Quoth Ralpho, Nothing but th’ abuse
Of human learning you produce;
Learning, that cobweb of the brain,
Profane, erroneous, and vain; 1340
A trade of knowledge, as replete
As others are with fraud and cheat;
An art t’incumber gifts and wit,
And render both for nothing fit;
Makes Light unactive, dull, and troubled, 1345
Like little David in SAUL’s doublet;
A cheat that scholars put upon
Other mens’ reason and their own;
A fort of error, to ensconce
Absurdity and ignorance, 1350
That renders all the avenues
To truth impervious and abstruse,
By making plain things, in debate,
By art, perplex’d, and intricate
For nothing goes for sense or light 1355
That will not with old rules jump right: 
As if rules were not in the schools
Deriv’d from truth, but truth from rules. 
This pagan, heathenish invention
Is good for nothing but contention. 1360
For as, in sword-and-buckler fight,
All blows do on the target light;
So when men argue, the great’st part
O’ th’ contests falls on terms of art,
Until the fustian stuff be spent, 1365
And then they fall to th’ argument.

Quoth Hudibras Friend Ralph, thou hast
Out-run the constable at last: 
For thou art fallen on a new
Dispute, as senseless as untrue, 1370
But to the former opposite
And contrary as black to white;
Mere disparata; that concerning
Presbytery; this, human learning;
Two things s’averse, they never yet 1375
But in thy rambling fancy met. 
But I shall take a fit occasion
T’ evince thee by ratiocination,
Some other time, in place more proper
Than this we’re in; therefore let’s stop here, 1380
And rest our weary’d bones a-while,
Already tir’d with other toil.

NOTES TO PART I. CANTO III.

134 p First TRULLA stav’d, &c.] Staving and Tailing are terms of art used in the Bear-Garden, and signify there only the parting of dogs and bears:  Though they are used metaphorically in several other professions, for moderating; as law, divinity, hectoring, &c.

153 q Or like the late corrected leathern
      Ears of the Circumcised Brethren. 
Pryn, Bastwick, and Burton, who laid down their ears as proxies for their profession of the godly party, not long after maintained their right and title to the pillory to be as good and lawful as theirs who first of all took possession of it in their names.

328 r That old, &c.] Pygmalion, king of Tyre, was the son of Margenus, or Mechres, whom he succeeded, and lived 56 years, wherof he reigned 47.  Dido, his sister, was to have governed with him, but it was pretended the subjects thought it not convenient.  She married Sichaeus, who was the king’s uncle, and very rich; wherefore he put him to death; and Dido soon after departed the kingdom.  Poets say, Pygmalion was punished for the hatred he bore to women with the love he had to a statue.