For disputants, like rams and bulls,

Do fight with arms that spring from sculls. 440

Last Colon came, bold man of war,
Destin'd to blows by fatal star;
Right expert in command of horse,
But cruel, and without remorse.
That which of Centaur long ago
Was said, and has been wrested to
Some other knights, was true of this :
He and his horse were of a piece :
One spirit did inform them both,
The self-same vigour, fury, wroth;
Yet he was much the rougher part,
And always had the harder heart,
Altho' his horse had been of those
That fed on man's flesh, as fame goes:

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• Last Colon came,] Colon is said, by Sir Robert L'Estrange, to be one Ned Perry, an ostler; possibly he had risen to some command in a regiment of horse.

"Altho' his horse had been of those

That fed on man's flesh, as fame goes:] The horses of Diomedes were said to have been fed with human flesh.

Non tibi succurrit crudi Diomedis imago,

Efferus humanâ qui dape pavit equas.

Ovid. Epist. Deianira Herculi.

The moral, perhaps, might be, that Diomede was ruined by keeping his horses, as Acteon was said to be devoured by his dogs, because he was ruined by keeping them: a good hint to a young man, qui gaudent equis, canibusque; the French say, of a man who has ruined himself by extravagance, il a mangé ses biens.

See the account of Duncan's horses in Shakespeare. (Macbeth, Act ii. sc. 4.)

Strange food for horse! and yet, alas!

455

It

may

be true, for flesh is grass. Sturdy he was, and no less able

Than Hercules to cleanse a stable;

As great a drover, and as great

A critic too, in hog or neat.

He ripp'd the womb up of his mother,

460

8

Dame Tellus,' 'cause she wanted fother,
And provender, wherewith to feed

Himself and his less cruel steed.

It was a question whether he,
Or's horse, were of a family

More worshipful; 'till antiquaries,

After th'ad almost por'd out their eyes,

Strange food for horse! and yet, alas!

465

It may be true, for flesh is grass.] Our poet takes a particular pleasure in bantering Sir Thomas Browne, author of the Vulgar Errors, and Religio Medici. In the latter of these tracts he had said, “All flesh is grass, not only metaphorically, but literally: for "all those creatures we behold, are but the herbs of the field di'gested into flesh in them, or more remotely carnified in ourselves.

Nay, farther we are, what we all abhor, anthropophagi and cani"bals; devourers not only of men but of ourselves, and that not in "allegory but positive truth; for all this mass of flesh which we be"hold came in at our mouth; this frame we look upon hath been upon our trenchers."

⚫ Than Hercules to cleanse a stable ;] Alluding to the fabulous story of Hercules, who cleansed the stables of Augeus, king of Elis, by turning the river Alpheus through them.

He ripp'd the womb up of his mother,

Dame Tellus,] This means no more than his ploughing the ground. The mock epic delights in exaggerating the most trifling circumstances. This whole character is full of wit and happy allusions.

Did very learnedly decide

The bus'ness on the horse's side,
And prov'd not only horse, but cows,
Nay pigs, were of the elder house:
For beasts, when man was but a piece
Of earth himself, did th' earth possess.
These worthies were the chief that led
The combatants2 each in the head
Of his command, with arms and rage,
Ready and longing to engage.
The num'rous rabble was drawn out
Of sev'ral countries round about,
From villages remotes and shies,
Of east and western hemispheres.
From foreign parishes and regions,
Of different manners, speech, religions,'
Came men and mastiffs; some to fight
For fame and honour, some for sight.
And now the field of death, the lists,
Were enter'd by antagonists,

And blood was ready to be broach'd,
When Hudibras in haste approach'd,

2 These worthies were the chief that led

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The combatants] All Butler's heroes are round-heads: the cavaliers are seldom mentioned in his poem. The reason may be, that his satire on the two predominant sects would not have had the same force from the mouth of a royalist. It is now founded on the acknowledgments and mutual recriminations of the parties exposed.

3

Of different manners, speech, religions,] In a thanksgiving sermon preached before the parliament on the taking of Chester, the preacher said, there were in London no less than one hundred and fifty different sects.

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