Those teeth fair Lyce must not show
If she would bite; her lovers, though
Like birds they stoop at seeming grapes,
Are disabused when first she gapes ;
The rotten bones discovered there
Show 'tis a painted sepulchre.

THOMAS WASHBOURNE.

[Born in 1606, died in 1687. He belonged to a good Worcestershire family, entered holy orders, and was on the royalist side, in the contest between the parliament and the king. His volume of verse is named Divine Poems].

UPON THE PEOPLE'S DENYING OF TITHES IN SOME
PLACES, AND EJECTING THEIR PASTORS.

THE shepherd heretofore did keep
And watch the sheep:

Whiles they, poor creatures, did rejoice
To hear his voice;

But now, they, that were used to stray,
Do know the way

So perfectly that they can guide
The shepherd when he goes aside.

To pay the tenth fleece they refuse,
As shepherd's dues.

They know a trick worth two of that;
They can grow fat,

And wear their fleece on their own back,
But let him lack

Meat, drink, and cloth, and everything
Which should support and comfort bring.

What silly animals be these,

Themselves to please

With fancies that they nothing need,
But safely feed

Without the shepherd's careful eye!
When lo! they die

Ere they be ware, being made a prey
Unto the wolf by night and day.

Besides, they're subject to the rot,
And God knows what
Diseases more, which they endure,
And none can cure

But the shepherd's skilful hand;
In need they stand

Of his physic and his power
To heal and help them every hour.

The danger set before their eyes, –
Let them be wise,

Not trusting to their own direction
Nor protection,

But to his red, his staff, submit ;
His art, his wit,

For every sore a salve hath found,
And will preserve them safe and sound.

SAMUEL BUTLER.

[The author of Hudibras was born in 1612 at Strensham, Worcestershire, son of a farmer; died in London, 25 September 1680].

THE ELEPHANT IN THE MOON.1

A LEARN'D Society of late,

The glory of a foreign state,
Agreed, upon a summer's night,

To search the Moon by her own light;
To make an inventory of all

Her real estate, and personal;

And make an accurate survey

Of all her lands, and how they lay,

As true as that of Ireland, where

The sly surveyors stole a shire: 2

To observe her country, how 'twas planted,
With what she abounded most, or wanted;
And make the proper'st observations
For settleing of new plantations,

'If the society. should incline

To attempt so glorious a design.

This was the purpose of their meeting,
For which they chose a time as fitting;
When at the full her radiant light
And influence too were at their height.
And now the lofty tube, the scale
With which they heaven itself assail,
Was mounted full against the Moon;
And all stood ready to fall on,
Impatient who should have the honour
To plant an ensign first upon her.
When one, who for his deep belief
Was virtuoso then in chief,

1 This is a satire on the Royal Society, first founded in 1645, and incorporated by royal charter in 1662. The notes here given are (very greatly) condensed from those in Mr. Robert Bell's careful edition of Butler.

2 Probably an allusion to Sir William Petty, who was employed to take a survey of Ireland in Cromwell's time, and was afterwards impeached for mismanagement in the distribution and allotments of land.

ter.

3 Lord Brouncker, the first President of the Royal Society under the charHe was a zealous member, and distinguished himself as a mathematician.

Approved the most profound and wise
To solve impossibilities,
Advancing gravely, to apply

To the optic glass his judging eye,

Cried "Strange!"-then reinforced his sight
Against the Moon with all his might,
And bent his penetrating brow,
As if he meant to gaze her through;
When all the rest began to admire,
And, like a train, from him took fire,
Surprised with wonder, beforehand,
At what they did not understand,
Cried out, impatient to know what
The matter was they wondered at.

Quoth he, "The inhabitants o' the Moon;-
Who, when the Sun shines hot at noon,1

Do live in cellars under ground

Of eight miles deep and eighty round,

In which at once they fortify

Against the sun and the enemy,

Which they count towns and cities there,—

Because their people's civiller

Than those rude peasants that are found

To live upon the upper ground,

2

Called Privolvans, with whom they are
Perpetually in open war.

And now both armies, highly enraged,
Are in a bloody fight engaged,
And many fall on both sides slain,
As by the glass 'tis clear and plain.
Look quickly then, that every one
May see the fight before 'tis done."
With that a great philosopher,
Admired and famous far and near,3
As one of singular invention,
But universal comprehension,
Applied one eye and half a nose
Unto the optic engine close.
For he had lately undertook
To prove, and publish in a book,

That men whose natural eyes are out
May, by more powerful art, be brought

1 The notion of digging caverns to seek shelter in from the great heat of the sun is a satire upon one of Kepler's speculations.

2 Kepler called the earth volva, because of its diurnal revolutions; the inhabitants of the moon who live on the side facing the earth he named Subvolvani, because they enjoy the sight of our world; and the others, who live on the opposite side, he named Privolvani, because they are deprived of that privilege.

3 There is some reason to think that Sir Christopher Wren is here glanced at, but some of the details apply to Sir Kenelm Digby instead.

To see with the empty holes as plain
As if their eyes were in again,

And, if they chanced to fail of those,
To make an optic of a nose;

As clearly it may, by those that wear
But spectacles, be made appear;
By which both senses being united
Does render them much better-sighted.
This great man, having fixed both sights
To view the formidable heights,
Observed his best, and then cried out,-
"The battle's desperately fought;
The gallant Subvolvani rally,

And from their trenches make a sally
Upon the stubborn enemy,

Who now begin to rout and fly.
These silly ranting Privolvans

Have every summer their campaigns,
And muster, like the warlike sons
Of Rawhead and of Bloodybones,
As numerous as Soland geese
I' the islands of the Orcades,
Courageously to make a stand,

And face their neighbours hand to hand,
Until the longed-for winter's come;
And then return in triumph home,

And spend the rest o' the year in lies,
And vapouring of their victories.
From the old Arcadians they're believed
To be, before the Moon, derived;
And, when her orb was new created,
To people her were thence translated.
For, as the Arcadians were reputed
Of all the Grecians the most stupid,
Whom nothing in the world could bring
To civil life, but fiddleing,

They still retain the antique course

And custom of their ancestors;

And always sing and fiddle to

Things of the greatest weight they do."
While thus the learn'd man entertains

The assembly with the Privolvans,

Another of as great renown

And solid judgment in the Moon,

That understood her various soils,

And which produced best genet-moyles,1

1 A species of sweet apple, generally called moyle. This may be an allusion to Evelyn, who speaks of the genet-moyle in his Pomona, a treatise on fruittrees annexed to the Sylva, published in 1664 "by express order of the Royal Society."

And in the register of fame
Had entered his long-living name,-
After he had pored long and hard
In the engine, gave a start, and stared.
Quoth he: "A stranger sight appears
Than e'er was seen in all the spheres,
A wonder more unparallelled
Than ever mortal tube beheld;
An elephant from one of those
Two mighty armies is broke loose,1
And with the horror of the fight
Appears amazed, and in a fright;
Look quickly, lest the sight of us
Should cause the startled beast to imboss.
It is a large one, far more great
Than e'er was bred in Afric yet;
From which we boldly may infer
The moon is much the fruitfuller.
And, since the mighty Pyrrhus brought
Those living castles first, 'tis thought,
Against the Romans in the field,
It may an argument be held
(Arcadia being but a piece,

As his dominions were, of Greece)
To prove what this illustrious person
Has made so noble a discourse on;
And amply satisfied us all

Of th' Privolvans' original.

That elephants are in the Moon,
Though we had now discovered none,
Is easily made manifest;

Since, from the greatest to the least,
All other stars and constellations
Have cattle of all sorts of nations,

And heaven, like a Tartars' horde,

With great and numerous droves is stored:
And, if the Moon produce by nature

A people of so vast a stature,

'Tis consequent she should bring forth

Far greater beasts too than the earth,

As by the best accounts appears

Of all our great'st discoverers;

And that those monstrous creatures there

Are not such rarities as here."

Meanwhile the rest had had a sight

Of all particulars o' the fight;

1 The story is related of Sir Paul Neal, one of the early promoters of the Royal Society, who is said to have announced the discovery of an elephant in the moon, which turned out upon investigation to be a mouse that had got into the telescope. 2 Properly imbosk, to hide in bushes.