The defect in _Hudibras_ pointed out by Dr. Johnson, the want of logical sequence in the action, undoubtedly exists, but is almost inherent in the conception of such a performance. A more serious drawback, the disproportion between the hero's deeds and his words, probably arises from the poem having been written at different periods of the author's life. When he began to write his invention was lively and vigorous, but it naturally flagged after middle age, although his wit remained unimpaired. In the first and part of the second canto disquisition and adventure are so evenly blended that each supports the other; in the latter part of the poem the burden falls almost entirely upon the former. Hence the picturesque and cleverly varied incident of the bear-baiting, with the varied characters it brings upon the scene, will always be the favourite passage of the poem, unless an exception be made for the portraits of Hudibras and Ralpho. There is, however, considerable inconsistency in the character of Hudibras. He is represented as a fool, yet half the good things of the book are, from sheer necessity, put into his mouth. We are to suppose him a coward, yet he takes and deals cuffs and bangs in the spirit of a pugilist; and his attack upon the seven champions of bear-baiting, one of them an Amazon, is so far from cowardice, that it more resembles temerity. The more odious traits of his character hardly seem properly to belong to it; and in fact Butler probably commenced his poem without too curiously considering how he was to conduct it, or rather where it was to conduct him, and scribbled away in the spirit of his own maxim--
'One for sense, and one for rhyme, Is quite sufficient at one time'--
trusting to the humour ever springing up under his pen to redeem his verse from the imputation of doggrel. This it certainly did; for although _Hudibras_ as a whole is rambling, ill-compacted, and wordy, the terseness of many individual passages is as remarkable as their humour:
'A tool That knaves do work with, called a fool.'
'Cerberus himself pronounce A leash of languages at once.'
'Hudibras wore but one spur, As wisely knowing, could he stir To active trot one side of 's horse The other would not hang.'