Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/47

Rh Booth's conspiracy, with Presbyterians and Royalists, against the parliament: their overthrow, through the assistance of Ralph, means the defeat of Booth by the assistance of the Independents and other fanatics. These ideas are, per- haps, only the frenzy of a wild imagination, though there may be some lines that seem to favour the conceit.

Dryden and Addison have censured Butler for his double rhymes; the latter nowhere argues worse than upon this subject: "If," says he, "the thought in the couplet be good, the rhymes add little to it; and if bad, it will not be in the power of rhyme to recommend it; I am afraid that great numbers of those who admire the incomparable Hudibras, do it more on account of these doggrel rhymes, than the parts that really deserve admiration." This reflection affects equally all sorts of rhyme, which certainly can add nothing to the sense; but double rhymes are like the whimsical dress of Harlequin, which does not add to his wit, but sometimes increases the humour and drollery of it: they are not sought for, but, when they come easily, are always diverting: they are so seldom found in Hudibras, as hardly to be an object of censure, especially as the diction and the rhyme both suit well with the character of the hero.

It must be allowed that our poet does not exhibit his hero with the dignity of Cervantes: but the principal fault of the poem is, that the parts are unconnected, and the story deficient in sustained interest; the reader may leave off without being anxious for the fate of his hero; he sees only disjecti membra poetæ; but we should remember that the parts were published at long intervals, and that several of the different cantos were designed as satires on different subjects or extravagancies.

Fault has likewise been found, and perhaps justly, with Butler's too frequent elisions, the harshness of his numbers, and the omission of the signs of substantives; his inattention to grammar and syntax, which in some passages obscures his meaning; and the perplexity which sometimes arises from the amazing fruitfulness of his imagination, and extent