Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/129

CANTO II.] Ill has he read, that never hit On him in muses' deathless writ. He had a weapon keen and fierce, That thro' a bull-hide shield would pierce, And cut it in a thousand pieces, Tho' tougher than the Knight of Greece his, With whom his black-thumb'd ancestor Was comrade in the ten years' war: For when the restless Greeks sat down So many years before Troy town, And were renown'd, as Homer writes, For well-soled boots no less than fights; They owed that glory only to His ancestor, that made them so. Fast friend he was to Reformation, Until 'twas worn quite out of fashion; Next rectifier of wry law, And would make three to cure one flaw. Learned he was, and could take note, Transcribe, collect, translate, and quote: But preaching was his chiefest talent, Or argument, in which being valiant, He used to lay about, and stickle, Like ram or bull at conventicle: For disputants, like rams and bulls, Do fight with arms that spring from skulls.