Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/155

CANTO II.] Either for life, or death, or sale, The gallows, or perpetual jail; For one wink of your pow'rful eye Must sentence him to live or die. His fiddle is your proper purchase, Won in the service of the Churches; And by your doom must be allow'd To be, or be no more, a Crowd: For tho' success did not confer Just title on the conqueror; Tho' dispensations were not strong Conclusions, whether right or wrong; Altho' out-goings did not confirm, And owning were but a mere term; Yet as the wicked have no right To th' creature, tho' usurp'd by might, The property is in the saint, From whom th' injuriously detain't; Of him they hold their luxuries, Their dogs, their horses, whores, and dice. Their riots, revels, masks, delights, Pimps, buffoons, fiddlers, parasites; All which the saints have title to, And ought t' enjoy, if th' had their due. What we take from them is no more Than what was ours by right before; For we are their true landlords still, And they our tenants but at will.
 * At this the Knight began to rouse,

And by degrees grow valorous: He star'd about, and seeing none Of all his foes remain but one, He snatch'd his weapon that lay near him, And from the ground began to rear him,