NASH'S HU DIDR AS.
BUTLER is a memorable example of success inducing destruction. His satire hastened— though we cannot think with his admirers that it altogether caused — the downial of useless, pretended, or scholastic learning,, of ridiculous and superstitious practices, anti of sour fanaticism. But death followed triumph. When the pedantry, fully, fraud, and hypocrisy which he ridiculed, vanished, the ridicule was no longer understood. The mraning of the lines in Hudibrus is indeed easy enough ef comprehension; bet the allusion, either learned or local, with which almost every couplet teems, can only be fully appreciated after years of labo- rious study, and w ill not perhaps be felt even then. Truly- to relish BUTLER, we conceive to be impossible ; to get a notion of what the flavour might have been, requires a learned and skilful guide. With the labours of former commentators, and the new materials which accident and research have brought to light, or whose hiding-holes they have pointed out, it would not be difficult to produce a better edition of Hudibras than has yet appeared. Till this arrives, we must•be content with the editions already in existence ; and of these Dr. NASH'S is amongst the best. The worthy Doctor was a country parson and magistrate, given to the study of antiquities, especially of those relating to county history. With Worcestershire he was connected for some fifty years ; and as BUTLER was a Worcestershire man, he was natu- rally led to inquire into the circumstances of his flintily and the events of his career. Besides all this, Ile was an ardent admirer of Hudibros, which his peculiar studies enabled him to appreciate, and which he began to read about a century nearer than ours to the age it ridicules. With these advantages, and the assistance of many small inquirers in his own walk, he published an edition of Hudibras in three quarto volumes, distinguished for the excellence of its typography, the number of its illustrations, and the modesty of its editor. The notes exhibited much curious learning and minute inquiry; but Dr. NASH was more fitted by his pursuits to furnish the materials of the commentary than by the calibre of his mind to write it. Like all original annotators, lie left something undone, something was overdone, and words abounded • but he who would understand or edite Hudibras, must possess himself of the pith of NASH. The scarcity and price of the original edition have induced Mr. W. Nicol. to prepare and Mr. MURRAY to publish a new one of a more convenient size, with the better arrangement of appending the notes to the text, instead of lumping them together at the end of the volume, and without the plates of HOGARTH and LA GUERRE, which did not illustrate the spirit of the author. The names of the sponsors area sufficient guarantee for the excellence of the getting-up; which partakes more of the solid usefulness of the old school than the slight elegance of the new. It may be observed, too, as an additional character of this reprint, that a higher motive than merely supply ing a required commodity, or even than recalling, the memory of a fellow-labourer, appear to have actuated Mr. Nicol. : he seems to think an edition of Hudi- bras may act usefully upon the spirit of the age, and shield Church and King from some of the dangers which threaten them. " Perhaps," quoit) be, "even in this enlightened age a little self- examination may be wholesome : a man will take a glance of re- cognition of himself if there be a glass in the room ; and it may happen that some indication of the nascent symptoms of the wrinkles of treason, of the crows-feet of fanatacism, of the drawn- down mouth of hypocrisy, or of the superfluous airs of self-con- veit, may startle the till then unconscious possessor of such germs of vice, and afford to his honester qualities an opportunity of stifling them, ere they start forth in their native hideousness ; and so, perchance, help to avert the repetition of the evil times the poet satirizes, which, in whatever point they are viewed, stand a blot in the annals of Britain."
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