The upright CERDON next advanc't, Of all his race the valiant'st: 410 CERDON the Great, renown'd in song, Like HERC'LES, for repair of wrong: He rais'd the low, and fortify'd The weak against the strongest side: Ill has he read, that never hit 415 On him in Muses' deathless writ. He had a weapon keen and fierce, That through a bull-hide shield wou'd pierce, And cut it in a thousand pieces, 420 Tho' tougher than the Knight of Greece his, With whom his black-thumb'd ancestor Was comrade in the ten years war: For when the restless Greeks sat down So many years before Troy town, 425 And were renown'd, as HOMER writes, For well-soal'd boots no less than fights, They ow'd that glory only to His ancestor, that made them so. Fast friend he was to REFORMATION, 430 Until 'twas worn quite out of fashion. Next rectifier of wry LAW, And wou'd make three to cure one flaw. Learned he was, and could take note, Transcribe, collect, translate, and quote. 435 But PREACHING was his chiefest talent, Or argument, in which b'ing valiant, He us'd to lay about and stickle, Like ram or bull, at conventicle: For disputants, like rams and bulls, 440 Do fight with arms that spring from skulls. Last COLON came, bold man of war, Destin'd to blows by fatal star; Right expert in command of horse; But cruel, and without remorse. 445 That which of CENTAUR long ago Was said, and has been wrested to Some other knights, was true of this; He and his horse were of a piece. One spirit did inform them both; 450 The self-same vigour, fury, wroth: Yet he was much the rougher part, And always had a harder heart; Although his horse had been of those That fed on man's flesh, as fame goes. 455 Strange food for horse! and yet, alas! It may be true, for flesh is grass. Sturdy he was, and no less able Than HERCULES to clean a stable; As great a drover, and as great 460 A critic too, in hog or neat. He ripp'd the womb up of his mother, Dame Tellus, 'cause she wanted fother And provender wherewith to feed Himself, and his less cruel steed. 465 It was a question, whether he Or's horse were of a family More worshipful: 'till antiquaries (After th' had almost por'd out their eyes) Did very learnedly decide 470 The business on the horse's side; And prov'd not only horse, but cows, Nay, pigs, were of the elder house: For beasts, when man was but a piece Of earth himself, did th' earth possess. 475