—  the  Sancho  Pan?a  of  this  odious  Quixote  —  is  the  satiric  portrait  of
the  sour,  wrong-headed,  but  more  enthusiastic  Independent  sect. Tlie
versification  adopted  by  Butler,  as  well  as  the  name  of  his  hero,  is
drawn  from  the  old  Anglo-Norman  Trouvfere  poets,  and  the  Legends  of
the  Round  Table;  and  the  baseness  of  the  incidents,  the  minuteness  of
the  details,  and  the  long  dialogues  between  the  personages,  form  a
parody  the  comic  impression  of  which  is  heightened  when  we  ihink  of
the  stately  incidents  of  which  the  poem  is  a  burlesque. Sallying  foi-th
to  stop  the  popular  amusements,  Sir  Hudibras  and  his  Squire  encoun-
ter a  procession  of  ragamuflSns  conducting  a  bear  to  the  place  of
combat. They  refuse  to  disperse  at  the  summons  of  the  knight,  when
a  furious  mock-heroic  battle  ensues,  in  which,  after  varying  fortunes,
Hudibras  is  victorious,  and  succeeds  in  incarcerating  in  the  parish
stocks  the  principal  delinquents. Their  coftirades  i-eturn  to  the  charge,
liberate  them,  and  place  in  durance  in  their  stead  the  Knight  and
Squire,  who  are  in  their  turn  liberated  by  a  rich  widow,  to  whom  Sir
Hudibras,  purely  from  interested  motives,  is  paying  his  court. Hudir
bras  afterwards  visits  the  lady,  and  receives  a  sound  beating  from  her
servants  disguised, as  devils;  and  he  afterwards  consults  a  lawyer  and
an  astrologer  to  obtain  revenge  and  satisfaction. The  merit,  however,
and  the  interest  of  this  extraordinary  poem  by  no  means  consist  in  its
plot. Such  incidents  as  are  introduced  are  indeed  desCJubed  with
extraordinary  animation  and  a  grotesque  richness  of  inversion;  but
there  is  a  complete  want  of  unity  and  connection  of  interestv^nd  there
cannot  be  traced  any  general  combination  of  events  inta  an  intrigue,
or  leading  to  a  catastrophe. ,

A  long  interval  elapsed  between  the  publication  of  the  first  and  last
canto,  and  in  that  interval  the  politics  of  the  day  had  undergone  a
confjjlete  change. Butler,  whose  main  object  was  to  satirize  the  follies
and  wickedness  of  the  reigning  party,  was  obliged  to  direct  his  shafts
against  quite  other  vices  and  totally  different  persons  :  thus  in  the  last
canto  he  describes  the  general  breaking  up  of  the  Rump  Parliament,
and  the  events  immediately  preceding  the  5-estoration. 