Those teeth fair Lyce must not show 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 THE shepherd heretofore did keep Whiles they, poor creatures, did rejoice But now, they, that were used to stray, So perfectly that they can guide To pay the tenth fleece they refuse, They know a trick worth two of that; And wear their fleece on their own back, Meat, drink, and cloth, and everything What silly animals be these, Themselves to please With fancies that they nothing need, Without the shepherd's careful eye! Ere they be ware, being made a prey Besides, they're subject to the rot, But the shepherd's skilful hand; Of his physic and his power The danger set before their eyes, – Not trusting to their own direction But to his red, his staff, submit ; For every sore a salve hath found, 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, To search the Moon by her own light; 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, 'If the society. should incline To attempt so glorious a design. This was the purpose of their meeting, 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 the optic glass his judging eye, Cried "Strange!"-then reinforced his sight Quoth he, "The inhabitants o' the Moon;- 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 And now both armies, highly enraged, That men whose natural eyes are out 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 And, if they chanced to fail of those, As clearly it may, by those that wear And from their trenches make a sally Who now begin to rout and fly. Have every summer their campaigns, And face their neighbours hand to hand, And spend the rest o' the year in lies, They still retain the antique course And custom of their ancestors; And always sing and fiddle to Things of the greatest weight they do." 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 As his dominions were, of Greece) Of th' Privolvans' original. That elephants are in the Moon, Since, from the greatest to the least, And heaven, like a Tartars' horde, With great and numerous droves is stored: 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. |