As white-pot, buttermilk, and curds, With other victual, which anon We farther shall dilate upon, When of his hose we come to treat, The cupboard where he kept his meat. And though not sword, yet cudgel-proof; 300 305 Who fear'd no blows but such as bruise. His breeches were of rugged woollen, And had been at the siege of Bullen 310 To old King Harry so well known, Some writers held they were his own. Through they were lined with many a piece Of ammunition bread and cheese, And fat black-puddings, proper food 315 For warriors that delight in blood. For, as we said, he always chose To carry vittle in his hose, That often tempted rats and mice The ammunition to surprise: 320 299. This line is referable to the comparative whiteness or lightness of some parts of Hudibras's prominent belly; and the 306th to the marks or wheals thereon (which constitute that whiteness), as if made by the blows of a cudgel; the resemblance of a cudgel being visible in the moon, in front of his person there. And when he put a hand but in They stoutly in defence on't stood, And from the wounded foe drew blood; And till th' were storm'd and beaten out, 325 And though knights errant, as some think, - -But let that pass at present, lest 319. The likeness of a rat and a mouse, as given in Fig. 4. 347 350 may be seen in the moon (in pale light), near the arm of Hudibras. 354. It may now be necessary to state, that the com. In it he melted lead for bullets, 355 To shoot at foes and sometimes pullets; To whom he bore so fell a grutch, He ne'er gave quarter t' any such. For want of fighting was grown rusty, 360 Of some body to hew and hack. 365 mon principle which I find adopted by all the ancient writers, (namely, that of conceiving the same thing to represent many different things, according to the resemblances to different objects which fancy may ascribe to it) is the governing principle also throughout this Poem. The basket-hilt of the Knight's sword, for instance, represented in Fig. 5. And so much scorn'd to lurk in case, This sword a dagger had his page, 375 380 386 is assigned by the Poet to various uses, according to such fancied resemblances; thus, likewise, the trencher-scraper, the knife, the pistol, Fig. 6. and the dagger of the Poem, are to be ascribed to the same prototype in the moon, situate a little to the right of the basket-hilted sword, before drawn in fig. 5. So again, the In th' holsters at his saddle-bow Two aged pistols he did stow, Among the surplus of such meat As in his hose he could not get. 391 These would inveigle rats with th' scent, 395 To forage when the cocks were bent; trencher itself, the mouse-trap, the pieces of cheese and bacon, the owl, Fig. 7. and the shoe, are all to be referred to another and the same prototype there, situate under the pistol just now pointed out, and introduced in fig. 6: and thus too, (if I may go out of my present subject for a moment,) it may be conceived to be not without foundation, that Hamlet, in his dialogue with Osric (in the play), compares the same cloud to a camel, an owzel, and a whale. This likewise is a proper occasion to mention another principle (if indeed it be not the same), which is likewise universally acted upon by the ancient writers, viz., that of making the same thing or country to represent, by subdivision or by union, many different things, characters, or personages, as is evidenced by the horses of the Knight and his Squire, which |