HUDIBRAS. CANTO II. THERE was an ancient sage philosopher There was an ancient sage philosopher That had read Alexander Ross over,] Empedocles, a Pythagorean philosopher and poet, held, that friendship and discord were principles which regulated the four elements that compose the universe. The first occasioned their coalition, the second their separation, or, in the poet's own words, preserved in Diogen. Laert. edit. Meibom. vol. i. p. 538. *Αλλοτε μὲν φιλότητι συνερχόμεν ̓ εἰς ἓν ἅπαντα, *Αλλοτε δ ̓ αὖ δίχ ̓ ἕκαστα φορεύμενα νείκεος ἔχθει. See more in Mer. Casaubon's note on the passage. The great anachronism increases the humour. Empedocles, the philosopher here alluded to, lived about 2100 years before Alexander Ross. "Agrigentinum quidem, doctum quendam virum, carminibus græcis vaticinatum ferunt: quæ in rerum natura, totoque mundo “constarent, quæque moverentur, ea contrahere amicitiam, dissipare "discordiam." Cicero de Amicitiâ. The Spectator, No. 60, says, he has heard these lines of Hudibras more frequently quoted than the finest pieces of wit in the whole poem:-the jingle of the double rhime has something in it that tickles the ear-Alexander Ross was a very voluminous writer, and chaplain to Charles the first; but most of his books were written in the reign of James the first. He answered Sir Thomas Brown's Pseudoxia and Religio Medici, under the title of Medicus Medicatus. Just so romances are, for what else Is in them all but love and battles ?2 O' th' first of these w' have no great matter To copy out in frays and fights, مه 10 Like those that do a whole street raze,* 15 2 Just so romances are, for what else Is in them all but love and battles?] Mr. Butler, in his MS. Common Place-book, says, Love and fighting is the sum Of all romances, from Tom Thumb To Arthur, Gondibert, and Hudibras, Of lovers, the poet in his MS. says, Lovers, like wrestlers, when they do not lay Their hold below the girdle, use fair play. He adds in prose-Although Love is said to overcome all things, yet at long-run, there is nothing almost that does not overcome Love; whereby it seems, Love does not know how to use its victory. 3 For to make some well-sounding name] Γλαῦκόν τε, Μέδοντά τε, Θερσίλοχόν τε -Homer. 17. 216. Copied exactly by Virgil. Æn. vi. 483. Glaucumque, Medontaque, Thersilochumque. This is imitated in all the romances of our author's time. * Like those that do a whole street raze,] Alluding to the Protector Somerset, who, in the reign of Edward VI. pulled down two churches, part of St. Paul's, and three bishops' houses, to build Somerset House in the Strand. They never care how many others For when a giant's slain in fight, 20 25 And mow'd o'erthwart, or cleft downright, 30 A man should have his brains beat out, They kill, without regard of mothers,] 35 • Make up some fierce, dead-doing man,] Thus Beaumont and Fletcher" Stay thy dead-doing hand." 7 So a wild Tartar,-] In Carazan, a province to the north-east of Tartary, Dr. Heylin says, they have an use, when any stranger comes into their houses of an handsome shape, to kill him in the night; not out of desire of spoil, or to eat his body; but that the "soul of such a comely person might remain among them." 8 As men kill beavers for their stones.] That beavers bite off their testicles is a vulgar error; but what is hère implied is true enough, And as an equal friend to both The Knight and Bear, but more to troth ;' But give to each a due desert, And never coin a formal lie on't, To make the Knight o'ercome the giant. They rode, but authors having not But let that pass; they now begun 40 45 50 namely, that the testes, or their capsulæ, furnish a medicinal drug of value. imitatus castora qui se Eunuchum ipse facit, cupiens evadere damno Testiculorum; adeo medicatum intelligit inguen. 9 And as an equal friend to both Juvenal. Sat. xii. 1. 34. The Knight and Bear, but more to troth ;] Amicus Socrates, amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas. 1 That is to say, whether tollutation, As they do term't, or succussation,] Tollutation is pacing, or ambling, moving per latera, as Sir Thomas Brown says, that is, lifting both legs of one side together-Succussation, or trotting, that is, lifting one foot before, and the cross foot behind. For as whipp'd tops and bandy'd balls, So horses they affirm to be Mere engines made by geometry, And were invented first from engines, As Indian Britains were from Penguins.3 For as whipp'd tops and bandy'd balls, 55 60 The learned hold, are animals;] The atomic philosophers Democritus, Epicurus, &c. and some of the moderns likewise, as Des Cartes, Hobbes, and others, will not allow animals to have a spontaneous and living principle in them, but maintain that life and sensation are generated out of matter, from the contexture of atoms, or some peculiar composition of magnitudes, figures, sites, and motions, and consequently that they are nothing but local motion and mechanism. By which argument tops and balls, whilst they are in motion, seem to be as much animated as dogs and horses. Mr. Boyle, in his Experiments, printed in 1659, observes how like animals (men excepted) are to mechanical instruments. 3 As Indian Britains were from Penguins.] This is meant to burlesque the idea of Mr. Selden, and others, that America had formerly been discovered by the Britons or Welsh; which they had inferred from the similarity of some words in the two languages; Penguin, the name of a bird, with a white head in America, in British signifies a white rock. Mr. Selden, in his note on Drayton's Polyolbion, says, that Madoc, brother to David ap Owen, prince of Wales, made a sea voyage to Florida, about the year 1170. David Powell, in his History of Wales, reporteth, that one Madoc, son of Owen Gwinedsh, prince of Wales, some hundred years before Columbus discovered the West Indies, sailed into those parts, and planted a colony. The simile runs thus; horses are said to be invented from engines, and things without sense and reason, as Welshmen are said to have sailed to the Indies; both upon the like grounds, and with as much probability. My worthy and ingenious friend Mr. Pennant, though zealous for the honour of his native country, yet cannot allow his countrymen the merit of having sailed to America before the time of Columbus : the proper name of these birds, saith he, (Philosoph. Transactions, |