Nor engine, nor device polemic, 315 (eques) as well as a martyr. But all heroes in romance have the appellation of Sir, as Sir Belianis of Greece, Sir Palmerin, &c. As to the patron saint of England, the legendary accounts assign the exploits and sufferings of George the Martyr to the times of Diocletian, or even to an æra still earlier, before George, the Arian bishop of Alexandria, was born; and the character given to that profligate prelate, by his contemporaries Amm. Marcellinus, and St. Epiphanius, is in direct variance with the high panegyric of the pious martyr, by Venantius Fortunatus in Justinian's time. Nor are the narratives of their deaths less inconsistent. All which considerations sufficiently invalidate the unsupported conjecture so invidiously adopted by some, that our guardian saint, instead of a christian hero, was in reality an avaricious and oppressive heretical usurper of Athanasius's see. But to return. There was a real Sir George St. George, who, with Sir Robert Newcomen, and Major Ormsby, was, in February 1643 (about our poet's time) made commissioner for the government of Connaught; and it is not improbable that this coincidence of names might strike forcibly on the playful imagination of Mr. Butler. It is whimsical too, that George Monk, in a collection of loyal songs, is said to have slain a most cruel dragon, meaning the Rump parliament; or, perhaps, the poet might mean to ridicule the presbyterians, who refused even to call the apostles Peter and Paul saints, much more St. George, but in mockery called them Sir Peter, Sir Paul, Sir George.-The sword of St. George is thus ludicrously described. His sword would serve for battle, or for dinner, if you please, When it had slain a Cheshire man 'twould toast a Cheshire cheese. 5 Nor engine, nor device polemic, Disease, nor doctor epidemic,] The plain meaning is—not military engine, nor stratagem, nor disease, nor doctor epidemic, ever destroyed so many. The inquisition, tortures, or persecutions, have nothing to do here. There is humour in joining the epithet epidemic to doctor, as well as to the disease; intimating, perhaps, that no constitution of the air is more dangerous than the approach of an itinerant practitioner of physic, Πολλῶν ἰατρῶν εἰσοδός μ ̓ ἀπώλεσεν. [Ex incerto Comico ap. Grot.] Tho' stor❜d with deletery med'cines," 8 To both the under worlds as he ;' Thus Juvenal Quot Themison ægros autumno occiderit uno. 320 325 66 Sat. x. 221. Butler, in his Genuine Remains, vol. ii. "bank is defined to be an epidemic physician." • Tho' stor'd with deletery med'cines,] Deletery, noxious, dangerous, from δηλέω, δηλητήριον. 'E'er sent so vast a colony To both the under worlds as he;] Virgil, in his sixth Æneid, describes both the Elysian Fields and Tartarus as below, and not far asunder. For he was of that noble trade That demi-gods and heroes made,] Very justly satirizing those that pride themselves on their military achievements. The general who massacres thousands, is called great and glorious; the assassin who kills a single man is hanged at Tyburn. Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit; hic diadema. And is, like others, glorious when Juvenal. Sat. xiii. 105. 'Tis great and large, but base, if mean:] Julius Cæsar is said to have fought fifty battles, and to have killed of the Gauls alone, eleven hundred ninety-two thousand men, and as many more in his civil wars. In the inscription which Pompey placed in the temple of Minerva, he professed that he had slain, or vanquished and taken, two millions one hundred and eighty-three thousand men. The former rides in triumph for it, So sacred, with vile bungleing.' Next these the brave Magnano came, Nor could the hardest iron hold out Against his blows, but they would through't. In magic he was deeply read, As he that made the brazen head;3 330 335 340 So sacred, with vile bungleing.] The last word is here lengthened into bungleing, for the sake of the metre. 2 Whose spoils upon his back he wore,] Meaning his budget made of pig's skin. 3 In magic he was deeply read, As he that made the brazen head;] The device of the brazen head, which was to speak a prophecy at a certain time, had by some been imputed to Grossa Testa, bishop of Lincoln, as appears from Gower, the old Welsh poet. [The assertion of Gower's being from Wales is Caxton's; but there is every reason to believe he was of the Gower family of Stitenham in Yorkshire. See Todd's Illustration of the Lives and Writings of Gower and Chaucer.] For of the great clerke Grostest I rede, howe busy that he was Profoundly skill'd in the black art, To forge, and make it for to telle He laide, but for the lachesse [negligence] Of halfe a minute of an houre, Fro first he began laboure, He loste all that he had do. Confessio Amantis, B. iv. 345 Others supposed that the design of making the brazen head originated with Albertus Magnus. But the generality of writers, and our poet among the rest, have ascribed it to Roger Bacon, a cordelier friar, who flourished in the thirteenth century, and is said to have known the use of the telescope. Mr. Beckwith, in his new edition of Blount's Fragmenta Antiquitatis, supposes Roger Bacon to have been born near Mekesburgh, now Mexborough, in the county of York, and that his famous brazen head was set up in a field at Rothwell, near Leeds. His great knowledge caused him to be thought a magician, the superior of his order put him in prison on that account, from whence he was delivered, and died A. D. 1292, aged 78. Some, however, believe the story of the head to be nothing more than a moral fable. 4 • Profoundly skill'd in the black art, As English Merlin, for his heart ;] This alludes to William Lilly the astrologer.-Merlin was a Welsh magician, who lived about the year 500. He was reckoned the prince of enchanters; one that could outdo and undo the enchantments of all others. Spenser, book i. c. vii. 36. It Merlin was, which whylome did excell All living wightes in might of magicke spell. There was also a Scotch Merlin, a prophet, called Merlinus Caledonius, or Merlin the Wild, who lived at Allelwyd about the year 570. Geoffry of Monmouth hath written the fabulous history of both these persons of the Briton, in his book de gestis Britonum, f. 51. ed. Ascens. 1508-of the Scot, in a Latin poem preserved in the Cotton Library. See Pinkerton's Inquiry into the History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 275. But far more skilful in the spheres, Are to true saints, or crow to crow. But far more skilful in the spheres, 350 355 360 Than he was at the sieve and shears.] The literal sense would be, that he was skilful in the heavenly spheres; that is, was a great astrologer but a sphere is properly any thing round, and the tinker's skill lay in mending pots and kettles, which are commonly of that shape. There was a kind of divination practised “impiâ "fraude aut anili superstitione"-a sieve was put upon the point of a pair of shears, and expected to turn round when the person or thing inquired after was named. This silly method of applying for information is mentioned by Theocritus, Idyll. 3. It is called Coscinomantia. Of warlike engines he was author, Devis'd for quick dispatch of slaughter:] This seems to be introduced to keep up the comparison. Roger Bacon is said to have invented gunpowder. It has been observed, that gunpowder was invented by a priest, and printing by a soldier. 'He was the first that e'er did teach To make, and how to stop, a breach.] Tinkers are said to mend one hole, and make two. |