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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Extracts from Hudibras: The Muse of Doggerel

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Samuel Butler (1612–1680)

Extracts from Hudibras: The Muse of Doggerel

[From Part I.]

THOU that with ale or viler liquors

Didst inspire Withers, Prynne, and Vickars,

And force them, though it was in spite

Of nature and their stars, to write;

Who (as we find in sullen writs

And cross-grained works of modern wits)

With vanity, opinion, want,

The wonder of the ignorant,

The praises of the author, penned

By himself or wit-ensuring friend,

The itch of picture in the front

With bays and wicked rhymes upon ’t

(All that is left o’ the Forkèd Hill

To make men scribble without skill),

Canst make a poet, spite of Fate,

And teach all people to translate

Though out of languages in which

They understand no part of speech….