Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/85

CANTO I.] He'd extract numbers out of matter, And keep them in a glass, like water, Of sov'reign power to make men wise: For, dropt in blear, thick-sighted eyes, They'd make them see in darkest night, Like owls, tho' purblind in the light. By help of these, as he profest, He had first matter seen undrest: He took her naked, all alone, Before one rag of form was on. The chaos too he had descry'd, And seen quite thro', or else he lied: Not that of pasteboard, which men shew For groats, at fair of Barthol'mew; But its great grandsire, first o' th' name, Whence that and Reformation came, Both cousin-germans, and right able T'inveigle and draw in the rabble: But Reformation was, some say, O' th' younger house to puppet-play. He could foretell wbats'ever was, By consequence, to come to pass: As death of great men, alterations, Diseases, battles, inundations: All this without th' eclipse of th' sun,