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their religion into their own hands again. This is a lively and 85 cheerful presage of our happy success and victory. For as in a body when the blood is fresh, the spirits pure and vigorous, not only to vital, but to rational faculties, and those in the acutest and the pertest* operations of wit and subtlety, it argues in what good plight* and constitution the body is; so go when the cheerfulness of the people is so sprightly up as that it has not only wherewith to guard well its own freedom and safety, but to spare, and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points of controversy and new invention, it betokens us not degenerated, nor drooping to a fatal decay, by casting off the old 95 and wrinkled skin of corruption to outlive these pangs, and wax young again, entering the glorious ways of truth and prosperous virtue, destined to become great and honorable in these latter ages.

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4. Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation 100 rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing* her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam, purging and unscaling her long-abused sight at the

88. not only to

not only in regard to.

89. pertest, briskest, liveliest.

90. plight, condition.

which here means excited, stirred up.

96. wax, become.

91. sprightly. The word is here used 102. mewing, renewing by moulting, or as an adverb modifying "up," | shedding feathers, as a bird.

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-85, 86. lively and cheerful presage. Milton frequently uses pairs of adjectives and nouns, Sometimes they raise different images, and at other times the second merely adds emphasis. Point out examples in the subsequent parts of this piece, and distinguish between double-imaged and merely emphatic pairs.

87. the spirits pure. Supply the ellipsis, and what is now deemed bad grammar will appear; state the fault.

91. is so sprightly up. State the grammatical construction of these words. 95. by casting off. From what is the metaphor drawn?

100-108. Methinks I see... schisms. Point out the two similes. Which is the grander?-Explain "Methinks." What is its subject?—in my mind: that is, in his "mind's eye," so that the sentence is an example of the figure vision. (See Def. 24.) The whole passage fairly glows with celestial fire.-It has been

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fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of 105 timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms.

105. noise, set, company.

106. flocking birds: that is, those that

"lone-flying" birds, like the eagle.

hover about in companies-not | 108. gabble, meaningless sounds.

pointed out that a rhythmical movement pervades this passage, the character

of which appears from the following division:

"Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation

Rousing herself like a strong man after sleep,

And shaking her invincible locks;

Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth,

And kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam,
Purging and unscaling her long-abused sight

At the fountain itself of heavenly radiance;

While the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds,

With those also that love the twilight,

Flutter about, amazed at what she means,

And in their envious gabble would prognosticate

A year of sects and schisms."

HALLAM'S CRITIQUE ON BUTLER'S HUDIBRAS.

1. Hudibras was incomparably more popular than Paradise Lost: no poem in our language rose at once to greater reputation. Nor can this be called ephemeral, like most political poetry. For at least half a century after its publication, it was

generally read and perpetually quoted. The wit of Butler has still preserved many lines; but Hudibras now attracts comparatively few readers. The eulogies of Johnson' seem rather adapted to what he remembered to have been the fame of Butler than to the feelings of the surrounding generation; and since his time new sources of amusement have sprung up, and writers of a more intelligible pleasantry have superseded those of the seventeenth century.

2. In the fiction of Hudibras there was never much to divert the reader, and there is still less left at present. But what has been censured as a fault-the length of dialogue, which puts the fiction out of sight—is, in fact, the source of all the pleasure that the work affords. The sense of Butler is masculine, his wit inexhaustible, and it is supplied from every source of reading and observation. But these sources are often so unknown to the reader that the wit loses its effect through the obscurity of its allusions, and he yields to the bane of wit-a purblind, molelike pedantry. His versification is sometimes spirited, and his rhymes humorous; yet he wants that ease and flow which we require in light poetry.

"The poem of Hudibras is one of those compositions of which a nation may justly boast; as the images which it exhibits are domestic, the sentiments unborrowed and unexpected, and the strain of diction original and peculiar. ... If inexhaustible wit could give perpetual pleasure, no eye could ever leave half read the work of Butler; for what poet has ever brought so many remote images so happily together? It is scarcely possible to peruse a page without finding some association of images never found before. By the first paragraph the reader is amused, by the next he is delighted, and by a few more, strained to astonishment."-DR. JOHNSON: Lives of the Poets.

EXTRACTS FROM HUDIBRAS.

[INTRODUCTION.-Hudibras is a political satire, written in the mock-heroic vein, its aim being to ridicule the Puritans. There is, properly speaking, no plot in the poem. Sir Hudibras and his squire go forth to stop the amusements of the common people, against which the Rump Parliament has passed some severe laws. "It is," says Angus, "in the description of the scenes in which they mingle, in the sketches of character, and in the most humorous dialogue in which the two heroes indulge that the power of the book consists." The meter is iambic tetrameter-that is, the octosyllabic line of the legends of the Round Table and of the old Norman romances-and is scanned thus: When civil dud'- | geon first' | grew high'.]

I.-ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF HUDIBRAS.

When civil dudgeon* first grew high,
And men fell out they knew not why;
When hard words, jealousies, and fears
Set folks together by the ears;

When gospel-trumpeter, surrounded

With long-eared rout, to battle sounded;

NOTES. Line 1. dudgeon, fury. By 2. they knew not why. This is, of course,

"civil dudgeon" is meant the

civil war which broke out in

England in 1642; between Par

a royalist view; the stern Puritans thought they knew pretty well "why" they "fell out."

liament and Charles I. The 3. hard words. The reference is to the
parliamentarians, in general, be-
longed to the Puritan or Presby-
terian sect; while the royalists, 5.
who called themselves Cava-
liers, were Episcopalians. The
conduct of the war on the side
of Parliament soon fell into the
hands of Oliver Cromwell, who
carried it to a successful issue. 6. long-eared rout.
Charles I. was executed in 1649,
and Cromwell became Lord
Protector of England; but the
house of Stuart was restored in
1660 in the person of Charles
II.

uncouth religious terms employed by the Presbyterians. gospel-trumpeter. The reference is to the Puritan preachers, who, by their denunciations of royalty and episcopacy, did so much to bring about the state of things that precipitated the civil war.

"Rout = crew,

set. The Puritans were called, in derision, Roundheads, on account of their practice of cropping their hair short-a fashion which "made their ears appear to greater advantage."

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-I-10. When civil. . . a-colonelling. What kind of sentence is this rhetorically?-What effect is gained by employing the term "dudgeon," a word belonging to the diction of burlesque?