Now thou hast got me for a Tartar,3

To make m' against my will take quarter;
Why dost not put me to the sword,

But cowardly fly from thy word?

Now thou hast got me for a Tartar,

:865.

To make m' against my will take quarter ;] The Tartars had much rather die in battle than take quarter. Hence the proverb, Thou hast caught a Tartar.-A man catches a Tartar when he falls into his own trap, or having a design upon another, is caught himself.

Help, help, cries one, I have caught a Tartar. Bring him along, answers his comrade. He will not come, says he. Then come without him, quoth the other. But he will not let me, says the Tartar-catcher. I have somewhere read the following lines:

Seres inter nationemque Tartaram

Flagrabat bellum, fortiter vero prælians
Ter ipse manu propriâ Tartarum occupans.
Extemplo exclamat-Tartarum prehendi manu;
Veniat ad me, Dux inquit exercitus,

At se venire velle Tartarus negat:

At tecum ducas illico-sed non vult sequi,

Tu solus venias-Vellem, sed non me sinit.

Plautus has an expression not much unlike this,-potitus est hostium, to signify he was taken prisoner.-Mr. Peck, see New Memoirs of Milton's Life, p. 237, explains it in a different manner. "Bajazet," says he, "was taken prisoner by Tamerlane, who, when "he first saw him, generously asked, 'Now, sir, if you had taken

me prisoner, as I have you, tell me, I pray, what you would have "done with me?' 'If I had taken you prisoner,' said the foolish “Turk, I would have thrust you under the table when I did eat, to

'gather up the crumbs with the dogs; when I rode out, I would "have made your neck a horsing-block; and when I travelled, you "also should have been carried along with me in an iron cage, for

66 6

every fool to hoot and shout at.' 'I thought to have used you "better,' said the gallant Tamerlane; but since you intended to "have served me thus, you have' (caught a Tartar, for hence I "reckon came that proverb), 'justly pronounced your doom.""

Quoth Hudibras, The day's thine own; Thou and thy stars have cast me down:

870

My laurels are transplanted now,

And flourish on thy conqu'ring brow:
My loss of honour's great enough,

Thou needst not brand it with a scoff:
Sarcasms may eclipse thine own,
But cannot blur my lost renown:
I am not now in fortune's power,
He that is down can fall no lower."
The ancient heroes were illust❜rous
For being benign, and not blust'rous
Against a vanquish'd foe: their swords
Were sharp and trenchant, not their words;
And did in fight but cut work out
T'employ their courtesies about."

Quoth she, Altho' thou hast deserv'd,
Base Slubberdegullion, to be serv'd

▲ He that is down can fall no lower.]

Qui decumbit humi, non habet unde cadat.

And did in fight but cut work out

875

880

885

T'employ their courtesies about.] See Cleveland, p. 144. in his letter to the Protector. "The most renowned heroes have ever with "such tenderness cherished their captives, that their swords did but cut out work for their courtesies." Thus Ovid:

Quo quis enim major, magis est placabilis iræ
Et faciles motus mens generosa capit.

And again the same:

6

Corpora magnanimo satis est prostrasse leoni
Pugna suum finem, cum jacet hostis, habet.

Ovid. Trist. lib. iii.

Slubberdegullion,] That is, a drivelling fool: to slubber or

slabber, in British, is to drivel; in the Teutonic, it signifies to slip

As thou didst vow to deal with me,
If thou hadst got the victory;
Yet I should rather act a part

That suits my fame, than thy desert.
Thy arms, thy liberty, beside
All that's on th' outside of thy hide,
Are mine by military law,"

890

Quoth Hudibras, It is too late

Of which I will not bate one straw;

The rest, thy life and limbs, once more,

895

Though doubly forfeit, I restore.

For me to treat or stipulate;

Yet those whom I expugn'd to-day,

900

What thou command'st I must obey;

Of thine own party, I let go,

And gave them life and freedom too,
Both dogs and bear, upon their parol,

Whom I took pris'ners in this quarrel.

Quoth Trulla, Whether thou or they Let one another run away,

905

Concerns not me; but was't not thou

That gave Crowdero quarter too?
Crowdero, whom in irons bound,

Thou basely threw'st into Lob's pound,

910

or slide, and so metaphorically to do a thing ill or faultily, or negligently; and gul, or gullion, the diminutive, a fool, or person easily imposed upon.

Are mine by military law,] In public duels all horses, pieces of broken armour, or other furniture that fell to the ground, after the combatants entered the lists, were the fees of the marshal.

Lob's pound,] A vulgar expression for any place of con

Where still he lies, and with regret
His generous bowels rage and fret:
But now thy carcase shall redeem,
And serve to be exchang'd for him.

This said, the Knight did straight submit,
And laid his weapons at her feet:
Next he disrob'd his gaberdine,
And with it did himself resign.
She took it, and forthwith divesting

The mantle that she wore, said, jesting,
Take that, and wear it for my sake;
Then threw it o'er his sturdy back:
And as the French, we conquer'd once,
Now give us laws for pantaloons,

The length of breeches, and the gathers,
Port-cannons, perriwigs, and feathers,

920

925

When their meetings his pulpit, which led,

finement, particularly the stocks.-Dr. Grey mentions a story of Mr. Lob, a preacher among the dissenters. were prohibited, he contrived a trap-door in through many dark windings, into a cellar. His adversaries once pursued him into these recesses, and, groping about, said to one another, that they were got into Lob's pound.

This gentleman, or one of the same name and calling, is mentioned by Mr. Prior, in his epistle to Fleetwood Shephard, esquire: So at pure barn of loud non-con,

Where with my granam I have gone,

When Lobb had sifted all his text,

And I well hop'd the pudding next,

"Now to apply," has plagu'd me more
Than all his villain cant before.

9 And as the French, we conquer'd once,

Now give us laws for pantaloons,

The length of breeches, and the gathers,

Port-cannons, perriwigs, and feathers,] Our successful battles in France have always been mentioned with pleasure; and we seem at

Just so the proud, insulting lass
Array'd and dighted Hudibras.'

no time to have been averse to the French fashions. Pantaloons were a kind of loose breeches, commonly made of silk, and puffed, which covered the legs, thighs, and part of the body. They are represented in some of Vandyke's pictures, and may be seen in the harlequin entertainments.-Port-cannons, were ornaments about the knees of the breeches; they were grown to such excess in France, that Molière was thought to have done good service, by laughing them out of fashion. Mr. Butler, in his Genuine Remains, vol. ii. p. 83, says of the huffing courtier, he walks in his Port-cannons like one that stalks in long grass. In his Genuine Remains, our poet often derides the violent imitation of French fashions. In the second volume is a satire entirely on this subject, which was a very proper object of ridicule, as after the Restoration, not only the politics of the court led to it, but, likewise, an earnest desire among the old cavaliers of avoiding the formal and precise gravity of the times immediately preceding. In the Pindaric Ode to the memory of Du Val, a poem allowed to be written by our author:

In France, the staple of new modes,

Where garbs and miens are current goods,'

That serves the ruder northern nations,

With methods of address and treat,

Prescribes new garnitures and fashions,
And how to drink, and how to eat,
No out of fashion wine or meat;
Conform their palates to the mode,
And relish that, and not the food;
And, rather than transgress the rule,
Eat kitchen-stuff, and stinking fowl;
For that which we call stinking here,
Is but piquant, and haut-gout, there.

Perriwigs were brought from France about the latter end of the reign of James the first, but not much in use 'till after the Restoration.*

Array'd and dighted Hudibras.] Dighted, from the Anglo-Saxon word digtan, to dress, fit out, polish.

* At first, they were of an immense size in large flowing curls, as we see them in eternal buckles in Westminster Abbey, and on other