And with inextricable doubt, Besets my puzzled wits about: For though the dame has been my bail, Yet, as a dog committed close For some offence, by chance breaks loose, So tho' my ancle she has quitted, To plead my cause, and answer for't, • Yet, as a dog committed close For some offence, by chance breaks loose, And quits his clog; but all`in vain, 65 70 75 He still draws after him his chain:] Persius applies this simile to the case of a person who is well inclined, but cannot resolve to be uniformly virtuous. Nec tu, cum obstiteris semel, instantique negaris Sat. V. v. 157. Yet triumph not; say not, my bands are broke, Petrarch has applied this simile to love, as well as our author. And like a bail'd and mainpriz'd lover,] Mainprized signifies one delivered by the judge into the custody of such as shall undertake to see him forthcoming at the day appointed. Unless the judge do partial prove, How can I e'er expect to have her, What I'm to prove by argument, And that way, too, my proof may fail. And solve the problems of my fate; Or find, by necromantic art, How far the dest'nies take my part; 5 But faith, and love, and honour lost, α 80 85 90 95 Shall be reduc'd ta` knight 'o' th' post :] This is, one who in court, or before a magistrate, will swear as he hath been previously directed. I have somewhere read that such persons formerly plied about the portico in the Temple, and from thence were called knights of the post and knights, perhaps, from the knights templars being buried in the adjoining church. [A hireling evidence; a knight dubbed at the whipping post, or pillory. Johnson's Dictionary by Todd.] • Oh! that I could enucleate,] Explain, or open; an expression taken from the cracking of a nut. 12 Or find, by necromantic art,] Necromancy, or the black art, as it is vulgarly called, is the faculty of revealing future events, from For if I were not more than certain. 100 To win and wear her, and her fortune, consultation with demons, or with departed spirits. It is called the black art, because the ignorant writers of the middle age, mistaking the etymology, write it nigromantia: or because the devil was painted black. For tho' an oath obliges not, Where any thing is to be got,] The notions of the dissenters with regard to this, and other points of a like nature, are stated more at large in some preceding cantos. • A cunning man, hight Sidrophel,] Some have thought that the character of Sidrophel was intended for sir Paul Neal; but the author, probably, here meant it for William Lilly, the famous astrologer and almanack maker, who at times sided with the parliament. He was consulted by the royalists, with the king's privity, whether the king should escape from Hampton-court, whether he should sign the propositions of the parliament, &c. and had twenty pounds for his opinion. See the life of A. Wood, Oxford, 1772, p. 101, 102. and his own life, in which are many curious particulars. Till the king's affairs declined he was a cavalier, but after the year 1645 he engaged body and soul in the cause of the parliament: he was one of the close committee to consult about the king's execution. At the latter end of his life he resided at Hersham, in the parish of Walton-upon-Thames, practised physic, and went often to Kingston to attend his patients. But probably the most profitable trade of Dee, Kelly, Lilly, and others of that class, was that of spies, which they were for any country or party that employed them. Hight, that is, called, from the A. S. hatan, to call, That deals in destiny's dark counsels, And love proves cross and humoursome; Quoth Hudibras, This Sidrophel I've heard of, and shou'd like it well, If thou canst prove the saints have freedom 110 115 120 125 1 And sage opinions of the moon sells,] i. e. the omens which he collects from the appearance of the moon. • When gecse and pullen are seduc'd,] Pullen, that is, poultry. 3 When butter does refuse to come,] When a country wench, says Mr. Selden in his Table Talk, cannot get her butter to come, she says the witch is in the churn. ♦ If thou canst prove the saints have freedom To go to sorc'rers when they need 'em.] It was a question much agitated about the year 1570, Utrum liceat homini christiano sortiariorum operâ et auxilio uti. Says Ralpho, There's no doubt of that; Those principles I've quoted late, Prove that the godly may allege 5 For any thing their privilege, Hang'd threescore of 'em in one shire ? 130 135 140 If they, by subtle stratagem,] Dolus an Virtus, quis in hoste requirat? 6 Has not this present parlament A ledger to the devil sent,] That is, an ambassador. The person meant was Hopkins, the noted witch-finder for the associated counties. 7 Fully empower'd to treat about Finding revolted witches out?] That is, revolted from the parlia ment. 8 And has not he, within a year, Hang'd threescore of 'em in one shire?] It is incredible what a number of poor, sick, and decrepit wretches were put to death, under the pretence of their being witches. Hopkins occasioned threescore to be hung in one year, in the county of Suffolk. See Dr. Hutchinson, p. 59. Dr. Grey says, he has seen an account of between three and four thousand that suffered, in the king's dominions, from the year 1640 to the king's restoration. "In December 1649," says Whitelock, many witches were apprehended. The witch-trier taking a pin, 66 |