Note 79 — THE HIND AND THE PANTHER.
Reading edition
Butler, however, assigns the Bear-Garden as a type of my Mother Kirk; and the resemblance is thus proved by Ralpho:
Synods are mystical bear-gardens, Where elders, deputies, church-wardens, And other members of the court, Manage the Babylonish sport; For prolocutor, scribe, and bear-ward, Do differ only in a mere word; Both are but several synagogues Of carnal men, and bears, and dogs; Both antichristian assemblies, To mischief bent as far's in them lies; Both slave and toil with fierce contests, The one with men, the other beasts: The difference is, the one fights with The tongue, the other with the teeth; And that they bait but bears in this, In t'other souls and consciences.
Hudibras denies the resemblance, and answers by an appeal to the senses:
For bears and dogs on four legs go As beasts, but synod-men have two; 'Tis true, they all have teeth and nails, But prove that synod-men have tails; Or that a rugged shaggy fur Grows o'er the hide of presbyter; Or that his snout and spacious ears Do hold proportion with a bear's. A bear's a savage beast, of all Most ugly and unnatural; Whelped without form, until the dam Has licked it into shape and frame; But all thy light can ne'er evict, That ever synod-man was lickt, Or brought to any other fashion, Than his own will and inclination. Hudibras, Part 1. Canto 3.