Hudibras, in Three Parts, Written in the Time of the Late WarsButler, Samuel
General
Hudibras, in Three Parts, Written in the Time of the Late Wars
Butler, Samuel
English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700
925 s And as the FRENCH we conquer'd once,
Now give us Laws for PANTALOONS, &c.
Pantaloons and Port-Cannons were some of the fantastick
fashions wherein we aped the French.
At quisquis Insula satus Britannica
Sic patria insolens fastidiet suam,
Ut more simiae laboret fingere,
Et aemulari Gallicas ineptias,
Et omni Gallo ego hunc opinor ebrium;
Ergo ex Britanno, ut Gallus esse nititur,
Sic Dii jubete, fiat ex Galle Capus.
THOMAS MORE.
Gallus is a river in Phrygia; rising out of the mountains of
Celenae, and discharging itself into the river Sanger, the water
of which is of that admirable quality, that, being moderately
drank, it purges the brain, and cures madness; but largely drank,
it makes men frantick. Pliny, Horatius.
1123 t A learned divine in King James's time wrote a polemick
work against the Pope, and gave it that unlucky nick-name of
The Pope's Bull baited.
1166 u Canonical Cravat, &c.] Smectymnuus was a club of five
parlimentary holders-forth; the characters of whose names and
talents were by themselves expressed in that senseless and
insignificant word. They wore handkerchiefs about their necks
for a mark of distinction (as the Officers of the Parliament
Army then did) which afterwards degenerated into carnal
cravats. About the beginning of the long Parliament, in the year
1641, these five wrote a book against Episcopacy and the
Common Prayer, to which they all subscribed their names;
being Stephen Marshal, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young,
Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow, and from thence
they and their followers were called Smectymnians. They are
remarkable for another pious book, which they wrote some time
after that, intitled, The Kings Cabinet unlocked, wherein all the
chaste and endearing expressions, in the letters that passed
betwixt his Majesty King Charles I. and his Royal Consort are
by these painful labourers in the Devil's vineyard turned into
burlesque and ridicule. Their books were answered with as
much calmness and genteelness of expression, and as much
learning and honesty, b. the Rev. Mr. Symonds, then a deprived
clergyman, as theirs was stuffed with malice, spleen, and
rascally invectives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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