That th' authors of them are unknown, 135 140 143 Yet is not able to tell when It next fhall prophefy again); 150 Makes all her fuitors courfe and wait, Like a proud minister of state, And, when the 's ferious, in some freak, Extravagant, and vain, and weak, Attend her filly lazy pleasure, 155 Until the chance to be at leifure; Like hunting-fports, of those that write; 160 For thievery is but one fort, The learned fay, of hunting-fport. S4 Hence up firft 165 Hence 'tis that fome, who fet 170 175 180 185 SATIRE, SATIRE, IN TWO PARTS, Upon the Imperfection and Abuse of HUMAN LEARNING PART I. T is the nobleft act of human-reafon, Affume In the large General Dictionary, or Bayle's enlarged by Mr. Bernard, Birch, and Lockman, we are told by the learned editors, under the article Hudibras, that they were perfonally informed by the late Mr. Lon gueville, That amongst the genuine remains of Butler, which were in his hands, there was a poem, entitled The Hiftory of Learning.-To the fame purpofe is the following paffage, cited from The Poetical Regifter, vol. II. p. 21." In juftice to the public, it is thought proper to declare, that all the manufcripts Mr. But"ler left behind him are now in the cuftody of Mr. "Longueville (among which is one, entitled The Hifto"ry of Learning, written after the manner of Hudi"bras) and that not one line of thofe poems lately "published under his name is genuine." As thefe authorities must have given the world reafon to expect, in this Work, a poem of this fort, it be'comes neceffary for me to inform the public-that But ler Affume the legal right to disengage To all it was imbued with first, submit; Take ler did meditate a pretty long fatire upon the imperfection and abufe of Human Learning, but that he only finished this first part of it, though he has left very confiderable and interefting fragments of the remainder, fome of which I shall fubjoin. me The Poet's plan feems to have confifted of two parts; the firft, which he has executed, is to expofe the defects of human learning-from the wrong thods of education-from the natural imperfection of the human mind-and from that over-eagerness of men to know things above the reach of human capacity.The fecond, as far as one can judge by the Remains, and intended parts of it, was to have exemplified what he has afferted in the first; and ridiculed and fatirized the different branches of human learning, in characte rizing the philofopher, critic, orator, &c. Mr. Longueville might be led, by this, into the miftake of calling this work A Hiftory of Learning; or perhaps it might arife from Butler's having, in one plan, which he afterwards altered, begun with thefe two lines, The hiftory of learning is fo lame, That few can tell from whence at firft it came. What has been faid will, I flatter myself, be a fuffi cient apology for the printing an imperfect work, if the many good things to be met with in it does not make one unneceffary. However, for this reafon, I did not think fit to place it amongst his other Satires, which are perfect in their different ways. Take true or false for better or for worse, For Cuftom, though but ufher of the school O'er man, the heir of Reason, than brute beast, Born to the one, and to the other bred, 10 And trains him up with rudiments more false 15 Than Nature does her stupid animals; And that's one reafon why more care 's bestow'd So fubtly as the body's found to grow. 20 Though children, without study, pains, or thought, Are languages and vulgar notions taught, Improve their natural talents without care, And apprehend before they are aware, Yet as all ftrangers never leave the tones They have been us'd of children to pronounce, So moft men's reafon never can outgrow The difcipline it first receiv'd to know, 25 But renders words they first began to con, The end of all that 's after to be known, 30 And fets the help of education back, Worfe than, without it, man could ever lack; Who, therefore, finds the artificial'st fools Have not been chang'd i' th' cradle, but the schools, Where error, pedantry, and affectation, 35 Run them behind-hand with their education, And |