with Ralpho and the Widow. The verse consists of eight syllables, or four feet, a measure which, in unskilful hands, soon becomes tiresome, and will ever be a dangerous snare to meaner and less masterly imitators.

The Scotch, the Irish, the American Hudibras, are not worth mentioning: the translation into French, by an Englishman, is curious; it preserves the sense, but cannot keep up the humour. Prior seems to have come nearest the original, though he is sensible of his own inferiority, and says,

But, like poor Andrew, I advance,
False mimic of my master's dance;
Around the cord a while I sprawl,
And thence, tho' low, in earnest fall.

His Alma is neat and elegant, and his versification superior to Butler's; but his learning, knowledge, and wit, by no means equal. Prior, as Dr. Johnson says, had not Butler's exuberance of matter, and variety of illustration. The spangles of wit which he could afford, he knew how to polish, but he wanted the bullion of his master. Hudibras, then, may truly be said to be the first and last satire of the kind; for if we examine Lucian's Tragopodagra, and other dialogues, the Cæsars of Julian, Seneca's Apocolocyntosis, and

Or the mock deification of Claudius; a burlesque of Apotheosis,

some fragments of Varro, they will be found very different: the battle of the frogs and mice, commonly ascribed to Homer, and the Margites, generally allowed to be his, prove this species of poetry to be of great antiquity.

The inventor of the modern mock heroic was Alessandro Tassoni, born at Modena 1565. His Secchia rapita, or Rape of the Bucket, is founded on the popular account of the cause of the civil war between the inhabitants of Modena and Bologna, in the time of Frederic II. This bucket was long preserved, as a trophy, in the cathedral of Modena, suspended by the chain which fastened the gate of Bologna, through which the Modenese forced their passage, and seized the prize. It is written in the ottava Rima, the solemn measure of the Italian heroic poets, has gone through many editions, and been twice translated into French: it has, indeed, considerable merit, though the reader will scarcely see Elena trasformasi in una secchia. Tassoni travelled into Spain as first secretary to Cardinal Colonna, and died in an advanced age, in the court of Francis the First, duke of Modena :

or Anathanatosis. Reimarus renders it, non inter deos sed inter fatuos relatio, and quotes a proverb from Apuleius, Colocyntæ caput, for a fool. Colocynta is metaphorically put for any thing unusually large. λήμας κολοκύνταις in the Clouds of Aristophanes, is to have the eye swelled by an obstruction as big as a gourd.

he was highly esteemed for his abilities and extensive learning; but, like Mr. Butler's, his wit was applauded, and unrewarded, as appears from a portrait of him, with a fig in his hand, under which is written the following distich :

Dextra cur ficum quæris mea gestat inanem,
Longi operis merces hæc fuit, Aula dedit.

The next successful imitators of the mockheroic, have been Boileau, Garth, and Pope, whose respective works are too generally known, and too justly admired, to require, at this time, description or encomium. The Pucelle d'Orleans of Voltaire may be deemed an imitation of Hudibras, and is written in somewhat the same metre; but the latter, upon the whole, must be considered as an original species of poetry, a composition sui generis.

Unde nil majus generatur ipso;

Nec viget quidquam simile aut secundum.

Hudibras has been compared to the Satyre Menippée de la vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne, first published in France in the year 1593; the subject indeed is somewhat similar, a violent civil war excited by religious zeal, and many good men made the dupes of state politicians. After the death of Henry III. of France, the Duke de Mayence called together the states of the kingdom, to elect a successor, there being many pretenders to the crown; these intrigues were the foundation of the Satire of Menippée, so called from Menippus a cynic philosopher, and rough satirist, introducer of the burlesque species of dialogue. In this work are unveiled the different views, and interests of the several actors in those busy scenes, who, under the pretence of public good, consulted only their private advantage, passions and prejudices.

The book, which aims particularly at the Spanish party, went through various editions, from

3 It is sometimes called Higuero del infierno, or the fig-tree of Hell, alluding to the violent part the Spaniards took in the civil wars of France, and in allusion to the title of Seneca's Apocolocyntosis. By this fig-tree the author perhaps means the wonderful bir or banian described by Milton.

The fig-tree, not that kind for fruit renown'd,
But such as at this day to Indians known
In Malabar or Decan, spreads his arms,
Branching so broad and long, that in the ground
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother tree; a pillar'd shade

High over-arch'd, and echoing walks between.

Mr. Ives, in his Journey from Persia, thus speaks of this wonderful vegetable: "This is the Indian sacred tree, it grows to a "prodigious height, and its branches spread a great way. The "limbs drop down fibrous, which take root, and become another "tree, united by its branches to the first, and so continue to do, "until the tree cover a great extent of ground; the arches which "those different stocks make are Gothic, like those we see in West"minster Abbey, the stocks not being single, but appearing as if "composed of many stocks, are of a great circumference. There is " a certain solemnity accompanying these trees, nor do I remember " that I was ever under the cover of any of them, but that my mind

its first publication to 1726, when it was printed at Ratisbone in three volumes, with copious notes and index: it is still studied by antiquaries with delight, and in its day was as much admired as Hudibras. D'Aubigné says of it, il passe pour un chef d'œuvre en son gendre, et fut lue avec une egale avidité, et avec un plaisir merveilleux par les royalistes, par les politiques, par les Huguenots et par les ligueurs de toutes les especes.

M. de Thou's character of it is equally to its advantage. The principal author is said to be Monsieur le Roy, sometime chaplain to the Cardinal de Bourbon, whom Thuanus calls vir bonus, et a factione summè alienus.

This satire differs widely from our author's : like those of Varro, Seneca and Julian, it is a mixture of verse and prose, and though it contains much wit, and Mr. Butler had certainly read it with

" was at the time impressed with a reverential awe." From hence it seems, that both these authors thought Gothic architecture similar to embowered rows of trees.

The Indian fig-tree is described as of an immense size, capable of shading 800 or 1000 men, and some of them 3000 persons. In Mr. Marsden's History of Sumatra, the following is an account of the dimensions of a remarkable banyan tree near Banjer, twenty miles west of Patna, in Bengal. Diameter 363 to 375 feet, circumference of its shadow at noon 1116 feet, circumference of the several stems (in number 50 or 60) 911 feet.

* Henault says of this work, Peut-être que la satire Menippée ne fut guères moins utile à Henri IV. que la bataille d'Ivri: le ridicule a plus de force qu'on ne croit.