? videlicet,

A skilful leech is better far Than half an hundred men of war, So he appear'd; and by his skill, No less than dint of sword, cou'd kill.

For he could coin, or counterfeit New words, with little or no wit; Words so debas'd and hard, no stone Was hard enough to touch them on; And when with hasty noise he spoke 'em; The ignorant for current took 'em;

A Babylonish dialect Which learned pedants much affect.

For rhetoric, he could not ope His mouth, but out there flew a trope; And when he happen'd to break off I' th' middle of his speech, or cough, H' had hard words,ready to show why, And tell what rules he did it by;

Beside, 't is known he could speak Greek As naturally as pigs squeak; That Latin was no more difficile Than to a blackbird 't is to whistle.